which to a modern taste almost verges upon baldness, by a
crystalline transparency of diction, and by an absolute fidelity to the
original conception of the epigram. Nearly all the pieces of this era
are actual _bona fide_ inscriptions or addresses to real personages,
whether living or deceased; narratives, literary exercises, and sports
of fancy are exceedingly rare. 2. The epigram received a great
development in its second or Alexandrian era, when its range was so
extended as to include anecdote, satire, and amorous longing; when
epitaphs and votive inscriptions were composed on imaginary persons and
things, and men of taste successfully attempted the same subjects in
mutual emulation, or sat down to compose verses as displays of their
ingenuity. The result was a great gain in richness of style and general
interest, counterbalanced by a falling off in purity of diction and
sincerity of treatment. The modification--a perfectly legitimate one,
the resources of the old style being exhausted--had its real source in
the transformation of political life, but may be said to commence with
and to find its best representative in the playful and elegant Leonidas
of Tarentum, a contemporary of Pyrrhus, and to close with Antipater of
Sidon, about 140 B.C. (or later). It should be noticed, however, that
Callimachus, one of the most distinguished of the Alexandrian poets,
affects the sternest simplicity in his epigrams, and copies the
austerity of Simonides with as much success as an imitator can expect.
3. By a slight additional modification in the same direction, the
Alexandrian passes into what, for the sake of preserving the parallelism
with eras of Greek prose literature, we may call the Roman style,
although the peculiarities of its principal representative are decidedly
Oriental. Meleager of Gadara was a Syrian; his taste was less severe,
and his temperament more fervent than those of his Greek predecessors;
his pieces are usually erotic, and their glowing imagery sometimes
reminds us of the Song of Solomon. The luxuriance of his fancy
occasionally betrays him into far-fetched conceits, and the lavishness
of his epithets is only redeemed by their exquisite felicity. Yet his
effusions are manifestly the offspring of genuine feeling, and his
epitaph on himself indicates a great advance on the exclusiveness of
antique Greek patriotism, and is perhaps the first clear enunciation of
the spirit of universal humanity characteristic o