Amidst all the variety of rhythmical and metrical innovations which have been enumerated, the ancient epic continued to be recited by the rhapsodes as before, and some new epical compositions were added to the existing stock: Eugammon of Kyrênê, about the 50th Olympiad, (580 B. C.) appears to be the last of the series. At Athens, especially, both Solon and Peisistratus manifested great solicitude as well for the recitation as for the correct preservation of the Iliad. Perhaps its popularity may have been diminished by the competition of so much lyric and choric poetry, more showy and striking in its accompaniments, as well as more changeful in its rhythmical character. Whatever secondary effect, however, this newer species of poetry may have derived from such helps, its primary effect was produced by real intellectual or poetical excellence,—by the thoughts, sentiment, and expression, not by the accompaniment. For a long time the musical composer and the poet continued generally to be one and the same person; and besides those who have acquired sufficient distinction to reach posterity, we cannot doubt that there were many known only to their own contemporaries. But with all of them the instrument and the melody constituted only the inferior part of that which was known by the name of music,—altogether subordinate to the “thoughts that breathe and words that burn.”[181] Exactness and variety of rhythmical pronunciation gave to the latter their full effect upon a delicate ear; but such pleasure of the ear was ancillary to the emotion of mind arising out of the sense conveyed. Complaints are made by the poets, even so early as 500 B. C., that the accompaniment was becoming too prominent. But it was not until the age of the comic poet Aristophanês, towards the end of the fifth century B. C., that the primitive relation between the instrumental accompaniment and the words was really reversed,—and loud were the complaints to which it gave rise;[182] the performance of the flute or harp then became more elaborate, showy, and overpowering, while the words were so put together as to show off the player’s execution. I notice briefly this subsequent revolution for the purpose of setting forth, by contrast, the truly intellectual character of the original lyric and choric poetry of Greece; and of showing how much the vague sentiment arising from mere musical sound was lost in the more definite emotion, and in the more lasting and reproductive combinations, generated by poetical meaning. [181] Aristophan. Nubes, 536. Ἀλλ᾽ αὑτῇ καὶ τοῖς ἔπεσιν πιστεύουσ᾽ ἐλήλυθεν.