the different species of Greek Choral poetry according as they were intended (1), to grace the services of religion, or (2) to do honour to distinguished men of the day, or (3) simply to heighten the pleasures of a banquet. To the first class will belong hymns sung at the regular festivals of the national gods, relating their titles, their attributes, and mythical exploits—Prosodia or processional-chants; Pæans—originally propitiatory hymns designed to avert from the state some specific calamity, but afterwards including songs of public thanksgiving—or prayers for the favour of a particular god at some special crisis in the fortunes of a state. It will embrace also the later and more solemn forms of the Dithyramb, and to some extent even the earlier, in so far as these were consecrated to the worship of Dionysus. The Parthenia, or maiden-hymns, sung by choirs of girls, seem to have been a branch of the Prosodia, and will naturally be placed in the same class. We hear also of Enthronismi, performed apparently at the erection of a new statue of a god in its appropriate niche in his temple. But of all this class of Choral poetry only fragments remain.
Our second class will include Encomia, or complimentary poems in honour of living princes and their exploits; Epinicia (closely connected with Encomia, and perhaps to be regarded as a branch of them), which celebrated victories in the various local athletic contests of the Greeks, and especially in the four great games;[1] also Odes for the installation of magistrates, a
- ↑ I.e., the Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian festivals.
