it was termed, we are to remember, however, as Mr. uggests, (iii. 60,) the reprobation with which usury wed generally by early Greek and Roman society. result of this disorderly democracy was, as might be d, a return of the nobles, and a re-establishment of upremacy; though for a long space revolutions and -revolutions distressed the Megarian state, in the of which Theognis was born and lived. Naturally, ore, we find amidst the "disjecta membra poetæ " many ns to this unsettled state of things, now a strong arisic appeal (for Theognis was himself one of the nobles) to ading men of his party; at another time an outpouring spair at the failure of an onslaught of the nobles upon ommons; and at another the querulous laments of an from his father-land; as well as here and there a ession to expediency for a season, indicated by a supsion of his party feelings. Again, in other places we find complaining of the loss of his property by the betrayal of own friends and companions (262, 349, 512, 600, 828, ). Greatly annoyed by the intermixture of ranks consent on these revolutions, and the re-distributions of proty, Theognis is found also complaining generally of the inmarriage of good (i. e. noble) men with the daughters of the , (i. e. base,) 189-192, &c.; and specially of a slight himself on the part of aristocratic parents, who, for inrest or lucre, have wedded their daughter to a churl, "oλv éμoŭ kakiwv” (262). From his picture it would seem at the base-born had been gainers by the revolutions, changng their goat-skins and country-huts for citizenship and wealth (cf. 349). Mr. Grote is of opinion that there is no ground for Welcker's statement that the land of the state had been formally re-divided, though the revolution had strengthened the "bad rich," and depressed the "good and virtuous," with ruinous effects to the fortunes of Theognis.

The political and most of the moral verses are addressed to Cyrnus, son of Polypas, the word Пloλvaidns being now generally allowed to be a patronymic (cf. Müller, Hist. Gr. Lit.

Theognis's eyes the "coming man "who was to re-establish order. This same individual appears, from ver. 805, &c., (Gaisford,) to have been of age and rank enough to be a Oɛúpos, or sacred envoy to Delphi; and the poet addresses him always as one on whom the hopes of his party are set, though not without gloomy forebodings as to the issue, arising out of the feebleness and irresolution of the other chiefs of that party. We have bitter lines addressed to him (cf. 845) in a speech of the poet at a meeting of the aristocratic party and a description of the march on Megara of the troops of some neighbouring state, in aid of the democratic party (cf. 549-554). After this the poet seems to have retired to Euboea, and thence to Thebes. Many fragments of great beauty touch upon the miseries of exile, not unsoothed, however, as he testifies (1223) to himself and to his friend Cyrnus, by the charms of conjugal affection. Perhaps some of the fragments (e. g. 881, &c.) refer to a residence shortly after in Sicily; while Sparta, a congenial quarter as far as aristocratic feelings were concerned, is shown in ver. 1067, &c., and at ver. 875, to have given him an asylum, and that too without the restrictions which enforced on natives of the soil the laws of Lycurgus. His return to his country, and his party's triumph, are the subjects of two fragments, placed by the accomplished translator, whose poetical version is appended to this edition, at the close of his volume: and are indicative of this event being about the time of the Persian invasion.

Besides Simonides, who was probably not the poet, but president of an aristocratic Megarian club, and Onomacritus, (not the famous Athenian, but a boon companion of the poet,) other friends, probably connected with the same club, are mentioned or addressed by him in various fragments, portions, it is supposed, of special elegies to each.

Welcker has very elaborately re-arranged and restored to their supposed original order the extant fragments, rejecting, first, all verses positively assigned by the ancients to other poets secondly, all parodies of existing gnome of Theognis. He, thirdly, collects all passages referring to special persons, places, seasons, and events: and, fourthly, classes the ovμróTika or convivial poetry. In the fifth class he ranges the addresses to Polypaides; erring in this point, because he does

not recognise the identity of this patronymic with Cyrnus. Lastly, he places the raidiká, many of which are blemishes, as Suidas has observed, on the poet's general poetical character, and are besides of very questionable genuineness.

Of course the arrangement of the fragments by Welcker is to a certain extent arbitrary, as is also the attempt of Mr. Frere in his "Theognis Restitutus" to re-arrange and reduce to system the scattered fragments of our author. To both we owe a debt of gratitude: to the former for the deep learning of his Prolegomena, and the labour bestowed upon the systematizing of the remains of Theognis; to the latter for a most ingenious attempt to frame an autobiography of Theognis, at once lively and scholar-like, out of a mass of passages disconnected.

The chief charm of the poet lies in the light he throws upon the circumstances and crises of the period during which he lived and wrote; and both Welcker and Mr. Frere have done much to elucidate, much to present in a clever and probable grouping, the persons, places, and events connected with the state of Megara, between B. C. 570 and 490, as depicted by Theognis.

The editions of Welcker and of Gaisford have been used for this translation, and the order of the verses is that of Gaisford. The translator is indebted for some useful remarks to an able article on Frere's Theognis Restitutus, in the Quarterly Review, No. 144, pp. 452-473, and to another in the 1st volume of the Classical Museum, (263–266,) by Sir G. C. Lewis.

THE

THEOGONY OF HESIOD.

BEGIN we to sing with the Heliconian Muses,' who keep 2 safe the spacious and divine mount of Helicon, and also with delicate feet dance about the violet-hued fount 3 and altars of the mighty son of Cronos:4 and likewise having bathed their soft skins in the Permessus, or Hippocrene, or sacred Olmius,

5

6

Pausanias, ix. c. 29 and 30, mentions the worship of the Muses on Mount Helicon, which Otus and Ephialtes, the founders of Hesiod's birth-place, Ascra, had consecrated to them. He recounts the gifts offered to them at the same place, where Hesiod dedicates a tripod which he had gained in a musical contest. Cf. Works and Days, 658.

2

ἔχουσιν: the notion of protection is implied, as in πολιοῦχος. Το in Latin, Catullus, Epith. Pel. et Thet. 8, Retinent in summis urbibus arces.-átov, sacred to the Muses and to Jove.

3 The violet-hued fount.] This was Aganippe, who, according to Pausanias, ix. 29, was daughter of Permessus. loedig. Hesych. μέλαν· ἐν τῷ ὁρᾶσθαι πορφυροῦν.

Son of Cronos.] No other author mentions that Jupiter had an altar here, but if his daughters had, it is likely that he was not without honour at Helicon.

5 Permessus.] This river and the Olmius flow from Helicon, and empty themselves together into Lake Copais in Boeotia, near Haliartus. Strabo, ix. c. ii. p. 259, Tauchn. The genitive here is used to express the instrument of an action. Cf. Matt. Gr. Gr. § 375, obs. 2. Hom. II. v. 6, λedovμévog wкeavoto. vi. 508, &c. The MSS. vary between Περμησσοῖο and Τερμησσοῖο, to which last reading Goettling inclines, deriving the word from Tépuwv, the bound of Helicon. But Virg. Ecl. vi. 64, Permessi ad flumina; and Statius, Theb. vii. 283, 284, Tuque, O Permesse, canoris, Et felix Holmie, vadis,

lead us to read the former, for uniformity.

Hippocrene.] This fountain was named from the steed Pegasus, which, when thirsty, stamped the ground with his hoof, and it sent

B