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POETICAL PERIOD,

covered with numerous boundary-stones, in sign of the ground's being mortgaged; these he had succeeded in removing, and in restoring the land in full property to the mortgagers. This fragment is well worth reading, since it gives as clear an idea of the political situation of Athens at the time as it does of Solon's iambic style. It shows a truly Attic en­ergy and address in defending a favorite cause, while it contains the first germs of that power of speech which afterward came to maturity in the dialogue of the Athenian stage, and in the oratory of the popular assem­bly arid of the courts of justice. In the dialect and expressions, the po­etry of Solon retains more of the Ionic cast.1 The editions of the frag­ments of Solon have already been mentioned on page 76.

4. hipponax (Cl7r7rc6;/a£), a native of Ephesus, was, alter Archilochus and Simonides, the third of the classical iambic poets of Greece. He flourished B.C. 546-520. Like others of the early poets, Hipponax was distinguished for his love of liberty. The tyrants of his native city hav­ing expelled him from his home, he took up his abode at Clazomenae, for which reason he is sometimes called a Clazomenian.2 He lived at the latter place in great poverty, and, according to one account, died of want. In person Hipponax was little, thin, and ugly, but very strong.3 The two brothers Bupalus and Athenis, who were sculptors of Chios, made statues of Hipponax, in which they caricatured his natural ugliness, and he, in re­turn, directed all the power of his satirical poetry against them, and espe­cially against Bupalus.4 Later writers add that the sculptors hanged them­selves in despair. This, however, is probably a mere attempt to improve upon the resemblance between the stories of Archilochus and Hipponax., since Pliny contradicts the account of the suicide of Bupalus by referring to works of his which were executed at a later period. As for the frag­ment Of Hipponax,6 Tn KAa^eVoioi BowraAos KaTeVreifley, if it really be his (for it is only quoted anonymously by Rufinus),6 instead of being consid­ered a proof of the story, it should more probably be regarded as having formed, through a too literal interpretation, one source of the error.

The satire of Hipponax, however, was not concentrated entirely on certain individuals; from existing fragments it appears rather to have been founded on a general view of life, taken, however, on its ridiculous or grotesque side. He severely chastised the luxury of his Ionian breth­ren ; he did not spare his own parents ; and he ventured even to ridicule the gods. His language is filled with words taken from common life, such as the names of articles of food, clothing, and of ordinary utensils current among the working people. He evidently strives to make his iambics local pictures full of freshness, nature, and homely truth. For this purpose, the change which Hipponax devised in the iambic metre was as felicitous as it was bold ; he crippled the rapid agile gait of the iambic, by transforming the last foot from a pure iambus to a spondee, contrary

1 Mutter, Hist. Gr. Lit., p. 140, seq. 2 Snlpicia, Sat., v., 6.

3 Athen., xii., p. 552, c, d; Mlian, V. H>, x., 6.

* Plin., H. N., xxxvi., 5, 4; Horat., Epod., vi., 14 ; Lucian., Pseudol., 2.

5 Frag, vi., p. 29, Welcker, where Bergk gives*Q KAa^ofteVioi, BouiraXds re

6 p. 2712, Putsch.