Chapter 15

See the constitutional histories of G. Gilbert (Eng. trans.), pp. 16, 52-59; G. Busolt, p. 84 ff., V. Thumser, p. 241 ff., G.F. Schömann (Eng. trans.), p. 236 ff., A.H.J. Greenidge, p. 102 ff.; Szanto’s article “Ephoroi” in Pauly-Wissowa,Realencyclopädie, v. 2860 ff.; Ed. Meyer,Forschungen zur alten Geschichte, i. 244 ff.; C.O. Müller,Dorians, bk. iii. ch. vii.; G. Grote,History of Greece, pt. ii. ch. vi.; G. Busolt,Griechische Geschichte, i.² 555 ff.; B. Niese,Historische Zeitschrift, lxii. 58 ff. Of the many monographs dealing with this subject the following are specially useful: G. Dum,Entstehung undEntwicklung des spartan.Ephorats(Innsbruck, 1878); H.K. Stein,Das spartan.Ephorat bis auf Cheilon(Paderborn, 1870); K. Kuchtner,Entstehung und ursprüngliche Bedeutung des spartan.Ephorats(Munich, 1897); C. Frick,De ephoris Spartanis(Göttingen, 1872); A. Schaefer,De ephoris Lacedaemoniis(Greifswald, 1863); E. von Stern,Zur Entstehung und ursprünglichen Bedeutung des Ephorats in Sparta(Berlin, 1894).

(M. N. T.)

EPHORUS(c.400-330B.C.), of Cyme in Aeolis, in Asia Minor, Greek historian. Together with the historian Theopompus he was a pupil of Isocrates, in whose school he attended two courses of rhetoric. But he does not seem to have made much progress in the art, and it is said to have been at the suggestion of Isocrates himself that he took up literary composition and the study of history. The fruit of his labours was hisἹστορίαιin 29 books, the first universal history, beginning with the return of the Heraclidae to Peloponnesus, as the first well-attested historical event. The whole work was edited by his son Demophilus, who added a 30th book, containing a summary description of the Social War and ending with the taking of Perinthus (340) by Philip of Macedon (cf. Diod. Sic. xvi. 14 with xvi. 76). Each book was complete in itself, and had a separate title and preface. It is clear that Ephorus made critical use of the best authorities, and his work, highly praised and much read, was freely drawn upon by Diodorus Siculus1and other compilers. Strabo (viii. p. 332) attaches much importance to his geographical investigations, and praises him for being the first to separate the historical from the merely geographical element. Polybius (xii. 25 g) while crediting him with a knowledge of the conditions of naval warfare, ridicules his description of the battles of Leuctra and Mantineia as showing ignorance of the nature of land operations. He was further to be commended for drawing (though not always) a sharp line of demarcation between the mythical and historical (Strabo ix. p. 423); he even recognized that a profusion of detail, though lending corroborative force to accounts of recent events, is ground for suspicion in reports of far-distant history. His style was high-flown and artificial, as was natural considering his early training, and he frequently sacrificed truth to rhetoric effect; but, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he and Theopompus were the only historical writers whose language was accurate and finished. Other works attributed to him were:—A Treatise on Discoveries; Respecting Good and Evil Things; On Remarkable Things in Various Countries(it is doubtful whether these were separate works, or merely extracts from theHistories);A Treatise on my Country, on the history and antiquities of Cyme, and an essayOn Style, his only rhetorical work, which is occasionally mentioned by the rhetorician Theon. Nothing is known of his life, except the statement in Plutarch that he declined to visit the court of Alexander the Great.

Fragments in C.W. Müller,Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, i., with critical introduction on the life and writings of Ephorus; see J.A. Klügmann,De Ephoro historico(1860); C.A. Volquardsen,Untersuchungen über die Quellen der griechischen und sicilischen Geschichten bei Diodor.xi.-xvi.(1868); and specially J.B. Bury,Ancient Greek Historians(1909); E. Schwartz, in Pauly-Wissowa,Realencyc.s.v.; and articleGreece:History: Ancient Authorities.

1It is now generally recognized, thanks to Volquardsen and others, that Ephorus is the principal authority followed by Diodorus, except in the chapters relating to Sicilian history.

EPHRAEM SYRUS(Ephraim the Syrian), a saint who lived in Mesopotamia during the first three quarters of the 4th centuryA.D.He is perhaps the most influential of all Syriac authors; and his fame as a poet, commentator, preacher and defender of orthodoxy has spread throughout all branches of the Christian Church. This reputation he owes partly to the vast fertility of his pen—according to the historian Sozomen he was credited with having written altogether 3,000,000 lines—partly to the elegance of his style and a certain measure of poetic inspiration, more perhaps to the strength and consistency of his personal character, and his ardour in defence of the creed formulated at Nicaea.

An anonymous life of Ephraim was written not long after his death in 373. The biography has come down to us in two recensions. But in neither form is it free from later interpolation; and its untrustworthiness is shown by its conflicting with data supplied by his own works, as well as by the manner in which it is overloaded with miraculous events. The following is a probable outline of the main facts of Ephraim’s life. He was born in the reign of Constantine (perhaps in 306) at or near Nisibis. His father was a pagan, the priest of an idol called Abnil or Abizal.1During his boyhood Ephraim showed a repugnance towards heathen worship, and was eventually driven by his father from the home. He became a ward and disciple of the famous Jacob—the same who attended the Council of Nicaea as bishop of Nisibis, and died in 338. At his hands Ephraim seems to have received baptism at the age of 18 or of 28 (the two recensions differ on this point), and remained at Nisibis till its surrender to the Persians by Jovian in 363. Probably in the course of these years he was ordained a deacon, but from his humble estimate of his own worth refused advancement to any higher degree in the church. He seems to have played an important part in guiding the fortunes of the city during the war begun by Shapur II. in 337, in the course of which Nisibis was thrice unsuccessfully besieged by the Persians (in 338, 346 and 350). The statements of his biographer to this effect accord with the impression we derive from his own poems (Carmina Nisibena, 1-21). His intimate relations with Bishop Jacob were continued with the three succeeding bishops—Babu (338-?349), Vologaeses (?349-361), and Abraham—on all of whom he wrote encomia. The surrender of the city in 363 to the Persians resulted in a general exodus of the Christians, and Ephraim left with the rest. After visiting Amid (Diarbekr) he proceeded to Edessa, and there settled and spent the last ten years of his life. He seems to have lived mainly as a hermit outside the city: his time was devoted to study, writing, teaching and the refutation of heresies. It is possible that during these years he paid a visit to Basil at Caesarea. Near the end of his life he rendered great public service by distributing provisions in the city during a famine. The best attested date for his death is the 9th of June 373. It is clear that this chronology leaves no room for the visit to Egypt, and the eight years spent there in refuting Arianism, which are alleged by his biographer. Perhaps, as has been surmised, there may be confusion with another Ephraim. Nor can he have written the funeral panegyric on Basil who survived him by three months. But with all necessary deductions the biography is valuable as witnessing to the immense reputation for sanctity and for theological acumen which Ephraim had gained in his lifetime, or at least soon after he died. His biographer’s statement as to his habits and appearance is worth quoting, and is probably true:—“From the time he became a monk to the end of his life his only food was barley bread and sometimes pulse and vegetables: his drink was water. And his flesh was dried upon his bones, like a potter’s sherd. His clothes were of many pieces patched together, the colour of dirt. In stature he was little; his countenance was always sad, and he never condescended to laughter. And he was bald and beardless.”

The statement in his Life that Ephraim miraculously learned Coptic falls to the ground with the narrative of his Egyptian visit: and the story of his suddenly learning to speak Greek through the prayer of St Basil is equally unworthy of credence. He probably wrote only in Syriac, though he may have possessed some knowledge of Greek and possibly of Hebrew. But many of his works must have been early translated into other languages; and we possess in MSS. versions into Greek, Armenian, Coptic, Arabic and Ethiopic. The Greek versions occupy three entire volumes of the Roman folio edition, and the extant Armenian versions (mainly of N.T. commentaries) were published at Venice in four volumes in 1836.

It was primarily as a sacred poet that Ephraim impressed himself on his fellow-countrymen. With the exception of his commentaries on scripture, nearly all his extant Syriac works are composed in metre. In many cases the metrical structureis of the simplest, consisting only in the arrangement of the discourse in lines of uniform length—usually heptasyllabic (Ephraim’s favourite metre) or pentasyllabic. A more complicated arrangement is found in other poems, such as theCarmina Nisibena: these are made up of strophes, each consisting of lines of different lengths according to a settled scheme, with a recurring refrain. T.J. Lamy has estimated that, in this class of poems, there are as many as 66 different varieties of metres to be found in the works of Ephraim. These strophic poems were set to music, and sung by alternating choirs of girls. According to Ephraim’s biographer, his main motive for providing these hymns set to music was his desire to counteract the baneful effects produced by the heretical hymns of Bardaiṣan and his son Harmonius, which had enjoyed popularity and been sung among the Edessenes for a century and a half.

The subject-matter of Ephraim’s poems covers all departments of theology. Thus the Roman edition contains (of metrical works) exegetical discourses, hymns on the Nativity of Christ, 65 hymns against heretics, 85 on the Faith against sceptics, a discourse against the Jews, 85 funeral hymns, 4 on freewill, 76 exhortations to repentance, 12 hymns on paradise, and 12 on miscellaneous subjects. The edition of Lamy has added many other poems, largely connected with church festivals. It must be confessed that, judged by Western standards, the poems of Ephraim are prolix and wearisome in the extreme, and are distinguished by few striking poetic beauties. And so far as they are made the vehicle of reasoning, their efficiency is seriously hampered by their poetic form. On the other hand, it is fair to remember that the taste of Ephraim’s countrymen in poetry was very different from ours. As Duval remarks: “quant à la prolixité de saint Éphrem que nous trouvons parfois fastidieuse, on ne peut la condamner sans tenir compte du goût des Syriens qui aimaient les répétitions et les développements de la même pensée, et voyaient des qualités là où nous trouvons des défauts” (Littér. syriaque, p. 19). He is no worse in these respects than the best of the Syriac writers who succeeded him. And he surpasses almost all of them in the richness of his diction, and his skill in the use of metaphors and illustrations.

Of Ephraim as a commentator on Scripture we have only imperfect means of judging. His commentaries on the O.T. are at present accessible to us only in the form they had assumed in theCatena Patrumof Severus (compiled in 861), and to some extent in quotations by later Syriac commentators. His commentary on the Gospels is of great importance in connexion with the textual history of the N.T., for the text on which he composed it was that of the Diatessaron. The Syriac original is lost: but the ancient Armenian version survives, and was published at Venice in 1836 along with Ephraim’s commentary on the Pauline epistles (also only extant in Armenian) and some other works. A Latin version of the Armenian Diatessaron commentary has been made by Aucher and Mösinger (Venice, 1876). Using this version as a clue, J.R. Harris2has been able to identify a number of Syriac quotations from or references to this commentary in the works of Isho’dadh, Bar-Kepha (Severus), Bar-ṣalibi and Barhebraeus. Although, as Harris points out, it is unlikely that the original text of the Diatessaron had come down unchanged through the two centuries to Ephraim’s day, the text on which he comments was in the main unaffected by the revision which produced the Peshitta. Side by side with this conclusion may be placed the result of F.C. Burkitt’s3careful examination of the quotations from the Gospels in the other works of Ephraim; he shows conclusively that in all the undoubtedly genuine works the quotations are from a pre-Peshitta text.

As a theologian, Ephraim shows himself a stout defender of Nicaean orthodoxy, with no leanings in the direction of either the Nestorian or the Monophysite heresies which arose after his time. He regarded it as his special task to combat the views of Marcion, of Bardaiṣan and of Mani.

To the modern historian Ephraim’s main contribution is in the material supplied by the 72 hymns4known asCarmina Nisibenaand published by G. Bickell in 1866. The first 20 poems were written at Nisibis between 350 and 363 during the Persian invasions; the remaining 52 at Edessa between 363 and 373. The former tell us much of the incidents of the frontier war, and particularly enable us to reconstruct in detail the history of the third siege of Nisibis in 350.

Of the many editions of Ephraim’s works a full list is given by Nestle inRealenk. f. protest. Theol. und Kirche(3rd ed.). For modern students the most important are: (1) the great folio edition in 6 volumes (3 of works in Greek and 3 in Syriac), in which the text is throughout accompanied by a Latin version (Rome, 1732-1746); on the unsatisfactory character of this edition (which includes many works that are not Ephraim’s) and especially of the Latin version, see Burkitt,Ephraim’s Quotations, pp. 4 sqq.; (2)Carmina Nisibena, edited with a Latin translation by G. Bickell (Leipzig, 1866); (3)Hymni et sermones, edited with a Latin translation by T.J. Lamy (4 vols., Malines, 1882-1902). Many selected homilies have been edited or translated by Overbeck, Zingerle and others (cf. Wright,Short History, pp. 35 sqq.); a selection of theHymnswas translated by H. Burgess,Select Metrical Hymns of Ephrem Syrus(1853). Of the two recensions of Ephraim’s biography, one was edited in part by J.S. Assemani (B.O. i. 26 sqq.) and in full by S.E. Assemani in the Roman edition (iii. pp. xxiii.-lxiii.); the other by Lamy (ii. 5-90) and Bedjan (Acta mart. et sanct.iii. 621-665). The long poem on the history of Joseph, twice edited by Bedjan (Paris, 1887 and 1891) and by him attributed to Ephraim, is more probably the work of Balai.

(N. M.)

1It is true that in theConfessionattributed to him and printed among his Greek works in the first volume of the Roman edition he speaks (p. 129) of his parents as having become martyrs for the Christian faith. But this document is of very doubtful authenticity.2Fragments of the Commentary of Ephrem Syrus upon the Diatessaron(London, 1895).3“Ephraim’s Quotations from the Gospel,” inTexts and Studies, vol. vii. (Cambridge, 1901).4There were originally 77, but 5 have perished.

2Fragments of the Commentary of Ephrem Syrus upon the Diatessaron(London, 1895).

3“Ephraim’s Quotations from the Gospel,” inTexts and Studies, vol. vii. (Cambridge, 1901).

4There were originally 77, but 5 have perished.

EPHRAIM, a tribe of Israel, called after the younger son of Joseph, who in his benediction exalted Ephraim over the elder brother Manasseh (Gen. xlviii.). These two divisions were often known as the “house of Joseph” (Josh. xvii. 14 sqq.; Judg. i. 22; 2 Sam. xix. 20; 1 Kings xi. 28). The relations between them are obscure; conflicts are referred to in Is. ix. 21,1and Ephraim’s proud and ambitious character is indicated in its demands as narrated in Josh. xvii. 14; Judg. viii. 1-3, xii. 1-6.throughout, Ephraim played a distinctive and prominent part; it probably excelled Manasseh in numerical strength, and the name became a synonym for the northern kingdom of Israel. Originally the name may have been a geographical term for the central portion of Palestine. Regarded as a tribe, it lay to the north of Benjamin, which traditionally belongs to it; but whether the young “brother” (seeBenjamin) sprang from it, or grew up separately, is uncertain. Northwards, Ephraim lost itself in Manasseh, even if it did not actually include it (Judg. i. 27; 1 Chron. vii. 29); the boundaries between them can hardly be recovered. Ephraim’s strength lay in the possession of famous sites: Shechem, with the tomb of the tribal ancestor, also one of the capitals; Shiloh, at one period the home of the ark; Timnath-Serah (or Heres), the burial-place of Joshua; and Samaria, whose name was afterwards extended to the whole district (seeSamaria).

Shechem itself was visited by Abraham and Jacob, and the latter bought from the sons of Hamor a burial-place (Gen. xxxiii. 19). The story of Dinah may imply some early settlement of tribes in its vicinity (but seeSimeon), and the reference in Gen. xlviii. 22 (see R.V. marg.) alludes to its having been forcibly captured. But how this part of Palestine came into the hands of the Israelites is not definitely related in the story of the invasion (seeJoshua).

A careful discussion of the Biblical data referring to Ephraim is given by H.W. Hogg,Ency. Bib., s.v. On the characteristic narratives which appear to have originated in Ephraim (viz. the Ephraimite or Elohist source, E), seeGenesisandBible:Old Testament Criticism.See furtherAbimelech;Gideon;Manasseh; andJews:History.

1Inter-tribal feuds during the period of the monarchy may underlie the events mentioned in 1 Kings xvi. 9 sq., 21 sq.; 2 Kings xv. 10, 14.

EPHTHALITES, orWhite Huns. This many-named and enigmatical tribe was of considerable importance in the history of India and Persia in the 5th and 6th centuries, and was known to the Byzantine writers, who call themἘφθαλίτοι, ΕὐθαγίτοιΝεφθαλίτοιorἈβδελοί. The last of these is an independent attempt to render the original name, which was probablysomething like Aptal or Haptal, but the initial Ν of the third is believed to be a clerical error. They were also calledΛευκοὶ ΟὔννοιorΧοῦνοι, White (that is fair-skinned) Huns. In Arabic and Persian they are known as Haital and in Armenian as Haithal, Idal or Hepthal. The Chinese name Yetha seems an attempt to represent the same sound. In India they were called Hūnas. Ephthalite is the usual orthography, but Hephthalite is perhaps more correct.

Our earliest information about the Ephthalites comes from the Chinese chronicles, in which it is stated that they were originally a tribe of the great Yue-Chi (q.v.), living to the north of the Great Wall, and in subjection to the Jwen-Jwen, as were also the Turks at one time. Their original name was Hoa or Hoa-tun; subsequently they styled themselves Ye-tha-i-li-to after the name of their royal family, or more briefly Ye-tha. Before the 5th centuryA.D.they began to move westwards, for about 420 we find them in Transoxiana, and for the next 130 years they were a menace to Persia, which they continually and successfully invaded, though they never held it as a conquest. The Sassanid king, Bahram V., fought several campaigns with them and succeeded in keeping them at bay, but they defeated and killed Peroz (Firūz),A.D.484. His son Kavadh I. (Kobad), being driven out of Persia, took refuge with the Ephthalites, and recovered his throne with the assistance of their khan, whose daughter he had married, but subsequently he engaged in prolonged hostilities with them. The Persians were not quit of the Ephthalites until 557 when Chosroes Anushirwan destroyed their power with the assistance of the Turks, who now make their first appearance in western Asia.

The Huns who invaded India appear to have belonged to the same stock as those who molested Persia. The headquarters of the horde were at Bamian and at Balkh, and from these points they raided south-east and south-west. Skandagupta repelled an invasion in 455, but the defeat of the Persians in 484 probably stimulated their activity, and at the end of the 5th century their chief Toromana penetrated to Malwa in central India and succeeded in holding it for some time. His son Mihiragula (c.510-540) made Sakāla in the Punjab his Indian capital, but the cruelty of his rule provoked the Indian princes to form a confederation and revolt against him about 528. He was not, however, killed, but took refuge in Kashmir, where after a few years he seized the throne and then attacked the neighbouring kingdom of Gandhara, perpetrating terrible massacres. About a year after this he died (c.540), and shortly afterwards the Ephthalites collapsed under the attacks of the Turks. They do not appear to have moved on to another sphere, as these nomadic tribes often did when defeated, and were probably gradually absorbed in the surrounding populations. Their political power perhaps continued in the Gurjara empire, which at one time extended to Bengal in the east and the Nerbudda in the south, and continued in a diminished form untilA.D.1040. These Gurjaras appear to have entered India in connexion with the Hunnish invasions.

Our knowledge of the Indian Hūnas is chiefly derived from coins, from a few inscriptions distributed from the Punjab to central India, and from the account of the Chinese pilgrim Hsùan Tsang, who visited the country just a century after the death of Mihiragula. The Greek monk Cosmas Indicopleustes, who visited India about 530, describes the ruler of the country, whom he calls Gollas, as a White Hun king, who exacted an oppressive tribute with the help of a large army of cavalry and war elephants. Gollas no doubt represents the last part of the name Mihiragula or Mihirakula.

The accounts of the Ephthalites, especially those of the Indian Hūnas, dwell on their ferocity and cruelty. They are represented as delighting in massacres and torture, and it is said that popular tradition in India still retains the story that Mihiragula used to amuse himself by rolling elephants down a precipice and watching their agonies. Their invasions shook Indian society and institutions to the foundations, but, unlike the earlier Kushans, they do not seem to have introduced new ideas into India or have acted as other than a destructive force, although they may perhaps have kept up some communication between India and Persia. The first part of Mihiragula seems to be the name of the Persian deity Mithra, but his patron deity was Śiva, and he left behind him the reputation of a ferocious persecutor of Buddhism. Many of his coins bear the Nandi bull (Śiva’s emblem), and the king’s name is preceded by the titleśahi(shah), which had previously been used by the Kushan dynasty. Toramana’s coins are found plentifully in Kashmir, which, therefore, probably formed part of the Hūna dominions before Mihiragula’s time, so that when he fled there after his defeat he was taking refuge, if not with his own subjects, at least with a kindred clan.

Greek writers give a more flattering account of the Ephthalites, which may perhaps be due to the fact that they were useful to the East Roman empire as enemies of Persia and also not dangerously near. Procopius says that they were far more civilized than the Huns of Attila, and the Turkish ambassador who was received by Justin is said to have described them asἀστικοί, which may merely mean that they lived in the cities which they conquered. The Chinese writers say that their customs were like those of the Turks; that they had no cities, lived in felt tents, were ignorant of writing and practised polyandry. Nothing whatever is known of their language, but some scholars explain the names Toramana and Jauvla as Turkish.

For the possible connexion between the Ephthalites and the European Huns seeHuns. The Chinese statement that the Hoa or Ye-tha were a section of the great Yue-Chi, and that their customs resembled those of the Turks (Tu-Kiue), is probably correct, but does not amount to much, for the relationship did not prevent them from fighting with the Yue-Chi and Turks, and means little more than that they belonged to the warlike and energetic section of central Asian nomads, which is in any case certain. They appear to have been more ferocious and less assimilative than the other conquering tribes. This may, however, be due to the fact that their contact with civilization was so short; the Yue-Chi and Turks had had some commerce with more advanced races before they played any part in political history, but the Ephthalites appear as raw barbarians, and were annihilated as a nation in little more than a hundred years. Like the Yue-Chi they have probably contributed to form some of the physical types of the Indian population, and it is noticeable that polyandry is a recognized institution among many Himalayan tribes, and is also said to be practised secretly by the Jats and other races of the plains.

Among original authorities may be consulted Procopius, Menander Protector, Cosmas Indicopleustes (trans. McCrindle, Hakluyt Society, 1897), the Kashmir chronicleRajataranginî(trans. Stein, 1900, and Yüan Chwang). See also A. Stein,White Huns and Kindred Tribes(1905); O. Franke,Beiträge aus chinesischen Quellen zur Kenntnis der Türkvölker und Skythen(1904); Ujfalvy,Mémoire sur les Huns Blancs(1898); Drouin,Mémoire sur les Huns Ephthalites(1895); and various articles by Vincent Smith, Specht, Drouin, and E.H. Parker in theJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society,Journal asiatique,Revue numismatique,Asiatic Quarterly, &c.

(C. El.)

ÉPI,the French architectural term for a light finial, generally of metal, but sometimes of terra-cotta, forming the termination of a spire or the angle of a roof.

EPICENE(from the Gr.ἐπίκοινος, common), a term in Greek and Latin grammar denoting nouns which, possessing but one gender, are used to describe animals of either sex. In English grammar there are no true epicene nouns, but the term is sometimes used instead ofcommon gender. In figurative and literary language, epicene is an adjective applied to persons having the characteristics of both sexes, and hence is occasionally used as a synonym of “effeminate.”

EPICHARMUS(c.540-450B.C.), Greek comic poet, was born in the island of Cos. Early in life he went to Megara in Sicily, and after its destruction by Gelo (484) removed to Syracuse, where he spent the rest of his life at the court of Hiero, and died at the age of ninety or (according to a statement in Lucian,Macrobii, 25) ninety-seven. A brazen statue was set up in his honour by the inhabitants, for which Theocritus composed an inscription (Epigr.17). Epicharmus was the chief representative of the Sicilian or Dorian comedy. Of his works 35 titles and afew fragments have survived. In the city of tyrants it would have been dangerous to present comedies like those of the Athenian stage, in which attacks were made upon the authorities. Accordingly, the comedies of Epicharmus are of two kinds, neither of them calculated to give offence to the ruler. They are either mythological travesties (resembling the satyric drama of Athens) or character comedies. To the first class belong theBusiris, in which Heracles is represented as a voracious glutton; theMarriage of Hebe, remarkable for a lengthy list of dainties. The second class dealt with different classes of the population (the sailor, the prophet, the boor, the parasite). Some of the plays seem to have bordered on the political, asThe Plunderings, describing the devastation of Sicily in the time of the poet. A short fragment has been discovered (in the Rainer papyri) from theὉδυσσεὺς αὐτόμολος, which told how Odysseus got inside Troy in the disguise of a beggar and obtained valuable information. Another feature of his works was the large number of excellent sentiments expressed in a brief proverbial form; the Pythagoreans claimed him as a member of their school, who had forsaken the study of philosophy for the writing of comedy. Plato (Theaetetus, 152 E) puts him at the head of the masters of comedy, coupling his name with Homer and, according to a remark in Diogenes Laërtius, Plato was indebted to Epicharmus for much of his philosophy. Ennius called his didactic poem on natural philosophyEpicharmusafter the comic poet. The metres employed by Epicharmus were iambic trimeter, and especially trochaic and anapaestic tetrameter. The plot of the plays was simple, the action lively and rapid; hence they were classed among thefabulae motoriae(stirring, bustling), as indicated in the well-known line of Horace (Epistles, ii. 1. 58):

“Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi.”

Epicharmus is the subject of articles in Suidas and Diogenes Laërtius (viii. 3). See A.O. Lorenz,Leben und Schriften des Koers E.(with account of the Doric drama and fragments, 1864); J. Girard,Études sur la poésie grecque(1884); Kaibel in Pauly-Wissowa’sRealencyclopädie, according to whom Epicharmus was a Siceliot; for the papyrus fragment, Blass inJahrbücher für Philologie, cxxxix., 1889.

EPIC POETRY, orEpos(from the Gr.ἔπος, a story, andἐπικός, pertaining to a story), the names given to the most dignified and elaborate forms of narrative poetry. The wordepopeeis also, but more rarely, employed to designate the same thing,ἐποποιὸςin Greek being a maker of epic poetry, andἐποποιΐαwhat he makes.

It is to Greece, where the earliest literary monuments which we possess are of an epical character, that we turn for a definition of these vast heroic compositions, and we gather that their subject-matter was not confined, as Voltaire and the critics of the 18th century supposed, to “narratives in verse of warlike adventures.” When we first discover the epos, hexameter verse has already been selected for its vehicle. In this form epic poems were composed not merely dealing with war and personal romance, but carrying out a didactic purpose, or celebrating the mysteries of religion. These three divisions, to which are severally attached the more or less mythical names of Homer, Hesiod and Orpheus seem to have marked the earliest literary movement of the Greeks. But, even here, we must be warned that what we possess is not primitive; there had been unwritten epics, probably in hexameters, long before the composition of any now-surviving fragment. The saga of the Greek nation, the catalogue of its arts and possessions, the rites and beliefs of its priesthood, must have been circulated, by word of mouth, long before any historical poet was born. We look upon Homer and Hesiod as records of primitive thought, but Professor Gilbert Murray reminds us that “ourIliad, Odyssey,ErgaandTheogonyare not the first, nor the second, nor the twelfth of such embodiments.” The early epic poets, Lesches, Linus, Orpheus, Arctinus, Eugammon are the veriest shadows, whose names often betray their symbolic and fabulous character. It is now believed that there was a class of minstrels, the Rhapsodists or Homeridae, whose business it was to recite poetry at feasts and other solemn occasions. “The real bards of early Greece were all nameless and impersonal.” When our tradition begins to be preserved, we find everything of a saga-character attributed to Homer, a blind man and an inhabitant of Chios. This gradually crystallized until we find Aristotle definitely treating Homer as a person, and attributing to him the composition of three great poems, theIliad, theOdysseyand theMargites, now lost (seeHomer). The first two of these have been preserved and form for us the type of the ancient epic; when we speak of epic poetry, we unconsciously measure it by the example of theIliadand theOdyssey. It is quite certain, however, that these poems had not merely been preceded by a vast number of revisions of the mythical history of the country, but were accompanied by innumerable poems of a similar character, now entirely lost. That antiquity did not regard these other epics as equal in beauty to theIliadseems to be certain; but such poems asCypria,Iliou Persis(Sack of Ilion) andAethiopiscan hardly but have exhibited other sides of the epic tradition. Did we possess them, it is almost certain that we could speak with more assurance as to the scope of epic poetry in the days of oral tradition, and could understand more clearly what sort of ballads in hexameter it was which rhapsodes took round from court to court. In the 4th centuryB.C.it seems that people began to write down what was not yet forgotten of all this oral poetry. Unfortunately, the earliest critic who describes this process is Proclus, a Byzantine neo-Platonist, who did not write until some 800 years later, when the whole tradition had become hopelessly corrupted. When we pass from Homer and Hesiod, about whose actual existence critics will be eternally divided, we reach in the 7th century a poet, Peisander of Rhodes, who wrote an epic poem, theHeracleia, of which fragments remain. Other epic writers, who appear to be undoubtedly historic, are Antimachus of Colophon, who wrote aThebais; Panyasis, who, like Peisander, celebrated the feats of Heracles; Choerilus of Samos; and Anyte, of whom we only know that she was an epic poetess, and was called “The female Homer.” In the 6th and 5th centuriesB.C.there was a distinct school of philosophical epic, and we distinguish the names of Xenophanes, Parmenides and Empedocles as the leaders of it.

From the dawn of Latin literature epic poetry seems to have been cultivated in Italy. A Greek exile, named Livius Andronicus, translated theOdysseyinto Latin during the first Punic War, but the earliest original epic of Rome was the lostBellum Punicumof Naevius, a work to which Virgil was indebted. A little later, Ennius composed, about 172B.C., in 18 books, an historical epic of theAnnales, dealing with the whole chronicle of Rome. This was the foremost Latin poem, until the appearance of theAeneid; it was not imitated, remaining, for a hundred years, as Mr Mackail has said, “not only the unique, but the satisfying achievement in this kind of poetry.” Virgil began the most famous of Roman epics in the year 30B.C., and when he died, nine years later, he desired that the MS. of theAeneidshould be burned, as it required three years’ work to complete it. Nevertheless, it seems to us, and seemed to the ancient world, almost perfect, and a priceless monument of art; it is written, like the great Greek poems on which it is patently modelled, in hexameters. In the next generation, thePharsaliaof Lucan, of which Cato, as the type of the republican spirit, is the hero, was the principal example of Latin epic. Statius, under the Flavian emperors, wrote several epic poems, of which theThebaidsurvives. In the 1st centuryA.D.Valerius Flaccus wrote theArgonauticain 8 books, and Silius Italicus thePunic War, in 17 books; these authors show a great decline in taste and merit, even in comparison with Statius, and Silius Italicus, in particular, is as purely imitative as the worst of the epic writers of modern Europe. At the close of the 4th century the style revived with Claudian, who produced five or six elaborate historical and mythological epics of which theRape of Proserpinewas probably the most remarkable; in his interesting poetry we have a valuable link between the Silver Age in Rome and the Italian Renaissance. With Claudian the history of epic poetry among the ancients closes.

In medieval times there existed a large body of narrativepoetry to which the general title of Epic has usually been given. Three principal schools are recognized, the French, the Teutonic and the Icelandic. Teutonic epic poetry deals, as a rule, with legends founded on the history of Germany in the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, and in particular with such heroes as Ermanaric, Attila and Theodoric. But there is also an important group in it which deals with English themes, and among theseBeowulf,Waldere,The Lay of MaldonandFinnesburhare pre-eminent. To this group is allied the purely German poem ofHildebrand, attributed toc.800. Among theseBeowulfis the only one which exists in anything like complete form, and it is of all examples of Teutonic epic the most important. With all its trivialities and incongruities, which belong to a barbarous age,Beowulfis yet a solid and comprehensive example of native epic poetry. It is written, like all old Teutonic work of the kind, in alliterative unrhymed rhythm. In Iceland, a new heroic literature was invented in the middle ages, and to this we owe the Sagas, which are, in fact, a reduction to prose of the epics of the warlike history of the North. These Sagas took the place of a group of archaic Icelandic epics, the series of which seems to have closed with the noble poem ofAtlamál, the principal surviving specimen of epic poetry as it was cultivated in the primitive literature of Iceland. The surviving epical fragments of Icelandic composition are found thrown together in theCodex Regius, under the title ofThe Elder Edda, a most precious MS. discovered in the 17th century. The Icelandic epics seem to have been shorter and more episodical in character than the lost Teutonic specimens; both kinds were written in alliterative verse. It is not probable that either possessed the organic unity and vitality of spirit which make the Sagas so delightful. The French medieval epics (seeChansons de Geste) are late in comparison with those of England, Germany and Iceland. They form a curious transitional link between primitive and modern poetry; the literature of civilized Europe may be said to begin with them. There is a great increase of simplicity, a great broadening of the scene of action. The Teutonic epics were obscure and intense, the Frenchchansons de gesteare lucid and easy. The existing masterpiece of this kind, the magnificentRoland, is doubtless the most interesting and pleasing of all the epics of medieval Europe. Professor Ker’s analysis of its merits may be taken as typical of all that is best in the vast body of epic which comes between the antique models, which were unknown to the medieval poets, and the artificial epics of a later time which were founded on vast ideal themes, in imitation of the ancients. “There is something lyrical inRoland, but the poem is not governed by lyrical principles; it requires the deliberation and the freedom of epic; it must have room to move in before it can come up to the height of its argument. The abruptness of its periods is not really an interruption of its even flight; it is an abruptness of detail, like a broken sea with a larger wave moving under it; it does not impair or disguise the grandeur of the movement as a whole.” Of the progress and decline of thechansons de geste(q.v.) from the ideals ofRolanda fuller account is given elsewhere. To theNibelungenlied(q.v.) also, detailed attention is given in a separate article.

What may be called the artificial or secondary epics of modern Europe, founded upon an imitation of theIliadand theAeneid, are more numerous than the ordinary reader supposes, although but few of them have preserved much vitality. In Italy theChanson de Rolandinspired romantic epics by Luigi Pulci (1432-1487), whoseMorgante Maggioreappeared in 1481, and is a masterpiece of burlesque; by M.M. Boiardo (1434-1494), whoseOrlando Innamoratowas finished in 1486; by Francesco Bello (1440?-1495), whoseMambrianowas published in 1497; by Lodovico Ariosto (q.v.), whoseOrlando Furioso, by far the greatest of its class, was published in 1516, and by Luigi Dolce (1508-1568), as well as by a great number of less illustrious poets. G.G. Trissino (1478-1549) wrote aDeliverance of Italy from the Gothsin 1547, and Bernardo Tasso (1493-1569) anAmadigiin 1559; Berni remodelled the epic of Boiardo in 1541, and TeofiloFolengo(1491-1544), ridiculed the whole school in anOrlandinoof 1526. An extraordinary feat of mock-heroic epic wasThe Bucket(1622) of Alessandro Tassoni (1565-1638). The most splendid of all the epics of Italy, however, was, and remains, theJerusalem Deliveredof Torquato Tasso (q.v.), published originally in 1580, and afterwards rewritten asThe Conquest of Jerusalem, 1593. The fantasticAdone(1623) of G.B. Marini (1569-1625) and the long poems of Chiabrera, close the list of Italian epics. Early Portuguese literature is rich in epic poetry. Luis Pereira Brandão wrote anElegiadain 18 books, published in 1588; Jeronymo Corte-Real (d. 1588) aShipwreck of Sepulvedaand two other epics; V.M. Quevedo, in 1601, anAlphonso of Africa, in 12 books; Sá de Menezes (d. 1664) aConquest of Malacca, 1634; but all these, and many more, are obscured by the glory of Camoens (q.v.), whose magnificentLusiadshad been printed in 1572, and forms the summit of Portuguese literature. In Spanish poetry, thePoem of the Cidtakes the first place, as the great national epic of the middle ages; it is supposed to have been written between 1135 and 1175. It was followed by theRodrigo, and the medieval school closes with theAlphonso XI.of Rodrigo Yañez, probably written at the close of the 12th century. The success of the Italian imitative epics of the 15th century led to some imitation of their form in Spain. Juan de la Cueva (1550?-1606) published aConquest of Béticain 1603; Cristóbal de Virues (1550-1610) aMonserrate, in 1588; Luis Barahona de Soto continued Ariosto in aTears of Angélica; Gutiérrez wrote anAustriadain 1584; but perhaps the finest modern epic in Spanish verse is theAraucana(1569-1590) of Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533-1595), “the first literary work of merit,” as Mr Fitzmaurice-Kelly remarks, “composed in either American continent.” In France, the epic never flourished in modern times, and no real success attended theFranciadeof Ronsard, theAlaricof Scudéry, thePucelleof Chapelain, theDivine Épopéeof Soumet, or even theHenriadeof Voltaire. In English literatureThe Faery Queenof Spenser has the same claim as the Italian poems mentioned above to bear the name of epic, and Milton, who stands entirely apart, may be said, by his isolatedParadise Lost, to take rank with Homer and Virgil, as one of the three types of the mastery of epical composition.

Back to Index Next