A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

THEOCRITUS. THEOCRITUS. 1033
highest commendation (Id. xi. 5, 6, xxviii. 7; spirit. The form of these poems is in-perfect
comp. Arg. ad Id. xi., and Jacobs, Aeth. Graec. keeping with their object. The symmetrical arvol. xiii. p. 923). rangement and the rapid transitions of the lively
Theocritus was the creator of bucolic poetry as a dialogue, the varied language and the musical
branch of Greek, and, through imitators, such as rhythms, the combination of the prevailing epic
Virgil, of Roman literature. The germ of this verse and diction with the forms of common speech,
species of poetry may be discovered, at a very early all contribute much to the general effect. In short,
period, among the Dorians, both of Laconia and of as Theocritus was the first who developed the
Sicily, especially at Tyndaris and Syracuse, where powers of bucolic poetry, so he may also be said to
the festivals of Artemis were enlivened by songs, have been the last who understood its true spirit,
in which two shepherds or herdsmen, or two parties its proper objects, and its natural limits.
of them, contended with one another, and which The poems of Theocritus, however, are by no
gradually grew into an art, practised by a class of means all bucolic. The collection, which has come
performers called Lydiastae and Bucolictae, who down to us under his name, consists of thirty poems,
flourished extensively in Sicily and the neighbour- called by the general title of Idtyls, a fragment of a
ing districts of Italy. The subjects of their songs few lines from a poem entitled Bcrenice, and twcentywere popular mythical stories, and the scenes of two epigrams in the Greek Anthology, besides
country life; the beauty, love, and unhappy end of that upon the poet himself, which, as above stated,
Daphnis, the ideal of the shepherd, who was is probably the production of Artemidorus. Several
introduced by Stesichorus into his poetry, and of other works were ascribed to him by the ancient
Diomus, who was named by Epicharmus; the grammarians. Suidas (s. v.) tells us that he wrote
melancholy complaints of the coy huntsman Me- the poems called Bucolics in the Doric dialect, and
nalcas; and other kindred subjects. These songs that some ascribed to him also the following:were still popular in the time of Diodorus; but the Hlpol'3as,'EAhriLas,'yMvovs,'Hpwivas, ET7r.LiseLa
only fragment of them which has come down to us ce'xrJ, 4Ay aEias, ciuyovs, Enrlypcipuaa. The Greek
consists of the two following lines in the Priapeian author of a few sentences on the characteristics of
metre, prefixed to the works of Theocritus: - the poetry of Theocritus, prefixed to his works,
AE'al ratV ayaOav Txav, 8cvart Ta'rv 1yieEav, says that all poetry has three characters, the &8iVyssAYv OpEpollEV 7ra~p& Tas aeoD,, eKicaAEr0aaTo T'va. /LarLKdS, the 6pasaTrCo'is, and the LIKTLrKICS, and
that bucolic poetry is a mixture of every form.
(Welcker, iiber den Urspruntg des Hirtenlieds, Kleine Bergk has recently classed the poems of Theocritus
Schriften, vol. i. pp. 402-411.) under the heads of Carmina Bacolica, minzica, lyTheocritus, however, was the first who reduced rica, epica, and epigrammnata (Rhein. ieus. 1838
this species of poetry to such a form as to constitute -1839, vol. vi. pp. 16, &c.)
it a branch of regular literature; and, in so doing, Of the thirty so-called Idyls, the last is a late
he followed, not merely the impulse of his own Anacreontic, of scarcely any poetical merit, and
genius, but, to a great extent, the examples of has no claim to be regarded as a work of Theocritus.
Epicharmus and of Sophron, especially the latter. Of the others, only tell belong strictly to the class
His bucolic idyls are of an essentially dramatic and of poems which the ancients described by the spemimetic character. They are pictures of the ordi- cific names of owvcoAKd, 7roLfcY K d, afirotacd. or
nary life of the common people of Sicily; whence by the first of these words used in a generic sense,
their name, es$'8, eiSIhXXta. The pastoral poems Bucolics, or, as we say, pastoral poems; but, taking
and romances of later times are a totally different the term Idyl in the wider sense explained above,
sort of composition from the bucolics of Theocritus, we must also include under it several of tilhe poems
who knows nothing of the affected sentiment, the which are not bucolic, but which are pictures of the
pure innocence, the primeval simplicity, or even the life of the common people of Sicily. In this geworship of nature, which have been ascribed to the neral sense, -the ldyls, properly so called, are the
imaginary shepherds of a fictitious Arcadia; nothing first eleven, the fourteenth, fifteenth, and twentyof the distinction between the country and the first, the last of which has a special interest, as
town, the description of which has been made a being the only representation we possess of the life
vehicle of bitter satire upon the vices of civilized of Grecian fishermen: the second and fifteenth are
communities. He merely exhibits simple and faithful evidently pretty close imitations of the mimes of
pictures of the common life of the Sicilian people, Sophron. Several of them are erotic in their chain a thoroughly objective, although truly poetical racter, and allied, in their form, to different species
spirit. He abstains from all the mere artifices of of poetry: thus, the twelfth and twenty-ninth have
composition, such as fine imagery, high colouring, a decidedly lyrical complexion, while that of the
and pathetic sentiment. He deals but sparingly in nineteenth is epigrammatic, of the twentieth budescriptions, which he introduces only as episodes, colic, and of the twenty-third tragic: the thirteenth
and never attempts any of those allegorical and eighteenth, which are also erotic, have the epic
applications of the sentiments and adventures of character, both in their subjects and their form;
shepherds, which have made the Bucolics of Virgil and the twenty-seventh is ain erotic poem under
a signal failure. Dramatic simplicity and truth the form of a mime. The sixteenth and sevenare impressed upon the pictures exhibited in his teenth are imitations of another branch of the
poems, into the colouring of which he has thrown ancient lyric poetry, the encomium. The twentymuch of the natural comedy which is always seen second is an epic hymn to the Dioscuri; the twentyin the common life of a free people. His fifteenth fourth and twenty-fifth appear to be fiagments of
idyl, the Adoniazusae, is a masterpiece of the mi- an epic poem on the adventures of Hercules, in the
metic exhibition of female character, rendered the learned tone of the Alexandrian epos, but still
more admirable by the skill with which he has distinguished by the free and simple style of Theointroduced the praises of Arsinoi and Berenice, critus; and the twenty-sixth is also epic, but of
without sacrificing anything of its genuine dramatic very inferior merit, being a fragment of the story