and impressive movements of the elder Bacchic poetry. After a time the subject of Bacchus was dropped, and the lays of other heroes were introduced in its stead, so that in course of time the dithyramb and the lyric drama may be supposed to have coalesced.

How, then, did this lyrical drama differ from tragedy itself? As we learn from Athenæus *, it had no regular actors (vπокρITαí), as distinct from the chorus. But if so, then why was it called a drama? Because it was mimetic, and contained the first rudiments of action. A comparison of certain passages of Homer satisfactorily shows us that the leader or exarchus of this chorus held a very marked and important post, and that he not only led off the dance itself, but began the song or lamentation with which it was accompanied. The exarchus of the dithyramb, too, recited the ode in the first person; the chorus danced round the blazing altar to the tune of his song; and before the song began, he played a voluntary or prelude, called προοίμιον or φροίμιον, the very same term which was applied to his leading dance as exarchus. We are now in a position to understand the remark of Aristotle †, and of Plato too, that tragedy was at first autoschediastic (i. e. that it employed extempore effusions), and that it was commenced by those who led off the dithyramb; the coryphæus or exarchus relating short fables in gesture or language, or in both, by way of prelude, † Poet. ch. iv.

* xiv. p. 630. C.

and afterwards accompanying the song with corresponding mimicry. This prelude, it may be here observed, returns, though in an altered form, at a more advanced period of dramatic art, in the prologues of explanatory narrative addressed to the spectators in the dramas of Euripides.*

* See below, ch. viii.

CHAP. III.

RISE OF TROCHAIC AND IAMBIC POETRY. UNION OF DORIAN CHORAL POETRY AND THE DITHYRAMB. RISE

OF THE DIALOGUE.

GNOMIC POETS.

THE CHORAL

ELEMENT AND THE DIALOGUE UNITED BY THESPIS.

WE have already mentioned the monarchical tendency of the Homeric poems, and their accommodation to that political state of things which lingered in Greece, as a tradition of the old heroic times, so late as the commencement of the 7th century. The republican movement of this period, extending alike over Ionian and Dorian nations, not only deprived the ancient princes and royal families of their hereditary privileges, but also exercised a very marked influence on the character of the national poetry. But another feature should also be mentioned: "Of all the forms in which poetry can appear," says Müller, "the Homeric poems possess in the highest degree what in modern times would be called objectivity; that is, a complete abandonment of the mind to the object, without any intervening consciousness of the situation or circumstances of the subject or, in other words, of the individual himself." * This feature was henceforth to be reversed in Greece. The ancient epic was far from being in favour with those who

*Literature of Greece, ch. iv.

yearned for liberty, as having a tendency to keep the mind too steadily fixed in contemplation of the former generation of heroes. Cotemporary, therefore, with the first movements of republicanism, the poet, who in the epos was completely lost in his lofty subject, comes forth before the people as a man, with thoughts and objects of his own; and gives a free vent to the struggling emotions of his soul in poetry of a different kind, more suited to the events of everyday life.

This style of poetry was that which is known as iambic. It was originated by an Ionian poet, and among citizens of a state just rejoicing in the dawn of liberty. While the livelier and tenderer emotions of the heart found their fit expression in the elegy, which sprang into being about the same period, the more vigorous feelings of indignant invective were wedded by Archilochus* of Paros to the iambic metre, as combining together in the best proportions the gravity of poetic diction with the plain language of common life. Henceforth, as might be expected, the iambic measure prevailed. † But though the epos as a living style had passed away, still the exclusive sway which it had exercised over the Hellenic mind in early times was never wholly effaced, so that even in the works of the tragedians of the 5th century we can trace an epic and Homeric tone. The dramatic poets still continued

"Archilochum Pario rabies armavit iambo."-HOR. Ars Poet.

† It was a modification of the trochaic. See Arist. Poet. ch. iv.: λέξεως δὲ γενομένης αὐτὴ ἡ φύσις τὸ οἰκεῖον μέτρον εὗρε μάλιστα γὰρ λεκτικὸν τῶν μέτρων τὸ ἰαμβεῖον ἐστί.

to develope the characters of the Iliad and the Odyssey, though they put into their mouths a more homely and sententious style, and lowered them from lofty ideals and poetical conceptions into real and energising personages.*

The subject of lyric poetry as such scarcely falls within the scope of our inquiry; one or two observations upon it, however, are necessary here. It would seem to have been characterised by a deeper and more impassioned feeling and more impetuous tone, than the iambic poetry of Archilochus and his followers; and its effect was heightened by the addition of the dance, and by appropriate vocal and instrumental music. The lyric poetry of the Æolian tribes was almost entirely subjective: it expressed the thoughts and feelings of a single mind; and it was recited by a single individual, who accompanied himself upon the lyre. But among the Dorian tribes the case was far different. At an early period, as we said above, it was wedded to the chorus, and is, therefore, always known as choral, not as lyric poetry. Instead of the individual character of the Æolian lyric poetry, the choral poetry of the Dorians allied itself with objects of public and general interest, such as religious festivals, the celebration of the gods or heroes of Greece, or of such citizens as had gained high renown among their countrymen for

*Thus the Agamemnon of Eschylus and the Ajax of Sophocles are very different characters from what they respectively appear in Homer.