[218] Welcker (Der Epische Kyklus, p. 209) considers the
Alkmæônis as the same with the Epigoni, and the Atthis of
Hegesinous the same with the Amazonia: in Suidas (v. Ὅμηρος) the
latter is among the poems ascribed to Homer.
Leutsch (Thebaidos Cyclicæ Reliquiæ, pp. 12-14) views the Thebaïs
and the Epigoni as different parts of the same poem.
Of the poems composed in the Hesiodic style, diffusive and full of
genealogical detail, the principal were, the Catalogue of Women and
the Great Eoiai; the latter of which, indeed, seems to have been a
continuation of the former. A large number of the celebrated women of
heroic Greece were commemorated in these poems, one after the other,
without any other than an arbitrary bond of connection. The Marriage
of Kêyx,—the Melampodia,—and a string of fables called Astronomia,
are farther ascribed to Hesiod: and the poem above mentioned, called
Ægimius, is also sometimes connected with his name, sometimes with
that of Kerkops. The Naupaktian Verses (so called, probably, from
the birthplace of their author), and the genealogies of Kinæthôn and
Asius, were compositions of the same rambling character, as far as we
can judge from the scanty fragments remaining.[219] The Orchomenian
epic poet Chersias, of whom two lines only are preserved to us by
Pausanias, may reasonably be referred to the same category.[220]
[219] See the Fragments of Hesiod, Eumêlus, Kinæthôn, and Asius,
in the collections of Marktscheffel, Düntzer, Göttling, and
Gaisford.
I have already, in going over the ground of Grecian legend,
referred to all these lost poems, in their proper places.
[220] Pausan. ix. 38, 6; Plutarch, Sept. Sap. Conv. p. 156.
The oldest of the epic poets, to whom any date, carrying with it the
semblance of authority, is assigned, is Arktinus of Milêtus, who
is placed by Eusebius in the first Olympiad, and by Suidas in the
ninth. Eugammôn, the author of the Telegonia, and the latest of the
catalogue, is placed in the fifty-third Olympiad, B. C. 566. Between
these two we find Asius and Leschês, about the thirtieth Olympiad,—a
time when the vein of the ancient epic was drying up, and when other
forms of poetry—elegiac, iambic, lyric, and choric—had either already
arisen, or were on the point of arising, to compete with it.[221]
[221] See Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, about the date of
Arktinus, vol i. p. 350.
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