has left the earliest extant specimen of the elegy. Archilochus, the creator of iambic poetry, and the next iambic poet, Simonides of Amorgos, were both East-Ionian satirists. But though the political and literary growth of Athens came later than that of her wealthy kinsfolk, though East-Ionian soil and climate were greatly superior to those of Attica, the progress of literature was to depend, as it ever depends, upon social freedom no less than wealth; and, while Asiatic conquerors subdued the Ionians of Asia, and warlike races preferred to turn to the fertile plains of Argos, Thebes, and Thessaly, the shallow and rocky soil of Attica allowed a peaceful though manly development of social life to the Attic village communities.
How far the old village life of Attica had given way to that of the city commonwealth, how far that marked opposition of men of the country to men of the town which so powerfully affected later Athenian life had disclosed itself in Solon's time, we shall not attempt to estimate. Suffice it to say that at this time the literature of Athens may be said to begin with the elegies and gnomic poetry of the great reformer himself. As a pioneer of Athenian literature, Solon seems to resemble an Oriental prophet rather than a literary artist. The strange delivery of the Elegy of Salamis, composed about 604 B.C., reminds us of the symbolical action with which the Hebrew nâbi sometimes accompanied his impassioned speech.[1] Nor is
- ↑ "Suddenly appearing in the costume of a herald, with the proper cap (πιλίον) on his head, and having previously spread a report that he was mad, he sprang in the place of the popular assembly upon the stone where the heralds were wont to stand, and sang in an impassioned tone an elegy which began with these words: "I myself come as a herald from the lovely island of Salamis, using song, the ornament of words, and not simple speech, to the people" (K. O. Müller, Lit. of An. Greece, ch. x. § 11). Müller might have added that the practice of poetic recitation was used by Xenophanes and Parmenides to disseminate their philosophic views. While writing is known to the very few (in East and West alike at first probably to the priests alone) and no reading public exists, the speech in verse or rhythmical prose, whether of Arab Râwy, Hebrew Nâbi, or Athenian reformer, is an effective appeal to an unlettered audience.
