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If we find him accused of atheism, in an anecdote of very doubtful value, it may, if there is anything in it, be due to his rejection of worship. Of one of his successors, however, Bion of Borysthenes, we have authentic information that he denied the existence of the gods, with the edifying legend attached that he was converted before his death.
Bion was born at Smyrna, one of the towns which claimed the honour of being Homer's birthplace. On the evidence of a detached verse of the dirge by Moschus, some have thought that Theocritus survived Bion. In that case Theocritus must have been a preternaturally aged man.
The writers of Alexandria lacked the 'high seriousness' of purpose to produce an Aeneid, the imaginative enthusiasm needed for a Faery Queen. What they possessed was delicacy, refinement, and wit; what they created, while perfecting the epigram and stereotyping the hymn, was a form intermediate between epic and lyric, namely the idyl as we find it in the works of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus.
Frogs are croaking; those persistent frogs whom the muses have ordained to sing for aye, in spite of Bion and all tuneful poets dead. We sit and watch the water-snakes, the busy rats, the hundred creatures swarming in the fat, well-watered soil. Nightingales here and there, new-comers, tune their timid April song.
There, as Bion prayed, shall Spring, the thrice desirable, be with thee the whole year through, where there is neither frost, nor is the heat so heavy on men, but all is fruitful, and all sweet things blossom, and evenly meted are darkness and dawn. Space is wide, and there be many worlds, and suns enow, and the Sun-god surely has had a care of his own.
But we also hear of Bion that he was a disciple of the atheist Theodorus, and other facts go to suggest that Bion united Cynic and Hedonistic principles in his mode of life—a compromise that was not so unlikely as might be supposed. Bion’s attitude cannot therefore be taken as typical of Cynicism. He wrote tales and dialogues in a mixture of prose and verse.
Who, ah who will ever make music on thy pipe, O thrice desired Bion, and who will put his mouth to the reeds of thine instrument? who is so bold? For still thy lips and still thy breath survive, and Echo, among the reeds, doth still feed upon thy songs. To Pan shall I bear the pipe? Nay, perchance even he would fear to set his mouth to it, lest, after thee, he should win but the second prize.
His son, a Helios, or the great Macedonian whose name he bears; his daughter you are right, Bion the maid beloved of Eros. Now, if you can make verses, my young friend of the Muses, give us an epigram in a line or two which we may bear in mind as a compliment to our imperial visitor." "But not here not in the burial-ground," Melissa urged once more.
Frogs are croaking; those persistent frogs, whom the Muses have ordained to sing for aye, in spite of Bion and all tuneful poets dead. We sit and watch the water-snakes, the busy rats, the hundred creatures swarming in the fat well-watered soil.
It was not till afterward that I learned from her waiting-woman a Christian that she meant to tell me that the relations and wailing women were to come to-morrow morning. I could paint on till nightfall, but no longer. I had been chosen for the task because Seleukus had heard from my old teacher, Bion, that I should get a faithful likeness of the original more quickly than any one else.
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