Figure 26 Fragment of papyrus from Egypt with a poem by Sappho copied on it, later used as wrapping
for a mummy, Papyrussammlung Inv. 21351 + 21376 recto; text first published in 2004; early third century
BC.
Source: Institut für Altertumskunde der Universität zu Köln.
ELEGIAC Referring to a metrical form consisting of couplets, the first line of which is a
DACTYLIC HEXAMETER and the second is a shorter variant of the hexameter, used for funerary
epigrams and for other small-scale poems, often composed for performance in the SYMPOSIUM.One last type of Archaic poetry needs to be mentioned here. ELEGIAC verse was recited by a single
performer to the accompaniment of an aulos and was composed in elegiac couplets. The first verse of the
couplet is a dactylic hexameter, the verse of Hesiod and Homer, and the second is a shorter variant of the
hexameter. Elegiac poetry is related to epic not only metrically but in dialect as well, since elegy is
regularly written in the Ionic dialect, the predominant element in the language of Hesiod and Homer. This
is the case even when the poet is a native of an area of Greece that is not Ionic-speaking. Two of the
earliest elegiac poets, both of whom were active in the middle of the seventh century BC, are Callinus
from Ionic Ephesus and Tyrtaeus from Doric Sparta, and yet their surviving works are scarcely
distinguishable either in language or in subject-matter. Both poets use their elegiac verse to inspire and
encourage their fellow citizens to pursue glory on the battlefield. And, in keeping with the “epic”