File:Wilhelm Kray - Sappho's Reverie.jpg

Identifier: sixthousandyears01sand (find matches)
Title: Six thousand years of history
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Sanderson, Edgar, d. 1907
Subjects: World history
Publisher: Philadelphia : E.R. DuMont
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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th and the Sixth Centuries B. C, as the Hellenicworld passed from the monarchy of the times that epicpoetry represented to the republics where democracies oroligarchs held sway. The verse called Elegy expressed,in ancient Greece, the poets views on home and foreignpolitics, or social life, or gave his feelings vent in joy orgrief for what was passing in the world around him. Itschief exponents were the Ionian Tyrtaeus, who lived andwrote at Sparta about B. C. 680, urging the Spartans, inlays of which some parts remain, to war against her foe-men of Messene; Mimnermus, of Smyrna (B. C. 630-600), a poet of the doleful side of elegy; Solon, the greatAthenian (B. C. 640-560), who wrote poetry, sportiveand sober, both before and after his grand politicalachievement; Theognis, of Megara (flourished about B. C.540), a writer of political and festive verse; and Simon-ides, of Ceos, who lived at Athens and at Syracuse (withHiero I) about B. C. 520-470. He wrote the elegy 01 COPVRI&HT, 1900
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W. Kray, Pin> SAPPHOS REVERIE HISTORY OF GREECE 159 those who fell at Marathon, and the epigrams upon thetomb of the Spartans at Thermopylae, and was renownedfor sweetness and for finish in his style. Most of theelegiac, as of the lyric and iambic, poetry of old Greecewas lost in the destruction of the great library at Alexan-dria in the Seventh Century A. D. Iambic verse was used for satirical poems, and thoseof weightier and sharper thought than elegy embodied.In this style Archilochus, of Paros (about B. C. 710-680),was noted for the bitterness and power of his invective;Solon employed it in political discussion. The lyric poetry of old Greece—the verse expressinghuman passion, and, with the Greeks, invariably sung tothe music of the lyre—this was one of the greatest gloriesof her literary art, and its almost total loss is, perhaps, theone most to be lamented in the history of letters. Of versein this style the chief singers were Alcman, Sappho,Alcseus, Anacreom, Simonides o

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