The closest successor of the epic is the ancient elegy. The succession is expressed by the kinship of the meter and the differentiation of the concept of elegy (that is, the distich combination of hexameter-pentameter) and the elegaic (as an element of anti-heroic, even of lament).

With the stability of the first and with the transcendence of the second element, the elegy from the Asian Minor hinterland spread to central Greece (Attica and Sparta) and was successively manifested as patriotic elegy (expressed by Callinus and Tyrtaeus), lyrical or love elegy (Mimnermus), legislative or political (Solon), admonitory and gnomic (Theognis), and passing to Great Greece, biological and cosmological (Xenophanes).

Thus, elegiac poetry has been one of the most diverse and longest-lived genres of Ancient Literature. Because aside from personal and social experiences, it also expressed legislative principles and philosophy.

And because by transcending its time, it contributed, after its birth, to the explosion, especially in the Alexandrian years, as a new kind of elegiac form, the epigram.

The Elegiacs are the third volume of the series 'Ancient Lyric Poets' with introductions, translations, and comments by Giannis Dallas.