Theognis of Megara - Life

Life

Ancient commentators, the poems themselves and even modern scholars offer us mixed signals about the poet's life. Some of the poems respond in a personal and immediate way to events widely dispersed in time. Lines 29–52 seem to portray the political situation in Megara before the rise of the tyrant Theagenes, about the latter half of the seventh century, but lines 891–95 describe a war in Euboea in the second quarter of the sixth century, and lines 773–82 seem to refer to the Persian invasion of mainland Greece in the reign of Xerxes, at the end of the first quarter of the fifth century. Ancient sources record dates in the mid-sixth century—Eusebius dates Theognis in the 58th Olympiad (548–45 BC), Suda the 59th Olympiad (544–41 BC) and Chronicon Paschale the 57th Olympiad (552–49 BC)—yet it is not clear for example whether Suda in this case means a date of birth or some other significant event in the poet's life and, moreover, all three sources could have derived their dates from lines 773–82 under the assumption that these refer to Harpagus's attack on Ionia in the reign of Cyrus The Great. Even some modern scholars have interpreted those lines in that time-frame, deducing a birth date on or just before 600 BC, while others place his birth around 550 BC to fit in with the Persian invasion under either Darius or Xerxes. There is confusion also about his place of birth, "Megara", which Plato for example understood to be Megara Hyblaea in Sicily, while a scholiast on Plato cites Didymus for the rival theory that the poet was born in a Megara in Attica, and ventures the opinion that Theognis might have later migrated to the Sicilian Megara (a similar theory had assigned an Attic birthplace to the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus). Modern scholars in general opt for a birthplace in mainland Greek Megara though a suitable context for the poems could be found just about anywhere in archaic Greece and there are options for mix-and-match, such as a birth in mainland Megara and then migration to Sicilian Megara (lines 1197–1201 mention dispossession/exile and lines 783–88 journeys to Sicily, Euboea and Sparta).

The elegiac verses attributed to Theognis present him as a complex character and an exponent of traditional Greek morality. Thus for example Isocrates includes him among "the best advisers for human life", even able to be ignored as a wowser, yet Plato's Socrates cites some Theognidean verses to dismiss the poet as a confused and self-contradictory sophist whose teachings are not to be trusted, while a modern scholar excuses self-contradictions as typical of a lifelong poet writing over many years and at the whim of inspiration. The Theognidea might in fact be a collection of elegiac poems by different authors (see Modern scholarship below) and the "life" that emerges from them depends on which poems editors consider authentic. Two modern authorities have drawn these portraits of Theognis, based on their own selections of his work:

... a man of standing in his city, whose public actions however arouse some discontent; a man who sings to his drinking-comrades of his anxieties about the political situation; a man of cliques who finds himself betrayed by those he trusted, dispossessed of his lands in a democratic revolution, an impoverished and embittered exile dreaming of revenge. —Martin Litchfield West One forms a clear impression of his personality, sometimes high-spirited but more often despondent, and cynical even in his love poetry; a man of strong feelings and candid in their expression. —David A. Campbell