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diff --git a/old/55792-0.txt b/old/55792-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 506564e..0000000 --- a/old/55792-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6632 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Greeks & Barbarians, by James Alexander Kerr Thomson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Greeks & Barbarians - -Author: James Alexander Kerr Thomson - -Release Date: October 22, 2017 [EBook #55792] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEKS & BARBARIANS *** - - - - -Produced by Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - -GREEKS AND BARBARIANS - -_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ - -THE GREEK TRADITION - -La. Cr. 8vo. 6/- net. - -_Extracts from the Reviews._ - -“The book will be read with profit and with a hearty interest by any -one who wishes to understand the life of ancient Greece.”—_Scotsman._ - -“Mr. Thomson is a classicist who can form his own theories and support -them.”—_Times._ - -“He is such a guide as makes literature a live thing.”—_Sunday Times._ - -“These delightful essays.”—_Morning Post._ - -“The essays themselves are fresh and stimulating ... it is a -fascinating experiment in reconstruction.... It is Mr. Thomson’s -literary method which attracts us ... essentially sound.”—_Inquirer._ - -“Well worth reading.”—_New Age._ - -“Noteworthy, not only for the author’s intimate knowledge of Greek -literature and art, but also for a range of vision and breadth of -knowledge. The book as a whole is scholarly delicate work, illuminated -by imaginative power as well as real insight into Greek thought and -ideals.”—_Land and Water._ - -“Mr. Thomson is indisputably a valuable aid to classic studies, -and those who have read him cannot fail to re-peruse their Hesiod, -their Thucydides and the ‘Alcestis’ of Euripides in a new and fuller -light.”—_Journal of Education._ - -“Here is scholarship with a bright and eager face. Mr. Thomson’s essays -have the flavour of good literature. They have caught something of -the light of the ancient world of masterpieces with which they are -concerned.”—_Daily News._ - -“He has written with great charm.... Mr. Thomson brings an active -but controlled imagination, a ripe scholarship, a shrewd judgment, a -pleasing literary style and a sympathetic insight. It is impossible to -convey the charm of these papers, each is a little work of art which -must be read as a whole.”—_Outlook._ - -“His work is most thought-provoking and valuable ... every one -interested in classical literature should read it.”—_Schoolmaster._ - - - - - GREEKS & BARBARIANS - - BY - - J. A. K. THOMSON - - [Illustration] - - LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. - RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1 - NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - - -_First Published in 1921_ - -(_All rights reserved_) - - - _Stets wird geschieden sein der Menschheit Heer_ - _In zwei Partein: Barbaren und Hellenen._ - - HEINE, “_Für die Mouche_.” - - - - - To - - MY MOTHER - - - - -PREFACE - - -There have been many explanations of ancient Greece and its peculiar -spirit. If I may say so, the only original thing about the explanation -offered in this book is its want of originality; for it is the -explanation of the Greeks themselves. They believed that Hellenism -was born of the conflict between the Greeks and the Barbarians. As -Thucydides puts it (I. 3), “Greek” and “Barbarian” are correlative -terms; and Herodotus wrote his great book, “seeking,” as he says, -“digressions of set purpose,” to illustrate just that. About such -an explanation there is obviously nothing startling at all. It is -indeed (at first sight) so colourless and negative, that it must be -dissatisfaction with it which has provoked all the other explanations. -Scholars must have said to themselves, “What is the use of repeating -that Hellenism is the opposite of Barbarism? We know that already.” -But they knew it only in a formal or abstract way. It is but the other -day that classical scholars have begun to study the Barbarian and to -_work out_ the contrast which alone can give us the material for a rich -understanding of the Greek himself. Without this study one’s ideas of -the Greek could not fail to be somewhat empty and colourless. But any -one who cares to read even the meagre outline which these essays supply -will hardly complain that there is a lack of colour. - -The subject indeed is so vast that one is compelled to be selective and -illustrative. Even to be this is far from easy. For instance, it seems -extraordinary to write upon the meaning of Hellenism without a chapter -on Greek art. Such a chapter, however, is excluded by the design of -this book, which must dispense with illustrations; whereas in dealing -with literature I could always drive home my point by simple quotation. -Then again it may appear a little old-fashioned and arbitrary that I -confine myself to the centuries before Alexander. But after all it was, -in these centuries that Hellenism rose into its most characteristic -form—and in any case a man must stop somewhere. - -We lovers of Greece are put very much on our defence nowadays, and -no doubt we sometimes claim too much for her. She sinned deeply and -often, and sometimes against the light. Things of incalculable value -have come to us not from her. There probably never was a time when she -had not something to learn from the Barbarians about her—from Persia, -from Palestine, from distant China. But when all is said, we owe it to -Greece that we think as we do, and not as Semites or Mongols. I believe -that on the whole our modes of thought are preferable. At any rate they -have on the whole prevailed. And what we students of Greece argue is -that she was fighting our battle; that in the deepest and truest and -most strictly historical sense the future of the things we cherish most -was involved in her fortunes. How then could we fail to sympathise with -her? I have tried to be just; I could not be dispassionate. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - PREFACE 9 - - THE AWAKENING 13 - - KEEPING THE PASS 32 - - THE ADVENTURERS 45 - - ELEUTHERIA 82 - - SOPHROSYNE 105 - - GODS AND TITANS 122 - - CLASSICAL AND ROMANTIC 147 - - NOTES 205 - - INDEX 213 - - - - -GREEKS AND BARBARIANS - - - - -I - -THE AWAKENING - - -It began in Ionia. It may in truth have been a reawakening. But if this -be so (and it is entirely probable), it was after so long and deep a -slumber that scarcely even dreams were remembered. The Ionians used to -say that they remembered coming from Greece, long ago, about a thousand -years before Christ—as we reckon it—driven from their ancient home on -the Peloponnesian coast of the Corinthian Gulf by “Dorians” out of the -North. They fled to Athens, which carried them in her ships across -the Aegean to that middle portion of the eastern shore which came -to be known as Ionia. For this reason they were in historical times -accounted (by the Athenians at least) “colonists of the Athenians.” -Nobody in antiquity appears seriously to have disputed this account of -the Ionians. There may be considerable truth in it; and if not, the -Ionians were pretty good at disputing. The Athenians belonged to that -race. But if you questioned the Ionians further and asked them about -their origins in prehistoric Greece, you had to be content with the -Topsy-like answer that the first Ionians grew out of the ground. They -were _Autochthones_, Earth-Children. The critical Thucydides puts it -this way: he says the same stock has _always_ inhabited Attica. People -in his time could remember when old Athenian gentlemen used to wear -their hair done up in a top-knot fastened by a golden pin in the form -of a cicala—because the cicala also is an Earth-Child. - -Of course in historical times the Ionians were Greeks. But they may -not always have been Greeks. Herodotus apparently thinks they were -not. He says they learned to speak Greek from their Dorian conquerors. -The natural inference from this would be that they were of a different -racial stock. Herodotus, however, is nearly as fond of a hypothesis -as Mr. Shandy, and it is quite possible that he is here labouring an -argument (which in turn may have been mere Dorian propaganda), that the -only pure-blooded Hellenes were the Dorian tribes, who admittedly came -on the scene much later than the Ionians. In fact the Ionians may have -been simply an earlier wave of a great invasion of Greek-speakers which -came to an end with the Dorians. We do not know, and Herodotus did not -know. The Ionians themselves did not know. There are two possibilities. -Either they were an indigenous people who became Hellenized (as -Herodotus supposes), or they were a folk of Hellenic affinities who -were long settled in Greece in the midst of a still earlier population. -What of that? Only this, that we have suddenly discovered a great -deal about this prehistoric Aegean population, above all that it -had developed a civilization which seems almost too brilliant to be -true. Now if the fugitives who escaped to Ionia were a fragment of -this race, or even were aliens who had only imbibed a portion of its -culture, the awakening which came so long after may have been in fact a -reawakening. - -Archæologists, digging in the sites of old Ionian cities, have -discovered evidence that the early settlers possessed something of the -Aegean culture. The crown and centre of that culture was the island -of Crete, and there existed some dim traditions of Cretans landing in -Ionia; only then it was probably not called Ionia. This, and some other -considerations, have prompted the suggestion that the Ionians really -came from Crete. But it seems more in accordance with the evidence to -suppose that the main body of them came from Greece proper, where they -had learned the “Mycenaean” culture, which was the gift of Crete. The -calamitous Dorians wrecked that wonderful heritage, but for some time -at least the settlers in their new “Ionian” home would remember how to -fashion a pot fairly and chant their traditional lays. Then, it would -seem, they all but forgot; little wonder, when you consider how dire -was their plight. Yet even in that uneasy sleep into which they fell -of a recrudescent barbarism the Ionians remembered something as in a -dream; and it became the most beautiful dream in the world, for it is -Homer. - -Now let us appeal to history. The history of Ionia is a drama in little -of what afterwards happened on a wider stage in Greece. - -The settlers found a beautiful land with (so Herodotus, not alone, -exclaims) “the best climate in the world.” Considerable rivers, given -to “meandering,” carve long valleys into the hilly interior of Asia -Minor and offered in their mouths safe anchorages for the toy-like -ships of the ancients. It is typical Aegean country and would have -no unfamiliar look to the settlers. Naturally they did not find the -new land empty. It contained a native population who were called, or -came to be called, by the general appellation of “Carians”—barbaric -warriors with enormous helmets crowned by immense horse-hair crests, -and armed with daggers and ugly-looking falchions like reaping-hooks. -The newcomers fought with them, slew largely among them, made some -uncertain kind of truce with them, married their women, got their -interested help against the Persian when he grew powerful. But that -was all. They never succeeded in making them truly Greek or completely -civilized. They only mast-headed them on their hills and, if they -caught one, made a slave of him. Throughout Greek history the Carians -maintained a virtual independence in the highlands of Ionia, keeping -their ancient speech and customs, cherishing the memory of their -old-world glory when they rowed in the ships of King Minos of Crete and -fought his battles, and professing no interest in the wonderful cities -growing up almost or quite in view of their secluded eyries. Very -strange it seems. Yet it is typical. If we think of Greek civilization -as a miracle wrought in a narrow valley with sullen Carians hating it -from the surrounding hills, we shall get no bad picture—for I will not -call it an allegory—of the actual situation all through antiquity till -Alexander came. So near was the Barbarian all the time. - -The Ionians had always to struggle against being crowded into the sea -by the more or less savage races of Anatolia. That vast region has -always been full of strange and obscure races and fragments of races. -It is so formed that the migrating peoples flooding through it were -sure to lose side-eddies down its deep, misleading valleys, to stagnate -there. It must, when Ionia was founded, have had a peculiarly sombre -and menacing aspect. The mighty empire of the Hittites had fallen and -left, so far as we can see, a turmoil of disorganized populations -between the sea and the dreadful Assyrians. Here and there no doubt -traces of the Hittite civilization were discernible, sculptures of a -god in peasant dress—a sort of moujik-god—or of that eternal trinity -of Divine Father, Son, and Mother. The wondering Greeks saw a great -cliff at Sipylos fashioned like a weeping woman, and called her Niobe. -They seem to have admired Carian armour and borrowed that. There was -probably nothing else they could borrow from the Carians except their -lands. There was a numerous people dwelling farther inland called the -Lydians, who even then must have had some rudimentary civilization and -who afterwards, absorbing what they could of Ionian culture, threatened -the cities with slavery. Further down the coast, in the south-western -corner of the peninsula, where somewhat later the Dorians settled, -lived the Lycians, who had the kind of civilization which counts -descent on the mother’s side and buries its dead in holes of a cliff, -as sea birds lay their eggs. The northern part of the Aegean coast was -occupied by Mysians, Phrygians and kindred races, who never could get -themselves cultivated. They worshipped gods like Papaios, which is -Papa, and Bagaios, which must be the same as Bog, which is the Russian -for God. - -This was the kind of world into which the fugitives were thrown. It -mattered the less perhaps because their real home was the sea. Yet -even the sea gave them only a temporary escape from the Barbarian. -Wherever they landed they met him again on the beach. Imagine, if you -will, a ship trading from the chief Ionian harbour, Miletus. Imagine -her bound for the south-east coast of the Black Sea for a cargo of -silver. She would pick her way by coast and island till she reached the -Dardanelles. From that point onwards she was in unfriendly waters. On -one side were the hills of Gallipoli (Achi Baba and the rest—we do not -know their ancient names), inhabited by “Thracians” of the sort called -Dolonkoi; on the other side was the country of the kindred “Phrygians.” -It was likely to go hard with a Greek ship cast away on either shore. -Thence through the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus into the Euxine. -Then came days and days of following the long Asiatic coast, dodging -the tide-races about the headlands, finding the springs of fresh water -known to the older hands, pushing at night into some rock-sheltered -cove, sleeping on the beach upon beds of gathered leaves. And so at -last to some harbour of “Colchians,” men whose complexion and hair -would make you swear they were Egyptians, circumcised men, violently -contrasting with their neighbours the Phasianoi, who live in the misty -valley of the romantic Phasis—large, fat, sleepy-looking men, flabby -men with pasty faces, who grow flax in the marshy meadows of their -languid stream. From these partially civilized peoples the Greeks would -glean news of the mountain-tribes of the interior, uncanny “Chalybes,” -who know where to find iron and silver in the ribs of their guarded -hills, and the utter savages of the Caucasus, whose single art is -printing the shapes of beasts in colours upon their clothes, and who, -like the beasts, are without shame in love. - -Or suppose our ship bound for the corn-bearing region behind the -modern port of Odessa in South Russia. Once through the Bosphorus, she -would make her course along the shore of a wide and wintry territory -inhabited by red-haired, blue-eyed Thracians, a race akin to certain -elements in the population of Greece itself, warlike, musical, -emotional, mystical, cruel. Here and there the merchant would land -for water or fresh meat—at Salmydessos, at Apollonia, at Mesembria, -at Odessos, at Tomi (but we do not know when these places got their -names)—till he reached the mouths of the Danube. Wherever he touched -he might have the chance to hear of wild races further inland, such -as the Getai, very noble savages, who believed in the immortality of -men, or at least of the Getai. They were of the opinion that when -one of them left this life he “went to Salmoxis.” Salmoxis, he lived -in an underground house and was their god. Every four years they -sent a messenger to him to tell what they wanted. Their method was -this. First they told the messenger what he must ask, and then they -tossed him in the air, catching him as he fell on the points of their -spears. If he died, this meant a favourable answer from Salmoxis. -But if the messenger did not die, then they blamed the messenger and -“dispatched” another. Also they used to shoot arrows at the sun and -moon, defying those luminaries and denying their godhead. These were -“the most righteous of the Thracians,” according to Herodotus, who -expresses and perhaps shared the sentiment, at least as old as Homer, -which attributed exceptional virtue to remote and simple peoples like -the Hyperboreans and the Ethiopians and the “Koumiss-Eaters,” the -Hippemolgoi or Glaktophagoi. If the Getai were the most righteous of -the Thracians, one rather wonders what the rest were like. These were -certainly capable of nearly anything in their moments of religious -frenzy. They would tear raw flesh with their teeth, sometimes (it -was whispered) the living flesh of children. At certain times of the -year the Thracian women went mad upon the midnight hills, worshipping -Dionysus. (The wild splendour of that scene shines and shudders like -one of their own torches through the _Bacchae_ of Euripides.) The -Thracians of the coast had an evil reputation as wreckers.... - -Beyond the Danube was “Scythia.” All that district between the river -and the Crimea was from the earliest times of which we have record what -it is to-day, a grain-growing country. Its capital was the “Market -of the Borysthenites,” which preferred to call itself Olbia, “the -City of Eldorado.” Here the merchant would find a curious population, -very fair in type, great horsemen, wearing peaked caps of felt and -carrying half-moon shields. In the Russian army which fought Napoleon -in 1814 were Siberian archers whom the French nicknamed Les Amours. -I do not venture to say that these were Scythians, but it is clear -that an ancient Scythian (half naked, with his little recurved bow) -must have looked rather like an overgrown barbaric Cupid. At Athens -it was thought comic to stage a Scythian. Only, as to that, it should -be remembered that the Athenians recruited their police from Scythia, -and that the human mind seems to find something inherently comic in a -policeman. - -The Scythians were not all savages. Some of them were skilled farmers. -With these the Greek settlers intermarried, and as early as Herodotus -there was a considerable half-breed population. A motley town like -Olbia was the place for stories—stories of the “Nomads” who neither -plough nor sow, but wander slowly over the interminable steppes with -their gipsy vans in which the women and children huddle under the -stretched roof of skins; stories of the Tauri, who live in the Crimea, -and sacrifice the shipwrecked to their bloody idol, clubbing them on -the head like seals. _And their enemies when they subdue them they -treat as follows. Every man cuts off a head and carries it away to his -house, and then fixing it on a long pole sets it up high above the -house, generally above the chimney; for they will have it that the -whole house is protected by the heads up there. They live by plunder -and fighting._ The Neuroi, another of these Scythian tribes, were -driven from their original home by “serpents,” and _look as if they -might be sorcerers. For the Scyths and the Greeks who live in Scythia -say that once a year every man of the Neuroi turns into a wolf, but -is restored to human shape after a day or two. Now when they say this -they do not convince me_—Herodotus—_still they say it and even take an -oath in saying it. But the Man-Eaters are the worst savages of all, for -they follow neither rule nor law of any kind. They are nomads, and are -dressed like Scyths, and have a language of their own, and are the -only cannibals among those peoples. The Black-Cloaks all wear black -cloaks. Hence their name. Their customs are Scythian. The great tribe -of the Boudinoi have all bright blue eyes and excessively red hair. -They live in a wooden town. They are aboriginal nomads and eat lice._ - -Beyond the Boudinoi lived a folk that were bald from birth—men _and_ -women—besides having snub noses and large chins. The bald ones lived -upon wild cherries, straining the juice off thick and dark, and -then licking it up or drinking it mixed with milk. They dwelt under -trees, every man under his tree, on which in winter he stretched a -piece of white felt to make a kind of tent. On the mountains leaped -goat-footed men; and beyond the goat-footed lived men who slept away -six months of the year. The Issêdones ate their dead fathers, whose -skulls they afterwards gilded and honoured with sacrifices. “In other -respects” they were accounted just, and the women had as much authority -among them as the men. Then came the one-eyed Arimaspeans and the -gold-guarding griffins.... - -Suppose we change the scene, and send the Milesian ship on a voyage -to the African coast. What would the merchant find there? Herodotus -will tell us. By the shores of the Greater Syrtis live the Nasamônes. -They in summer (he tells us) leave their flocks by the seashore and go -up-country to gather dates at an oasis. They catch locusts, dry them, -pound them, sprinkle the dust on milk, and swallow the draught. Beyond -their territory are the Garamantes “in the Wild Beast Country.” They -run away when they see anybody, and do not know how to fight. West of -the Nasamônes on the coast are the Makai, who dress their hair in the -fashion of a cock’s comb and fight with shields of ostrich skin. Beyond -the Makai live the Gindânes, whose women wear leathern anklets, putting -on a new anklet for every new lover. “And each woman has many anklets.” -On a promontory of this region dwell the Lotos Eaters.... - -The Nomads roam from oasis to oasis over a land of salt and sand. Here -is found the race of Troglodytes or Cave Men, swiftest of human beings; -whom the Garamantes hunt in four-horse chariots. The Troglodytes feed -upon snakes and lizards and other reptiles. Their language does not -sound human at all but like the squeaking of bats. At some distance -from the Garamantes dwell the Atarantes, among whom nobody has a name. -These, when the sun is excessively hot, curse him and cry him shame for -scorching them and their land. The Atlantes, whose dwelling is under -Mount Atlas and its shrouded peaks, are said to be vegetarians and to -have no dreams. Beyond these stretches the unknown desert, where men -live in houses built of salt, for it never rains there. Hereabouts -wander a number of tribes concerning whom Herodotus remarks generally, -“All these peoples paint themselves vermilion and eat monkeys.” - -Well, that was the kind of world in which Greek civilization was born. -Do not say I have been describing a remote barbarism. Remoteness is -relative to more than space, and to the Ionians the sea was no barrier, -but the contrary. They knew the whole south coast of the Black Sea, -for instance, better than their own Asiatic hinterland. But even if -we exclude the Black Sea and Libya as remote, where did they not at -first find barbarism? In Hellas? But they had just escaped from Hellas, -driven out by the wild first “Dorians,” who were steadily engaged in -ruining what the Ionians in their new home were trying to save. In -Mesopotamia? But between it and them lay all mountainous Anatolia -crowded with diverse races, most of them savage, all of them hostile. -Egypt at first and for long was closed to them by an exclusive foreign -policy. The unoriginal and materialistic culture of Phoenicia was -withheld (for what it was worth) by commercial rivalry. The West as yet -had nothing to give. Weak in numbers, in want of everything, shut in -with such neighbours, Ionia discovered in herself the force to rescue -her feet from this mire, and to found our modern civilization of reason -and freedom and imaginative energy. - -Naturally the process took time. The first century or so must have -been largely lost in the mere struggle for survival. There may -even have been in some ways a retrogression—a fading out of the -Mycenaean culture, the admission of “Carian” elements needing gradual -assimilation. That period is historically so much of a blank to us, -that when we do begin to note the signs of expansion they give us the -surprise of suddenness. Miletus is all at once the leading city of -the Greek world. It plants colony after colony on the Dardanelles, in -the Sea of Marmara, along the shores of the Euxine. Ionia is awake -while Hellas is still asleep. Ionian traders, Ionian soldiers, Ionian -ships are everywhere. The men of Phokaia opened to trade the Adriatic, -Etruria, Spain. In the reign of Psammetichos—the First or Second—some -Ionian and Carian pirates were forced to land in Egypt. They were clad -according to their fashion in panoply of bronze. An Egyptian came to -the Marshes and told the king that “bronze men from the sea are wasting -the plain,” having never before seen men in such armour. Now the words -of the messenger were the very words of an oracle that had bidden -Psammetichos seek the help of “bronze men from the sea,” so the king -hired the strangers to serve in his army, and by their aid overcame his -enemies. The story (which is in Herodotus) is told in a way to provoke -the sceptical. But wait a moment. At Abusimbel in Upper Egypt there is -a great temple, and before the temple stand colossal statues. On the -legs of one of these are scratched Greek words: _When King Psamatichos -came to Elephantine, those who sailed with Psamatichos the son of -Theokles wrote this; and they went above Kertis, as far up as the -river let them, and Potasimpto led the men of alien speech, and Amasis -the Egyptians. Archon the son of Hamoibichos and Pelekos the son of -Houdamos wrote me_—this is, the inscription. Beneath are the signatures -of Greek-speaking soldiers. The writers must have been Ionian -mercenaries under a leader who for some reason adopted the king’s name. -It is to such fellows we owe our names for Egyptian things. “Crocodile” -is just the Ionian word for a lizard, and “pyramid” really means a -wheaten cake. Ostriches they called “sparrows.” The British private -soldier in Egypt is probably making similar jokes to-day. To return to -the inscription, the “men of alien speech” commanded by Potasimpto—an -Egyptian name—were probably Carians. The date of the writing cannot be -later than 589 B.C. when Psammetichos II ceased to reign. The date is -not so striking as the fact that these fighters (who, to put it gently, -are not likely to have had the best Ionian education) could legibly -write. Their spelling, I admit, is not affectedly purist; but then, -spelling is a modern art. - -The first great Ionian (discounting the view of some that Homer was -an Ionian poet) was the greatest of all. This was Archilochus, who -was born in the little island of Paros somewhere about the end of the -eighth century before Christ. His poetry is all but lost, his life -little more than a startling rumour. The ancients, who had him all to -read, spoke of him in the same breath with Homer. He was not only so -great a poet, but he was a new kind of poet. Before him men used the -traditional style of the heroic epic. This Archilochus sings about -himself. We hear in him a voice as personal, as poignant, as in Villon -or Heine or Burns; it is a revolutionary voice. Modern literature has -nothing to teach Archilochus. One can see that in the miserable scanty -fragments of his astonishing poetry that have come down to us. - -As for the man himself, the case against him looks pretty black. He -himself is quite unabashed. But he also complains of hard luck, and -there may be something in this plea. If he was a bastard, much could -be forgiven him; but that theory seems to rest on a misapprehension -of his meaning. His father was evidently an important man among the -Parians. There does not appear to be any good reason why Archilochus -should have had so bad a time of it except the reason of temperament. -_One great thing I do know_, quoth he, _how to pay back in bitter kind -the man who wrongs me._ He certainly did know that, but the knowledge -was not going to make him popular. He never could get on with people. -He hated Paros, where, one would have thought, his father’s son had -a fair chance of happiness. _Damn Paros—and those figs—and a life at -sea._ Later he accompanied a colony, led by his father, to the island -of Thasos off the Thracian coast; and he did not like Thasos any more -than Paros. _It sticks up_, he says in his vivid way, _like a donkey’s -backbone, wreathed in wild woods._ He also grumbles that _the plagues -of all Hellas have run in a body to Thasos_. He did not like the sea, -and yet he was a good deal on it. Pulling at an oar and munching onions -no doubt seemed to him a poor conception of life, but a thrilling line -_Let us hide the bitter gifts of the Lord Poseidon_ rather breathes -an imaginative horror. The man is a master of this kind of sinister -beauty. _There were thirty that died—we overtook them with our feet—a -thousand were we who slew._ There you have it again. Oh yes, he had -an overpowering sense of beauty, and a wonderful imagination—but also -he had something else. That was just the tragedy. His genius had a -twist in it which hurt himself as well as other people. He had loved a -girl whom he saw _playing with a branch of myrtle and a rose, in the -shadow of her falling hair_. He believed that she had been promised in -marriage to him; but something happened, and they did not marry. It -may be said for Neoboule and her father that Archilochus was not the -sort they made good husbands of; and if any one is still disposed to -condemn them, he may relent when he hears that the poet assailed them -with a fabulous bitterness of tongue—assailed them till, according to -the story, they hanged themselves. He meantime followed the call of his -temperament, or of the poverty into which his temperament had brought -him, and became a professional soldier. _I shall be called a mercenary -like a Carian_, he says with a touch of what looks like bravado. What -a life for a poet! _I am the servant of the Lord of War, and I know -the lovely guerdon of the Muses_, he says superbly. His way of living -is reflected in his speech. There is lust and drunkenness in it, and a -kind of soldierly joviality. _Wild-fig-tree of the rock feeding many -crows, good-natured Pasiphile who makes strangers welcome_. Pasiphile -hardly needs a commentator. Nor does the half-line preserved by a -grammarian (who quoted it to illustrate the dative case)—_plagued with -lice_. - -Archilochus was sent to fight the Saioi, a wild tribe of the Thracian -mainland opposite Thasos. It would seem that the Greeks were defeated. -At any rate, he for one ran away, abandoning his shield—to Greek -sentiment an unforgivable offence. Who tells us this? Archilochus -himself, adding impudently that he doesn’t care; he can easily get -another shield, and meantime his skin is whole. The ancient world never -quite got over the scandal of this avowal. Archilochus aggravated it -by a poem to a friend in which he remarks that a man who pays much -attention to charges of cowardice won’t have very many pleasures. But -cowards don’t become soldiers, and don’t write humorous accounts of -their misbehaviour. He was a fighter to the last. A man of Naxos killed -him. - -There are in the fragments of Archilochus notes of tenderness and even -delicacy, notes of a singularly impressive pathos. There are indeed all -notes in him, from the bawdy to the divine. It would be absurd to call -him a bad man—quite as absurd as to call him a good one. He is a man. -And what makes him so fascinating is just this, that for the first time -in literature a man expresses himself. His extraordinary greatness is -almost a secondary matter by the side of that portentous phenomenon. It -was the Ionians who produced him. - -Archilochus was absorbed in his own adventures, but even he must have -noted the tremendous events which were changing the nations before his -eyes. A fierce and numerous folk, known to the Greeks as the Cimmerians -(_Kimmerioi_—their name survives in Crimea and Crim Tartary), broke -loose or were thrust from their homes in the steppes and poured into -Asia Minor, apparently through what is called the “Sangarios Gap” -in Phrygia. You may see them fighting Ionians on a sarcophagus from -Clazomenae which is in the British Museum. They rode bareback on -half-tamed horses and slew with tremendous leaf-shaped swords. They -destroyed the power of Phrygia, then the greatest in the peninsula, and -King Midas, last of his race, killed himself (by drinking bull’s blood, -men said). Lydia succeeded to the place and the peril of the Phrygians. -She was under the rule of a new king (called “Gugu”), who made a -strong fight of it, but was ultimately, about 650 B.C., defeated and -slain by the half-naked riders under their king Tugdammi, who sacked -the Ionian towns. The Ionians, however, made common cause with Ardys -the son of Gugu or Gyges, as the Greeks called him, and along with -the Lydians they beat this Tugdammi and drove away his people. Then -the kings of Lydia, secure and strong and wealthy, turned their arms -against Ionia, which thenceforward has to fight one long and losing -battle with overmastering enemies. Gyges, Ardys, Sadyattes, Alyattes, -Croesus—they all attacked her. Meantime, in the reign of Alyattes, the -greatest of these monarchs, a new and far more imposing power had got -itself consolidated to the east of the Lydian empire. This was the -kingdom of the Medes. The rivals fought a great battle, which ended in -the twilight and alarm of a total eclipse of the sun on May 28, 585 -B.C. They made peace for the time, and Alyattes could proceed with the -gradual reduction of the ports. But in the next generation—for all -the East had been set in motion—the Medes in their turn had fallen -under the authority of the kindred Persians and the great conqueror -Cyrus, who in due time rushed west with his invincible footmen and his -unfamiliar camels, destroyed Lydia in a moment, and contemptuously left -a general to complete the conquest of Ionia. - -All this time, and even under the Persian, the Ionians continued to -develop and enrich the mind of the world. If science means the effort -to find a rational instead of a mythological explanation of things, -then the Ionians invented science. Thales of Miletus predicted that -eclipse. Anaximander of Miletus held a theory about the origin of -life which anticipates modern speculation. He wrote a book about it, -which was probably the first example of literary prose in Greek. -He also made the first map. His fellow-citizen Hecataeus invented -history.... These are just some of the things the Ionians did. The -rest of the Hellenes—first the colonies in Italy and Sicily, then the -Athenians—caught the flame from them and kept it alive through later -storms. But there was no more than time for this when the eastern cloud -descended on Ionia. Athens could take up the torch. But Ionia was down. - - - - -II - -KEEPING THE PASS - - -The innumerable East was pouring out of Thessaly into the Malian Plain, -flooding in by two main channels, the hill-road through the pass of -Thaumaki and the coast-road along the shore of the westward-bending -Gulf of Malis. First came the pioneers, then the fighters, then the -multitude of camp-followers and trains of supply which had fed all -those numbers over so many leagues of hostile and unharvested regions. -On attaining the brow of the steep climb to Thaumaki, had one looked -back upon the view which gave this point its name of _The Place of -Wondering_, he must have seen the wide Thessalian plain alive with an -unwonted stir of men and baggage-wains and animals, and touched with -shifting points of barbaric colour. As the continuous stream flowed -past him he could note everything in greater detail—“Persians and Medes -and Elamites,” the different contingents with their varying armature; -footmen and horsemen; sumpter-mules and a number of high-necked, -slow-striding camels, some of them showing on their flanks the proof -that there were lions in Macedonia. Through the noise of the march -would come the babel of strange oriental tongues. Enclosing all this, -very far away could be descried a shadowy girdle of great mountains, -from the highest and most distant of which the gods of Olympus looked -down upon the invasion of Greece. - -But Xerxes, driving along the coast-road to where it meets the Thaumaki -route at Lamia, beheld a different sight. Mount Oeta stretched its -wild massif there before him. At its western extremity (which he was -approaching) the range piles itself into a shapeless bulk, crowding -together its summits, which here in a surprising manner suddenly leap -up some six or seven thousand feet from the plain. As the system trends -eastward it sags down to a much lower level, but is there formidably -guarded by the black precipices of the Trachinian Cliffs. Eastward yet -it continues declining, until it is perhaps not three thousand feet -high, then rises again another two thousand. This is the part that was -called Kallidromos. Between the marshy shore of the Gulf and the broken -cliff-wall of the mountain runs the Pass. Towering over all, at a vast -distance rises the strange, enormous peak called Giona; while far to -the south may be descried the most famous mountain in the world. - -In the fierce sunlight of that sweltering day the King could not have -failed to mark on his side of the Pass, under the very highest peaks of -the range, a great black gash in the rocky barrier. As he approached -it revealed itself to be the gorge through which the tormented Asôpos -bores its narrow way between sheer walls of an altitude that disturbs -the mind. A little space beyond the gorge, on the farther side of the -Asôpos where it enters the Gulf, begins the Pass. The army was halted. -Xerxes sent forward a scout. - -The scout entered the Pass at a point where the sea barely left room -for the road between it and the mountain, which here, gradually -accentuating the gentle slope near the summit, comes down precipitously -in the last few hundred feet. He rode a mile and met no one. Then -the Pass, opening out a little towards the right, showed him the old -temples where the Amphiktyones, the “Dwellers Round,” used to meet -upon their sacred business. The road kept skirting the sea-marsh for a -little, then rose in a long slope. He made his way cautiously to the -summit. Arrived there, he all at once saw, thrust as it were into his -face (so near they seem) the monstrous precipices of Kallidromos, three -thousand feet high, all glistening at its eastern end with the whitish -deposit of those clear bluish-green sulphur springs which gave its name -to this famous place—the “Hot Gates,” _Thermopylae_. But the scout -had no eyes for this great vision, for he saw, where the road again -approaches the rocky wall, the red tunics of Spartan hoplites. - -What were they doing? Some of them were practising the use of their -weapons. Some were sitting on the ground and—yes—combing their long -hair! One of them must have made a jest, for the others broke out -laughing. The scout could not understand it at all. He counted them: -a ridiculous handful. There were in fact rather more of them than he -could see; an ancient wall across the Pass hid the rest. The scout rode -quietly back with his information. Now one reason why the Spartans -were combing their hair was this. It was customary among them to comb -the hair of the dead. - -They knew what was before them. Two of their spies had been captured -by Xerxes, who let them go after fully showing them his whole array. -The report of the spies was not likely to fall short of the facts as -a result of this policy. All the East was on the march! Besides the -Persians, Medes and Kissians, who formed the flower of the invading -army, were coming the Assyrians, one of the great conquering races -of history, distinguishable by their helmets of bronze and leathern -straps curiously interwoven, by their clubs studded with iron nails, -and by their linen breastplates. There were coming, the Bactrians with -their bows of cane; the Sakai wearing their pointed sheepskin caps -and armed with their native battleaxes; dark Indians in their cotton -garments, carrying their bows of bamboo and iron-tipped arrows. There -were hide-wrapped Caspians bearing sword and bow; Sarangians in dyed -raiment and booted to the knee; Paktyes, Outioi, Mykoi, Parikanioi.... -There were Arabians in flowing burnous who shot with the long bow; -Ethiopians in the pelts of leopards and lions bearing spears of -antelope’s horn and bossy maces and huge bows of split palm-wood with -little arrows tipped with agate, who when they went to battle coloured -half their black bodies with chalk and half with vermilion. (The -“Eastern Ethiopians” wore on their heads the scalps of horses with -the mane and ears attached; their shields were the backs of cranes.) -There were Libyans from North Africa in goatskin garments; and buskined -Paphlagonians in plaited headpieces. There were Phrygians, Armenians, -Lydians, Mysians. There were Thracians with their foxskin caps, their -deer-skin buskins, their long, many-coloured mantles. There were tribes -armed with little shields of cow-hide and hunting-spears, two for each -warrior; on their heads were bronze helmets and on the helmets the ears -and horns of an ox in bronze, their legs were bound in crimson puttees. -The Milyai were there, their cloaks fastened by brooches and with -leathern skull-caps on their heads; the Moschoi, whose helmets were -made of wood; the Tibarenes, the Makrônes, the Mossynoikoi; the Mares; -the Colchians with wooden helms and raw-hide shields; the Alarodians -and the Saspeires; the tribes from the islands of the Red Sea.... - -These (and more) were the infantry of the King. In addition there were -the cavalry and the fleet. - -There was the fine Persian cavalry. There were the Sagartians, who -fought with the lasso; Medes and Kissians; Indians, some riding on -steeds, some in chariots drawn by horses or by wild asses; Bactrians -and Sakai; the Libyan charioteers; Perikanians; Arabians on camels. - -To form the vast fleet came the famous mariners of Phoenicia and -Syrians of Palestine—helmeted men with linen breastplates and rimless -shields, throwers of the javelin. The Egyptians sent their navy, whose -men had defences of plaited work on their heads, and carried hollow -shields with enormous rims, and were armed with boarding-pikes and -poleaxes and great triangular daggers. The Cyprian contingent could -be recognized by the turbans of their “kings” and the felt hats of -the common sort. The Cilician seamen were there in woollen jerseys. -Pamphylians were there. The Lycian crews wore greaves and cuirasses, -and were armed with bows of cornel wood and reed arrows without -feathers, and with casting-spears; you knew them by the goatskins -floating from their shoulders, their plumed hats, their daggers and -crescent-shaped falchions. The Dorians of Asia were there, men of -Greek race; the subject Ionians, alas; some from the Greek isles; the -Aeolians; the “Hellespontians.” On board of every ship was a band of -fighting men. - -To defend the Pass there were three hundred Spartans; to be exact, 297, -all picked men and, that their race might not perish out of Sparta, -all fathers of sons. They were accompanied by their less heavily armed -attendants. There were 2,196 men from Arcadia, 400 from Corinth, 200 -from Phlius, 30 from Homeric Mycenae, now a ruinous little town, 700 -Thespians, 400 Thebans of doubtful loyalty, 1,000 Phocians, the whole -levy of the Opuntian Locrians; in all not eight thousand men. The whole -force was under the command of one of the two Spartan kings. You know -his name. - -The right flank of the Greeks rested upon the narrow seas between the -Malian coast and Euboea. The Athenian fleet was at Artemision guarding -the narrows against the vastly superior navy of the enemy. From the -heights above the road Leonidas could signal to the Athenian admiral. - -The King prepared to attack simultaneously by land and sea. While the -great army was making its way into Malis, his fleet was sailing along -the iron coast of Magnesia, where the sea breaks under the imminent -range of wooded Pelion. A squadron was detached to circumnavigate -Euboea and cut off the retreat of the Greek ships in the Straits. Next -morning everything would be ready for the concerted assault. The main -portion of the fleet would enter the Malian Gulf, while the other ships -were entering the “Hollows of Euboea.” Then Xerxes would rush at the -Pass. - -Only—in the sultry night following the long, hot day thunder began to -mutter along the heights of Pelion. It increased to a violent storm, -and the watchers on the Euboean mountains saw every now and then the -whole range lit up by vivid lightning. Then the wind—the “Hellesponter” -from the north-east—rose to so great a fury that the sea was quickly -all in a turmoil. For three days the tempest raged, for three nights -the bale-fires of the Greeks tossed their red beards in the wind. -Great numbers of Persian ships were cast away upon the rocks about -Cape Sepias. The squadron sent to round Kaphareus was wrecked in the -Hollows. So rich a treasure was lost that a farmer near Sepias became -the wealthiest Greek of his time by merely picking up what was washed -upon the beach. And for these three days Xerxes must mark time before -the Pass. - -On the fourth day the Persian fleet succeeded in entering the Pagasaean -Gulf. Then Xerxes ordered the attack. His Persian bodyguard, the ten -thousand “Immortals” who were his best troops, were held in reserve. -Meanwhile the Medes and Kissians, admirable infantry to whom victory -had long become a habit, were sent forward to wear down the Spartan -resistance. They were dressed in close-fitting leathern garments, in -trousers (which surprised the Greeks) and curious fez-like caps, of -soft felt or cotton, projecting in a kind of drooping horn at the -front. (But the Kissians wore turbans.) They had sleeved tunics of many -colours and cuirasses of bronzen scales like the skin of some great -fish. They had wicker shields from behind which they cast their long -spears (but the Greek spears were longer) and shot the reed arrows -from their little bows (but the Greek bows were smaller). At their -right sides swung from their girdles their foot-long stabbing swords. -Their emperor, throned on a golden chair with silver feet, watched -them advance to the assault. On his head was a stiff upright fez, on -his feet saffron-tinted slippers. His mantle was purple, purple his -trousers and flowing robe embroidered in white with the sacred hawks of -his god Ahuramazda. He was girt with a golden zone, from which was hung -his Persian sword thickly set with precious stones. - -The Medes and Kissians attacked with fury. Against these lighter-armed -troops the Spartans with their metal panoply and great heavy spears -would have been at a terrible disadvantage. It was vital for them to -keep the enemy engaged at close quarters. The tactics of Leonidas -therefore were designed to effect this. His men made short rushes into -the thick of the foe; feigned flights; reformed again and renewed -the charge. They did this again and again. What discipline! In that -narrow space, fifty feet wide, the ponderous Lacedaemonian spears -of the Greek vanguard went through the wicker shields and the scale -armour of the Barbarians like papyrus, while the points of the Median -lances bent or broke against the solid buckler and breastplate of the -Spartan hoplite. Leonidas hardly lost a man. Still the enemy came on, -yelling; their dead choked the mouth of the Pass. Hour after hour in -that late-summer weather the fight raged on. Loaded with their armour, -trusting much to mere superiority of physical strength as they thrust -back the assailants with their shields, all that time the Spartans kept -up these violent rushing tactics. And then Xerxes sent the “Immortals” -at them. - -These men were perfectly fresh. They greatly outnumbered, not merely -the Spartans, but all the defenders of the Pass together. They were the -flower of one of the great conquering armies of history. The Spartans -lifted their shields again and renewed the furious fighting. They made -a dreadful slaughter of the Immortals, till at the long day’s end the -Persians fell back, beaten and baffled. The Spartans dropped on the -ground and slept like dead men. - -Next day was a repetition of the day before. - -Xerxes, or his generals, grew anxious. The closest co-operation with -the fleet was necessary for the victualling of so numerous a host; and -the fleet had failed to penetrate into the Malian Gulf. And the Pass -was not yet forced. - -At this critical hour a man craved audience of the King. He was a -Malian Greek, a native of the region, and he knew all Oeta like one of -its foxes. (Long years after, when a price was on his head, something -drew him back to the scene of his immortal crime, to be slain there by -no public avenger.) This fellow offered, for gold, to lead the Persians -by a path he knew, which would take them by a long, steep, circuitous -climb and descent to a position in the rear of the men in the Pass. -The offer was accepted eagerly. - -Hydarnes, commanding the Immortals, set out under the guidance of the -traitor. As they left the Persian encampment darkness was falling and -lamps began here and there to glimmer. The guide led the way into the -wild ravine of the Asôpos. If outside the light was failing, here it -was already night. Far above their heads the men could see a star or -two shining between the narrow slit where the sheer walls of the gorge -seemed almost to meet, so high they were. The path, by which a laden -mule could with difficulty pass, followed the course of the rushing -stream over gravel and between great boulders. It was part of the old -hill-road to Delphi and well known to pilgrims and bandits. It had an -evil reputation. “It hath ever been put to an ill use by the Malians.” -(We can imagine to what sort of use our Malian had been wont to put -it.) Moreover the Asôpos would sometimes rise suddenly and come roaring -in spate down the gulley, flooding over the road. A sinister path. - -For about three miles the Persians in Indian file threaded the ravine, -which then opened out into a valley, up the slope of which they toiled, -aided by their spears, along a track getting ever rougher and steeper. -Sometimes the way would conduct them through a pitchy wood of firs. Now -and again a man would stumble in the thick scrub or over a projecting -edge of rock. Superstitious terror, begotten of the darkness upon -such hills in the minds of those worshippers of Ahriman, troubled -and silenced them. They emerged at last on a kind of rocky pavement. -Then they descended a ravine and climbed the opposing slope. As they -climbed the darkness lifted a little; a faint glimmer came from their -golden bangles and the pomegranates of gold and silver on the butt of -their spears. When they reached the summit of the path called Anopaia -which they had so long been following, the dawn was clear behind the -acute peak of Mount Saromata. - -Anopaia was not unknown to the defenders of the Pass, and Leonidas -had detached his Phocian contingent to guard it. In the silence of -that windless night, in the hour before the break of day, the Phocian -outposts heard a mysterious sound—a sort of light, dry, continuous -roar, gradually growing nearer and louder. It was the Persians passing -through an oak wood and dispersing with their feet the fallen leaves -of many autumns. Suddenly the men appeared in the open. The Phocians -were taken by surprise. Under a shower of arrows they retreated upon -a little fort crowning a height about half a mile away. There they -awaited the attack of Hydarnes. But he, neglecting these Phocians, -pressed on along the path, which now began to descend, very steep and -narrow. In no long time he would be on the road behind Leonidas. The -Pass was turned. - -While it was yet night, deserters had come to the Greeks with news of -the march across the mountain. Soon after scouts came running down -from the heights confirming the tale. Tradition says that Leonidas in -so desperate a case bade his allies depart and save themselves; as -for himself and his men, their orders were to defend the Pass to the -utmost. It has, however, been recently suggested that the contingents -which withdrew went to meet Hydarnes. If such was their purpose, either -they came too late, or missed the enemy, or like the Phocians shrank -from the conflict with the odds so heavy against them. At any rate -they now pass out of the story. They were all the Greek forces save -the Lacedaemonians, the thousand who must have composed nearly the -whole fighting power of Thespiai, and four hundred Thebans. Of these -the Thebans, it is said, were retained by Leonidas as hostages, their -city being tainted already with suspicion of disloyalty. Yet they may -have been true men. But the Thespians stayed willingly. Even when it -was known that Hydarnes could not be stopped, they chose to stay. -They had no traditional code of military honour like the Spartans; -their proportionate stake was twenty times greater. “Their leader was -Demophilos the son of Diadromês, their bravest man was Dithyrambos the -son of Harmatidas.” - -It was full daylight when Xerxes according to arrangement attacked. The -Greeks, who hitherto had lined up behind the old wall which the Persian -scout had seen drawn along the ridge of a mound within the narrowest -part of the Pass, now, knowing the end was come, issued forth into the -broader space beyond. Then followed a fight which men who only read of -it never forget. The Barbarians came on in wave upon wave; the Greeks -slew and slew. They could see the Persian officers lashing on their men -with whips to the assault. Now and again one of themselves would fall -with a rattle of bronze. But the enemy fell in heaps. Many were thrust -into the sea and drowned; still more were trampled to death beneath -the feet of their fellows. Two brothers of Xerxes were slain. - -Then Leonidas fell. - -The Spartans gathered about their king and fought to rescue the body. -By this time their spears were broken, and they were fighting with -their swords. One of the two men who had been left behind at the base -in the last stages of ophthalmia appeared, led by his servant. The -helot turned the face of his master towards the enemy and fled. The -blind man stumbled forward, striking wildly, until he was killed. Four -times the Barbarians were driven back, and the body of Leonidas was -saved. - -Word came that the Immortals were on the road behind them. Therefore -the Greeks changed their plan of battle and retreated to the narrower -portion of the Pass; all but the Thebans, who surrendered to the foe. -The men of Sparta and Thespiai fought their way back to the mound and -behind the stone wall across the mound, and there made their final -stand. With cries the Barbarians swarmed about them on front and flank -and rear. In a moment the wall was down. Such of the Greeks as still -had swords kept using them. When their swords were gone, they fought -with their bare hands; and died at last rending their enemies’ flesh -like wolves with their teeth. - -Thus, and not more easily, did Xerxes win through the Pass. - - - - -III - -THE ADVENTURERS - - -The Greek world, like the English, was largely the creation of -adventurous men. To follow in their track would be in itself a literary -adventure of the most fascinating and entirely relevant to our subject, -the conflict of the Greek and the Barbarian. Unfortunately for our -delight the adventurers did not often write down their experiences; or -if they did, their accounts have for the most part disappeared. There -was a certain Pytheas of Massalia, that is Marseille, who about the -time of Alexander the Great sailed up the eastern coast of England and -discovered Scotland, and wrote a book about it afterwards. We should -like to read that book; if only to see what he said about Scotland. -But his account is lost, and we should hardly know about him at -all, if it were not for a brief reference in the geographer Strabo. -Pytheas seems to have got as far as the Orkney or even the Shetland -Islands—one German sends him on a Polar expedition—and had something -to say about a mysterious “Thule.” He remarked on the extraordinary -length of the summer days in these northern latitudes, thereby -provoking his fellow-countrymen to regard him as “extremely mendacious” -(Ψευδίστατος). - -Long before the time of Pytheas one Skylax of Karyanda in Asia Minor—a -Greek or half-Greek—was sent by King Darius to explore the mouths of -the Indus, that “second of all the rivers which produced crocodiles.” -He sailed down a river “towards the dawn and the risings of the sun -into the sea and through the sea westward,” circumnavigating India. -What river was that? Whatever river it was, he accomplished a wonderful -thing. Skylax also wrote a book, apparently, on this voyage. There -exist fragments of his _Voyage Round the Parts Without the Pillars of -Heracles_. His Indian narrative might be the worst written volume in -the world, but it could not fail to excite the imagination in every -sentence. Sailing along a river of crocodiles in a Greek galley in the -reign of Darius the King! - -Skylax was an Ionian or an Ionized Carian; and this reminds us that -Ionia produced the first adventurers. There went to the making of that -colony a great commingling of races. The first settlers may actually -have come from Crete bringing with them what they could of the dazzling -Cretan civilization. Many certainly came from Greece, which had enjoyed -a civilization derived from Crete. No doubt the colonists had to accept -help from any quarter and adopt dubious fugitives from Dorianized -Hellas and “natives”—Carians, Lydians, Leleges and the like, who had -learned to speak a kind of Greek—and marry native wives, who had not -even learned to do that, and who would not eat with their husbands, and -persisted in a number of other irrational and unsympathetic customs. -But it is possible to believe that some memory of the ancient lore -was long preserved, and in particular a knowledge of the sea-routes -the Cretan ships had followed. I have argued elsewhere in this sense, -venturing the suggestion that the Greek colonial empire (which started -from Ionia) began in an effort to re-establish the great trading system -which had its centre in early Crete. Excavators keep on discovering -signs of Cretan—“Minoan” or “Mycenaean”—influences in the very places -to which the Greek colonists came; and it looks as if they came because -they knew the way. - -The Ionian cities were nearly all maritime, and this in the fullest -sense that the word suggests. The relation of Miletus, for example, -to the Aegean did not less effectually mould the character of that -state than the Adriatic moulded Venice. Therefore to understand -Ionia we must approach her from the sea. She early discovered that -this was her element. From Miletus harbour, from the shell-reddened -beach of Erythrae, from Samos, from Chios, from Phokaia her ships -ventured yearly farther, seeking (if we are right) to recover the old -trade-connexions so long severed by the Invasions; to recover the old -and, if possible, to pick up new. Ionian seamen became famous for their -skill and hardihood. Not merely in the Aegean, but also in remoter -waters, it soon became a common thing to see a little wooden many-oared -vessel, a great eye painted on either bow (to let her see her way, of -course), a touch of rouge on her cheeks; her sail set or her rowers -rowing to the music of one that played on a flute. Her burden would -be (for a guess) wine and olive oil and black-figured pottery, with -a quantity of the glittering rubbish with which traders have always -cheated natives—for the chief an embroidered belt or a woollen garment -dyed as red as possible, for his wife a bronze mirror or a necklace of -glorious beads. Having reached her destination and done good business, -the ship would leave behind one or two of the crew with instructions -to collect and store the products of the country against her return -next spring. If all went well and the natives did not suddenly attack -and exterminate the foreign devils in their midst, the storehouses -would increase and the settlers with them, until at last the factory -seemed important enough to undergo the solemn ceremony of “foundation” -(_Oikismos_) and to be called a “colony” (_Apoikia_). Normally the -“foundation” meant a great influx of new settlers, and from it the -colony dated its official existence. But it might have had a struggling -unofficial existence quite a long time before. More likely than not it -had. These settlements at the sea-ends of trade-routes are immemorially -old. - -Let me quote an anecdote from Herodotus. He is engaged in relating the -saga of the founding of Cyrene by certain men of the Aegean island -Thera, and at a point in his narrative he says of these Theraeans: - -_In their wanderings they came to Crete and namely to the city of -Itanos. There they meet a man that was a seller of purple, whose name -was Korôbios; who said that he had been caught in a tempest and carried -to Libya, even to the island of Platea, which is part of Libya. This -man they persuaded to go with them to Thera, giving him money; and -from Thera men sailed to view the land, being few in number as for the -first time. But when Korôbios had guided them to this Isle Platea, they -leave him there with provision for certain months, and themselves set -sail with all speed to report concerning the island to the Theraeans. -Now when they did not return in the time agreed upon, Korôbios was -left with nothing. But then a ship of Samos that was voyaging to -Egypt put in at this Platea; and when the master of the ship, whose -name was Kolaios, and the other Samians had heard the whole tale from -Korôbios, they left him a year’s food, and themselves put off from the -isle, being eager to make Egypt. However, they were driven from their -course by a wind out of the east. And passing out through the Pillars -of Heracles they arrived at Tartessos, the wind never ceasing to blow. -Thus were they marvellously led to this market, which at that time was -untouched, so that these men won the greatest profit in merchandise of -all Greeks of whom we surely know._ - -It would be easy to write a long commentary on that story. I might -invite the reader to share my admiration of an art which makes you see -so much in so little. You see the lonely man on his desert island of -sand and scrub, with no companions but the wild goats (if goats there -were) and the sea-birds fishing among the breakers. You picture his -despair as he watches his store of victuals coming to an end, with no -sign of his returning shipmates; his extravagant joy when he descries -a Greek vessel; the astonishment of the strangers at the sight of -this Crusoe; his bursting eagerness to tell them “the whole tale”; -the departure of the Samians and the belated reappearance of the -Theraeans; the face of Korôbios as he goes down to meet them, thinking -of the things he will say. But the point I wish more particularly to -make is the significance for history of the story. Desiring to learn -what they can of the commercial possibilities of the Cyrenaica, the -Theraeans come to Crete, and not only to Crete, but to that part of -it where there still dwelt in the eastern corner of the long island a -remnant of Eteocretans, that is “Cretans of Pure Blood,” descendants of -the “Minoan” Cretans, who had been such famous traders and mariners. -Itanos, where Korôbios lived, was an Eteocretan town. It has been -excavated and has revealed material evidence of “Minoan” culture. -That the ships of Minos visited Cyrenaica any one would conjecture -who looked at a map. Ethnographers and archæologists adduce arguments -of their own pointing to the same conclusion. Where the Greek town of -Cyrene later grew up was the end of a caravan-route of unknown age -from the Oasis of Siwah to the Mediterranean. Was not trade done there -by the Minoans long before it was reconstituted as a “colony” of the -Theraeans? Might not some knowledge of this African market and the -sea-road thither linger on among the ruined and hunted Eteocretans? - -In Herodotus’ account Korôbios appears to know only Platea, and it -only by accident. That Eteocretan then must have felt no end of a -surprise when the Samians came so opportunely to his help in the -island he had “discovered.” Platea is supposed to be the little island -of Bomba, which gives its name to the Gulf of Bomba. The Theraeans -stayed in Platea a matter of two years. Then, urged by want and the -Delphian Oracle, they landed in a body on the mainland opposite the -island. It was a beautiful spot called Aziris, shut in by wooded -hills and nourished by a river. Here they lived six years. Then at -last, guided by friendly Libyans—are not those “friendlies” somewhat -significant?—they pushed on to the site of what came to be known as -the city of Cyrene. Korôbios has dropped out of the story, and the -whole business looks like a bit of “peaceful penetration” into unknown -country. That is the impression Herodotus wishes to convey. But it is a -wrong impression, for somebody did know a remarkable amount about the -Cyrenaica. The god of Delphi knew. It is he who is always urging the -reluctant Theraeans from stage to stage of their advance. Herodotus, -less perhaps from pious than artistic motives, emphasizes the contrast -of the divine foreknowledge with the timid ignorance of men; it makes -everything more dramatic. But we need not suffer ourselves to be -imposed upon. For the god we substitute his ministers. The priests at -Delphi had in their possession some previous information about the -Libyan coast. They made a point of collecting such information. Where -they got this particular piece of knowledge we do not know; but the -old Homeric hymn tells how in ancient days a ship sailed from Crete to -establish the oracle at Delphi. - -But we have not yet exhausted the interest of that brief excerpt from -Herodotus. Our thoughts travel with those Samians who, making for -Egypt, were driven by contrary winds farther and farther west, until -at last they passed the Straits of Gibraltar and found a superb new -market at Tartessos just outside. It has been generally believed by -scholars that Tartessos is the Tarshish with which, as we read in the -Old Testament, King Hiram of Tyre exchanged merchandise; but of this -there is now some doubt. Tartessos stood on an island at the mouth of -the Guadalquivir, and was doubtless known to the Phoenicians before -the Samians got there. It is surely of it that Arnold is thinking at -the end of that long simile which concludes _The Scholar Gipsy_, when -he tells how the Phoenician trader after passing the Atlantic straits -reaches a place where _through sheets of foam, shy traffickers, the -dark Iberians come_. The discovery of the Atlantic made a profound -impression on the Greek mind. Pious and conservative spirits, like -Pindar, thought it wicked to venture beyond the Straits; and indeed, it -was long before any one did venture far, because, for one thing, the -sort of craft which was suited to the tideless Mediterranean could not -face so well the different conditions of the ocean. For another thing, -the Phoenicians had got a monopoly of the British trade. - -We do not know how the Samians lost the market of Tartessos, but -in later times we find their fellow-countrymen the Phokaians in -possession. This privilege was the result of the friendliness of -Arganthonios, King of the Tartessians, who reigned eighty years and -lived to be “quite a hundred and twenty.” The Phokaians perhaps -deserved their luck, for they were the most daring of all the Ionian -navigators. Some of their adventures would doubtless make good reading. -The Phokaians also attract us because of all the Ionians they loved -their freedom most. When Harpagos, the general of Cyrus, besieged them, -rather than live even in a nominal subjection to the Persian, they -launched their famous fifty-oared ships, and embarking their wives and -children and furniture sailed to Chios. However, the Chians could not -help them, so they decided to go and settle in distant Corsica. But -first they made a sudden descent on their city and slew the Persian -garrison which had occupied it. _Then, when this had been done by them, -they made strong curses against any who should remain behind of their -company. And beside the curses they sank also a lump of iron and sware -an oath that they would not return to Phokaia until this lump came up -to light again. But as they were setting out for Corsica, more than -half the people of the town were seized with longing and pity for their -city and the familiar places of the land, and broke their oath and -sailed back to Phokaia_. The remnant reached Corsica, where they dwelt -five years. Then they fought a disastrous drawn battle with a fleet of -Etruscans and Carthaginians. Once more they took on board their wives -and children and property and sailed away, this time to Reggio, from -which they set out again and “founded that city in the Oenotrian land -which is now called Hyele,” better known as Elea, a little south of -Paestum. - -Half a century later, when the Ionians revolted against the Persian -rule, they chose for their admiral a Phokaian called Dionysios. Later -they regretted their choice, considering Dionysios to be altogether too -much of a disciplinarian, and would no longer take his orders. Disunion -broke out among them, and they were entirely defeated at the Battle of -Ladê. What did Dionysios do? He captured three of the enemy’s vessels, -and then, to elude pursuit, sailed into the Levant, where he sank a -number of trading-barks and collected a great treasure. Then he made -for Sicily, where he “set up as a buccaneer,” sparing Greek ships of -course, but attacking Etruscans and Carthaginians. I suppose it _was_ -piracy, but at least it was Drake’s sort, not Captain Kidd’s. We may -hope he came to a good end. - -There was a contemporary of Dionysios who is an even more significant -figure for our understanding of Hellenism. This is Demokêdês of Kroton. -The political background of the story of Demokêdês, as it is told by -Herodotus, does not quite harmonize with the rest of his history, for -it implies a policy towards Greece which Persia did not adopt till -later. But otherwise there is no reason to doubt that things happened -much as Herodotus says. Demokêdês was born at Kroton in the extreme -south of Italy. It is a town famous in the history of medicine. We do -not know how the medical school there originated. The earliest seems to -have been in the Aegean island of Kos in connexion with the worship of -Asklepios (Aesculapius), the God of Healing. Whether the physicians of -Kroton had an independent tradition or not, they soon became famous. -The first great name is Demokêdês. That he had a teacher we know from -his words to Darius, but he has not mentioned his teacher’s name. The -fact is that Demokêdês was the first doctor whose personality refused -to be merged in the guild to which he doubtless belonged. At Kos the -guild was so powerful (it had a semi-religious character there) that it -was not until the Peloponnesian War that the world heard the personal -name of one of its members—Hippokratês. Thus Demokêdês corresponds to -Archilochus. I am about to tell again the story of a man of genius. - -_At Kroton he was always quarrelling with his father, who had a -violent temper. When he could not stand him any longer, he left him -and went to Aegina. Settling down there, he in his first year proved -his superiority to all the other doctors, although he lacked an outfit -and had none of the instruments of his art. And in his second year the -Aeginetans hired him for a talent paid by the State, in the third year -the Athenian people hired him for a hundred silver pounds, and in the -fourth year Polykratês_—tyrant of Samos—_for two talents_. - -The instant recognition of Demokêdês is not only an indication of his -genius, it shows a remarkable degree of enlightenment on the part of -contemporary Greek governments. More credit belongs, no doubt, to the -Aeginetans and Athenians than to Polykratês, who evidently retained -the services of Demokêdês for the court at Samos. Yet Polykratês too -was enlightened. Under his absolute rule or “tyranny,” which is the -Greek technical term, the Ionian island of Samos had become the most -splendid state in Greece. _Not counting those who became tyrants of the -Syracusans, there is none of all the other Greek tyrants who is fit to -be compared to Polykratês in magnificence_. This position was won by -sea-power. _Polykratês is the first of those Greeks we know who aimed -at the Thalassocracy_ (the command of the sea) _save Minos the Knossian -and any one else who acquired the rule of the sea before Minos_—an -interesting remark in view of the theory that the Ionians definitely -aimed at reconstituting the maritime empire of prehistoric Crete. This -glittering tyrant suffered at last a reversal of fortune so strange -and complete that it became a proverbial instance of the hand of God -in human affairs. He was enticed to the Asiatic continent opposite his -island by the Persian grandee Oroitês, and there treacherously seized -and with nameless tortures put to death. His _entourage_ became the -slaves of Oroitês. One of them was Demokêdês. - -Some years afterwards King Darius, who had in the meanwhile succeeded -to the throne, was flung from his horse while hunting and dislocated -his ankle. He entrusted his injury to the court-physicians at Susa, -who were Egyptians, Egypt being the home of a very ancient body of -medical lore transmitted from father to son. But the Egyptian doctors -_by wrenching and forcing the foot made the evil greater. For days -seven and seven nights Darius was possessed by sleeplessness by reason -of the malady which beset him, but on the eighth day, when the King -was in poor case, one who had caught a report in Sardis before he came -to Susa of the skill of Demokêdês of Kroton made report to Darius; -and he commanded that he be brought before him with all speed. And -when they had discovered him among the slaves of Oroitês in some -neglected corner, they brought him into the presence dragging his -fetters and clothed in rags. And as he stood there Darius asked him -if he understood the art; but he would not admit it, fearing that, if -he discovered himself, he would lose Hellas altogether. But Darius -perceived clearly that he understood the art, but was feigning, and he -commanded the men who had brought him to bring forth pricks and goads. -Then indeed Demokêdês discovers himself, saying that he had no accurate -knowledge of the matter, but having been the disciple of a leech he had -some poor knowledge of that skill. Afterwards when he had entrusted -himself to him, by using Greek remedies and applying mild cures after -the violent he caused him to get sleep, and in short space restored -him to sound health, that no longer hoped to have his foot whole -again. For a gift thereafter Darius bestows on him two pairs of golden -fetters; but Demokêdês asked him if he thus doubled his misfortunes for -a gift, just because he had made him whole. Darius was pleased at the -speech and sends him to his wives. And the eunuchs who led him there -said to the women that this was the man who had given back his life -to the King. And each of them, plunging a cup in the chest of gold, -gave Demokêdês so rich a gift that his servant, whose name was Skiton, -following him gathered up the nobles that fell from the cups, and a -great deal of gold was amassed by him._ - -_Then Demokêdês having healed Darius had a very great house at Susa, -and sat at table with the King, and had all else save one thing only, -namely his return to the Greeks. And the Egyptian physicians, who -formerly tended the King, when they were about to be impaled on the -stake for that they had been overcome by a Greek physician, he both -saved by his prayers to the King, and also rescued a prophet of Elis, -who had followed Polykratês, and was neglected among the slaves. And -Demokêdês was a very great matter with the King._ - -Herodotus is so interesting that it is almost inexcusable to interrupt -him; but the essayist has to study brevity. I will therefore in the -main summarize what follows, indulging myself in only one remark (which -has probably already occurred to my reader) that of course the story -has passed through the popular imagination, and that the historian has -to admire, not so much the caprice of destiny, as the genius of an -indomitable personality. - -Shortly after the accident to Darius, his queen Atossa was afflicted -by an ulcer on her breast. Atossa was an unspeakably great lady. She -was the daughter of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire. -She had been the wife of the son and successor of Cyrus, her brother -Cambyses. Now she was the wife of Darius and the mother of Xerxes. -Darius himself may well have been a little in awe of her. She outlived -him, if we may believe Aeschylus, who has introduced her into his play -of _The Persians_, uttering magnificent stately lamentations over the -ruin of the Persian cause in Hellas, and evoking from his royal tomb -the ghost of the “god” Darius. Such was the half-divine woman, who -was to help Demokêdês back to the Greece for which he felt so deep a -nostalgia. A single touch of Herodotus makes her as real as any patient -you have seen in a hospital. _So long as the thing was comparatively -little she concealed it and being ashamed of it did not tell anybody, -but when she was seriously ill she sent for Demokêdês._ He cured her -after extracting a promise, which she fulfilled in the following -manner. She persuaded Darius to plan an expedition against Greece and, -as an aid to this, to send Demokêdês to make a report on his native -country. The King then summoned fifteen Persians of distinction and -instructed them to accompany Demokêdês on the projected voyage along -the coasts of Hellas in quest of intelligence, commanding them on -no account to let Demokêdês escape. Next he sent for his healer and -explained the nature of the employment to which he designed to put -him. He bade Demokêdês take all his movable possessions with him as -presents for his father and his brethren, promising to requite him -many times over. Demokêdês declined this offer, that he might not -betray himself by too manifest an eagerness. He did accept the gift -of a merchant-vessel freighted with “goods of every sort” for his -“brethren”—and for his father too, we may hope, that irascible old man. - -The expedition went first to Sidon, where they fitted out two triremes -and the merchant-vessel freighted with goods of every sort, then sailed -for Greece. They touched at various points of the coast, spying out -the land and writing down an account of what seemed most remarkable. -In this way they came at last to Tarentum in Italy. There Demokêdês -got in touch with Aristophilidês, whom Herodotus calls the “king” -of the Tarentines. Aristophilidês removed the steering-apparatus of -the foreign ships, which prevented their sailing, and imprisoned the -crew as spies; while Demokêdês took advantage of their predicament to -escape to his native Kroton. Then Aristophilidês released the Persians -and gave them back their rudders. They at once sailed in pursuit of -their prisoner, and found him at Kroton “holding the attention of the -Agora,” which was the centre of Greek city-life. There they _sought -to lay hands on him. And some of the men of Kroton, fearing the might -of Persia, would have yielded him up, but others gat hold of him on -their part, and began to beat the Persians with their staves; who made -profession in such words as these: “Ye men of Kroton, consider what ye -do; ye are taking from us a man that is a runaway slave of the King. -How then shall King Darius be content to have received this insult? And -how shall your deeds serve you well, if ye drive us away? Against what -city shall we march before this, and what city shall we try to enslave -before yours?” So spake they, but they did not indeed persuade the -men of Kroton, but had Demokêdês rescued out of their hands, and the -merchantman, which they had brought with them, taken away from them, -and so sailed back to Asia; neither did they seek any further knowledge -concerning Greece, though this was the object of their coming; for they -had lost their guide. Now as they were putting forth, Demokêdês charged -them with no message but this, bidding them tell Darius “Demokêdês is -married to Milo’s daughter.” For the name of Milo the wrestler was of -great account with the King. I think that Demokêdês hurried on this -marriage, paying a great sum, in order that Darius might see clearly -that in his own country also Demokêdês was a great man._ - -The explanation of Herodotus is convincing. Demokêdês was suffering -from repressed egotism. He had had wealth and consideration in Persia, -but he could not breathe its spiritual atmosphere. It is pleasant to -reflect that in the court of Susa he may have regretted his father. -To the Hellenic mind it was a chief curse in Barbarism that it swamps -the individual. How shall a man possess his soul in a land where the -slavery of all but One is felt to be a _natural_ state of things? So -in ancient Greece it was above all else personality that counted; -freedom was a merely external matter unless it meant the liberation -of the spirit, the development (as our jargon expresses it) of -personality—although this development realized itself most effectively -in the service of the State. Greek history is starred with brilliant -idiosyncrasies—Demokêdês being one, whom we may now leave triumphant -there at home in his flaming Persian robe, “holding the attention of -the Agora” with his amazing story. - -It would be too strange an omission to say nothing about that which, -before Alexander’s tremendous march, is the most familiar of all Greek -adventures among the Barbarians; I mean that suffered and described by -Xenophon the Athenian. Again we witness the triumph of a personality, -although that is not the important thing about the Retreat of the Ten -Thousand. The important thing is the triumph of the Greek character in -a body of rascal mercenaries. The personality of the young gentleman -who gained so much authority with them found its opportunity in a -crisis among ignorant men, but it never became a great one. To the -last it was curiously immature. Perhaps it would be an apter metaphor -to say of Xenophon what some one said of Pitt—“He did not grow, he was -cast.” His natural tastes were very much those of a more generous and -incomparably greater man, Sir Walter Scott. They were the tastes of a -country gentleman with a love of literature and history, especially -with a flavour of romance. The _Cyropaedia_ is the false dawn of the -Historic Novel. Both Xenophon and Sir Walter wanted, probably more -than anything else, to be soldiers. But Xenophon wanted to be too many -things. Before his mind floated constantly the image of the “Archical -Man”—the ideal Ruler—who had long exercised the thoughts of Greek -philosophers, of none perhaps more than Socrates, whose pupil Xenophon -professed himself to be. One day it seems to have struck him: Might not -he, Xenophon, be the Archical Man? He may not have framed the thought -so precisely, for it is of the kind that even youth does not always -admit to itself; but the thought was there. It was his illusion. He -was not born to command, he was born to write. He did not dominate, he -was always more or less under the influence of some one else—Socrates, -Cyrus, Agesilaos. He was an incredibly poor judge of men and the -movement of affairs. But put a pen in his hands and you have, if not -one of the great masters, yet a master in a certain vivid manner of his -own. - -He can have been little more than a boy when Fate sent him his -incomparable adventure. The King of Persia had died leaving two sons, -his heir and successor Artaxerxes, and Cyrus, the favourite of their -dreadful mother, the dowager queen Parysatis. The younger son began -secretly to collect and mobilize an army in Asia Minor, where authority -had been delegated to him, intending to march without declaration of -war against Artaxerxes. Xenophon was introduced to Cyrus by Proxenos -of Boeotia, who indeed had induced him to visit Sardis. Proxenos, says -his friend, _thought it was sufficient for being and being thought an -Archical Man to praise him who did well and to refrain from praising -the wrongdoer. Consequently the nice people among those who came into -contact with him liked him, but he suffered from the designs of the -unscrupulous, who felt that they could do what they pleased with him_. -Xenophon appears to have fallen immediately under the spell of Cyrus, -who undoubtedly has somewhat the air of a man of genius and who, as -a scion of the Achaemenids, would in any case have inspired in him -much the same feeling as a Bourbon inspired in Sir Walter Scott. In -the army of invasion was a large body of Greek mercenary soldiers, -chiefly from the Peloponnese, under the command of a hard-bitten -Spartan _condottiere_ called Klearchos. Xenophon joined this force as -a volunteer. He believed at the time, as did Proxenos, who was one of -the “generals” (_Strategi_), and indeed everybody except Klearchos, -who was in the secret, that the expedition was preparing against the -Pisidians, hill-tribes delighting in brigandage. It was not until the -army had passed the “Cilician Gates” of the Taurus and had reached -Tarsus that the Greek troops found confirmed their growing suspicion -that they were being led against the King. They protested and refused -to go farther. Their discontent was allayed with difficulty, but it -is clear that Xenophon had already made up his mind. He went with the -rest. They threaded the “Syrian Gates” of the range called Amanus, and -struck across the desert. Having reached the Euphrates, they followed -the river into “Babylonia,” what we call Mesopotamia, as far as Kunaxa, -in the region where the two great streams begin to open out again after -coming so close in the neighbourhood of Bagdad. At Kunaxa the Great -King met them with an enormous army. A huge disorderly battle followed, -in which the Greeks very easily dispersed everything that met them—but -Cyrus was slain. - -What were they to do? The whole purpose of the campaign—to put Cyrus -on the throne—had vanished. It was clear to them that they could not -rely on the Barbarians who had marched with them the two thousand miles -from Sardis. Nothing to do but retreat. But retreat by the way they -had come was no longer possible, since they had eaten up the country. -It remained to follow the line of the Tigris up into Armenia, and so -cross—in the winter—that savage plateau, in the hope of coming at last -to Trebizond, away there on the Euxine, all those leagues away. - -So they set out. It was the first requirement of their plan to cross -Babylonia to the Tigris. Breaking up their camp at dawn, they were -alarmed in the afternoon by the sight of horses, which at first they -took for Persian cavalry, but soon discovered to be baggage-animals out -at grass. That in itself was surprising—it seemed the King’s encampment -must be near. They continued their advance, and at sunset the vanguard -entered and took up their quarters in some deserted and pillaged huts, -while the rest of the army, with much shouting in the darkness, found -such accommodation outside as they could. That was a night of panics. -An inexplicable uproar broke out in camp, which Klearchos allayed by -proclaiming a reward for information against “the individual who let -loose the donkey.” The enemy, as appeared in the morning, had been -equally nervous. At least he had vanished from the neighbourhood. -Moreover heralds now appeared offering a truce from the King. The offer -was accepted under promise that the Greek army would be provisioned. -So the host set out again under the guidance of the King’s messengers -through a country all criss-crossed by irrigation-ditches, looking -suspiciously full of water for the time of year. However, they soon -reached some villages full of food and drink. There were some dates ... -“like amber,” says Xenophon reminiscently. (He had got no breakfast -that morning.) Here also they tasted “the brain of the palm”—the -“cabbage”—delicious, but it gave them a headache. - -In these excellent villages they remained three days and continued -negotiations with Tissaphernes, the subtle representative of the King. -As a result of the conversations they moved on again under the satrap’s -direction as far as the towering “Wall of Media,” which crossed the -land in a diagonal line towards Babylon, being twenty feet broad, a -hundred feet high, and twenty leagues long. From the Wall they marched -between twenty and thirty miles, crossing canals and ditches, until -they struck the Tigris at Sittakê, where they encamped in a “paradise” -full of trees. At the bridge of Sittakê met the roads to Lydia and -Armenia, to Susa and Ecbatana (Hamadan). Next morning the Greeks -crossed without opposition and advanced as far as a considerable stream -traversed by a bridge at “Opis,” near which populous centre they found -themselves observed by a large force of Asiatics. Thereupon Klearchos -led his men past in column two abreast, now marching and now halting -them. Every time the vanguard stopped the order to halt went echoing -down the line, and had barely died out in the distance when the advance -was resumed; _so that even to the Greeks themselves the army seemed -enormous, while the Persian looking on was astounded_. - -They were now in “Media”—really Assyria—a very different country from -the “Garden of Eden” they had left on the other side of the Tigris. -They marched and marched, and at last reached a cluster of dwellings -called the “Villages of Parysatis.” Then another twenty leagues to -the town of Kainai and the confluence of the Tigris with the Greater -Zab, on whose bank they rested three days. All this time the enemy, -although never attacking, had been following in a watchful cloud. -Klearchos therefore sought an interview with Tissaphernes to discover -his intentions. The satrap responded with Oriental courtesy and invited -to a discussion at his headquarters Klearchos and the other generals, -namely Proxenos, Menon, Agias and Socrates the Achaean. With grave -misgivings, relying on the faith of the Barbarian, they entered the -Persian camp. There they were immediately arrested. The officers who -had accompanied the generals were cut down, and the Persian cavalry -galloped out over the plain, killing every Greek they could find. The -Hellenes from their camp could make out that something unusual was -happening in that distant cloud of horse, but what it was they never -guessed until Nikarchos the Arcadian came tearing along with his hands -upon a great wound in his belly, holding in his entrails. He told them -his story; they ran to arm themselves. However, the enemy did not come -on. Meanwhile the generals were sent to the King, who had them beheaded. - -As for the leaderless men, _few of them tasted food that evening, only -a few kindled a fire, many did not trouble to return to their quarters -at all, but lay down where each happened to find himself, unable to -close their eyes for misery and longing for the home-town, and father, -and mother, and the wife, and the baby_. Xenophon got a little sleep -at last, and as he slept he dreamed that his father’s house was struck -by a thunderbolt and set on fire. The dream was so vivid that he awoke -and began to ponder what it might signify. His excited imagination -revived in still more startling colours the terrors of the situation. -Here was the stage set for a moving scene. Where was the hero? Where -was the Archical Man? Here at last was the opportunity he had prayed -for. There was kindled that night in Xenophon the flame of a resolution -which, while it lasted, did really keep at the heroic pitch a spirit -secretly doubtful of itself. It was the sense of drama acting on an -artistic temperament; and of course that army, being Greek, accepted -the miracle and naturally assumed its rôle. The gentleman ranker -developed a Napoleonic energy, and made eloquent speeches (for which he -dressed very carefully); with the result that he was chosen one of the -new generals. He became in fact henceforward the leading spirit, and -was entrusted with the most difficult task—the command of the rearguard -in a fighting retreat. He made mistakes; he was not a Napoleon. But the -distinguished French officer who has written the best military history -of the Retreat gives him high credit for his grasp of the principles of -war, which General Boucher believes he learned from Socrates. Perhaps -you have not thought of Socrates as an authority on the art of war? - -Next morning they crossed the Zab—it was the dry season—but had not -advanced far on the other side when they were overtaken by a small -force of horsemen, archers and slingers under the command of a certain -Mithradates. These approached in a seeming-friendly manner until they -were fairly near, when all at once they began to ply their bows and -slings. The Greek army, marching in hollow square, could not retaliate. -A charge failed to capture a single man, the enemy retiring before -the charge and shooting as they retired, according to the “Parthian” -tactics which were to become famous in Roman times. That day the Greeks -covered little more than three miles. Clearly something must be done -about it. Xenophon discovered that the army contained some Rhodians, -who could sling leaden bullets twice as far as the Persians could cast -their stones, which were “as big as your fist.” These Rhodians then -were formed overnight into a special corps and instructed in their -task. Next day the host set out earlier than usual, for they had to -cross a ravine, where an attack would be especially dangerous. When -they were about a mile beyond, Mithradates crossed after them with a -thousand horsemen and four thousand archers and slingers. No sooner -had he come within range than a bugle rang out and the special troops -rushed to close quarters. The enemy did not await the charge, but -fled back to the ravine pursued by a small body of mounted men for -whom Xenophon had somehow collected horses. It was a brilliant little -victory, stained by the infamy of some, who mutilated the dead—a thing -so startlingly un-Greek that I cannot remember another historical -instance. And here what was done was not done in cold blood. - -In the evening of that day they came to a great deserted city, the -name of which was Larissa. A great city; it was girdled by a wall two -leagues in length, twenty-five feet in thickness, and a hundred feet -high. Hard by was a pyramid of stone two hundred feet in height, where -the Greeks found many fugitives who had sought refuge there from the -neighbouring villages. Their next march brought them to another great -empty fortress, called Mespila, opposite what we now call Mosul. -Somewhere in this region of Larissa and Mosul had anciently stood -the enormous city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria; and the whole -district (as one gathers from Xenophon) was full of dim legends of an -overwhelming disaster. The soldiers were marching over the grave of an -empire. Even the fragments were imposing. Mespila was based on a kind -of ring, fifty feet broad and fifty feet high, built all of a polished -stone “full of shells”; and on this foundation rose a wall of bricks, -the breadth of it fifty feet, and the height four hundred, and the -circuit six leagues. - -Beyond Mespila Tissaphernes attacked again with what appeared a very -large force. But his light-armed troops were no match for the Rhodian -slingers and the Cretan bowmen, whose every shot told in the dense -array of the enemy, who withdrew discomfited. The Greek army was now -approaching the mountains, which they had long seen towering on the -horizon. It appeared to the generals that the “hollow square” must -be replaced by a new formation better suited to the narrow ways they -would soon be following, and this they now devised. They were to use it -successfully henceforward. - -They came in sight of a “palace surrounded by villages.” The way to it, -they observed with joy, led across a series of knolls where (thought -they) the Persian cavalry could not come at them. Their joy was -short-lived, for no sooner had the light-armed troops who composed the -Greek rearguard begun to leave the summit of the first height than the -enemy rushed up after them, and began showering darts and arrows and -stones from the sling upon them, and so put them out of action for that -day. The heavy-armed did their best. But they were naturally unable to -overtake the skirmishers, and it went hard with the army until special -tactics were devised which answered their purpose. The knolls which had -served them so ill were foothills of a loftier line of heights running -parallel to the road. A sufficient detachment was sent to occupy and -move along the heights simultaneously with the main body advancing by -the road. Afraid of being caught between two forces, the Persian did -not attack. This was the first employment of a manœuvre which the -Greeks repeated many times, and always with success. - -The Palace and Villages turned out to be full of bread and wine and -fodder collected by the satrap of the region. So the Greeks halted -there for three days, resting their wounded. Having set out again on -the fourth day, they were overtaken by the implacable Tissaphernes and, -warned by experience, made for the nearest village, where they beat off -his attack very easily. That night they took advantage of an unmilitary -practice of the Persians in never encamping less than seven miles from -an enemy, to steal a march on them. The result was that the next day, -and the day after, and the day after that, they proceeded on their way -unmolested. On the fourth day they came to a place where the Zacho -Dagh, which they had kept so long on their right, sends down a spur to -the river, which it steeply overhangs in a tall cliff picturesquely -crowned to-day by a native village. The Tigris being still unfordable, -the road is forced to climb over the cliff. Cheirisophos, commanding -the van, halted and sent a message to Xenophon, who was in command of -the rear. This was highly inconvenient to Xenophon, because at that -very moment who should appear on the road behind him but Tissaphernes? -However, Xenophon galloped to the front and requested an explanation. -Cheirisophos pointed to the cliff, and there sure enough were armed -men in occupation. Between these and Tissaphernes the army was in a -perilous position. What to do? Xenophon, looking up at the wall of the -Zacho Dagh, noticed that the main height at this part of the range -was directly opposite them; looking again, he could make out a track -leading from this peak to the cliff. He immediately proposed to seize -the peak. A picked force was hastily got together, and off they set -upon their climb. No sooner did the men on the cliff catch sight of -them than they too began to race for the key-position. With shouts -the two sides strained for the goal. Xenophon rode beside his men, -encouraging them. A grumbling fellow from Sicyon complained that he -had to run with a shield while the general rode on a horse. Xenophon -dismounted, pushed the man out of the ranks, took his shield from him, -and struggled on in his place. Thus enkindled, the Greeks—the men to -whom mountains were native—reached the summit first. But it was a near -thing. - -Thus the pass was turned. But the situation remained not less than -dreadful. On the right of the army arose the cruel mountains of -Kurdistan; on their left ran swiftly the profound current of the -Tigris. A soldier from Rhodes suggested crossing the stream on an -arrangement of inflated skins, such as appears to be still in use -upon the Tigris, where it is called a “tellek.” The suggestion was -impracticable in face of the enemy, who was found in possession of -the opposing bank. Reluctantly therefore they turned their backs upon -the river and set their minds upon the mountains. Under cover of -darkness they stole across the plain and were on the high ground with -the dawn. They were now in the country of the Kardouchians, whom we -now call the Kurds, in whose intricate valleys and startling ravines -whole armies had been lost. On the appearance of the Greeks the natives -fled with their wives and children from their villages and “took to -the heather.” The invaders requisitioned the supplies they found, but -made some effort to conciliate the highlanders. These remained sullenly -unresponsive. All day long they watched the ten thousand hoplites with -the light-armed and the women of the camp struggle through the high -pass. Then as the last men were descending in the early-gathering -darkness the Kardouchians stirred. Stones and arrows flew, and some -of the Greeks were killed. Luckily for the army the enemy had been -surprised so completely that no concerted attack was made in the -steep-walled road. As it was, although they bivouacked that night -without further annoyance, they could see the signal fires blaze from -every peak, boding ill for the morrow. - -When it came they resolved to leave behind all prisoners and all they -could spare of the baggage-train. Thus disencumbered, they set forward -in stormy weather and under constant attack, so that little progress -was made. Finally they came to a complete check. In front of them rose -the sheer side of a mountain, up which the road was seen to climb, -black with their enemies. A frontal attack was not to be thought of. -But was there no byway across the heights? A captured Kurd confessed -that there was. Only at one point this path led over an eminence, which -must be secured in advance. Therefore late in the afternoon a storming -party set out with the guide, their orders being to occupy the eminence -in the night, and sound a bugle at dawn. A violent rainstorm served to -conceal this movement, whose success was also aided by the advance of -Cheirisophos along the visible road. He soon reached a gulch, which -his men must cross to gain a footing on the great cliff. But when they -attempted the passage the enemy rolled down enormous boulders, which -shattered themselves into flying fragments against the iron sides -of the ravine, so that crossing was merely impossible. The attempt -then was not at that time renewed. But through the night the Greeks -continued to hear the thunder of the plunging rocks sent down by the -unwearied and suspicious foe. - -Meanwhile the storm-troops who had gone by the circuitous path -surprised a guard of Kardouchians seated about a fire, and, having -dispersed them, held the position under the impression that it was -the “col” or eminence. In this they were mistaken, but at dawn they -realized their error and set out in a friendly mist to seize their true -objective. Its defenders fled as soon as the Greek trumpet sang out -the attack. In the road below Cheirisophos heard the sound and rushed -to the assault of the cliff. His men struggled up as best they might, -hoisting one another by means of their spears. The rearguard, under -Xenophon, followed the bypath. They captured one crest by assault, only -to find themselves confronted by another. Xenophon therefore left a -garrison on the first, and with the rest of his force attacked and -captured the second—only to find a third rising before them, being in -fact the eminence itself. That also was assailed. To the surprise of -the Greeks the enemy made no resistance and made off at once. Soon a -fugitive came to Xenophon with the news that the crest where he had -left a garrison had been stormed, and all its defenders slain—all who -had not escaped by jumping down its rocky sides. It was now evident -why the Kardouchians had left the main eminence; they had seen from -their greater elevation what was happening in Xenophon’s rear. They -now came back to a height facing the eminence and began discussing a -truce, while gradually they were collecting their people. An agreement -was reached, and the Greeks began to descend from their position, -when instantly the Barbarians were on them, yelling and rolling down -boulders after them. However, with little difficulty now, a junction -was effected with Cheirisophos. - -In all a week was consumed in traversing the land of the Kardouchians, -and not a day passed without hard fighting. Every narrow way was beset -by the fierce mountaineers, who shot arrows two cubits long from bows -so mighty that the archer had to use one foot to get a purchase on his -weapon. One man was pierced through shield and breastplate and body, -another was shot fairly through the head. In these mountains the Greeks -“suffered more than all they had endured at the hands of the King and -Tissaphernes.” Fighting their way along the Zorawa, they reached at -last the more open ground, where that river falls into the Bohtan Su, -which Xenophon calls the Kentrîtês. Alas, in the morning light they -saw the further bank lined with hostile forces, both foot and horse, -while on the mountains they had just escaped the Kardouchians were -gathered, ready to fall on their rear, if they should attempt the -passage of the Kentrîtês, a deep river full of big slippery stones. -Gloom settled again upon the host. But in a little time, while Xenophon -was still at breakfast, there ran to him two young men with great news. -The pair of them had gone to collect sticks, and, down by the river, -they had noticed on the other side “among rocks that came right down to -the water an old man and a woman putting away in a kind of cave what -looked like a bag of clothes.” So the soldiers put their knives between -their teeth and prepared to swim across. To their surprise they got to -the other side without the need of swimming. Now here they were back -again, having brought the clothes for evidence. - -Shortly afterwards they were guiding the division of Cheirisophos to -the ford they had so opportunely discovered, while Xenophon led the -rearguard, whose duty it was to protect the passage of the army from -the assaults of the Kardouchians. These were duly made, but were beaten -off and eluded; and the Kentrîtês was crossed. - -The Greeks were now in Armenia. Before them stretched a wide rolling -plateau, sombre, lonely, savagely inclement at that season; and yet -they found it at first like Elysium after their torments up among the -clouds. They crossed two streams, the Bitlis Tchai, by whose deep -trench the caravans still travel, and the Kara Su. It was in the -country of the satrap Tiribazos, who kept following the invaders -with an army. So the march went on. One night they reached the usual -“palace surrounded by villages,” and there, finding plenty to eat and -drink, with joy refreshed their weariness. It was judged imprudent -to billet the men out among the villages, so they bivouacked in the -open. Then the snow came—a soft, persistent snow; and in the morning -nothing seemed desirable except to remain warm and drowsy under that -white blanket. At last Xenophon sprang up, and began to chop wood, so -that the men were shamed and got up too, and took the log from him, and -kindled fires, and anointed themselves with a local unguent. But all -were certain that such another night would be the death of them; so it -was resolved that they should find quarters among the villages. Off -rushed the soldiers with cheers. - -But the retreat must proceed. They caught a man who told them that -Tiribazos meant to attack them in a high defile upon their road. -This stroke they anticipated and, crossing the pass, marched day -after day in a wilderness of snow. At one point in their dreadful -journey they waded up to their waists across the icy waters of the -upper Euphrates. The snow got deeper and deeper. Worst of all the -wind—the north wind—blew in their faces. The snow became six feet -deep. Baggage-cattle, slaves, some thirty of the soldiers themselves -disappeared in the drifts. At last by the mercy of the gods the wind -dropped a little, and they found an abundance of wood, which they -burned, and so cleared spaces in the snow, that they might sleep upon -the ground. Then they must bestir themselves and labour on again. Men -began to drop from hunger-faintness. Xenophon got them a mouthful -to eat; whereupon they got on their legs and stumbled forward with -the rest. All the time bands of marauders prowled about the skirts of -the army. If a beast were abandoned, they swooped down upon it, and -shortly you would hear them quarrelling over the carcase. Not only the -beasts were lost, but every now and then a man would fall out because -of frostbite or snow-blindness. Once a whole bunch of soldiers dropped -behind, and, seeing a dark patch where a hot spring had melted the -snow, they sat down there. Xenophon implored them to get up; wolfish -enemies were at their heels. Nothing he could say moved them. Then he -lost his temper. The only result was a tired suggestion from the men -that he should cut their throats. Darkness was falling; nearer and -nearer came the clamour of the pillagers wrangling over their spoils. -Xenophon and his men lay concealed in the bare patch, which sloped -down into a cañon smoking with the steam of the hot spring. When the -miscreants came near, up sprang the soldiers with a shout, while the -outworn men whooped at the pitch of their voices. The startled enemy -“flung themselves down the snow into the cañon, and not one ever -uttered a sound again.” - -Not long after, the Greeks came to some villages, one of which was -assigned to Xenophon and his men. It was occupied so rapidly that the -inhabitants had not time to escape. An extraordinary village it was, -for the houses were all underground. You entered the earth-house at -a hole “like the mouth of a well,” and, descending a ladder, found -yourself in a fine roomy chamber, shared impartially by “goats and -sheep and cows and poultry” as well as people. There was store of -provender for the animals, and wheat and barley and greens for folk. -There was also “barley-wine,” which you sucked through a reed, and -which was “a very delightful beverage to one who had learned to like -it.” Xenophon naturally lived with the headman of the village, whom he -graciously invited to dinner at the expense of the house. He managed -to reassure the headman, who was troubled about many things, including -the capture of his daughter, who had just been married. So the wine was -produced, and they made a night of it. Next morning, awakening among -the cocks and the hens and the other creatures, Xenophon went to call -on Cheirisophos, taking the headman with him. On the way they looked in -at all the houses and in each they found high revelry. They were forced -to come down the ladder and have breakfast. Xenophon has forgotten -how many breakfasts he had that morning, but he remembers lamb, kid, -pork, veal and poultry, not to mention varieties of bread. If anybody -proposed to drink somebody’s health, he was haled to the bowl and made -to shove in his head and “make a noise like an ox drinking.” To the -headman the soldiers offered “anything he would like.” (When you think -of it, they could scarcely do less.) The poor man chose any of his -relations whom he noticed. At the headquarters of Cheirisophos there -were similar scenes. The soldiers in their Greek way had wreathed their -heads for the feast, making wisps of hay serve the purpose of flowers, -and had formed the Armenian boys “in their strange clothes” into -picturesque waiters. Xenophon took seventeen magnificent young horses -which his village had been rearing for the King, and divided them among -his officers, keeping the best for himself. In return he presented the -headman with an oldish steed of his own, which he rather thought was -going to die. - -After a jolly week the weary retreat began again. The headman told the -Greeks to tie bags upon the feet of their horses to keep them from -falling through the frozen surface of the snow. He went as guide with -Cheirisophos in the van. As they marched on and on, never coming to a -human habitation, the general flew into a rage and struck the guide. -Next morning they found that the man had disappeared in the night. This -turned out to be the worst thing that had befallen them yet. After a -week of padding the hoof over a white desert with no relief for the -eyes but their own red rags, they came to a river. It was the Araxes, -and if they had taken the right turn here, a few days more would have -brought them to Trebizond. Unfortunately, misled perhaps by the sound -of the native name, they got it into their heads that the river was the -Phasis, about which everybody knew that it flowed through the land of -the Colchians into the Black Sea. Therefore they went _down_ the Araxes. - -Fighting began at the very outset. Moreover provisions soon failed -them. They were now in the wild country of the “Taochians,” who lived -in strong places, where they had stored all their supplies. The army -must capture one of these strongholds or starve. The first they -came to was typical. It was simply an enclosed space on the top of -a precipice. A winding stream served as a moat. There was only one -narrow way of approach to the stockade, and this path was commanded -by an insuperable cliff. Within the stockade huddled a throng of men -and women and animals. On the top of the cliff were Taochian warriors, -who flung stones and precipitated rocks on any Greek who ventured to -set foot on the path. Several who ventured had their legs broken or -their ribs crushed. Some shelter was afforded by a wood of tall pines, -through which about seventy soldiers filtered, until no more than -fifty or so feet of open ground lay between them and the stockade. An -officer called Kallimachos began to amuse the army by popping out and -into the wood, thus drawing the fire of the stoners, who let fly at -him with “more than ten cart-loads of rock.” Then, in a lull of the -stones, two or three made a sudden dash across the exposed ground and -into the stockade. The rest followed at their heels. Then occurred a -very horrible thing. The women flung their babies down the precipice -and jumped after them. A sort of heroic madness swept the helpless -defenders. Aeneas of Stymphalos gripped a man who had a splendid dress -on; the man flung his arms about Aeneas and took him with him over the -cliff. Hardly any were saved. - -Now the ten thousand entered the country of the Chalybians, the bravest -race they met on all their march; whose strongholds the Greeks did not -take. The Chalybians, who wore an immense tasselled breastplate of -linen, and carried a prodigious long spear and a short sword, used to -cut off the heads of their enemies and go into battle, swinging the -heads, and singing and dancing. Having escaped from such savages, the -army crossed a river and marched many parasangs, turning west by a -route that led them perhaps by way of the modern towns of Alexandropol -and Kars to a populous city by Xenophon named Gymnias, which must have -been near Erzerum. Here they found a guide, who promised to set them on -the true road home. Him they followed for four days. On the fifth day -Xenophon, who as usual was in command of the rearguard, heard a great -and distant shouting. At once he and his men concluded that the van -had been attacked, for the whole country was up in arms. Every moment -the far-off clamour increased. As they stared at the mountain-side, -which the van had just ascended, they noticed that, whenever a company -had got a certain distance, the men suddenly took to their heels and -tore up the mountain for their lives. It was clear that something -extraordinary was happening. Xenophon sprang on his horse and, followed -by the cavalry, galloped to the rescue. But now in a little they could -hear what they were crying on the mountain; it was _The Sea! The Sea!_ -Then the rearguard also ran, and the baggage-animals and the horses -too! And on the top they fell to embracing one another, officers and -men indiscriminately, and the tears ran down their faces. Then they -raised a great cairn of stones on that hill-top, overlooking “the col -of Vavoug,” where the road still passes. - - - - -IV - -ELEUTHERIA - - -What was the special gift of Greece to the world? The answer of the -Greeks themselves is unexpected, yet it is as clear as a trumpet: -_Eleutheria_, Freedom. The breath of Eleutheria fills the sail of -Aeschylus’ great verse, it blows through the pages of Herodotus, -awakens fierce regrets in Demosthenes and generous memories in -Plutarch. “Art, philosophy, science,” the Greeks say, “yes, we have -given all these; but our best gift, from which all the others were -derived, was Eleutheria.” - -Now what did they mean by that? - -They meant _the Reign of Law_. Aeschylus says of them in _The Persians_: - -ATOSSA. _Who is their shepherd over them and lord of their host?_ - -CHORUS. _Of no man are they called the slaves or subjects._ - -Now hear Herodotus amplifying and explaining Aeschylus. _For though -they are free, yet are they not free in all things. For they have a -lord over them, even Law, whom they fear far more than thy people fear -thee. At least they do what that lord biddeth them, and what he biddeth -is still the same, to wit that they flee not before the face of any -multitude in battle, but keep their order and either conquer or die._ -It is Demaratos that speaks of the Spartans to King Xerxes. - -Eleutheria the Reign of Law or _Nomos_. The word _Nomos_ begins with -the meaning “custom” or “convention,” and ends by signifying that which -embodies as far as possible the universal and eternal principles of -justice. To write the history of it is to write the history of Greek -civilization. The best we can do is to listen to the Greeks themselves -explaining what they were fighting for in fighting for Eleutheria. They -will not put us off with abstractions. - -No one who has read _The Persians_ forgets the live and leaping voice -that suddenly cries out before the meeting of the ships at Salamis: -_Onward, Sons of the Hellenes! Free your country, free your children, -your wives, your fathers’ tombs and seats of your fathers’ gods! All -hangs now on your fighting!_ This, then, when it came to action, is -what the Greeks meant by the Reign of Law. It will not seem so puzzling -if you put it in this way: that what they fought for was the right to -govern themselves. Here as elsewhere we may observe how the struggle of -Greek and Barbarian fills with palpitating life such words as Freedom, -which to dull men have been apt to seem abstract and to sheltered -people faded. For the Barbarians had not truly laws at all. How are -laws possible where “all are slaves save one,” and be responsible to -nobody? So the fight for Freedom becomes a fight for Law, that no man -may become another’s master, but all be subject equally to the Law, -“whose service is perfect freedom.” - -That conception was wrought out in the stress of conflict with the -Barbarians, culminating in the Persian danger. On that point it is -well to prepare our minds by an admission. The quarrel was never a -simple one of right and wrong. Persia at least was in some respects -in advance of the Greece she fought at Salamis; and not only in -material splendour. That is now clear to every historian; it never was -otherwise to the Greeks themselves. Possessing or possessed by the -kind of imagination which compels a man to understand his enemy, they -saw much to admire in the Persians—their hardihood, their chivalry, -their munificence, their talent for government. The Greeks heard with -enthusiasm (which was part at least literary) the scheme of education -for young nobles—“to ride a horse, to shoot with the bow, and to speak -the truth!” In fact the two peoples, although they never realized it, -were neither in race nor in speech very remote from one another. But -it was the destiny of the Persians to succeed to an empire essentially -Asiatic and so to become the leaders and champions of a culture alien -to Greece and to us. In such a cause their very virtues made them the -more dangerous. Here was no possible compromise. Persia and Greece -stood for something more than two political systems; the European mind, -the European way of thinking and feeling about things, the soul of -Europe was at stake. There is no help for it; in such a quarrel we must -take sides. - -Let us look first at the Persian side. The phrase I quoted about all -men in Persia being slaves save one is not a piece of Greek rhetoric; -it was the official language of the empire. The greatest officer of -state next to the King was still his “slave” and was so addressed by -him. The King was lord and absolute. An inscription at Persepolis -reads _I am Xerxes the Great King, the King of Kings, the King of -many-tongued countries, the King of this great universe, the Son of -Darius the King, the Achaemenid. Xerxes the Great King saith: “By grace -of Ahuramazda I have made this portal whereon are depicted all the -countries.”_ The Greek orator Aeschines says, “He writes himself Lord -of men from the rising to the setting sun.” The letter of Darius to -Gadatas—it exists to-day—is addressed by “Darius the son of Hystaspes, -King of Kings.” That, as we know, was a favourite title. The law of the -land was summed up in the sentence: _The King may do what he pleases_. -Greece saved us from that. - -No man might enter the sacred presence without leave. Whoever was -admitted must prostrate himself to the ground. The emperor sat on a -sculptured throne holding in his hand a sceptre tipped with an apple -of gold. He was clad in gorgeous trousers and gorgeous Median robe. On -his head was the peaked _kitaris_ girt with the crown, beneath which -the formally curled hair flowed down to mingle with the great beard. -He had chains of gold upon him and golden bracelets, a golden zone -engirdled him, from his ears hung rings of gold. Behind the throne -stood an attendant with a fan against the flies and held his mouth lest -his breath should touch the royal person. Before the throne stood the -courtiers, their hands concealed, their eyelids stained with _kohl_, -their lips never smiling, their painted faces never moving. Greece -saved us from all that. - -The King had many wives and a great harem of concubines—one for each -day of the year. You remember the Book of Esther. Ahasuerus is the -Greek Xerxes. There is in Herodotus a story of that court which, -however unauthentic it may be in details, has a clear evidential value. -On his return from Greece Xerxes rested at Sardis, the ancient capital -of Lydia. There he fell in love with the wife of his brother Masistes. -Unwilling to take her by force, he resorted to policy. He betrothed his -son Darius to Artaynte, the daughter of Masistes, and took her with him -to Susa (the Shushan of Esther), hoping to draw her mother to his great -palace there, “where were white, green and blue hangings, fastened -with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of -marble.” In Susa, however, the King experienced a new sensation and -fell in love with Artaynte—who returned his affection. Now Amestris the -Queen had woven with her own hands a wonderful garment for her lord, -who inconsiderately put it on to pay his next visit to Artaynte. Of -course Artaynte asked for it, of course in the end she got it, and of -course she made a point of wearing it. When Amestris heard of this, -she blamed, says Herodotus, not the girl but her mother. With patient -dissimulation she did nothing until the Feast of the Birthday of the -King, when he cannot refuse a request. Then for her present she asked -the wife of Masistes. The King, who understood her purpose, tried to -save the victim; but too late. Amestris had in the meanwhile sent the -King’s soldiers for the woman; and when she had her in her power _she -cut away her breasts and threw them to the dogs, cut off her nose and -ears and lips and tongue, and sent her home_. - -It may be thought that the Persian monarchy cannot fairly be judged by -the conduct of a Xerxes. The reply to this would seem to be that it -was Xerxes the Greeks had to fight. But let us choose another case, -Artaxerxes II, whose life the gentle Plutarch selected to write because -of the mildness and democratic quality which distinguished him from -others of his line. Yet the _Life of Artaxerxes_ would be startling in -a chronicle of the Italian Renaissance. The story which I will quote -from it was probably derived from the _Persian History_ of Ktesias, -who was a Greek physician at the court of Artaxerxes. This Ktesias, as -Plutarch himself tells us, was a highly uncritical person, but after -all, as Plutarch goes on to say, he was not likely to be wrong about -things that were happening before his eyes. Here then is the story, a -little abridged. - -_She_—that is, Parysatis the queen-mother—_perceived that -he_—Artaxerxes the King—_had a violent passion for Atossa, one of -his daughters.... When Parysatis came to suspect this, she made more -of the child than ever, and to Artaxerxes she praised her beauty and -her royal and splendid ways. At last she persuaded him to marry the -maid and make her his true wife, disregarding the opinions and laws_ -(Nomoi) of the Greeks; she said that he himself had been appointed by -the god_ (Ahuramazda) _a law unto the Persians and judge of honour -and dishonour.... Atossa her father so loved in wedlock that, when -leprosy had overspread her body, he felt no whit of loathing thereat, -but praying for her sake to Hera_ (Anaitis?) _he did obeisance to -that goddess only, touching the ground with his hands; while his -satraps and friends sent at his command such gifts to the goddess that -the whole space between the temple and the palace, which was sixteen -stades_ (nearly two miles) _was filled with gold and with silver and -with purple and with horses_. - -Artaxerxes afterwards took into his harem another of his daughters. The -religion of Zarathustra sanctioned that. It also sanctioned marriage -with a mother. According to Persian notions both Xerxes and Artaxerxes -behaved with perfect correctness. The royal blood was too near the -divine to mingle with baser currents. There is no particular reason -for believing that Xerxes was an exceptionally vicious person, while -Artaxerxes seemed comparatively virtuous. It was the system that was -all wrong. What are you to expect of a prince, knowing none other -law than his own will, and surrounded from his infancy by venomous -intriguing women and eunuchs? Babylon alone used to send five hundred -boys yearly to serve as eunuchs.... I think we may now leave the -Persians. - -_Hear again Phocylides: “A little well-ordered city on a rock is better -than frenzied Nineveh.”_ The old poet means a city of the Greek type, -and by “well-ordered” he means governed by a law which guarantees -the liberties of all in restricting the privileges of each. This, -the secret of true freedom, was what the Barbarian never understood. -Sperthias and Boulis, two rich and noble Spartans, offered to yield -themselves up to the just anger of Xerxes, whose envoys had been flung -to their death in a deep water-tank. On the road to Susa they were -entertained by the Persian grandee Hydarnes, who said to them: _Men of -Sparta, wherefore will ye not be friendly towards the King? Beholding -me and my condition, ye see that the King knoweth how to honour good -men. In like manner ye also, if ye should give yourselves to the King -(for he deemeth that ye are good men), each of you twain would be -ruler of Greek lands given you by the King._ They answered: _Hydarnes, -thine advice as touching us is of one side only, whereof thou hast -experience, while the other thou hast not tried. Thou understandest -what it is to be a slave, but freedom thou hast not tasted, whether it -be sweet or no. For if thou shouldst make trial of it, thou wouldest -counsel us to fight for it with axes as well as spears!_ - -So when Alexander King of Macedon came to Athens with a proposal -from Xerxes that in return for an alliance with them he would grant -the Athenians new territories to dwell in free, and would rebuild -the temples he had burned; and when the Spartan envoys had pleaded -with them to do no such thing as the King proposed, the Athenians -made reply. _We know as well as thou that the might of the Persian -is many times greater than ours, so that thou needest not to charge -us with forgetting that. Yet shall we fight for freedom as we may. -To make terms with the Barbarian seek not thou to persuade us, nor -shall we be persuaded. And now tell Mardonios that Athens says: “So -long as the sun keeps the path where now he goeth, never shall we -make compact with Xerxes; but shall go forth to do battle with him, -putting our trust in the gods that fight for us and in the mighty -dead, whose dwelling-places and holy things he hath contemned and -burned with fire.”_ This was their answer to Alexander; but to the -Spartans they said: _The prayer of Sparta that we make not agreement -with the Barbarian was altogether pardonable. Yet, knowing the temper -of Athens, surely ye dishonour us by your fears, seeing that there is -not so much gold in all the world, nor any land greatly exceeding in -beauty and goodness, for which we would consent to join the Mede for -the enslaving of Hellas. Nay even if we should wish it, there be many -things preventing us: first and most, the images and shrines of the -gods burned and cast upon an heap, whom we must needs avenge to the -utmost rather than be consenting with the doer of those things; and, -in the second place, there is our Greek blood and speech, the bond of -common temples and sacrifices and like ways of life—if Athens betrayed -these things, it would not be well._... - -οὐ καλῶς ἂν ἔχοι, “it would not be well.” When I was writing about -Greek simplicity I should have remembered this passage. But our -present theme is the meaning of Eleutheria. “Our first duty,” say the -Athenians, “is to avenge our gods and heroes, whose temples have been -desecrated.” Such language must ring strangely in our ears until we -have reflected a good deal about the character of ancient religion. To -the Greeks of Xerxes’ day religion meant, in a roughly comprehensive -phrase, the consecration of the citizen to the service of the State. -When the Athenians speak of the gods and heroes, whose temples have -been burned, they are thinking of the gods and heroes of Athens, which -had been sacked by the armies of Mardonios; and they are thinking -chiefly of Athena and Erechtheus. - -Now who was Athena? You may read in books that she was “the -patron-goddess of Athens.” But she was more than that; she _was_ -Athens. You may read that she “represented the fortune of Athens”; but -indeed she _was_ the fortune of Athens. You may further read that she -“embodied the Athenian ideal”; which is true enough, but how small a -portion of the truth! It was not so much what Athens might become, as -what Athens was, that moulded and impassioned the image of the goddess. -It was the city of to-day and yesterday that filled the hearts of those -Athenians with such a sense of loss and such a need to avenge their -Lady of the Acropolis. For that which had been the focus of the old -city-life, the dear familiar temple of their goddess, was a heap of -stones and ashes mixed with the carrion of the old men who had remained -to die there. - -As for Erechtheus, he was the great Athenian “hero.” The true nature -of a “hero” is an immensely controversial matter; but what we are -concerned with here is the practical question, what the ancients -thought. They, rightly or wrongly, normally thought of their “heroes” -as famous ancestors. It was as their chief ancestor that the Athenians -regarded and worshipped Erechtheus. Cecrops was earlier, but for some -reason not so worshipful; Theseus was more famous, but later, and -even something of an alien, since he appears to come originally from -Troezen. Thus it was chiefly about Erechtheus as “the father of his -people,” rather than about maiden Athena, that all that sentiment, so -intense in ancient communities, of the common blood and its sacred -obligations entwined itself. This old king of primeval Athens claimed -his share of the piety due to the dead of every household, an emotion -of so powerful a quality among the unsophisticated peoples that some -have sought in it the roots of all religion. It is an emotion hard to -describe and harder still to appreciate. Erechtheus was the Son of -Earth, that is, really, of Attic Earth; and on the painted vases you -see him, a little naked child, being received by Athena from the hands -of Earth, a female form half hidden in the ground, who is raising -him into the light of day. The effect of all this was to remind the -Athenians that they themselves were _autochthones_, born of the soil, -and Attic Earth was their mother also. Not only her spiritual children, -you understand, nor only fed of her bounty, but very bone of her bone -and flesh of her flesh. _Gê Kourotrophos_ they called her, “Earth -the Nurturer of our Children.” Unite all these feelings, rooted and -made strong by time: love of the City (Athena), love of the native -and mother Earth (Gê), love of the unforgotten and unforgetting dead -(Erechtheus)—unite all these feelings and you will know why the defence -of so great sanctities and the avenging of insult against them seemed -to Athenians the first and greatest part of Liberty. - -So Themistocles felt when after Salamis he said: _It is not we who -have wrought this deed, but the gods and heroes, who hated that one -man should become lord both of Europe and of Asia; unholy and sinful, -who held things sacred and things profane in like account, burning -temples and casting down the images of the gods; who also scourged the -sea and cast fetters upon it._ And it is this feeling which gives so -singular a beauty and charm to the story of Dikaios. “Dikaios the son -of Theokydes, an Athenian then in exile and held in reputation among -the Persians, said that at this time, when Attica was being wasted -by the footmen of Xerxes and was empty of its inhabitants, it befell -that he was with Demaratos in the Thriasian Plain, when they espied a -pillar of dust, such as thirty thousand men might raise, moving from -Eleusis. And as they marvelled what men might be the cause of the dust, -presently they heard the sound of voices, and it seemed to him that it -was the ritual-chant to Iacchus. Demaratos was ignorant of the rites -that are performed at Eleusis, and questioned him what sound was that. -But he said, _Demaratos, of a certainty some great harm will befall -the host of the King. For this is manifest—there being no man left in -Attica—that these are immortal Voices proceeding from Eleusis to take -vengeance for the Athenians and their allies. And if this wrathful -thing descend on Peloponnese, the King himself and his land army will -be in jeopardy; but if it turn towards the ships at Salamis, the King -will be in danger of losing his fleet. This is that festival which the -Athenians hold yearly in honour of the Mother and the Maid, and every -Athenian, or other Greek that desires it, receives initiation; and -the sound thou hearest is the chanting of the initiates._ Demaratos -answered, _Hold thy peace, and tell no man else this tale. For if these -thy words be reported to the King, thou wilt lose thine head, and I -shall not be able to save thee, I nor any other man. But keep quiet -and God will deal with this host._ Thus did he counsel him. And the -dust and the cry became a cloud, and the cloud arose and moved towards -Salamis to the encampment of the Greeks. So they knew that the navy of -Xerxes was doomed.” - -Athena, the Mother-Maid Demeter-Persephone with the mystic child -Iacchus, Boreas “the son-in-law of Erechtheus,” whose breath dispersed -the enemy ships under Pelion and Kaphareus—of such sort are “the gods -who fight for us” and claim the love and service of Athens in return. -It is well to remember attentively this religious element in ancient -patriotism, so large an element that one may say with scarcely any -exaggeration at all that for the ancients patriotism was a religion. -Therefore is Eleutheria, the patriot’s ideal, a religion too. Such -instincts and beliefs are interwoven in one sacred indissoluble bond -uniting the Gods and men, the very hills and rivers of Greece against -the foreign master. Call this if you will a mystical and confused -emotion; but do not deny its beauty or underestimate its tremendous -force. - -But here (lest in discussing a sentiment which may be thought confused -we ourselves fall into confusion) let us emphasize a distinction, -which has indeed been already indicated. Greek patriotism was as wide -as Greece; but on the other hand its intensity was in inverse ratio -to its extension. Greek patriotism was primarily a local thing, and -it needed the pressure of a manifest national danger to lift it to -a wider outlook. That was true in the main and of the average man, -although every generation produced certain superior spirits, statesmen -or philosophers, whose thought was not particularist. It was this -home-savour which gave to ancient patriotism its special salt and -pungency. When the Athenians in the speech I quoted say that their -first duty is to avenge their gods, they are thinking more of Athens -than of Greece. They are thinking of all we mean by “home,” save that -home for them was bounded by the ring-wall of the city, not by the four -walls of a house. - -The wider patriotism of the nation the Greeks openly or in their -hearts ranked in the second place. Look again at the speech of the -Athenians. First came Athens and her gods and heroes—their _fathers’_ -gods; next _To Hellenikon_, that whereby they are not merely Athenians -but Hellenes—community of race and speech, the common interest in the -_national_ gods and their festivals, such as Zeus of Olympia with the -Olympian Games, the Delphian Apollo with the Pythian Games. Of course -this Hellenic or Panhellenic interest was always there, and in a sense -the future lay with it; but never in the times when Greece was at its -greatest did it supplant the old intense local loyalties. The movement -of Greek civilization is from the narrower to the larger conception of -patriotism, but the latter ideal is grounded in the former. Greek love -of country was fed from local fires, and even Greek cosmopolitanism -left one a _citizen_, albeit a citizen of the world. So it was with -Eleutheria, which enlarged itself in the same sense and with an equal -pace. - -This development can be studied best in Athens, which was “the Hellas -of Hellas.” One finds in Attic literature a passionate Hellenism -combined with a passionate conviction that Hellenism finds its best -representative in Athens. The old local patriotism survives, but is -nourished more and more with new ambitions. New claims, new ideals are -advanced. One claim appears very early, if we may believe Herodotus -that the Athenians used it in debate with the men of Tegea before the -Battle of Plataea. The Athenians recalled how they had given shelter -to the Children of Heracles when all the other Greek cities would not, -for fear of Eurystheus; and how again they had rescued the slain of the -Seven from the Theban king and buried them in his despite. On those two -famous occasions the Athenians had shown the virtue which they held to -be most characteristic of Hellenism and specially native to themselves, -the virtue which they called “philanthropy” or the love of man. What -Heine said of himself, the Athenians might have said: they were brave -soldiers in the liberation-war of humanity. - -There is a play of Euripides, called _The Suppliant Women_, which -deals with the episode of the unburied dead at Thebes. The fragmentary -Argument says: _The scene is Eleusis. Chorus of Argive women, -mothers of the champions who have fallen at Thebes. The drama is a -glorification of Athens._ The eloquent Adrastos, king of Argos, pleads -the cause of the suppliant women who have come to Athens to beg the -aid of its young king Theseus in procuring the burial of their dead. -Theseus is at first disposed to reject their prayer, for reasons of -State; he must consider the safety of his own people; when his mother -Aithra breaks out indignantly: _Surely it will be said that with -unvalorous hands, when thou mightest have won a crown of glory for thy -city, thou didst decline the peril and match thyself, ignoble labour, -with a savage swine; and when it was thy part to look to helm and -spear, putting forth thy might therein, wast proven a coward. To think -that son of mine—ah, do not so! Seest thou how Athens, whom mocking -lips have named unwise, flashes back upon her scorners a glance -of answering scorn? Danger is her element. It is the unadventurous -cities doing cautious things in the dark, whose vision is thereby also -darkened._ And the result is that Theseus and his men set out against -the great power of Thebes, defeat it and recover the bodies, which with -due observance of the appropriate rites they inter in Attic earth. - -“To make the world safe for democracy” is something; but Athens never -found it safe, perhaps did not believe it could be safe. _Ready to -take risks, facing danger with a lifting of the heart ... their whole -life a round of toils and dangers ... born neither themselves to rest -nor to let other people._ In such phrases are the Athenians described -by their enemies. A friend has said: _I must publish an opinion which -will be displeasing to most; yet (since I think it to be true) I will -not withhold it. If the Athenians in fear of the coming peril had -left their land, or not leaving it but staying behind had yielded -themselves to Xerxes, none would have tried to meet the King at sea._ -And so all would have been lost. _But as the matter fell out, it would -be the simple truth to say that the Athenians were the saviours of -Greece. The balance of success was certain to turn to the side they -espoused, and by choosing the cause of Hellas and the preservation of -her freedom it was the Athenians and no other that roused the whole -Greek world—save those who played the traitor—and under God thrust back -the King._ And some generations later, Demosthenes, in what might be -called the funeral oration of Eleutheria, sums up the claim of Athens -in words whose undying splendour is all pride and glory transfiguring -the pain of failure and defeat. _Let no man, I beseech you, imagine -that there is anything of paradox or exaggeration in what I say, but -sympathetically consider it. If the event had been clear to all men -beforehand ... even then Athens could only have done what she did, if -her fame and her future and the opinion of ages to come meant anything -to her. For the moment indeed it looks as if she had failed; as man -must always fail when God so wills it. But had She, who claimed to be -the leader of Greece, yielded her claim to Philip and betrayed the -common cause, her honour would not be clear.... Yes, men of Athens, -ye did right—be very sure of that—when ye adventured yourselves for -the safety and freedom of all; yes, by your fathers who fought at -Marathon and Plataea and Salamis and Artemision, and many more lying -in their tombs of public honour they had deserved so well, being all -alike deemed worthy of this equal tribute by the State, and not only (O -Aeschines) the successful, the victorious._... - -Demosthenes was right in thinking that Eleutheria was most at home -in Athens. Now Athens, as all men know, was a “democracy”; that -is, the general body of the citizens (excluding the slaves and -“resident aliens”) personally made and interpreted their laws. Such -a constitution was characterized by two elements which between them -practically exhausted its meaning; namely, _autonomy_ or freedom to -govern oneself by one’s own laws, and _isonomy_ or equality of all -citizens before the law. Thus Eleutheria, defined as the Reign of -Law, may be regarded as synonymous with Democracy. “The basis of the -democratical constitution is Eleutheria,” says Aristotle. This is -common ground with all Greek writers, whether they write to praise or -to condemn. Thus Plato humorously, but not quite good-humouredly, -complains that in Athens the very horses and donkeys knocked you out of -their way, so exhilarated were they by the atmosphere of Eleutheria. -But at the worst he only means that you may have too much of a good -thing. Eleutheria translated as unlimited democracy you may object to; -Eleutheria as an ideal or a watchword never fails to win the homage of -Greek men. Very early begins that sentimental republicanism which is -the inspiration of Plutarch, and through Plutarch has had so vast an -influence on the practical affairs of mankind. It appears in the famous -drinking-catch beginning _I will bear the sword in the myrtle-branch -like Harmodios and Aristogeiton_. It appears in Herodotus. Otanes the -Persian (talking Greek political philosophy), after recounting all the -evils of a tyrant’s reign, is made to say: _But what I am about to -tell are his greatest crimes: he breaks ancestral customs, and forces -women, and puts men to death without trial. But the rule of the people -in the first place has the fairest name in the world, “isonomy,” and -in the second place it does none of those things a despot doeth._ In -his own person Herodotus writes: _It is clear not merely in one but in -every instance how excellent a thing is “equality.” When the Athenians -were under their tyrants they fought no better than their neighbours, -but after they had got rid of their masters they were easily superior. -Now this proves that when they were held down they fought without -spirit, because they were toiling for a master, but when they had been -liberated every man was stimulated to his utmost efforts in his own -behalf._ The same morning confidence in democracy shines in the reply -of the constitutional king, Theseus, to the herald in Euripides’ play -asking for the “tyrant” of Athens. _You have made a false step in the -beginning of your speech, O stranger, in seeking a tyrant here. Athens -is not ruled by one man, but is free. The people govern by turns in -yearly succession, not favouring the rich but giving him equal measure -with the poor._ - -The _naïveté_ of this provokes a smile, but it should provoke some -reflection too. Why does the rhetoric of liberty move us so little? -Partly, I think, because the meaning of the word has changed, and -partly because of this new “liberty” we have a super-abundance. No -longer does Liberty mean in the first place the Reign of Law, but -something like its opposite. Let us recover the Greek attitude, and -we recapture, or at least understand, the Greek emotion concerning -Eleutheria. Jason says to Medea in Euripides’ play, _Thou dwellest in -a Greek instead of a Barbarian land, and hast come to know Justice and -the use of Law without favour to the strong_. The most “romantic” hero -in Greek legend recommending the conventions! - -This, however, is admirably and characteristically Greek. The typical -heroes of ancient story are alike in their championship of law and -order. I suppose the two most popular and representative were Heracles -and Theseus. Each goes up and down Greece and Barbary destroying -_hybristai_, local robber-kings, strong savages, devouring monsters, -ill customs and every manner of “lawlessness” and “injustice.” In -their place each introduces Greek manners and government, Law and -Justice. It was this which so attracted Greek sympathy to them and -so excited the Greek imagination. For the Greeks were surrounded by -dangers like those which Heracles or Theseus encountered. If they had -not to contend with supernatural hydras and triple-bodied giants and -half-human animals, they had endless pioneering work to do which made -such imaginings real enough to them; and men who had fought with the -wild Thracian tribes could vividly sympathize with Heracles in his -battle with the Thracian “king,” Diomedes, who fed his fire-breathing -horses with the flesh of strangers. Nor was this preference of the -Greeks for heroes of such a type merely instinctive; it was reasoned -and conscious. The “mission” of Heracles, for example, is largely the -theme of Euripides’ play which we usually call _Hercules Furens_. A -contemporary of Euripides, the sophist Hippias of Elis, was the author -of a too famous apologue, _The Choice of Heracles_, representing the -youthful hero making the correct choice between Laborious Virtue and -Luxurious Vice. Another Euripidean play, _The Suppliant Women_, as -we have seen, reveals Theseus in the character of a conventional, -almost painfully constitutional, sovereign talking the language of -Lord John Russell. As for us, our sympathies are ready to flow out -to the picturesque defeated monsters—the free Centaurs galloping on -Pelion—the cannibal Minotaur lurking in his Labyrinth. But then our -bridals are not liable to be disturbed by raids of wild horsemen from -the mountains, nor are our children carried off to be dealt with at the -pleasure of a foreign monarch. People who meet with such experiences -get surprisingly tired of them. There is a figure known to mythologists -as a Culture Hero. He it is who is believed to have introduced law -and order and useful arts into the rude community in which he arose. -Such heroes were specially regarded, and the reverence felt for them -measures the need of them. Thus in ancient Greece we read of Prometheus -and Palamêdes, the Finns had their Wainomoinen, the Indians of North -America their Hiawatha. Think again of historical figures like -Charlemagne and Alfred, like Solon and Numa Pompilius, even Alexander -the Great. A peculiar romance clings about their names. Why? Only -because to people fighting what must often have seemed a losing battle -against chaos and night the institution and defence of law and order -seemed the most romantic thing a man could do. And so it was. - -Such a view was natural for them. Whether it shall seem natural to us -depends on the fortunes of our civilization. On that subject we may -leave the prophets to rave, and content ourselves with the observation -that there are parts of Europe to-day in which many a man must feel -himself in the position of Roland fighting the Saracens or Aëtius -against the Huns. As for ourselves, however confident we may feel, we -shall be foolish to be over-confident; for we are fighting a battle -that has no end. The Barbarian we shall have always with us, on our -frontiers or in our own breasts. There is also the danger that the -prize of victory may, like Angelica, escape the strivers’ hands. -Already perhaps the vision which inspires us is changing. I am not -concerned to attack the character of that change but to interpret the -Greek conception of civilization, merely as a contribution to the -problem. To the Greeks, then, civilization is the slow result of a -certain immemorial way of living. You cannot get it up from books, -or acquire it by imitation; you must absorb it and let it form your -spirit, you must live in it and live through it; and it will be hard -for you to do this, unless you have been born into it and received it -as a birth-right, as a mould in which you are cast as your fathers -were. “Oh, but we must be more progressive than that.” Well, we are -not; on the contrary the Greeks were very much the most progressive -people that ever existed—intellectually progressive, I mean of course; -for are we not talking about civilization? - -The Greek conception, therefore, seems to work. I think it works, and -worked, because the tradition, so cherished as it is, is not regarded -as stationary. It is no more stationary to the Greeks than a tree, and -a tree whose growth they stimulated in every way. It seems a fairly -common error, into which Mr. Belloc and Mr. Chesterton sometimes fall, -for modern champions of tradition to over-emphasize its stability. -There has always been the type of “vinous, loudly singing, unsanitary -men,” which Mr. Wells has called the ideal of these two writers; he is -the foundational type of European civilization. But it almost looks -as if Mr. Belloc and Mr. Chesterton were entirely satisfied with him. -They want him to stay on his small holding, and eat quantities of ham -and cheese, and drink quarts of ale, and hate rich men and politicians, -and be perfectly parochial and illiterate. But Hellenism means, simply -an effort to work on this sound and solid stuff; it is not content to -leave him as he is; it strives to develope him, but to develope him -within the tradition; to transform him from an Aristophanic demesman -into an Athenian citizen. But Mr. Belloc and Mr. Chesterton are Greek -in this, that they have constantly the sense of fighting an endless and -doubtful battle against strong enemies that would destroy whatever is -most necessary to the soul of civilized men. _Well I know in my heart -and soul that sacred Ilium must fall, and Priam, and the folk of Priam -with the good ashen spear ... yet before I die will I do a deed for -after ages to hear of!_ - - - - -V - -SOPHROSYNE - - -It needs imagination for the modern man to live into the atmosphere of -ancient Greece. It ought not now to be so hard for us who have seen the -lives and sanctities of free peoples crushed and stained. It should -be easier for us to reoccupy the spiritual ground of Hellas, to feel -a new thrill in her seemingly too simple formulas, a new value in her -seemingly cold ideals. It is opportune to write about her now, and -justifiable to write with a quickened hope. For all that, mental habits -are the last we lose, and the habit of regarding our civilization as -secure has had time to work itself deep into our minds. It has coloured -our outlook, directed our tastes, altered our souls. - -That last expression may appear overstrained. Yet reflect if it really -be so. These many ages we have felt so safe. If fear came on us, it -was not fear for the fabric itself of civilization. We grew delicately -weary of our inevitably clasping and penetrating culture. We called -it our “old” civilization, with some implication of senility; and we -were restive under its restraints and conventions. We were affected -in different ways, but we were all affected, we were all tired of -our security. To escape it some of us fled to the open road and a -picturesque gipsyism, some hunted big game in Africa. One or two of us -actually did these things, a greater number did them in imagination, -reading about them in books. Others, not caring to fatigue their -bodies, or too fastidious or sincere or morbid to find relief in -personal or vicarious adventures—for this reason or that—pursued -“spiritual adventures” or flamed out into rebellion against what they -felt insulted their souls. It seems clear enough that our bohemianism -of the city and the field is not two things but one, and I am not put -from this opinion by the consciousness of temperamental gulfs between -typical moderns such as (not to come too near ourselves) Whitman and -Poe in America. The symptoms are different, but the malady is the same. - -I am not concerned to defend the word “malady,” if it be thought -objectionable. It may be a quite excellent and healthy reaction we -have been experiencing. But a reaction means a disturbance of poise, -leaving us to some extent, as we say, unbalanced. It may have been so -in an opposite sense with the Greeks. I may not deny (for I am not -sure about it) that they went to the other extreme. It is possible and -even likely. But if they were rather mad about the virtues of sanity, -and rather excessive in their passion for moderation, this intensity -can only be medicinal to us, who need the tonic badly. It may help -us to reach that just equilibrium in which the soul is not asleep, -but, in fact, most thrillingly sensitive. Being what it is, the human -soul seems bound to oscillate for ever about its equipoise. It will -always have its actions and reactions. Our violent reaction against -the sense of an absolute security is entirely natural because of that -strange passion, commingled of longing and fear, that draws us to the -heart of loneliness and night. But it has exactly reversed our point of -view. We have wished for the presence of conditions which the Greeks, -having them, wished away. We have wished the forest to grow closer to -our doors. We have admired explorers and pioneers. We have admired -them because we are different. Well, the Greeks were explorers and -pioneers—and not merely in things of the spirit—and they wished the -forest away. Naturally, you see; just as naturally as we long for it to -be there. - -There is a line in Juvenal which means that when the gods intend to -destroy a man they grant him his desire. If we suddenly found ourselves -in the heart of savagery, most of us would wish to retract our prayers. -Robinson Crusoe tired of his delightful island. Men who live on the -verge of civilization are apt to cherish ideals which create strong -shudders in the modern artistic soul. On the African or Canadian -frontiers, or cruising in the south seas, a man may dream of a future -“home” of the kind which has moved so many of our writers to laughter -or pity. Whatever our own aspiration might be under the burden of -similar circumstances, we should at least experience a far profounder -sense of the value of those very civilities and conventions, of which -we had professed our weariness. To uphold the flag of the human spirit -against the forces that would crush and humiliate it—that would seem -the heroic, the romantic thing. Exactly that was the mission of Greece, -as she knew well, feeling all the glory and labour of it. And so far -as to fight bravely for a fair ideal with the material odds against you -is romantic, in that degree Greece was romantic. Her victory (of which -we reap the fruits) has wrought her this injury, that her ideal has -lost the attraction that clings to beautiful threatened things. It has -become the “classical” ideal, consecrated and—for most of us—dead. - -But it is not dead, and it will never perish, for it is the watchword -of a conflict that may die down but cannot expire; the conflict between -the Hellene and the Barbarian, the disciplined and the undisciplined -temper, the constructive and the destructive soul. Let that conflict -become desperate once more, and we shall understand. But a little -exercise of imagination would let us understand now. As it is, we -hardly do. We note with chilled amazement the passionate emphasis with -which the Greeks repeat over and over to themselves their _Nothing too -much!_ as if it were charged with all wisdom and human comfort. We -understand what the words say; we do not understand what they mean. - -The explanation is certain. The Greek watchword is uninspiring to -us, because we do not need it. We are not afraid of stimulus and -excitement, because we have our passions better under control, because -we have more thoroughly subdued the Barbarian within us, than the -Greeks. It is at least more agreeable to our feelings to put it that -way than to speak of “this ghastly thin-faced time of ours.” The -Greeks, on the other hand, were wildly afraid of temptation, not much -for puritanic reasons, although for something finer than prudential -ones. It may seem a little banal to repeat it, but— they had the -artistic temperament. They had the exceptional impressionability, and -they felt the very practical necessity (at least as important for the -artist as the puritan) of a serenity at the core of the storm. _The -wind that fills my sails, propels; but I am helmsman_ is the image -in Meredith. I once collected a quantity of material for a study of -the Greek temperament. I have been looking over it again, and I find -illustration after illustration of an impressionability rivalling -that of the most extreme Romantics. It is difficult to appraise this -evidence. Quite clearly it is full of exaggeration and prejudice. -If you were to believe the orators about one another, and about -contemporary politicians, you would think that fourth-century Athens -was run exclusively by criminal lunatics. Nor are the historians -writing in that age much better, infected as they are by the very evil -example of the rhetoricians. But the cumulative effect is overwhelming, -and is produced as much, if not more, by little half-conscious -indications, mere gestures and casual phrases, as by the records of -hysterical emotionality and scarlet sins. Don’t you remember how people -in Homer when they meet usually burst into tears and, if something -did not happen, might (the poet says) go on weeping till sunset? It -is not so often for grief they weep—unless for that remembered sorrow -which is a kind of joy—as for delight in the renewal of friendship, or -merely to relieve their feelings. The phrase used by Homer to describe -the end of such lamentations is one he also applies to people who have -just thoroughly enjoyed a meal. There is a sensuous element in it. Of -course, one murmurs “the southern” or “the Latin temperament”; but if -we understood the Latin temperament better, we should be able to read -more meaning into that warning _Nothing too much!_ - -A friend said to Sophocles, “_How do you feel about love, Sophocles? -Are you still fit for an amorous encounter?_” “_Don’t mention it, man; -I have just given it the slip—and very glad too—feeling as if I had -escaped from bondage to a ferocious madman._” To be sure Sophocles -was a poet and had the poetical temperament, and it would argue a -strange ignorance of human nature to make any inferences concerning his -character from the Olympian serenity of his art. But listen to this -anecdote about an ordinary young man. _Leontios the son of Aglaion -was coming up from the Piraeus in the shadow of the North Wall, on -the outside, when he caught sight of some corpses lying at the feet -of the public executioner. He wanted to get a look at them, but at -the same time he was disgusted with himself and tried to put himself -off the thing. For a time he fought it out and veiled his eyes. His -desire, however, getting the mastery of him, he literally pulled apart -his eyelids and, running up to the dead bodies, said, “There you are, -confound you; glut yourselves on the lovely sight!”_ - -Both anecdotes are in Plato, and may serve as a warning when we are -tempted to think him too hard on the emotional elements of the soul. He -knew the danger, because he felt it himself, because he understood the -Greek temperament—better, for instance, than Aristotle did. Undoubtedly -there is an ascetic strain in Plato, as there is in every moralist who -has done the world any good. But Greek asceticism is an attuning of the -instrument, not a mortification of the flesh. It is just the training -or discipline that is as necessary for eminence in art or in athletics -as for eminence in virtue. The Greek words—askêsis, aretê—level these -distinctions. - -This high tension is the natural reaction of a spirit, finely and -richly endowed as the Greek was, to the pressure of strong alien -forces. If the tension relaxed or broke, the result was what you might -expect; there was a rocket-like flash to an extreme. Others as well as -I may have wondered at the sort of language we find in Greek writers -concerning “tyrants.” The horror expressed is not merely conventional -or naïve as in a child’s history book, it is real and deeply felt. -The danger of tyranny was of course very actual in most of the Greek -states, even in Athens. But it is not so much the danger of suffering -as of exercising a tyranny that is in the minds of the best Greek -writers. The tyrant is a damned soul. Waiting for him in the dark are -“certain fiery-looking” devils and the Erinyes, Avengers of Blood. The -tyrant is the completion and final embodiment of human depravity.... -Well, perhaps he is. But we should never think of giving the tyrant -so very special a pre-eminence over every other type of criminal. Yet -the Greek feeling seems quite natural when we reflect that the very -definition of a tyrant is one that is placed above the law, and is -therefore under no external obligation to self-restraint, lacking which -the average Greek very rapidly and flamboyantly went to the devil. - -There was, for example, Alexander prince of Pherae, whom Shakespeare -read about in his Plutarch. Alexander had a habit of burying people -alive, or wrapping them in the skins of bears or boars; he used to hunt -them with dogs. He consecrated the spear with which he had murdered his -uncle, crowning it with garlands and offering sacrifices to it under -the name of Tychon, an obscene god. This same Alexander was present -once at a performance of Euripides’ _Trojan Women_, and was so overcome -by his feelings that he hurried from the theatre, leaving a message for -the leading actor, which explained that he did not disapprove of the -acting, but was ashamed to let people see him, who had never shown the -least pity for his victims, crying over Hecuba and Andromache. _What’s -Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?_ - -One might perhaps say of Alexander what Ruskin (speaking, as he -assures us, after due deliberation) says of Adam Smith, that he was -“in an entirely damned state of soul.” It would be easy to multiply -examples like that of this Pheraean, but it would be still easier to -disgust the reader with them. I will take, then, a milder case (more -instructive in its way than much pathology) which has for us this -twofold value, that it is full of human and pathetic interest, and at -the same time reflects, all the more if there are legendary elements in -it, the popular imagination of the tyrant’s mood. It is the tragedy of -Periandros, lord of Corinth. Hear Sosikles the Corinthian in Herodotus. - -_When Kypselos had reigned thirty years and ended his life happily, he -was succeeded by his son, Periandros. Now Periandros was milder than -his father at first, but afterwards by means of messengers he joined -himself to Thrasyboulos the tyrant of Miletus, and became yet more -bloody by far than Kypselos. For he sent a herald to Thrasyboulos and -inquired how he might most safely put affairs in order and best govern -Corinth. Thrasyboulos brought the messenger of Periandros forth from -the city, and entering into a field of corn he went through the corn, -putting one question after another to the herald on the matter of -his coming from Corinth. And ever as he spied an ear that overtopped -the rest, he would strike it off, and so marring it cast it down, -until in this way he destroyed the fairest and tallest portion of the -crop. And having traversed the field he sends away the herald without -giving him a word of counsel. When the herald returned to Corinth, -Periandros wished to learn the counsel. But the other said that -Thrasyboulos had answered nothing, and that he marvelled at him, what -manner of man he had sent him to, one beside himself and a destroyer -of his own possessions; relating what he saw done by Thrasyboulos. But -Periandros, understanding the action and perceiving that Thrasyboulos -advised him to slay the most eminent of the citizens, then showed every -manner of villainy towards the Corinthians. Whatever Kypselos had -left unaccomplished by his slaughterings and banishments, Periandros -fulfilled. And in one day he stripped naked all the women of Corinth -for his wife Melissa’s sake. For when he had sent messengers to the -river Acheron in Thesprotia, to the Oracle of the Dead there, to -inquire concerning a treasure deposited by a stranger, the ghost of -Melissa appeared and said that she would not signify nor declare in -what place the treasure was laid; for she was cold and naked, since she -had no profit of the garments that had been buried with her, for that -they had not been burned; and for proof that her words were true she -had a secret message for his ear.... When these things were reported to -Periandros (for the secret forced him to believe, since he had had to -do with Melissa when she was dead) immediately after he caused it to be -proclaimed that all the wives of the Corinthians should come forth to -the temple of Hera. And when they came, wearing their richest garments -as for a holy feast, he set his bodyguard in their way, and stripped -them all, bond and free alike, and gathering all into a trench he -burned the pile with prayer to Melissa. And when he had done this, and -had sent to her the second time, the ghost of Melissa told him where -she had deposited the stranger’s treasure._ - -Periandros had murdered Melissa. After her death _another calamity_, -says Herodotus, _befell him as I shall tell. He had two sons by -Melissa, one seventeen years of age and the other eighteen. Their -mother’s father Prokles, tyrant of Epidaurus, sent for them to his -castle and kindly entreated them, as was natural, for they were his -daughter’s children. But when he was bidding them farewell, he said, -“Know ye, my children, who slew your mother?” This saying the elder -regarded not, but the younger, whose name was Lykophron, when he heard -it was so moved_—the poor young man—_that when he came to Corinth, he -spake no word to his father, accounting him his mother’s murderer, -neither would he converse with him nor answer any question. And at last -Periandros in great anger drave him from the house. And after he had -expelled him, he questioned the elder son, what discourse their uncle -had held with them. And he told his father that Prokles had received -them kindly, but made no mention of that speech of Prokles, which he -uttered at their departing, for he had not marked it. But Periandros -declared that it was in no way possible but that he had given them -some counsel, and closely questioned the lad, till he remembered and -told this also. And Periandros, understanding the matter and resolved -not to yield weakly in any thing, sent a messenger to those with whom -the son whom he had driven forth was living, and forbade them to take -him in. And whenever the wanderer came to another house, he would be -driven from this also, Periandros threatening those who received him -and commanding them to thrust him forth. And he went wandering from -house to house of his friends, who, for all their fear, used to receive -him, seeing that he was the son of Periandros. But at last Periandros -caused proclamation to be made, that whosoever should receive him in -his house or speak to him, the same must pay such and such a sacred -penalty to Apollo. Therefore because of this proclamation no man was -willing to speak to the lad or to give him shelter. Moreover neither -would he himself try to obtain that which was forbidden him, but -endured all, haunting the public porticos. On the fourth day Periandros -saw him all unwashen and emaciated for lack of food, and was moved to -pity, and remitting somewhat of his anger he approached and said, “My -son, whether is better, to fare as now thou farest, or to take over my -lordship and the good things that are mine, reconciled to thy father? -But thou, my son and prince of wealthy Corinth, hast chosen a vagrant -life, opposing and showing anger against him whom thou oughtest least -to hate. If there has been a mishap in that matter, the same hath -befallen me also, and I have the larger share therein, as mine was the -deed. But apprehending how far better it is to be envied than pitied, -and at the same time what manner of thing it is to be wroth with them -that begat thee and are stronger than thou, come back home.” With these -words Periandros sought to constrain his son, but he made no other -answer but only this, that his father had incurred the sacred penalty -to the god by entering into speech with him. And Periandros, perceiving -that there was no dealing with nor overcoming of the enmity of his son, -sends him away out of his sight on board a ship to Corcyra, for he was -master of Corcyra also. But after he had dispatched him, Periandros -made an expedition against Prokles his father-in-law, blaming him -chiefly for what had happened, and took Epidaurus, and took Prokles -himself alive._ - -_But in course of time Periandros came to be old, and knew himself no -longer capable of watching over and administering affairs. Wherefore -he sent to Corcyra and recalled Lykophron to the tyranny; for he saw -nothing in his elder son, but looked upon him as somewhat dull of wit. -But Lykophron would not even answer the messenger. But Periandros, who -was bound up in the young man, made a second attempt, sending his own -daughter, Lykophron’s sister, thinking he would most readily listen to -her. And when she had come she said, “Dear Lykophron, is it your desire -that our lordship should fall to others and thy father’s substance be -scattered abroad, rather than come away and have it thyself? Come home; -cease punishing thyself. A proud heart is poor profit. Do not cure -one evil with another. Many prefer mercy to justice; and many ere now -in seeking what was their mother’s have lost what their father had. A -tyranny is a slippery thing, and many there be that long for it; and -he is now an old man and past his prime. Give not away what is thine -own to others.” These were her words, which her father had taught to -her as the most persuasive. But Lykophron answered that he would on no -account come to Corinth so long as he knew his father was alive. When -she had brought back this answer, Periandros sends a third messenger, -a herald, to propose that he should go himself to Corcyra, and bidding -Lykophron come to Corinth to succeed him in the tyranny. The young man -agreed to these terms, and Periandros was setting out for Corcyra and -the prince to Corinth, when the Corcyraeans, becoming aware of all -this, in order that Periandros might not come to their land, put the -lad to death. Therefore Periandros took vengeance on the Corcyraeans_. - -The revenge of the old man was to send three hundred boys of the chief -Corcyraean families to the great Lydian king, Alyattes, to be made -eunuchs.... He was cheated of his revenge by a humane stratagem of the -Samians. The lonely old man, with that touch of original nobleness -all gone now, black frustrate rage in his heart, love turned to an -inhuman hate of all the world, wearing this Nessus shirt of remorse and -despair! _Such is tyranny_, says Sosikles at the end of his speech, -_Such is tyranny, O Lacedaemonians, and such its consequences._ - -Periandros, you see, has already become a type. There is a curious -fitness in the application to these old “tyrants” of the worn quotation -from _The Vanity of Human Wishes_—they do very specially point a -moral and adorn a tale. The moral they point is the danger of losing -_Sophrosyne_. There is a wonderful description in Plato’s _Republic_ -of the tyrant’s genesis, a description which may startle us by the -intensity of feeling which one touches in it. It is a story of the -gradual loss of Sophrosyne, ending in perfect degeneration and the loss -of all the other virtues as well. This Sophrosyne (one of the cardinal -Greek virtues and the most characteristic of all) confronts us at the -outset of any study of the Hellenic temperament. To understand the -one is to understand the other. Complete understanding is of course -impossible, but we may get nearer and nearer to the secret. - -Sophrosyne is the “saving” virtue. That means little—or nothing—until -it is steeped in the colours of the Greek temperament, and viewed in -the Greek attitude to life. Well then, the Greek attitude to life—how -shall we describe that? I am going to describe it in a phrase which -is at least accurate enough to help on our discussion greatly: it -looks upon life as an _Agon_, and by an Agon is meant the whole range -of activities from the most to the least heroic, from the most to -the least spiritual, contest or competition. The reader will forgive -an appearance of pedantry in this, since the word needs careful -translation. Now my suggestion is that this _agonistic_ view of -life, if I may so call it, pervades and characterizes all Classical -antiquity. To understand clearly the nature of an Agon we must keep -firmly in mind its origin. It would be misleading surely to call its -origin religious—as if men needed to be religious to fight!—but it is -undeniable that its roots are embedded in that primitive life which is -so largely mastered by religion and magic. In consequence an ancient -Agon was nearly always a religious ceremony. That seems curious enough -to a modern mind, yet nothing is more certain. The great national Games -like the Olympic, the rhapsodic and musical contests, the Attic Drama -(which was specifically an Agon)—all had this religious or supernatural -_aura_ investing them. And when one looks into Greek religion itself, -one finds everywhere as its characteristic expression a choric dance, -which normally takes the form of an actual or mimic contest between two -sides or “semi-choruses.” - -The motive then of an Agon differed from that of an ordinary modern -contest. It was normally a _ritual_ contest, and its motive a -_religious_ motive. It was not held for its own sake, like a football -match, but for a definite object. This object the Greeks called -_Nikê_, which we translate—inadequately enough, as is plain from the -facts we have been considering—as “victory.” It was felt to be not so -much a personal distinction as a blessing upon the whole community. -It possessed a magical virtue. There was even a sense in which in an -ancient Agon everybody won. Nor does it seem extravagant to say that -Greek society, like a primitive society, only in a far richer, more -complex, more significant and spiritual way, was organized for the -production of Nikê. - -That is a large matter. There is, to be sure, no need of accumulated -detail to prove that the Agon was the most characteristic institution -of ancient life; it only requires to be pointed out; everywhere we find -these competitions. What may chiefly interest us for the moment is -that the Agon was simply the outward expression of the characteristic -Greek outlook upon life and upon the whole human scene. For the -Greek looked upon life itself as a struggle, an Agon, an opportunity -for the production of Nikê. Mr. Wells gives to one of his essays the -title of “The Human Adventure.” Life as the Human Adventure very well -expresses the Greek feeling about it. Only let us not forget that the -Nikê which is the object and justification of every Agon is—I have -already remarked it—something utterly, qualitatively different from -mere success. It is the triumph of the Cause. “Success”—“the successful -business man”—not that kind of success. - -The most successful man in Greece, every one remembers, was rewarded -with a little garland of wild olive. _God help us, Mardonios_, said a -noble Persian when he heard this, _what men are these thou hast brought -us to fight against!—men that contend not for money but for merit_. The -individual Greek could want money badly enough, as may be gathered from -the amusing, but satirical, _Characters_ of Theophrastus. Yet in the -soul of Hellas, for all its strong sense of reality and despite some -inclination to avarice, one finds at last something you might almost -call quixotic. Is there not some element of quixotry in every high -adventure? And what adventure could be higher than to fight for “the -beautiful things,” _Ta Kala_, against the outnumbering Barbarian? - -Sophrosyne is the virtue that “saves” in this battle. Understand it -so, and you must share some part of the ardour this word inspired. It -means the steady control and direction of the total energy of a man. -It means discipline. It means concentration. It is the angel riding -the whirlwind, the charioteer driving the wild horses. There is no -word for it in English, and we must coldly translate “moderation,” -“temperance,” “self-restraint.” “Moderation” as a name for this -strong-pulsed, triumphant thing! Why even the late-born, unromantic -Aristotle, even while he is describing Sophrosyne as a “mean” between -excessive and deficient emotionality, turns aside to remark, as a thing -almost too obvious to need pointing out, that “there is a sense in -which Sophrosyne is an _extreme_.” This is She whom Dante beheld on the -Mountain of Purgatory such that “never were seen in furnace glasses or -metals so glowing and red”: - - _giammai non si videro in fornace - vetri o metalli sì lucenti e rossi_. - - - - -VI - -GODS AND TITANS - - -It was an ancient hypothesis that the Gods are only deified men. A -certain Euêmeros suggested this. His favourite illustration was Zeus; -that greatest of the Gods, he said, was a prehistoric king in Crete, as -the Cretan legends about him proved. This theory has received a fresh -life from the investigations of modern scholars. Historically, it seems -to be largely true; psychologically, it explains nothing at all. _All -men have need of the Gods_, says Homer; the religious instinct, that is -the important thing, or rather (since the other is important too) that -is the fundamental thing. It is also the prior thing, the spring of the -religious act. If I want to know why primitive men make a god of one of -their number, it seems no answer to assure me that they do so. Yet the -historical inquiry has great interest too, and throws a dim and rather -lurid light on the development of religion and religious thought. And -I could not leave untouched an aspect of the old Greek life so vital -as its belief about the gods without illustrating how here also the -conflict of Greek and Barbarian worked itself out. - -It is almost the other day that we rediscovered the old Aegean -religion—the immemorially ancient religion of the non-Greek peoples, -the Barbarians, who lived about the Aegean Sea. It is now clear that -the Hittites, the Phrygians, the ancient peoples of Anatolia generally, -worshipped a kind of triad or trinity of Father, Son and Consort. -Sometimes, as in the Hittite sculptures, the Father and the Son seem -the important members of the group; sometimes, as in the Phrygian -religion, the emphasis is chiefly on the Mother and Consort, and the -Son. But the third member can always be discovered too, standing pretty -obviously in the background. In prehistoric Crete (which, of course, -became Greek in historical times) we again recognize the divine Three -in the persons of those native divinities whom the Greeks learned to -call Kronos, Rhea and Zeus. That is the skeleton of the old religion; -the living flesh in which it was clothed was begotten in tribal custom. -Primitive peoples fashion their gods after their own image. Their chief -god they think of as a greater and more worshipful “king,” swayed by -the passions, observing the etiquette, and wearing the regalia of their -earthly rulers. Now the primitive king held his place by force or craft -or the terror of his rages (his _menos_)—and by no other tenure. He -lived in constant dread of the rival who, younger and stronger, would -one day rise against him and seize his throne. The rival might be a -stranger, but more frequently he was the king’s own son, who, for one -thing, would be thought likely to inherit the magical virtue of his -sire. Accordingly, when the Young King was born, the Old King would -seek his life. But there he would be apt to meet the opposition of the -Queen, who would seek to convey the child to a safe retreat. Then, -grown at last to manhood, suddenly the Prince would return to challenge -the Old King to mortal combat. The Gods behave exactly like that. - -The chief depositary in ancient Greece of popular beliefs about the -Gods is the curious poem attributed to Hesiod, called the _Theogony_. -Along with certain parts of Homer, it formed what might be called -the handbook of orthodoxy, and it tells us with an incomparable -authoritativeness what the sacred tradition was. Eldest of all, says -the _Theogony_, was Gaia or Mother Earth, a goddess. Now she _bare -first starry Ouranos, equal to herself, that he might cover her on -every side ... and afterward she lay with him, and bare the deep coil -of Okeanos, and Koios, and Krios, and Hyperîon, and Iapetos, and Thea, -and Rhea, and Themis, and Mnemosyne, and Phoibe with the gold upon her -head, and lovely Tethys. And, after these, youngest was born Kronos -the Crooked-Thinker, most dangerous of her sons, who loathed his lusty -begetter._ There is a fuller account in another place. _Next, of Gaia -and Ouranos were born three sons, huge and violent, ill to name, Kottos -and Briareos and Gyes, the haughty ones. From their shoulders swang -an hundred arms invincible, and on their shoulders, upon their rude -bodies, grew heads a fifty upon each; irresistible strength crowned the -giant forms. Of all the children of Gaia and Ouranos most to be feared -were these, and they were hated of their Sire from the first; yea, soon -as one was born, he would not let them into the light, but would hide -them all away in a hiding-place of Earth, and Ouranos gloried in the -bad work. And, being straitened, huge Gaia groaned inwardly; and she -thought of a cruel device. Hastily she created the grey flint, and of -it fashioned a mighty Sickle, and expounded her thought to her Sons, -speaking burning words from an anguished heart. “Sons of me and of an -unrighteous Father, if ye will hearken to me, on your Father ye may -take vengeance for his sinful outrage, for it was He began the devising -of shameful deeds!”_ - -_So spake she, but fear seized them all, I ween, neither did one of -them utter a word. But mighty Kronos the Cunning took heart of grace, -and made answer again to his good Mother. “Mother, I will undertake and -will perform this thing, since of our Father (‘Father!’) I reck not; -for it was He began the devising of shameful deeds!” So spake he, and -mighty Gaia rejoiced greatly in her heart, and hid him in an ambush, -and put in his hands the sharp-fanged Sickle, and taught him all the -plot._ - -_Great Ouranos came with falling night and cast him broadly over Gaia, -desiring her, and outstretched him at large upon her. But that other, -his Son, reached out with his left hand from the place of his hiding -... and with his right grasping the monstrous fanged Sickle, he swiftly -reaped the privy parts of his Father and cast them to fall behind him._ - -In calling this story Barbarian, I feel as if I ought to apologize -to the Barbarians. Nevertheless it is clearly more in their way than -in the way of the Greeks. It excellently illustrates the kind of -stuff from which Greek religion refined itself. You will see that -it is the old savage stuff of the battle between the Kings. On this -occasion it is the Young King who prevails and pushes the Old King -from his throne—not to die (for he was a God), but to live a shadowy, -elemental life. But neither was Kronos able to escape his destiny. For -_Rhea, subdued unto Kronos, bare shining children, even Hestia, and -Demeter, and gold-shod Hera, and strong Hades, that pitiless heart, -dwelling under ground, and the roaring Earth-Shaker, and Zeus the -Many-Counselled, the Father of Gods and men, by whose thunder the broad -earth is shaken. They also—great Kronos was used to swallow them down, -as each came from the womb to his holy Mother’s knees, with intent -that none other of the proud race of Ouranos should hold the lordship -among the Everliving. For he knew from Gaia and starry Ouranos that -he was fated to be overcome of his own child.... Therefore no blind -man’s watch he kept, but looked for his children and swallowed them; -but Rhea grieved and would not be comforted. But when she was at point -to bring forth Zeus, then she prayed her own dear parents, Gaia and -starry Ouranos, to devise a plan whereby she might bear her Son in -secret, and retribution be paid by Kronos the Crafty Thinker for his -father’s sake and his children that he gorged. And they truly gave ear -to their daughter and obeyed her, and told her all things that were -fated to befall concerning Kronos the King and his strong-hearted Son. -And they conveyed her to Luktos in the fat land of Crete, when she was -about to bring forth the youngest of her sons, great Zeus. Him gigantic -Gaia received from her in broad Crete to nurture and to nurse. Thither -came Gaia bearing him through the swift black night, to Luktos first; -and she took him in her arms and hid him in a lonely cave, withdrawn -beneath the goodly land, there where the wild-wood is thick upon the -hills of Aigaion. But she wrapped a great Stone in swaddlingclouts, -and gave it to the Son of Ouranos so mightily ruling, the Old King of -the Gods. And Kronos seized it then with his hands, and put it down -in his belly without ruth, nor knew in his own mind that for a Stone -his Son was left to him unvanquished and unharmed, that was soon to -overcome him by main strength of his hands, and drive him from the -sovranty, and be King himself among the Everliving._ - -_For swiftly thereafter mightiness was increased to the Young King and -his shining limbs waxed greater, and, as the seasons rounded to their -close, great Kronos the Cunning was beguiled by the subtile suggestions -of Gaia, and cast up again his offspring; and first he spewed forth the -Stone, that he had swallowed last. Zeus planted it where meet the roads -of the world in goodly Pytho under the rock-wall of Parnassus, to be a -sign and to be a marvel to men in the days to come._ - -The Stone was there all right, for the French excavators have found -it, looking highly indigestible. But it is unfair to treat Hesiod in -this spirit. In fact, to read in him such passages as I have quoted is -to give oneself quite a different emotion. There is the most curious -conflict between one’s moral and one’s æsthetic reactions to them. You -have a matter which it is poor to call savage, which is more like some -atavistic resurrection of the beast in man; and you find it told in a -style which is like some obsolescent litany full of half-understood -words and immemorial refrains. The most primitive-minded is also the -most literary poet in Greek, if by “literary” one means influenced by -a tradition in style. He is full of the epic _clichés_, and he repeats -them in a helpless, joyless way, as if he had no choice in the matter. -If you wish to be unkind, you may describe his style as the epic -jargon. But you will be unjust if you do not admit a certain grandeur -arising (it would almost seem) out of its very formalism. Even in its -decay the epic style is a magnificent thing. The singing-robes of Homer -have faded and stiffened, but they are still dimly gorgeous, and it -is with gold that they are stiff. The poet of the _Theogony_—I call -him Hesiod without prejudice—wears them almost like a priest. But if -you have to tell a story like those I have quoted, what other manner -is possible than just such a conventional, half-ritualistic style, -which acts like a spell to move the religious emotions and suspend the -critical judgment? I am not quite finished with Hesiod, and I want the -reader to have a little more patience with him and with me. - -Before he was cast out of his throne, Ouranos, having conceived a -hatred of his Sons, Briareos and Kottos and Gyes, _strongly bound -them, being jealous of their overbearing valour, their beauty and -stature, and fixed their habitation under the wide-wayed earth, where -they were seated at the world’s end and utmost marge, in great grief -and indignation of mind. Natheless the Son of Kronos, and the rest of -the immortal Gods that deep-haired Rhea bare in wedlock with Kronos, -brought them up to the light again by the counsels of Gaia, who -told them all the tale, how they would gain the victory and bright -glory with the aid of those._ In another place we read that Briareos -and Kottos and Gyes _were grateful for that good service, and gave -Zeus the thunder and the burning bolt and the lightning-flash, that -aforetime vast Gaia concealed; in them he puts his trust as he rules -over mortals and immortals_. He required them almost at once in his -battle with the Titans. The word “Titans” seems to mean nothing more -or less than “Kings.” They were the Old Kings at war with the Young -Kings (who, because they lived on Mount Olympus in Thessaly, came to -be called the “Olympians”) with Zeus at their head. Naturally the Old -Kings took the side of Kronos, but after a ten years’ war they were -beaten in a terrific battle, and Zeus reigned supreme. And then how do -we find him behaving? Like this. _And Zeus King of the Gods took to -wife first Metis, that was wisest of Gods and men. And when indeed she -was about to bring forth the blue-eyed Goddess Athena, he beguiled her -with cunning words, and put her down into his belly, by the counsels -of Gaia and starry Ouranos, who counselled him so, lest some other of -the ever-living Gods should hold the sovranty in the stead of Zeus, for -of her it was fated that most wise children should be born, first the -bright-eyed Maid Tritogeneia, of equal might with her Sire and of a -wise understanding, and after her I ween she was to bear a high-hearted -Son, that would be King of Gods and men. So he clutched her and put her -down in his belly, in fear that she would bear a stronger thing than -the Thunderbolt._ - -Now, of course, the Greeks once believed this sort of thing; otherwise -you would not have Hesiod solemnly repeating it. But they very early -repudiated it; and it is just the earliness and the thoroughness -of their repudiation wherein they show themselves Greek. For the -surrounding Barbarians kept on believing myths hardly less damnable, -and kept acting on their faith; whereas as early as Homer you find -the Greek protest. In Homer it is silent; he simply leaves Hesiod’s -rubbish out. But the Ionian philosophers were not silent; indeed -they included in their condemnation Homer himself. Heraclitus said -that Homer deserved to be scourged out of the assemblies of men, and -Archilochus likewise. Xenophanês said, _Homer and Hesiod attribute -to the Gods all things that are scandals and reproach among men—to -thieve, to be adulterers, and to deceive one another._ Pindar (a very -moral poet) is indignant at the suggestion that an immortal god would -eat boiled baby. Naturally, however, the poets and the philosophers -approached the myths in a different spirit, which led to what in -Plato’s time was already “a standing quarrel.” The philosophers -objected to them altogether; the poets made them so beautiful in the -telling that they passed beyond the sphere of the moralist. Even the -_Theogony_ in parts achieves nobility; even in the _Theogony_ the -Hellenizing process is at work on the Barbarian matter. - -We shall be better instructed, however, if we observe the process -in a later poet and a much greater artist. It so happens that the -_Prometheus Bound_ of Aeschylus, like the _Theogony_, deals with the -relations between the Old King and the New. The drama which we know -as the _Prometheus Bound_ is only a part of what ancient scholars -called a trilogy, which is a series of three plays developing a single -theme; and we cannot even be certain whether it is the first part or -the second. Of the other members of the trilogy we possess little more -than the titles, which are _Prometheus Unbound_ and _Prometheus the -Fire-Carrier_. Most students are now strongly disposed to believe that -the _Fire-Carrier_ received its name from the circumstance that the -play had for its theme, or part of its theme, the foundation of the -Prometheia or Festival of Prometheus at Athens, the culmination of -which was a torch-race engaged in by youthful fire-carriers. Every year -the Athenian ephêbi, running with lit torches in relays of competitors, -contended which should be the first to kindle anew the fire upon the -common altar of Prometheus and Hephaistos in the Academy. If this -conjecture regarding the theme of the _Fire-Carrier_ is just, then -we may be sure that this play came last in the series, because it -celebrates the triumph of the hero. Accordingly it is usual to arrange -the trilogy in the order: _Prometheus Bound_, _Prometheus Unbound_, -_Prometheus the Fire-Carrier_. - -The _Prometheus Bound_ deals with the punishment of Prometheus by Zeus. -It is commonly said that the hero of the play is punished because he -had stolen fire, which Zeus had hidden away, and bestowed it upon -mortals, who are represented as hitherto uncivilized. There is a -certain amount of truth in this view, for in the opening scene of the -play, when Prometheus is nailed to his rock, the fiend Kratos repeats -that the reason for this torture is the theft of fire. But the proper -theme of the _Prometheus Bound_ is not so much the binding of the Titan -as the keeping him in bonds; and the reason for the prolongation of his -torture is quite different from the reason for beginning it. The new -reason is the refusal of Prometheus to reveal a secret, known to him -but not to Zeus. All that Zeus knows is that one day he is fated to be -superseded by his own son. What he does not, and what Prometheus does -know, is who must be the mother of that son. On the withholding and -the final revelation of this secret revolves the whole plot, not only -of the _Prometheus Bound_, but also of the lost plays of the trilogy. -To get the truth Zeus patiently tortures his immortal victim for three -myriads of years, himself tortured by the old dynastic terror. It is -the recurring situation of the _Theogony_ renewing itself once more. - -Such crude material lay before Aeschylus. But his genius and his time -alike required from him a different treatment from that which does not -dissatisfy us in the archaic chronicle of Hesiod. The genius of the -Athenian poet is of course essentially dramatic, and he lived in an -age which had woken to the need for what I will simply call a better -religion. Therefore he chose the subject of Prometheus, and therefore -he treated it dramatically. Now for the poet and his audience what is -most dramatic is, or ought to be, what is felt by them as most human; -and what is most human is simply what is most alive and real to them; -for drama aims at the illusion of reality. So Aeschylus could not -handle his matter with the hieratic simplicity of the _Theogony_. The -issues could not be so simple for the dramatist, because they are never -so simple in actual life. If Aeschylus was to make Prometheus his hero, -he would have to make him “sympathetic.” And so, in _Prometheus Bound_, -he does; Prometheus engages all our sympathy, while Zeus appears a -tyrant in the modern, and not merely the ancient, sense of the word. -But that is not the conclusion of the matter. We know that in the last -play of the trilogy the tormentor and the tormented were reconciled. -To the uncompromising Shelley this was intolerable; and so he wrote -his “Prometheus Unbound.” And nearly every one who in modern times has -written on the subject, whatever explanation or apology he may have put -forward in behalf of Aeschylus, has wished in his heart that the Greek -had felt like the Englishman. - -That he did not, is just the curious and disconcerting thing we should -like explained. - -The tradition, of course, counts for much. Aeschylus did not invent -his story. He found it already in existence, and he found it ending -in a certain way. We cannot tell if it ended precisely in the way -that Aeschylus represented. But we can be perfectly sure that it -did not end in an unqualified victory for Prometheus. The tradition -appears to be dead against him. Aeschylus therefore was so far bound -by that. Then the problem presented itself to him with this further -complication, that as a matter of knowledge Zeus was reigning _now_. -So the justification of Zeus against the rebel Titan becomes a -justification of the moral governance of the universe. Yet although -Aeschylus felt the restraint of the myth and the restraint of the moral -issue, it is to be believed that he submitted to them with full, and -even passionate, acceptance. Like the great artist, like the great -dramatic poet he is, he begins by stating the case for Prometheus as -strongly as he can—more strongly, it would seem, than the existing -legends quite allowed—and even in the end the Titan is not shorn of his -due honour. But as against the Olympians, Aeschylus argues (with the -Greek poets in general), the Titans were in the wrong. The sin of the -Titans was lawlessness. Prometheus, in bringing to mortals the gift of -fire, broke the law which forbade them its use. The question whether -the dealings of God with man were “just” or no, was not to be decided -by your feelings (as Prometheus judged), but by cool and measured -reflection as to what was best in the end for mankind, or rather for -the universe, of which they formed after all so small a part. - -Such doctrine falls chillingly on the modern spirit. But -that is largely because we realize so ill what it means. The -_Prometheus_-trilogy was a dramatization of the conflict of Pity and -Justice embodied in two superhuman wills. Before you condemn the -solution of Aeschylus, perhaps you are bound to answer the question if -this is not the conflict which the modern world is trying with blood -and tears to solve. In the end (so the old poet fabled) Zeus the rigid -Justicer learned mercy, while his passionate enemy came to recognize -the sovereignty of Law. A compromise, if you like; but if you are sorry -for it, it only means that you are sorry for human life. I daresay -Aeschylus was sorry too, but then he was not going to be sentimental. -Life _is_ after all governed by a compromise between Justice and Pity. -And if it comes to a mere question of emotional values, does not one -love Prometheus all the more because at the last he had, like any man, -to give up a little of his desire? - -Even so we shall not have done complete justice to the Greek position, -until we have renewed in our minds the Greek emotion about law, order, -measure, limitation—the things we are engaged in criticizing and, most -of us, in disparaging. We must for our purpose accept the Hellenic -paradox. We must see with the Greek that it was not the wilderness, -but the ploughed field and the ordered vineyard that was truly -romantic. And in the moral reign it was Temperance, Self-Discipline, -_Sophrosyne_; in the sphere of art the strict outline, the subjugation -of excess, that filled the Greek with the pleasurable excitement -we find in the exotic, the crude, the violent, the bizarre. The -explanation is engagingly simple. To the ancient world law and order -were the exception—the wild, romantic, hardly attainable exception; -while us they interest about as much as a couple of boiled potatoes. We -are for the Open Road and somewhere east of Suez. But the attraction -then and now is exactly the same. It is the attraction of the -unfamiliar. - -We could understand the Hellenic paradox better if we had to live in an -unsettled country. We should then receive the thrill which words like -_Nomos_ and _Thesmos_ and _Kosmos_, the watchwords of civilization, -awakened in the Greek bosom. We should understand the longing for a -clue in the maze of the lawless, a saving rule to guide one through the -thickets of desperate and degrading confusion. But as it is we are so -hedged about by the barbed-wire entanglements of Government regulations -and social conventions that our desires are chiefly concentrated on -breaking through—breaking through, let us admit, at but a little -point and for but a little time, for we are really rather fond of our -prison-house and care not to be too long out of it. Yes, I think with a -little effort we can understand. We can believe that the sense of home -is strongest in the wanderer. He wanders to find his home, and when he -has found it, he cannot make it “home-like” and conventional enough. - -So to the ancients Greek civilization had the flavour of a high and -rare adventure. It was a crusade, the conquest of the Barbarian—the -Barbarian without and within. Viewed in this light, the conflict -between Zeus and Prometheus assumes an aspect novel enough to us. -Zeus represents the Law—unjust in this instance if you will, unjust -as perhaps Zeus himself came in the end partly to admit—but still the -Law. Prometheus represents Anarchy. In this he shows himself truly -a Titan, for the Titans embodied the lawless forces of nature and -an undisciplined emotionality. Our fatigued spirits love to gamble -a little with these excitements. But the Greeks had just escaped -from them, and were horribly afraid of them. There is nothing their -art loved to depict like the victory of the disciplined will—fairly -typified in Zeus, perfectly in Athena—over unchained passion. Hence -those endless pictures of Olympians warring against Titans, against -Giants—of Greeks against Amazons—of Heracles, of Theseus against the -monsters. They are records of a spiritual victory won at infinite cost. - -The true theme of the _Prometheus_-trilogy is the Reign of Law. Law -in the realm of affairs, _Sophrosyne_ in morals, form in art. There -is nothing tame or negative about the doctrine. The Greek spirit was -not tame or negative; it would be difficult to say how much it was not -that! Indeed the inspiration of their creed was just the desire of the -Greeks to extract the full value of their emotions. None knew better -the danger lest one - - _should lose distinction in his joys - As doth a battle when they charge on heaps, - The enemy flying_. - -And, from the point of view of art—always so important for them—the -rule of “measure” becomes the art of concentration. So Law stands -revealed as Beauty. As Keats says, the final condemnation of the Titans -was that, compared with the Olympians, they failed in Beauty: - - _For first in Beauty shall be first in Might_. - -The evolution of Greek religion is thus largely an artistic process. -It would be obstinate to deny that the process may have been carried, -at last, too far. Greek art begins as almost a form of religion; -Greek religion ends as almost a form of art. Yet it would certainly -be still more obstinate to deny that more was gained than lost. There -was gained, for instance, the Greek mythology. And what simplicity and -sincerity that were lost were not more than made up for by that Greek -religion—no longer of the State but of the individual—which we find in -Plato and (as we have begun to see) in so much of the New Testament? - -How much, and with what immense justification, the Greek religious -spirit was a spirit of beauty transforming Barbarism, could hardly -be more aptly illustrated than by a story in Herodotus. It is the -tale of Atys the son of Croesus. How beautiful it is, every reader -will confess. But how instructive it is, hardly any but the special -student will recognize. For he finds in it the unmistakable features -of an ancient myth. _Atys_, the brilliant, early-dying prince whom -Herodotus, repeating the legend as he heard it, calls the son of the -historical Croesus, is no other than _Attis_, brother and son and -spouse—the ambiguity is in the myth—of the Mountain Mother of Phrygia. -Atys, slain in hunting the boar, is Attis, who was a hunter, and -scarcely distinguishable from Adonis. The matter is explained at length -by Sir James Frazer in his _Attis, Adonis and Osiris._ The myth arose -out of the worship of the Asiatic goddess variously named by the Greeks -Kybelê, Kybêbê, Rhea, and other titles, though in reality a nameless -deity, a holy Mother and Bride wedded at the right season of the year -to her son, Attis, that its fruits might be renewed through the magic -of that ritual. There was a temple of “Kybelê” near Sardis—still stand -a column or two—where the Paktôlos rushes from its mountain gorge. That -helps to explain why a prince of Sardis has entered into her myth. It -is even possible that actual princes of Sardis, did anciently personate -once a year the consort of the great goddess of the region. This at -least accords with analogy, and best explains the origin of the story -in Herodotus. For the rest it is a Phrygian tale. Olympus, where the -fabled boar is hunted, was in Mysia, which was in Phrygia. Adrastos, -“He from whom there is no Escape,” is certainly connected with the -goddess Adrasteia, much worshipped in the Phrygian Troad. Above all -it was in Phrygia that the Mountain Mother was chiefly worshipped. In -spring the Phrygians fashioned an image of the young Attis, and mourned -over it with ritual dirges, recalling his doom. Thus gradually we may -dig down to the roots of the myth. - -What we find there is a thing of horror. Nana, daughter of the River -Sangarios, saw an almond-tree, which had sprung from the blood of a son -of Kybelê, whom the gods in fear of his strength had mutilated. (Here -is the Hesiodic _motif_ again.) She conceived and bare a child, which -she exposed. At first the wild goats nurtured him; then shepherds of -the mountain. At last Attis was grown so beautiful that Agdistis (who -is but a form of Kybelê) loved him, and when he would not answer her -love, drove him mad, so that he fled to the hills and there under a -pine-tree unmanned himself. From his blood sprang violets to hang about -the tree. - -But for the unexpected sweetness of wild violet and mountain pine at -the close, the story is curiously unlovely. But what really gives one a -shudder is the reflection that the story mirrors a fact. The priests of -Kybelê ... what I would say is that they behaved like Attis. - -You would guess none of these things from Herodotus. What has happened -to the myth that it is transmuted to the exquisite and piteous tale he -has related? We can only say that it has suffered the Greek magic. The -Hellenic spirit, dreaming on the old dark fantasy, robs it a little of -its wild, outrageous beauty (which was to reappear later in the _Attis_ -of Catullus), but keeps much of its natural magic, and by introducing -the figure of the father adds overwhelmingly to the dramatic value of -the story. Most of all it steeps the whole in a wonderful rightness -of emotion. The gift which has achieved this is, as I have hinted, a -dramatic gift; the magic is the same as that which pervades the Attic -Tragedy. So much is this the case that the Tale of Atys in Herodotus -reads like a Greek tragic drama in prose. The explanation is that -ancient Tragedy arose out of just such a ritual as that from which -sprang the Atys story. That story, so far as I know, was never made the -subject of an actual drama. It seems a pity. What a subject it would -have been for Euripides! - -It seems to me a legitimate procedure, in an essay of this kind, to -indicate the affinity between the tale in Herodotus and the normal -structure and method of Attic Tragedy by treating the narrative -portions of the tale as so many stage-directions, and the dialogue as -we treat the dialogue in a play, assigning every speech to its proper -speaker. Let me only add that all the dialogue, and practically all of -the stage-directions, are literally translated. - - -_THE DEATH OF ATYS_ - -[_The scene is Sardis in Lydia. It is a populous settlement of -reed-thatched houses clustering about a wonderful, sheer, enormous rock -crowned by the great walls of the Citadel. Over against it, to the -south, rises the neighbouring range of Tmôlos, whence issues the famous -little stream of the Paktôlos, which, emerging from a gorge, rolls its -gold-grained sand actually through the market-place of Sardis into -the Hermos. Some miles away, by the margin of a lake, appear the vast -grave-mounds of the Lydian kings. Within the Citadel is the ancestral -Palace of_ CROESUS. _Any one entering the palace would observe its -unwonted splendour—silver and gold and electrum everywhere. He would -also be struck by the circumstance that the walls of the great Hall are -bare of the swords and spears and quivers, which it was customary to -hang there. At present the weapons are piled in the women’s chambers._ - -CROESUS _is seen clad in a great purple-red mantle, and carrying a long -golden sceptre tipped with a little eagle in gold. He is surrounded by -his bodyguard of spearmen, who wear greaves and breastplates of bronze, -and helmets crested with the tails of horses._ - -_A_ STRANGER _in the peaked cap, embroidered dress, and tall boots of -a Phrygian noble enters with drawn sword, and with looks of haste and -horror. Seeing_ CROESUS, _he utters no word, but, running forward, sits -down by the central hearth of the house, strikes his sword into the -floor, and covers his face. By this proceeding he confesses at once -that he is a homicide, and that he desires absolution from his sin. -In silence also the_ KING _approaches and gazes on the man. Then he -goes through the elaborate and displeasing ritual of purification from -bloodshed, calling aloud on the God of Suppliants to sanctify the rite. -At last he is free to question the_ STRANGER.] - -CROESUS. Man sitting at my hearth, who art thou and whence comest thou -out of Phrygia? What man or what woman hast thou slain? - -STRANGER. O King, I am the son of Gordias the son of Midas, and my name -is Adrastos. Behold here one that by unhappiness hath slain his own -brother, and my father hath driven me out, and all hath been taken from -me. - -CROESUS. Now art thou among friends, for there is friendship between -our houses. Here wilt thou lack nothing, so long as thou abidest in my -house. Strive to forget thy mischance; that will be best for thee. - -[_The man_ ADRASTOS _enters the Palace with_ CROESUS. _Meanwhile -arrive certain messengers. They are mountaineers, dressed in skins and -carrying staves hardened at the point by fire. They come from Mount -Olympus in Mysia._] - -MYSIANS. Lord, a very mighty boar hath revealed himself in our land, -the which layeth waste our tillage, neither can we by any means slay -him. Now therefore we beseech thee, send thy son with us, and chosen -young men, and dogs, that we may destroy him out of the land. - -CROESUS. As for my son, make ye no mention of him hereafter; I will not -send him with you; for he hath lately married a wife, and is occupied -with this. Yet will I send chosen men of the Lydians, and all the hunt, -and straitly charge them very zealously to aid you in destroying the -beast out of the land. - -_[Enters now the young man_, ATYS, _the son of_ CROESUS. _He is -dressed much in the Greek fashion, but with such ornaments of gold and -embroidery of flowers upon him as beseem a prince of the House of the -Mermnadae. He has heard of the prayer of the_ MYSIANS, _and now pleads -with his father that he may be permitted to go with them._] - -ATYS. Father, aforetime when I would be going to battle and the chase -and winning honour therein, that was brave and beautiful. But now hast -thou shut me out alike from war and from the hunt, albeit thou hast -not espied in me any cowardice or weakness of spirit. And now with -what countenance must I show myself either entering or departing from -the assembly of the people? What shall be deemed of me by the folk of -this city and my newly married wife? What manner of husband will she -suppose is hers? Therefore either suffer me to go upon this hunting, or -else persuade me that thy course is better. - -CROESUS. O son, I do not this because I have espied cowardice or any -unlovely thing in thee at all. But the vision of a dream came to me in -sleep, and said that thy life was not for long; by an iron edge thou -wouldest perish. Therefore I was urgent for thy marrying, because I had -regard unto this vision, and therefore I will not send thee upon this -emprise, being careful if by any means I may steal thee from death, -while I am living. For thou art mine only son, not counting the other, -the dumb. - -ATYS. I blame thee not, father, that having beheld such a vision -thou keepest ward over me. But what thou perceivest not neither -understandest the significance thereof in thy dream, meet is it that I -tell thee. Thou sayest that the dream told that I should be slain by -an iron edge. But a boar—what hands hath it, or what manner of iron -edge which thou fearest? Had the dream made mention of a tusk or the -like, needs must thou do as now thou doest; but it said an edge. Seeing -therefore that it is not against men that I go to fight, let me go. - -CROESUS. My son, herein thou dost convince my judgement by thine -interpretation of the dream. Wherefore being thus persuaded by thee I -do now change my thought and suffer thee to go to the hunting. - -[_The_ KING _now sends for_ ADRASTOS _and they speak as follows._] - -CROESUS. Adrastos, when a foul mischance smote thee (I reproach thee -not therewith), I cleansed thee of thy sin, and received thee in my -house, and have furnished thee with abundance of all things. Now -therefore (for thou owest me a kindness) keep ward over my son that -goeth forth to the chase, lest evil thieves appear to your hurt. -Moreover for thyself also it is right that thou go where thou shalt -win glory by thy mighty deeds; for so did thy fathers before thee; and -moreover thou art a mighty man. - -ADRASTOS. For another reason, O King, I would not have gone on such a -venture. For neither is it seemly, nor do I wish, that one so afflicted -mingle among his fortunate peers; yea, for manifold reasons I would -have refrained. But now, since thou art urgent thereto and I am bound -to perform thy pleasure—for I owe thee return of kindness—I am ready to -do this thing: thy son, whom thou straitly chargest me to guard, expect -thou to return home without hurt, so far as I am able to guard him. - -_In this manner_, continues Herodotus, _did he then make answer to -Croesus. And after that they set forth with service of chosen young -men and of dogs. And when they had come to the mountain Olympus, they -began to quest for the beast; and having found him they stood round -about him, and cast their javelins at him. Then the stranger, the man -that had been purged of the stains of blood, even he that was named -Adrastos, cast his spear at the boar, and missed him, and smote the -son of Croesus instead. And he so smitten by the edge of the spear -fulfilled the saying of the nightly vision. But one ran to tell -Croesus that which had befallen; and when he was come to Sardis he -declared to him the manner of the fight and the slaying of his son. -And Croesus being mightily troubled by the death of the young man -complained the more vehemently for that he had been killed by that -very one whom he had purified of a manslaying. And in the passion -of his grief he cried aloud with a great and terrible voice on Zeus -of Purification, calling him to bear witness what recompense he had -received at the hands of the stranger; and he named him moreover God -of the Hearth and God of Companionship, naming him by the former name -because receiving the stranger into his house he had unwittingly given -meat and drink to the slayer of his child, and by the latter name -because having sent him with his son to guard him he now found him his -greatest enemy._ - -_And now the Lydians came bearing the dead body, and behind them -followed the slayer. And he standing before the dead yielded himself up -to Croesus, stretching forth his hands, bidding him slay him over the -body, making mention of his former calamity, and how now he had besides -brought destruction upon the man that had purified him, neither was it -meet that he should live. Croesus hearing has pity on Adrastos, albeit -in so great sorrow of his own, and says to him_: Guest, I have all I -may claim of thee, since thou dost adjudge thyself to death. Not thee I -blame for this ill, save as thou wert the unwilling doer thereof; nay -but some god methinks is the cause, who even aforetime showed me that -which should come to pass. - -_Then did Croesus honourably bury his son. But Adrastos the son of -Gordias the son of Midas, even the man that had killed his own -brother, and had killed the son of him that washed away his offence, -after the people had left the tomb and there was silence, deeming in -his own heart that of all men that he knew himself was most calamitous, -slew himself upon the grave._ - - - - -VII - -CLASSICAL AND ROMANTIC - - -I - - -When Alexander the Great invaded India, that pupil of Aristotle -interested himself in questions to the Gymnosophists, or native -philosophers. To the eldest of these Gymnosophists (says Plutarch) -he addressed the following conundrum: _Which is older—the night or -the day?_ The ancient man promptly replied, _The day—by the length of -one day._ When Alexander demanded what he meant by such an answer, -the sage remarked that he always gave that sort of answer to people -who asked that kind of question. I think this must be one of the best -retorts ever made, but I have an uncomfortable feeling that it applies -rather exactly to the subject of this essay. The difference between -the Classical and the Romantic! It is indeed an apparently insoluble -problem. Nor can I imagine anything more disheartening or more inimical -to human happiness than blowing upon the embers of a half-extinct -controversy. That, it will be gathered, is not my intention. I merely -intend to let my discourse eddy about a familiar topic, in the hope -that some accretions may be washed away, and at least the true outline -of the subject revealed. We have been trying to build up an impression -of Hellenism as an _Agon_, or Struggle with Barbarism. The material -being so vast, it has been necessary to be somewhat meagrely selective -and illustrative, or else to fritter away the point in details. But the -most general survey would be incomplete, unless we attain some view of -how Greek literature, so much the most important witness left us of the -old Greek spirit, reflects the situation. - -The suggestion I have to offer may be helpful or not. But it has two -qualities which should make it worth entertaining, if only for the -moment: it is easily understood, and it is easily tested. My suggestion -is that Classical art is an expression of Hellenism and Romantic art of -Barbarism, so far as Barbarism is capable of expression. - -Here I feel the want of something beyond my own instinct in discerning -the Classical from the Romantic. To distinguish them is never perfectly -easy: in the greatest art it is thought to be impossible. In the end -one has to rely upon oneself, for nobody is pleased with a second-hand -or impersonal criticism. If you happen to care for literature, you -will not be content with discussions of it which do not help you to -realize the thing you love. As to the words “Classical” and “Romantic,” -they have become current coin with us, and yet they are coin without -fixed value. Thus when Mr. Shaw attacks the “Romance” which Stevenson -adored, it is clear that they cannot mean the same thing. What, then, -do they mean? It is very hard to find out. You may read that Romance -is the spirit of the Middle Ages, or the spirit of the German forest; -but you find yourself left to your own interpretation of Mediævalism -or Fairyland. As for the “Renaissance of Wonder”—that of course is just -beautiful nonsense. - -The clearest words on the matter are Matthew Arnold’s. There is a kind -of justice in this, for Arnold’s criticism was perpetually engaged -in the issue between the Romantic and the Classical. Himself (as his -best poetry shows) a Romantic at heart, he stood in the middle of the -Romantic triumph pleading for the austerities of art. That alone proves -his genius for criticism. It also gives him a special right to be -heard. As I shall seem to be attacking Arnold, it will be better for me -to say now that with his general attitude and temper I am in intimate -sympathy. I am disposed to think that his statement of the Classical -case is the best that has yet been made. In some points I think it is -even too favourable; in others not favourable enough. That is all. - -_The forest solitude_, he says in his book “On the Study of Celtic -Literature,” _the bubbling spring, the wild flowers, are everywhere in -romance. They have a mysterious life and grace there; they are nature’s -own children, and utter her secret in a way which makes them something -quite different from the woods, waters and plants of Greek and Latin -poetry. Now of this delicate magic, Celtic romance is so pre-eminent -a mistress that it seems impossible to believe the power did not come -into romance from the Celts. Magic is just the word for it—the magic of -nature; not merely the beauty of nature—that the Greeks and Latins had; -not merely an honest smack of the soil, a faithful realism—that the -Germans had; but the intimate life of nature, her weird power and her -fairy charm_. And on the way to this attribution and this denial he -distinguishes four modes of handling nature. _There is the conventional -way of handling nature, there is the faithful way of handling nature, -there is the Greek way of handling nature, there is the magical way of -handling nature. In all these three last the eye is on the object, but -with a difference; in the faithful way of handling nature, the eye is -on the object, and that is all you can say; in the Greek the eye is on -the object, but lightness and brightness are added; in the magical the -eye is on the object, but charm and magic are added._ - -One need not deny the value of these distinctions. But, admitting them, -must we confess that there is no “natural magic” in the Greeks? Of -your grace listen a little to Homer in prose. _As the numerous nations -of winged birds—wild geese or cranes or long-throated swans—in the -Asian Mead about the runnels of Kaÿster stream make little flights -and flights in the glory of their pinions, alighting with cries which -make the marish ring._ Is there no natural magic in that? Or in this? -_As when torrents running down a mountain into a cañon hurl together -their violent waters from large springs in a deep watercourse, and -the shepherd on far-off mountains hears their thunder?_ Or consider -this. _As when the glare of a blazing fire is seen by sailors out at -sea burning at some lonely shieling high up among the hills._ Again -we read: _They clomb Parnassus, steep forest-clad hill, and soon came -to the windy gullies. The sun was then smiting the fields with his -earliest rays out of the quiet, deep-running river of the world; and -the beaters came to the glade._ A last example: _As when Pandion’s -daughter, the greenwood nightingale, sings beautifully at the start of -spring, perched in a place of leafy trees, with running variable note -she sheds abroad her far-heard song, mourning the end of Itylus_. Is -there no magic in all this? - -Still, it is uncritical to attempt to carry the critical judgment by -storm. You will of course admit the glory and intoxication of these -Homeric similes, but you may still feel that Arnold’s distinction is -not finally swept away by them. Something in the lines he quotes—Keats’s - - _Magic casements opening on the foam - Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn;_ - -Shakespeare’s - - _On such a night - Stood Dido with a willow in her hand - Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love - To come again to Carthage_—— - -something there may be felt to express a more personal or intimate -relation to nature than anything I have yet quoted from Homer. Shall I -then quote more to show that even this touch Homer has got? _He burned -him with his inlaid arms and heaped a grave-mound over him; and round -it the hill-nymphs planted elms._ Is not that final touch magical -enough? And surely there is intimacy here. _As when the great deep -glooms with silent swell, dimly foreboding the hurrying path of the -piping winds._ And the personal note, is it not audible here? _And now -in a rocky place of lonely hills, at Sipylos, where couch the nymphs -(men say) whose feet are swift on Acheloïos’ banks—there changed to -stone she broods upon the wrongs that gods have wrought her._ And here -are two passages of love, of love in a Romantic setting, if we mean -anything by that at all. _Under them the divine earth sent up sudden -grass and dewy lotus and crocus and hyacinth thick and soft, upbearing -them from the ground. Thereon they lay, folded in a beautiful golden -cloud that dropped a glimmer of dew._ That is the love of Zeus and -Hera. What follows tells of the desire of Poseidon for Tyro. _She -conceived a love of divine Enîpeus, fairest by far of rivers flowing -over the earth, and haunted the fair waters of Enîpeus. Therefore the -Earth-Embracer and Earth-Shaker made himself like Enîpeus and lay with -her at the outflowings of the eddying river; then a darkling wave rose -mountain-like about them and hung over them, hiding the god and the -mortal woman._ Does not this possess the magical touch? - -It is in Homer everywhere. In all his dealings with nature he adds to -his words not merely lightness and brightness, but something magical -as well. If he does not do it, no poet does. Why, Homer’s very “fixed -epithets” are surcharged with magic. Think of his epithets for the dawn -alone—κροκόπεπλος, _saffron-robed_; χρυσόθρονος, _golden-throned_; -ῥοδοδάκτυλος, _rose-fingered_—the Romantic poets have always envied -them. It is impossible to deny the magical, Romantic quality to Homer, -unless you make an admission with which I shall deal in a moment. And -Homer is not alone among Greek poets in the possession of “natural -magic”; one might almost say all the great Greek poets have it. -Almost the loveliest words that Sappho has left us are little broken -fragments of description as imaginatively touched as anything in Keats -or Coleridge. Such are the fragments translated by Rossetti, and the -fragment of the sleepless woman crying to the stars for her lover. -There are the few lines of Alcman, comparing him to “the sea-blue -bird of spring,” which are enough to put him not too far from Sappho -and Coleridge themselves. And Aeschylus in _Prometheus Bound,_ and -Euripides in the _Bacchae_—have they got no feeling for Romantic -nature? Then there is Pindar. Why, Pindar has almost more of it than -any one. Remember the strange splendour like a windy sunset of the -great _Fourth Pythian_ ode, telling of Jason in marvellous lands. -Repeat a line or two: _Coming to the margin of the whitening sea, alone -in the dark he called aloud upon the roaring Master of the Trident; and -he appeared to him anigh at his foot._ Or take this of the new-born -Iamos, whom his mother Euadne “exposed”: _But he was hidden in the rush -and the boundless brake, his delicate body splashed with the yellow and -deep purple glory of pansies_. Is there “natural magic” there, or is -there not? - -Two things, perhaps, misled Arnold, both of them just and true. The -first was the feeling of a radical difference somewhere between -Classical and Romantic art. The second was the insignificance in Greek -literature of magic pure and simple, the magic of fairies and witches. -Greek literature deals sparingly in this sort of magic, while it is -part of the stock-in-trade of Romance. It looks as if Arnold were -unconsciously arguing that the Romantic passion for magic professed -ought somehow to make itself felt in descriptions of nature, while the -Greek dislike of magic would disable the Classical poet from seeing -her with the enchanted eyes of the Celt. Now there is an element of -truth in this, though not, I think, a very important element. It may -be suggested that in all true poetry, whether Classical or Romantic, -Greek or Celtic, mere vulgar magic is transmuted into that infinitely -finer and lovelier thing which Arnold, in claiming it for Keats and -Shakespeare, calls “natural magic”; which may be more abundant in -Romantic poetry, but is present just the same in Homer and Pindar. - -One is led to this conjecture about the train of Arnold’s thought when -one reads the quotations he has selected to illustrate the special -appeal of Celtic Romance. They mainly come from the _Mabinogion_ in -Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation. Although it seems a pity that -Arnold must draw his shafts from one quiver, and that not his own, -still the _Mabinogion_ is beautiful enough, and the translation so -readable, that it is not clear where he could have found, for people -who have no Welsh or Irish, better illustrations. He quotes the words -of Math to Gwydion when Gwydion wished a wife for his pupil. _“Well,” -says Math, “we will seek, I and thou, by charms and illusions, to form -a wife for him out of flowers.” So they took the blossoms of the oak, -and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, -and produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that -man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of Flower -Aspect._ It is a famous passage since Arnold quoted it; and if we are -to have magic, let it always be as beautiful as this; for I am far from -denying the beauty of many a magical rite. But magic you see it is, -magic palpable and practical—not the magic of - - _And beauty born of murmuring sound - Shall pass into her face;_ - -which is the true poetical magic and something yet more attractive. - -Arnold immediately proceeds from this to a passage in which the Celtic -writer describes the dropping of blood as _faster than the fall of the -dewdrop from the blade of reed-grass upon the earth, when the dew of -June is at the heaviest._ Well, Homer says, _Gladness fell upon his -spirit like dew upon the ears of ripening corn when there is a rustling -in the fields._ The Celtic passage is the more exquisite, at any rate -than Homer in my prose. But between these two passages who would say -that there is an essential difference? It is not maintained that Homer -writes in this manner as often as a Romantic poet; and that is a -difference worth remarking. But I do assert that he can write so when -he likes, and as well as any. - -Now what if this finer poetic magic is really a subtilization of the -crude appeal of practical magic? Something like this Arnold almost -suggests. What if Homer’s and Keats’s magic entrances us in part -because somewhere in us sleeps a memory of miracles wrought in days -when every rock and tree and river was alive with supernatural force? -There is nothing fantastic in such a speculation. If we entertain it, -we may find it illuminating the whole field of this discussion. At -once we recall the almost incredibly vast and almost wildly “Romantic” -mythology of Greece, the material and the inspiration of Greek poetry -as it was the material and inspiration of Keats. Now the genuine -mythology of Hellas first gathered shape in an age which believed in -obvious magic, in the transformation of men and women into birds and -beasts and trees and flowers, and in the living holiness of natural -objects. Its origin is not explicable on any other hypothesis. We -have therefore to consider how it happened that Greek poetry, born (we -must believe) in an atmosphere as redolent of magic as this mythology -implies, came to divest itself of vulgar magic and “Celtic vagueness,” -till it came to appear to a critic like Arnold devoid also of the touch -which he thinks exclusively characteristic of Romance. - -It happened, no doubt, as part of that whole reaction to Barbarism -which we call Hellenism. For magic is barbaric. The peoples all -about Hellas believed in it of course, and had magicians practising -it. In Greece itself the belief in magic lingered throughout Greek -history, lingered that is to say in secluded places and among the -many unenlightened. We hear of _Epôdoi_, “Charmers”; of _Goêtes_, -“Groaners”; of _Baskanoi_, who had the evil eye—three varieties of -wizard. There are echoes of a popular credence in the magical to be -heard even in Greek literature, that disdainful and fastidious thing. -In Homer we read that the wound received by Odysseus from the boar of -Parnassus was closed by repeating an incantation over it. There is a -good deal of white magic in the _Works and Days_ of Hesiod. Nearly -half of Aeschylus’ _Choêphoroi_ consists in an invocation or evocation -of the ghost of dead Agamemnon. And so on. In later Hellenistic times -there existed a great body of magical writings, born of the contact -between Greek civilization and Oriental superstition. There must have -been a public for this stuff. Professional miracle-workers were not -uncommon, and some of them won a resounding popularity. The book of -Pausanias, who wrote down what he heard and saw in the greater part of -Greece at the beginning of the second Christian century is strongly -and—to you and me—pleasantly redolent of immemorial customs and beliefs -among the peasantry. Many of these are plainly magical in their nature -or their origin. The priests of Lykaian Zeus, he tells us, used to -bring rain by dipping a branch in a certain stream and shaking it, -sprinkling waterdrops. That, of course, was sheer magic—“making rain” -as an African medicineman would say. A custom of this sort, which has -become a ritual, may be kept up after people have ceased quite to -believe in the doctrine which it assumes as true. That, however, does -not touch the historical significance of the custom, which must have -arisen among people who believed in magic. Besides, the peasants in -Pausanias’ day were clearly very superstitious. His book is the proof -of that. To suppose that in this respect they differed widely from -their ancestors is to suppose something which common sense cries out -against, and what evidence there is refutes. - -Hellenism, then, the flower of the Greek spirit, grew in a soil -impregnated with superstition, or, if you do not care for that word, -with a religion containing many elements of magic. Every modern -student of the subject, I fancy, admits that, although some scholars -make more of the magical elements, some less. What no one can deny -is that Hellenism tends to reject magic, and tries to expel it from -human life. Magic was barbaric, and Hellenism was in reaction against -Barbarism. Very likely the reaction went too far; reactions usually -do. Very likely something too much was sacrificed to “Greek sanity.” -But it would be strange ingratitude on our part to forget that it -was this very urgency for the sane, for the rational, which ensured -that our civilization was founded on hard realistic thinking, and -not on a mere drift of emotionality. The task of thinking things out -to their end, even to their bitter end, which was so characteristic -of the Greeks, peculiarly fitted them for their task of laying -intellectual foundations. It is not an English characteristic, and -for that reason we are the more indebted to them. But scarcely less -unjust would it be to suppose that the Greeks sacrificed everything to -the rational. Nothing of the sort. They felt the charm to which the -Celtic imagination yielded itself so utterly. But out of magic could -not be built, they thought, any helpful philosophy or sound method of -art. So their literature, when it deals with this matter and deals -with it at its best, consciously or instinctively aims at drawing from -it its full value for the imagination without for a moment permitting -it to subdue the judgment. Any one reading in turn Mr. Yeats’s _The -Shadowy Waters_ and that part of the _Odyssey_ which deals with the -adventures of Odysseus in magic-haunted lands will see what I mean. -Yeats’s hero yields himself to the charm; Odysseus fights against it. -Which is the wiser is a question I leave to you. But here we have, in -an illustration that is almost an epigram, the difference between the -Celtic or extreme Romantic temper and the Hellenic temper. The Celt -hears the Sirens and follows them; the Greek hears them and unwillingly -sails past. - -Or you may say: the Celtic gift is vision, the Hellenic gift is light. - -Observe Homer’s dealings with magic. He often finds himself in its -presence, and he deals with it in various ways. He leaves it out, he -veils it, he transforms it. I am unable to see on what real grounds -we can follow one of the most eminent of English scholars in Homer in -dividing off the rest of the Homeric poems from those books of the -_Odyssey_ which tell of Odysseus’ wanderings in unknown lands and -seas. When does magic cease to be magic? Is it magic when Circe in the -Odyssean fairyland changes men into swine, and not magic when Athena in -Ithaca changes Odysseus into a beggar and herself into a bird? However, -what Dr. Leaf has in mind is rather a difference which he feels in the -whole atmosphere of these fairyland books, which the ancients knew -by the title of the _Narrative to Alkinoos_, from the rest of the -_Odyssey_ and from the _Iliad_. The _Narrative_, he thinks, moves in -places which it is hopeless to look for in the map. The geography of -the rest is really to be found on the map, if you only know where to -look for it. I might agree with this and yet hold (as I should) that -the geographical point is deceptive. Odysseus does pass out of known -into unknown lands, but he does not pass out of one atmosphere into -another. There are more miracles and magic in the _Narrative_ than in -the rest of Homer, but the treatment of them is the same. Or, to put it -somewhat differently, Phaeakia is just as real to me as Troy or Ithaca. -And I fancy it was just as real to Homer. - -After all, there is really very little overt magic in the _Narrative_, -even if we include the wonder-working of the goddess Circe and -other divine beings, who might be said to perform miracles rather -than practise witchcraft. Of this wonder-working observe how -little is made: just as little as possible. The transformation and -retransformation of Odysseus’ companions is told in a line or two. -Think what the _Kalevala_ or the _Arabian Nights_ would have made -of it. The whole necromantic business of the Descent to Hades in -the eleventh book of the _Odyssey_ is transacted in a few formal, -ritualistic phrases. Originally all that matter must have been steeped -in magic. It is the same with Homer’s treatment of the monstrous. -The Homeric spirit objects to monsters; and so you never notice, -unless you look closely at the text, what horrible creatures the -Sirens were. Scylla and Charybdis are not fully described; much is -left to the reader’s imagination. The Cyclops, it must be allowed, is -different. Homer, you see, _had_ to make him eat Odysseus’ men and -_had_ to put his eye out; the story would not tell otherwise. But -somehow the passage is not so ghastly as one would expect. It is full -of remorseless description—the Cyclops vomits “wine and bits of human -flesh”—and yet despite such “realism” the poet contrives to enfold -our spirits in an air of enchantment—the true poetical enchantment—in -which all things are at once vivid and remote, like a dream freshly -remembered. - -Homer of course is a problem, about which it is very hard to say -anything that pleases everybody. There are on the one side scholars -who think that our _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ are only the final versions -of two traditional poems, which were handled by many poets through -a long succession of years. On the other side are those who believe -that the two poems are entirely, or substantially, the work of a -single early poet, who rose so far above his predecessors as to -owe little or nothing to them. This makes it difficult to argue a -point in Homer with any general acceptance. But no student now seems -to deny that Homer—whether we give the name to the one exceptional -early poet or (tentatively) to the last of all those who worked on -the poems—inherited something of his material. He did not invent the -history of Troy, and he had to deal with it as he found it. Now all -this traditional matter—for the matter is traditional whether the -_Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ themselves are traditional poems or not—must -to all appearance have been saturated in the magical. That is the -normal condition of the stuff in which poetry, so far as we can see, -everywhere takes its rise. Besides, the mythology of Greece, which -it is fair to call the stuff of Greek poetry, is full of magic. The -inference is that Homer and the Greek poets in general till the end -of the “Classical” period sought to work out of their matter all that -savoured of the magical. - -I think it was Andrew Lang who first pointed out that Homer clearly -avoids telling stories which are “morally objectionable.” Still more -certainly we discover that stories which are quite inoffensive in Homer -are excessively “objectionable” in other writers. What is the meaning -of this? Is it that later generations defiled the golden innocence of -Homeric days in their baser imaginations, or that Homer knew the other, -more savage and ancient-seeming versions, and would not recount them? -For my part I think Homer knew! And I think he knew about the magic -also. There are constant transformations, particularly in the _Iliad_, -of gods into human and animal forms. Is that magic or is it not? -Surely it is all of a piece with the “shape-shiftings” of wizards, so -common in all mythologies; and these are admitted magic. But in the -first place these transformations, as we remarked, are treated with a -light and veiling hand, and secondly they are confined to the gods. -What Homer allows to them he will not allow to mortals. He or his -predecessors have erected the distinction between gods and men which -forms one of the bases of Greek religion. Nay, you can trace in him, I -believe, the beginnings of something more—a reluctance to speak even of -the gods as performing these metamorphoses into brutish form. As a rule -the Greeks did not mind such tales, or even clung to them from motives -which can only be described as “Romantic.” But Homer perhaps softens -them down a good deal, and scarcely deserves the censure of Plato, who -denounces them who would make a wizard of God. The metamorphoses in -Homer are singularly unobtrusive. But why are they there at all? The -answer must surely be because they were in the story and could not be -left out altogether. - -Am I forgetting that Homer was a poet and not a moralist? I think not. -I might, with a show of reason, reply that the early Greek poet _was_ -a moralist, his aim (as Aristophanes puts it) “to make men better -in their cities.” But I prefer to say that Homer’s objection to the -monstrous and the grossly magical is really an æsthetic one. Other -considerations come in as well, but the æsthetic consideration is -found to be in the long run predominant. I once pointed out that many -of the similes in Homer turn out, on closer examination, to involve -an actual metamorphosis. An actual transformation—say of Athena into -a shooting-star—imperceptibly passes into a mere comparison. This is -one device for reducing the magical element. But there are others. -_So spake she_, says the poet of Helen, when she wondered why her -brethren were not to be descried among the Greek host before Troy. -_So spake she, but them the life-breathing earth was now holding -fast in Lacedaemon, there, in their own native land._ φυσίζοος αἶα, -“life-breathing earth,” as unhappy translators must say, derives half -its poetical value as Ruskin saw (in this case at least justly enough) -from the ancient belief, very strong in old Greece, that Earth was -physically the mother of all life, the dear mother of gods and men. -Again, who cannot see the passage before his eyes of physical into -poetical magic in the lines where Zeus mourns the coming doom of his -son Sarpedon? _“When soul and life have left him, send Death and sweet -Sleep to carry him until they come to the land of broad Lycia, where -his brethren and his kin will make an abiding barrow and pillar for -him; for thus we honour the dead.” So Hera spake, and the Father of -Gods and men obeyed her counsel; and he let fall blood-drops on the -ground, honouring his son, that Patroklos was fated to slay in fruitful -Troyland far from his native land._ What is Romantic poetry if this -is not? And you see how it is produced? By a veiling of the crudely -magical. - -It is impossible to resist a little more quotation. _Father_, cries -Telemachus to Odysseus, _verily a great marvel is this that I behold -with mine eyes. Truly, the walls of the chambers, and the fair bases -of the pillars, and the roof-beams of fir, and the columns that hold -all on high are shining to my sight as if from flaming fire. Doubtless -some god is in the house!_ It is in just such a light that we see all -the Homeric world. It is not the witch’s firelight, but it is the light -in which the true poetical magic works. _Unhappy, what curse hath come -upon you? In darkness your heads are rolled, and your faces, and your -knees beneath you; a moan is enkindled, and cheeks are wet, and blood -is on the walls and fair pedestals; ghosts in the doorway, ghosts in -the courtyard of them that hasten to the dark world below; the sun hath -perished out of heaven, and an evil mist is over you!_ So cries in the -_Odyssey_ the man with second sight. Is it not all very “Celtic”? - -In the ancient _Hymn to Demeter_ Persephone is described as _playing -with the deep-bosomed daughters of Ocean and culling flowers—rose and -crocus and violet over the soft meadow, and iris and hyacinth and -narcissus, which, by the will of Zeus, Earth, favouring Him of the Many -Guests, sent up to snare the flower-faced maiden a glittering marvel -for all to see with wondering eyes, both gods immortal and mortal -men:—from the one root an hundred heads of blossom; very sweet the -fragrance of that flower, and the delight of it made laugh wide heaven -above, and all the earth, and the salt and surging waters._ - -If this be not “natural magic,” where shall we find it? And is there -not something exquisite in the sense or tact which tells the Greek when -to stop before the magic becomes too crude or obvious? The Greek poet -knows when to stop, the Romantic not always. Here, in another of the -_Hymns_, the _Hymn to Dionysus_ (VII), is the frank description of a -miracle. _But soon marvellous things were shown among them. First, over -the swift black ship sweet, odorous wine was plashing, and a divine -perfume arose; and amaze took hold of all the gazing mariners. Anon, -along the topmost edge of the sail a vine laid out its tendrils here -and there; thick hung the clusters; and round the mast dark ivy twined, -deep in flowers and pleasant with berries, and all the thole-pins were -garlanded._ For sheer loveliness of fancy it would not be easy to beat -that. And how great an effect is gained by temperance! A little more -detail and the charm would be dissolved—the ship would be too like -a Christmas tree. It is in such wise economies that Greek art is so -great. It is just in them that the Romantic is apt to fail. Therein he -bewrays his Barbarism. - -I will no longer doubt that the reader (who probably did not require -the demonstration) is convinced that Greek poetry occasionally attains -those very effects of “natural magic” which Arnold denied it. What has -happened is merely this: Greek poetry has carried farther than any -other a process of refining out some elements in the crude material in -which it began. That it may have lost in the process a certain amount -of the purest gold I am not denying. I am not pleading the cause of -Greek poetry, I am trying to understand it. It is thought by scholars -that poetry has everywhere been developed out of a kind of song or -chorus, which (to put it gently) is very often magical in character. -One at last gets things like some of the Russian folk-songs or the -Finnish lays which Lönnrot collected to form the _Kalevala_. It is -a pity the _Kalevala_ has not found an adequate English translator. -One may honestly wish that Longfellow had translated it instead of -giving us _Hiawatha,_ which is a somewhat close imitation. One may -delight in _Hiawatha_, but one can see in the baldest translation -(as it were with half an eye) that _Kalevala_ is fifty times better. -If you want magic, and very delightful magic, go there! It seems to -me, remembering, that all the chief characters in the _Kalevala_ -are sorcerers. In the very first lay you are lost in the forest of -enchantment, and you never get out of it. The _Kalevala_ is not the -highest kind of poetry of course; it is (as Mrs. Barbauld complained of -_The Ancient Mariner_) too “improbable” for that. But it pleases our -taste because it is so desperately “Romantic.”—But you are not going to -say that it is as good as the _Odyssey_? - -The truth, of course, is that poetry like the _Odyssey_ and the _Iliad_ -and the _Agamemnon_, just as much as _The Divine Comedy_ and _Hamlet_, -gets beyond these distinctions of Romantic and Classical. I daresay -there is as much, in proportion, of this kind of poetry in Greek as -even in our own literature. At any rate, there seems to be no doubt -that the greatest poetry is not written except on Greek principles. -There must be that “fundamental brain-work,” as Rossetti called it, -which is the characteristic Greek contribution to art. You may put a -less rigid interpretation upon the Hellenic maxims, you may apply them -in ever so many new fields, but the essence of them you must keep. The -Barbarian may be picturesque enough, but he is not an artist: he loses -his head. - -It would be enormously interesting to consider how a passage like this— - - _I was but seven year auld, - When my mither she did dee: - My father married the ae warst woman - The warld did ever see._ - - _For she changed me to the laily worm, - That lies at the fit o’ the tree, - And my sister Masery - To the machrel of the sea._ - - _And every Saturday at noon - The machrel comes to me, - An’ she takes my laily head - An’ lays it on her knee, - And kames it wi’ a siller kame, - And washes it i’ the sea_— - -which is pure magic, such as you might find in the _Kalevala_, is -transformed into a passage like - - _“O haud your tongue o’ weeping,” he says, - “Let a’ your follies a-bee; - I’ll show you where the white lilies grow - On the banks o’ Italie”_— - -which is Romantic poetry at its best—or into - - _Now Johnnie’s gude bend-bow is broke, - And his gude gray dogs are slain; - And his body lies dead in Durrisdeer; - And his hunting it is done_— - -which is the Classical style very nearly at its best. But an essay must -end after a reasonable time. Besides there is something else I want to -say about the Classical and the Romantic. - - -II - - -Arnold expressed the difference between the Greek and the Celtic -or Romantic spirit by the word _Titanism_. That is a very happy -expression, happier even than Arnold knew, unless he knew what we said -about the Titans. For Titanism is just Barbarism in heroic proportions. -It is the spirit of the Old Kings—the “Strainers,” as Hesiod, -etymologizing, calls them—who failed because they would not discipline -their strength. With some of Arnold’s language about the Celtic -character, and the “failure” in practical affairs of the Celtic race, -it is unnecessary now for any one to concern himself, for no one now -uses that kind of language. Even if it were justified it would scarcely -be relevant, since success in literature depends (as of course Arnold -saw) on qualities quite other than those which may be relied upon to -give us success in life. It is the Titanism of the Celt, says Arnold, -which makes him a failure in the world of affairs, but in compensation -gives him the gift of style. We need not accept that way of putting the -matter, but I do not think we can fairly deny either the style or the -Titanism. - -The Greeks had their measure of Titanism also, and very certainly their -measure of style. Arnold quotes from Henri Martin a description of -the Celt as _always ready to react against the despotism of fact_. -Whereupon the Greek student instantly remembers that this is just what -Cleon said about the Athenians. He will also remember that a Corinthian -politician said that they seemed to him to be _born neither to be -quiet themselves nor to let other people be quiet_. Any one who fails -to notice the unappeasable restlessness of the Greek temperament will -miss a great piece of its quality. It comes out in the Greek attitude -to Hope, which set ancient hearts beating with a violence which -frightened them and extremely surprises us. It comes out in the popular -conception of Alexander the Great as one marching on and on in a dream -of never-ending victories. It comes out in spite of Arnold. He quotes -from Byron: - - _Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen, - Count o’er thy days from anguish free, - And know, whatever thou hast been, - ’Tis something better not to be._ - -He thinks this characteristically Celtic. So perhaps it is. But it is -characteristically Greek too. It is a commonplace of Greek poetry. Then -he quotes: - - _What though the field be lost, - All is not lost, the unconquerable will, - And study of revenge, immortal hate, - And courage never to submit or yield, - Or what is else not to be overcome._ - -This also he calls Celtic, although he knew his _Prometheus Bound_, and -might have reflected that Milton knew it too. At last Arnold flings up -his case, and describes a passage quoted to support his antithesis as, -up to a certain point, “Greek in its clear beauty”; and when he wishes -to find a name for the Celtic “intoxication of style” goes to a Greek -poet for his word and comes back with _Pindarism_. - -That shows how impossible it is to press these critical distinctions. -Still one sees what Arnold is driving at, and one may go with him -most of the way. It is quite true that Celtic literature is full of -Titanism. But it is an error to say that Titanism is strange to Greek -art. There is far more of it in Celtic, and in Romantic literature -generally, than in classical literature, and this does produce a -striking difference between them. But it is only a difference of method -and emphasis. Titanism appeals to the Romantic, and he gives himself up -to it. The Greek feels the attraction too, but he fights against it, -and over Titanism he puts something which he thinks is better. - -Thus it is part of the Romantic mood to love a strange and hyperbolical -speech. We see the Romantic poet or his hero like a man increased to -superhuman proportions and making enormous gestures in a mist. This -effect is not beyond the reach of any true poet, and it has been -achieved by Aeschylus better perhaps than by any one before or since. -We must return to this point. Here we need only remark that the Greeks -could manage the poetical hyperbole when they pleased. But it is only -the Romantic, or if you like the Celtic poets, who never tire of it. -Again, it is a mistake to believe that there is no symbolism in ancient -literature. But what there is differs greatly from modern “Symbolism.” -Our “Symbolism” employs certain accepted symbols, which allusively -and discreetly recombining it sets the spirit dreaming. Ancient art -kept its symbols—I do not know if the word be not misapplied—separate -and definite. But it had them. The background of the _Agamemnon_, for -instance, is crowded with symbols. It is all lit up by triumphal and -ruinous fires with (passing unscathed through it all) the phantasmal -beauty of Helen; while students of metre have observed that the heart -of the verse beats faster and slower as she comes and goes. This -symbolical use of fire, and Helen’s form, of dreams and tempest and -purple and much else, is profoundly and intricately studied in the -play. But it is not like modern Symbolism, which is often content -to gaze ecstatically on the symbol itself, instead of using it -dramatically to flood a situation with the light that is hidden in the -heart of Time. - -So all these differences resolve themselves into a change of attitude, -which nevertheless is no small matter. Though not the foundations of -life itself, yet man’s reading of life changes; and it is just the -play of this inconstant factor upon the fixed bases of the soul which -produces that creative ferment from which all art is born. - -This may be seen in one matter of peculiar interest in the history of -art—the passion of love. One constantly finds it said that Romantic -love is a purely mediæval and modern thing. Those who make this -statement might reflect that so profound and intimate an emotion is not -likely to have been discovered so late in the human story. And it was -not. Since there is perhaps a good deal of vagueness in our notions of -what Romantic love is, let us take it here to mean the passion whose -creed is, in Dryden’s phrase, _All for Love and the World well Lost_. -Was such a passion unknown in antiquity? Was not that very phrase of -_All for Love_ used of the Greek Cleopatra, who is one of the world’s -famous lovers? Did not Medea leave all for love’s sake, and Orpheus, -and the shepherd Daphnis, whose legend is the more significant because -it appears to be pure folk-story? Have not all poets of Romantic love -turned instinctively to Greek mythology as the inexhaustible quarry -of their lore? That they treat the myths in their own way is not to -be denied. But they would not turn to them at all if they felt that -those stories had been moulded by an alien spirit. Then, so far as -one can judge from the haplessly scanty fragments of Greek lyrical -poetry, the Romantic spirit was strong in that. Sappho and the fine -poet Ibykos were wholly given over and enslaved to love; and the great -and bitter heart of Archilochus hardly escaped from it with curses. In -the Alexandrian era it flowers in poetry anew. One might take perhaps -as typical of the extreme Romantic mood the considerable fragment left -us of Hermesianax. It is little more than a numbering of famous lovers -for pure delight in their names. There is a trifle of childishness -in the piece, and a trifle of artificiality, yet it is not without a -haunting loveliness like that which clings to the _Catalogue of the -Women_ in Homer. It is no accidental kinship. An underground river has -burst up again. One finds it flowing unchecked in the _Argonautika_ of -Apollonios. - -You may have noticed that none of my examples was taken from the -greatest period of Greek literature, the Attic age. That also is no -accident. For it is then that the hostile spirit most effectively -comes in. The capacity for Romantic love was not at any time denied to -the Greek nature. But what happened was this: the great age applied, -as to the other passions, so to love, its doctrine of _Sophrosyne_. -What was the result? Love became terrible and to be shunned in exact -proportion to its power over the soul. And on the Greek soul love had -great power; no one ought to be mistaken about that. _Of old He has -been called a tyrant_, says Plato of Eros. It is a famous saying of -Plato again that love is a form of madness. Sophocles, we remember, -compared it to a wild beast. Such language is habitual with the Attic -poets. (It is used, for example, by both Sophocles and Euripides in -the famous odes invoking Eros, the one in _Antigone_, the other in -_Hippolytus_.) It is not at all the language of Romance; it does not -say _All for Love_. Indeed when we consider it more closely, we find -that it means the exact opposite of what the extreme Romantic means. -The Greek means that he has conquered, the Romantic that he has -surrendered. There is, to be sure, in the Romantic theory, examined in -cold blood, a certain amount of bravado. A great imaginative passion is -rare enough to be more than a nine days’ wonder. Such an objection has -no weight in the world of art, but it is extremely in point when we are -contrasting the actual conditions of ancient and modern life. It will -turn out in the long run that in ancient Greece men felt love as much -as we, but felt about it differently. They were for self-mastery, we -for ecstasy. They were Greeks, and we are Barbarians. - -They were also, one may believe, in this the truer artists. There is -nothing more characteristic of the artist than his capacity to bind -his emotions to the service of his art. - - _To be in a passion you good may do, - But no good if a passion is in you_ - -is his thought. The man who said that said also _The tigers of wrath -are wiser than the horses of instruction_. The two sentiments are -in fact not incompatible, but it takes an artist to reconcile them. -The poor plain modern man always divines something immoral in this -attitude. As to that, it is easiest to reply that it all depends. But -surely the Greek is the only sound artistic doctrine. No one will write -very well who cannot control his inspiration. A platitude no doubt, but -a platitude which in these days seems very easily forgotten. The mere -emotion is not enough. Tannhäuser has suggested great poetry; he could -not have written any, for that would have required moral energy. - -It might be thought a subterfuge to leave this topic without a word -on a matter which cannot be ignored. I believe a very few words will -suffice. But it is as well to make clear a point which has not been -observed by those who claim the Greek example as a confirmation -of their view that all experiences are permissible to the artist. -The point is this. It was not in the artistic portion of the Greek -people that the kind of sexual perversity, so often indiscriminately -attributed to the Hellenes in general, was most widely prevalent. -It was chiefly a Dorian vice, fostered by the Dorian camp-life, -though I dare say it was to some extent endemic in the Near East. The -Ionians (including the Athenians), who inherited nine-tenths of the -Hellenic genius, unhesitatingly condemned such practices, even if they -themselves were somewhat infected by them. Athenian bourgeois morality -was quite sound on that point, as you may see by merely reading -Aristophanes. His attitude is really remarkable, and, so far as we can -see, there is only one possible explanation: the Athenian people would -not tolerate the Dorian sin upon the stage. Yet you know what they did -tolerate, and what the comic tradition tolerated. It would take a lot -to stop Aristophanes. - -Another point may be put in the form of a question. How, on the -assumption of Greek perversity, are we to account for the exceptional -sanity of Greek thought and sentiment? It does not seem humanly -possible that a pathological condition of the body should not result -in a morbid state of the mind. Yet I never could hear of anybody who -called the Greeks morbid. It is to be surmised that certain passages in -Plato have been the chief source of the misconception, or exaggerated -impression, which is still perhaps too prevalent. Now with regard to -what is called Platonic Love, there are two things which ought not to -be forgotten. One is this. The young men with whom Socrates used to -talk—who were not, you know, in any proper sense, his disciples—were -apt to be members of a tiny minority, among what we should call the -upper classes at Athens, who professed what strikes us as a very -unnecessary “philolaconism” or cult of things Spartan. Some of these -young people certainly practised or trifled with the Dorian offence, -and Socrates was willing to discuss the matter with them. He was -the more willing to do this because he held a very definite view -himself. He condemned the fleshly sin outright, though not perhaps -uncompromisingly. But he attached the very highest value to the -association of friends, an older and a younger, and he wished this -comradeship to be intense enough to merit the name of love. This leads -to the second point. You must judge ancient love—I mean this love of -man and boy—by its ideal, as you insist on judging Romantic love. So -judged, it often appears a fine and noble thing. That it sometimes sank -in the mire is no more than can be said of modern love. Do not, at any -rate, let us be hypocritical. - -It is time to recover the thread of our original argument, which was to -this effect, that the contrast of Hellenism and Barbarism appears in -literature as the contrast of Classical and Romantic. Just as Hellene -and Barbarian are correlative terms, so you cannot understand Classical -art without reference to Romance, nor Romantic art in isolation from -the Classics. But again, just as Greek and Barbarian are equally -human, so Classical and Romantic art are alike art. The difference -in the end is a difference of degree or (in another way of putting -it) of tendencies. The great vice of the Barbarian is that he has no -self-restraint. There cannot be art of any kind without restraint, and -the Barbarian _pur sang_, if he exist, must be incapable of art. But it -is not he we are discussing; it is the artistic expression of Barbarism -which we call Romance. Now observe how clearly, within the limits -imposed by art, Romance reveals the bias of the Barbarian temperament. -In literature it comes out in the form of hyperbole or artistic -exaggeration. It will not be denied that Romance indulges a good deal -in that. The Greeks fought shy of it. To deal largely in it was likely -to bring upon the writer the epithet of ψυχρός, “frigid”—a curious -charge to us, who are inclined to look upon exaggeration as natural to -a fiery spirit. They thought it the mere spluttering of a weak nature, -which could not master and direct its inward flame. - -Yet the Romantic exaggeration can be very fine. I agree with Arnold in -liking a good deal a passage which he quotes in an abridged form from -the _Mabinogion_. _Search is made for Mabon, the son of Modron, who -was taken when three nights old from between his mother and the wall. -The seekers go first to the Ousel of Cilgwri; the Ousel had lived long -enough to peck a smith’s anvil down to the size of a nut, but he had -never heard of Mabon. “But there is a race of animals who were formed -before me, and I will be your guide to them.” So the Ousel guides them -to the Stag of Redynvre. The Stag has seen an oak sapling, in the wood -where he lived, grow up to be an oak with a hundred branches, and then -slowly decay down to a withered stump, yet he had never heard of Mabon. -“But I will be your guide to the place where there is an animal which -was formed before I was”; and he guides them to the Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd. -“When first I came hither,” says the Owl, “the wide valley you see -was a wooded glen. And a race of men came and rooted it up. And there -grew a second wood; and this wood is the third. My wings, are they not -withered stumps?” Yet the Owl, in spite of his great age, had never -heard of Mabon, but he offered to be guide “to where is the oldest -animal in the world, and the one that has travelled most, the Eagle of -Gwern Abbey.” The Eagle was so old, that a rock, from the top of which -he pecked at the stars every evening, was now not so much as a span -high._ - -The popular belief in the great age of certain animals appears in many -lands, and appeared in ancient Greece. It is expressed in an old poem, -attributed to Hesiod, called _The Precepts of Chiron_. _Nine lives of -men grown old lives the cawing crow; four lives of a crow lives the -stag; the raven sees the old age of three stags; but the phoenix lives -as long as nine ravens, as long as ten phoenixes we, the Nymphs with -beautiful hair, daughters of ægis-bearing Zeus._ Compared with the -Celtic passage, the quotation from “Hesiod” is poor and dry and like a -multiplication sum. The Celtic imagination, with its fine frenzy, is -at home in the region of popular fancy, and deals with it effectively; -whereas the Greek method, if employed without art, spoils everything. -You will observe that “Hesiod,” in spite of his vastly greater -moderation (herein at least showing himself Greek), does not really -succeed in being any more convincing to the imagination, while he does -not impress it at all as the Celt impresses it. Employed with the art -of Homer, or indeed of Hesiod at his best, the Greek method should at -once impress the imagination and convince it. If it can do this, it -clearly excels the method of impressing the imagination by a process -akin to stunning it. One ought probably to prefer Hesiod at his dryest -to mere senseless hyperbole even in a passage where a little hyperbole -is in place. There is a future to Hesiod’s style in the hands of an -imaginative artist, while there is no possible artistic future to mere -shrieking. The Celtic method is always committing suicide. - -Arnold quotes again from the _Mabinogion_: _Drem, the son of Dremidyd_ -(_when the gnat arose in the morning with the sun, Drem could see -it from Gelli Wic in Cornwall, as far off as Pen Blathaon in North -Britain_). Here is what the ancient epic called the _Cypria_ says: -_Climbing the topmost peak he sent his glance through all the Isle -of Pelops son of Tantalos, and soon the glorious hero spied with his -wondrous eyes horse-taming Castor and conquering Polydeukês inside the -hollow oak_. The superiority of the Classical style is now beginning -to assert itself. The exaggeration in the Greek passage is immense, -but it does suspend incredulity for a moment—and the moment in art is -everything—while the Celtic passage pays no attention to verisimilitude -at all, and therefore really misses its effect. (If you think we are -here dealing with magic rather than simple hyperbole, the answer will -be much the same.) What Euripides says about shame we may say about -exaggeration; that there is a good kind and a bad. The good is, so -to speak, intensive; the bad, merely extensive. The excellent method -of hyperbole reflects some large hidden significance of it may be a -little thing or a trifling action. The inartistic hyperbole is just -overstatement—impressing nobody. - -Any one who has read even a little of the old Celtic literature must -have been struck by the presence in it of a very large element of -enormous and almost frantic exaggeration. I speak very much under -correction, as I have to work with translations, but no one can be -wrong about so plain a matter. I have indeed heard a man who reads -Irish say that in his opinion some of the exaggeration was merely -humorous; but even this scholar did not deny that the exaggeration -was there, and plenty of it. From the _Táin Bó Cúalnge_ (the chief -document of early Ireland) translated by Professor Joseph Dunn, I take -part of the description of Cuchulain in one of his fits of rage. _He -next made a ruddy bowl of his face and his countenance. He gulped down -one eye into his head so that it would be hard work if a wild crane -succeeded in drawing it out on to the middle of his cheek from the rear -of his skull. Its mate sprang forth till it came out on his cheek, so -that it was the size of a five-fist kettle, and he made a red berry -thereof out in front of his head. His mouth was distorted monstrously -and twisted up to his ears. He drew the cheek from the jaw-bone so -that the interior of his throat was to be seen. His lungs and his -lights stood out so that they fluttered in his mouth and his gullet. -He struck a mad lion’s blow with the upper jaw on its fellow so that -as large as a wether’s fleece of a three year old was each red, fiery -flake which his teeth forced into his mouth from his gullet. There was -heard the loud clap of his heart against his breast like the yelp of a -howling bloodhound or like a lion going among bears. There were seen -the torches of the Badb, and the rain clouds of poison, and the sparks -of glowing-red fire, blazing and flashing in hazes and mists over his -head with the seething of the truly wild wrath that rose up above him. -His hair bristled all over his head like branches of a redthorn thrust -into a gap in a great hedge. Had a king’s apple-tree laden with royal -fruit been shaken around, scarce an apple of them all would have passed -over him to the ground, but rather would an apple have stayed stuck on -each single hair there, for the twisting of the anger which met it as -it rose from his hair above him. The Lon Laith (“Champion’s Light”) -stood out of his forehead, so that it was as long and as thick as a -warrior’s whetstone, so that it was as long as his nose, till he got -furious handling the shields, thrusting out the charioteer, destroying -the hosts. As high, as thick, as strong, as steady, as long as the -sail-tree of some huge prime ship was the straight spout of dark blood -which arose right on high from the very ridge-pole of his crown, so -that a black fog of witchery was made thereof like to the smoke from a -king’s hostel what time the king comes to be ministered to at nightfall -of a winter’s day._ - -It would be mistaken and dull criticism to blame anything so -characteristic as bad in itself. If such exaggerations are bad, it must -be because the whole class of literature to which they belong is bad. -But any one who should say that would be (not to put too fine a point -upon it) an ass. Still, it would be paradoxical to maintain that the -passage just quoted is in quite the best manner of writing. Cuchulain -reminds one of Achilles, and it is instructive to compare the treatment -of Cuchulain in the _Táin Bó Cúalnge_ with the treatment of Achilles in -the _Iliad_. In one sense the comparison is infinitely unfair. It is -matching what some have thought the greatest poem in the world against -something comparatively rude and primitive. But it is done merely to -illustrate a point of art. In other respects no injustice happens. If -one takes the combat of Ferdiad and Cuchulain, which is the crowning -episode of the _Táin_, with the combat between Hector and Achilles, -which is perhaps the crowning episode of the _Iliad_, one cannot fail -to see that the advantage in valour, and chivalry, and the essential -pathos of the situation is all on the Irish side. But in the pure art -of the narrative, what a difference! The _Táin_, not without skill, -works through a climax of tremendous feats to an impression of deadly -force and skill in its hero. But it is all considerably overdone, and -at last you are so incredulous of Cuchulain’s intromissions with the -“Gae Bulga” (that mysterious weapon) that you cease to be afraid of -him. What does Homer do? He shows you two lonely figures on the Plain -of Troy; Hector before the Skaian gate, and Achilles far off by the -River Skamandros. And as Hector strengthens his heart for the duel -which must be fatal to one, nearer and nearer, with savage haste, the -sun playing on his armour, comes running Achilles. Nothing happens, -only this silent, tireless running of a man. But it gets on your nerves -just as it got on Hector’s. - -Or take that singular description of the Champion’s Light. It so -happens that Achilles also has something of the kind. But what is -grotesque in the case of Cuchulain, in the case of Achilles has a -startling effect of reality. The Trojans have defeated the Achaeans -and come very near the ships in the absence of Achilles from the -battle, when suddenly to the exulting foe the hero shows himself once -more. _Round his head the holy goddess twisted a golden cloud, and lit -therefrom an all-shining flame. And as when a smoke rising from a town -goes up to the sky in a distant isle besieged by fighting men, and all -day the folk contend in hateful battle before their town, but with the -setting of the sun thick flame the bale-fires, and the glare shoots -up on high for the dwellers round to see, so haply they may come in -their ships to ward off ruin—so from Achilles’ head the light went up -to heaven. From the wall to the trench he went, he stood—not mingling -with the Achaeans, for he regarded his mother’s wise behest. There -standing he shouted—and, aloof, Athena called; but among the Trojans -was aroused confusion infinite.... And the charioteers were astonisht -when they saw burning above the head of the great-hearted son of Peleus -the unwearied, awful fire, that the goddess, grey-eyed Athena, made -to burn._ The poet, you see, does not fairly describe the Champion’s -Light, he describes its effect. In the same way the face of Helen is -never described, only the effect she had on the old men of Troy. Such -art is beyond our praising. - -It may be complained that I am taking extreme examples—of Hellenic tact -and moderation on the one hand, of Romantic extravagance on the other. -This is admitted, but the process seems justifiable; you must let me -illustrate my point. The argument is that the Romantic style tends to -a more lavish employment of hyperbole than does the Greek. I cannot -imagine any one denying it. Read of some nightmare feat of strength in -a Celtic story, and then read something in Homer (am I giving too much -of Homer?)—something like this: _Aias the son of Telamon was first to -slay a man, smiting him with a ragged stone, that was within the wall -by the battlement, piled huge atop of all, nor might a man with ease -upbear it in both his arms, even in full lustihead of youth—such as men -are now ... but Aias swang and hurled it from on high_. How moderation -tells! How much more really formidable is this Aias than Aeneas when -Virgil (with Roman or Celtic exaggeration) says that he cast “no small -part of a mountain”! - -A matter of this delicacy will mock at a rigid handling. There is -no rule to be laid down at all save the rule that is above rules, -the instinct of the artist. The limits of exaggeration—and there is -a sense in which all art is exaggeration—shift with the shifting of -what one may call the horizon of the soul. It is clear, for instance, -that the atmosphere of the Domestic Drama or the Descriptive Poem -is markedly different from that of the Heroic Epic or the Choral -Ode. A _gabe_ appropriate to Oliver or Kapaneus would sound very -strangely on the lips of Holy Willie or Peter Bell; it could only be -mock-heroic or parody. One’s sensitiveness to these atmospheres, then, -the temperament of the reader, his critical taste, the character of -his education—all that and more affect his response to what he reads. -We have had a different experience from the ancients and live, as it -were, in different emotional scenery. Hyperbole counts for more in -our art than it did in theirs. To the device in itself there could be -no possible objection. When one thinks of the superb and intoxicating -hyperboles of Romantic literature from the winding of Roland’s horn to -the _Playboy of the Western World_; when one thinks how largely they -serve to make the style of Shakespeare; the Greeks appear a little -timid in comparison. Perhaps they were, although I cannot believe it -was timidity that ailed them. Only they guarded more strictly against -a danger they felt more keenly than we, into which we have more -frequently fallen. - -Art of course must go where its own winds and currents carry it. To -forbid it to be itself because it is not Greek is extreme, though -happily impotent, nonsense. But it will be extraordinarily interesting -to see how modern art is going to save itself from the two extremes of -brutality and sentimentalism—the faults of the Barbarian—with which -it is so manifestly and so painfully struggling. The Greeks solved -that problem, and their solution stands. Meanwhile a student of Greek -may help a little by explaining what the solution is. For it has been -greatly misunderstood. - -The secret was half recovered in the Renaissance. Thus in England -Milton learned from the Greeks the value of form for the concentration -of meaning, and that poetry should be not only “sensuous and -passionate” but also “simple.” But the Renaissance had drunk too deep -of the new wine to keep its head quite steady; and this, in turn, -helped to provoke a Puritanic reaction which distrusted the arts, and -therefore differed widely from Greek asceticism, which was itself -a kind of art. The Restoration produced a new orientation of the -English spirit, and a new interpretation of the Classical. Repelled -by the extravagances and the frequently outrageous slovenliness of -decadent Elizabethanism, the age of Dryden, communicating its impulse -to the age of Pope, fell in love with the quietness and temperance of -the ancients, and above all with their accomplishment of form. This -admiration was an excellent and salutary thing for the times. But it -seemed content to gaze on the surface. There arose a poetry which aimed -above all at mere correctness. As if Greek poetry aimed at nothing but -that! - -The modern Romantic movement—I mean the new spirit in English -literature which _Lyrical Ballads_ is regarded as initiating—was -largely a revolt against eighteenth-century Classicism. Yet it cannot -fairly be said that the Romantics introduced a juster conception of -Classical art. They started with a prejudice against it, which their -discovery of the Middle Ages merely confirmed. Wordsworth indeed (who -had much of the eighteenth century in him) felt the attraction of -Classical art, but his best work is not in things like _Laodamia_. -Landor is not Greek, any more than Leconte de Lisle is Greek. They have -Greek perfection of form, but (except at his rare best Landor) they are -glacial; they have not the banked and inward-burning fire which makes -Sappho, for example, so different. It has been thought that no English -poet has come nearer than Keats to recapturing the ancient secret. The -_Ode to a Grecian Urn_ nearly does recapture it. But not quite. _Beauty -is Truth, Truth Beauty_ is very Greek; but it is not Greek to forget, -as Keats and his followers have been apt to forget, the second half -of their aphorism. So the Greek poets aimed less directly at beauty -than at the truth of things, which they believed to be beautiful; and -this realism—this effort to realize the world as it is—remains, in -spite of the large element of convention in Greek poetry, the most -characteristic thing about the Greek poetical genius. - -In the very midst of the Romantic movement we find Matthew Arnold -pleading for a return to Hellenic standards. The plea had curiously -little effect. If you read _Merope_ immediately after _Atalanta in -Calydon_, you will scarcely wonder at that. Arnold in fact saw only -half the truth. He cries for Greek sanity and absence of caprice; he -does not cry for Greek intensity, Greek realism. He pleads for tact -and moderation—in a word, for that good manners in style which had -seemed so important to the eighteenth century. The doctrine was too -negative for the age. It can hardly be said to inspire the best work -of Arnold himself. Yes, that is just what is wrong with it, it does -not _inspire_; and so, although based on a right instinct, it does -not really lift him above his time. He did not care for Tennyson, -whom he accused of affectation. But he would not have understood the -twentieth century’s objection to Tennyson, that he lacked the courage -of his genius. If he had understood it, he would no doubt have sided -with Tennyson, for Arnold was, after all, mainly “Victorian.” But what -do you suppose Aristophanes would have said about Tennyson? If the -answer is not at once obvious, the reason must be the difficulty that -would arise in getting a Greek of Aristophanes’ time to understand the -Victorian timidities at all. - -The present age is said to be extremely in revolt against Victorianism. -Unfortunately one may be in full revolt and yet be only shaking one’s -chains. There is a thing that is fairly clear. The paroxysmal art -of the hour must bring its inevitable reaction. The cry will again -be heard for a return to urbanity and a stricter form, and people -will again call these things Classical, as if this were all the -Classics have to offer. And then in due time will come once more the -counter-swing of the pendulum. Well, perhaps art depends more than we -think upon this ceaseless movement; for all art aims at giving the -effect of life, and life is in movement. - - -III - -Were it not for an original propriety in the distinction, it would be -better not to speak at all of “Classical” and “Romantic.” This seems -clearly to be the fault of modern criticism, which has hidden the -path under so deep a fall of many-coloured leaves, that now one must -spend a deal of time merely in sweeping them up. It is annoying how -inapt are current terms of criticism to express the essence of ancient -literature. I have hinted that it might almost be expressed in the word -“realism,” and at once I am checked by the reflection that realism in -modern speech appears to mean anything you like. How, then, is a man -to avoid being misunderstood? But he has to take the risk; and on the -whole it will be safer for him to grasp this runaway by the hair than -to sow more definitions in a soil already exhausted. - -Greek literature is realistic in the sense that it aims at producing -the effect of reality, not by the accumulation of startling -details—which perhaps is what is usually meant in these days by -realism—but by a method of its own. Greek literature is marked by a -unique sincerity, or veracity, or candour, equally foreign to violence -and to sentimentality—a bitter man might say, equally foreign to what -we now call realism and to what we now call idealism. So profound is -this truthfulness that we (who cry out daily for a resolute fidelity to -fact in our writers) have not yet sounded it. It needs a long plummet. -So many of us have come to imagine that the truth of a situation is not -apparent except in flashes of lightning—preferably red lightning—which -the Greeks thought distorting. We think we are candid, and we are not -so very candid. I could never be one of those fanatical champions of -antiquity to whom the modern is merely the enemy. Their position is so -pathetically untenable that one can only with a sigh busy oneself with -something that really matters. But, however modern I may feel, I cannot -get myself to believe that we attain so perfect a truthfulness as the -Greeks. We have written volumes about the “Classical Ideal,” and we -are apt to contrast “Hellenic Idealism” with our uncompromising modern -“Realism” and “Naturalism.” And all the time the Greeks have had a -truer realism than we. - -For instance, we have of late almost made a speciality of wounds and -death. You could not say this of any ancient writer. Curiously enough, -you might say it with less impropriety of Homer than of any other. -A warrior, he says, was pierced to the heart by a spear, _and the -throbbing of the heart made also the butt of the spear to quiver_. -That gives you a pretty satisfactory shiver. Menelaos smote Peisandros -_above the root of the nose; and the bones cracked, and his eyes -dropped bloody in the dust of the ground at his feet_. This is how -Peneleos treated Ilioneus. _He wounded him under the eyebrow where the -eye is embedded and forced out the ball, and the spear went clean -through the eye and through the muscle behind, and the wounded man -crouched down, spreading out his hands; but Peneleos drawing his sharp -sword smote his neck in the midst and dashed the head on the ground, -helmet and all; and the heavy spear was still in the eye, and he raised -up the head like a poppy._ I suspect your modern realist of envying -that image of the bloody head stuck “through the eye” on a spear -and looking like a “poppy” or a “poppy-head” on its stalk. Another -unfortunate fighter was hit _down the mouth_ with a spear, which -penetrated _under the brain and broke the white bones; and the teeth -were shaken out and both his eyes were filled with blood, and with a -gape he sent the blood gushing up his mouth and down his nostrils_. The -youngest son of King Priam was wounded by Achilles _beside the navel_, -and so _dropped moaning on his knees_ and _clutched his entrails to him -with his hands_—a passage remembered by Pater. - -From it and the others it may be seen that Homer, when he likes, can be -as grisly as Mr. Sassoon. But they are not typical of Homer, still less -of the ancient Greek writers in general. It is not their way to obtrude -details. Their aim is to give you the whole situation, and to give -it truly. Their method is to select the significant, rather than the -merely striking, details. Such a theory and method are best entitled, -on reflection, to the name of realism. Kebriones, the charioteer in -Homer, has his forehead crushed in by a stone, and a terrible battle -is waged over his body. The poet in the heat of his battle thinks for -a moment of the dead man. _But he in the whirling dust-storm lay, -with large limbs largely fallen, forgetful of his horsemanship._ No -insistence here on the ghastly wound. The reader for a breathing space -is rapt from the blood and the horror into quiet spaces of oblivion. -Is not this, just here, the right note to strike—and not the other? It -gives the whole situation—the roaring tumult above, the unheeding body -underneath—not merely one aspect. It is the more real because it is not -simply painful. - -Contrast, again, the Greek with the mediæval and the modern attitudes -to death. See how many of the passages on death you can recall in -writers not ancient are inspired by a grotesque or reflective horror, -or ring with a hopeful or hopeless defiance. Think of Villon on death, -and Raleigh, and Donne, and Shakespeare’s Claudio, and _Hydriotaphia_, -and Browning, and Swinburne. There is nothing in the great age of -Greek literature even remotely comparable to the gorgeous variety of -these dreams and invocations. But if the question is of realism (as we -are understanding it), if we resolve to see death as it is, neither -transformed by hope nor blurred by tears, see if the ancients have not -the advantage. - -They will disappoint you at first. (But remember you are asking for -realism.) Thus when Aristotle in his dry manner says, _Death is the -most fearful thing; for it is an end, and nothing after it seems to -the dead man either good or bad_, you may think it a poor attitude to -strike. But Aristotle is not striking an attitude at all, he is simply -facing a fact. He may be wrong, of course, but that is how death looks -to Aristotle, and he is not going to gild the pill either for you or -for himself. But if you miss in Aristotle the thrill of the greatest -literature, you must feel it in the last words of Socrates to the -judges who had condemned him. _But now is come the hour of departure, -for me that have to die, for you that have still to live; but which -path leads to a better lot is hidden from all but God._ And with that -Socrates falls silent, leaving the reader silent too, and a little -ashamed perhaps of our importunate hells and heavens. - -Odysseus meets the ghost of Achilles in Hades and speaks of the great -honour in which the young hero is held here. _Not of death_, replies -Achilles, _speak thou in words of comfort, glorious Odysseus! Rather -above ground would I be the hired servant of a man without a lot, -whose livelihood is but small, than reign over all the perished dead._ -The truth as he sees it is what you get from the Greek every time. -Odysseus hears it from Achilles, the greatest of the dead. He hears it -from Elpênor, one of the least. (Elpênor got drunk in Circe’s house -and, feeling hot, wandered on to the roof, where he fell asleep, and -everybody forgot about him. In the morning he was aroused by the noise -of people moving about and jumped up, forgetting where he was, and fell -backwards from the roof and broke his neck.) _Ah, go not and leave -me behind unwept and unburied, turning thy back on me, lest I become -a vessel of the wrath of gods upon thee; but bury me with all mine -armour, and by the margin of the whitening sea heap me a high grave -of a man that had no luck, that even after ages may know. This do for -me, and on my grave plant the oar with which, alive, I rowed among -my comrades._ The natural pathos of this must touch everybody. But I -wonder if everybody feels how much of its effect is due to an almost -harsh avoidance of sentimentality, as in that hidden threat of the -pleading ghost. And even that piercing last line about the oar—it may -grieve certain readers to know that setting up an oar on the grave -was merely part of a ritual usually observed in the burial of a dead -mariner. - -The _corpus_ of Greek inscriptions naturally contains a great many -epitaphs. There is not one, belonging to what we think of as the great -age of Greece, that has the least grain of smugness or hypocrisy or -sentimentality. It must be confessed that these “pagans” could die with -a good grace. Here is an inscription, _incerti loci_, “of uncertain -provenience,” but in the Greek of Attica. _The tomb of Phrasikleia, -“I shall be called a maid for evermore, having won from the gods this -name instead of marriage.”_ I ought to add at once that the original -is grave and beautiful poetry. I can only give the sense. One must -read the Greek to feel entirely how good Phrasikleia is. At least she -is not Little Nell. Some of the most famous epitaphs are by known -authors; the most famous of all by Simonides. Over the Tegeans who -fell in battle against the Barbarian he wrote: _Here lie the men whose -valour was the cause that smoke went not up to heaven from broad Tegea -burning; who resolved to leave their city flourishing in freedom to -their children, and themselves to die among the foremost fighters_. All -these little poems are beyond translation. The art of them lies in a -deliberate bareness or baldness, which ought to be shockingly prosaic -(and in English almost inevitably is so), but contrives to be thrilling -poetry. The finest of all the epigrams is that on the Three Hundred who -fell at Thermopylae. _O stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie -here, following their instructions._ Literally that is what it says. -Yet I suppose that even a man who does not know Greek may feel in an -instinctive way that it may be extraordinarily good in the original. -It is. It is an instance of the famous Laconic brevity, whose virtue -it was to cut at once to the heart of things. One other epigram I will -add, partly because it also refers to the time of the Persian Wars, -partly because the author was said (perhaps rightly) to be Plato. It is -on the people of Eretria, a town in Euboea by the seashore, who were -carried off into captivity and settled by Darius far away, hopelessly -far, “at Arderikka in the Kissian land” beyond the Tigris. _We who -one day left the deep-voiced swell of the Aegean lie here midmost the -Plain of Ecbatana. Good-bye Eretria, our city famous once; good-bye -Athens, the neighbour of Eretria; good-bye dear sea._ By the side of -this mere “pathos” looks almost vulgar. If Plato wrote it, he was -certainly a poet; but it is improbable that he did. I notice that -Professor Burnet thinks Plato did not write any of the poems attributed -to him in the manuscripts. In any case, when people say that Plato was -“really a poet” they are thinking of his prose. I cannot help adding -the irrelevancy that I wish they would not go on repeating this. He is -an incomparably great master of imaginative prose. Is that not enough? -He may have been no better at poetry than Ruskin or Carlyle. A poet is -a man who writes poems. - -Next to death the great test of sincerity is love. There used to be a -general opinion that love, as we understand it, did not exist among -the ancients at all. That point has been already discussed, but we may -consider for a little the treatment of love in the Attic dramatists, -who best represent the great period of Athenian development. There -is plenty of love in them, only they don’t mention it. “Please do -not be impatient,” as the Greek orators say, “until you hear what I -mean.” Let us take Aeschylus, the earliest of the dramatists, first, -and for a play let us take his _Agamemnon_. The great character is -Clytaemnestra. She has allowed herself to become the paramour of a vile -and cowardly relation of her husband called Aegisthus, who apparently -seduced her out of mere idleness and hatred of King Agamemnon. When -her husband returns she treacherously murders him.... What are you -going to make of a subject like that? How are you going to make -Clytaemnestra, I will not say “sympathetic,” but merely human and -tolerable? It seems an insoluble problem. Yet Aeschylus solves it. For -one thing, he represents Agamemnon, the nominal hero of the play, as -rather wooden, weak and bombastic—not very unlike Julius Caesar, the -nominal hero of Shakespeare’s play, where the dramatist had a similar -but less difficult problem. The result is that the sympathies of the -reader are not too deeply stirred in favour of the victim. Again, -Clytaemnestra appears to be really in love with Aegisthus, while her -feeling towards her husband is not merely the thirst for revenge or the -hate a woman conceives of the man she has wronged; it is a physical -abhorrence. She loathes him in her flesh. It is impossible to explain -by what miracle of genius we are led to receive this impression, for -she speaks nothing but flatteries and cajolery. Yet every speech of -hers to him, as he dimly feels, shudders with a secret disgust. These -long, glittering, coiling sentences are certainly not politic; they are -the expression of a morbid loathing, which has ended by fascinating -itself. When the blood of her lord bursts over her she _rejoices no -less than the sown ground in the heaven’s bright gift of rain_. Now -in the play Agamemnon is rather ineffective, but at any rate he is -more a man than the immeasurably contemptible Aegisthus. Is it to be -supposed that Clytaemnestra does not know that? Of course she knows, -but she does not cease to love Aegisthus on that account. So the matter -stands. Aeschylus does not make it any easier for you. A bad modern -playwright would make Clytaemnestra a sadly misunderstood woman with a -pitiful “case.” It so happens that the queen does have something of a -case, really a good case, but she does not much insist on it. She knows -quite well that it is not for her murdered daughter’s sake that she -has killed the king. Neither is it from fear of detection; the woman -does not know the meaning of fear. Aeschylus will not purchase your -sympathy for her by any pretences. One of his unexpected, wonderful -touches is to make her superbly intelligent. She feels herself so much -superior intellectually to every one else that she hardly takes the -trouble to deceive them. Nobody is asked to like Clytaemnestra, but -surely she gives food for some reflection on the power and subtlety of -Greek psychology, and the unswerving truthfulness of Greek realism, in -a peculiarly complex affair of the heart. - -There are in Sophocles at least two fine and tender studies of conjugal -love of the conventional (but not silly conventional) type, namely -Tekmessa in the _Ajax_ and Dêianeira in the _Trachinian Women_; and -one study not conventional in the very least, the Iokasta of _Oedipus -the King_. She is the woman who slew herself because she had borne -children to her own son, who had murdered his father, who begot him by -her. The legend has made her a thing of night and horror. Sophocles has -made her grand, proud, sceptical, lonely, pitiful, ravaged by thoughts -not to be breathed, horribly pathetic. But these three are wives. Of -love between man and maid Sophocles has hardly a word to say. People -quote Haimon and Antigone. There is no doubt of the young man’s love -for Antigone; he dies for her. But is she in love with Haimon? She is -betrothed to him of course, but in ancient Greece these matters were -arranged. She probably liked him a good deal; everybody likes him; but -we are speaking of love. Those who have little doubts on the subject -quote her cry, _Dearest Haimon, how thy father slights thee!_ which -she utters when Kreon has said, _I hate bad wives for my sons_. But -they have no right to quote the cry as hers until they have proved -she utters it; which they don’t, but merely assume the manuscripts be -wrong. The manuscripts give the line to Ismênê, the sister of Antigone, -and they appear to be clearly right. Any one who looks at the context -will see that it is Ismênê who brings the mention of Haimon into the -dispute with Kreon. Antigone stands apart in proud and indignant -silence. She will die rather than let the man who has outraged her dead -brother see how much her resistance is costing her. Besides, I think -the manuscripts are right anyway. Imagine the case of an extremely -high-minded young lady, who for the very best reasons has quarrelled -with her prospective father-in-law. The young lady’s sister reminds the -old man that after all Octavia is engaged to his son, which provokes -the retort, “I object to bad wives for my boys.” Would Octavia then -exclaim, “Dearest William, how your father insults you!”? Well, would -she? But it looks delightfully like what Octavia’s sister would say. -Therefore, I vote for the manuscripts and giving the line to Ismênê. - -Antigone had two brothers, Eteokles and Polyneikes. After their father -had been driven from Thebes the brethren disputed the succession -to his throne. Polyneikes lost, and took refuge in Argos, where he -gathered assistance and marched against his native city. The attempt -had no success, and Polyneikes and Eteokles fell in single combat. -This mutual fratricide left Kreon, their uncle, king. He, in a flame -of “patriotism,” had Eteokles interred with honour and commanded that -the body of Polyneikes should be left unburied. Such an order might -be compared to excommunication, for the effect of it was for ever to -bar the spirit of the dead from peace. Antigone sprinkled dust on the -naked corpse, which satisfied the gods of the underworld and eluded -the penalty of the ban. When Kreon asks her if the spirit of Eteokles -will not resent the saining of his fraternal enemy—which would be the -orthodox opinion—she replies, beautifully but inconsequently, _It is -not my nature to join in hating, but in loving_. She also speaks of -a higher, unwritten law. But Polyneikes is the favourite brother. I -hardly think any one can read carefully the _Antigone_ and the _Oedipus -at Colonus_ without seeing that. All through the _Antigone_ he is never -out of her thoughts. “Natural enough,” you may be inclined to say. But -is it? On the supposition that she is in love with Haimon? There is -another play, the _Electra_, in which Sophocles portrays the love of a -sister for a brother; and there are a good many points of resemblance -between Electra and Antigone. Only there is in the love of Electra for -Orestes (whom she brought up) a fierce, hungry, maternal quality, which -would be out of place between the children of Oedipus. - -When we pass to Euripides we seem by comparison to approach the modern. -The impression is largely illusory, but not wholly false. It is the -fact that he is troubled by many of the problems that trouble us, and -it is the fact that he sometimes answers, or does not answer, them in -a way we should regard as modern. This comes out in his treatment of -love. It is best seen in the _Medea_ and the _Hippolytus_. Medea has a -special interest for us because she is a Barbarian (princess of Colchis -in the eastern corner of the Black Sea). But her case is quite simple. -She is a woman in love with a man who is tired of her. Necessarily -he cuts a poor figure in the story. She had saved his life. On the -other hand, she had thrown herself at his head, she had done her best -to ruin his chances in life, and all she had now to offer him was a -perfect readiness to murder anybody who stood in his way. She is one -of those women who are never satisfied unless the man is making love -to them all the time, so that one may have a sneaking sympathy for -that embarrassed, if rather contemptible, Jason. Indeed, Euripides’ -opinion of this kind of “Romantic” love is probably no higher than Mr. -Shaw’s. It is the passion of the Barbarian woman. That does not prevent -Euripides from sympathizing profoundly with Medea, the passionate, -wronged, foreign woman. Why, indeed, should it? The case of Medea, as -Euripides with the pregnant brevity of Greek art presents it, has -seemed to many as true as death. It is an excellent example of realism. - -More definitely than the _Medea_, the _Hippolytus_ is a tragedy -of love. Yet in the eloquence of the Romantic lover the one is as -deficient as the other. Phaedra was dying for love of Hippolytus. Her -secret is discovered and she dies of shame. What an opportunity for -the sentimentalist! However, adds the relentless poet, that is not all -the story. Before killing herself she forged a message to her husband -making the charge of Potiphar’s wife against Hippolytus. She could -not die without the pleasure of hurting him. Yet Euripides does not -represent her as an odious woman; quite the contrary. The question -for us is, does she, when we read the play, strike us as real or not? -The poet has set himself a difficult task—to convince us that a soul -overthrown by desire, cruel, lying, unjust was yet essentially modest, -gentle and honourable. If she is almost too convincing, so that a -sentimental part of you bleeds inside, you will perceive that realism -was not invented in Norway. And there is this about the Greek sort: it -never exaggerates. - -It is hardly to be believed how startling an effect of truth this -moderation of the Greek writers can produce. Sappho, in the most -famous of her odes, says that love makes her “sweat” with agony and -look “greener than grass.” Perhaps she did not turn quite so green as -that, although (commentators nobly observe) she would be of an olive -complexion and had never seen British grass. But, even if it contain -a trace of artistic exaggeration, the ode as a whole is perhaps the -most convincing love-poem ever written. It breathes veracity. It has -an intoxicating beauty of sound and suggestion, and it is as exact -as a physiological treatise. The Greeks can do that kind of thing. -Somehow we either overdo the “beauty” or we overdo the physiology. The -weakness of the Barbarian, said they, is that he never hits the mean. -But the Greek poet seems to do it every time. We may beat them at -other things, but not at that. And they do it with so little effort; -sometimes, it might appear, with none at all. Thus Aeschylus represents -Prometheus as the proudest of living beings. The _Prometheus Bound_ -opens with a scene in which Hephaistos, urged on by two devils called -Strength and Force, nails Prometheus to a frozen, desert rock. While -the hero of the play endures this horrible torture, he has to listen to -the clumsy sympathy of Hephaistos, who does not like his job, and the -savage taunts of the two demons. To all this he replies—nothing at all. -No eloquence could express the pride of that tremendous silence. Of -course there is, or there used to be, a certain kind of commentator who -hastens to point out that a convention of the early Attic stage forbade -more than two persons of a tragedy to speak together at any time, so -that in any event it was not permissible for Prometheus to speak. All -you can do with a critic like that is (mentally, I fear) to hang a -millstone round his neck and cast him into the deepest part of the sea. - -Not but what the point about convention, if rightly taken, is extremely -notable. It is an undying wonder how the kind of realism we have been -discussing could be combined with, could even, as in that instance -from the _Prometheus Bound_, make use of, the limitations imposed on -the ancient poet. To a reader who has not looked into the case it -is hard to give even an idea of it. If a man were to tell you that -he had written a novel in which the hero was Sir Anthony Dearborn -and the heroine Sophia Wilde, while other characters were Squire -Crabtree, Parson Quackenboss, Lieutenant Dashwood and the old Duchess -of Grimthorpe, you would think to yourself you knew exactly what to -expect. Yet you must admit there is nothing to prevent the man leaving -out (if he can) Gretna Green, and the duel, and the eighteenth-century -oaths. But if a Greek tragic dramatist put on the stage a play dealing, -say, with the House of Atreus, he positively could not leave out any -part of the family history. It was not done. So the audience knew your -story already, and knew, roughly, your characters. Nor, as historians -say, was that all. There had to be a Chorus, which had to sing lyrical -odes of a mythological sort at regular intervals between the episodes -of your drama; while the episodes themselves had to be composed in the -iambic metre and in a certain “tragic diction” about as remote from -ordinary speech as _Paradise Lost_. How Aeschylus and Sophocles and -Euripides contrive under such conditions to give a powerful impression -of novelty and naturalness it is easier to feel than explain. About the -feeling at least there is no doubt. Let us look again for a moment at -that singular convention, the tragic Chorus. Very often it consists of -old men who ... sing and dance. Consider the incredible difficulty of -keeping a number of singing and dancing old men solemn and beautiful -and even holy. Yet the great tragic poets have overcome that difficulty -so completely that I suppose not one reader in a hundred notices that -there is a difficulty at all. The famous Chorus of old men in the -_Agamemnon_, whose debility is made a point in the play, never for a -moment remind one of Grandfer Cantle. Rather they remind us of that -“old man covered with a mantle,” whom Saul beheld rising from the grave -to pronounce his doom. It is, in their own words, as if God inspired -their limbs to the dance and filled their mouths with prophecy. - -There is only one way of redeeming the conventional, and that is by -sincerity. I am very far from maintaining that the moral virtue of -sincerity was eminently characteristic of the ancient Greek; but -intellectual sincerity was. None has ever looked upon gods and men -with such clear, unswerving eyes; none has understood so well to -communicate that vision. To see that essential beauty is truth and -truth is beauty—that is the secret of Greek art, as it is the maxim of -true realism. To keep measure in all things, that no drop of life may -spill over—that is the secret of Greek happiness. To be a Greek and not -a Barbarian. - - - - -NOTES - -THE AWAKENING - - -The beginnings of Ionia, the earlier homes and the racial affinities -of the Ionians, are still obscure, although the point is cardinal -for Greek history. There is perhaps a growing tendency to find -“Mediterranean” elements in the Ionian stock, and this would explain -much, if the Ionians of history did not seem so very “Aryan” in speech -and habits of thought. On the other hand the “Aryan” himself is -daily coming to look more cloudy and ambiguous, and so is his exact -contribution to western culture. - -The chief ancient sources of our information concerning the Ionians are -Herodotus, Pausanias and Strabo. - - P. 14. Thuc. I. 2. Thuc. I. 6. Herod. I. 57. - - P. 15. See especially D. G. Hogarth, _Ionia and the East_ - (1909). - - J. Burnet, _Who was Javan?_ in Proceedings of the Class. - Assoc. of Scot. 1911-12. Herod. I. 142. - - P. 16. Herod. I. 171 f. - - P. 17. An authoritative little book dealing with (among - other peoples) the Anatolian races is D. G. Hogarth’s - _The Ancient East_ (Home Univ. Ser.), 1914. Also H. R. - Hall, _The Ancient History of the Near East_ (1913). - - P. 18. V. Bérard, _Les Phéniciens et l’Odyssée_ is full - of instruction on the ways of the ancient mariner. - - For the Colchians, see Hippocrates _de aer. aq. loc._ 15. - _Cf._ Herod. II. 104 f. - - P. 19. Chalybes. _Il._ II. 857. Herod. I. 203. - - P. 20. Herod. IV. 93 f. Olbia. Herod. IV. 18. Scythian - bow. Plato, _Laws_, 795-. - - P. 21. Herod. IV. 18 f. - - P. 22. Herod. IV. 172 f. - - P. 25. Herod. II. 152. Abusimbel inscr. in Hicks and - Hill’s _Manual_. - - P. 26 f. Fragments of Archilochus in Bergk’s _Poet. Lyr. - Gr._ - - -KEEPING THE PASS - -The Battle of Thermopylae as related by Herodotus (practically our sole -authority) is an epic. Therefore in telling it again I have frankly -attempted an epical manner as being really less misleading than any -application of the historical method. This is not to say that the -narrative of Herodotus has not been greatly elucidated by the research -of modern historians, especially by the exciting discovery of the path -Anopaia by Mr. G. B. Grundy. I have followed his reconstruction of the -battle (which may not be very far from the truth) in his book, _The -Great Persian War_ (1901). See also Mr. Macan’s commentary in his great -edition of Herodotus. - - P. 34. See Frazer’s note on Thermopylae in his edition of - Pausanias. - - P. 36. _Cf._ Xen. _Anab._ VII. 4, 4 (Thracians of Europe). - - P. 39. Tiara. _schol._ Ar. _Birds_ 487. The King’s tiara - was also called _kitaris_. - - P. 39. For Persian dress _cf._ with Herod. Strabo 734. - Xen. _Cyrop._ VII. 1, 2. There are also representations - in ancient art, e.g. a frieze at Susa. - - -THE ADVENTURERS - - P. 45. Strabo IV. - - P. 46. Herod. IV. 44. - - P. 47. _The Greek Tradition_ (1915), Allen and Unwin, p. - 6f. - - P. 48. Herod. IV. 151-153. - - P. 50. For an account of the Oasis at Siwah, see A. B. - Cook, _Zeus_, vol. I. - - P. 51. Hymn _ad Apoll._ 391 f. - - P. 52. Pind. _Ol._ 3 _ad fin._ - - P. 53. Herod. VI. 11, 12, 17. _Cf._ Strabo on foundation - of Marseille, IV (from Aristotle). - - P. 54. Herod. III. 125, 129-137 (Demokêdês). - - P. 55. Polycrates. Herod. II. 182 and III _passim_. - - P. 61 f. Xen. _Anab._ I-IV. - - P. 63. Pisidians. _Cf._ Xen. _Memor._ V. 2, 6. - - P. 67. _L’Anabase de Xenophon avec un commentaire - historique et militaire_, by Col. (General) Arthur - Boucher, Paris, 1913. - - P. 69. There is a fine imaginative picture of Nineveh in - the Book of Jonah. - - P. 71. The famous Moltke was nearly drowned from a - “tellek.” - - P. 77. The hot spring may be the sulphurous waters of - Murad, which have wonderful iridescences. - - The Armenian underground houses are still to be seen. - These earth-houses are found elsewhere—in Scotland, for - instance. See J. E. Harrison, in _Essays and Studies - presented to W. Ridgeway_, p. 136 f. - - -ELEUTHERIA - - P. 82. Aesch. _Pers._ 241 f. Herod. VII. 104. - - P. 83. _Pers._ 402 f. Eur. _Helen_ 276. - - P. 84. Thuc. I. 3, 3 (“Hellenes” and “Barbarians” - correlative terms). - - Herod. I. 136. - - P. 85. Aeschines 3, 132. Letter to Gadatas, Dittenb. - _Syllog._^2 2. - - Herod. III. 31. _Cf._ Daniel VI. 37, 38. Ezekiel xxvi. 7. - - P. 86. Herod. IX. 108-113. - - P. 88. _Cf._ vengeance of Persians on Ionians, Herod. VI. - 32. - - Herod. VII. 135. - - P. 89. Herod. VIII. 140 f. - - P. 90 f. “The ancients were attached to their country - by three things—their temples, their tombs, and their - forefathers. The two great bonds which united them to - their government were the bonds of habit and antiquity. - With the moderns, hope and the love of novelty have - produced a total change. The ancients said _our - forefathers_, we say posterity; we do not, like them, - love our _patria_, that is to say, the country and the - laws of our fathers, rather we love the laws and the - country of our children; the charm we are most sensible - to is the charm of the future, and not the charm of the - past.” Joubert, transl. by M. Arnold. - - P. 92. See J. E. Harrison on Anodos Vases in her - _Prolegomena_, p. 276 f. - - Herod. VIII. 109. Herod. VIII. 65. - - P. 96. Herod. IX. 27. _Supplices_ 314 f. But see the - whole speech of Aithra, and indeed the whole play, which - is full of the mission of Athens as - - the champion of Hellenism. _Cf._ also Eur. _Heraclid_. G. - Murray, Introduction to trans. of Eur. _Hippol._ etc., on - “Significance of _Bacchae_” (1902). - - P. 97. Thuc. I. 70, 9. Herod. VII. 139. Dem. _de Cor._ - 199 f. - - P. 98. Arist. _Pol._ 1317^2 40, agreeing with Plato - _Resp._ 562B. - - P. 99. Plato _Resp._ 563c. Herod. III. 80. - - Herod. V. 78. _Cf._ Hippocr. _de aer. aq. loc._ 23, 24. - Both agree that a high spirit may be produced by suitable - _nomoi_ and that man’s spirits are “enslaved” under - autocracy. This is a more liberal doctrine than that - discussed in Aristotle, that Barbarians are slaves “by - nature.” - - P. 100. _Supplices_ 403 f. _Medea_ 536 f. - - The association of Liberty and Law is exhibited both - positively and negatively (as in the breach of both - by the tyrant) in the tragic poets, etc. Thus the - _Suppliants_ of Aeschylus is concerned with a point of - marriage-law, the _Antigone_ of Sophocles with a point of - burial-law, and so on. - - Another “romantic” hero is Cadmus. - - P. 104. Hom. _Il._ VI. 447 f. - - -SOPHROSYNE - - P. 110. Plato _Resp._ 329B. _ib._ 439E. - - P. 111. Plato _Resp._ 615c. Xen. _Hellen._ VI. 4, 37. - - P. 112. Plut. _Pelop._ 29. Herod. III. 50; V. 92. - - P. 120. Herod. VIII. 26. - - P. 121. _Purg._ XXIV. 137-8. - - -GODS AND TITANS - - P. 122. _Od._ III. 48. - - P. 123 f. I may allow myself to refer, for more detailed - evidence, to my article _The Religious Background of - the “Prometheus Vinctus”_ in Harvard Studies in Class. - Philol. vol. XXXI, 1920. _Cf._ Prof. G. Murray in - _Anthropology and the Classics_, ed. R. R. Marett. - - P. 124. _Theog._ 126 f. _Theog._ 147 f. “ill to name,” - οὐκ ὀνομαστοί. I think the meaning may be that to mention - their names was dangerous—especially if you got them - wrong. _Cf._ Aesch. Ag. 170. The Romans provided against - this danger by the _indigitamenta_. - - P. 126. _Theog._ 453 f. - - P. 128. _Theog._ 617 f. _Theog._ 503 f. - - P. 129. Solmsen, _Indog. Forsch._ 1912, XXX, 35 n. 1. - _Theog._ 886 f. _Theog._ 929^h f. - - P. 130. Heracl. _fr._ 42 (Diels). Xenophan. _fr._ 11. - - Pind. _Ol._ I. 53 f. - - P. 136. On the “anarchic life,” see Plato _Laws_ 693-699. - Democritus (139) says, “Law aims at the amelioration - of human life and is capable of this, when men are - themselves disposed to accept it; for law reveals - to every man who obeys it his special capacity for - excellence.” - - Zeus, acc. to Plato _Crit. sub fin._ is a - _constitutional_ ruler. - - P. 137. Herod. I. 34 f. - - -CLASSICAL AND ROMANTIC - -I - - P. 147. Plut. _Alex._ I. - - P. 150. _Il._ II. 459 f. _Il._ IV. 452 f. _Il._ XIX. 375 - f. - - _Od._ XIX. 431 f. _Od._ XIX. 518 f. - - P. 151. _Il._ VI. 418 f. _Il._ XIV. 16 f. _Il._ XXIV. 614 f. - - P. 152. _Il._ XIV. 347 f. _Od._ XI. 238 f. - - P. 153. Pind. _Ol._ I. 74 f. _Ol._ VI. 53. - - P. 155. _Il._ XXIII. 597 f. - - P. 161 f. See my _Studies in the Odyssey_, Oxford, 1914. - - P. 163. _Il._ III. 243 f. _Il._ XVI. 453 f. _Od._ XIX. 36 f. - - P. 164. _Od._ XX. 351 f. _ad Cererem_ 5 f. _ad Dion._ 24 f. - - -II - - P. 168. Thuc. III. 38. ζητοῦντές τε ἄλλο τι ὡς εἰπεῖν ἢ - ἐν οἷς ζῶμεν. - - On Elpis, see F. M. Cornford in _Thucydides - Mythistoricus_, ch. IX, XII, XIII. - - P. 172. _Od._ XI. 235 f. Plato _Resp._ 573B. - - P. 175. See Prof. Burnet, _Greek Philosophy_ (1914), Part - I, p. 146 f. - - P. 182. _Il._ XVIII. 205 f. - - P. 183. _Il._ XII. 378 f. - - P. 184. J. M. Synge said, “It may almost be said that - before verse can be human again it must learn to be - brutal.” But this merely shows how much we are suffering - from a reaction against sentimental romanticism. - - -III - - P. 189. _Il_. XIII. 444. _Il._ XIII. 616 f. _Il._ XIV. - 493 f. _Il._ XVI. 345 f. _Il._ XX. 416 f. - - P. 190. _Il._ XVI. 751 f. - - P. 191. Arist. _Nic. Eth._ III. 6, 6. Plato _Apol. ad - fin._ - - _Od._ XI. 488 f. _Od._. XI. 72 f. Note the effect of - the καί before ζωός. It is “simple pathos” if you like, - hardly self-conscious enough to be called “wistful.” - There are some wonderful touches of it in Dante’s - _Inferno_. - - P. 192. Phrasikleia. Kaibel, _Epigr. Sepulchr. Attic._ 6. - - P. 193. The Eretrian epigram is preserved in the Palatine - Anthology. - - P. 195. _Ag._ 1391 f. - - P. 196. _Ant._ 571 f. - - - - -INDEX - - - Abu Simbel, 25 - - Achilles, 181 f., 191 - - Adrastos, 138, 140 f. - - Adriatic, 24 - - Aegean peoples and culture, 14 f., 123 - - Aegina, 55 - - Aegisthus, 194 f. - - Aeneas, 183 - - Aeschines, 81 - - Aeschylus, 58, 82, 83, 130 f., 153, 156, 170, 194 f., 200, 201 f. - - Africa, 22 f., 23, 35, 48 f. - - Agamemnon, 156, 194 f. - - _Agon_, 118 f., 148 - - Ahuramazda, 39, 85, 87 - - Aias, 183 - - Aithra, 96 f. - - Alexander (the Great), 16, 45, 61, 102, 147, 169; - (of Macedon I), 89; - (of Pherae), 111 f. - - _Alkinoos, Narrative to_, 159 f. - - Alkman, 153 - - Alyattes, 30, 117 - - Amazons, 136 - - Amestris, 86 - - Amphiktyones, 34 - - Anaximander, 30 - - Anopaia, 42 - - Antigone, 196 f. - - Apollonios, of Rhodes, 172 - - _Arabian Nights,_ 160 - - Araxes, 79 - - “Archical Man,” The, 61, 62, 67 - - Archilochus, 26 f., 54, 172 - - Arganthonios, 52 - - Aristophanes, 162, 174, 186 - - Aristotle, 98, 110, 121, 147, 190 f. - - Armenia, 64, 75 f. - - Arnold, M., 52, 149 f., 176 f., 186 - - Artaxerxes II, 62, 63, 87 f. - - Artaynte, 86 - - Artemision, 37 - - Asceticism, Greek, 110 f. - - Asia Minor (Anatolia), 13 f., 23, 24, 46, 123 - - Asôpos, 33, 41; - (Gorge of), 33, 41 - - Assyria, 65, 69 - - Assyrians, 17 - - Atarantes, 23 - - Athena, 90 f., 129, 136, 159, 162 - - Athenians, 13, 14, 21, 31, 37, 55, 89 f., 95 f., 131, 168, 174 f. - - Atlantes, 23 - - Atlantic, 52 - - Atlas, 23 - - Atossa, 58 - - Attica, 92, 93 - - Atys-Attis, 137 f. - - _Autochthones_, 14, 92 - - _Autonomy_, 98 - - - Babylon, 65, 88 - - _Bacchae_, 20 - - Beauty, 137 - - Belloc, H., 103 f. - - Bitlis Tchai, 75 - - “Black-Cloaks,” 22 - - Black Sea, 18, 19, 23, 24, 79, 198 - - Blake, 173 - - Bomba, 50 - - Bosphorus, 18, 19 - - Boucher, 67 - - Boudinoi, 22 - - Boulis, 88 - - Briareos, 124, 128 - - “Bronze Men,” 25 - - Burnet, 193 - - Byron, 169 - - - Carians, 16, 17, 24, 25, 28, 46 - - Catullus, 139 - - Caucasus, 19 - - Cecrops, 81 - - Celtic Literature, 149 f. - - Chalybes, 19, 80 - - “Champion’s Light,” 180 f. - - Cheirisophos, 70 f. - - Chesterton, G. K., 103 f. - - Chios, 52 - - Chorus, 201 f. - - Cimmerians, 29 - - Circe, 159 - - Civilization, 102 f., 105 f. - - “Classical,” 147 f. - - Cleopatra, 171 - - Clytaemnestra, 194 f. - - Colchians, 18, 36, 79, 198 - - Coleridge, 152, 153 - - Colonies, 24 f., 31, 47 f. - - Corcyra, 116 f. - - Corinth, 112 f., 168 - - Corinthian Gulf, 13 - - Corsica, 53 - - Cretans, 46 f., 69 - - Crete, 15, 16, 46 f., 122, 123, 126 - - Crimea, 20, 21, 29 - - Croesus, 30, 137 f. - - Cuchulain, 179 f. - - Culture Hero, 101 f. - - Cyclops, 160 - - _Cypria_, 178 - - Cyrene, 48, 50 f. - - Cyrus (the Great), 30, 36, 52, 58; - (the Younger), 62 f. - - - Dante, 121 - - Danube, 19, 20 - - Daphnis, 171 - - Dardanelles, 18, 24 - - Darius, 46, 54, 56 f., 85, 193 - - Dead, Worship of, 91 f., 113 f. - - Delphi, 41, 50 f. - - Demaratos, 82 f., 93 - - Democracy, 98 f. - - Demokêdês, 54 f. - - Demosthenes, 52, 97 - - Dikaios, 92 f. - - Dionysius, 53 f. - - Dionysus, 20 - - Dorians, 13, 14, 15, 17, 24, 37, 174 f. - - Dryden, 171, 185 - - - Earth-houses, 77 f. - - Egypt, 25, 49 - - Egyptians, 18, 24, 25, 36, 56 f. - - Eighteenth century, 185 - - Elea, 53 - - Eleusis, 93, 96 - - Eleutheria, 52 f. - - Elpênor, 191 f. - - Erechtheus, 91 f. - - Eretria, 193 - - Eros, 172 - - Esther, 86 - - Etruria, 24 - - Euboea, 37 f., 193 - - Euêmeros, 122 - - Euphrates, 63 - - Euripides, 20, 96, 100, 101, 112, 138, 153, 173, 179, 198 f. - - Exaggeration (hyperbole), 179 f. - - - Ferdiad, 181 - - Fire, Theft of, 131 - - Frazer, 138 - - Frigidity, 176 - - - Gadatas, Letter to, 85 - - Garamantes, 22, 23 - - Gê (Gaia, Earth), 92, 124 f., 138 - - Germans, 149 - - Getai, 19 - - Gindânes, 23 - - Gods, 122 f. - - Gyes, 124, 128 - - Gyges, 29 f. - - Gymnosophists, 147 - - - Haimon, 196 - - Harpagos, 52 - - Hector, 181 f. - - Hecuba, 112 - - Helen, 163, 170, 182 - - Hephaistos, 200 - - Heracles, 100 f., 136; - (children of), 96 - - Heraclitus, 130 - - Hermesianax, 172 - - Herodotus, 14, 15, 20 f., 25, 48, 51, 54 f., 82, 86 f., 99, 112, - 138 f. - - Hesiod, 124 f., 156, 168, 177 f. - - Hippias, 101 - - Hippokratês, 54 - - Hippolytus, 199 - - Hittites, 17, 123 - - Homer, 15, 20, 26, 109, 122, 124, 129 f., 140 f., 155, 158 f., 172, - 189 f. - - Hope, 168 - - Hydarnes, 41 f., 88 f. - - - “Immortals,” The, 38, 40 f. - - India, 46, 147 - - Indians, 34, 36, 46 - - Iokasta, 196 - - Ionia, 13 f. - - Ionians, 13 f., 37, 46 f., 53, 130, 174 - - Irish, 179 f. - - Ismênê, 196 f. - - _Isonomy_, 98 f. - - Issêdones, 22 - - Itanos, 48 f. - - - Jason, 100, 198 f. - - Julius Caesar (in Shakespeare), 194 - - - _Kalevala_, 160, 165 f. - - Kallidromos, 33, 34 - - Kardouchians, 72 f. - - Keats, 137, 151, 152, 154, 155, 185 f. - - Kebriones, 190 - - Kentrîtês, 75 - - _Keraunos_, 128 f. - - King (the Great), 85 f.; - (Old and New), 123 f. - - Kissians, 34, 36, 38 f. - - Klearchos, 63 f. - - Korôbios, 48 f. - - Kottos, 124, 128 - - Kratos, 131 - - Kreon, 196 f. - - Kronos, 123, 124 f. - - Kroton, 54, 59 f. - - Ktesias, 87 - - Kunaxa, 63 - - Kurdistan, 71 - - Kypselos, 112 f. - - - Ladê, 53 - - Landor, 185 - - Lang, A., 161 - - Law, 83 f., 100, 130 f. - - Leaf, W., 159 - - Leonidas, 37, 39 f., 42, 44 - - Leontios, 110 - - Longfellow, 105 - - Lönnrot, 165 - - Love, 171 f., 199 - - Lycians, 17, 37, 163 - - Lydians, 17, 29 f., 35, 140 f. - - Lykophron, 114 f. - - - _Mabinogion_, 154, 176 - - Magic, 149 f. - - Makai, 23 - - Malis, 32; - (Gulf of), 32, 38, 40 - - Marmara, Sea of, 18, 24 - - Marseille, 45 - - Martin, H., 168 - - Medea, 100, 171 - - Medes, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38 f. - - Melissa, 113 f. - - Mercenaries, 25, 28, 63 - - Meredith, 109 - - Mesopotamia, 24, 63 - - Metis, 129, 198 f. - - Midas, 29, 140 - - Miletus, 18, 24, 30, 47, 112 - - Milton, 169, 184 - - “Minoan” Culture, 47, 50 - - Minos, 16, 55 - - Mountain-Mother, 138 f. - - “Mycenaean” Culture, 15, 24, 47 - - Mysians, 17, 35, 142 - - Mythology (Greek), 137, 155 f., 171 f. - - - Nana, 138 f. - - Napoleon, 20, 67 - - Nasamônes, 22 - - Neoboule, 27 - - Neuroi, 21 - - _Nikê_, 119 f. - - Nineveh, 69, 88 - - Nomads, 21, 22, 23 - - _Nomos_, 83 f., 135 f. - - - Odysseus, 156, 159 f., 163, 191 - - Oeta, 33, 40 - - Olbia, 20 - - Olympians, 129, 133, 135 - - Olympic Victor, 120 - - Olympus (Thessalian), 33, 129; - (Mysian), 138, 142, 144 - - Oroitês, 56 - - Otanes, 99 - - Ouranos, 124 f. - - - Paktôlos, 138, 140 - - Paros, 26, 27 - - Parthian Tactics, 68 - - Parysatis, 62, 65, 87 - - Patriotism (Greek), 94 f. - - Pausanias, 156 f. - - Periandros, 112 f. - - Persephone, 164 - - Persians, 16, 30, 32 f., 34, 59 f. - - Phaedra, 199 - - Phasis, 18, 79 - - “Philanthropy,” 96 - - Phocians, 37, 42, 52 f. - - Phoenicians, 24, 36, 52 - - Phokaia, 24, 47, 53 - - Phrasikleia, 192 - - Phrygians, 17, 18, 29, 35, 123, 138 f. - - Pindar, 52, 130, 153 - - Pindarism, 169 - - Pirates, 24 - - Pisidians, 63 - - Platea, 48 f. - - Plato, 98, 110, 117, 130, 137, 162, 172, 175, 193 f. - - Plutarch, 82, 87, 99, 111, 147 - - Polykratês, 55 f. - - Polyneikes, 197 f. - - Prokles, 114 f. - - _Prometheia_, 130 f. - - Prometheus, 102, 131 f., 200 - - Proxenos, 62 f. - - Psammetichos, 24 f. - - Pytheas, 45 - - - Queen-Consort, 123 f. - - - Realism, 160, 186, 187 f. - - Renaissance, 184 - - Restoration, 185 - - Rhea, 123, 124, 126, 138 - - Rhodians, 68 f., 71 - - “Romantic,” 100 f., 107 f., 147 f. - - Rossetti, 152, 166 - - Ruskin, 112, 163 - - Russia, 19 - - - Salamis, 83, 92 - - Salmoxis, 19 - - Samians, 49 f., 55, 117 - - Sappho, 152, 153, 172, 185, 200 - - Sardis, 56, 62, 63, 86, 138, 140 f. - - Scotland, 45 - - Scott, 61, 62 - - Scythians, 20 f. - - Shakespeare, 111, 151, 154, 184, 190, 194 - - Shaw, 148, 199 - - Shelley, 133 - - Simonides, 192 f. - - Sirens, 160 - - Skylax, 46 - - Socrates, 62, 67, 175, 191 - - Sophocles, 110, 173, 196 f. - - _Sophrosyne_, 105 f., 135, 172 - - Sosikles, 112 f. - - Spain, 24 - - Spartans, 34 f., 37 f., 83, 88 f., 175, 193 - - Sperthias, 88 f. - - Stone (Omphalos), 127 - - Strabo, 45 - - Susa, 56 f., 60, 86, 88 - - Symbolism, 190 f. - - - _Táin Bó Cúalnge_, 179 - - Tarentum, 59 - - Tartessos, 49, 51 - - Tauri, 21 - - Telemachus, 163 - - _Tellek_, 71 - - Tennyson, 186 - - Thales, 30 - - Thasos, 27 f. - - Thebans, 37, 43, 96 f. - - Themistocles, 92 - - _Theogony_, 124, 128 - - Theophrastus, 120 - - Thera, 48 f. - - Thermopylae, 33 f., 193 - - Theseus, 91, 96 f., 99, 100 f., 136 - - Thespians, 37, 43 - - Thessaly, 32 - - Thracians, 18, 19 f., 36 - - Thrasyboulos, 112 f. - - Thucydides, 14 - - Tiara, 39 - - Tigris, 64, 65, 70 f. - - Tiribazos, 75 f. - - Tissaphernes, 65 f. - - _Titanism_, 167 f. - - Titans, 122 f. - - Tragedy, Attic, 139 f., 194 f. - - Trebizond, 79 - - Trinity (Primitive Religious), 123 - - Troglodytes, 23 - - Trojans, 182 - - Tugdammi, 29 f. - - Tyranny, 99, 111, 119 - - - _Victorianism_, 186 f. - - Virgil, 183 - - - Wainamoinen, 102 - - Wells, H. G., 103, 120 - - Wordsworth, 185 - - - Xenophanês, 130 - - Xenophon, 61 f. - - Xerxes, 33 f., 83, 85, 86 f., 89, 93, 97 - - - Yeats, W. B., 158 - - - Zab, 66 f. - - Zacho Dagh, 70 f. - - Zeus, 122, 123, 126 f., 128 f., 145, 157, 163 - - -_Printed in Great Britain by_ - -UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Greeks & Barbarians, by James Alexander Kerr Thomson - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEKS & BARBARIANS *** - -***** This file should be named 55792-0.txt or 55792-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/7/9/55792/ - -Produced by Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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