Let every sacrifice commence and end."—(F.)
Mr Frere notes the characteristic touch in the fourth line, "The victim of a popular revolution lamenting that democracy has destroyed the Graces." But as time passed, and the exiles still failed to compass their return, distrust and impatience begin to be rife amongst them. Theognis applies the crucible, which frequently figures in his poetry, and might almost indicate a quondam connection with the Megarian Mint, and fails to discover a sterling unadulterated mind in the whole range of his friends. In bitterness of spirit he finds out at last that
Is firm or faithful to the banished man;
A disappointment and a punishment
Harder to bear and worse than banishment."—(F.)
And under these circumstances he is driven in earnest to the course which, in his 'Acharnians,' Aristophanes represents Dicæopolis as adopting—namely, private negotiations with the masters of the situation at Megara. Ever recurring to his "pleasant gift of verse" when he had "a mot" to deliver, a shaft of wit to barb, or a compliment to pay, Theognis makes it the instrument wherewith to pave the way to his reconciliation and restoration. If the whole poems were extant, of which the lines we are about to cite represent Frere's mode of translating the first couplet, it would, as the translator acutely surmises, be found to contain a candid review of the past, an admission of errors on his own side, an
