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84 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE to stick to a friend, to keep clear of falsehood, and to avoid associating with 'base men.' He is pledged to bring the boy back safe, or die on the field himself ; and he is disgraced if the boy does not grow up to be a worthy and noble Dorian. In the rest of his rela- tions with the squire, there is some sentiment which we cannot enter into : there were no women in the Dorian camps. It is the mixed gift of good and evil brought by the Dorian invaders to Greece, which the true Greek sometimes over-admired because it was so foreign to him — self-mastery, courage, grossness, and pride, effective devotion to a narrow class and an un- civilised ideal. Our MSS. of Theognis come from a collection made for educational purposes in the third century B.C., and show that state of interpolation which is characteristic of the schoolbook. Whole passages of Solon, Mimnermus, Tyrta?us, and another elegist Euenus, originally jotted on the margin for purposes of com- parison, have now crept into the text. The order of the ' Gnomes ' is confused ; and we sometimes have what appear to be two separate versions of the same gnome, an original and an abbreviation. There is a certain blindness of frank pride and chivalry, a depth of hatred and love, and a sense of mystery, which make Theognis worthy of the name of poet. The gnomic movement receives its special expression in the conception of the Seven Wise Men. They pro- vide the necessary mythical authorship for the wide- spread proverbs and maxims — the ^ Know thyself I which was written up on the temple at Delphi ; the ' Nothing too muchj ' Surety ; loss to follow,' and the like, which were current in people's mouths. The Wise Ones were