Note 179 — Chapter XXIX · LYRIC POETRY. — THE SEVEN WISE MEN.

See Plutarch, De Music. p. 1136; Dionys. Hal. de Comp. Verb. c. 23, p. 173, Reisk, and some striking passages of Himerius, in respect to Sappho (i, 4, 16, 19; Maximus Tyrius, Dissert. xxiv, 7-9), and the encomium of the critical Dionysius (De Compos. Verborum, c. 23, p. 173).

The author of the Parian marble adopts, as one of his chronological epochs (Epoch 37), the flight of Sappho, or exile, from Mitylênê to Sicily somewhere between 604-596 B. C. There probably was something remarkable which induced him to single out this event; but we do not know what, nor can we trust the hints suggested by Ovid (Heroid. xv, 51).

Nine books of Sappho’s songs were collected by the later literary Greeks, arranged chiefly according to the metres (C. F. Neue, Sapphonis Fragm. p. 11, Berlin 1827). There were ten books of the songs of Alkæus (Athenæus, xi, p. 481), and both Aristophanês (Grammaticus) and Aristarchus published editions of them. (Hephæstion, c. xv, p. 134, Gaisf.) Dikæarchus wrote a commentary upon his songs (Athenæus, xi, p. 461).