REMARKS ON ANACREON. THERE is very little known with certainty of the life of Anacreon. Chamæleon Heracleotes *, who wrote upon the subject, has been lost in the general wreck of ancient literature. The editors of the poet have collected the few trifling anecdotes, which are scattered through the extant authors of antiquity, and supplying the deficiency of materials by fictions of their own ima * He is quoted by Athenæus εν τω περι το Ανακρέοντος. VOL I. B gination, gination, they have arranged, what they call, a life of Anacreon. These specious fabrications are intended to indulge that interest which we naturally feel in the biography of illustrious men; but it is rather a dangerous kind of illusion, as it confounds the limits of history and romance*, and is too often supported by unfaithful citation t. *The History of Anacreon, by Monsieur Gaçon (le poëte sans fard), is professedly a romance; nor does Mademoiselle Scuderi, from whom he borrowed the idea, pretend to historical veracity in her account of Anacreon and Sappho. These, then, are allowable. But how can Barnes be forgiven, who, with all the confidence of a biographèr, traces every wandering of the poet, and settles him in his old age at a country villa near Téos? + The learned Monsieur Bayle has detected some infidelities of quotation in Le Fevre. See Dictionaire Historique, &c, Madame Dacier is not more accurate than her father: they have almost made Anacreon prime minister to the monarch of Samos. Our Our poet was born in the city of Téos, in the delicious region of Ionia, where every thing respired voluptuousness *. The time of his birth appears to have been in the sixth century before Christt, and he flourished at that remarkable period, when, under the polished tyrants Hipparchus and Polycrates, Athens and Samos were the rival asylums of genius. The name of his father is doubtful, and therefore cannot be very interesting. His family was perhaps illustrious ; but those who discover in Plato that he was a The Asiatics were as remarkable for genius as for luxury. "Ingenia Asiatica inclyta per gentes fecêre Poetæ, Anacreon, inde Mimnermus et Antimachus, &c." Solinus. + I have not attempted to define the particular Olympiad, but have adopted the idea of Bayle, who says, “Je n'ai poin marqué d' Olympiade; car pour un homme qui a vecu 85 ans, il me semble que l'on ne doit point s'enfermer dans des bornes si étroites." descendant of the monarch Codrus, exhibit, as usual, more zeal than accuracy *. The disposition and talents of Anacreon recommended him to the monarch of Samos, and he was formed to be the friend of such a prince as Polycrates. Susceptible only to the pleasures, he felt not the corruptions of the court; and while Pythagoras fled from the tyrant, Anacreon was celebrating his praises on the lyre. We are told too by Maximus Tyrius, that by the influence of his amatory songs he softened the *This mistake is founded on a false interpretation of a very obvious passage in Plato's Dialogue on Temperance; it originated with Madame Dacier, and has been received implicitly by many. Gail, a late editor of Anacreon, seems to claim to himself the merit of detecting this error; but Bayle had observed it before him. mind of Polycrates into a spirit of benevolence towards his subjects *. e: is to Jouer The amours of the poet, and the rivalship of the tyrantt, I shall pass over in silence; and there are few, I presume, who will regret the omission of most of those anecdotes, which the Lindustry of some editors has not only promulged, but discussed. Whatever is repugnant to Maxim. Tyr. § 21. * Ανακρέων Σαμιοις Πολυκράτην ἡμερωσε. Maximus Tyrius mentions this among other instances of the influence of poetry. If Gail had read Maximus Tyrius, how could he ridicule this idea in Moutonnet, as unauthenticated? + In the romance of Clelia, the anecdote to which I allude is told of a young girl, with whom Anacreon fell in love while she personated the god Apollo in a mask. But here Mademoiselle Scuderi consulted nature more than truth. |