CHAPTER III.
THEOGNIS IN EXILE.
Driven from his country through an unsuccessful rising against the party in power, Theognis next appears as a refugee in Eubœa, where a faction of congenial political views has tempted him to take up his residence. But his sojourn must have been brief. The aristocracy of the island was no match for the commonalty, when the latter was backed by Corinthian sympathisers, whose policy was to upset hereditary oligarchies, and to lift an individual to supreme power on the shoulders of the people. Before this strong and sinister influence our poet probably had to bow in Eubœa, as he had already bowed in Megara. The principles to which he clung so tenaciously were doomed to ill luck, and he felt the disasters of his party little short of a personal disgrace. It was the old story of the good and bad, in the political and social sense already noticed; and, as at Megara, the good got the worst of it:—
- ↑ Cerinthus was a city of Eubœa, and Lelantum a well-watered plain, which was an old source of contention betwixt the Eretrians and Chalcidians.
