Note 182 — Chapter XXIX · LYRIC POETRY. — THE SEVEN WISE MEN.

See Pratinas ap. Athenæum, xiv, p. 617, also p. 636, and the striking fragment of the lost comic poet Pherekratês, in Plutarch, De Musicâ, p. 1141, containing the bitter remonstrance of Music (Μουσικὴ) against the wrong which she had suffered from the dithyrambist Melanippidês: compare also Aristophanês, Nubes, 951-972; Athenæus, xiv, p. 617; Horat. Art. Poetic. 205; and W. M. Schmidt, Diatribê in Dithyrambum, ch. viii, pp. 250-265.

Τὸ σοβαρὸν καὶ περιττὸν—the character of the newer music (Plutarch, Agis, c. 10)—as contrasted with τὸ σεμνὸν καὶ ἀπερίεργον of the old music (Plutarch, De Musicâ, ut sup.): ostentation and affected display, against seriousness and simplicity. It is by no means certain that these reproaches against the more recent music of the Greeks were well founded; we may well be rendered mistrustful of their accuracy when we hear similar remarks and contrasts advanced with regard to the music of our last three centuries. The character of Greek poetry certainly tended to degenerate after Euripidês.