THE KNICKERBOCKER.

GREEK EPITAPHS AND INSCRIPTIONS.

Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori.—Horace.

Greece was the land of poetry. Endowed with a language, of all others adapted to every variation of feeling, from the deepest pathos or boldest heroism, to the lightest mirth, and gifted with the most exquisite sensibility to all the charms of poetry, it is not surprising that her inhabitants carried it to a height beyond any thing that the world has seen, before or since. It was intermingled with their daily life, it formed a portion of their very being, and constituted the chief source of their highest enjoyment. All Athens rushed daily to the theatre, to exult or weep as the genius of the poet directed them; and the people who could fine their greatest tragedian for harrowing their feelings beyond endurance, must have been differently formed from those of the present day. The well-known saying of old Fletcher of Saltoun, is not now true; but we can readily believe it, with such a race, when songs, like the glorious ode of Callistratus,

Εν μυρτω κλαδι το ξιφος φορησω. κ. τ. λ.

were daily sung, while the lyre and myrtle-branch passed from hand to hand.

With the Greeks, poetry seemed to enter into the character of every man. It was cultivated by the annual contests between its highest professors; and the honor which awaited the victor was an inducement to exertion of the noblest kind. It was the surest road to the favor and patronage of the great. Not the cold and chilling assistance which the Medici held out to the genius of their land, and which seemed to calculate the least expense with which the credit of a protector of learning could be bought, but the ready and regal munificence of a man who regards the gifts of genius as the highest with which a mortal can be favored. He who could enchant such a people need take no care for the future. Kings disputed for the honor of his presence, and states were overjoyed to support him. Let not the example of Homer be brought to controvert this. He lived long before poetry thus became the delight of the people; and, after all, to say that he 'begged his bread' is but a bold poetic license. Beside, the eagerness with which the 'Seven Cities' disputed for the Mœonian, show what would have been his fate had he not 'fallen on evil days.' In after ages he was honored, and ranked all but with the gods.

In the same mood, the highest reward, the fullest honor, that could be given to the rescuer of his country was to have his name inserted in the inscription that marked the scene of his victories.[A] In this spirit, no national event took place, no great battle was won, no instance of heroic self-devotion occurred, that the genius of the highest poets was not called upon to commemorate it in some noble or pathetic inscription, which, in after ages, calls forth as much admiration as the deed which originated it. The glorious death of the three-hundred takes place at Thermopylæ; the Athenians propose a contest for the honor of placing an inscription to mark the spot; and crowds are gathered to adjudge the prize; for, in those days, crowds were judges. Among the competitors are Æschylus and Simonides; and, amid the roar of that immense multitude, the victor-palm is awarded to Simonides, for two lines which will live to the end of time: