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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6200.txt b/6200.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b0df94 --- /dev/null +++ b/6200.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7181 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Greek View of Life +by Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Greek View of Life + +Author: Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson + +Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6200] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on November 22, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE GREEK VIEW OF LIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Tonya Allen, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +THE GREEK VIEW OF LIFE + +BY + +G. LOWES DICKINSON, M.A. + +SIXTH EDITION + +NEW YORK + +1909 + + + + +PREFACE + + +The following pages are intended to serve as a general introduction to +Greek literature and thought, for those, primarily, who do not know +Greek. Whatever opinions may be held as to the value of translations, it +seems clear that it is only by their means that the majority of modern +readers can attain to any knowledge of Greek culture; and as I believe +that culture to be still, as it has been in the past, the most valuable +element of a liberal education, I have hoped that such an attempt as the +present to give, with the help of quotations from the original authors, +some general idea of the Greek view of life, will not be regarded as +labour thrown away. + +It has been essential to my purpose to avoid, as far as may be, all +controversial matter; and if any classical scholar who may come across +this volume should be inclined to complain of omissions or evasions, I +would beg him to remember the object of the book and to judge it +according to its fitness for its own end. + +"The Greek View of Life," no doubt, is a question-begging title, but I +believe it to have a quite intelligible meaning; for varied and manifold +as the phases may be that are presented by the Greek civilization, they +do nevertheless group themselves about certain main ideas, to be +distinguished with sufficient clearness from those which have dominated +other nations. It is these ideas that I have endeavoured to bring into +relief; and if I have failed, the blame, I submit, must be ascribed +rather to myself than to the nature of the task I have undertaken. + +From permission to make the extracts from translations here printed my +best thanks are due to the following authors and publishers:--Professor +Butcher, Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. E. D. A. Morshead, Mr. B. B. Rogers, Dr. +Verrall, Mr. A. S. Way, Messrs. George Bell and Sons, the Syndics of the +Cambridge University Press, the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, +Oxford, Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Mr. John Murray, and Messrs. Sampson +Low, Marston and Co.--I have also to thank the Master and Fellows of +Balliol College, Oxford, for permission to quote at considerable length +from the late Professor Jowett's translations of Plato and Thucydides. + +Appended is a list of the translations from which I have quoted. + + + + +LIST OF TRANSLATIONS USED + + +AESCHYLUS (B.C. 525--456). "The House of Atreus" + (I.E. the "Agamemnon," "Choephorae" and "Eumenides"), + translated by E. D. A. MORSHEAD (Warren and Sons). + The "Eumenides," translated by DR. VERRALL (Cambridge, + 1885). + +ARISTOPHANES (C. B.C. 444--380). "The Acharnians, + the Knights, and the Birds," translated by JOHN HOOKHAM + FRERE (Morley's Universal Library, Routledge). + [Also the "Frogs" and the "Peace" in his Collected + Works, (Pickering)]. + The "Clouds," the "Lysistrata" ["Women in Revolt,"] + the "Peace," and the "Wasps," translated by B. B. ROGERS + +ARISTOTLE (B.C. 384--322). The "Ethics," the "Politics," + and the "Rhetoric," translated by J. E. C. WELLDON + (Macmillan & Co.). + +DEMOSTHENES (B.C. 385--322). "Orations," translated by + C. R. KENNEDY (Bell). + +EURIPIDES (B.C. 480--406). "Tragedies," translated by + A. S. WAY (Macmillan & Co.). + +HERODOTUS (B.C. 484-- ). "The History," translated + by S. R. RAWLINSON (Murray). + +HOMER. The "Iliad," translated by LANG, LEAF AND MYERS; + the "Odyssey," translated by BUTCHER & LANG (Macmillan). + +PINDAR (B.C. 522--442). "Odes," translated by E. MYERS + (Macmillan & Co.). + +PLATO (B.C. 430--347). The "Dialogues," translated by + B. JOWETT (Clarendon Press). + "The Republic," translated by DAVIES AND VAUGHAN + (Macmillan & Co.). + +PLUTARCH. "Lives," DRYDEN'S translation, edited by + A. CLOUGH (Sampson Low, Marston & Co.). + +SOPHOCLES (B.C. 496--406). Edited and Translated by DR. JEBB + (Cambridge University Press). + +THUCYDIDES (B.C. 471-- ), edited and translated by + B. JOWETT (Clarendon Press). + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I.--THE GREEK VIEW OF RELIGION + +1. Introductory + +2. Greek Religion an Interpretation of Nature + +3. Greek Religion an Interpretation of the Human Passions + +4. Greek Religion the Foundation of Society + +5. Religious Festivals + +6. The Greek Conception of the Relation of Man to the Gods + +7. Divination, Omens, Oracles + +8. Sacrifice and Atonement + +9. Guilt and Punishment + +10. Mysticism + +11. The Greek View of Death and a Future Life + +12. Critical and Sceptical Opinion in Greece + +13. Ethical Criticism + +14. Transition to Monotheism + +15. Metaphysical Criticism + +16. Metaphysical reconstruction--Plato + +17. Summary + + +CHAPTER II.--THE GREEK VIEW OF THE STATE + +1. The Greek State a "City" + +2. The Relation of the State to the Citizen + +3. The Greek View of Law + +4. Artisans and Slaves + +5. The Greek State primarily Military, not Industrial + +6. Forms of Government in the Greek State + +7. Faction and Anarchy + +8. Property and the Communistic Ideal + +9. Sparta + +10. Athens + +11. Sceptical Criticism of the Basis of the State + +12. Summary + + +CHAPTER III.--THE GREEK VIEW OF THE INDIVIDUAL + +1. The Greek View of Manual Labour and Trade + +2. Appreciation of External Goods + +3. Appreciation of Physical Qualities + +4. Greek Athletics + +5. Greek Ethics--Identification of the Aesthetic and Ethical Points of View + +6. The Greek View of Pleasure + +7. Illustrations.--Ischomachus; Socrates + +8. The Greek View of Woman + +9. Protests against the Common View of Woman + +10. Friendship + +11. Summary + + +CHAPTER IV.--THE GREEK VIEW OF ART + +1. Greek Art an Expression of National Life + +2. Identification of the Aesthetic and Ethical points of View + +3. Sculpture and Painting + +4. Music and the Dance + +5. Poetry + +6. Tragedy + +7. Comedy + +8. Summary + + +CHAPTER V.--CONCLUSION + + + + +THE GREEK VIEW OF LIFE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE GREEK VIEW OF RELIGION + + +Section 1. Introductory. + +In approaching the subject of the religion of the Greeks it is necessary +to dismiss at the outset many of the associations which we are naturally +inclined to connect with that word. What we commonly have in our mind +when we speak of religion is a definite set of doctrines, of a more or +less metaphysical character, formulated in a creed and supported by an +organisation distinct from the state. And the first thing we have to +learn about the religion of the Greeks is that it included nothing of +the kind. There was no church, there was no creed, there were no +articles; there was no doctrine even, unless we are so to call a chaos +of legends orally handed down and in continual process of transformation +by the poets. Priests there were, but they were merely public officials, +appointed to perform certain religious rites. The distinction between +cleric and layman, as we know it, did not exist; the distinction between +poetry and dogma did not exist; and whatever the religion of the Greeks +may have been, one thing at any rate is clear, that it was something +very different from all that we are in the habit of associating with the +word. + +What then was it? It is easy to reply that it was the worship of those +gods--of Zeus, Apollo, Athene, and the rest--with whose names and +histories every one is familiar. But the difficulty is to realise what +was implied in the worship of these gods; to understand that the +mythology which we regard merely as a collection of fables was to the +Greeks actually true; or at least that to nine Greeks out of ten it +would never occur that it might be false, might be, as we say, mere +stories. So that though no doubt the histories of the gods were in part +the inventions of the poets, yet the poets would conceive themselves to +be merely putting into form what they and every one believed to be +essentially true. + +But such a belief implies a fundamental distinction between the +conception, or rather, perhaps, the feeling of the Greeks about the +world, and our own. And it is this feeling that we want to understand +when we ask ourselves the question, what did a belief in the gods really +mean to the ancient Greeks? To answer it fully and satisfactorily is +perhaps impossible. But some attempt must be made; and it may help us in +our quest if we endeavour to imagine the kind of questionings and doubts +which the conception of the gods would set at rest. + + +Section 2. Greek Religion an Interpretation of Nature. + +When we try to conceive the state of mind of primitive man the first +thing that occurs to us is the bewilderment and terror he must have felt +in the presence of the powers of nature. Naked, houseless, weaponless, +he is at the mercy, every hour, of this immense and incalculable +Something so alien and so hostile to himself. As fire it burns, as water +it drowns, as tempest it harries and destroys; benignant it may be at +times, in warm sunshine and calm, but the kindness is brief and +treacherous. Anyhow, whatever its mood, it has to be met and dealt with. +By its help, or, if not, in the teeth of its resistance, every step in +advance must be won; every hour, every minute, it is there to be +reckoned with. What is it then, this persistent, obscure, unnameable +Thing? What is it? The question haunts the mind; it will not be put +aside; and the Greek at last, like other men under similar conditions, +only with a lucidity and precision peculiar to himself, makes the reply, +"it is something like myself." Every power of nature he presumes to be a +spiritual being, impersonating the sky as Zeus, the earth as Demeter, +the sea as Poseidon; from generation to generation under his shaping +hands, the figures multiply and define themselves; character and story +crystallise about what at first were little more than names; till at +last, from the womb of the dark enigma that haunted him in the +beginning, there emerges into the charmed light of a world of ideal +grace a pantheon of fair and concrete personalities. Nature has become a +company of spirits; every cave and fountain is haunted by a nymph; in +the ocean dwell the Nereids, in the mountain the Oread, the Dryad in the +wood; and everywhere, in groves and marshes, on the pastures or the +rocky heights, floating in the current of the streams or traversing +untrodden snows, in the day at the chase and as evening closes in +solitude fingering his flute, seen and heard by shepherds, alone or with +his dancing train, is to be met the horned and goat-footed, the sunny- +smiling Pan. + +Thus conceived, the world has become less terrible because more +familiar. All that was incomprehensible, all that was obscure and dark, +has now been seized and bodied forth in form, so that everywhere man is +confronted no longer with blind and unintelligible force, but with +spiritual beings moved by like passions with himself. The gods, it is +true, were capricious and often hostile to his good, but at least they +had a nature akin to his; if they were angry, they might be propitiated; +if they were jealous, they might be appeased; the enmity of one might be +compensated by the friendship of another; dealings with them, after all, +were not so unlike dealings with men, and at the worst there was always +a chance for courage, patience and wit. + +Man, in short, by his religion has been made at home in the world; and +that is the first point to seize upon. To drive it home, let us take an +illustration from the story of Odysseus. Odysseus, it will be +remembered, after the sack of Troy, for ten years was a wanderer on the +seas, by tempest, enchantment, and every kind of danger detained, as it +seemed, beyond hope of return from the wife and home he had left in +Ithaca. The situation is forlorn enough. Yet, somehow or other, beauty +in the story predominates over terror. And this, in part at least, +because the powers with which Odysseus has to do, are not mere forces of +nature, blind and indifferent, but spiritual beings who take an +interest, for or against, in his fate. The whole story becomes familiar, +and, if one may say so, comfortable, by the fact that it is conducted +under the control and direction of the gods. Listen, for example, to the +Homeric account of the onset of a storm, and observe how it sets one at +ease with the elements: + +"Now the lord, the shaker of the earth, on his way from the Ethiopians, +espied Odysseus afar off from the mountains of the Solymi: even thence +he saw him as he sailed over the deep; and he was yet more angered in +spirit, and wagging his head he communed with his own heart. 'Lo now, it +must be that the gods at the last have changed their purpose concerning +Odysseus, while I was away among the Ethiopians. And now he is nigh to +the Phaeacian land, where it is so ordained that he escape the great +issues of the woe which hath come upon him. But me-thinks, that even yet +I will drive him far enough in the path of suffering.' + +"With that he gathered the clouds and troubled the waters of the deep, +grasping his trident in his hands; and he roused all storms of all +manner of winds, and shrouded in clouds the land and sea: and down sped +night from heaven. The East Wind and the South Wind clashed, and the +stormy West, and the North, that is born in the bright air, rolling +onward a great wave." [Footnote: Odyss. v. 282.--Translated by Butcher +and Lang.] + +The position of the hero is terrible, it is true, but not with the +terror of despair; for as it is a god that wrecked him, it may also be a +god that will save. If Poseidon is his enemy, Athene, he knows, is his +friend; and all lies, after all, in the hands, or, as the Greeks said, +"on the knees," not of a blind destiny, but of beings accessible to +prayer. + +Let us take another passage from Homer to illustrate the same point. It +is the place where Achilles is endeavouring to light the funeral pyre of +Patroclus, but because there is no wind the fire will not catch. What is +he to do? What _can_ he do? Nothing, say we, but wait till the wind +comes. But to the Greek the winds are persons, not elements; Achilles +has only to call and to promise, and they will listen to his voice. And +so, we are told, "fleet-footed noble Achilles had a further thought: +standing aside from the pyre he prayed to the two winds of North and +West, and promised them fair offerings, and pouring large libations from +a golden cup besought them to come, that the corpses might blaze up +speedily in the fire, and the wood make haste to be enkindled. Then +Iris, when she heard his prayer, went swiftly with the message to the +Winds. They within the house of the gusty West Wind were feasting all +together at meat, when Iris sped thither, and halted on the threshold of +stone. And when they saw her with their eyes, they sprung up and called +to her every one to sit by him. But she refused to sit, and spake her +word: 'No seat for me; I must go back to the streams of Ocean, to the +Ethiopians' land where they sacrifice hecatombs to the immortal gods, +that I too may feast at their rites. But Achilles is praying the North +Wind and the loud West to come, and promising them fair offerings, that +ye may make the pyre be kindled whereon lieth Patroclos, for whom all +the Achaians are making moan.' + +"She having thus said departed, and they arose with a mighty sound, +rolling the clouds before them. And swiftly they came blowing over the +sea, and the wave rose beneath their shrill blast; and they came to +deep-soiled Troy, and fell upon the pile, and loudly roared the mighty +fire. So all night drave they the flame of the pyre together, blowing +shrill; and all night fleet Achilles, holding a two-handled cup, drew +wine from a golden bowl, and poured it forth and drenched the earth, +calling upon the spirit of hapless Patroclos. As a father waileth when +he burneth the bones of his son, new-married, whose death is woe to his +hapless parents, so wailed Achilles as he burnt the bones of his +comrade, going heavily round the burning pile, with many moans. + +"But at the hour when the Morning Star goeth forth to herald light upon +the earth, the star that saffron-mantled Dawn cometh after, and +spreadeth over the salt sea, then grew the burning faint, and the flame +died down. And the Winds went back again to betake them home over the +Thracian main, and it roared with a violent swell. Then the son of +Peleus turned away from the burning and lay down wearied, and sweet +sleep leapt on him." [Footnote: Iliad xxiii. p. 193.--Translated by +Lang, Leaf and Myers.] + +The exquisite beauty of this passage, even in translation, will escape +no lover of poetry. And it is a beauty which depends on the character of +the Greek religion; on the fact that all that is unintelligible in the +world, all that is alien to man, has been drawn, as it were, from its +dark retreat, clothed in radiant form, and presented to the mind as a +glorified image of itself. Every phenomenon of nature, night and "rosy- +fingered" dawn, earth and sun, winds, rivers, and seas, sleep and +death,--all have been transformed into divine and conscious agents, to +be propitiated by prayer, interpreted by divination, and comprehended by +passions and desires identical with those which stir and control +mankind. + + +Section 3. Greek Religion an Interpretation of the Human Passions. + +And as with the external world, so with the world within. The powers of +nature were not the only ones felt by man to be different from and alien +to himself; there were others, equally strange, dwelling in his own +heart, which, though in a sense they were part of him, yet he felt to be +not himself, which came upon him and possessed him without his choice +and against his will. With these too he felt the need to make himself at +home, and these too, to satisfy his need, he shaped into creatures like +himself. To the whole range of his inner experience he gave definition +and life, presenting it to himself in a series of spiritual forms. In +Aphrodite, mother of Eros, he incarnated the passion of love, placing in +her broidered girdle "love and desire of loving converse that steals the +wits even of the wise"; in Ares he embodied the lust of war; in Athene, +wisdom; in Apollo, music and the arts. The pangs of guilt took shape in +the conception of avenging Furies; and the very prayers of the +worshipper sped from him in human form, wrinkled and blear-eyed, with +halting pace, in the rear of punishment. Thus the very self of man he +set outside himself; the powers, so intimate, and yet so strange, that +swayed him from within he made familiar by making them distinct; +converted their shapeless terror into the beauty of visible form; and by +merely presenting them thus to himself in a guise that was immediately +understood, set aside, if he could not answer, the haunting question of +their origin and end. + +Here then is at least a partial reply to our question as to the effect +of a belief in the gods on the feeling of the Greek. To repeat the +phrase once more, it made him at home in the world. The mysterious +powers that controlled him it converted into beings like himself; and so +gave him heart and breathing-space, shut in, as it were, from the abyss +by this shining host of fair and familiar forms, to turn to the +interests and claims of the passing hour an attention undistracted by +doubt and fear. + + +Section 4. Greek Religion the Foundation of Society. + +But this relation to the world of nature is only one side of man's life; +more prominent and more important, at a later stage of his development, +is his relation to society; and here too in Greek civilization a great +part was played by religion. For the Greek gods, we must remember, were +not purely spiritual powers, to be known and approached only in the +heart by prayer. They were beings in human form, like, though superior +to ourselves, who passed a great part of their history on earth, +intervened in the affairs of men, furthered or thwarted their +undertakings, begat among them sons and daughters, and followed, from +generation to generation, the fortunes of their children's children. +Between them and mankind there was no impassable gulf; from Heracles the +son of Zeus was descended the Dorian race; the Ionians from Ion, son of +Apollo; every family, every tribe traced back its origin to a "hero", +and these "heroes" were children of the gods, and deities themselves. +Thus were the gods, in the most literal sense, the founders of society; +from them was derived, even physically, the unit of the family and the +race; and the whole social structure raised upon that natural basis was +necessarily penetrated through and through by the spirit of religion. + +We must not therefore be misled by the fact that there was no church in +the Greek state to the idea that the state recognised no religion; on +the contrary, religion was so essential to the state, so bound up with +its whole structure, in general and in detail, that the very conception +of a separation between the powers was impossible. If there was no +separate church, in our sense of the term, as an independent organism +within the state, it was because the state, in one of its aspects, was +itself a church, and derived its sanction, both as a whole and in its +parts, from the same gods who controlled the physical world. Not only +the community as a whole but all its separate minor organs were under +the protection of patron deities. The family centred in the hearth, +where the father, in his capacity of priest, offered sacrifice and +prayer to the ancestors of the house; the various corporations into +which families were grouped, the local divisions for the purpose of +taxation, elections, and the like, derived a spiritual unity from the +worship of a common god; and finally the all-embracing totality of the +state itself was explained and justified to all its members by the cult +of the special protecting deity to whom its origin and prosperous +continuance were due. The sailor who saw, on turning the point of +Sunium, the tip of the spear of Athene glittering on the Acropolis, +beheld in a type the spiritual form of the state; Athene and Athens were +but two aspects of the same thing; and the statue of the goddess of +wisdom dominating the city of the arts may serve to sum up for us the +ideal of that marvellous corporate life where there was no +ecclesiastical religion only because there was no secular state. + +Regarded from this point of view, we may say that the religion of the +Greeks was the spiritual side of their political life. And we must add +that in one respect their religion pointed the way to a higher political +achievement than they were ever able to realise in fact. One fatal +defect of the Greek civilisation, as is familiar to students of their +history, was the failure of the various independent city states to +coalesce into a single harmonious whole. But the tendency of religion +was to obviate this defect. We find, for example, that at one time or +another federations of states were formed to support in common the cult +of some god; and one cult in particular there was--that of the Delphian +Apollo--whose influence on political no less than on religious life was +felt as far as and even beyond the limits of the Greek race. No colony +could be founded, no war hazarded, no peace confirmed, without the +advice and approval of the god--whose cult was thus at once a religious +centre for the whole of Greece, and a forecast of a political unity that +should co-ordinate into a whole her chaos of conflicting states. + +The religion of the Greeks being thus, as we have seen, the +presupposition and bond of their political life, we find its sanction +extended at every point to custom and law. The persons of heralds, for +example, were held to be under divine protection; treaties between +states and contracts between individuals were confirmed by oath; the +vengeance of the gods was invoked upon infringers of the law; national +assemblies and military expeditions were inaugurated by public prayers; +the whole of corporate life, in short, social and political, was so +embraced and bathed in an idealising element of ritual that the secular +and religious aspects of the state must have been as inseparable to a +Greek in idea as we know them to have been in constitution. + + +Section 5. Religious Festivals. + +For it was in ritual and art, not in propositions, that the Greek +religion expressed itself; and in this respect it was closer to the +Roman Catholic than to the Protestant branch of the Christian faith. The +plastic genius of the race, that passion to embody ideas in form, which +was at the root, as we saw, of their whole religious outlook, drove them +to enact for their own delight, in the most beautiful and telling forms, +the whole conception they had framed of the world and of themselves. The +changes of the seasons, with the toil they exact and the gifts they +bring, the powers of generation and destruction, the bounty or the +rigours of the earth; and on the other hand, the order and operations of +social phenomena, the divisions of age and sex, of function and of rank +in the state--all these took shape and came, as it were, to self- +consciousness in a magnificent series of publicly ordered _fetes_. +So numerous were these and so diverse in their character that it would +be impossible, even if it were desirable in this place, to give any +general account of them. Our purpose will be better served by a +description of two, selected from the calendar of Athens, and typical, +the one of the relations of man to nature, the other of his relation to +the state. The festivals we have chosen are those known as the +"Anthesteria" [Footnote: This interpretation of the meaning of the +"Anthesteria" is not accepted by modern scholars. It is not, however, +for typographical reasons, convenient to remove it from the text, and +the error is of no importance for the purpose of this book.] and the +"Panathenaea." + +The Anthesteria was held at that season of the year when, as Pindar +sings in an ode composed to be sung upon the occasion, "the chamber of +the Hours is opened and the blossoms hear the voice of the fragrant +spring; when violet clusters are flung on the lap of earth, and chaplets +of roses braided in the hair; when the sound of the flute is heard and +choirs chanting hymns to Semele." On the natural side the festival +records the coming of spring and the fermenting of last year's wine; on +the spiritual, its centre is Dionysus, who not only was the god of wine, +but, according to another legend, symbolised in his fate the death of +the year in winter and its rebirth at spring. + +The ceremonies open with a scene of abandoned jollity; servants and +slaves are invited to share in the universal revel; the school holidays +begin; and all the place is alive with the bustle and fun of a great +fair. Bargaining, peep-shows, conjuring, and the like fill up the hours +of the day; and towards evening the holiday-makers assemble garlanded +and crowned in preparation for the great procession. The procession +takes place by torch-light; the statue of Dionysus leads the way, and +the revellers follow and swarm about him, in carriages or on foot, +costumed as Hours or Nymphs or Bacchae in the train of the god of wine. +The destination is the temple of the god and there sacrifice is +performed with the usual accompaniment of song and dance; the whole +closing with a banquet and a drinking contest, similar to those in vogue +among the German students. Aristophanes has described the scene for us-- + + "Couches, tables, + Cushions and coverlets for mattresses, + Dancing and singing-girls for mistresses, + Plum cake and plain, comfits and caraways, + Confectionery, fruits preserved and fresh, + Relishes of all sorts, hot things and bitter, + Savouries and sweets, broiled biscuits and what not; + Flowers and perfumes, and garlands, everything." + [Footnote: Aristoph. Ach. 1090.--Frere's translation.] + +and in the midst of this the signal given by the trumpet, the +simultaneous draught of wine, and the prize adjudged to the man who is +the first to empty his cup. + +Thus ends the first phase of the festival. So far all has been mirth and +revelry; but now comes a sudden change of tone. Dionysus, god of wine +though he be, has also his tragic aspect; of him too there is recorded a +"descent into hell"; and to the glad celebration of the renewal of life +in spring succeeds a feast in honour of the dead. The ghosts, it is +supposed, come forth to the upper air; every door-post is smeared with +pitch to keep off the wandering shades; and every family sacrifices to +its own departed. Nor are the arts forgotten; a musical festival is +held, and competing choirs sing and dance in honour of the god. + +Such, so far as our brief and imperfect records enable us to trace it, +was the ritual of a typical Greek festival. With the many questions that +might be raised as to its origin and development we need not concern +ourselves at present; what we have to note is the broad fact, +characteristic of the genius of the Greeks, that they have taken the +natural emotions excited by the birth of spring, and by connecting them +with the worship of Dionysus have given them expression and form; so +that what in its origin was a mere burst of primitive animal spirits is +transmuted into a complex and beautiful work of art, the secret springs +and fountains of physical life flowing into the forms of a spiritual +symbol. It is this that is the real meaning of all ceremonial, and this +that the Greeks better than any other people understood. Their religion, +one may almost say, consisted in ritual; and to attempt to divide the +inner from the outer would be to falsify from the beginning its +distinctive character. + +Let us pass to our second illustration, the great city-festival of +Athens. In the Anthesteria it was a moment of nature that was seized and +idealized; here, in the Panathenaea, it is the forms of social life, its +distinctions within its embracing unity, that are set forth in their +interdependence as functions of a spiritual life. In this great national +fete, held every four years, all the higher activities of Athenian life +were ideally displayed--contests of song, of lyre and of flute, foot and +horse races, wrestling, boxing, and the like, military evolutions of +infantry and horse, pyrrhic dances symbolic of attack and defence in +war, mystic chants of women and choruses of youths--the whole +concentring and discharging itself in that great processional act in +which, as it were, the material forms of society became transparent, and +the Whole moved on, illumined and visibly sustained by the spiritual +soul of which it was the complete and harmonious embodiment. Of this +procession we have still in the frieze of the Parthenon a marble +transcript. There we may see the life of ancient Athens moving in stone, +from the first mounting of their horses by isolated youths, like the +slow and dropping prelude of a symphony, on to the thronged and +trampling ranks of cavalry, past the antique chariots reminiscent of +Homeric war, and the marching band of flutes and zithers, by lines of +men and maidens bearing sacrificial urns, by the garlanded sheep and +oxen destined for sacrifice, to where, on turning the corner that leads +to the eastern front, we find ourselves in the presence of the Olympian +gods themselves, enthroned to receive the offering of a people's life. +And if to this marble representation we add the colour it lacks, the +gold and silver of the vessels, the purple and saffron robes; if we set +the music playing and bid the oxen low; if we gird our living picture +with the blaze of an August noon and crown it with the Acropolis of +Athens, we may form a conception, better perhaps than could otherwise be +obtained, of what religion really meant to the citizen of a state whose +activities were thus habitually symbolised in the cult of its patron +deity. Religion to him, clearly, could hardly be a thing apart, dwelling +in the internal region of the soul and leaving outside, untouched by the +light of the ideal, the whole business and complexity of the material +side of life; to him it was the vividly present and active soul of his +corporate existence, representing in the symbolic forms of ritual the +actual facts of his experience. What he re-enacted periodically, in +ordered ceremony, was but the drama of his daily life; so that, as we +said before, the state in one of its aspects was a church, and every +layman from one point of view a priest. + +The question, "What did a belief in the gods really mean to the Greek" +has now received at least some sort of answer. It meant, to recur to our +old phrase, that he was made at home in the world. In place of the +unintelligible powers of nature, he was surrounded by a company of +beings like himself; and these beings who controlled the physical world +were also the creators of human society. From them were descended the +Heroes who founded families and states; and under their guidance and +protection cities prospered and throve. Their histories were recounted +in innumerable myths, and these again were embodied in ritual. The whole +life of man, in its relations both to nature and to society, was +conceived as derived from and dependent upon his gods; and this +dependence was expressed and brought vividly home to him in a series of +religious festivals. Belief in the gods was not to him so much an +intellectual conviction, as a spiritual atmosphere in which he moved; +and to think it away would be to think away the whole structure of Greek +civilisation. + + +Section 6. The Greek Conception of the Relation of Man to the Gods. + +Admitting, however, that all this is true, admitting the place of +religion in Greek life, do we not end, after all, in a greater puzzle +than we began with? For this, it may be said, whatever it may be, is not +what we mean by religion. This, after all, is merely a beautiful way of +expressing facts; a translation, not an interpretation, of life. What we +mean by religion is something very different to that, something which +concerns the relation of the soul to God; the sense of sin, for example, +and of repentance and grace. The religion of the Greeks, we may admit, +did something for them which our religion does not do for us. It gave +intelligible and beautiful form to those phenomena of nature which we +can only describe as manifestations of energy; it expressed in a ritual +of exquisite art those corporate relations which we can only enunciate +in abstract terms; but did it perform what after all, it may be said, is +the true function of religion? did it touch the conscience as well as +the imagination and intellect? + +To this question we may answer at once, broadly speaking, No! It was, we +might say, a distinguishing characteristic of the Greek religion that it +did not concern itself with the conscience at all; the conscience, in +fact, did not yet exist, to enact that drama of the soul with God which +is the main interest of the Christian, or at least of the Protestant +faith. To bring this point home to us let us open the "Pilgrim's +Progress", and present to ourselves, in its most vivid colours, the +position of the English Puritan: + +"Now, I saw, upon a time, when he was walking in the fields, that he was +(as he was wont) reading in his book, and greatly distressed in his +mind; and, as he read, he burst out, as he had done before, crying, +'What shall I do to be saved?' I looked then, and saw a man named +Evangelist coming to him, and asked, 'Wherefore dost thou cry?' + +"He answered, 'Sir, I perceive by the book in my hand, that I am +condemned to die, and after that to come to judgment; and I find that I +am not willing to do the first, nor able to do the second.' + +"Then said Evangelist, 'Why not willing to die, since this life is +attended with so many evils?' The man answered, 'Because I fear that +this burden that is upon my back will sink me lower than the grave, and +I shall fall into Tophet. And, Sir, if I be not fit to go to prison, I +am not fit to go to judgment, and from thence to execution; and the +thoughts of these things makes me cry.' + +"Then said Evangelist, 'If this be thy condition, why standest thou +still?' He answered, 'Because I know not whither to go.' Then he gave +him a parchment roll, and there was written within, 'Fly from the wrath +to come.'" + +The whole spirit of the passage transcribed, and of the book from which +it is quoted, is as alien as can be to the spirit of the Greeks. To the +Puritan, the inward relation of the soul to God is everything; to the +average Greek, one may say broadly, it was nothing; it would have been +at variance with his whole conception of the divine power. For the gods +of Greece were beings essentially like man, superior to him not in +spiritual nor even in moral attributes, but in outward gifts, such as +strength, beauty, and immortality. And as a consequence of this his +relations to them were not inward and spiritual, but external and +mechanical. In the midst of a crowd of deities, capricious and +conflicting in their wills, he had to find his way as best he could. +There was no knowing precisely what a god might want; there was no +knowing what he might be going to do. If a man fell into trouble, no +doubt he had offended somebody, but it was not so easy to say whom or +how; if he neglected the proper observances no doubt he would be +punished, but it was not everyone who knew what the proper observances +were. Altogether it was a difficult thing to ascertain or to move the +will of the gods, and one must help oneself as best one could. The +Greek, accordingly, helped himself by an elaborate system of sacrifice +and prayer and divination, a system which had no connection with an +internal spiritual life, but the object of which was simply to discover +and if possible to affect the divine purposes. This is what we meant by +saying that the Greek view of the relation of man to the gods was +mechanical. The point will become clearer by illustration. + + +Section 7. Divination, Omens, Oracles. + +Let us take first a question which much exercised the Greek mind--the +difficulty of forecasting the future. Clearly, the notion that the world +was controlled by a crowd of capricious deities, swayed by human +passions and desires, was incompatible with the idea of fixed law; but +on the other hand it made it possible to suppose that some intimation +might be had from the gods, either directly or symbolically, of what +their intentions and purposes really were. And on this hypothesis we +find developed quite early in Greek history, a complex art of divining +the future by signs. The flight of birds and other phenomena of the +heavens, events encountered on the road, the speech of passers-by, or, +most important of all, the appearance of the entrails of the victims +sacrificed were supposed to indicate the probable course of events. And +this art, already mature in the time of the Homeric poems, we find +flourishing throughout the historic age. Nothing could better indicate +its prevalence and its scope than the following passage from +Aristophanes, where he ridicules the readiness of his contemporaries to +see in everything an omen, or, as he puts it, punning on the Greek word, +a "bird": "On us you depend," sings his chorus of Birds, + + "On us you depend, and to us you repair + For counsel and aid, when a marriage is made, + A purchase, a bargain, a venture in trade; + Unlucky or lucky, whatever has struck ye, + An ox or an ass, that may happen to pass, + A voice in the street, or a slave that you meet, + A name or a word by chance overheard, + You deem it an omen, and call it a Bird." + [Footnote: Aristoph. "Birds" 717.--Frere's translation.] + +Aristophanes, of course, is jesting; but how serious and important this +art of divination must have appeared even to the most cultivated +Athenians may be gathered from a passage of the tragedian Aeschylus, +where he mentions it as one of the benefits conferred by Prometheus on +mankind, and puts it on a level with the arts of building, metal-making, +sailing, and the like, and the sciences of arithmetic and astronomy. + +And if anyone were dissatisfied with this method of interpretation by +signs, he had a directer means of approaching the gods. He could visit +one of the oracles and consult the deity at first hand about his most +trivial and personal family affairs. Some of the questions put to the +oracle at Dodona have been preserved to us, [Footnote: See Percy +Gardner, "New Chapters in Greek History."] and very curious they are. +"Who stole my cushions and pillow?" asks one bereaved householder. +Another wants to know whether it will pay him to buy a certain house and +farm; another whether sheep-farming is a good investment. Clearly, the +god was not above being consulted on the meanest affairs; and his easy +accessibility must have been some compensation for his probable caprice. + +Nor must it be supposed that this phase of the Greek religion was a +superstition confined to individuals; on the contrary, it was fully +recognised by the state. No important public act could be undertaken +without a previous consultation of omens. More than once, in the +clearest and most brilliant period of the Greek civilisation, we hear of +military expeditions being abandoned because the sacrifices were +unfavourable; and at the time of the Persian invasion, at the most +critical moment of the history of Greece, the Lacedaemonians, we are +told, came too late to be present at the battle of Marathon, because +they thought it unlucky to start until the moon was full. + +In all this we have a suggestion of the sort of relation in which the +Greek conceived himself to stand to the gods. It is a relation, as we +said, external and mechanical. The gods were superior beings who knew, +it might be presumed, what was going to happen; man didn't know, but +perhaps he could find out. How could he find out? that was the problem; +and it was answered in the way we have seen. There was no question, +clearly, of a spiritual relation; all is external; and a similar +externality pervades, on the whole, the Greek view of sacrifice and of +sin. Let us turn now to consider this point. + + +Section 8. Sacrifice and Atonement. + +In Homer, we find that sacrifice is frankly conceived as a sort of +present to the gods, for which they were in fairness bound to an +equivalent return; and the nature of the bargain is fully recognised by +the gods themselves. + +"Hector," says Zeus to Hera, "was dearest to the gods of all mortals +that are in Ilios. So was he to me at least, for nowise failed he in the +gifts I loved. Never did my altar lack seemly feast, drink-offering and +the steam of sacrifice, even the honour that falleth to our due." +[Footnote: Iliad xxiv. 66.--Translated by Lang, Leaf and Myers.] And he +concludes that he must intervene to secure the restoration of the body +of Hector to his father. + +The performance of sacrifice, then, ensures favour; and on the other +hand its neglect entails punishment. When Apollo sends a plague upon the +Greek fleet the most natural hypothesis to account for his conduct is +that he has been stinted of his due meed of offerings; "perhaps," says +Agamemnon, "the savour of lambs and unblemished goats may appease him." +Or again, when the Greeks omit to sacrifice before building the wall +around their fleet, they are punished by the capture of their position +by the Trojans. The whole relation between man and the gods is of the +nature of a contract. "If you do your part, I'll do mine; if not, not!" +that is the tone of the language on either side. The conception is +legal, not moral nor spiritual; it has nothing to do with what we call +sin and conscience. + +At a later period, it is true, we find a point of view prevailing which +appears at first sight to come closer to that of the Christian. Certain +acts we find, such as murder, for example, were supposed to infect as +with a stain not only the original offender but his descendants from +generation to generation. Yet even so, the stain, it appears, was +conceived to be rather physical than moral, analogous to disease both in +its character and in the methods of its cure. Aeschylus tells us of the +earth breeding monsters as a result of the corruption infused by the +shedding of blood; and similarly a purely physical infection tainted the +man or the race that had been guilty of crime. And as was the evil, so +was the remedy. External acts and observations might cleanse and purge +away what was regarded as an external affection of the soul; and we know +that in historic times there was a class of men, comparable to the +mediaeval "pardoners", whose profession it was to effect such cures. +Plato has described them for us in striking terms. "Mendicant prophets," +he says, "go to rich men's doors and persuade them that they have a +power committed to them of making an atonement for their sins or those +of their fathers by sacrifices or charms with rejoicings and games; and +they promise to harm an enemy whether just or unjust, at a small charge; +with magic arts and incantations binding the will of heaven, as they +say, to do their work.... And they produce a host of books written by +Musaeus and Orpheus, who were children of the Moon and the Muses--that +is what they say--according to which they perform their ritual, and +persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and +atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a +vacant hour." [Footnote: Plato's Republic, II. 364b.--Jowett's +translation.] + +How far is all this from the Puritan view of sin! How far from the +Christian of the "Pilgrim's Progress" with the burden on his back! To +measure the distance we have only to attend, with this passage in our +mind, a meeting, say, of the "Salvation Army". We shall then perhaps +understand better the distinction between the popular religion of the +Greeks and our own; between the conception of sin as a physical +contagion to be cured by external rites, and the conception of it as an +affection of the conscience which only "grace" can expel. In the one +case the fact that a man was under the taint of crime would be borne in +upon him by actual misfortune from without--by sickness, or failure in +business, or some other of the troubles of life; and he would ease his +mind and recover the spring of hope by performing certain ceremonies and +rites. In the other case, his trouble is all inward; he feels that he is +guilty in the sight of God, and the only thing that can relieve him is +the certainty that he has been forgiven, assured him somehow or other +from within. The difference is fundamental, and important to bear in +mind, if we would form a clear conception of the Greek view of life. + + +Section 9. Guilt and Punishment. + +It must not be supposed, however, that the popular superstition +described by Plato, however characteristic it may be of the point of +view of the Greeks, represents the highest reach of their thought on the +subject of guilt. No profounder utterances are to be found on this theme +than those of the great poets and thinkers of Greece, who, without +rejecting the common beliefs of their time, transformed them by the +insight of their genius into a new and deeper significance. Specially +striking in this connection is the poetry of the tragedian Aeschylus; +and it will be well worth our while to pause for a moment and endeavour +to realise his position. + +Guilt and its punishment is the constant theme of the dramas of +Aeschylus; and he has exhausted the resources of his genius in the +attempt to depict the horror of the avenging powers, who under the name +of the Erinyes, or Furies, persecute and torment the criminal. Their +breath is foul with the blood on which they feed; from their rheumy eyes +a horrible humour drops; daughters of night and clad in black they fly +without wings; god and man and the very beasts shun them; their place is +with punishment and torture, mutilation, stoning and breaking of necks. +And into their mouth the poet has put words which seem to breathe the +very spirit of the Jewish scriptures. + +"Come now let us preach to the sons of men; yea, let us tell them of our +vengeance; yea, let us all make mention of justice. + +"Whoso showeth hands that are undefiled, lo, he shall suffer nought of +us for ever, but shall go unharmed to his ending. + +"But if he hath sinned, like unto this man, and covereth hands that are +blood-stained: then is our witness true to the slain man. + +"And we sue for the blood, sue and pursue for it, so that at + the last there is payment. + + Even so 'tis written: + (Oh sentence sure!) + "Upon all that wild in wickedness dip hand + In the blood of their birth, in the fount of their flowing: + So shall he pine until the grave receive him--to find no + grace even in the grave! + Sing then the spell, + Sisters of hell; + Chant him the charm + Mighty to harm, + Binding the blood, + Madding the mood; + Such the music that we make: + Quail, ye sons of man, and quake, + Bow the heart, and bend, and break! + + This is our ministry marked for us from the beginning; + This is our gift, and our portion apart, and our godhead, + Ours, ours only for ever, + Darkness, robes of darkness, a robe of terror for ever! + Ruin is ours, ruin and wreck; + When to the home + Murder hath come, + Making to cease + Innocent peace; + Then at his beck + Follow we in, + Follow the sin; + And ah! we hold to the end when we begin!" + [Footnote: Aeschyl. Eum. 297.--Translated by Dr. Verrall + (Cambridge, 1885).] + +There is no poetry more sublime than this; none more penetrated with the +sense of moral law. But still it is wholly Greek in character. The theme +is not really the conscience of the sinner but the objective consequence +of his crime. "Blood calls for blood," is the poet's text; a man, he +says, must pay for what he does. The tragedy is the punishment of the +guilty, not his inward sense of sin. Orestes, in fact, who is the +subject of the drama with which we are concerned, in a sense was not a +sinner at all. He had killed his mother, it is true, but only to avenge +his father whom she had murdered, and at the express bidding of Apollo. +So far is he from feeling the pangs of conscience that he constantly +justifies his act. He suffers, not because he has sinned but because he +is involved in the curse of his race. For generations back the house of +Atreus had been tainted with blood; murder had called for murder to +avenge it; and Orestes, the last descendant, caught in the net of guilt, +found that his only possibility of right action lay in a crime. He was +bound to avenge his father, the god Apollo had enjoined it; and the +avenging of his father meant the murder of his mother. What he commits, +then, is a crime, but not a sin; and so it is regarded by the poet. The +tragedy, as we have said, centres round an external objective law-- +"blood calls for blood." But that is all. Of the internal drama of the +soul with God, the division of the man against himself, the remorse, the +repentance, the new birth, the giving or withholding of grace--of all +this, the essential content of Christian Protestantism, not a trace in +the clear and concrete vision of the Greek. The profoundest of the poets +of Hellas, dealing with the darkest problem of guilt, is true to the +plastic genius of his race. The spirit throws outside itself the law of +its own being; by objective external evidence it learns that doing +involves suffering; and its moral conviction comes to it only when +forced upon it from without by a direct experience of physical evil. Of +Aeschylus, the most Hebraic of the Hellenes, it is as true as of the +average Greek, that in the Puritan meaning of the phrase he had no sense +of sin. And even in treating of him, we must still repeat what we said +at the beginning, that the Greek conception of the relation of man to +the gods is external and mechanical, not inward and spiritual. + + +Section 10. Mysticism. + +But there is nothing so misleading as generalisation, specially on the +subject of the Greeks. Again and again when we think we have laid hold +of their characteristic view we are confronted with some new aspect of +their life which we cannot fit into harmony with our scheme. There is no +formula which will sum up that versatile and many-sided people. And so, +in the case before us, we have no sooner made what appears to be the +safe and comprehensive statement that the Greeks conceived the relation +of man to the gods mechanically, than we are reminded of quite another +phase of their religion, different from and even antithetic to that with +which we have hitherto been concerned. Nothing, we might be inclined to +say on the basis of what we have at present ascertained, nothing could +be more opposed to the clear anthropomorphic vision of the Greek, than +that conception of a mystic exaltation, so constantly occurring in the +history of religion, whose aim is to transcend the limits of human +personality and pass into direct communion with the divine life. Yet of +some such conception, and of the ritual devised under its influence, we +have undoubted though fragmentary indications in the civilization of the +Greeks. It is mainly in connection with the two gods Apollo and Dionysus +that the phenomena in question occur; gods whose cult was introduced +comparatively late into Greece and who brought with them from the north +something of its formless but pregnant mystery; as though at a point the +chain of guardian deities was broken, and the terror and forces of the +abyss pressed in upon the charmed circle of Hellas. For Apollo, who in +one of his aspects is a figure so typically Hellenic, the ever-young and +beautiful god of music and the arts, was also the Power of prophetic +inspiration, of ecstasy or passing out of oneself. The priestess who +delivered his oracle at Delphi was possessed and mastered by the god. +Maddened by mephitic vapours streaming from a cleft in the rock, +convulsed in every feature and every limb, she delivered in semi- +articulate cries the burden of the divine message. Her own personality, +for the time being, was annihilated; the wall that parts man from god +was swept away; and the Divine rushed in upon the human vessel it +shattered as it filled. This conception of inspiration as a higher form +of madness, possessed of a truer insight than that of sanity, was fully +recognised among the Greeks. "There is a madness," as Plato puts it, +"which is the special gift of heaven, and the source of the chiefest +blessings among men. For prophecy is a madness, and the prophetess at +Delphi and the priestesses at Dodona when out of their senses have +conferred great benefits on Hellas, both in public and private life, but +when in their senses few or none.... And in proportion as prophecy is +higher and more perfect than divination both in name and reality, in the +same proportion, as the ancients testify, is madness superior to a sane +mind, for the one is only of human, but the other of divine origin." +[Footnote: Plato, Phaedrus, 244.--Jowett's translation.] + +Here then, in the oracle at Delphi, the centre of the religious life +of the Greeks, we have an explicit affirmation of that element of +mysticism which we might have supposed to be the most alien to their +genius; and the same element re-appears, in a cruder and more barbaric +form, in connection with the cult of Dionysus. He, the god of wine, +was also the god of inspiration; and the ritual with which he was +worshipped was a kind of apotheosis of intoxication. To suppress for a +time the ordinary work-a-day consciousness, with its tedium, its +checks, its balancing of pros and cons, to escape into the directness +and simplicity of mere animal life, and yet to feel in this no +degradation but rather a submission to the divine power, an actual +identification with the deity-such, it would seem, was the intention +of those extraordinary revels of which we have in the "Bacchae" of +Euripides so vivid a description. And to this end no stimulus was +omitted to excite and inspire the imagination and the sense. The +influence of night and torches in solitary woods, intoxicating drinks, +the din of flutes and cymbals on a bass of thunderous drums, dances +convulsing every limb and dazzling eyes and brain, the harking-back, +as it were, to the sympathies and forms of animal life in the dress of +fawnskin, the horns, the snakes twined about the arm, and the +impersonation of those strange half-human creatures who were supposed +to attend upon the god, the satyrs, nymphs, and fauns who formed his +train--all this points to an attempt to escape from the bounds of +ordinary consciousness and pass into some condition conceived, however +confusedly, as one of union with the divine power. And though the +basis, clearly enough, is physical and even bestial, yet the whole +ritual does undoubtedly express, and that with a plastic grace and +beauty that redeems its frank sensuality, that passion to transcend +the limitations of human existence which is at the bottom of the +mystic element in all religions. + +But this orgy of the senses was not the only form which the worship of +Dionysus took in Greece. In connection with one of his legends, the myth +of Dionysus Zagreus, we find traces of an esoteric doctrine, taught by +what were known as the orphic sects, very curiously opposed, one would +have said, to the general trend of Greek conceptions. According to the +story, Zagreus was the son of Zeus and Persephone. Hera, in her +jealousy, sent the Titans to destroy him; after a struggle, they managed +to kill him, cut him up and devoured all but the heart, which was saved +by Athene and carried to Zeus. Zeus swallowed it, and produced therefrom +a second Dionysus. The Titans he destroyed by lightning, and from their +ashes created Man. Man is thus composed of two elements, one bad, the +Titanic, the other good, the Dionysiac; the latter being derived from +the body of Dionysus, which the Titans had devoured. This fundamental +dualism, according to the doctrine founded on the myth, is the perpetual +tragedy of man's existence; and his perpetual struggle is to purify +himself of the Titanic element. The process extends over many +incarnations, but an ultimate deliverance is promised by the aid of the +redeemer Dionysus Lysius. + +The belief thus briefly described was not part of the popular religion +of the Greeks, but it was a normal growth of their consciousness, and it +is mentioned here as a further indication that even in what we call the +classical age there were not wanting traces of the more mystic and +spiritual side of religion. Here, in the tenets of these orphic sects, +we have the doctrine of "original sin," the conception of life as a +struggle between two opposing principles, and the promise of an ultimate +redemption by the help of the divine power. And if this be taken in +connection with the universal and popular belief in inspiration as +possession by the god, we shall see that our original statement that the +relation of man to the gods was mechanical and external in the Greek +conception, must at least be so far modified that it must be taken only +as an expression of the central or dominant point of view, not as +excluding other and even contradictory standpoints. + +Still, broadly speaking and admitting the limitations, the statement may +stand. If the Greek popular religion be compared with that of the +Christian world, the great distinction certainly emerges, that in the +one the relation of God to man is conceived as mechanical and external, +in the other as inward and spiritual. The point has been sufficiently +illustrated, and we may turn to another division of our subject. + + +Section 11. The Greek View of Death and a Future Life. + +Of all the problems on which we expect light to be thrown by religion +none, to us, is more pressing than that of death. A fundamental, and as +many believe, the most essential part of Christianity, is its doctrine +of reward and punishment in the world beyond; and a religion which had +nothing at all to say about this great enigma we should hardly feel to +be a religion at all. And certainly on this head the Greeks, more than +any people that ever lived, must have required a consolation and a hope. +Just in proportion as their life was fuller and richer than that which +has been lived by any other race, just in proportion as their capacity +for enjoyment, in body and soul, was keener, as their senses were finer, +their intellect broader, their passions more intense, must they have +felt, with peculiar emphasis, the horror of decay and death. And such, +in fact, is the characteristic note of their utterances on this theme. +"Rather," says the ghost of Achilles to Odysseus in the world of shades, +"rather would I live upon the soil as the hireling of another, with a +landless man who had no great livelihood, than bear sway among all the +dead that are no more." [Footnote: Od. xi 489.--Translated by Butcher +and Lang.] Better, as Shakespeare has it, + + "The weariest and most loathed worldly life + That age, ache, penury and imprisonment + Can lay on nature," + +better that, on earth at least and in the sun, than the phantom kingdoms +of the dead. The fear of age and death is the shadow of the love of +life; and on no people has it fallen with more horror than on the +Greeks. The tenderest of their songs of love close with a sob; and it is +an autumn wind that rustles in their bowers of spring. Here, for +example, is a poem by Mimnermus characteristic of this mood of the +Greeks: + + "O golden Love, what life, what joy but thine? + Come death, when thou art gone, and make an end! + When gifts and tokens are no longer mine, + Nor the sweet intimacies of a friend. + These are the flowers of youth. But painful age + The bane of beauty, following swiftly on, + Wearies the heart of man with sad presage + And takes away his pleasure in the sun. + Hateful is he to maiden and to boy + And fashioned by the gods for our annoy." + [Footnote: Mimnermus, El. I.] + +Such being the general view of the Greeks on the subject of death, what +has their religion to say by way of consolation? It taught, to begin +with, that the spirit does survive after death. But this survival, as it +is described in the Homeric poems, is merely that of a phantom and a +shade, a bloodless and colourless duplicate of the man as he lived on +earth. Listen to the account Odysseus gives of his meeting with his +mother's ghost. + +"So spake she, and I mused in my heart and would fain have embraced the +spirit of my mother dead. Thrice I sprang towards her, and was minded to +embrace her; thrice she flitted from my hands as a shadow or even as a +dream, and sharper ever waxed the grief within me. And uttering my voice +I spake to her winged words: + +"'Mother mine, wherefore dost thou not tarry for me who am eager to +seize thee, that even in Hades we twain may cast our arms each about the +other, and satisfy us with chill lament? Is it but a phantom that the +high goddess Persephone hath sent me, to the end that I may groan for +more exceeding sorrow?' + +"So spake I, and my lady mother answered me anon: + +"'Ah me, my child, luckless above all men, nought doth Persephone, the +daughter of Zeus, deceive thee, but even in this wise it is with mortals +when they die. For the sinews no more bind together the flesh and the +bones, but the force of burning fire abolishes them, so soon as the life +hath left the white bones, and the spirit like a dream flies forth and +hovers near.'" + +From such a conception of the life after death little comfort could be +drawn; nor does it appear that any was sought. So far as we can trace +the habitual attitude of the Greek he seems to have occupied himself +little with speculation, either for good or evil, as to what might await +him on the other side of the tomb. He was told indeed in his legends of +a happy place for the souls of heroes, and of torments reserved for +great criminals; but these ideas do not seem to have haunted his +imagination. He was never obsessed by that close and imminent vision of +heaven and hell which overshadowed and dwarfed, for the mediaeval mind, +the brief space of pilgrimage on earth. Rather he turned, by preference, +from the thought of death back to life, and in the memory of honourable +deeds in the past and the hope of fame for the future sought his +compensation for the loss of youth and love. In the great funeral speech +upon those who have fallen in war which Thucydides puts into the mouth +of Pericles we have, we must suppose, a reflection, more accurate than +is to be found elsewhere, of the position naturally adopted by the +average Greek. And how simple are the topics, how broad and human, how +rigorously confined to the limits of experience! There is no suggestion +anywhere of a personal existence continued after death; the dead live +only in their deeds; and only by memory are the survivors to be +consoled. + +"I do not now commiserate the parents of the dead who stand here; I +would rather comfort them. You know that your life has been passed amid +manifold vicissitudes; and that they may be deemed fortunate who have +gained most honour, whether an honourable death like theirs, or an +honourable sorrow like yours, and whose days have been so ordered that +the term of their happiness is likewise the term of their life... Some +of you are at an age at which they may hope to have other children, and +they ought to bear their sorrow better; not only will the children who +may hereafter be born make them forget their now lost ones, but the city +will be doubly a gainer. She will not be left desolate, and she will be +safer. For a man's counsels cannot be of equal weight or worth, when he +alone has no children to risk in the general danger. To those of you who +have passed their prime, I say: 'Congratulate yourselves that you have +been happy during the greater part of your days; remember that your life +of sorrow will not last long, and be comforted by the glory of those who +are gone. For the love of honour alone is ever young, and not riches, as +some say, but honour is the delight of men when they are old and +useless.'" [Footnote: Thuc. II. 44.--Jowett's translation.] + +The passage perhaps represents what we may call the typical attitude of +the Greek. To seek consolation for death, if anywhere, then in life, and +in life not as it might be imagined beyond the grave, but as it had been +and would be lived on earth, appears to be consonant with all that we +know of the clear and objective temper of the race. It is the spirit +which was noted long ago by Goethe as inspiring the sepulchral monuments +of Athens. + +"The wind," he says, "which blows from the tombs of the ancients comes +with gentle breath as over a mound of roses. The reliefs are touching +and pathetic, and always represent life. There stand father and mother, +their son between them, gazing at one another with unspeakable truth to +nature. Here a pair clasp hands. Here a father seems to rest on his +couch and wait to be entertained by his family. To me the presence of +these scenes was very touching. Their art is of a late period, yet are +they simple, natural, and of universal interest. Here there is no knight +in harness on his knees awaiting a joyful resurrection. The artist has +with more or less skill presented to us only the persons themselves, and +so made their existence lasting and perpetual. They fold not their +hands, gaze not into heaven; they are on earth, what they were and what +they are. They stand side by side, take interest in one another; and +that is what is in the stone, even though somewhat unskilfully, yet most +pleasingly depicted." [Footnote: From Goethe's "Italienische Reise." I +take this translation (by permission) from Percy Gardner's "New Chapters +in Greek History", p. 319.] + +As a further illustration of the same point an epitaph may be quoted +equally striking for its simple human feeling and for its absence of any +suggestion of a continuance of the life of the dead. "Farewell" is the +first and last word; no hint of a "joyful resurrection." + +"Farewell, tomb of Melite; the best of women lies here, who loved her +loving husband, Onesimus; thou wert most excellent, wherefore he longs +for thee after thy death, for thou wert the best of wives.--Farewell, +thou too, dearest husband, only love my children." + +But however characteristic this attitude of the Greeks may appear to be, +especially by contrast with the Christian view, it would be a mistake to +suppose that it was the only one with which they were acquainted, or +that they had put aside altogether, as indifferent or insoluble, the +whole problem of a future world. As we have seen, they did believe in +the survival of the spirit, and in a world of shades ruled by Pluto and +Persephone. They had legends of a place of bliss for the good and a +place of torment for the wicked; and if this conception did not haunt +their mind, as it haunted that of the mediaeval Christian, yet at times +it was certainly present to them, with terror or with hope. That the +Greek was not unacquainted with the fear of hell we know from the +passage of Plato, part of which we have already quoted, where in +speaking of the mendicant prophets who professed to make atonement for +sin he says that their ministrations "are equally at the service of the +living and the dead; the latter sort they call mysteries, and they +redeem us from the pains of hell, but if we neglect them no one knows +what awaits us." And on the other hand we hear, as early as the date of +the Odyssey, of the Elysian fields reserved for the souls of the +favourites of the gods. + +The Greeks, then, were not without hope and fear concerning the world to +come, however little these feelings may have coloured their daily life; +and there was one phase of their religion, which appears to have been +specially occupied with this theme. In almost every Greek city we hear +of "mysteries", the most celebrated being, of course, those of Eleusis +in Attica. What exactly these "mysteries" were we are very imperfectly +informed; but so much, at least, is clear that by means of a scenic +symbolism, representing the myth of Demeter and Kore or of Dionysus +Zagreus, hopes were held out to the initiated not only of a happy life +on earth, but of a happy immortality beyond. "Blessed," says Pindar, +"blessed is he who has seen these things before he goes under the hollow +earth. He knows the end of life, and he knows its god-given origin." And +it is presumably to the initiated that the same poet promises the joys +of his thoroughly Greek heaven. "For them," he says, "shineth below the +strength of the sun while in our world it is night, and the space of +crimson-flowered meadows before their city is full of the shade of +frankincense trees, and of fruits of gold. And some in horses, and in +bodily feats, and some in dice, and some in harp-playing have delight; +and among them thriveth all fair-flowering bliss; and fragrance +streameth ever through the lovely land, as they mingle incense of every +kind upon the altars of the gods." [Footnote: Pindar, Thren. I.-- +Translation by E. Myers.] + +The Greeks, then, were not unfamiliar with the conception of heaven and +hell: only, and that is the point to which we must return and on which +we must insist, the conception did not dominate and obsess their mind. +They may have had their spasms of terror, but these they could easily +relieve by the performance of some atoning ceremony; they may have had +their thrills of hope, but these they would only indulge at the crisis +of some imposing ritual. + +The general tenor of their life does not seem to have been affected by +speculations about the world beyond. Of age indeed and of death they had +a horror proportional to their acute and sensitive enjoyment of life; +but their natural impulse was to turn for consolation to the interests +and achievements of the world they knew, and to endeavour to soothe, by +memories and hopes of deeds future and past, the inevitable pains of +failure and decay. + + +Section 12. Critical and Sceptical Opinion in Greece. + +And now let us turn to a point for which perhaps some readers have long +been waiting, and with which they may have expected us to begin rather +than to end. So far, in considering the part played by religion in Greek +Life, we have assumed the position of orthodoxy. We have endeavoured to +place ourselves at the standpoint of the man who did not criticise or +reflect, but accepted simply, as a matter of course, the tradition +handed down to him by his fathers. Only so, if at all, was it possible +for us to detach ourselves from our habitual preconceptions, and to +regard the pagan mythology not as a graceful invention of the poets, but +as a serious and, at the time, a natural and inevitable way of looking +at the world. Now, however, it is time to turn to the other side, and to +consider the Greek religion as it appeared to contemporary critics. For +critics there were, and sceptics, or rather, to put it more exactly, +there was a critical age succeeding an age of faith. As we trace, +however imperfectly, the development of the Greek mind, we can observe +their intellect and their moral sense expanding beyond the limits of +their creed. Either as sympathetic, though candid, friends, or as avowed +enemies, they bring to light its contradictions and defects; and as a +result of the process one of two things happens. Either the ancient +conception of the gods is transformed in the direction of monotheism, or +it is altogether swept away, and a new system of the world built up, on +the basis of natural science or of philosophy. These tendencies of +thought we must now endeavour to trace; for we should have formed but an +imperfect idea of the scope of the religious consciousness of the Greeks +if we confined ourselves to what we may call their orthodox faith. It is +in their most critical thinkers, in Euripides and Plato, that the +religious sense is most fully and keenly developed; and it is in the +philosophy that supervened upon the popular creed, rather than in the +popular creed itself, that we shall find the highest and most spiritual +reaches of their thought. + +Let us endeavour, then, in the first place to realise to ourselves how +the Greek religion must have appeared to one who approached it not from +the side of unthinking acquiescence, but with the idea of discovering +for himself how far it really met the needs and claims of the intellect +and the moral sense. Let us imagine him turning to his Homer, to those +poems which were the Bible of the Greek, his ultimate appeal both in +religion and in ethics; which were taught in the schools, quoted in the +law-courts, recited in the streets; and from which the teacher drew his +moral instances, the rhetorician his allusions, the artist his models, +every man his conception of the gods. Let us imagine some candid and +ingenuous youth, turning to his Homer and repeating, say, the following +passage of the Iliad:-- + +"Among the other gods fell grievous bitter strife, and their hearts were +carried diverse in their breasts. And they clashed together with a great +noise, and the wide earth groaned, and the clarion of great Heaven rang +around. Zeus heard as he sate upon Olympus, and his heart within him +laughed pleasantly when he beheld that strife of the gods." [Footnote: +Iliad xxi. 385.--Translated by Lang, Leaf and Myers.] + +At this point, let us suppose, the reader pauses to reflect; and is +struck, for the first time, with a shock of surprise by the fact that +the gods should be not only many but opposed; and opposed on what issue? +a purely human one! a war between Greeks and Trojans for the possession +of a beautiful woman! Into such a contest the immortal gods descend, +fight with human weapons, and dispute in human terms! Where is the +single purpose that should mark the divine will? where the repose of the +wisdom that foreordained and knows the end? Not, it is clear, in this +motley array of capricious and passionate wills! Then, perhaps, in Zeus, +Zeus, who is lord of all? He, at least, will impose upon this mob of +recalcitrant deities the harmony which the pious soul demands. He, whose +rod shakes the sky, will arise and assert the law. He, in his majesty, +will speak the words--alas! what words! Let us take them straight from +the lips of the King of gods and men:-- + +"Hearken to me, all gods and all ye goddesses, that I may tell you that +my heart within my breast commandeth me. One thing let none essay, be it +goddess or be it god, to wit, to thwart my saying; approve ye it all +together, that with all speed I may accomplish these things. Whomsoever +I shall perceive minded to go, apart from the gods, to succour Trojans +or Danaans, chastened in no seemly wise shall he return to Olympus, or I +will take and cast him into misty Tartaros, right far away, where is the +deepest gulf beneath the earth; there are the gate of iron and threshold +of bronze, as far beneath Hades as heaven is high above the earth: then +shall ye know how far I am mightiest of all gods. Go to now, ye gods, +make trial that ye all may know. Fasten ye a rope of gold from heaven, +and all ye gods lay hold thereof and all goddesses; yet could ye not +drag from heaven to earth Zeus, counsellor supreme, not though ye toiled +sore. But once I likewise were minded to draw with all my heart, then +should I draw ye up with very earth and sea withal. Thereafter would I +bind the rope about a pinnacle of Olympus, and so should all those +things be hung in air. By so much am I beyond gods and beyond men." +[Footnote: Iliad viii. 5.--Translated by Lang, Leaf and Myers.] + +And is that all? In the divine tug of war Zeus is more than a match for +all the other gods together! Is it on this that the lordship of heaven +and earth depends? This that we are to worship as highest, we of the +brain and heart and soul? And even so, even admitting the ground of +supremacy, with what providence or consistency of purpose is it +exercised? Why, Zeus himself is as capricious as the rest! Because +Thetis comes whining to him about an insult put upon Achilles, he +interferes to change the whole course of the war, and that too by means +of a lying dream! Even his own direct decrees he can hardly be induced +to observe. His son Sarpedon, for example, who is "fated," as he says +himself, to die, he is yet at the last moment in half a mind to save +alive! How is such division possible in the will of the supreme god? Or +is the "fate" of which he speaks something outside himself? But if so, +then above him! and if above him, what is he? Not, after all, the +highest, not the supreme at all! What then _are_ we to worship? +What _is_ this higher "fate?" + +Such would be the kind of questions that would vex our candid youth when +he approached his Homer from the side of theology. Nor would he fare any +better if he took the ethical point of view. The gods, he would find, +who should surely at least attain to the human standard, not only are +capable of every phase of passion, anger, fear, jealousy and, above all, +love, but indulge them all with a verve and an abandonment that might +make the boldest libertine pause. Zeus himself, for example, expends +upon the mere catalogue of his amours a good twelve lines of hexameter +verse. No wonder that Hera is jealous, and that her lord is driven to +put her down in terms better suited to the lips of mortal husbands: + +"Lady, ever art thou imagining, nor can I escape thee; yet shalt thou in +no wise have power to fulfil, but wilt be the further from my heart; +that shall be even the worse for thee. Hide thou in silence and hearken +to my bidding, lest all the gods that are in Olympus keep not off from +thee my visitation, when I put forth my hands unapproachable against +thee." [Footnote: Iliad i. 560.--Translated by Leaf, Lang and Myers.] + + +Section 13. Ethical Criticism. + +The incongruity of all this with any adequate conception of deity is +patent, if once the critical attitude be adopted; and it was adopted by +some of the clearest and most religious minds of Greece. Nay, even +orthodoxy itself did not refrain from a genial and sympathetic +criticism. Aristophanes, for example, who, if there had been an +established church, would certainly have been described as one of its +main pillars, does not scruple to represent his Birds as issuing-- + + "A warning and notices, formally given, + To Jove, and all others residing in heaven, + Forbidding them ever to venture again + To trespass on our atmospheric domain, + With scandalous journeys, to visit a list + Of Alcmenas and Semeles; if they persist, + We warn them that means will be taken moreover + To stop their gallanting and acting the lover," + [Footnote: Aristophanes, "Birds" 556.--Translation by Frere.] + +and Heracles the glutton, and Dionysus, the dandy and the coward, are +familiar figures of his comic stage. The attitude of Aristophanes, it is +true, is not really critical, but sympathetic; it was no more his +intention to injure the popular creed by his fun than it is the +intention of the cartoons of Punch to undermine the reputation of our +leading statesmen. On the contrary, nothing popularises like genial +ridicule; and of this Aristophanes was well aware. But the same +characteristics of the god which suggested the friendly burlesque of the +comedian were also those which provoked the indignation and the disgust +of more serious minds. The poet Pindar, for example, after referring to +the story of a battle, in which it was said gods had fought against +gods, breaks out into protest against a legend so little creditable to +the divine nature:--" O my mouth, fling this tale from thee, for to +speak evil of gods is a hateful wisdom, and loud and unmeasured words +strike a note that trembleth upon madness. Of such things talk thou not; +leave war and all strife of immortals aside." [Footnote: Pind. Ol. IX +54.--Translation by E. Myers.] And the same note is taken up with +emphasis, and reiterated in every quality of tone, by such writers as +Euripides and Plato. + +The attitude of Euripides towards the popular religion is so clearly and +frankly critical that a recent writer has even gone so far as to +maintain that his main object in the construction of his dramas was to +discredit the myths he selected for his theme. However that may have +been, it is beyond controversy true that the deep religious sense of +this most modern of the Greeks was puzzled and repelled by the tales he +was bound by tradition to dramatize; and that he put into the mouth of +his characters reflexions upon the conduct of the gods which if they may +not be taken as his own deliberate opinions, are at least expressions of +one aspect of his thought. It was, in fact, impossible to reconcile with +a profound and philosophic view of the divine nature the intrigues and +amours, partialities, antipathies, actions and counter-actions of these +anthropomorphic deities. Consider, for example, the most famous of all +the myths, that of Orestes, to which we have already referred. Orestes, +it will be remembered, was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. +Agamemnon, on his return from Troy, was murdered by Clytemnestra. +Orestes escapes; but returns later, at the instigation of Apollo, and +kills his mother to avenge his father. Thereupon, in punishment for his +crime, he is persecuted by the Furies. Now the point which Euripides +seizes here is the conduct of Apollo. Either it was right for Orestes to +kill his mother, or it was wrong. If wrong, why did Apollo command it? +If right, why was Orestes punished? Or are there, as Aeschylus would +have it, two "rights", one of Apollo, the other of the Furies? If so, +what becomes of that unity of the divine law after which every religious +nature seeks? "Phoebus," cries the Orestes of Euripides, "prophet though +he be, deceived me. I gave him my all, I killed my mother in obedience +to his command; and in return I am undone myself." [Footnote: Euripides, +Iph. Taur. 711] The dilemma is patent; and Euripides makes no serious +attempt to meet it. + +Or again, to take another example, less familiar, but even more to the +point--the tale of Ion and Creusa. Creusa has been seduced by Apollo and +has borne him a child, the Ion of the story. This child she exposes, and +it is conveyed by Hermes to Delphi, where at last it is found, and +recognised by the mother, and a conventionally happy ending is patched +up. But the point on which the poet has insisted throughout is, once +more, the conduct of Apollo. What is to be made of a god who seduces and +deserts a mortal woman; who suffers her to expose her child, and leaves +her in ignorance of its fate? Does he not deserve the reproaches heaped +upon him by his victim?-- + + "Child of Latona, I cry to the sun--I will publish + thy shame! + Thou with thy tresses a-shimmer with gold, through the + flowers as I came + Plucking the crocuses, heaping my veil with their gold- + litten flame, + Cam'st on me, caughtest the poor pallid wrists of mine + hands, and didst hale + Unto thy couch in the cave. 'Mother! mother!' I + shrieked out my wail-- + Wroughtest the pleasure of Kypris; no shame made the + god-lover quail. + Wretched I bare thee a child, and I cast him with + shuddering throe + Forth on thy couch where thou forcedst thy victim, a + bride-bed of woe. + Lost--my poor baby and thine! for the eagles devoured + him: and lo! + Victory-songs to thy lyre dost thou chant!--Ho, I + call to thee, son + Born to Latona, Dispenser of boding, on gold-gleaming + throne + Midmost of earth who art sitting:--thine ears shall be + pierced with my moan! + Thy Delos doth hate thee, thy bay-boughs abhor thee, + By the palm-tree of feathery frondage that rose + Where in sacred travail Latona bore thee + In Zeus's garden close." + [Footnote: Euripid. Ion, 885.--Translated by A. S. Way.] + +This is a typical example of the kind of criticism which Euripides +conveys through the lips of his characters on the stage. And the points +which he can only dramatically suggest, Plato expounds directly in his +own person. The quarrel of the philosopher with the myths is not that +they are not true, but that they are not edifying. They represent the +son in rebellion against the father--Zeus against Kronos, Kronos against +Uranos; they describe the gods as intriguing and fighting one against +the other; they depict them as changing their form divine into the +semblance of mortal men; lastly--culmination of horror!--they represent +them as laughing, positively laughing!--Or again, to turn to a more +metaphysical point, if God be good, it is argued by Plato, he cannot be +the author of evil. What then, are we to make of the passage in Homer +where he says, "two urns stand upon the floor of Zeus filled with his +evil gifts, and one with blessings. To whomsoever Zeus whose joy is in +the lightning dealeth a mingled lot, that man chanceth now upon ill and +now again on good, but to whom he giveth but of the bad kind, him he +bringeth to scorn, and evil famine chaseth him over the goodly earth, +and he is a wanderer honoured of neither gods nor men." [Footnote: Il. +xxiv. 527--Translated by Lang, Leaf and Myers.] + +And again, if God be true, he cannot be the author of lies. How then +could he have sent, as we are told he did, lying dreams to men?-- +Clearly, concludes the philosopher, our current legends need revision; +in the interest of religion itself we must destroy the myths of the +popular creed. + + +Section 14. Transition to Monotheism. + +The myths, but not religion! The criticism certainly of Plato and +probably of Euripides was prompted by the desire not to discredit +altogether the belief in the gods, but to bring it into harmony with the +requirements of a more fully developed consciousness. The philosopher +and the poet came not to destroy, but to fulfil; not to annihilate but +to transform the popular theology. Such an intention, strange as it may +appear to us with our rigid creeds, we shall see to be natural enough to +the Greek mind, when we remember that the material of their religion was +not a set of propositions, but a more or less indeterminate body of +traditions capable of being presented in the most various forms as the +genius and taste of individual poets might direct. And we find, in fact, +that the most religious poets of Greece, those even who were most +innocent of any intention to innovate on popular beliefs, did +nevertheless unconsciously tend to transform, in accordance with their +own conceptions, the whole structure of the Homeric theology. Taking +over the legends of gods and heroes, as narrated in poetry and +tradition, the earlier tragedians, Aeschylus and Sophocles, as they +shaped and reshaped their material for the stage, were evolving for +themselves, not in opposition to but as it were on the top of the +polytheistic view, the idea of a single supreme and righteous God. The +Zeus of Homer, whose superiority, as we saw, was based on physical +force, grows, under the hands of Aeschylus, into something akin to the +Jewish Jehovah. The inner experience of the poet drives him inevitably +to this transformation. Born into the great age of Greece, coming to +maturity at the crisis of her fate, he had witnessed with his own eyes, +and assisted with his own hands the defeat of the Persian host at +Marathon. The event struck home to him like a judgment from heaven. The +Nemesis that attends upon human pride, the vengeance that follows crime, +henceforth were the thoughts that haunted and possessed his brain; and +under their influence he evolved for himself out of the popular idea of +Zeus the conception of a God of justice who marks and avenges crime. +Read for example the following passage from the "Agamemnon" and contrast +it with the lines of Homer quoted on page 42. Nothing could illustrate +more strikingly the transformation that could be effected, under the +conditions of the Greek religion, in the whole conception of the divine +power by one whose conscious intention, nevertheless, was not to +innovate but to conserve. + + "Zeus the high God! Whate'er be dim in doubt, + This can our thought track out-- + The blow that fells the sinner is of God, + And as he wills, the rod + Of vengeance smiteth sore. One said of old + 'The Gods list not to hold + A reckoning with him whose feet oppress + The grace of holiness'-- + An impious word! for whensoe'er the sire + Breathed forth rebellious fire-- + What time his household overflows the measure + Of bliss and health and treasure-- + His children's children read the reckoning plain, + At last, in tears and pain. + * * * * * + Who spurns the shrine of Right, nor wealth nor power + Shall be to him a tower, + To guard him from the gulf: there lies his lot, + Where all things are forgot. + Lust drives him on--lust, desperate and wild + Fate's sin-contriving child-- + And cure is none; beyond concealment clear + Kindles sin's baleful glare. + As an ill coin beneath the wearing touch + Betrays by stain and smutch + Its metal false--such is the sinful wight. + Before, on pinions light, + Fair pleasure flits, and lures him childlike on, + While home and kin make moan + Beneath the grinding burden of his crime; + Till, in the end of time, + Cast down of heaven, he pours forth fruitless prayer + To powers that will not hear." + [Footnote: Aesch. Agamem. 367.--Translated by E. D. A. + Morshead ("The House of Atreus").] + +And Sophocles follows in the same path. For him too Zeus is no longer +the god of physical strength; he is the creator and sustainer of the +moral law--of "those laws of range sublime, called into life throughout +the high clear heaven, whose father is Olympus alone; their parent was +no race of mortal men, no, nor shall oblivion ever lay them to sleep; a +mighty god is in them, and he grows not old." [Footnote: Soph. O.T. +865.--Translated by Dr. Jebb.] Such words imply a complete +transformation of the Homeric conception of Divinity; a transformation +made indeed in the interests of religion, but involving nevertheless, +and contrary, no doubt, to the intention of its authors, a complete +subversion of the popular creed. Once grant the idea of God as an +eternal and moral Power and the whole fabric of polytheism falls away. +The religion of the Greeks, as interpreted by their best minds, +annihilates itself. Zeus indeed is saved, but only at the cost of all +Olympus. + + +Section 15. Metaphysical Criticism. + +While thus, on the one hand, the Greek religion by its inner evolution, +was tending to destroy itself, on the other hand it was threatened from +without by the attack of what we should call the "scientific spirit." A +system so frankly anthropomorphic was bound to be weak on the +speculative side. Its appeal, as we have seen, was rather to the +imagination than to the intellect, by the presentation of a series of +beautiful images, whose contemplation might offer to the mind if not +satisfaction, at least acquiescence and repose. A Greek who was not too +inquisitive was thus enabled to move through the calendar of splendid +festivals and fasts, charmed by the beauty of the ritual, inspired by +the chorus and the dance, and drawing from the familiar legends the +moral and aesthetic significance with which he had been accustomed from +his boyhood to connect them, but without ever raising the question, Is +all this true? Does it really account for the existence and nature of +the world? Once, however, the spell was broken, once the intellect was +aroused, the inadequacy of the popular faith, on the speculative side, +became apparent; and the mind turned aside altogether from religion to +work out its problems on its own lines. We find accordingly, from early +times, physical philosophers in Greece free from all theological +preconceptions, raising from the very beginning the question of the +origin of the world, and offering solutions, various indeed but all +alike in this, that they frankly accept a materialistic basis. One +derives all things from water, another from air, another from fire; one +insists upon unity, another on a plurality of elements; but all alike +reject the supernatural, and proceed on the lines of physical causation. + +The opposition, to use the modern phrase, between science and religion, +was thus developed early in ancient Greece; and by the fifth century it +is clear that it had become acute. The philosopher Anaxagoras was driven +from Athens as an atheist; the same charge, absurdly enough, was one of +the counts in the indictment of Socrates; and the physical speculations +of the time are a favourite butt of that champion of orthodoxy, +Aristophanes. To follow up these speculations in detail would be to +wander too far from our present purpose; but it may be worth while to +quote a passage from the great comedian, to illustrate not indeed the +value of the theories ridiculed, but their generally materialistic +character, and their antagonism to the popular faith. The passage +selected is part of a dialogue between Socrates and Strepsiades, one of +his pupils; and it is introduced by an address from the chorus of +"Clouds", the new divinities of the physicist: + +CHORUS OF CLOUDS. + + Our welcome to thee, old man, who would see the marvels that + science can show: + And thou, the high-priest of this subtlety feast, say what would + you have us bestow? + Since there is not a sage for whom we'd engage our wonders + more freely to do, + Except, it may be, for Prodicus: he for his knowledge may claim + them, but you, + Because as you go, you glance to and fro, and in dignified + arrogance float; + And think shoes a disgrace, and put on a grave face, your + acquaintance with us to denote. + + STREPSIADES. Oh earth! what a sound, how august and profound! It + fills me with wonder and awe. + + SOCRATES. These, these then alone, for true Deities own, the rest + are all God-ships of straw. + + STREPS. Let Zeus be left out: He's a God beyond doubt; come, that + you can scarcely deny. + + SOCR. Zeus indeed! there's no Zeus: don't you be so obtuse. + + STREPS. No Zeus up above in the sky? + Then you first must explain, who it is sends the rain; or I + really must think you are wrong. + + SOCR. Well then, be it known, these send it alone: I can prove it + by argument strong. + Was there ever a shower seen to fall in an hour when the sky + was all cloudless and blue? + Yet on a fine day, when the clouds are away, he might send + one, according to you. + + STREPS. Well, it must be confessed, that chimes in with the rest: + your words I am forced to believe. + + Yet before I had dreamed that the rain-water streamed from + Zeus and his chamber-pot sieve. + But whence then, my friend, does the thunder descend? that + does make us quake with affright! + + SOCR. Why, 'tis they, I declare, as they roll through the air. + + STREPS. What the clouds? did I hear you aright? + + SOCR. Ay: for when to the brim filled with water they swim, by + Necessity carried along, + They are hung up on high in the vault of the sky, and so by + Necessity strong + In the midst of their course, they clash with great force, and + thunder away without end. + + STREPS. But is it not He who compels this to be? does not Zeus this + Necessity send? + + SOCR. No Zeus have we there, but a vortex of air. + + STREPS. What! Vortex? that's something I own. + I knew not before, that Zeus was no more, but Vortex was + placed on his throne! + But I have not yet heard to what cause you referred the thunder's + majestical roar. + + SOCR. Yes, 'tis they, when on high full of water they fly, and then, + as I told you before, + By compression impelled, as they clash, are compelled a terrible + clatter to make. + + STREPS. Come, how can that be? I really don't see. + + SOCR. Yourself as my proof I will take. + Have you never then ate the broth puddings you get when the + Panathenaea come round, + And felt with what might your bowels all night in turbulent tumult + resound + + STREPS. By Apollo, 'tis true, there's a mighty to do, and my belly + keeps rumbling about; + And the puddings begin to clatter within and to kick up a wonderful + rout: + Quite gently at first, papapax, papapax, but soon papappappax away, + Till at last, I'll be bound, I can thunder as loud + papapappappappappax as they. + + SOCR. Shalt thou then a sound so loud and profound from thy belly + diminutive send, + And shall not the high and the infinite sky go thundering on + without end? + For both, you will find, on an impulse of wind and similar causes + depend. + + STREPS. Well, but tell me from whom comes the bolt through the gloom, + with its awful and terrible flashes; + And wherever it turns, some it singes and burns, and some it + reduces to ashes: + For this 'tis quite plain, let who will send the rain, that Zeus + against perjurers dashes + + SOCR. And how, you old fool, of a dark-ages school, and an + antidiluvian wit, + If the perjured they strike, and not all men alike, have they + never Cleonymus hit? + Then of Simon again, and Theorus explain: known perjurers, yet + they escape. + But he smites his own shrine with these arrows divine, and + "Sunium, Attica's cape," + And the ancient gnarled oaks: now what prompted those strokes? + They never forswore I should say. + + STREPS. Can't say that they do: your words appear true. Whence comes + then the thunderbolt, pray? + + SOCR. When a wind that is dry, being lifted on high, is suddenly pent + into these, + It swells up their skin, like a bladder, within, by Necessity's + changeless decrees: + Till compressed very tight, it bursts them outright, and away + with an impulse so strong, + That at last by the force and the swing of the course, it takes + fire as it whizzes along. + + STREPS. That's exactly the thing, that I suffered one spring, at the + great feast of Zeus, I admit: + I'd a paunch in the pot, but I wholly forgot about making the + safety-valve slit. + So it spluttered and swelled, while the saucepan I held, till at + last with a vengeance it flew: + Took me quite by surprise, dung-bespattered my eyes, and scalded + my face black and blue! + [Footnote: Aristoph. "Clouds" 358.--Translation by B. B. + Rogers.] + +Nothing could be more amusing than this passage as a burlesque of the +physical theories of the time; and nothing could better illustrate the +quarrel between science and religion, as it presents itself on the +surface to the plain man. But there is more in the quarrel than appears +at first sight. The real sting of the comedy from which we have quoted +lies in the assumption, adopted throughout the play, that the atheist is +also necessarily anti-social and immoral. The physicist, in the person +of Socrates, is identified with the sophist; on the one hand he is +represented as teaching the theory of material causation, on the other +the art of lying and deceit. The object of Strepsiades in attending the +school is to learn how not to pay his debts; the achievement of his son +is to learn how to dishonour his father. The cult of reason is +identified by the poet with the cult of self-interest; the man who does +not believe in the gods cannot, he implies, believe in the family or the +state. + + +Section 16. Metaphysical Reconstruction--Plato. + +The argument is an old one into whose merits this is not the place to +enter. But one thing is certain, that the sceptical spirit which was +invading religion, was invading also politics and ethics; and that +towards the close of the fifth century before Christ, Greece and in +particular Athens was overrun by philosophers, who not only did not +scruple to question the foundations of social and moral obligation, but +in some cases explicitly taught that there were no foundations at all; +that all law was a convention based on no objective truth; and that the +only valid right was the natural right of the strong to rule. It was +into this chaos of sceptical opinion that Plato was born; and it was the +desire to meet and subdue it that was the motive of his philosophy. Like +Aristophanes, he traced the root of the evil to the decay of religious +belief; and though no one, as we have seen, was more trenchant than he +in his criticism of the popular faith, no one, on the other hand, was +more convinced of the necessity of some form of religion as a basis for +any stable polity. The doctrine of the physicists, he asserts, that the +world is the result of "nature and chance" has immediate and disastrous +effects on the whole structure of social beliefs. The conclusion +inevitably follows that human laws and institutions, like everything +else, are accidental products; that they have no objective validity, no +binding force on the will; and that the only right that has any +intelligible meaning is the right which is identical with might. +[Footnote: See e.g. Plato's "Laws". X. 887.] Against these conclusions +the whole soul of Plato rose in revolt. To reconstruct religion, he was +driven back upon metaphysics; and elaborated at last the system which +from his day to our own has not ceased to perplex and fascinate the +world, and whose rare and radiant combination of gifts, speculative, +artistic, and religious, marks the highest reach of the genius of the +Greeks, and perhaps of mankind. To attempt an analysis of that system +would lead us far from our present task. All that concerns us here, is +its religious significance; and of that, all we can note is that Plato, +the deepest thinker of the Greeks, was also among the farthest removed +from the popular faith. The principle from which he derives the World is +the absolute Good, or God, of whose ideas the phenomena of sense are +imperfect copies. To the divine intelligence man by virtue of his reason +is akin. But the reason in him has fallen into bondage of the flesh; and +it is the task of his life on earth, or rather of a series of lives (for +Plato believed in successive re-incarnations), to deliver this diviner +element of his soul, and set it free to re-unite with God. + +To the description of the divine life thus prepared for the soul, from +which she fell but to which she may return, Plato has devoted some of +his finest passages; and if we are to indicate, as we are bound to do, +the highest point to which the religious consciousness of the Greeks +attained, we must not be deterred, by dread of the obscurity necessarily +attaching to an extract, from a citation from the most impassioned of +his dialogues. Speaking of that "divine madness," to which we have +already had occasion to refer, he says that this is the madness which +"is imputed to him who, when he sees the beauty of earth, is transported +with the recollection of the true beauty; he would like to fly away, but +he cannot; he is like a bird fluttering and looking upward and careless +of the world below; and he is therefore thought to be mad. And I have +shown this of all inspirations to be the noblest and highest and the +off-spring of the highest to him who has or shares in it, and that he +who loves the beautiful is called a lover because he partakes of it. For +every soul of man has in the way of nature beheld true being; this was +the condition of her passing into the form of man. But all souls do not +easily recall the things of the other world; they may have seen them for +a short time only, or they may have been unfortunate in their earthly +lot, and having had their hearts turned to unrighteousness through some +corrupting influence, they may have lost the memory of the holy things +which once they saw. Few only retain an adequate remembrance of them; +and they, when they behold here any image of that other world, are rapt +in amazement; but they are ignorant of what that rapture means, because +they do not clearly perceive. For there is no clear light of justice or +temperance, or any of the higher ideas which are precious to souls, in +the earthly copies of them: they are seen through a glass dimly; and +there are few who, going to the images, behold in them the realities, +and these only with difficulty. There was a time when, with the rest of +the happy band, they saw beauty shining in brightness--we philosophers +following in the train of Zeus, others in company with other gods; and +then we beheld the beatific vision and were initiated into a mystery +which may be truly called most blessed, celebrated by us in our state of +innocence, before we had any experience of evils to come, when we were +admitted to the sight of apparitions innocent and simple and calm and +happy, which we beheld shining in pure light, pure ourselves and not yet +enshrined in that living tomb which we carry about, now that we are +imprisoned in the body, like an oyster in his shell. Let me linger over +the memory of scenes which have passed away." [Footnote: Plato, +Phaedrus. 249d.--Jowett's translation.] + + +Section 17. Summary. + +At this point, where religion passes into philosophy, the discussion +which has occupied the present chapter must close. So far it was +necessary to proceed, in order to show how wide was the range of the +religious consciousness of the Greeks, and through how many points of +view it passed in the course of its evolution. But its development was +away from the Greek and towards the Christian; and it will therefore be +desirable, in conclusion, to fix once more in our minds that central and +primary phase of the Greek religion under the influence of which their +civilisation was formed into a character definite and distinct in the +history of the world. This phase will be the one which underlay and was +reflected in the actual cult and institutions of Greece and must +therefore be regarded not as a product of critical and self-conscious +thought, but as an imaginative way of conceiving the world stamped as it +were passively on the mind by the whole course of concrete experience. +Of its character we have attempted to give some kind of account in the +earlier part of this chapter, and we have now only to summarise what was +there said. + +The Greek religion, then, as we saw, in this its characteristic phase, +involved a belief in a number of deities who on the one hand were +personifications of the powers of nature and of the human soul, on the +other the founders and sustainers of civil society. To the operations of +these beings the whole of experience was referred, and that, not merely +in an abstract and unintelligible way, as when we say that the world was +created by God, but in a quite precise and definite sense, the action of +the gods being conceived to be the same in kind as that of man, +proceeding from similar motives, directed to similar ends, and +accomplished very largely by similar, though much superior means. By +virtue of this uncritical and unreflective mode of apprehension the +Greeks, we said, were made at home in the world. Their religion suffused +and transformed the facts both of nature and of society, interpreting +what would otherwise have been unintelligible by the idea of an activity +which they could understand because it was one which they were +constantly exercising themselves. Being thus supplied with a general +explanation of the world, they could put aside the question of its +origin and end, and devote themselves freely and fully to the art of +living, unhampered by scruples and doubts as to the nature of life. +Consciousness similar to their own was the ultimate fact; and there was +nothing therefore with which they might not form intelligible and +harmonious relations. + +And as on the side of metaphysics they were delivered from the +perplexities of speculation, so on the side of ethics they were +undisturbed by the perplexities of conscience. Their religion, it is +true, had a bearing on their conduct, but a bearing, as we saw, external +and mechanical. If they sinned they might be punished directly by +physical evil; and from this evil religion might redeem them by the +appropriate ceremonies of purgation. But on the other hand they were not +conscious of a spiritual relation to God, of sin as an alienation from +the divine power and repentance as the means of restoration to grace. +The pangs of conscience, the fears and hopes, the triumph and despair of +the soul which were the preoccupations of the Puritan, were phenomena +unknown to the ancient Greek. He lived and acted undisturbed by +scrupulous introspection; and the function of his religion was rather to +quiet the conscience by ritual than to excite it by admonition and +reproof. + +From both these points of view, the metaphysical and the ethical, the +Greeks were brought by their religion into harmony with the world. +Neither the perplexities of the intellect nor the scruples of the +conscience intervened to hamper their free activity. Their life was +simple, straightforward and clear; and their consciousness directed +outwards upon the world, not perplexedly absorbed in the contemplation +of itself. + +On the other hand, this harmony which was the essence of the Greek +civilisation, was a temporary compromise, not a final solution. It +depended on presumptions of the imagination, not on convictions of the +intellect; and as we have seen, it destroyed itself by the process of +its own development. The beauty, the singleness, and the freedom which +attracts us in the consciousness of the Greek was the result of a +poetical view of the world, which did but anticipate in imagination an +ideal that was not realised in fact or in thought. It depended on the +assumption of anthropomorphic gods, an assumption which could not stand +before the criticism of reason, and either broke down into scepticism, +or was developed into the conception of a single supreme and spiritual +power. + +And even apart from this internal evolution, from this subversion of its +ideal basis, the harmony established by the Greek religion was at the +best but partial and incomplete. It was a harmony for life, but not for +death. The more completely the Greek felt himself to be at home in the +world, the more happily and freely he abandoned himself to the exercise +of his powers, the more intensely and vividly he lived in action and in +passion, the more alien, bitter, and incomprehensible did he find the +phenomena of age and death. On this problem, so far as we can judge, he +received from his religion but little light, and still less consolation. +The music of his brief life closed with a discord unresolved; and even +before reason had brought her criticism to bear upon his creed, its +deficiency was forced upon him by his feeling. + +Thus the harmony which we have indicated as the characteristic result of +the Greek religion contained none of the conditions of completeness or +finality. For on the one hand there were elements which it was never +able to include; and on the other, its hold even over those which it +embraced was temporary and precarious. The eating of the tree of +knowledge drove the Greeks from their paradise; but the vision of that +Eden continues to haunt the mind of man, not in vain, if it prophesies +in a type the end to which his history moves. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE GREEK VIEW OF THE STATE + + +Section 1. The Greek State a "City." + +The present kingdom of Greece is among the smallest of European states; +but to the Greeks it would have appeared too large to be a state at all. +Within that little peninsular whose whole population and wealth are so +insignificant according to modern ideas, were comprised in classical +times not one but many flourishing polities. And the conception of an +amalgamation of these under a single government was so foreign to the +Greek idea, that even to Aristotle, the clearest and most comprehensive +thinker of his age, it did not present itself even as a dream. To him, +as to every ancient Greek, the state meant the City--meant, that is to +say, an area about the size of an English county, with a population, +perhaps, of some hundred thousand, self-governing and independent of any +larger political whole. + +If we can imagine the various County Councils of England emancipated +from the control of Parliament and set free to make their own laws, +manage their own finance and justice, raise troops and form with one +another alliances, offensive and defensive, we may form thus some +general idea of the political institutions of the Greeks and some +measure of their difference from our own. + +Nor must it be supposed that the size of the Greek state was a mere +accident in its constitution, that it might have been indefinitely +enlarged and yet regained its essential character. On the contrary, the +limitation of size belonged to its very notion. The greatest state, says +Aristotle, is not the one whose population is most numerous; on the +contrary, after a certain limit of increase has been passed, the state +ceases to be a state at all. "Ten men are too few for a city; a hundred +thousand are too many." Not only London, it seems, but every one of our +larger towns, would have been too big for the Greek idea of a state; and +as for the British empire, the very conception of it would have been +impossible to the Greeks. + +Clearly, their view on this point is fundamentally different from our +own. Their civilisation was one of "city-states", not of kingdoms and +empires; and their whole political outlook was necessarily determined by +this condition. Generalising from their own experience, they had formed +for themselves a conception of the state not the less interesting to us +that it is unfamiliar; and this conception it will be the business of +the present chapter to illustrate and explain. + + +Section 2. The Relation of the State to the Citizen. + +First, let us consider the relation of the state to the citizens--that +is to say, to that portion of the community, usually a minority, which +was possessed of full political rights. It is here that we have the key +to that limitation of size which we have seen to be essential to the +idea of the city-state. For, in the Greek view, to be a citizen of a +state did not merely imply the payment of taxes, and the possession of a +vote; it implied a direct and active co-operation in all the functions +of civil and military life. A citizen was normally a soldier, a judge, +and a member of the governing assembly; and all his public duties he +performed not by deputy, but in person. He must be able frequently to +attend the centre of government; hence the limitation of territory. He +must be able to speak and vote in person in the assembly; hence the +limitation of numbers. The idea of representative government never +occurred to the Greeks; but if it had occurred to them, and if they had +adopted it, it would have involved a revolution in their whole +conception of the citizen. Of that conception, direct personal service +was the cardinal point--service in the field as well as in the council; +and to substitute for personal service the mere right to a vote would +have been to destroy the form of the Greek state. Such being the idea +the Greeks had formed, based on their own experience, of the relation of +the citizen to the state, it follows that to them a society so complex +as our own would hardly have answered to the definition of a state at +all. Rather they would have regarded it as a mere congeries of +unsatisfactory human beings, held together, partly by political, partly +by economic compulsion, but lacking that conscious identity of interest +with the community to which they belong which alone constitutes the +citizen. A man whose main pre-occupation should be with his trade or his +profession, and who should only become aware of his corporate relations +when called upon for his rates and taxes--a man, that is to say, in the +position of an ordinary Englishman--would not have seemed to the Greeks +to be a full and proper member of a state. For the state, to them, was +more than a machinery, it was a spiritual bond; and "public life", as we +call it, was not a thing to be taken up and laid aside at pleasure, but +a necessary and essential phase of the existence of a complete man. + +This relation of the citizen to the state, as it was conceived by the +Greeks, is sometimes described as though it involved the sacrifice of +the individual to the whole. And in a certain sense, perhaps, this is +true. Aristotle, for instance, declares that no one must suppose he +belongs to himself, but rather that all alike belong to the state; and +Plato, in the construction of his ideal republic, is thinking much less +of the happiness of the individual citizens, than of the symmetry and +beauty of the whole as it might appear to a disinterested observer from +without. Certainly it would have been tedious and irksome to any but his +own ideal philosopher to live under the rule of that perfect polity. +Individual enterprise, bent, and choice is rigorously excluded. Nothing +escapes the net of legislation, from the production of children to the +fashion of houses, clothes, and food. It is absurd, says the ruthless +logic of this mathematician among the poets, for one who would regulate +public life to leave private relations uncontrolled; if there is to be +order at all, it must extend through and through; no moment, no detail +must be withdrawn from the grasp of law. And though in this, Plato, no +doubt, goes far beyond the common sense of the Greeks, yet he is not +building altogether in the air. The republic which he desiderates was +realised, as we shall see, partially at least, in Sparta. So that his +insistence on the all-pervading domination of the state, exaggerated +though it be, is exaggerated on the actual lines of Greek practice, and +may be taken as indicative of a real distinction and even antithesis +between their point of view and that which prevails at present in most +modern states. + +But on the other hand such a phrase as the "sacrifice of the individual +to the whole", to this extent at least is misleading, that it +presupposes an opposition between the end of the individual and that of +the State, such as was entirely foreign to the Greek conception. The +best individual, in their view, was also the best citizen; the two +ideals not only were not incompatible, they were almost +indistinguishable. When Aristotle defines a state as "an association of +similar persons for the attainment of the best life possible", he +implies not only that society is the means whereby the individual +attains his ideal, but also that that ideal includes the functions of +public life. The state in his view is not merely the convenient +machinery that raises a man above his animal wants and sets him free to +follow his own devices; it is itself his end, or at least a part of it. +And from this it follows that the regulations of the state were not +regarded by the Greeks--as they are apt to be by modern men--as so many +vexatious, if necessary, restraints on individual liberty; but rather as +the expression of the best and highest nature of the citizen, as the +formula of the conduct which the good man would naturally prescribe to +himself. So that, to get a clear conception of what was at least the +Greek ideal, however imperfectly it may have been attained in practice, +we ought to regard the individual not as sacrificed to, but rather as +realising himself in the whole. We shall thus come nearer to what seems +to have been the point of view not only of Aristotle and of Plato, but +also of the average Greek man. + + +Section 3. The Greek View of Law. + +For nothing is more remarkable in the political theory of the Greeks +than the respect they habitually express for law. Early legislators were +believed to have been specially inspired by the divine power--Lycurgus, +for instance, by Apollo, and Minos by Zeus; and Plato regards it as a +fundamental condition of the well-being of any state that this view +should prevail among its citizens. Nor was this conception of the divine +origin of law confined to legend and to philosophy; we find it expressed +in the following passage of Demosthenes, addressed to a jury of average +Athenians, and representing at any rate the conventional and orthodox, +if not the critical view of the Greek public: + +"The whole life of men, O Athenians, whether they inhabit a great city +or a small one, is governed by nature and by laws. Of these, nature is a +thing irregular, unequal, and peculiar to the individual possessor; laws +are regular, common, and the same for all. Nature, if it be depraved, +has often vicious desires; therefore you will find people of that sort +falling into error. Laws desire what is just and honourable and useful; +they seek for this, and, when it is found, it is set forth as a general +ordinance, the same and alike for all; and that is law, which all men +ought to obey for many reasons, and especially because every law is an +invention and gift of the Gods, a resolution of wise men, a corrective +of errors intentional and unintentional, a compact of the whole state, +according to which all who belong to the state ought to live." +[Footnote: Demosth. in Aristogeit. Section 17.--Translation by C. R. +Kennedy.] + +In this opposition of Law, as the universal principle, to Nature, as +individual caprice, is implied a tacit identification of Law and +Justice. The identification, of course, is never complete in any state, +and frequently enough is not even approximate. No people were more +conscious of this than the Greeks, none, as we shall see later, pushed +it more vigorously home. But still, the positive conception which lay at +the root of their society was that which finds expression in the passage +we have quoted, and which is stated still more explicitly in the +"Memorabilia" of Xenophon, where that admirable example of the good and +efficient citizen represents his hero Socrates as maintaining, without +hesitation or reserve, that "that which is in accordance with law is +just." The implication, of course, is not that laws cannot be improved, +that they do at any point adequately correspond to justice; but that +justice has an objective and binding validity, and that Law is a serious +and on the whole a successful attempt to embody it in practice. This was +the conviction predominant in the best period of Greece; the conviction +under which her institutions were formed and flourished, and whose +overthrow by the philosophy of a critical age was coincident with, if it +was not the cause of, her decline. + + +Section 4. Artisans and Slaves. + +We have now arrived at a general idea of the nature of the Greek state, +and of its relations to the individual citizen. But there were also +members of the state who were not citizens at all; there was the class +of labourers and traders, who, in some states at least, had no political +rights; and the class of slaves who had nowhere any rights at all. For +in the Greek conception the citizen was an aristocrat. His excellence +was thought to consist in public activity; and to the performance of +public duties he ought therefore to be able to devote the greater part +of his time and energy. But the existence of such a privileged class +involved the existence of a class of producers to support them; and the +producers, by the nature of their calling, be they slave or free, were +excluded from the life of the perfect citizen. They had not the +necessary leisure to devote to public business; neither had they the +opportunity to acquire the mental and physical qualities which would +enable them to transact it worthily. They were therefore regarded by the +Greeks as an inferior class; in some states, in Sparta, for example, and +in Thebes, they were excluded from political rights; and even in Athens, +the most democratic of all the Greek communities, though they were +admitted to the citizenship and enjoyed considerable political +influence, they never appear to have lost the stigma of social +inferiority. And the distinction which was thus more or less definitely +drawn in practice between the citizens proper and the productive class, +was even more emphatically affirmed in theory. Aristotle, the most +balanced of all the Greek thinkers and the best exponent of the normal +trend of their ideas, excludes the class of artisans from the +citizenship of his ideal state on the ground that they are debarred by +their occupation from the characteristic excellence of man. And Plato, +though here as elsewhere he pushes the normal view to excess, yet, in +his insistence on the gulf that separates the citizen from the mechanic +and the trader, is in sympathy with the general current of Greek ideas. +His ideal state is one which depends mainly on agriculture; in which +commerce and exchange are reduced to the smallest possible dimensions; +in which every citizen is a landowner, forbidden to engage in trade; and +in which the productive class is excluded from all political rights. The +obverse then, of the Greek citizen, who realised in the state his +highest life, was an inferior class of producers who realised only the +means of subsistence. But within this class again was a distinction yet +more fundamental--the distinction between free men and slaves. In the +majority of the Greek states the slaves were the greater part of the +population; in Athens, to take an extreme case, at the close of the +fourth century, they are estimated at 400,000, to 100,000 citizens. They +were employed not only in domestic service, but on the fields, in +factories and in mines, and performed, in short, a considerable part of +the productive labour in the state. A whole large section, then, of the +producers in ancient Greece had no social or political rights at all. +They existed simply to maintain the aristocracy of citizens, for whom +and in whom the state had its being. Nor was this state of things in the +least repugnant to the average Greek mind. Nothing is more curious to +the modern man than the temper in which Aristotle approaches this theme. +Without surprise or indignation, but in the tone of an impartial, +scientific inquirer, he asks himself the question whether slavery is +natural, and answers it in the affirmative. For, he argues, though in +any particular case, owing to the uncertain chances of fortune and war, +the wrong person may happen to be enslaved, yet, broadly speaking, the +general truth remains, that there are some men so inferior to others +that they ought to be despotically governed, by the same right and for +the same good end that the body ought to be governed by the soul. Such +men, he maintains, are slaves by nature; and it is as much to their +interest to be ruled as it is to their masters' interest to rule them. +To this class belong, for example, all who are naturally incapable of +any but physical activity. These should be regarded as detachable limbs, +so to speak, of the man who owns them, instruments of his will, like +hands and feet; or, to use Aristotle's own phrase, "the slave is a tool +with life in it, and the tool a lifeless slave." + +The relation between master and slave thus frankly conceived by the +Greeks, did not necessarily imply, though it was quite compatible with, +brutality of treatment. The slave might be badly treated, no doubt, and +very frequently was, for his master had almost absolute control over +him, life and limb; but, as we should expect, it was clearly recognised +by the best Greeks that the treatment should be genial and humane. +"There is a certain mutual profit and kindness," says Aristotle, +"between master and slave, in all cases where the relation is natural, +not merely imposed from without by convention or force." [Footnote: +Arist. Pol. I. 7. 1255 b 12] And Plato insists on the duty of neither +insulting nor outraging a slave, but treating him rather with even +greater fairness than if he were in a position of equality. + +Still, there can be no doubt that the Greek conception of slavery is one +of the points in which their view of life runs most counter to our own. +Centuries of Christianity have engendered in us the conviction, or +rather, the instinct, that men are equal at least to this extent, that +no one has a right explicitly to make of another a mere passive +instrument of his will--that every man, in short, must be regarded as an +end in himself. Yet even here the divergence between the Greek and the +modern view is less extreme than it appears at first sight. For the +modern man, in spite of his perfectly genuine belief in equality (in the +sense in which we have just defined the word), does nevertheless, when +he is confronted with racial differences, recognise degrees of +inferiority so extreme, that he is practically driven into the +Aristotelian position that some men are naturally slaves. The American, +for example, will hardly deny that such is his attitude towards the +negro. The negro, in theory, is the equal, politically and socially, of +the white man; in practice, he is excluded from the vote, from the +professions, from the amenities of social intercourse, and even, as we +have recently learnt, from the most elementary forms of justice. The +general and a priori doctrine of equality is shattering itself against +the actual facts; and the old Greek conception, "the slave by nature", +may be detected behind the mask of the Christian ideal. And while thus, +even in spite of itself, the modern view is approximating to that of the +Greeks, on the other hand the Greek view by its own evolution was +already beginning to anticipate our own. Even Aristotle, in formulating +his own conception of slavery, finds it necessary to observe that though +it be true that some men are naturally slaves, yet in practice, under +conditions which give the victory to force, it may happen that the +"natural" slave becomes the master, and the "natural" master is degraded +to a slave. This is already a serious modification of his doctrine. And +other writers, pushing the contention further, deny altogether the +theory of natural slavery. "No man," says the poet Philemon, "was ever +born a slave by nature. Fortune only has put men in that position." And +Euripides, the most modern of the Greeks, writes in the same strain: +"One thing only disgraces a slave, and that is the name. In all other +respects a slave, if he be good, is no worse than a freeman." [Footnote: +Euripides, Ion. 854] + +It seems then that the distinction between the Greek and the modern +point of view is not so profound or so final as it appears at first +sight. Still, the distinction, broadly speaking, is there. The Greeks, +on the whole, were quite content to sacrifice the majority to the +minority. Their position, as we said at the outset, was fundamentally +aristocratic; they exaggerated rather than minimised the distinctions +between men--between the Greek and the barbarian, the freeman and the +slave, the gentleman and the artisan--regarding them as natural and +fundamental, not as the casual product of circumstances. The "equality" +which they sought in a well-ordered state was proportional not +arithmetical--the attribution to each of his peculiar right, not of +equal rights to all. Some were born to rule, others to serve; some to be +ends, others to be means; and the problem to be solved was not how to +obliterate these varieties of tone, but how to compose them into an +ordered harmony. + +In a modern state, on the other hand, though class distinctions are +clearly enough marked, yet the point of view from which they are +regarded is fundamentally different. They are attributed rather to +accidents of fortune than to varieties of nature. The artisan, for +example, ranks no doubt lower than the professional man; but no one +maintains that he is a different kind of being, incapable by nature, as +Aristotle asserts, of the characteristic excellence of man. The +distinction admitted is rather one of wealth than of natural calling, +and may be obliterated by ability and good luck. Neither in theory nor +in practice does the modern state recognise any such gulf as that which, +in ancient Greece, separated the freeman from the slave, or the citizen +from the non-citizen. + + +Section 5. The Greek State Primarily Military, not Industrial. + +The source of this divergence of view must be sought in the whole +circumstances and character of the Greek states. Founded in the +beginning by conquest, many of them still retained, in their internal +structure, the marks of their violent origin. The citizens, for example, +of Sparta and of Crete, were practically military garrisons, settled in +the midst of a hostile population. These were extreme cases; and +elsewhere, no doubt, the distinction between the conquerors and the +conquered had disappeared. Still, it had sufficed to mould the +conception and ideal of the citizen as a member of a privileged and +superior class, whose whole energies were devoted to maintaining, by +council and war, not only the prosperity, but the very existence of the +state. The original citizen, moreover, would be an owner of land, which +would be tilled for him by a subject class. Productive labour would be +stamped, from the outset, with the stigma of inferiority; commerce would +grow up, if at all, outside the limits of the landed aristocracy, and +would have a struggle to win for itself any degree of social and +political recognition. Such were the conditions that produced the Greek +conception of the citizen. In some states, such as Sparta, they +continued practically unchanged throughout the best period of Greek +history; in others, such as Athens, they were modified by the growth of +a commercial population, and where that was the case the conception of +the citizen was modified too, and the whole polity assumed a democratic +character. Yet never, as we have seen, even in the most democratic +states, was the modern conception of equality admitted. For, in the +first place, the institution of slavery persisted, to stamp the mass of +producers as an inferior caste; and in the second place, trade, even in +the states where it was most developed, hardly attained a preponderating +influence. The ancient state was and remained primarily military. The +great industrial questions which agitate modern states either did not +exist at all in Greece, or assumed so simple a form that they did not +rise to the surface of political life. [Footnote: There was, of course, +the general opposition between rich and poor (see below). But not those +infinitely complex relations which are the problems of modern +statesmanship.] How curious it is, for example, from the modern point of +view, to find Plato, a citizen of the most important trading centre of +Greece, dismissing in the following brief sentence the whole commercial +legislation of his ideal state: + +"As to those common business transactions between private individuals in +the market, including, if you please, the contracts of artisans, libels, +assaults, law-proceedings, and the impanelling of juries, or again +questions relating to tariffs, and the collection of such customs as may +be necessary in the market or in the harbours, and generally all +regulations of the market, the police, the custom-house, and the like; +shall we condescend to legislate at all on such matters? + +"No, it is not worth while to give directions on these points to good +and cultivated men: for in most cases they will have little difficulty +in discovering all the legislation required." [Footnote: Plato, Rep. IV. +425.--Translated by Davies and Vaughan.] + +In fact, throughout his treatise it is the non-commercial or military +class with which Plato is almost exclusively concerned; and in taking +that line he is so far at least in touch with reality that that class +was the one which did in fact predominate in the Greek state; and that +even where, as in Athens, the productive class became an important +factor in political life, it was never able altogether to overthrow the +aristocratic conception of the citizen. + +And with that conception, we must add, was bound up the whole Greek view +of individual excellence. The inferiority of the artisan and the trader, +historically established in the manner we have indicated, was further +emphasised by the fact that they were excluded by their calling from the +cultivation of the higher personal qualities--from the training of the +body by gymnastics and of the mind by philosophy; from habitual +conversance with public affairs; from that perfect balance, in a word, +of the physical, intellectual, and moral powers, which was only to be +attained by a process of self-culture, incompatible with the pursuance +of a trade for bread. Such, at any rate, was the opinion of the Greeks. +We shall have occasion to return to it later. Meantime, let us sum up +the course of our investigation up to the present point. + +We have seen that the state, in the Greek view, must be so limited, both +in territory and population, that all its citizens might be able to +participate in person in its government and defence; that it was based +on fundamental class distinctions separating sharply the citizen from +the non-citizen, and the slave from the free; that its end and purpose +was that all-absorbing corporate activity in which the citizen found the +highest expression of himself; and that to that end the inferior classes +were regarded as mere means--a point of view which finds its completest +expression in the institution of slavery. + + +Section 6. Forms of Government in the Greek State. + +While, however, this was the general idea of the Greek state, it would +be a mistake to suppose that it was everywhere embodied in a single +permanent form of polity. On the contrary, the majority of the states in +Greece were in a constant state of flux; revolution succeeded revolution +with startling rapidity; and in place of a single fixed type what we +really get is a constant transition from one variety to another. The +general account we have given ought therefore to be regarded only as a +kind of limiting formula, embracing within its range a number of +polities distinct and even opposed in character. Of these polities +Aristotle, whose work is based on an examination of all the existing +states of Greece, recognises three main varieties: government by the +one, government by the few, and government by the many; and each of +these is subdivided into two forms, one good, where the government has +regard to the well-being of the whole, the other bad, where it has +regard only to the well-being of those who govern. The result is six +forms, of which three are good, monarchy, aristocracy, and what he calls +a "polity" par excellence; three bad, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy. +Of all these forms we have examples in Greek history, and indeed can +roughly trace a tendency of the state to evolve through the series of +them. But by far the most important, in the historical period, are the +two forms known as Oligarchy and Democracy; and the reason of their +importance is that they corresponded roughly to government by the rich +and government by the poor. "Rich and poor," says Aristotle, "are the +really antagonistic members of a state. The result is that the character +of all existing polities is determined by the predominance of one or +other of these classes, and it is the common opinion that there are two +polities and two only, viz., Democracy and Oligarchy." [Footnote: Arist. +Pol. VI. (IV) 1291 b8.--Translation by Welldon.] In other words, the +social distinction between rich and poor was exaggerated in Greece into +political antagonism. In every state there was an oligarchic and a +democratic faction; and so fierce was the opposition between them, that +we may almost say that every Greek city was in a chronic state of civil +war, having become, as Plato puts it, not one city but two, "one +comprising the rich and the other the poor, who reside together on the +same ground, and are always plotting against one another." [Footnote: +Plat. Rep. viii. 551--Translation by Davies and Vaughan] + + +Section 7. Faction and Anarchy. + +This internal schism which ran through almost every state, came to a +head in the great Peloponnesian war which divided Greece at the close of +the fifth century, and in which Athens and Sparta, the two chief +combatants, represented respectively the democratic and the oligarchic +principles. Each appealed to the kindred faction in the states that were +opposed to them; and every city was divided against itself, the party +that was "out" for the moment plotting with the foreign foe to overthrow +the party that was "in." Thus the general Greek conception of the +ordered state was so far from being realised in practice that probably +at no time in the history of the civilised world has anarchy more +complete and cynical prevailed. + +To appreciate the gulf that existed between the ideal and the fact, we +have only to contrast such a scheme as that set forth in the "Republic" +of Plato with the following description by Thucydides of the state of +Greece during the Peloponnesian war: + +"Not long afterwards the whole Hellenic world was in commotion; in every +city the chiefs of the democracy and of the oligarchy were struggling, +the one to bring in the Athenians, the other the Lacedaemonians. Now in +time of peace, men would have had no excuse for introducing either, and +no desire to do so; but when they were at war and both sides could +easily obtain allies to the hurt of their enemies and the advantage of +themselves, the dissatisfied party were only too ready to invoke foreign +aid. And revolution brought upon the cities of Hellas many terrible +calamities, such as have been and always will be while human nature +remains the same, but which are more or less aggravated and differ in +character with every new combination of circumstances. In peace and +prosperity both states and individuals are actuated by higher motives, +because they do not fall under the dominion of imperious necessities; +but war which takes away the comfortable provision of daily life is a +hard master, and tends to assimilate men's characters to their +conditions. + +"When troubles had once begun in the cities, those who followed carried +the revolutionary spirit further and further, and determined to outdo +the report of all who had preceded them by the ingenuity of their +enterprises and the atrocity of their revenges. The meaning of words had +no longer the same relation to things, but was changed by them as they +thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; prudent +delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly +weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the +true quality of a man. A conspirator who wanted to be safe was a +recreant in disguise. The lover of violence was always trusted, and his +opponent suspected. He who succeeded in a plot was deemed knowing, but a +still greater master in craft was he who detected one. On the other +hand, he who plotted from the first to have nothing to do with plots was +a breaker-up of parties and a poltroon who was afraid of the enemy. In a +word, he who could outstrip another in a bad action was applauded, and +so was he who encouraged to evil one who had no idea of it. The tie of +party was stronger than the tie of blood, because a partisan was more +ready to dare without asking why (for party associations are not based +upon any established law, nor do they seek the public good; they are +formed in defiance of the laws and from self-interest). The seal of good +faith was not divine law, but fellowship in crime. If an enemy when he +was in the ascendant offered fair words, the opposite party received +them, not in a generous spirit, but by a jealous watchfulness of his +actions. Revenge was dearer than self-preservation. Any agreements sworn +to by either party, when they could do nothing else, were binding as +long as both were powerless. But he who on a favourable opportunity +first took courage and struck at his enemy when he saw him off his +guard, had greater pleasure in a perfidious than he would have had in an +open act of revenge; he congratulated himself that he had taken the +safer course, and also that he had overreached his enemy and gained the +prize of superior ability. In general the dishonest more easily gain +credit for cleverness than the simple for goodness; men take a pride in +the one, but are ashamed of the other. + +"The cause of all these evils was the love of power originating in +avarice and ambition, and the party-spirit which is engendered by them +when men are fairly embarked in a contest. For the leaders on either +side used specious names, the one party professing to uphold the +constitutional equality of the many, the other the wisdom of an +aristocracy, while they made the public interests, to which in name they +were devoted, in reality their prize. Striving in every way to overcome +each other, they committed the most monstrous crimes; yet even these +were surpassed by the magnitude of their revenges which they pursued to +the very utmost, neither party observing any definite limits either of +justice or public expediency, but both alike making the caprice of the +moment their law. Either by the help of an unrighteous sentence, or +grasping power with the strong hand, they were eager to satiate the +impatience of party spirit. Neither faction cared for religion; but any +fair pretence which succeeded in effecting some odious purpose was +greatly lauded. And the citizens who were of neither party fell a prey +to both; either they were disliked because they held aloof, or men were +jealous of their surviving. + +"Thus revolution gave birth to every form of wickedness in Hellas. The +simplicity which is so large an element in a noble nature was laughed to +scorn and disappeared. An attitude of perfidious antagonism everywhere +prevailed; for there was no word binding enough, nor oath terrible +enough to reconcile enemies. Each man was strong only in the conviction +that nothing was secure; he must look to his own safety, and could not +afford to trust others. Inferior intellects generally succeeded best. +For aware of their own deficiencies, and fearing the capacities of their +opponents, for whom they were no match in powers of speech, and whose +subtle wits were likely to anticipate them in contriving evil, they +struck boldly and at once. But the cleverer sort, presuming in their +arrogance that they would be aware in time, and disdaining to act when +they could think, were taken off their guard and easily destroyed." +[Footnote: Thuc. iii. 82.--Translated by Jowett.] + +The general indictment thus drawn up by Thucydides is amply illustrated +by the events of war which he describes. On one occasion, for example, +the Athenians were blockading Mitylene; the government, an oligarchy, +was driven to arm the people for the defence; the people, having +obtained arms, immediately demanded political rights, under threat of +surrendering the city to the foreign foe; and the government, rather +than concede their claims, surrendered it themselves. Again, Megara, we +learn, was twice betrayed, once by the democrats to the Athenians, and +again by the oligarchs to the Lacedaemonians. At Leontini the Syracusans +were called in to drive out the popular party. And at Corcyra the +people, having got the better of their aristocratic opponents, proceeded +to a general massacre which extended over seven days, with every variety +of moral and physical atrocity. + +Such is the view of the political condition of Greece given to us by a +contemporary observer towards the close of the fifth century, and it is +a curious comment on the Greek idea of the state. That idea, as we saw, +was an ordered inequality, political as well as social; and in certain +states, and notably in Sparta, it was successfully embodied in a stable +form. But in the majority of the Greek states it never attained to more +than a fluctuating and temporary realisation. The inherent contradiction +was too extreme for the attempted reconciliation; the inequalities +refused to blend in a harmony of divergent tones but asserted themselves +in the dissonance of civil war. + + +Section 8. Property and the Communistic Ideal. + +And, as we have seen, this internal schism of the Greek state was as +much social as political. The "many" and the "few" were identified +respectively with the poor and the rich; and the struggle was thus at +bottom as much economic as political. Government by an oligarchy was +understood to mean the exploitation of the masses by the classes. "An +oligarchy," says a democrat, as reported by Thucydides, "while giving +the people the full share of danger, not merely takes too much of the +good things, but absolutely monopolises them." [Footnote: Thuc. vi. 39.-- +Translated by Jowett.] And, similarly, the advent of democracy was held +to imply the spoliation of the classes in the interest of the masses, +either by excessive taxation, by an abuse of the judicial power to fine, +or by any other of the semi-legal devices of oppression which the +majority in power have always at their command. This substantial +identity of rich and poor, respectively, with oligarch and democrat may +be further illustrated by the following passage from Aristotle: + +"In consequence of the political disturbances and contentions between +the commons on the one hand and the rich on the other, whichever party +happens to get the better of its opponents, instead of establishing a +polity of a broad and equal kind, assumes political supremacy as a prize +of the victory, and sets up either a Democracy or an Oligarchy." +[Footnote: Arist. Pol. VI. (IV) 1296 a 27.--Translation by Welldon.] + +We see then that it was the underlying question of property that infused +so strong a rancour into the party struggles of Greece. From the very +earliest period, in fact, we find it to have been the case that +political revolution was prompted by economic causes. Debt was the main +factor of the crisis which led to the legislation of Solon; and a re- +division of the land was one of the measures attributed to Lycurgus. +[Footnote: I have not thought it necessary for my purpose, here or +elsewhere, to discuss the authenticity of the statements made by Greek +authors about Lycurgus.] As population increased, and, in the maritime +states, commerce and trade developed, the problem of poverty became +increasingly acute; and though it was partially met by the emigration of +the surplus population to colonies, yet in the fifth and fourth +centuries we find it prominent and pressing both in practical politics +and in speculation. Nothing can illustrate better how familiar the topic +was, and to what free theorising it had led, than the passages in which +it is treated in the comedies of Aristophanes. Here for example, is an +extract from the "Ecclesiazusae" which it may be worth while to insert +as a contribution to an argument that belongs to every age. + +PRAXAGORA. I tell you that we are all to share alike and have everything +in common, instead of one being rich and another poor, and one having +hundreds of acres and another not enough to make him a grave, and one a +houseful of servants and another not even a paltry foot-boy. I am going +to introduce communism and universal equality. + +BLEPSYRUS. How communism? + +PRAX. That's just what I was going to tell you. First of all, +everybody's money and land and anything else he may possess will be made +common property. Then we shall maintain you all out of the common stock, +with due regard to economy and thrift. + +BLEPS. But how about those who have no land, but only money that they +can hide? + +PRAX. It will all go to the public purse. To keep anything back will be +perjury. + +BLEPS. Perjury! Well, if you come to that, it was by perjury it was all +acquired. + +PRAX. And then, money won't be the least use to any one. + +BLEPS. Why not? + +PRAX. Because nobody will be poor. Everybody will have everything he +wants, bread, salt-fish, barley-cake, clothes, wine, garlands, +chickpeas. So what will be the good of keeping anything back? Answer +that if you can! + +BLEPS. Isn't it just the people who have all these things that are the +greatest thieves? + +PRAX. No doubt, under the old laws. But now, when everything will be in +common what will be the good of keeping anything back? + +BLEPS. Who will do the field work? + +PRAX. The slaves; all you will have to do is to dress and go out to +dinner in the evening. + +BLEPS. But what about the clothes? How are they to be provided? + +PRAX. What you have now will do to begin with, and afterwards we shall +make them for you ourselves. + +BLEPS. Just one thing more! Supposing a man were to lose his suit in the +courts, where are the damages to come from? It would not be fair to take +the public funds. + +PRAX. But there won't be any lawsuits at all! + +BLEPS. That will mean ruin to a good many people! + +BYSTANDER. Just my idea! + +PRAX. Why should there be any? + +BLEPS. Why! for reasons enough, heaven knows! For instance, a man might +repudiate his debts. + +PRAX. In that case, where did the man who lent the money get it from? +Clearly, since everything is in common, he must have stolen it! + +BLEPS. So he must! An excellent idea! But now tell me this. When fellows +come to blows over their cups, where are the damages to come from? + +PRAX. From the rations! A man won't be in such a hurry to make a row +when his belly has to pay for it. + +BLEPS. One thing more! Will there be no more thieves? + +PRAX. Why should any one steal what is his own? + +BLEPS. And won't one be robbed of one's cloak at night? + +PRAX. Not if you sleep at home! + +BLEPS. Nor yet, if one sleeps out, as one used to do? + +PRAX. No, for there will be enough and to spare for all. And even if a +thief does try to strip a man, he will give up his cloak of his own +accord. What would be the good of fighting? He has only to go and get +another, and a better, from the public stores. + +BLEPS. And will there be no more gambling? + +PRAX. What will there be to play for? + +BLEPS. And how about house accommodation? + +PRAX. That will be the same for all. I tell you I am going to turn the +whole city into one huge house, and break down all the partitions, so +that every one may have free access to every one else. [Footnote: +Aristoph. Eccles. 590.] + +The "social problem," then, had clearly arisen in ancient Greece, though +no doubt in an infinitely simpler form than that in which it is +presented to ourselves; and it might perhaps have been expected that the +Greeks, with their notion of the supremacy of the state, would have +adopted some drastic public measure to meet it. And, in fact, in the +earlier period of their history, as has been indicated above, we do find +sweeping revolutions effected in the distribution of property. In +Athens, Solon abolished debt, either in whole or part, by reducing the +rate of interest and depreciating the currency; and in Sparta Lycurgus +is said to have resumed the whole of the land for the state, and +redivided it equally among the citizens. We have also traces of laws +existing in other states to regulate in the interests of equality the +possession and transfer of land. But it does not appear that any attempt +was made in any state permanently to control by public authority the +production and distribution of wealth. Meantime, however, the problem of +social inequality was exercising the minds of political theorists; and +we have notice of various schemes for an ideal polity framed upon +communistic principles. Of these the most important, and the only one +preserved to us, is the celebrated "Republic" of Plato; and never, it +may be safely asserted, was a plan of society framed so consistent, +harmonious and beautiful in itself, or so indifferent to the actual +capacities of mankind. Following out what we have already indicated as +the natural drift of Greek ideas, the philosopher separates off on the +one hand the productive class, who are to have no political rights; and +on the other the class of soldiers and governors. It is the latter alone +with whom he seriously concerns himself; and the scheme he draws up for +them is uncompromisingly communistic. After being purged, by an +elaborate education, of all the egoistic passions, they are to live +together, having all things in common, devoted heart and soul to the +public good, and guiltless even of a desire for any private possession +or advantage of their own. "In the first place, no one," says Plato, +"should possess any private property, if it can possibly be avoided; +secondly, no one should have a dwelling or store house into which all +who please may not enter; whatever necessaries are required by temperate +and courageous men, who are trained to war, they should receive by +regular appointment from their fellow-citizens, as wages for their +services, and the amount should be such as to leave neither a surplus on +the year's consumption nor a deficit; and they should attend common +messes and live together as men do in a camp: as for gold and silver, we +must tell them that they are in perpetual possession of a divine species +of the precious metals placed in their souls by the gods themselves, and +therefore have no need of the earthly one; that in fact it would be +profanation to pollute their spiritual riches by mixing them with the +possession of mortal gold, because the world's coinage has been the +cause of countless impieties, whereas theirs is undefiled: therefore to +them, as distinguished from the rest of the people, it is forbidden to +handle or touch gold and silver, or enter under the same roof with them, +or to wear them in their dresses, or to drink out of the precious +metals. If they follow these rules, they will be safe themselves and the +saviours of the city: but whenever they come to possess lands, and +houses, and money of their own, they will be householders and +cultivators instead of guardians, and will become hostile masters of +their fellow-citizens rather than their allies; and so they will spend +their whole lives, hating and hated, plotting and plotted against, +standing in more frequent and intense alarm of their enemies at home +than of their enemies abroad; by which time they and the rest of the +city will be running on the very brink of ruin." [Footnote: Plato, Rep. +III. 416.--Translation by Davies and Vaughan.] + +The passage is interesting, if only as an illustration of the way in +which Plato had been impressed by the evil results of the institution of +private property. But as a contribution to political theory it was open +to severe attack from the representatives of experience and common +sense. Of these, the chief was Aristotle, whose criticism has been +preserved to us, and who, while admitting that Plato's scheme has a +plausible appearance of philanthropy, maintains that it is inapplicable +to the facts of human nature. To this conclusion, indeed, even Plato +himself was driven in the end; for in his later work, the "Laws," +although he still asserts that community of goods would be the ideal +institution, he reluctantly abandons it as a basis for a possible state. +On the other hand, he endeavours by the most stringent regulations, to +prevent the growth of inequalities of wealth. He distributes the land in +equal lots among his citizens, prohibiting either purchase or sub- +division; limits the possession of money to the amount required for +daily exchange; and forbids lending on interest. The object of a +legislator, he declares, is to make not a great but a happy city. But +only the good are happy, and goodness and wealth are incompatible. The +legislator, therefore, will not allow his citizens to be wealthy, any +more than he will allow them to be poor. He will seek to establish by +law the happy mean; and to this end, if he despair of the possibility of +a thorough-going communism, will legislate at least as indicated above. +The uncompromising idealism of Plato's scheme, with its assumption of +the indefinite plasticity of human nature, is of course peculiar to +himself, not typical of Greek ideas. But it is noticeable that +Aristotle, who is a far better representative of the average Greek mind, +exhibits the same mistrust of the accumulation of private property. In +the beginning of his "Politics" he distinguishes two kinds of money- +making, one natural, that which is pursued for the sake of a livelihood, +the other unnatural, that which is pursued for the sake of accumulation. +"The motive of this latter," he says, "is a desire for life instead of +for good life"; and its most hateful method is that of usury, the +unnatural breeding of money out of money. And though he rejects as +impracticable the compulsory communism of Plato's "Republic", yet he +urges as the ideal solution that property, while owned by individuals, +should be held as in trust for the common good; and puts before the +legislator the problem: "so to dispose the higher natures that they are +unwilling, and the lower that they are unable to aggrandise themselves." +[Footnote: Aristotle, Pol. ii. 7. 1267 b 6.--Translation by Welldon.] + +Such views as these, it may be noted, interesting though they be, as +illustrating how keenly the thinkers of ancient Greece had realised the +drawbacks of private property, have but the slightest bearing on the +conditions of our own time. The complexity and extent of modern industry +have given rise to quite new problems, and quite new schemes for their +solution; and especially have forced into prominence the point of view +of the producers themselves. To Greek thinkers it was natural to +approach the question of property from the side of the governing class +or of the state as a whole. The communism of Plato, for example, applied +only to the "guardians" and soldiers, and not to the productive class on +whom they depended; and so completely was he pre-occupied with the +former to the exclusion of the latter, that he dismisses in a single +sentence, as unworthy the legislator's detailed attention, the whole +apparatus of labour and exchange. To regard the "working-class" as the +most important section of the community, to substitute for the moral or +political the economic standpoint, and to conceive society merely as a +machine for the production and distribution of wealth, would have been +impossible to an ancient Greek. Partly by the simplicity of the economic +side of the society with which he was acquainted, partly by the habit of +regarding the labouring class as a mere means to the maintenance of the +rest, he was led, even when he had to deal with the problem of poverty +and wealth, to regard it rather from the point of view of the stability +and efficiency of the state, than from that of the welfare of the +producers themselves. The modern attitude is radically different; a +revolution has been effected both in the conditions of industry and in +the way in which they are regarded; and the practice and the speculation +of the Greek city-states have for us an interest which, great as it is, +is philosophic rather than practical. + + +Section 9. Sparta. + +The preceding attempt at a general sketch of the nature of the Greek +state is inevitably loose and misleading to this extent, that it +endeavours to comprehend in a single view polities of the most varied +and discrepant character. To remedy, so far as may be, this defect, to +give an impression, more definite and more complete, of the variety and +scope of the political experience of the Greeks, let us examine a little +more in detail the character of the two states which were at once the +most prominent and the most opposed in their achievement and their aim-- +the state of Sparta on the one hand, and that of Athens on the other. It +was these two cities that divided the hegemony of Greece; they represent +the extremes of the two forms--oligarchy and democracy--under which, as +we saw, the Greek polities fall; and from a sufficient acquaintance with +them we may gather a fairly complete idea of the whole range of Greek +political life. + +In Sparta we see one extreme of the political development of Greece, and +the one which approaches nearest, perhaps, to the characteristic Greek +type. Of that type, it is true, it was an exaggeration, and was +recognised as such by the best thinkers of Greece; but just for that +reason it is the more interesting and instructive as an exhibition of a +distinctive aspect of Greek civilisation. + +The Spartan state was composed of a small body of citizens--the +Spartiatae or Spartans proper-encamped in the midst of a hostile +population to whom they allowed no political rights and by whose labour +they were supplied with the necessaries of life. The distinction between +the citizen class on the one hand and the productive class on the other +was thus as clearly and sharply drawn as possible. It was even +exaggerated; for the citizens were a band of conquerors, the productive +class a subject race, perpetually on the verge of insurrection and only +kept in restraint by such measures as secret assassination. The result +was to draw together the small band of Spartiatae into a discipline so +rigorous and close that under it everything was sacrificed to the +necessity of self-preservation; and the bare maintenance of the state +became the end for which every individual was born, and lived, and died. +This discipline, according to tradition, had been devised by a single +legislator, Lycurgus, and it was maintained intact for several +centuries. Its main features may be summarised as follows. + +The production and rearing of children, to begin at the beginning, +instead of being left to the caprice of individuals, was controlled and +regulated by the state. The women, in the first place, were trained by +physical exercise for the healthy performance of the duties of +motherhood; they were taught to run and wrestle naked, like the youths, +to dance and sing in public, and to associate freely with men. Marriage +was permitted only in the prime of life; and a free intercourse, outside +its limits, between healthy men and women, was encouraged and approved +by public opinion. Men who did not marry were subject to social and +civic disabilities. The children, as soon as they were born, were +submitted to the inspection of the elders of their tribe; if strong and +well-formed, they were reared; if not, they were allowed to die. + +A healthy stock having been thus provided as a basis, every attention +was devoted to its appropriate training. The infants were encouraged +from the beginning in the free use of their limbs, unhampered by +swaddling-clothes, and were accustomed to endure without fear darkness +and solitude, and to cure themselves of peevishness and crying. At the +age of seven the boys were taken away from the charge of their parents, +and put under the superintendence of a public official. Their education, +on the intellectual side, was slight enough, comprising only such +rudiments as reading and writing; but on the moral side it was stringent +and severe. Gathered into groups under the direction of elder youths-- +"monitors" we might call them--they were trained to a discipline of iron +endurance. One garment served them for the whole year; they went without +shoes, and slept on beds of rushes plucked with their own hands. Their +food was simple, and often enough they had to go without it. Every +moment of the day they were under inspection and supervision, for it was +the privilege and the duty of every citizen to admonish and punish not +only his own but other people's children. At supper they waited at table +on their elders, answered their questions and endured their jests. In +the streets they were taught to walk in silence, their hands folded in +their cloaks, their eyes cast down, their heads never turning to right +or left. Their gymnastic and military training was incessant; wherever +they met, we are told, they began to box; under the condition, however, +that they were bound to separate at the command of any bystander. To +accustom them early to the hardships of a campaign, they were taught to +steal their food from the mess-tables of their elders; if they were +detected they were beaten for their clumsiness, and went without their +dinner. Nothing was omitted, on the moral or physical side, to make them +efficient members of a military state. Nor was the discipline relaxed +when they reached years of maturity. For, in fact, the whole city was a +camp. Family life was obliterated by public activity. The men dined +together in messes, rich and poor alike, sharing the same coarse and +simple food. Servants, dogs, and horses, were regarded as common +property. Luxury was strictly forbidden. The only currency in +circulation was of iron, so cumbrous that it was impossible to +accumulate or conceal it. The houses were as simple as possible, the +roofs shaped only with the axe, and the doors with the saw; the +furniture and fittings corresponded, plain but perfectly made. The +nature of the currency practically prohibited commerce, and no citizen +was allowed to be engaged in any mechanical trade. Agriculture was the +main industry, and every Spartan had, or was supposed to have, a landed +estate, cultivated by serfs who paid him a yearly rent. In complete +accordance with the Greek ideal, it was a society of soldier-citizens, +supported by an inferior productive class. In illustration of this point +the following curious anecdote may be quoted from Plutarch. During one +of the wars in which Sparta and her allies were engaged, the allies +complained that they, who were the majority of the army, had been forced +into a quarrel which concerned nobody but the Spartans. Whereupon +Agesilaus, the Spartan king, "devised this expedient to show the allies +were not the greater number. He gave orders that all the allies, of +whatever country, should sit down promiscuously on one side, and all the +Lacedaemonians on the other: which being done, he commanded a herald to +proclaim, that all the potters of both divisions should stand out; then +all the blacksmiths; then all the masons; next the carpenters; and so he +went through all the handicrafts. By this time almost all the allies +were risen, but of the Lacedaemonians not a man, they being by law +forbidden to learn any mechanical business; and now Agesilaus laughed +and said, "You see, my friends, how many more soldiers we send out than +you do." [Footnote: Plut. Agesilaus.--Translation by Clough.] + +And certainly, so far as its immediate ends were concerned, this society +of soldier-citizens was singularly successful. The courage and +efficiency of Spartan troops were notorious, and were maintained indeed +not only by the training we have described, but by social penalties +attached to cowardice. A man who had disgraced himself in battle was a +pariah in his native land. No one would eat with him, no one would +wrestle with him; in the dance he must take the lowest place; he must +give the wall at meetings in the street, and resign his seat even to +younger men; he must dress and bear himself humbly, under penalty of +blows, and suffer the reproaches of women and of boys. Death plainly +would be preferable to such a life; and we are not surprised to hear +that the discipline and valour of Spartan troops was celebrated far and +wide. Here is a description of them, given by one of themselves to the +Persian king when he was projecting the invasion of Greece: + +"Brave are all the Greeks who dwell in any Dorian land; but what I am +about to say does not concern all, but only the Lacedaemonians. First, +then, come what may, they will never accept thy terms, which would +reduce Greece to slavery; and further, they are sure to join battle with +thee, though all the rest of Greece should submit to thy will. As for +their numbers, do not ask how many they are, that their resistance +should be a possible thing; for if a thousand of them should take the +field, they will meet thee in battle, and so will any number, be it less +than this, or be it more. + +"When they fight singly, they are as good men as any in the world, and +when they fight in a body, they are the bravest of all. For though they +be freemen, they are not in all respects free; Law is the master whom +they own; and this master they fear more than thy subjects fear thee. +Whatever he commands they do; and his commandment is always the same: it +forbids them to flee in battle, whatever the number of their foes, and +requires them to stand firm, and either to conquer or die." [Footnote: +Herodotus vii. 102, 4.--Translation by Rawlinson.] + +The practical illustration of this speech is the battle of Thermopylae, +where 300 Spartans kept at bay the whole Persian host, till they were +betrayed from the rear and killed fighting to a man. + +The Spartan state, then, justified itself according to its own ideal; +but how limited that ideal was will be clear from our sketch. The +individual, if it cannot be said that he was sacrificed to the state-- +for he recognised the life of the state as his own--was at any rate +starved upon one side of his nature as much as he was hypertrophied upon +the other. Courage, obedience, and endurance were developed in excess; +but the free play of passion and thought, the graces and arts of life, +all that springs from the spontaneity of nature, were crushed out of +existence under this stern and rigid rule. "None of them," says +Plutarch, an enthusiastic admirer of the Spartan polity "none of them +was left alone to live as he chose; but passing their time in the city +as though it were a camp, their manner of life and their avocations +ordered with a view to the public good, they regarded themselves as +belonging, not to themselves, but to their country." [Footnote: Plut. +Lycurgus, ch. 24.] And Plato, whose ideal republic was based so largely +upon the Spartan model, has marked nevertheless as the essential defect +of their polity its insistence on military virtue to the exclusion of +everything else, and its excessive accentuation of the corporate aspect +of life. "Your military way of life," he says, "is modelled after the +camp, and is not like that of dwellers in cities; and you have your +young men herding and feeding together like young colts. No one takes +his own individual colt and drags him away from his fellows against his +will, raging and foaming, and gives him a groom for him alone, and +trains and rubs him down privately, and gives him the qualities in +education which will make him not only a good soldier, but also a +governor of a state and of cities. Such a one would be a greater warrior +than he of whom Tyrtaeus sings; and he would honour courage everywhere, +but always as the fourth, and not as the first part of virtue, either in +individuals or states." [Footnote: Plato Laws, II. 666 e.--Translation +by Jowett]. + +The Spartan state, in fact, by virtue of that excellence which was also +its defect--the specialising of the individual on the side of discipline +and rule--carried within it the seeds of its own destruction. The +tendencies which Lycurgus had endeavoured to repress by external +regulation reasserted themselves in his despite. He had intended once +for all both to limit and to equalise private property; but already as +early as the fifth century Spartans had accumulated gold which they +deposited in temples in foreign states; the land fell, by inheritance +and gift, into the hands of a small minority; the number of the citizens +was reduced, not only by war, but by the disfranchisement attending +inability to contribute to the common mess-tables; till at last we find +no more than 700 Spartan families, and of these no more than 100 +possessing estates in land. + +And this decline from within was hastened by external events. The +constitution devised for a small state encamped amidst a hostile +population, broke down under the weight of imperial power. The conquest +of Athens by Sparta was the signal of her own collapse. The power and +wealth she had won at a stroke alienated her sons from her discipline. +Generals and statesmen who had governed like kings the wealthy cities of +the east were unable to adapt themselves again to the stern and narrow +rules of Lycurgus. They rushed into freedom and enjoyment, into the +unfettered use of their powers, with an energy proportional to the +previous restraint. The features of the human face broke through the +fair but lifeless mask of ancient law; and the Spartan, ceasing to be a +Spartan, both rose and fell to the level of a man. + + +Section 10. Athens. + +In the institutions of Sparta we see, carried to its furthest point, one +side of the complex Greek nature--their capacity for discipline and law. +Athens, the home of a different stock, gives us the other extreme--their +capacity for rich and spontaneous individual development. To pass from +Sparta to Athens, is to pass from a barracks to a playing-field. All the +beauty, all the grace, all the joy of Greece; all that chains the desire +of mankind, with a yearning that is never stilled, to that one golden +moment in the past, whose fair and balanced interplay of perfect flesh +and soul no later gains of thought can compensate, centres about that +bright and stately city of romance, the home of Pericles and all the +arts, whence from generation to generation has streamed upon ages less +illustrious an influence at once the sanest and the most inspired of all +that have shaped the secular history of the world. Girt by mountain and +sea, by haunted fountain and sacred grove, shaped and adorned by the +master hands of Pheidias and Polygnotus and filled with the breath of +passion and song by Euripides and Plato, Athens, famed alike for the +legended deeds of heroes and gods and for the feats of her human sons in +council, art, and war, is a name, to those who have felt her spell, more +familiar and more dear than any of the few that mark with gold the +sombre scroll of history. And still across the years we feel the throb +of the glorious verse that broke in praise of his native land from the +lips of Euripides: + + + "Happy of yore were the children of race divine + Happy the sons of old Erechtheus' line + Who in their holy state + With hands inviolate + Gather the flower of wisdom far-renowned, + Lightly lifting their feet in the lucid air + Where the sacred nine, the Pierid Muses, bare + Harmonia golden-crowned. + + There in the wave from fair Kephisus flowing + Kupris sweetens the winds and sets them blowing + Over the delicate land; + And ever with joyous hand + Braiding her fragrant hair with the blossom of roses, + She sendeth the Love that dwelleth in Wisdom's place + That every virtue may quicken and every grace + In the hearts where she reposes." + [Footnote: Eurip. Medea, 825.] + +And this, the Athens of poetry and art, is but another aspect of the +Athens of political history. The same individuality, the same free and +passionate energy that worked in the hearts of her sculptors and her +poets, moulded also and inspired her city life. In contradistinction to +the stern and rigid discipline of Sparta, the Athenian citizen displayed +the resource, the versatility and the zeal that only freedom and self- +reliance can teach. The contrast is patent at every stage of the history +of the two states, and has been acutely set forth by Thucydides in the +speech which he puts into the mouths of the Corinthian allies of Sparta: + +"You have never considered," they say to the Lacedaemonians, "what +manner of men are these Athenians with whom you will have to fight, and +how utterly unlike yourselves. They are revolutionary, equally quick in +the conception and in the execution of every new plan; while you are +conservative--careful only to keep what you have, originating nothing, +and not acting even when action is most necessary. They are bold beyond +their strength; they run risks which prudence would condemn; and in the +midst of misfortunes they are full of hope. Whereas it is your nature, +though strong, to act feebly; when your plans are most prudent, to +distrust them; and when calamities come upon you, to think that you will +never be delivered from them. They are impetuous, and you are dilatory; +they are always abroad, and you are always at home. For they hope to +gain something by leaving their homes; but you are afraid that any new +enterprise may imperil what you have already. When conquerors, they +pursue their victory to the utmost; when defeated, they fall back the +least. Their bodies they devote to their country as though they belonged +to other men; their true self is their mind, which is most truly their +own when employed in her service. When they do not carry out an +intention which they have formed, they seem to have sustained a personal +bereavement; when an enterprise succeeds, they have gained a mere +instalment of what is to come; but if they fail, they at once conceive +new hopes and so fill up the void. + +"With them alone to hope is to have, for they lose not a moment in the +execution of an idea. This is the lifelong task, full of danger and +toil, which they are always imposing upon themselves. None enjoy their +good things less, because they are always seeking for more. To do their +duty is their only holiday, and they deem the quiet of inaction to be as +disagreeable as the most tiresome business. If a man should say of them, +in a word, that they were born neither to have peace themselves nor to +allow peace to other men, he would simply speak the truth." [Footnote: +Thuc. i. 70.--Translated by Jowett.] + +The qualities here set forth by Thucydides as characteristic of the +Athenians, were partly the cause and partly the effect of their +political constitution. The history of Athens, indeed, is the very +antithesis to that of Sparta. In place of a type fixed at a stroke and +enduring for centuries, she presents a series of transitions through the +whole range of polities, to end at last in a democracy so extreme that +it refuses to be included within the limits of the general formula of +the Greek state. + +Seldom, indeed, has "equality" been pushed to so extreme a point as it +was, politically at least, in ancient Athens. The class of slaves, it is +true, existed there as in every other state; but among the free +citizens, who included persons of every rank, no political distinction +at all was drawn. All of them, from the lowest to the highest, had the +right to speak and vote in the great assembly of the people which was +the ultimate authority; all were eligible to every administrative post; +all sat in turn as jurors in the law-courts. The disabilities of poverty +were minimised by payment for attendance in the assembly and the courts. +And, what is more extraordinary, even distinctions of ability were +levelled by the practice of filling all offices, except the highest, by +lot. + +Had the citizens been a class apart, as was the case in Sparta, had they +been subjected from the cradle to a similar discipline and training, +forbidden to engage in any trade or business, and consecrated to the +service of the state, there would have been nothing surprising in this +uncompromising assertion of equality. But in Athens the citizenship was +extended to every rank and calling; the poor man jostled the rich, the +shopman the aristocrat, in the Assembly; cobblers, carpenters, smiths, +farmers, merchants, and retail traders met together with the ancient +landed gentry, to debate and conclude on national affairs; and it was +from such varied elements as these that the lot impartially chose the +officials of the law, the revenue, the police, the highways, the +markets, and the ports, as well as the jurors at whose mercy stood +reputation, fortune, and life. The consequence was that in Athens, at +least in the later period of her history, the middle and lower classes +tended to monopolise political power. Of the popular leaders, Cleon, the +most notorious, was a tanner; another was a baker, another a cattle- +dealer. Influence belonged to those who had the gift of leading the +mass; and in that competition the man of tongue, of energy, and of +resource, was more than a match for the aristocrat of birth and +intellect. + +The constitution of Athens, then, was one of political equality imposed +upon social inequality. To illustrate the point we may quote a passage +from Aristophanes which shows at once the influence exercised by the +trading class and the disgust with which that influence was regarded by +the aristocracy whom the poet represents. The passage is taken from the +"Knights," a comedy written to discredit Cleon, and turning upon the +expulsion of the notorious tanner from the good graces of Demos, by the +superior impudence and address of a sausage-seller. Demosthenes, a +general of the aristocratic party, is communicating to the latter the +destiny that awaits him. + + DEMOSTHENES (_to the_ SAUSAGE-SELLER _gravely_). + Set these poor wares aside; and now--bow down + To the ground; and adore the powers of earth and heaven. + + S.-S. Heigh-day! Why, what do you mean? + + DEM. O happy man! + Unconscious of your glorious destiny, + Now mean and unregarded; but to-morrow, + The mightiest of the mighty, Lord of Athens. + + S.-S. Come, master, what's the use of making game? + Why can't ye let me wash my guts and tripe, + And sell my sausages in peace and quiet? + + DEM. O simple mortal, cast those thoughts aside! + Bid guts and tripe farewell! Look here! Behold! + (_pointing to the audience_) + The mighty assembled multitude before ye! + + S.-S. (_with a grumble of indifference_). + I see 'em. + + DEM. You shall be their lord and master, + The sovereign and the ruler of them all, + Of the assemblies and tribunals, fleets and armies; + You shall trample down the Senate under foot, + Confound and crush the generals and commanders, + Arrest, imprison, and confine in irons, + And feast and fornicate in the Council House. + + S.-S. Are there any means of making a great man + Of a sausage-selling fellow such as I? + + DEM. The very means you have, must make ye so, + Low breeding, vulgar birth, and impudence, + These, these must make ye, what you're meant to be. + + S.-S. I can't imagine that I'm good for much. + + DEM. Alas! But why do ye say so? What's the meaning + Of these misgivings? I discern within ye + A promise and an inward consciousness + Of greatness. Tell me truly: are ye allied + To the families of gentry? + + S.-S. Naugh, not I; + I'm come from a common ordinary kindred, + Of the lower order. + + DEM. What a happiness! + What a footing will it give ye! What a groundwork + For confidence and favour at your outset! + + S.-S. But bless ye! only consider my education! + I can but barely read.... in a kind of way. + + DEM. That makes against ye!--the only thing against ye-- + The being able to read, in any way: + For now no lead nor influence is allowed + To liberal arts or learned education, + But to the brutal, base, and underbred. + Embrace then and hold fast the promises + Which the oracles of the gods announce to you. + [Footnote: Aristoph. Knights. 155.--Translation by Frere.] + +We have here an illustration, one among many that might be given, of the +political equality that prevailed in Athens. It shows us how completely +that distinction between the military or governing, and the productive +class, which belonged to the normal Greek conception of the state, had +been broken down, on the side at least of privilege and right, though +not on that of social estimation, in this most democratic of the ancient +states. Politically, the Athenian trader and the Athenian artisan was +the equal of the aristocrat of purest blood; and so far the government +of Athens was a genuine democracy. + +But so far only. For in Athens, as in every Greek state, the greater +part of the population was unfree; and the government which was a +democracy from the point of view of the freeman, was an oligarchy from +the point of view of the slave. For the slaves, by the nature of their +position, had no political rights; and they were more than half of the +population. It is noticeable, however, that the freedom and +individuality which was characteristic of the Athenian citizen, appears +to have reacted favourably on the position of the slaves. Not only had +they, to a certain extent, the protection of the law against the worst +excesses of their masters, but they were allowed a license of bearing +and costume which would not have been tolerated in any other state. A +contemporary writer notes that in dress and general appearance Athenian +slaves were not to be distinguished from citizens; that they were +permitted perfect freedom of speech; and that it was open to them to +acquire a fortune and to live in ease and luxury. In Sparta, he says, +the slave stands in fear of the freeman, but in Athens this is not the +case; and certainly the bearing of the slaves introduced into the +Athenian comedy does not indicate any undue subservience. Slavery at the +best is an undemocratic institution; but in Athens it appears to have +been made as democratic as its nature would admit. + +We find then, in the Athenian state, the conception of equality pushed +to the farthest extreme at all compatible with Greek ideas; pushed, we +may fairly say, at last to an undue excess; for the great days of Athens +were those when she was still under the influence of her aristocracy, +and when the popular zeal evoked by her free institutions was directed +by members of the leisured and cultivated class. The most glorious age +of Athenian history closes with the death of Pericles; and Pericles was +a man of noble family, freely chosen, year after year, by virtue of his +personal qualities, to exercise over this democratic nation a +dictatorship of character and brain. It is into his mouth that +Thucydides has put that great panegyric of Athens, which sets forth to +all time the type of an ideal state and the record of what was at least +partially achieved in the greatest of the Greek cities: + +"Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the +institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbours, but are an +example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the +administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while +the law secures equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, +the claim of excellence is also recognised; and when a citizen is in any +way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a +matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty a +bar, but a man may benefit his country whatever be the obscurity of his +condition. There is no exclusiveness in our public life, and in our +private intercourse we are not suspicious of one another, nor angry with +our neighbour if he does what he likes; we do not put on sour looks at +him, which, though harmless, are not pleasant. While we are thus +unconstrained in our private intercourse, a spirit of reverence pervades +our public acts; we are prevented from doing wrong by respect for +authority and for the laws, having an especial regard for those which +are ordained for the protection of the injured, as well as for those +unwritten laws which bring upon the transgressor of them the reprobation +of the general sentiment. + +"And we have not forgotten to provide for our weary spirits many +relaxations from toil; we have regular games and sacrifices throughout +the year; at home the style of our life is refined; and the delight +which we daily feel in all these things helps to banish melancholy. +Because of the greatness of our city the fruits of the whole earth flow +in upon us, so that we enjoy the goods of other countries as freely as +of our own. + +"Then again, our military training is in many respects superior to that +of our adversaries. Our city is thrown open to the world, and we never +expel a foreigner or prevent him from seeing or learning anything of +which the secret if revealed to an enemy might profit him. We rely not +upon management and trickery, but upon our own hearts and hands. And in +the matter of education, whereas they from early youth are always +undergoing laborious exercises which are to make them brave, we live at +ease, and yet are ready to face the perils which they face. + +"If then we prefer to meet danger with a light heart but without +laborious training, and with a courage which is gained by habit and not +enforced by law, are we not greatly the gainers? Since we do not +anticipate the pain, although when the hour comes, we can be as brave as +those who never allow themselves to rest; and thus too our city is +equally admirable in peace and in war. For we are lovers of the +beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the mind without +loss of manliness. + +"Wealth we employ, not for talk and ostentation, but when there is a real +use for it. To avow poverty with us is no disgrace; the true disgrace is +in doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not neglect the +state because he takes care of his own household; and even those of us +who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone +regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as a harmless, +but as a useless character; and if few of us are originators, we are all +sound judges of a policy. The great impediment to action is, in our +opinion, not discussion but the want of that knowledge which is gained +by discussion preparatory to action. For we have a peculiar power of +thinking before we act, and of acting too, whereas other men are +courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection. And they are +surely to be esteemed the bravest spirits who have the clearest sense +both of the pains and pleasures of life, but do not on that account +shrink from danger. + +"To sum up, I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the +individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of +adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost +versatility and grace. This is no passing and idle word, but truth and +fact; and the assertion is verified by the position to which these +qualities have raised the state. For in the hour of trial Athens alone +among her contemporaries is superior to the report of her. No enemy who +comes against her is indignant at the reverses which he sustains at the +hands of such a city; no subject complains that his masters are unworthy +of him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are +mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and +of succeeding ages: we shall not need the praises of Homer or of any +other panegyrist, whose poetry may please for the moment, although his +representation of the facts will not bear the light of day. For we have +compelled every land, every sea, to open a path for our valour, and have +everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our +enmity." [Footnote: Thuc. ii. 37.--Translated by Jowett.] + +An impression so superb as this it is almost a pity to mar with the +inevitable complement of disaster and decay. But our account of the +Athenian polity would be misleading and incomplete if we did not +indicate how the idea of equality, on which it turned, defeated itself, +as did, in Sparta, the complementary idea of order, by the excesses of +its own development. Already before the close of the fifth century, and +with reiterated emphasis in the earlier decades of the fourth, we hear +from poets and orators praise of a glorious past that is dead, and +denunciations of a decadent present. The ancient training in gymnastics, +we are told, the ancient and generous culture of mind and soul, is +neglected and despised by a generation of traders; reverence for age and +authority, even for law, has disappeared; and in the train of these have +gone the virtues they engendered and nurtured. Cowardice has succeeded +to courage, disorder to discipline; the place of the statesman is +usurped by the demagogue; and instead of a nation of heroes, marshalled +under the supremacy of the wise and good, modern Athens presents to view +a disordered and competitive mob, bent only on turning each to his own +personal advantage the now corrupt machinery of administration and law. + +And however much exaggeration there may be in these denunciations and +regrets, we know enough of the interior working of the institutions of +Athens to see that she had to pay in licence and in fraud the bitter +price of equality and freedom. That to the influence of disinterested +statesmen succeeded, as the democracy accentuated itself, the tyranny of +unscrupulous demagogues, is evidenced by the testimony, not only of the +enemies of popular government, but by that of a democrat so convinced as +Demosthenes. "Since these orators have appeared," he says, "who ask, +What is your pleasure? what shall I move? how can I oblige you? the +public welfare is complimented away for a moment's popularity, and these +are the results; the orators thrive, you are disgraced.... Anciently the +people, having the courage to be soldiers, controlled the statesmen, and +disposed of all emoluments; any of the rest were happy to receive from +the people his share of honour, office, or advantage. Now, contrariwise, +the statesmen dispose of emoluments; through them everything is done; +you, the people, enervated, stripped of treasure and allies, are become +as underlings and hangers-on, happy if these persons dole you out show- +money or send you paltry beeves; and, the unmanliest part of all, you +are grateful for receiving your own." [Footnote: Dem. 01. iii.-- +Translation by Kennedy.] + +And this indictment is amply confirmed from other sources. We know that +the populace was demoralised by payments from the public purse; that the +fee for attendance in the Assembly attracted thither, as ready +instruments in the hands of ambitious men, the poorest and most degraded +of the citizens; that the fees of jurors were the chief means of +subsistence for an indigent class, who had thus a direct interest in the +multiplication of suits; and that the city was infested by a race of +"sycophants", whose profession was to manufacture frivolous and +vexatious indictments. Of one of these men Demosthenes speaks as +follows: + +"He cannot show any respectable or honest employment in which his life +is engaged. His mind is not occupied in promoting any political good; he +attends not to any trade, or husbandry, or other business; he is +connected with no one by ties of humanity or social union: but he walks +through the market-place like a viper or a scorpion, with his sting up- +lifted, hastening here and there, and looking out for someone whom he +may bring into a scrape, or fasten some calumny or mischief upon, and +put in alarm in order to extort money." [Footnote: Demosth. in +Aristogeit. A. 62.--Translated by C. R. Kennedy.] + +From all this we may gather an idea of the way in which the Athenian +democracy by its own development destroyed itself. Beginning, on its +first emergence from an earlier aristocratic phase, with an energy that +inspired without shattering the forms of discipline and law, it +dissolved by degrees this coherent whole into an anarchy of individual +wills, drawn deeper and deeper, in pursuit of mean and egoistic ends, +into political fraud and commercial chicanery, till the tradition of the +gentleman and the soldier was choked by the dust of adventurers and +swindlers, and the people, whose fathers had fought and prevailed at +Marathon and Salamis, fell as they deserved, by treachery from within as +much as by force from without, into the grasp of the Macedonian +conqueror. + + +Section 11. Sceptical Criticism of the Basis of the State. + +Having thus supplemented our general account of the Greek conception of +the state by a description of their two most prominent polities, it +remains for us in conclusion briefly to trace the negative criticism +under whose attack that conception threatened to dissolve. + +We have quoted, in an earlier part of this chapter, a striking passage +from Demosthenes, embodying that view of the objective validity of law +under which alone political institutions can be secure. "That is law," +said the orator, "which all men ought to obey for many reasons, and +especially because every law is an invention and gift of the gods, a +resolution of wise men, a correction of errors intentional and +unintentional, a compact of the whole state, according to which all who +belong to the state ought to live." That is the conception of law which +the citizens of any stable state must be prepared substantially to +accept, for it is the condition of that fundamental belief in +established institutions which alone can make it worth while to adapt +and to improve them. It was, accordingly, the conception tacitly, at +least, accepted in Greece, during the period of her constructive vigour. +But it is a conception constantly open to attack. For law, at any given +moment, even under the most favourable conditions, cannot do more than +approximate to its own ideal. It is, at best, but a rough attempt at +that reconciliation of conflicting interests towards which the reason of +mankind is always seeking; and even in well-ordered states there must +always be individuals and classes who resent, and rightly resent it, as +unjust. But the Greek states, as we have seen, were not well-ordered; on +the contrary, they were always on the verge, or in the act, of civil +war; and the conception of law, as "a compact of the whole state, +according to which all who belong to the state ought to live," must have +been, at the least, severely tried, in cities permanently divided into +two factions, each intent not merely on defeating the other, but on +excluding it altogether from political rights. Such conditions, in fact, +must have irresistibly suggested the criticism, which always dogs the +idea of the state, and against which its only defence is in a perpetual +perfection of itself--the criticism that law, after all, is only the +rule of the strong, and justice the name under which they gloze their +usurpation. That is a point of view which, even apart from their +political dissensions, would hardly have escaped the subtle intellect of +the Greeks; and in fact, from the close of the fifth century onwards, we +find it constantly canvassed and discussed. + +The mind of Plato, in particular, was exercised by this contention; and +it was, one may say, a main object of his teaching to rescue the idea of +justice from identification with the special interest of the strong, and +re-affirm it as the general interest of all. For this end, he takes +occasion to state, with the utmost frankness and lucidity, the view +which it is his intention to refute; and consequently it is in his works +that we find the fullest exposition of the destructive argument he seeks +to answer. + +Briefly, that argument runs as follows:--It is the law of nature that +the strong shall rule; a law which every one recognises in fact, though +every one repudiates it in theory. Government therefore simply means the +rule of the strong, and exists, no matter what its form, whether +tyranny, oligarchy, or democracy, in the interests not of its subjects +but of itself. "Justice" and "Law" are the specious names it employs to +cloak its own arbitrary will; they have no objective validity, no +reference to the well-being of all; and it is only the weak and the +foolish on whom they impose. Strong and original natures sweep away this +tangle of words, assert themselves in defiance of false shame, and claim +the right divine that is theirs by nature, to rule at their will by +virtue of their strength. "Each government," says Thrasymachus in the +Republic, "has its laws framed to suit its own interests; a democracy +making democratic laws; an autocrat despotic laws, and so on. Now by +this procedure these governments have pronounced that what is for the +interest of themselves is just for their subjects; and whoever deviates +from this, is chastised by them as guilty of illegality and injustice. +Therefore, my good sir, my meaning is, that in all cities the same +thing, namely, the interest of the established government is just. And +superior strength, I presume, is to be found on the side of government. +So that the conclusion of right reasoning is, that the same thing, +namely, the interest of the stronger, is everywhere just." [Footnote: +Plato, Rep. 338.--Translated by Davies and Vaughan.] + +Here is an argument which strikes at the root of all subordination to +the state, setting the subject against the ruler, the minority against +the majority, with an emphasis of opposition that admits of no +conceivable reconciliation. And, as we have noticed, it was an argument +to which the actual political conditions of Greece gave a strong show of +plausibility. + +How then did the constructive thinkers of Greece attempt to meet it? + +The procedure adopted by Plato is curiously opposed to that which might +seem natural to a modern thinker on politics. The scepticism which was +to be met, having sprung from the extremity of class-antagonism, it +might be supposed that the cure would be sought in some sort of system +of equality. Plato's idea is precisely the contrary. The distinction +between classes he exaggerates to its highest point; only he would have +it depend on degrees, not of wealth, but of excellence. In the ideal +republic which he constructs as a type of a state where justice should +really rule, he sets an impassable gulf between the governing class and +the governed; each is specially trained and specially bred for its +appropriate function; and the harmony between them is ensured by the +recognition, on either part, that each is in occupation of the place for +which it is naturally fitted in that whole to which both alike are +subordinate. Such a state, no doubt, if ever it had been realised in +practice, would have been a complete reply to the sceptical argument; +for it would have established a "justice" which was the expression not +of the caprice of the governing class, but of the objective will of the +whole community. But in practice such a state was not realised in +Greece; and the experience of the Greek world does not lead us to +suppose that it was capable of realisation. The system of stereotyping +classes--in a word, of caste--which has played so great a part in the +history of the world, does no doubt embody a great truth, that of +natural inequality; and this truth, as we saw, was at the bottom of that +Greek conception of the state, of which the "Republic" of Plato is an +idealising caricature. But the problem is to make the inequality of +nature really correspond to the inequality imposed by institutions. This +problem Plato hoped to solve by a strict public control of the marriage +relation, so that none should be born into any class who were not +naturally fitted to be members of it; but as a matter of fact the +difficulty has never been met; and the system of caste remains open to +the reproach that its "justice" is conventional and arbitrary, not the +expression of the objective nature and will of all classes and members +of the community. + +The attempt of Aristotle to construct a state that should be the +embodiment of justice is similar to Plato's so far as the relation of +classes is concerned. He, too, postulates a governing class of soldiers +and councillors, and a subject class of productive labourers. When, +however, he turns from the ideal to practical politics, and considers +merely how to avoid the worst extremes of party antagonism, his solution +is the simple and familiar one of the preponderance of the middle class. +The same view was dominant both in French and English politics from the +year 1830 onwards, and is only now being thrust aside by the democratic +ideal. In Greece it was never realised except as a passing phase in the +perpetual flux of polities. And in fine it may be said that the problem +of establishing a state which should be a concrete refutation of the +sceptical criticism that "justice" is merely another name for force, was +one that was never solved in ancient Greece. The dissolution of the idea +of the state was more a symptom than a cause of its failure in practice +to harmonise its warring elements. And Greece, divided into conflicting +polities, each of which again was divided within itself, passed on to +Macedon and thence to Rome that task of reconciling the individual and +the class with the whole, about which the political history of the world +turns. + + +Section 12. Summary. + +We have now given some account of the general character of the Greek +state, the ideas that underlay it, and the criticism of those ideas +suggested by the course of history and formulated by speculative +thought. It remains to offer certain reflections on the political +achievement of the Greeks, and its relation to our own ideas. + +The fruitful and positive aspect of the Greek state, that which fastens +upon it the eyes of later generations as upon a model, if not to be +copied, as least to be praised and admired, is that identification of +the individual citizen with the corporate life, which delivered him from +the narrow circle of personal interests into a sphere of wider views and +higher aims. The Greek citizen, as we have seen, in the best days of the +best states, in Athens for example in the age of Pericles, was at once a +soldier and a politician; body and mind alike were at his country's +service; and his whole ideal of conduct was inextricably bound up with +his intimate and personal participation in public affairs. If now with +this ideal we contrast the life of an average citizen in a modern state, +the absorption in private business and family concerns, the "greasy +domesticity" (to use a phrase of Byron's), that limits and clouds his +vision of the world, we may well feel that the Greeks had achieved +something which we have lost, and may even desire to return, so far as +we may, upon our steps, and to re-establish that interpenetration of +private and public life by which the individual citizen was at once +depressed and glorified. + +It may be doubted, however, whether such a procedure would be in any way +possible or desirable. For in the first place, the existence of the +Greek citizen depended upon that of an inferior class who were regarded +not as ends in themselves, but as means to his perfection. And that is +an arrangement which runs directly counter to the modern ideal. All +modern societies aim, to this extent at least, at equality, that their +tendency, so far as it is conscious and avowed, is not to separate off a +privileged class of citizens, set free by the labour of others to live +the perfect life, but rather to distribute impartially to all the +burdens and advantages of the state, so that every one shall be at once +a labourer for himself and a citizen of the state. But this ideal is +clearly incompatible with the Greek conception of the citizen. It +implies that the greater portion of every man's life must be devoted to +some kind of mechanical labour, whose immediate connection with the +public good, though certain, is remote and obscure; and that in +consequence a deliberate and unceasing preoccupation with the end of the +state becomes as a general rule impossible. + +And, in the second place, the mere complexity and size of a modern state +is against the identification of the man with the citizen. For, on the +one hand, public issues are so large and so involved that it is only a +few who can hope to have any adequate comprehension of them; and on the +other, the subdivision of functions is so minute that even when a man is +directly employed in the service of the state his activity is confined +to some highly specialised department. He must choose, for example, +whether he will be a clerk in the treasury or a soldier; but he cannot +certainly be both. In the Greek state any citizen could undertake, +simultaneously or in succession, and with complete comprehension and +mastery, every one of the comparatively few and simple public offices; +in a modern state such an arrangement has become impossible. The mere +mechanical and physical conditions of our life preclude the ideal of the +ancient citizen. + +But, it may be said, the activity of the citizen of a modern state +should be and increasingly will be concerned not with the whole but with +the part. By the development of local institutions he will come, more +and more, to identify himself with the public life of his district and +his town; and will bear to that much the same relation as was borne by +the ancient Greek to his city state. Certainly so far as the limitation +of area, and the simplicity and intelligibility of issues is concerned, +such an analogy might be fairly pressed; and it is probably in +connection with such local areas that the average citizen does and +increasingly will become aware of his corporate relations. But, on the +other hand, it can hardly be maintained that public business in this +restricted sense either could or should play the part in the life of the +modern man that it played in that of the ancient Greek. For local +business after all is a matter of sewers and parks; and however great +the importance of such matters may be, and however great their claim +upon the attention of competent men, yet the kind of interest they +awaken and the kind of faculties they employ can hardly be such as to +lead to the identification of the individual ideal with that of public +activity. The life of the Greek citizen involved an exercise, the finest +and most complete, of all his powers of body, soul, and mind; the same +can hardly be said of the life of a county councillor, even of the best +and most conscientious of them. And the conclusion appears to be, that +that fusion of public and private life which was involved in the ideal +of the Greek citizen, was a passing phase in the history of the world; +that the state can never occupy again the place in relation to the +individual which it held in the cities of the ancient world; and that an +attempt to identify in a modern state the ideal of the man with that of +the citizen, would be an historical anachronism. + +Nor is this a conclusion which need be regretted. For as the sphere of +the state shrinks, it is possible that that of the individual may be +enlarged. The public side of human life, it may be supposed, will become +more and more mechanical, as our understanding and control of social +forces grow. But every reduction to habit and rule of what were once +spiritual functions, implies the liberation of the higher powers for a +possible activity in other regions. And if advantage were taken of this +opportunity, the inestimable compensation for the contraction to routine +of the life of the citizen would be the expansion into new spheres of +speculation and passion of the freer and more individual life of the +man. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GREEK VIEW OF THE INDIVIDUAL + + +Section 1. The Greek View of Manual Labour and Trade. + +In our discussion of the Greek view of the State we noticed the tendency +both of the theory and the practice of the Greeks to separate the +citizens proper from the rest of the community as a distinct and +aristocratic class. And this tendency, we had occasion to observe, was +partly to be attributed to the high conception which the Greeks had +formed of the proper excellence of man, an excellence which it was the +function of the citizen to realise in his own person, at the cost, if +need be, of the other members of the State. This Greek conception of the +proper excellence of man it is now our purpose to examine more closely. +The chief point that strikes us about the Greek ideal is its +comprehensiveness. Our own word "virtue" is applied only to moral +qualities; but the Greek word which we so translate should properly be +rendered "excellence," and includes a reference to the body as well as +to the soul. A beautiful soul, housed in a beautiful body, and supplied +with all the external advantages necessary to produce and perpetuate +such a combination--that is the Greek conception of well-being; and it +is because labour with the hands or at the desk distorts or impairs the +body, and the petty cares of a calling pursued for bread pervert the +soul, that so strong a contempt was felt by the Greeks for manual labour +and trade. "The arts that are called mechanical," says Xenophon, "are +also, and naturally enough, held in bad repute in our cities. For they +spoil the bodies of workers and superintendents alike, compelling them +to live sedentary indoor lives, and in some cases even to pass their +days by the fire. And as their bodies become effeminate, so do their +souls also grow less robust. Besides this, in such trades one has no +leisure to devote to the care of one's friends or of one's city. So that +those who engage in them are thought to be bad backers of their friends +and bad defenders of their country." [Footnote: Xen. Oec. iv. 3.] + +In a similar spirit Plato asserts that a life of drudgery disfigures the +body and mars and enervates the soul; [Footnote: Plato, Rep. 495.] while +Aristotle defines a mechanical trade as one which "renders the body and +soul or intellect of free persons unfit for the exercise and practice of +virtue;" [Footnote: Arist. Pol. V. 1337 b 8.--Translated by Welldon.] +and denies to the artisan not merely the proper excellence of man, but +any excellence of any kind, on the plea that his occupation and status +is unnatural, and that he misses even that reflex of human virtue which +a slave derives from his intimate connection with his master. [Footnote: +Ibid. i. 1260 a 34.] + +If then the artisan was excluded from the citizenship in some of the +Greek states, and even in the most democratic of them never altogether +threw off the stigma of inferiority attaching to his trade, the reason +was that the life he was compelled to lead was incompatible with the +Greek conception of excellence. That conception we will now proceed to +examine a little more in detail. + + +Section 2. Appreciation of External Goods. + +In the first place, the Greek ideal required for its realisation a solid +basis of external Goods. It recognised frankly the dependence of man +upon the world of sense, and the contribution to his happiness of +elements over which he had at best but a partial control. Not that it +placed his Good outside himself, in riches, power, and other such +appendages; but that it postulated certain gifts of fortune as necessary +means to his self-development. Of these the chief were, a competence, to +secure him against sordid cares, health, to ensure his physical +excellence, and children, to support and protect him in old age. +Aristotle's definition of the happy man is "one whose activity accords +with perfect virtue and who is adequately furnished with external goods, +not for a casual period of time but for a complete or perfect life- +time;" [Footnote: Arist. Ethics. I. ii. 1101 a 14.--Translated by +Welldon.] and he remarks, somewhat caustically, that those who say that +a man on the rack would be happy if only he were good, intentionally or +unintentionally are talking nonsense. That here, as elsewhere, Aristotle +represents the common Greek view we have abundant testimony from other +sources. Even Plato, in whom there runs so clear a vein of asceticism, +follows the popular judgment in reckoning high among goods, first, +health, then beauty, then skill and strength in physical exercises, and +lastly wealth, if it be not blind but illumined by the eye of reason. To +these Goods must be added, to complete the scale, success and +reputation, topics which are the constant theme of the poets' eulogy. +"Two things alone there are," says Pindar, "that cherish life's bloom to +its utmost sweetness amidst the fair flowers of wealth--to have good +success and to win therefore fair fame;" [Footnote: Pind. Isth. iv. 14.-- +Translated by E. Myers.] and the passage represents his habitual +attitude. That the gifts of fortune, both personal and external, are an +essential condition of excellence, is an axiom of the point of view of +the Greeks. But on the other hand we never find them misled into the +conception that such gifts are an end in themselves, apart from the +personal qualities they are meant to support or adorn. The oriental +ideal of unlimited wealth and power, enjoyed merely for its own sake, +never appealed to their fine and lucid judgment. Nothing could better +illustrate this point than the anecdote related by Herodotus of the +interview between Solon and Croesus, King of Lydia. Croesus, proud of +his boundless wealth, asks the Greek stranger who is the happiest man on +earth? expecting to hear in reply his own name. Solon, however, answers +with the name of Tellus, the Athenian, giving his reasons in the +following speech: + +"First, because his country was flourishing in his days, and he himself +had sons both beautiful and good, and he lived to see children born to +each of them, and these children all grew up; and further because, after +a life spent in what our people look upon as comfort, his end was +surpassingly glorious. In a battle between the Athenians and their +neighbours near Eleusis, he came to the assistance of his countrymen, +routed the foe, and died upon the field most gallantly. The Athenians +gave him a public funeral on the spot where he fell, and paid him the +highest honours." + +Later on in the discussion Solon defines the happy man as he who "Is +whole of limb, a stranger to disease, free from misfortune, happy in his +children, and comely to look upon," and who also ends his life well. +[Footnote: Herodotus, i. 30. 32.--Translated by Rawlinson] + + +Section 3. Appreciation of Physical Qualities. + +While, however, the gifts of a happy fortune are an essential condition +of the Greek ideal, they are not to be mistaken for the ideal itself. "A +beautiful soul in a beautiful body," to recur to our former phrase, is +the real end and aim of their endeavour. "Beautiful and good" is their +habitual way of describing what we should call a gentleman; and no +expression could better represent what they admired. With ourselves, in +spite of our addiction to athletics, the body takes a secondary place; +after a certain age, at least, there are few men who make its systematic +cultivation an important factor of their life; and in our estimate of +merit physical qualities are accorded either none or the very smallest +weight. It was otherwise with the Greeks; to them a good body was the +necessary correlative of a good soul. Balance was what they aimed at, +balance and harmony; and they could scarcely believe in the beauty of +the spirit, unless it were reflected in the beauty of the flesh. The +point is well put by Plato, the most spiritually minded of the Greeks, +and the least apt to underprize the qualities of the soul. + +"Surely then," he says, "to him who has an eye to see, there can be no +fairer spectacle than that of a man who combines the possession of moral +beauty in his soul with outward beauty of form, corresponding and +harmonizing with the former, because the same great pattern enters into +both. + +"There can be none so fair. + +"And you will grant that what is fairest is loveliest? + +"Undoubtedly it is. + +"Then the truly musical person will love those who combine most +perfectly moral and physical beauty, but will not love any one in whom +there is dissonance. + +"No, not if there be any defect in the soul, but if it is only a bodily +blemish, he may so bear with it as to be willing to regard it with +complacency. + +"I understand that you have now, or have had, a favourite of this kind; +so I give way." [Footnote: Plato, Rep. 402.--Translated by Davies and +Vaughan.] + +The reluctance of the admission that a physical defect may possibly be +overlooked is as significant as the rest of the passage. Body and soul, +it is clear, are regarded as aspects of a single whole, so that a +blemish in the one indicates and involves a blemish in the other. The +training of the body is thus, in a sense, the training of the soul, and +gymnastic and music, as Plato puts it, serve the same end, the +production of a harmonious temperament. + + +Section 4. Greek Athletics. + +It is this conception which gives, or appears at least in the retrospect +to give, a character so gracious and fine to Greek athletics. In fact, +if we look more closely into the character of the public games in Greece +we see that they were so surrounded and transfused by an atmosphere of +imagination that their appeal must have been as much to the aesthetic as +to the physical sense. For in the first place those great gymnastic +contests in which all Hellas took part, and which gave the tone to their +whole athletic life, were primarily religious festivals. The Olympic and +Nemean Games were held in honour of Zeus, the Pythian, of Apollo, the +Isthmean, of Poseidon. In the enclosures in which they took place stood +temples of the gods; and sacrifice, prayer, and choral hymn were the +back-ground against which they were set. And since in Greece religion +implied art, in the wake of the athlete followed the sculptor and the +poet. The colossal Zeus of Pheidias, the wonder of the ancient world, +flashed from the precincts of Olympia its glory of ivory and gold; +temples and statues broke the brilliant light into colour and form; and +under that vibrating heaven of beauty, the loveliest nature crowned with +the finest art, shifted and shone what was in itself a perfect type of +both, the grace of harmonious motion in naked youths and men. For in +Greek athletics, by virtue of the practice of contending nude, the +contest itself became a work of art; and not only did sculptors draw +from it an inspiration such as has been felt by no later age, but to the +combatants themselves, and the spectators, the plastic beauty of the +human form grew to be more than its prowess or its strength, and +gymnastic became a training in aesthetics as much as, or more than, in +physical excellence. + +And as with the contest, so with the reward, everything was designed to +appeal to the sensuous imagination. The prize formally adjudged was +symbolical only, a crown of olive; but the real triumph of the victor +was the ode in which his praise was sung, the procession of happy +comrades, and the evening festival, when, as Pindar has it, "the lovely +shining of the fair-faced moon beamed forth, and all the precinct +sounded with songs of festal glee," [Footnote: Pindar, Ol. xi. 90.-- +Translated by Myers] or "beside Kastaly in the evening his name burnt +bright, when the glad sounds of the Graces rose." [Footnote: Pindar, +Nem. 6. 65.] + +Of the Graces! for these were the powers who presided over the world of +Greek athletics. Here, for example, is the opening of one of Pindar's +odes, typical of the spirit in which he at least conceived the functions +of the chronicler of sport: + +"O ye who haunt the land of goodly steeds that drinketh of Kephisos' +waters, lusty Orchomenos' Queens renowned in song, O Graces, guardians +of the Minyai's ancient race, hearken, for unto you I pray. For by your +gift come unto men all pleasant things and sweet, and the wisdom of a +man and his beauty, and the splendour of his fame. Yea, even gods +without the Graces' aid rule never at feast or dance; but these have +charge of all things done in heaven, and beside Pythian Apollo of the +golden bow they have set their thrones, and worship the eternal majesty +of the Olympian Father. O lady Aglaia, and thou Euphrosyne, lover of +song, children of the mightiest of the gods, listen and hear, and thou +Thalia delighting in sweet sounds, and look down upon this triumphal +company, moving with light step under happy fate. In Lydian mood of +melody concerning Asopichos am I come hither to sing, for that through +thee, Aglaia, in the Olympic games the Minyai's home is winner." +[Footnote: Pindar, Ol. xiv.--Translated by Myers.] + +This is but a single passage among many that might be quoted to +illustrate the point we are endeavouring to bring into relief--the +conscious predominance in the Greek games of that element of poetry and +art which is either not present at all in modern sport or at best is a +happy accessory of chance. The modern man, and especially the +Englishman, addicts himself to athletics, as to other avocations, with a +certain stolidity of gaze on the immediate end which tends to confine +him to the purely physical view of his pursuit. The Greek, an artist by +nature, lifted his not less strenuous sports into an air of finer +sentiment, touched them with the poetry of legend and the grace of art +and song, and even to his most brutal contests--for brutal some of them +were--imparted so rich an atmosphere of beauty, that they could be +admitted as fit themes for dedication to the Graces by the choice and +spiritual genius of Pindar. + + +Section 5. Greek Ethics--Identification of the Aesthetic and Ethical +Points of View. + +And as with the excellence of the body, so with that of the soul, the +conception that dominated the mind of the Greeks was primarily +aesthetic. In speaking of their religion we have already remarked that +they had no sense of sin; and we may now add that they had no sense of +duty. Moral virtue they conceived not as obedience to an external law, a +sacrifice of the natural man to a power that in a sense is alien to +himself, but rather as the tempering into due proportion of the elements +of which human nature is composed. The good man was the man who was +beautiful--beautiful in soul. "Virtue," says Plato, "will be a kind of +health and beauty and good habit of the soul; and vice will be a disease +and deformity and sickness of it." [Footnote: Plato, Rep. 444,-- +Translated by Davies and Vaughan.] It follows that it is as natural to +seek virtue and to avoid vice as to seek health and to avoid disease. +There is no question of a struggle between opposite principles; the +distinction of good and evil is one of order or confusion, among +elements which in themselves are neither good nor bad. + +This conception of virtue we find expressed in many forms, but always +with the same underlying idea. A favourite watch-word with the Greeks is +the "middle" or "mean", the exact point of rightness between two +extremes. "Nothing in excess," was a motto inscribed over the temple of +Delphi; and none could be more characteristic of the ideal of these +lovers of proportion. Aristotle, indeed, has made it the basis of his +whole theory of ethics. In his conception, virtue is the mean, vice the +excess lying on either side--courage, for example, the mean between +foolhardiness and cowardice, temperance, between incontinence and +insensibility, generosity, between extravagance and meanness. The +various phases of feeling and the various kinds of action he analyses +minutely on this principle, understanding always by "the mean" that +which adapts itself in the due proportion to the circumstances and +requirements of every case. + +The interest of this view for us lies in its assumption that it is not +passions or desires in themselves that must be regarded as bad, but only +their disproportional or misdirected indulgence. Let us take, for +example, the case of the pleasures of sense. The puritan's rule is to +abjure them altogether; to him they are absolutely wrong in themselves, +apart from all considerations of time and place. Aristotle, on the +contrary, enjoins not renunciation but temperance; and defines the +temperate man as one who "holds a mean position in respect of pleasures. +He takes no pleasure in the things in which the licentious man takes +most pleasure; he rather dislikes them; nor does he take pleasure at all +in wrong things, nor an excessive pleasure in anything that is pleasant, +nor is he pained at the absence of such things, nor does he desire them, +except perhaps in moderation, nor does he desire them more than is +right, or at the wrong time, and so on. But he will be eager in a +moderate and right spirit for all such things as are pleasant and at the +same time conducive to health or to a sound bodily condition, and for +all other pleasures, so long as they are not prejudicial to these or +inconsistent with noble conduct or extravagant beyond his means. For +unless a person limits himself in this way, he affects such pleasures +more than is right, whereas the temperate man follows the guidance of +right reason." [Footnote: Arist. Ethics. III. 14.--1119 a 11.--Translated +by Welldon.] + +As another illustration of this point of view, we may take the case of +anger. The Christian rule is never to resent an injury, but rather, in +the New Testament phrase, to "turn the other cheek." Aristotle, while +blaming the man who is unduly passionate, blames equally the man who is +insensitive; the thing to aim at is to be angry "on the proper occasions +and with the proper people in the proper manner and for the proper +length of time." And in this and all other cases the definition of what +is proper must be left to the determination of "the sensible man." + +Thus, in place of a series of hard and fast rules, a rigid and +uncompromising distinction of acts and affections into good and bad, the +former to be absolutely chosen and the latter absolutely eschewed, +Aristotle presents us with the general type of a subtle and shifting +problem, the solution of which must be worked out afresh by each +individual in each particular case. Conduct to him is a free and living +creature, and not a machine controlled by fixed laws. Every life is a +work of art shaped by the man who lives it; according to the faculty of +the artist will be the quality of his work, and no general rules can +supply the place of his own direct perception at every turn. The Good is +the right proportion, the right manner and occasion; the Bad is all that +varies from this "right." But the elements of human nature in themselves +are neither good nor bad; they are merely the raw material out of which +the one or the other may be shaped. + +The idea thus formulated by Aristotle is typically Greek. In another +form it is the basis of the ethical philosophy of Plato, who habitually +regards virtue as a kind of "order." "The virtue of each thing," he +says, "whether body or soul, instrument or creature, when given to them +in the best way comes to them not by chance but as the result of the +order and truth and art which are imparted to them." [Footnote: Plato, +Gorgias, 506 d.--Translated by Jowett] And the conception here +indicated, is worked out in detail in his Republic. There, after +distinguishing in the soul three principles or powers, reason, passion, +and desire, he defines justice as the maintenance among them of their +proper mutual relation, each moving in its own place and doing its +appropriate work as is, or should be, the case with the different +classes in a state. + +"The just man will not permit the several principles within him to do +any work but their own, nor allow the distinct classes in his soul to +interfere with each other, but will really set his house in order; and +having gained the mastery over himself, will so regulate his own +character as to be on good terms with himself, and to set those three +principles in tune together, as if they were verily three chords of a +harmony, a higher and a lower and a middle, and whatever may lie between +these; and after he has bound all these together, and reduced the many +elements of his nature to a real unity, as a temperate and duly +harmonized man, he will then at length proceed to do whatever he may +have to do." [Footnote: Plato, Rep. IV. 443.--Translation by Davies and +Vaughan.] + +Plato, it is true, in other parts of his work, approaches more closely +to the dualistic conception of an absolute opposition between good and +bad principles in man. Yet even so, he never altogether abandons that +aesthetic point of view which looks to the establishment of order among +the conflicting principles rather than to the annihilation of one by the +other in an internecine conflict. The point may be illustrated by the +following passage, where the two horses represent respectively the +elements of fleshly desire and spiritual passion, while the charioteer +stands for the controlling reason; and where, it will be noticed, the +ultimate harmony is achieved, not by the complete eradication of desire, +but by its due subordination to the higher principle. Even Plato, the +most ascetic of the Greeks, is a Greek first and an ascetic afterwards. + +"Of the nature of the soul, though her true form be ever a theme of +large and more than mortal discourse, let me speak briefly, and in a +figure, and let the figure be composite--a pair of winged horses and a +charioteer. Now the winged horses and the charioteers of the gods are +all of them noble and of noble descent, but those of other races are +mixed; the human charioteer drives his in a pair; and one of them is +noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; +and the driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to +him.... The right hand horse is upright and cleanly made; he has a lofty +neck and an aquiline nose; his colour is white, and his eyes dark; he is +a lover of honour and modesty and temperance, and the follower of true +glory; he needs no touch of the whip, but is guided by word and +admonition only. The other is a crooked lumbering animal, put together +anyhow; he has a short thick neck; he is flat-faced and of a dark +colour, with grey eyes and blood-red complexion; the mate of insolence +and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur. Now +when the charioteer beholds the vision of love, and has his whole soul +warmed through sense, and is full of, the prickings and ticklings of +desire, the obedient steed, then as always under the government of +shame, refrains from leaping on the beloved; but the other, heedless of +the blows of the whip, plunges and runs away, giving all manner of +trouble to his companion and the charioteer, whom he forces to approach +the beloved and to remember the joys of love. They at first indignantly +oppose him and will not be urged on to do terrible and unlawful deeds; +but at last, when he persists in plaguing them, they yield and agree to +do as he bids them. And now they are at the spot and behold the flashing +beauty of the beloved; which when the charioteer sees, his memory is +carried to the true beauty whom he beholds in company with Modesty like +an image placed upon a holy pedestal He sees her, but he is afraid and +falls backwards in adoration, and by his fall is compelled to pull back +the reins with such violence as to bring both the steeds on their +haunches, the one willing and unresisting, the unruly one very +unwilling; and when they have gone back a little, the one is overcome +with shame and wonder, and his whole soul is bathed in perspiration; the +other, when the pain is over which the bridle and the fall had given +him, having with difficulty taken breath, is full of wrath and +reproaches, which he heaps upon the charioteer and his fellow-steed, for +want of courage and manhood, declaring that they have been false to +their agreement and guilty of desertion. Again they refuse, and again he +urges them on, and will scarce yield to their prayer that he would wait +until another time. When the appointed hour comes, they make as if they +had forgotten, and he reminds them, fighting and neighing and dragging +them on, until at length he on the same thoughts intent, forces them to +draw near again. And when they are near he stoops his head and puts up +his tail, and takes the bit in his teeth and pulls shamelessly. Then the +charioteer is worse off than ever; he falls back like a racer at the +barrier, and with a still more violent wrench drags the bit out of the +teeth of the wild steed and covers his abusive jaws and tongue with +blood, and forces his legs and haunches to the ground and punishes him +sorely. + +"And when this has happened several times and the villain has ceased +from his wanton way, he is tamed and humbled and follows the will of the +charioteer, and when he sees the beautiful one he is ready to die of +fear. And from that time forward the soul of the lover follows the +beloved in modesty and holy fear." [Footnote: Plato, Phaedrus. 246.-- +Translated by Jowett.] + +Even from this passage, in spite of its dualistic hypothesis, but far +more clearly from the whole tenor of his work, we may perceive that +Plato's description of virtue as an "order" of the soul is prompted by +the same conception, characteristically Greek, as Aristotle's account of +virtue as a "mean." The view, as we said at the beginning, is properly +aesthetic rather than moral. It regards life less as a battle between +two contending principles, in which victory means the annihilation of +the one, the altogether bad, by the other, the altogether good, than as +the maintenance of a balance between elements neutral in themselves but +capable, according as their relations are rightly ordered or the +reverse, of producing either that harmony which is called virtue, or +that discord which is called vice. + +Such being the conception of virtue characteristic of the Greeks, it +follows that the motive to pursue it can hardly have presented itself to +them in the form of what we call the "sense of duty." For duty +emphasises self-repression. Against the desires of man it sets a law of +prohibition, a law which is not conceived as that of his own complete +nature, asserting against a partial or disproportioned development the +balance and totality of the ideal, but rather as a rule imposed from +without by a power distinct from himself, for the mortification, not the +perfecting, of his natural impulses and aims. Duty emphasises self- +repression; the Greek view emphasised self-development. That "health and +beauty and good habit of the soul," which is Plato's ideal, is as much +its own recommendation tion to the natural man as is the health and +beauty of the body. Vice, on this view, is condemned because it is a +frustration of nature, virtue praised because it is her fulfilment; and +the motive throughout is simply that passion to realise oneself which is +commonly acknowledged as sufficient in the case of physical development, +and which appeared sufficient to the Greeks in the case of the +development of the soul. + + +Section 6. The Greek View of Pleasure. + +From all this it follows clearly enough that the Greek ideal was far +removed from asceticism; but it might perhaps be supposed, on the other +hand, that it came dangerously near to license. Nothing, however, could +be further from the case. That there were libertines among the Greeks, +as everywhere else, goes without saying; but the conception that the +Greek rule of life was to follow impulse and abandon restraint is a +figment of would-be "Hellenists" of our own time. The word which best +sums up the ideal of the Greeks is "temperance"; "the mean," "order," +"harmony," as we saw, are its characteristic expressions; and the self- +realisation to which they aspired was not an anarchy of passion, but an +ordered evolution of the natural faculties under the strict control of a +balanced mind. The point may be illustrated by a reference to the +treatment of pleasure in the philosophy of Plato and of Aristotle. + +The practice of the libertine is to identify pleasure and good in such a +manner that he pursues at any moment any pleasure that presents itself, +eschewing comparison and reflection, with all that might tend to check +that continuous flow of vivid and fresh sensations which he postulates +as the end of life. The ideal of the Greeks, on the contrary, as +interpreted by their two greatest thinkers, while on the one hand it is +so far opposed to asceticism that it requires pleasure as an essential +complement of Good, on the other, is so far from identifying the two, +that it recognises an ordered scale of pleasures, and while rejecting +altogether those at the lower end, admits the rest, not as in themselves +constituting the Good, but rather as harmless additions or at most as +necessary accompaniments of its operation. Plato, in the Republic, +distinguishes between the necessary and unnecessary pleasures, defining +the former as those derived from the gratification of appetites "which +we cannot get rid of and whose satisfaction does us good"--such, for +example, as the appetite for wholesome food; and the latter as those +which belong to appetites "which we can put away from us by early +training; and the presence of which, besides, never does us any good, +and in some cases does positive harm,"--such, for example, as the +appetite for delicate and luxurious dishes. [Footnote: Plato, Rep. VIII. +558.--Translated by Davies and Vaughan.] The former he would admit, the +latter he excludes from his ideal of happiness. And though in a later +dialogue, the Philebus, he goes further than this, and would exclude +from the perfect life all pleasures except those which he describes as +"pure," that is those which attend upon the contemplation of form and +colour and sound, or which accompany intellectual activity; yet here, no +doubt, he is passing beyond the sphere of the practicable ideal, and his +distinct personal bias towards asceticism must be discounted if we are +to take him as representative of the Greek view. His general contention, +however, that pleasures must be ranked as higher and as lower, and that +at the best they are not to be identified with the Good, is fully +accepted by so typical a Greek as Aristotle. Aristotle, however, is +careful not to condemn any pleasure that is not definitely harmful. Even +"unnecessary" pleasures, he admits, may be desirable in themselves; even +the deliberate creation of desire with a view to the enjoyment of +satisfying it may be admissible if it is not injurious. Still, there are +kinds of pleasures which ought not to be pursued, and occasions and +methods of seeking it which are improper and perverse. Therefore the +Reason must be always at hand to check and to control; and the ultimate +test of true worth in pleasure, as in everything else, is the trained +judgment of the good and sensible man. + + +Section 7. Illustrations--Ischomachus; Socrates. + +Such, then, was the character of the Greek conception of excellence. The +account we have given may seem somewhat abstract and ideal; but it gives +the general formula of the life which every cultivated Greek would at +any rate have wished to live. And in confirmation of this point we may +adduce the testimony of Xenophon, who has left us a description, +evidently drawn from life, of what he conceives to be the perfect type +of a "gentleman." + +The interest of the account lies in the fact, that Xenophon himself was +clearly an "average" Greek, one, that is to say, of good natural parts, +of perfectly normal faculties and tastes, undisturbed by any originality +of character or mind, and representing therefore, as we may fairly +assert, the ordinary views and aims of an upright and competent man of +the world. His description of the "gentleman," therefore, may be taken +as a representative account of the recognised ideal of all that class of +Athenian citizens. And this is how the gentleman in question, +Ischomachus, describes his course of life. + +"In the first place," he says, "I worship the gods. Next, I endeavour to +the best of my ability, assisted by prayer, to get health and strength +of body, reputation in the city, good will among my friends, honourable +security in battle and an honourable increase of fortune." + +At this point Socrates, who is supposed to be the interlocutor, +interrupts. "Do you really covet wealth," he asks, "with all the trouble +it involves?" "Certainly I do," is the reply, "for it enables me to +honour the gods magnificently, to help my friends if they are in want, +and to contribute to the resources of my country." + +Here definitely and precisely expressed is the ideal of the Athenian +gentleman--the beautiful body housing the beautiful soul, the external +aids of fortune, friends, and the like, and the realisation of the +individual self in public activity. Upon it follows an account of the +way in which Ischomachus was accustomed to pass his days. He rises +early, he tells us, to catch his friends before they go out, or walks to +the city to transact his necessary business. If he is not called into +town, he pays a visit to his farm, walking for the sake of exercise and +sending on his horse. On his arrival he gives directions about the +sowing, ploughing, or whatever it may be, and then mounting his horse +practices his military exercises. Finally he returns home on foot, +running part of the way, takes his bath, and sits down to a moderate +midday meal. + +This combination of physical exercise, military training and business, +arouses the enthusiasm of Socrates. "How right you are!" he cries, "and +the consequence is that you are as healthy and strong as we see you, and +one of the best riders and the wealthiest men in the country!" + +This little prosaic account of the daily life of an Athenian gentleman +is completely in harmony with all we have said about the character of +the Greek ideal; but it comprehends only a part, and that the least +spiritual, of that rich and many-sided excellence. It may be as well, +therefore, to append by way of complement the description of another +personality, exceptional indeed even among the Greeks, yet one which +only Greece could have produced--the personality of Socrates. No more +striking figure is presented to us in history, none has been more +vividly portrayed, and none, in spite of the originality of mind which +provoked the hostility of the crowd, is more thoroughly Hellenic in +every aspect, physical, intellectual, and moral. + +That Socrates was ugly in countenance was a defect which a Greek could +not fail to note, and his snub nose and big belly are matters of +frequent and jocose allusion. But apart from these defects his physique, +it appears, was exceptionally good; he was sedulous in his attendance at +the gymnasia, and was noted for his powers of endurance and his courage +and skill in war. Plato records it of him that in a hard winter on +campaign, when the common soldiers were muffling themselves in +sheepskins and felt against the cold, he alone went about in his +ordinary cloak, and barefoot over the ice and snow; and he further +describes his bearing in a retreat from a lost battle, how "there you +might see him, just as he is in the streets of Athens, stalking like a +pelican and rolling his eyes, calmly contemplating enemies as well as +friends, and making very intelligible to anybody, even from a distance, +that whoever attacked him would be likely to meet with a stout +resistance." [Footnote: Plato, Symp. 221 b.--Translated by Jowett.] + +To this efficiency of body corresponded, in accordance with the Greek +ideal, a perfect balance and harmony of soul. Plato, in a fine figure, +compares him to the wooden statues of Silenus, which concealed behind a +grotesque exterior beautiful golden images of the gods. Of these divine +forms none was fairer in Socrates than that typical Greek virtue, +temperance. Without a touch of asceticism, he knew how to be contented +with a little. His diet he measured strictly with a view to health. +Naturally abstemious, he could drink, when he chose, more than another +man; but no one had ever seen him drunk. His affections were strong and +deep, but never led him away to seek his own gratification at the cost +of those he loved. Without cutting himself off from any of the pleasures +of life, a social man and a frequent guest at feasts, he preserved +without an effort the supremacy of character and mind over the flesh he +neither starved nor pampered. Here is a description by Plato of his +bearing at the close of an all-night carouse, which may stand as a +concrete illustration not only of the character of Socrates, but of the +meaning of "temperance" as it was understood by the Greeks: + +"Aristodemus said that Eryximachus, Phaedrus, and others went away--he +himself fell asleep, and as the nights were long took a good rest: he +was awakened towards day-break by a crowing of cocks, and when he awoke +the others were either asleep, or had gone away; there remained awake +only Socrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon, who were drinking out of a +large goblet which they passed round, and Socrates was discoursing to +them. Aristodemus did not hear the beginning of the discourse, and he +was only half awake, but the chief thing which he remembered was +Socrates compelling the other two to acknowledge that the genius of +comedy was the same as that of tragedy, and that the true artist in +tragedy was an artist in comedy also. To this they assented, being +drowsy, and not quite following the argument. And first of all +Aristophanes dropped off, then, when the day was already dawning, +Agathon. Socrates, when he had laid them to sleep, rose to depart: +Aristodemus, as his manner was, following him. At the Lyceum he took a +bath, and passed the day as usual. In the evening he retired to rest at +his own house." [Footnote: Plato, Symposion, 223.--Translated by +Jowett.] + +With this quality of temperance was combined in Socrates a rare measure +of independence and moral courage. He was never an active politician; +but as every Athenian citizen was called, at some time or another, to +public office, he found himself, on a critical occasion, responsible for +putting a certain proposition to the vote in the Assembly. It was a +moment of intense excitement. A great victory had just been won; but the +generals who had achieved the success had neglected to recover the +corpses of the dead or to save the ship-wrecked. It was proposed to take +a vote of life or death on all the generals collectively. Socrates, as +it happened, was one of the committee whose duty it was to put the +question to the Assembly. But the proposition was in itself illegal, and +Socrates with some other members of the committee, refused to submit it +to the vote. Every kind of pressure was brought to bear upon the +recalcitrant officers; orators threatened, friends besought, the mob +clamoured and denounced. Finally all but Socrates gave way. He alone, an +old man, in office for the first time, had the courage to obey his +conscience and the law in face of an angry populace crying for blood. + +And as he could stand against a mob, so he could stand against a despot. +At the time when Athens was ruled by the thirty tyrants he was ordered, +with four others, to arrest a man whom the authorities wished to put out +of the way. The man was guilty of no crime, and Socrates refused. "I +went quietly home," he says, "and no doubt I should have been put to +death for it, if the government had not shortly after come to an end." + +These, however, were exceptional episodes in the career of a man who was +never a prominent politician. The main interest of Socrates was +intellectual and moral; an interest, however, rather practical than +speculative. For though he was charged in his indictment with preaching +atheism, he appears in fact to have concerned himself little or nothing +with either theological or physical inquiries. He was careful in his +observance of all prescribed religious rites, and probably accepted the +gods as powers of the natural world and authors of human institutions +and laws. His originality lay not in any purely speculative views, but +in the pertinacious curiosity, practical in its origin and aim, with +which he attacked and sifted the ethical conceptions of his time: "What +is justice?" "What is piety?" "What is temperance?"--these were the +kinds of questions he never tired of raising, pointing out +contradictions and inconsistencies in current ideas, and awakening +doubts which if negative in form were positive and fruitful in effect. + +His method in pursuing these inquiries was that of cross-examination. In +the streets, in the market, in the gymnasia, at meetings grave and gay, +in season or out of season, he raised his points of definition. The city +was in a ferment around him. Young men and boys followed and hung on his +lips wherever he went. By the charm of his personality, his gracious +courtesy and wit, and the large and generous atmosphere of a sympathy +always at hand to temper to particular persons the rigours of a +generalising logic, he drew to himself, with a fascination not more of +the intellect than of the heart, all that was best and brightest in the +youth of Athens. His relation to his young disciples was that of a lover +and a friend; and the stimulus given by his dialectics to their keen and +eager minds was supplemented and reinforced by the appeal to their +admiration and love of his sweet and virile personality. + +Only in Ancient Athens, perhaps, could such a character and such +conditions have met. The sociable out-door city life; the meeting places +in the open air, and especially the gymnasia, frequented by young and +old not more for exercise of the body than for recreation of the mind; +the nimble and versatile Athenian wits trained to preternatural +acuteness by the debates of the law courts and the Assembly; all this +was exactly the environment fitted to develop and sustain a genius at +once so subtle and so humane as that of Socrates. It is the concrete +presentation of this city-life that lends so peculiar a charm to the +dialogues of Plato. The spirit of metaphysics puts on the human form; +and Dialectic walks the streets and contends in the palaestra. It would +be impossible to convey by citation the cumulative effect of this +constant reference in Plato to a human background; but a single excerpt +may perhaps help us to realise the conditions under which Socrates lived +and worked. Here, then, is a description of the scene in one of those +gymnasia in which he was wont to hold his conversations: + +"Upon entering we found that the boys had just been sacrificing; and +this part of the festival was nearly at an end. They were all in white +array, and games at dice were going on among them. Most of them were in +the outer court amusing themselves; but some were in a corner of the +Apodyterium playing at odd and even with a number of dice, which they +took out of little wicker baskets. There was also a circle of lookers- +on, one of whom was Lysis. He was standing among the other boys and +youths, having a crown upon his head, like a fair vision, and not less +worthy of praise for his goodness than for his beauty. We left them, and +went over to the opposite side of the room, where, finding a quiet +place, we sat down; and then we began to talk. This attracted Lysis, who +was constantly turning round to look at us--he was evidently wanting to +come to us. For a time he hesitated and had not the courage to come +alone; but first of all, his friend Menexenus came in out of the court +in the interval of his play, and when he saw Ctesippus and myself, came +and sat by us; and then Lysis, seeing him, followed, and sat down with +him, and the other boys joined. + +"I turned to Menexenus, and said: 'Son of Demophon, which of you two +youths is the elder?' + +"'That is a matter of dispute between us,' he said. + +"'And which is the nobler? Is that a matter of dispute too?' + +"'Yes, certainly.' + +"'And another disputed point is, which is the fairer?' + +"The two boys laughed. + +"'I shall not ask which is the richer,' I said; 'for you two are +friends, are you not?' + +"'Certainly,' they replied. + +"'And friends have all things in common, so that one of you can be no +richer than the other, if you say truly that you are friends.' + +"They assented. I was about to ask which was the greater of the two, and +which was the wiser of the two; but at this moment Menexenus was called +away by some one who came and said that the gymnastic-master wanted him. +I supposed that he had to offer sacrifice. So he went away and I asked +Lysis some more questions." [Footnote: Plato, Lysis 206 e.--Translated +by Jowett] + +Such were the scenes in which Socrates passed his life. Of his influence +it is hardly necessary here to speak at length. In the well-known +metaphor put into his mouth by Plato, he was the "gad-fly" of the +Athenian people. To prick intellectual lethargy, to force people to +think, and especially to think about the conceptions with which they +supposed themselves to be most familiar, those which guided their +conduct in private and public affairs--justice expediency, honesty, and +the like--such was the constant object of his life. That he should have +made enemies, that he should have been misunderstood, that he should +have been accused of undermining the foundations of morality and +religion, is natural and intelligible enough; and it was on these +grounds that he was condemned to death. His conduct at his trial was of +a piece with the rest of his life. The customary arts of the pleader, +the appeal to the sympathies of the public, the introduction into court +of weeping wife and children, he rejected as unworthy of himself and of +his cause. His defence was a simple exposition of the character and the +aims of his life; so far from being a criminal he asserted that he was a +benefactor of the Athenian people; and having, after his condemnation, +to suggest the sentence he thought appropriate, he proposed that he +should be supported at the public expense as one who had deserved well +of his country. After his sentence to death, having to wait thirty days +for its execution, he showed no change from his customary cheerfulness, +passing his time in conversation with his friends. So far from +regretting his fate he rather congratulated himself that he would escape +the decadence that attends upon old age; and he had, if we may trust +Plato, a fair and confident assurance that a happy life awaited him +beyond. He died, according to the merciful law of Athens, by drinking +hemlock; "the wisest and justest and best," in Plato's judgment, "of all +the men that I have ever known." + +We have dwelt thus long on the personality of Socrates, familiar though +it be, not only on account of its intrinsic interest, but also because +it is peculiarly Hellenic. That sunny and frank intelligence, bathed, as +it were, in the open air, a gracious blossom springing from the root of +physical health, that unique and perfect balance of body and soul, +passion and intellect, represent, against the brilliant setting of +Athenian life, the highest achievement of the civilisation of Greece. +The figure of Socrates, no doubt, has been idealised by Plato, but it is +none the less significant of the trend of Hellenic life. No other people +could have conceived such an ideal; no other could have gone so far +towards its realisation. + + +Section 8. The Greek View of Woman. + +In the preceding account we have attempted to give some conception of +the Greek ideal for the individual man. It is now time to remind +ourselves that that ideal was only supposed to be proper to a small +class--the class of soldier-citizens. Artisans and slaves, as we have +seen, had no participation in it; neither, and that is our next point, +had women. + +Nothing more profoundly distinguishes the Hellenic from the modern view +of life than the estimate in which women were held by the Greeks. Their +opinion on this point was partly the cause and partly the effect of that +preponderance of the idea of the State on which we have already dwelt, +and from which it followed naturally enough that marriage should be +regarded primarily as a means of producing healthy and efficient +citizens. This view is best illustrated by the institutions of such a +State as Sparta, where, as we saw, the woman was specially trained for +maternity, and connections outside the marriage tie were sanctioned by +custom and opinion, if they were such as were likely to lead to healthy +offspring. Further it may be noted that in almost every State the +exposure of deformed or sickly infants was encouraged by law, the child +being thus regarded, from the beginning, as a member of the State, +rather than as a member of the family. + +The same view is reflected in the speculations of political +philosophers. Plato, indeed, in his Republic, goes so far as to +eliminate the family relation altogether. Not only is the whole +connection between men and women to be regulated by the State, in +respect both of the persons and of the limit of age within which they +may associate, but the children as soon as they are born are to be +carried off to a common nursery, there to be reared together, +undistinguished by the mothers, who will suckle indifferently any infant +that might happen to be assigned to them for the purpose. Here, as in +other instances, Plato goes far beyond the limits set by the current +sentiment of the Greeks, and in his later work is reluctantly +constrained to abandon his scheme of community of wives and children. +Yet even there he makes it compulsory on every man to marry between the +ages of thirty and thirty-five, under penalty of fine and civil +disabilities. Plato, no doubt, as we have said, exaggerates the opinions +of his time; but the view, which he pushes to its extreme, of the +subordination of the family to the State, was one, as we have already +pointed out, which did predominate in Greece. It reappears in a soberer +form in the treatise of Aristotle. He too would regulate by law both the +age at which marriages should take place and the number of children that +should be produced, and would have all deformed infants exposed. And +here, no doubt, he is speaking in conformity if not with the practice, +at least with the feeling of Greece. The modern conception that the +marriage relation is a matter of private concern, and that any +individual has a right to wed whom and when he will, and to produce +children at his own discretion, regardless of all considerations of +health and decency, was one altogether alien to the Greeks. In theory at +least, and to some extent in practice (as for example in the case of +Sparta), they recognised that the production of children was a business +of supreme import to the State, and that it was right and proper that it +should be regulated by law with a view to the advantage of the whole +community. + + * * * * * + +And if now we turn from considering the family in its relation to the +State to regard it in its relation to the individual, we are struck once +more by a divergence from the modern point of view, or rather from the +view which is supposed to prevail, particularly by writers of fiction, +at any rate in modern English life. In ancient Greece, so far as our +knowledge goes, there was little or no romance connected with the +marriage tie. Marriage was a means of producing legitimate children; +that is how it is defined by Demosthenes; and we have no evidence that +it was ever regarded as anything more. In Athens we know that marriages +were commonly arranged by the father, much as they are in modern France, +on grounds of age, property, connection and the like, and without any +regard for the inclination of the parties concerned. And an interesting +passage in Xenophon indicates a point of view quite consonant with this +accepted practice. God, he says, ordained the institution of marriage; +but on what grounds? Not in the least for the sake of the personal +relation that might be established between the husband and wife, but for +ends quite external and indifferent to any affection that might exist +between them. First, for the perpetuation of the human race; secondly, +to raise up protectors for the father in his old age; thirdly, to secure +an appropriate division of labour, the man performing the outdoor work, +the woman guarding and superintending at home, and each thus fulfilling +duly the function for which they were designed by nature. This eminently +prosaic way of conceiving the marriage relation, is also, it would seem, +eminently Greek; and it leads us to consider more particularly the +opinion prevalent in Greece of the nature and duty of woman in general. + +Here the first point to be noticed is the wide difference of the view +represented in the Homeric poems from that which meets us in the +historic period. Readers of the Iliad and the Odyssey will find depicted +there, amid all the barbarity of an age of rapine and war, relations +between men and women so tender, faithful and beautiful, that they may +almost stand as universal types of the ultimate human ideal. Such for +example is the relation between Odysseus and Penelope, the wife waiting +year by year for the husband whose fate is unknown, wooed in vain by +suitors who waste her substance and wear her life, nightly "watering her +bed with her tears" for twenty weary years, till at last the wanderer +returns, and "at once her knees were loosened and her heart melted +within her... and she fell a weeping and ran straight towards him, and +cast her hands about his neck, and kissed his head;" for "even as the +sight of the land is welcome to mariners, so welcome to her was the +sight of her lord, and her white arms would never quite leave hold of +his neck." [Footnote: Odyss. xxiii. 205, 231.--Translated by Butcher and +Lang.] + +Such, again, is the relation between Hector and Andromache as described +in the well-known scene of the Iliad, where the wife comes out with her +babe to take leave of the husband on his way to battle. "It were better +for me," she cries, "to go down to the grave if I lose thee; for never +will any comfort be mine, when once thou, even thou, hast met thy fate, +but only sorrow..... Thou art to me father and lady mother, yea, and +brother, even as thou art my goodly husband. Come now, have pity and +abide here upon the tower, lest thou make thy child an orphan and thy +wife a widow." Hector answers with the plea of honour. He cannot draw +back, but he foresees defeat; and in his anticipation of the future +nothing is so bitter as the fate he fears for his wife. "Yet doth the +conquest of the Trojans hereafter not so much trouble me, neither +Hekabe's own, neither King Priam's, neither my brethren's, the many and +brave that shall fall in the dust before their foemen, as doth thine +anguish in the day when some mail-clad Achaian shall lead thee weeping +and rob thee of the light of freedom.... But me in death may the heaped- +up earth be covering, ere I hear thy crying and thy carrying into +captivity." [Footnote: Iliad vi. 450.--Translated by Lang, Leaf and +Myers.] + +But most striking of all the portraits of women to be found in Homer, +and most typical of a frank and healthy relation between the sexes, is +the account of Nausicaa given in the Odyssey. Ulysses, shipwrecked and +naked, battered and covered with brine, surprises Nausicaa and her +maidens as they are playing at ball on the shore. The attendants run +away, but Nausicaa remains to hear what the stranger has to say. He asks +her for shelter and clothing; and she grants the request with an +exquisite courtesy and a freedom from all embarrassment which becomes +only the more marked and the more delightful when, as she sees him +emerge from the bath, clothed and beautiful, she cannot restrain the +exclamation "would that such a one might be called my husband, dwelling +here, and that it might please him here to abide." [Footnote: Od. vi. +244.--Translated by Butcher and Lang.] About the whole scene there is a +freshness and a fragrance as of early morning, and a tone so natural, +free and frank, that in the face of this rustic idyl the later centuries +sicken and faint, like candle-light in the splendour of the dawn. + +If we had only Homer to give us our ideas of the Greeks, we might +conclude, from such passages as these, that they had a conception of +woman and of her relation to man, finer and nobler, in some respects, +than that of modern times. But in fact the Homeric poems represent a +civilisation which had passed away before the opening of the period with +which at present we are chiefly concerned. And in the interval, for +reasons which we need not here attempt to state, a change had taken +place in the whole way of regarding the female sex. So far, at any rate, +as our authorities enable us to judge, woman, in the historic age, was +conceived to be so inferior to man that he recognised in her no other +end than to minister to his pleasure or to become the mother of his +children. Romance and the higher companionship of intellect and spirit +do not appear (with certain notable exceptions) to have been commonly +sought or found in this relation. + +Woman, in fact, was regarded as a means, not as an end; and was treated +in a manner consonant with this view. Of this estimate many +illustrations might be adduced from the writers of the fifth and fourth +centuries. Plato, for example, classes together "children, women, and +servants," [Footnote: Plato, Republic 431 c.] and states generally that +there is no branch of human industry in which the female sex is not +inferior to the male. [Footnote: Ibid. 455 c.] Similarly, Aristotle +insists again and again on the natural inferiority of woman, and +illustrates it by such quaint observations as the following: "a man +would be considered a coward who was only as brave as a brave woman, and +a woman as a chatterbox who was only as modest as a good man." +[Footnote: Arist. Pol. III. 1277 b 21.--Translated by Welldon.] But the +most striking example, perhaps, because the most unconscious, of this +habitual way of regarding women is to be found in the funeral oration +put by Thucydides into the mouth of Pericles, where the speaker, after +suggesting what consolation he can to the fathers of the slain, turns to +the women with the brief but significant exhortation: "If I am to speak +of womanly virtues to those of you who will henceforth be widows, let me +sum them up in one short admonition: To a woman not to show more +weakness than is natural to her sex is a great glory, and not to be +talked about for good or for evil among men." [Footnote: Thucydides ii. +45.--Translated by Jowett.] + +The sentiments of the poets are less admissible as evidence. But some of +them are so extreme that they may be adduced as a further indication of +a point of view whose prevalence alone could render them even +dramatically plausible. Such for example is the remark which Euripides +puts into the mouth of his Medea--"women are impotent for good, but +clever contrivers of all evil" [Footnote: Euripides, Medea. 406.]; or +that of one of the characters of Menander, "a woman is necessarily an +evil, and he is a lucky man who catches her in the mildest form." While +the general Greek view of the dependence of woman on man is well +expressed in the words of Aethra, in the "Suppliants" of Euripides--"it +is proper for women who are wise to let men act for them in everything." +[Footnote: Euripides, Hik. 40.] + +In accordance with this conception of the inferiority of the female sex, +and partly as a cause, partly as an effect of it, we find that the +position of the wife in ancient Greece was simply that of the domestic +drudge. To stay at home and mind the house was her recognised ideal. "A +free woman should be bounded by the street door," says one of the +characters in Menander; and another writer discriminates as follows the +functions of the two sexes:--"War, politics, and public speaking are the +sphere of man; that of woman is to keep house, to stay at home and to +receive and tend her husband." We are not surprised, therefore, to find +that the symbol of woman is the tortoise; and in the following burlesque +passage from Aristophanes we shall recognise, in spite of the touch of +caricature, the genuine features of the Greek wife. Praxagora is +recounting the merits and services of women: + +"They dip their wool in hot water according to the ancient plan, all of +them without exception, and never make the slightest innovation. They +sit and cook, as of old. They carry upon their heads, as of old. They +conduct the Themophoriae, as of old. They wear out their husbands, as of +old. They buy sweets, as of old. They take their wine neat, as of old." +[Footnote: Aristophanes, Eccles. 215.] + +And that this was also the kind of ideal approved by their lords and +masters, and that any attempt to pass beyond it was resented, is +amusingly illustrated in the following extract from the same poet, where +Lysistrata explains the growing indignation of the women at the bad +conduct of affairs by the men, and the way in which their attempts to +interfere were resented. The comments of the "magistrate" typify, of +course, the man's point of view. + + "Think of our old moderation and gentleness, think how we + bore with your pranks, and were still, + All through the days of your former prognacity, all through + the war that is over and spent: + Not that (be sure) we approved of your policy; never our + griefs you allowed us to vent. + Well we perceived your mistakes and mismanagement. Often + at home on our housekeeping cares, + Often we heard of some foolish proposal you made for conducting + the public affairs. + Then would we question you mildly and pleasantly, inwardly + grieving, but outwardly gay; + 'Husband, how goes it abroad?' we would ask of him; 'what + have ye done in Assembly to-day?' + 'What would ye write on the side of the Treaty-stone?' Husband + says angrily, 'What's that to you? + You hold your tongue!' And I held it accordingly. + + STRATYLLIS. + + That is a thing which I never would do! + + MAGISTRATE. + + Ma'am, if you hadn't you'd soon have repented it. + + LYSISTRATA. + + Therefore I held it, and spake not a word. + Soon of another tremendous absurdity, wilder and worse + than the former we heard. + 'Husband,' I say, with a tender solicitude, 'Why have you + passed such a foolish decree?' + Viciously, moodily, glaring askance at me, 'Stick to your + spinning, my mistress,' says he, + 'Else you will speedily find it the worse for you! war is + the care and the business of men!' + + MAGISTRATE. + + Zeus! 'twas a worthy reply, and an excellent! + + LYSISTRATA. + + What! you unfortunate, shall we not then, + Then, when we see you perplexed and incompetent, shall + we not tender advice to the state!" + [Footnote: Aristoph. Lysistrata. 507.--Translated by B. B. + Rogers.] + +The conception thus indicated in burlesque of the proper place of woman +is expressed more seriously, from the point of view of the average man +in the "Oeconomicus" of Xenophon. Ischomachus, the hero of that work, +with whom we have already made acquaintance, gives an account of his own +wife, and of the way in which he had trained her. When he married her, +he explains, she was not yet fifteen, and had been brought up with the +utmost care "that she might see, hear, and ask as little as possible." +Her accomplishments were weaving and a sufficient acquaintance with all +that concerns the stomach; and her attitude towards her husband she +expressed in the single phrase: "Everything rests with you; my duty, my +mother said, is simply to be modest." Ischomachus proceeds to explain to +her the place he expects her to fill; she is to suckle his children, to +cook, and to superintend the house; and for this purpose God has given +her special gifts, different from but not necessarily inferior to those +of man. Husband and wife naturally supply one another's deficiencies; +and if the wife perform her function worthily she may even make herself +the ruling partner, and be sure that as she grows older she will be held +not less but more in honour, as the guardian of her children and the +stewardess of her husband's goods.--In Xenophon's view, in fact, the +inferiority of the woman almost disappears; and the sentiment +approximates closely to that of Tennyson-- + + "either sex alone + Is half itself, and in true marriage lies + Nor equal, nor unequal: each fulfils + Defect in each." + +Such a conception, however, of the "complementary" relation of woman to +man, does not exclude a conviction of her essential inferiority. And +this conviction, it can hardly be disputed, was a cardinal point in the +Greek view of life. + + +Section 9. Protests against the Common View of Woman. + +Nevertheless, there are not wanting indications, both in theory and +practice, of a protest against it. In Sparta as we have already noticed, +girls, instead of being confined to the house, were brought up in the +open air among the boys, trained in gymnastics and accustomed to run and +wrestle naked. And Plato, modelling his view upon this experience, makes +no distinction of the sexes in his ideal republic. Women, he admits, are +generally inferior to men, but they have similar, if lower, capacities +and powers. There is no occupation or art for which they may not be +fitted by nature and education; and he would therefore have them take +their share in government and war, as well as in the various mechanical +trades." None of the occupations," he says, "which comprehend the +ordering of a state, belong to woman as woman, nor yet to man as man; +but natural gifts are to be found here and there, in both sexes alike; +and, so far as her nature is concerned, the woman is admissible to all +pursuits as well as the man; though in all of them the woman is weaker +than the man." [Footnote: Plato, Rep, 455 d.--Translated by Davies and +Vaughan.] + +In adopting this attitude Plato stands alone not only among Greeks, but +one might almost say, among mankind, till we come to the latest views of +the nineteenth century. But there is another Greek, the poet Euripides, +who, without advancing any theory about the proper position of women, +yet displays so intimate an understanding of their difficulties, and so +warm and close a sympathy with their griefs, that some of his utterances +may stand to all time as documents of the dumb and age-long protest of +the weaker against the stronger sex. In illustration we may cite the +following lines from the "Medea," applicable, _mutatis mutandis_, +to how many generations of suffering wives? + +"Of all things that have life and sense we women are most wretched. For +we are compelled to buy with gold a husband who is also--worst of all!-- +the master of our person. And on his character, good or bad, our whole +fate depends. For divorce is regarded as a disgrace to a woman and she +cannot repudiate her husband. Then coming as she does into the midst of +manners and customs strange to her, she would need the gift of +divination--unless she has been taught at home--to know how best to +treat her bed-fellow. And if we manage so well that our husband remains +faithful to us, and does not break away, we may think ourselves +fortunate; if not, there is nothing for it but death. A man when he is +vexed at home can go out and find relief among his friends or +acquaintances; but we women have none to look to but him. They tell us +we live a sheltered life at home while they go to the wars; but that is +nonsense. For I would rather go into battle thrice than bear a child +once." [Footnote: Euripides, Med. 230.] + +Hitherto we have been speaking mainly of the position of the wife in +Greece. It is necessary now to say a few words about that class of women +who were called in the Greek tongue Hetaerae; and who are by some +supposed to have represented, intellectually at least, a higher level of +culture than the other members of their sex. In exceptional cases, this, +no doubt, was the fact. Aspasia, for example, the mistress of Pericles, +was famous for her powers of mind. According to Plato she was an +accomplished rhetorician, and the real composer of the celebrated +funeral oration of Pericles; and Plutarch asserts that she was courted +and admired by the statesmen and philosophers of Greece. But Aspasia +cannot be taken as a type of the Hetaerae of Greece. That these women, +by the variety and freedom of their life, may and must have acquired +certain qualities of character and mind that could hardly be developed +in the seclusion of the Greek home, may readily be admitted; we know, +for example, that they cultivated music and the power of conversation; +and were welcome guests at supper-parties. But we have no evidence that +the relations which they formed rested as a rule on any but the simplest +physical basis. The real distinction, under this head, between the Greek +point of view and our own, appears to lie rather in the frankness with +which this whole class of relations was recognised by the Greeks. There +were temples in honour of Aphrodite Pandemos, the goddess of illicit +love, and festivals celebrated in her honour; statues were erected of +famous courtesans, of Phryne for example, at Delphi, between two kings; +and philosophers and statesmen lived with their mistresses openly, +without any loss of public reputation. Every man, said the orator +Demosthenes, requires besides his wife at least two mistresses; and this +statement, made as a matter of course in open court, is perhaps the most +curious illustration we possess of the distinction between the Greek +civilisation and our own, as regards not the fact itself but the light +in which it was viewed. + + +Section 10. Friendship. + +From what has been said about the Greek view of women, it might +naturally have been supposed that there can have been little place in +their life for all that we designate under the term "romance." Personal +affection, as we have seen, was not the basis of married life; and +relations with Hetaerae appear to have been, in this respect, no finer +or higher than similar relations in our own times. Nevertheless, it +would be a mistake to conclude, from these conditions, that the element +of romance was absent from Greek life. The fact is simply that with them +it took a different form, that of passionate friendship between men. +Such friendships, of course, occur in all nations and at all times, but +among the Greeks they were, we might say, an institution. Their ideal +was the development and education of the younger by the older man, and +in this view they were recognised and approved by custom and law as an +important factor in the state. In Sparta, for example, it was the rule +that every boy had attached to him some elder youth by whom he was +constantly attended, admonished, and trained, and who shared in public +estimation the praise and blame of his acts; so that it is even reported +that on one occasion a Spartan boy having cried out in a fight, not he +himself but his friend was fined for the lapse of self-control. The +custom of Sparta existed also in Crete. But the most remarkable instance +of the deliberate dedication of this passion to political and military +ends is that of the celebrated "Theban band," a troop consisting +exclusively of pairs of lovers, who marched and fought in battle side by +side, and by their presence and example inspired one another to a +courage so constant and high that "it is stated that they were never +beaten till the battle at Chaeronea: and when Philip, after the fight, +took a view of the slain, and came to the place where the three hundred +that fought his phalanx lay dead together, he wondered, and +understanding that it was the band of lovers, he shed tears, and said, +"Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered +anything that was base." [Footnote: Plutarch, Pelopidas. ch. 18.--Ed. by +Clough.] + +Greek legend and history, in fact, resounds with the praises of friends. +Achilles and Patroclus, Pylades and Orestes, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, +Solon and Peisistratus, Socrates and Alcibiades, Epaminondas and +Pelopidas,--these are names that recall at once all that is highest in +the achievement and all that is most romantic in the passion of Greece. +For it was the prerogative of this form of love, in its finer +manifestations, that it passed beyond persons to objective ends, linking +emotion to action in a life of common danger and toil. Not only, nor +primarily, the physical sense was touched, but mainly and in chief the +imagination and intellect. The affection of Achilles for Patroclus is as +intense as that of a lover for his mistress, but it has in addition a +body and depth such as only years of common labour could impart. +"Achilles wept, remembering his dear comrade, nor did sleep that +conquereth all take hold of him, but he kept turning himself to this +side and to that, yearning for Patroclus' manhood and excellent valour, +and all the toils he achieved with him and the woes he bare, cleaving +the battles of men and the grievous waves. As he thought thereon he shed +big tears, now lying on his side, now on his back, now on his face; and +then anon he would arise upon his feet and roam wildly beside the beach +of the salt sea." [Footnote: Iliad XXIV. 3.--Translated by Lang, Leaf +and Myers.] That is the ideal spirit of Greek comradeship--each +supporting the other in his best efforts and aims, mind assisting mind +and hand hand, and the end of the love residing not in an easy +satisfaction of itself but in the development and perfecting of the +souls in which it dwelt. + +Of such a love we have a record in the elegies of Theognis, in which the +poet has embodied, for the benefit of Kurnus his friend, the ripe +experience of an eventful life. The poems for the most part are didactic +in character, consciously and deliberately aimed at the instruction and +guidance of the man to whom they are addressed; but every now and again +the passion breaks through which informs and inspires this virile +intercourse, and in such a passage as the following gives us the key to +this and to all the finer friendships of the Greeks:-- + + "Lo, I have given thee wings wherewith to fly + Over the boundless ocean and the earth; + Yea, on the lips of many shalt thou lie, + The comrade of their banquet and their mirth. + Youths in their loveliness shall bid thee sound + Upon the silver flute's melodious breath; + And when thou goest darkling underground + Down to the lamentable house of death, + Oh yet not then from honour shalt thou cease + But wander, an imperishable name, + Kurnus, about the seas and shores of Greece, + Crossing from isle to isle the barren main. + Horses thou shalt not need, but lightly ride + Sped by the Muses of the violet crown, + And men to come, while earth and sun abide, + Who cherish song shall cherish thy renown. + Yea, I have given thee wings, and in return + Thou givest me the scorn with which I burn." + [Footnote: Theognis 237.] + +It was his insistence on friendship as an incentive to a noble life that +was the secret of the power of Socrates. Listen, for example, to the +account which Plutarch gives of his influence upon the young Alcibiades: + +"Alcibiades, listening now to language entirely free from every thought +of unmanly fondness and silly displays of affection, finding himself +with one who sought to lay open to him the deficiencies of his mind, and +repress his vain and foolish arrogance, + +'Dropped like the craven cock his conquered wing.' + +He esteemed these endeavours of Socrates as most truly a means which the +gods made use of for the care and preservation of youth, and began to +think meanly of himself, and to admire him; to be pleased with his +kindness, and to stand in awe of his virtue; and, unawares to himself, +there became formed in his mind that reflex image and reciprocation of +love, or Anteros, that Plato talks of..... Though Socrates had many and +powerful rivals, yet the natural good qualities of Alcibiades gave his +affection the mastery. His words overcame him so much, as to draw tears +from his eyes, and to disturb his very soul. Yet sometimes he would +abandon himself to flatterers, when they proposed to him varieties of +pleasure, and would desert Socrates; who then would pursue him, as if he +had been a fugitive slave. He despised every one else, and had no +reverence or awe for any but him." [Footnote: Plut. Alc. ch. 4.--Ed. by +Clough.] The relation thus established may be further illustrated by the +following graceful little anecdote. Socrates and Alcibiades were fellow- +soldiers at Potidaea and shared the same tent. In a stiff engagement +both behaved with gallantry. At last Alcibiades fell wounded, and +Socrates, standing over him, defended and finally saved him. For this he +might fairly have claimed the customary prize of valour; but he insisted +on resigning it to his friend, as an incentive to his "ambition for +noble deeds." + +Another illustration of the power of this passion to evoke and stimulate +courage is given in the story of Cleomachus, narrated by Plutarch. In a +battle between the Chalcidians and the Eretrians, the cavalry of the +former being hard pressed, Cleomachus was called upon to make a +diversion. He turned to his friend and asked him if he intended to be a +spectator of the struggle; the youth replied in the affirmative, and +embracing his friend, with his own hands buckled on his helmet; +whereupon Cleomachus charged with impetuosity, routed the foe and died +gloriously fighting. And thenceforth, says Plutarch, the Chalcidians, +who had previously mistrusted such friendships, cultivated and honoured +them more than any other people. + +So much indeed were the Greeks impressed with the manliness of this +passion, with its power to prompt to high thought and heroic action, +that some of the best of them set the love of man for man far above that +of man for woman. The one, they maintained, was primarily of the spirit, +the other primarily of the flesh; the one bent upon shaping to the type +of all manly excellence both the body and the soul of the beloved, the +other upon a passing pleasure of the senses. And they noted that among +the barbarians, who were subject to tyrants, this passion was +discouraged, along with gymnastics and philosophy, because it was felt +by their masters that it would be fatal to their power; so essentially +was it the prerogative of freedom, so incompatible with the nature and +the status of a slave. + +It is in the works of Plato that this view is most completely and +exquisitely set forth. To him, love is the beginning of all wisdom; and +among all the forms of love, that one in chief, which is conceived by +one man for another, of which the main operation and end is in the +spirit, and which leads on and out from the passion for a particular +body and soul to an enthusiasm for that highest beauty, wisdom, and +excellence, of which the most perfect mortal forms are but a faint and +inadequate reflection. Such a love is the initiation into the higher +life, the spring at once of virtue, of philosophy, and of religion. +Always operative in practice in Greek life it was not invented but +interpreted by Plato. The philosopher merely gave an ideal expression to +what was stirring in the heart of every generous youth; and the passage +which we have selected for quotation may be taken as representative not +only of the personality of Plato, but of the higher aspect of a +characteristic phase of Greek civilisation. + +"And now, taking my leave of you, I will rehearse a tale of love which I +heard from Diotima of Mantineia, a woman wise in this and in many other +kinds of knowledge. She was my instructress in the art of love, and I +shall repeat to you what she said to me: 'On the birthday of Aphrodite +there was a feast of the gods, at which the god Poros or Plenty, who is +the son of Metis or Discretion, was one of the guests. When the feast +was over, Penia or Poverty, as the manner is on such occasions, came +about the doors to beg. Now Plenty, who was the worse for nectar (there +was no wine in those days), went into the garden of Zeus and fell into a +heavy sleep; and Poverty considering her own straitened circumstances, +plotted to have a child by him, and accordingly she lay down at his side +and conceived Love, who partly because he is naturally a lover of the +beautiful, and because Aphrodite is herself beautiful, and also because +he was born on her birthday, is her follower and attendant. And as his +parentage is, so also are his fortunes. In the first place he is always +poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he +is rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the +bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in the streets, or at +the doors of houses, taking his rest; and like his mother he is always +in distress. Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is +always plotting against the fair and good; he is bold, enterprising, +strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in +the pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources; a philosopher at all times, +terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist. He is by nature neither +mortal nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment when he is +in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his +father's nature. But that which is always flowing in is always flowing +out, and so he is never in want and never in wealth; and, further, he is +in a mean between ignorance and knowledge. The truth of the matter is +this: No god is a philosopher or seeker after wisdom, neither do the +ignorant seek after wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he +who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he +has no desire for that of which he feels no want.' 'But who then, +Diotima,' I said, 'are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the +wise nor the foolish?' 'A child may answer that question,' she replied; +'they are those who are in a mean between the two; Love is one of them. +For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful; and +therefore Love is also a philosopher or lover of wisdom, and being a +lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant. And of +this too his birth is the cause; for his father is wealthy and wise, and +his mother poor and foolish. Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature of +the spirit Love.' + +"I said: 'O thou stranger woman, thou sayest well; but, assuming Love to +be such as you say, what is the use of him to man?' + +"'That, Socrates,' she replied, 'I will attempt to unfold: of his nature +and birth I have already spoken; and you acknowledge that Love is of the +beautiful. But some one will say: Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and +Diotima? or rather let me put the question more clearly, and ask: When a +man loves the beautiful, what does he desire?' + +"I answered her, 'That the beautiful may be his.' + +"'Still,' she said, 'the answer suggests a further question: What is +given by the possession of beauty?' + +"'To what you have asked,' I said, 'I have no answer ready.' + +"'Then,' she said, 'let me put the word "good" in the place of +"beautiful," and repeat the question once more: If he who loves, loves +the good, what is it then that he loves?' + +"'The possession of the good,' I said. + +"'And what does he gain who possesses the good?' + +"'Happiness,' I replied; 'there is less difficulty in answering that +question.' + +"'Yes,' she said, 'the happy are made happy by the acquisition of good +things. Nor is there any need to ask why a man desires happiness; the +answer is already final.' + +"'You are right,' I said. + +"'And is this wish and this desire common to all? and do all men always +desire their own good, or only some men?--what say you?' + +"'All men,' I replied; 'the desire is common to all.' + +"'Then,' she said, 'the simple truth is that men love the good.' + +"'Yes,' I said. + +"'To which must be added that they love the possession of the good?' + +"'That must be added too.' + +"'Then love,' she said, may be described generally as the love of the +everlasting possession of the good?' + +"'That is most true.' + +"'Then if this be the nature of love, can you tell me further,' she +said, 'what is the manner of the pursuit? what are they doing who show +all this eagerness and heat which is called love? and what is the object +which they have in view? Answer me.' + +"'Nay, Diotima,' I replied, 'if I had known, I should not have wondered +at your wisdom, neither should I have come to learn from you about this +very matter.' + +"'Well,' she said, 'I will teach you:--The object which they have in +view is birth in beauty, whether of body or soul.' + +"'I do not understand you,' I said; 'the oracle requires an +explanation.' + +"'I will make my meaning clearer,' she replied. 'I mean to say, that all +men are bringing to the birth in their bodies and in their souls. There +is a certain age at which human nature is desirous of procreation-- +procreation which must be in beauty and not in deformity; and this +procreation is the union of man and woman, and is a divine thing: for +conception and generation are an immortal principle in the mortal +creature, and in the inharmonious they can never be. But the deformed is +always inharmonious with the divine, and the beautiful harmonious. +Beauty, then, is the destiny or goddess of parturition who presides at +birth, and therefore, when approaching beauty, the conceiving power is +propitious, and diffusive, and benign, and begets and bears fruit: at +the sight of ugliness she frowns and contracts and has a sense of pain, +and turns away, and shrivels up, and not without a pang refrains from +conception. And this is the reason why, when the hour of conception +arrives, and the teeming nature is full, there is such a flutter and +ecstasy about beauty whose approach is the alleviation of the pain of +travail. For love, Socrates, is not as you imagine, the love of the +beautiful only.' + +"'What then?' + +"'The love of generation and of birth in beauty.' + +"'Yes,' I said. + +"'Yes indeed,' she replied. + +"'But why of generation?' + +"'Because to the mortal creature, generation is a sort of eternity and +immortality,' she replied; 'and if, as has been already admitted, love +is of the everlasting possession of the good, all men will necessarily +desire immortality together with good: wherefore love is of +immortality.' + +"I was astonished at her words and said: 'Is this really true, O thou +wise Diotima?' + +"And she answered with all the authority of an accomplished sophist: 'Of +that, Socrates, you may be assured;--think only of the ambition of men, +and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways, unless you +consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame. +They are ready to run all risks greater far than they would have run for +their children, and to spend money and undergo any sort of toil, and +even to die, for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall be +eternal. Do you imagine that Alcestis would have died to save Admetus, +or Achilles to avenge Patroclus, or your own Codrus in order to preserve +the kingdom for his sons, if they had not imagined that the memory of +their virtues, which still survives among us, would be immortal? Nay,' +she said, 'I am persuaded that all men do all things, and the better +they are the more they do them, in hope of the glorious fame of immortal +virtue; for they desire the immortal. + +"'Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women +and beget children--this is the character of their love; their +offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and give them the +blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But souls +which are pregnant--for there certainly are men who are more creative in +their souls than in their bodies--conceive that which is proper for the +soul to conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions? wisdom and +virtue in general. And such creators are poets and all artists who are +deserving of the name inventor. But the greatest and fairest sort of +wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and +families, and which is called temperance and justice. And he who in +youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself inspired, +when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate. He wanders +about, seeking beauty that he may beget offspring--for in deformity he +will beget nothing--and naturally embraces the beautiful rather than the +deformed body; above all when he finds a fair and noble and well- +nurtured soul, he embraces the two in one person, and to such a one he +is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good +man; and he tries to educate him; and at the touch of the beautiful +which is ever present to his memory, even when absent, he brings forth +that which he had conceived long before, and in company with him tends +that which he brings forth; and they are married by a far nearer tie and +have a closer friendship than those who beget mortal children, for the +children who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal. +Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other great poets, would not +rather have their children than ordinary ones? Who would not emulate +them in the creation of children such as theirs, which have preserved +their memory and given them everlasting glory? Or who would not have +such children as Lycurgus left behind him to be the saviours not only of +Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may say? There is Solon, too, who is +the revered father of Athenian laws; and many others there are in many +other places, both among Hellenes and barbarians, who have given to the +world many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every +kind; and many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of +children such as theirs; which were never raised in honour of any one, +for the sake of his mortal children. + +"'These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, +may enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of +these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will +lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my +utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would +proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful +forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one +such form only--out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he +will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the +beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, +how foolish would he be not to recognise that the beauty in every form +is one and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his +violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, +and will become a lover of all beautiful forms. In the next stage he +will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the +outward form. So that, if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, +he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring +to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled +to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to +understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that +personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go +on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a +servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, +himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and +contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble +thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that store he +grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a +single science which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I will +proceed; please to give me your very best attention: + +"'He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has +learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes +toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and +this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)--a nature +which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or +waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in +another, or at one time or in one relation or in one place fair, at +another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair +to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any +other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, +or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in +heaven, or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute, +separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without +increase, or any change, is imparted to the evergrowing and perishing +beauties of all other things. He who, from these ascending under the +influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from +the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the +things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards +for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from +one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms +to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from +fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last +knows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear Socrates,' said the +stranger of Mantineia, 'is that life above all others which man should +live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute: a beauty which if you +once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and +garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you; +and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and +conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible,--you +only want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes +to see the true beauty--the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and +unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the +colours and vanities of human life--thither looking, and holding +converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that +communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be +enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has +hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and +nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if +mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble life?' + +"Such, Phaedrus--and I speak not only to you, but to all of you--were +the words of Diotima; and I am persuaded of their truth. And being +persuaded of them, I try to persuade others, that in the attainment of +this end human nature will not easily find a helper better than Love. +And therefore, also, I say that every man ought to honour him as I +myself honour him, and walk in his ways, and exhort others to do the +same, and praise the power and spirit of Love according to the measure +of my ability now and ever." [Footnote: Plato, Symp. 201.--Translated by +Jowett.] + +I have thought it worth while to quote this passage, in spite of its +length, partly for the sake of its own intrinsic beauty, partly because +no account of the Greek view of life could be complete which did not +insist upon the prominence in their civilisation of the passion of +friendship, and its capacity of being turned to the noblest uses. That +there was another side to the matter goes without saying. This passion, +like any other, has its depths, as well as its heights; and the ideal of +friendship conceived by Plato was as remote, perhaps, from the +experience of the average man, as Dante's presentation of the love +between man and woman. Still, the fact remains that it was friendship of +this kind that supplied to the Greek that element of romance which plays +so large a part in modern life; and it is to this, and not to the +relations between men and women, that we must look for the highest +reaches of their emotional experience. + + +Section 11. Summary. + +If now we turn back to take a general view of the points that have been +treated in the present chapter, we shall notice, in the first place, +that the ideal of the Greeks was the direct and natural outcome of the +conditions of their life. It was not something beyond and above the +experience of the class to which it applied, but rather, was the formula +of that experience itself: in philosophical phrase, it was immanent not +transcendent. Because there really was a class of soldier-citizens free +from the necessity of mechanical toil, possessed of competence and +leisure, and devoting these advantages willingly to the service of the +State, therefore their ideal of conduct took the form we have described. +It was the ideal of a privileged class, and postulated for its +realisation, not only a strenuous endeavour on the part of the +individual, but also certain adventitious gifts of fortune, such as +health, wealth, and family connections. These were conditions that +actually obtained among members of the class concerned; so that the +ideal in question was not a mere abstract "ought", but an expression of +what, approximately at least, was realised in fact. + +But this, which was the strength of the ideal of the Greeks, was also +its limitation. Their ethical system rested not only on universal facts +of human nature, but also on a particular and transitory social +arrangement. When therefore the city State, with its sharp antithesis of +classes, began to decline, the ideal of the soldier-citizen declined +also. The conditions of its realisation no longer existed, and ethical +conceptions passed into a new phase. In the first place the ideal of +conduct was extended so as to apply to man as man, instead of to a +particular class in a particular form of State; and in the second place, +as a corollary of this, those external goods of fortune which were the +privilege of the few, could no longer be assumed as conditions of an +ideal which was supposed to apply to all. Consequently the new ideal was +conceived as wholly internal. To be virtuous was to act under the +control of the universal reason which was supposed to dwell in man as +man; and such action was independent of all the gifts of chance. It was +as open to a slave as to a freeman, to an artisan as to a soldier or a +statesman. The changes and chances of this mortal life were indifferent +to the virtuous man; on the rack as on the throne he was lord of himself +and free. + +This conception of the Stoics broke down the limitation of the Greek +ideal by extending the possibility of virtue to all mankind. But at the +same time it destroyed its sanity and balance. For it was precisely +because of its limitation that the ideal of the Greeks was, +approximately at least, an account of what was, and not merely of what +ought to be. A man possessed of wealth and friends, of leisure, health, +and culture, really could and did achieve the end at which he was +aiming; but the conception of one who without any such advantages, on +the contrary with positive disadvantages, poor, sickly, and a slave +perhaps, or even in prison or on the rack, should nevertheless retain +unimpaired the dignity of manhood and the freedom of his own soul--, +such a conception if it is not chimerical, is at any rate so remote from +common experience, that it is not capable of serving as a really +practical ideal for ordinary life. But an ideal so remote that its +realisation is despaired of, is as good as none. And the conception of +the Stoics, if it was more comprehensive than that of Aristotle, was +also less practical and real. + +By virtue, nevertheless, of this comprehensiveness, the Stoic ideal is +more akin to modern tendencies than that of the soldier-citizen in the +city-state. To provide for the excellence of a privileged class at the +expense of the rest of the community is becoming to us increasingly +impossible in fact and intolerable in idea. But while admitting this, we +cannot but note that the Greeks, at whatever cost, did actually achieve +a development of the individual more high and more complete than has +been even approached by any other age. Whether it will ever be possible, +under totally different conditions, to realise once more that balance of +body and soul, that sanity of ethical intuition, that frank recognition +of the whole range of our complex human nature with a view to its +harmonious organisation under the control of a lucid reason--whether it +will ever be possible again to realise this ideal, and that not only in +the members of a privileged class, but in the whole body of the State, +is a question too problematical to be raised with advantage in this +place. But it is impossible not to perceive that with the decline of the +Greek city-state something passed from the world which it can never +cease to regret, and the recovery of which, if it might be, in some more +perfect form, must be the goal of its highest practical endeavours. +Immense, no doubt, is the significance of the centuries that have +intervened, but it is a significance of preparation; and when we look +beyond the means to the wished-for end, limiting our conceptions to the +actual possibilities of life on earth, it is among the Greeks that we +seek the record of the highest achievement of the past, and the hope of +the highest possibilities of the future. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE GREEK VIEW OF ART + + +Section 1. Greek Art an Expression of National Life. + +In approaching the subject of the Art of the Greeks we come to what, +more plausibly than any other, may be regarded as the central point of +their scheme of life. We have already noticed, in dealing with other +topics, how constantly the aesthetic point of view emerges and +predominates in matters with which, in the modern way of looking at +things, it appears to have no direct and natural connection. We saw, for +example, how inseparable in their religion was the element of ritual and +ceremony from that of idea; how in their ethical conceptions the primary +notion was that of beauty; how they aimed throughout at a perfect +balance of body and soul, and more generally, in every department, at an +expression of the inner by the outer so complete and perfect that the +conception of a separation of the two became almost as impossible to +their thought as it would have been unpleasing and discordant to their +feeling. Now such a point of view is, in fact, that of art; and +philosophers of history have been amply justified in characterising the +whole Greek epoch as pre-eminently that of Beauty. + +But if this be a true way of regarding the matter, we should expect to +find that art and beauty had, for the Greeks, a very wide and complex +significance. There is a view of art, and it is one that appears to be +prevalent in our own time, which sets it altogether outside the general +trend of national life and ideas; which asserts that it has no +connection with ethics, religion, politics, or any of the general +conceptions which regulate action and thought; that its end is in +itself, and is simply beauty; and that in beauty there is no distinction +of high or low, no preference of one kind above another. Art thus +conceived is, in the first place, purely subjective in character; the +artist alone is the standard, and any phase or mood of his, however +exceptional, personal and transitory, is competent to produce a work of +art as satisfying and as great as one whose inspiration was drawn from a +nation's life, reflecting its highest moments, and its most universal +aspirations and ideals; so that, for example, a butterfly drawn by Mr. +Whistler would rank as high, say, as the Parthenon. And in the second +place, in this view of art, the subject is a matter of absolute +indifference. The standards of ordinary life, ethical or other, do not +apply; there is no better or worse, but only a more or less beautiful; +and the representation of a music-hall stage or a public house bar may +be as great and perfect a work of art as the Venus of Milo or the +Madonna of Raphael. + +This theory, which arises naturally and perhaps inevitably in an age +where national life has degenerated into materialism and squalor, and +the artist feels himself a stranger in a world of Philistines, we need +not here pause to examine and criticise. It has been mentioned merely to +illustrate by contrast the Greek view, which was diametrically opposed +to this, and valued art in proportion as it represented in perfect form +the highest and most comprehensive aspects of the national ideal. + +To say this, is not, of course, to say that the Greek conception of art +was didactic; for the word didactic, when applied to art, has usually +the implication that the excellence of the moral is the only point to be +considered, and that if that is good the work itself must be good. This +idea does indeed occur in Greek thought--we find it, for example, +paradoxically enough, in so great an artist as Plato--but if it had been +the one which really determined their production, there would have been +no occasion to write this chapter, for there would have been no Greek +art to write about. The truer account of the impulse that urged them to +create is that given also by Plato in an earlier and more impassioned +work, in which he describes it as a "madness of those who are possessed +by the Muses; which enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there +inspiring frenzy, awakens lyrical and all other numbers; with these +adorning the myriad actions of ancient heroes for the instruction of +posterity. But he who having no touch of the Muses' madness in his soul, +comes to the door and thinks that he will get into the temple by the +help of art--he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is +nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman." [Footnote: +Plato, Phaedrus, 245a.--Translated by Jowett.] + +The presupposition, in fact, of all that can be said about the Greek +view of art, is that primarily and to begin with they were, by nature, +artists. Judged simply by the aesthetic standard, without any +consideration of subject matter at all, or any reference to +intellectual or ethical ideals, they created works of art more purely +beautiful than those of any other age or people. Their mere household +crockery, their common pots and pans, are cast in shapes so exquisitely +graceful, and painted in designs so admirably drawn and composed, that +any one of them has a higher artistic value than the whole contents of +the Royal Academy; and the little clay figures they used as we do china +ornaments put to shame the most ambitious efforts of modern sculpture. +Who, for example, would not rather look at a Tanagra statuette than at +the equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington? + +The Greeks, in fact, quite apart from any theories they may have held, +were artists through and through; and that is a fact we must carry with +us through the whole of our discussion. + + +Section 2. Identification of the Aesthetic and Ethical Points of View. + +But on the other hand, it seems to be clear from all that we can learn, +that their habitual way of regarding works of art was not to judge them +simply and exclusively by their aesthetic value. On the contrary, in +criticising two works otherwise equally beautiful, they would give a +higher place to the one or the other for its ethical or quasi-ethical +qualities. This indeed is what we should expect from the comprehensive +sense which, as we have seen, attached in their tongue to the word which +we render "beautiful." The aesthetic and ethical spheres, in fact, were +never sharply distinguished by the Greeks; and it follows that as, on +the one hand, their conception of the good was identified with that of +the beautiful, so, on the other hand, their conception of the beautiful +was identified with that of the good. Thus the most beautiful work of +art, in the Greek sense of the term, was that which made the finest and +most harmonious appeal not only to the physical but to the moral sense, +and while communicating the highest and most perfect pleasure to the eye +or the ear, had also the power to touch and inform the soul with the +grace which was her moral excellence. Of this really characteristic +Greek conception, this fusion, so instinctive as to be almost +unconscious, of the aesthetic and ethical points of view, no better +illustration could be given than the following passage from the Republic +of Plato, where the philosopher is describing the effect of beautiful +works of art, and especially of music, on the moral and intellectual +character of his imaginary citizens: + +"'We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral +deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon +many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they +silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let +our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of +the beautiful and graceful: then will our youth dwell in a land of +health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; +and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and +ear, like a healthgiving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw +the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty +of reason.' + +"'There can be no nobler training than that,' he replied. + +"'And therefore,' I said, "'Glaucon, musical training is a more potent +instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way +into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, +imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated +graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he +who has received this true education of the inner being will most +shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true +taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the +good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, +now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason +why: and when reason comes he will recognise and salute the friend with +whom his education has made him long familiar."[Footnote: Plato, +Republic III. 401.--Translated by Jowett.] + +This fusion of the ideas of the beautiful and the good is the central +point in the Greek Theory of Art; and it enables us to understand how it +was that they conceived art to be educational. Its end, in their view, +was not only pleasure, though pleasure was essential to it; but also, +and just as much, edification. Plato, indeed, here again exaggerating +the current view, puts the edification above the pleasure. He criticises +Homer as he might criticise a moral philosopher, pointing out the +inadequacy, from an ethical point of view, of his conception of heaven +and of the gods, and dismissing as injurious and of bad example to +youthful citizens the whole tissue of passionate human feeling, the +irrepressible outbursts of anger and grief and fear, by virtue of which +alone the Iliad and the Odyssey are immortal poems instead of ethical +tracts. And finally, with a half reluctant assent to the course of his +own argument, he excludes the poets altogether from his ideal republic, +on the ground that they encourage their hearers in that indulgence of +emotion which it is the object of every virtuous man to repress. The +conclusion of Plato, by his own admission, was half paradoxical, and it +certainly never recommended itself to such a nation of artists as the +Greeks. But it illustrates, nevertheless, the general bent of their +views of art, that tendency to the identification of the beautiful and +the good, which, while it was never pushed so far as to choke art with +didactics--for Plato himself, even against his own will, is a poet--yet +served to create a standard of taste which was ethical as much as +aesthetic, and made the judgment of beauty also a judgment of moral +worth. + +Quite in accordance with this view we find that the central aim of all +Greek art is the representation of human character and human ideals. The +interpretation of "nature" for its own sake (in the narrower sense in +which "nature" is opposed to man) is a modern and romantic development +that would have been unintelligible to a Greek. Not that the Greeks were +without a sense of what we call the beauties of nature, but that they +treat them habitually, not as the centre of interest, but as the +background to human activity. The most beautiful descriptions of nature +to be found in Greek poetry occur, incidentally only, in the choral odes +introduced into their dramas; and among all their pictures of which we +have any record there is not one that answers to the description of a +landscape; the subject is always mythological or historical, and the +representation of nature merely a setting for the main theme. And on the +other hand, the art for which the Greeks are most famous, and in which +they have admittedly excelled all other peoples, is that art of +sculpture whose special function it is not only to represent but to +idealise the human form, and which is peculiarly adapted to embody for +the sense not only physical but ethical types. And, more remarkable +still, as we shall have occasion to observe later, the very art which +modern men regard as the most devoid of all intellectual content, the +most incommensurable with any standard except that of pure beauty--I +refer of course to the art of music--was invested by the Greeks with a +definite moral content and worked into their general theory of art as a +direct interpretation of human life. The excellence of man, in short, +directly or indirectly, was the point about which Greek art turned; that +excellence was at once aesthetic and ethical; and the representation of +what was beautiful involved also the representation of what was good. +This point we will now proceed to illustrate more in detail in +connection with the various special branches of art. + + +Section 3. Sculpture and Painting. + +Let us take, first, the plastic arts, sculpture and painting; and to +bring into clear relief the Greek point of view let us contrast with it +that of the modern "impressionist." To the impressionist a picture is +simply an arrangement of colour and line; the subject represented is +nothing, the treatment everything. It would be better, on the whole, not +even to know what objects are depicted; and, to judge the picture by a +comparison with the objects, or to consider what is the worth of the +objects in themselves, or what we might think of them if we came across +them in the connections of ordinary life, is simply to misconceive the +whole meaning of a picture. For the artist and for the man who +understands art, all scales and standards disappear except that of the +purely aesthetic beauty which consists in harmony of line and tone; the +most perfect human form has no more value than a splash of mud; or +rather both mud and human form disappear as irrelevant, and all that is +left for judgment is the arrangement of colour and form originally +suggested by those accidental and indifferent phenomena. + +In the Greek view, on the other hand, though we certainly cannot say +that the subject was everything and the treatment nothing (for that +would be merely the annihilation of art) yet we may assert that, granted +the treatment, granted that the work was beautiful (the first and +indispensable requirement) its worth was determined by the character of +the subject. Sculpture and painting, in fact, to the Greeks, were not +merely a medium of aesthetic pleasure; they were ways of expressing and +interpreting national life. As such they were subordinated to religion. +The primary end of sculpture was to make statues of the gods and heroes; +the primary end of painting was to represent mythological scenes; and in +either case the purely aesthetic pleasure was also a means to a +religious experience. + +Let us take, for example, the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the most famous +of the works of Pheidias. This colossal figure of ivory and gold was +doubtless, according to all the testimony we possess, from a merely +aesthetic point of view, among the most consummate creations of human +genius. But what was the main aim of the artist who made it? what the +main effect on the spectator? The artist had designed and the spectator +seemed to behold a concrete image of that Homeric Zeus who was the +centre of his religious consciousness--the Zeus who "nodded his dark +brow, and the ambrosial locks waved from the King's immortal head, and +he made great Olympus quake." [Footnote: Iliad i. 528.--Translated by +Lang, Leaf and Myers.] "Those who approach the temple," says Lucian, "do +not conceive that they see ivory from the Indies or gold from the mines +of Thrace; no, but the very son of Kronos and Rhea, transported by +Pheidias to earth and set to watch over the lonely plain of Pisa." "He +was," says Dion Chrysostom, "the type of that unattained ideal, Hellas +come to unity with herself; in expression at once mild and awful, as +befits the giver of life and all good gifts, the common father, saviour +and guardian of men; dignified as a king, tender as a father, awful as +giver of laws, kind as protector of suppliants and friends, simple and +great as giver of increase and wealth; revealing, in a word, in form and +countenance, the whole array of gifts and qualities proper to his +supreme divinity." + +The description is characteristic of the whole aim of Greek sculpture,-- +the representation not only of beauty, but of character, not only of +character but of character idealised. The statues of the various gods +derive their distinguishing individuality not merely from their +association with conventional symbols, but from a concrete reproduction, +in features, expression, drapery, pose, of the ethical and intellectual +qualities for which they stand. An Apollo differs in type from a Zeus, +an Athene from a Demeter; and in every case the artist works from an +intellectual conception, bent not simply on a graceful harmony of lines, +but on the representation of a character at once definite and ideal. + +Primarily, then, Greek sculpture was an expression of the national +religion; and therefore, also, of the national life. For, as we saw, the +cult of the gods was the centre, not only of the religious but of the +political consciousness of Greece; and an art which was born and +flourished in the temple and the sacred grove, naturally became the +exponent of the ideal aspect of the state. It was thus, for example, +that the Parthenon at Athens was at once the centre of the worship of +Athene, and a symbol of the corporate life over which she presided; the +statue of the goddess having as its appropriate complement the frieze +over which the spirit of the city moved in stone. And thus, too, the +statues of the victors at the Olympian games were dedicated in the +sacred precinct, as a memorial of what was not only an athletic meeting, +but also at once a centre of Hellenic unity and the most consummate +expression of that aspect of their culture which contributed at least as +much to their aesthetic as to their physical perfection. + +Sculpture, in fact, throughout, was subordinated to religion, and +through religion to national life; and it was from this that it derived +its ideal and intellectual character. And, so far as our authorities +enable us to judge, the same is true of painting. The great pictures of +which we have descriptions were painted to adorn temples and public +buildings, and represented either mythological or national themes. Such, +for example, was the great work of Polygnotus at Delphi, in which was +depicted on the one hand the sack of Troy, on the other the descent of +Odysseus into Hades; and such his representation of the battle of +Marathon, in the painted porch that led to the Acropolis of Athens. And +even the vase paintings of which we have innumerable examples, and which +are mere decorations of common domestic utensils, have often enough some +story of gods and heroes for their theme, whereby over and above their +purely aesthetic value they made their appeal to the general religious +consciousness of Greece. Painting, like sculpture, had its end, in a +sense, outside itself; and from this very fact derived its peculiar +dignity, simplicity, and power. + +From this account of the plastic art of the Greeks it follows as a +simple corollary, that their aim was not merely to reproduce but to +transcend nature. For their subject was gods and heroes, and heroes and +gods were superior to men. Of this idealising tendency we have in +sculpture evidence enough in the many examples which have been preserved +to us; and with regard to painting there is curious literary testimony +to the same effect. Aristotle, for example, remarks that "even if it is +impossible that men should be such as Zeuxis painted them, yet it is +better that he should paint them so; for the example ought to excel that +for which it is an example." [Footnote: Artist, Poet, xxv.--1461. 6. +12.] + +And in an imaginary conversation recorded between Socrates and +Parrhasius the artist admits without any hesitation that more pleasure +is to be derived from pictures of men who are morally good than from +those of men who are morally bad. In the Greek view, in fact, as we saw, +physical and moral excellence went together, and it was excellence they +sought to depict in their art; not merely aesthetic beauty, though that +was a necessary presupposition, but on the top of that, ideal types of +character representative of their conception of the hero and the god. +Art, in a word, was subordinate to the ethical ideal; or rather the +ethical and aesthetic ideals were not yet dissociated; and the greatest +artists the world has ever known worked deliberately under the direction +and inspiration of the ideas that controlled and determined the life of +their time. + + +Section 4. Music and the Dance. + +Turning now from the plastic arts to that other group which the Greeks +classed together under the name of "Music"--namely music, in the +narrower sense, dancing and poetry--we find still more clearly +emphasised and more elaborately worked out the subordination of +aesthetic to ethical and religious ends. "Music," in fact, as they used +the term, was the centre of Greek education, and its moral character +thus became a matter of primary importance. By it were formed, it was +supposed, the mind and temper of the citizens, and so the whole +constitution of the state. "The introduction of a new kind of music," +says Plato, "must be shunned as imperilling the whole state; since +styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important +political institutions." "The new style," he goes on, "gradually gaining +a lodgment, quietly insinuates itself into manners and customs; and from +these it issues in greater force, and makes its way into mutual +compacts: and from compacts it goes on to attack laws and constitutions, +displaying the utmost impudence, until it ends by overturning +everything, both in public and in private." [Footnote: Plato, Rep. IV. +4240.--Translated by Davies and Vaughan.] And as in his Republic he had +defined the character of the poetry that should be admitted into his +ideal state, so in the "Laws" he specially defines the character of the +melodies and dances, regarding them as the most important factor in +determining and preserving the manners and institutions of the citizens. + +Nothing, at first sight, to a modern mind, could, be stranger than this +point of view. That poetry has a bearing on conduct we can indeed +understand, though we do not make poetry the centre of our system of +education; but that moral effects should be attributed to music and to +dancing and that these should be regarded as of such importance as to +influence profoundly the whole constitution of a state, will appear to +the majority of modern men an unintelligible paradox. + +Yet no opinion of the Greeks is more profoundly characteristic than this +of their whole way of regarding life, and none would better repay a +careful study. That moral character should be attributed to the +influence of music is only one and perhaps the most striking +illustration of that general identification by the Greeks of the ethical +and the aesthetic standards on which we have so frequently had occasion +to insist. Virtue, in their conception, was not a hard conformity to a +law felt as alien to the natural character; it was the free expression +of a beautiful and harmonious soul. And this very metaphor "harmonious," +which they so constantly employ, involves the idea of a close connection +between music and morals. Character, in the Greek view, is a certain +proportion of the various elements of the soul, and the right character +is the right proportion. But the relation in which these elements stand +to one another could be directly affected, it was found, by means of +music; not only could the different emotions be excited or assuaged in +various degrees, but the whole relation of the emotional to the rational +element could be regulated and controlled by the appropriate melody and +measure. That this connection between music and morals really does exist +is recognised, in a rough and general way, by most people who have any +musical sense. There are rhythms and tunes, for example, that are felt +to be vulgar and base, and others that are felt to be ennobling; some +music, Wagner's, for instance, is frequently called immoral; Gounod is +described as enervating, Beethoven as bracing, and the like; and however +absurd such comments may often appear to be in detail, underlying them +is the undoubtedly well-grounded sense that various kinds of music have +various ethical qualities. But it is just this side of music, which has +been neglected in modern times, that was the one on which the Greeks +laid most stress. Infinitely inferior to the moderns in the mechanical +resources of the art, they had made, it appears, a far finer and closer +analysis of its relation to emotional states; with the result that even +in music, which we describe as the purest of the arts, congratulating +ourselves on its absolute dissociation from all definite intellectual +conceptions,--even here the standard of the Greeks was as much ethical +as aesthetic, and the style of music was distinguished and its value +appraised, not only by the pleasure to be derived from it, but also by +the effect it tended to produce on character. + +Of this position we have a clear and definite statement in Aristotle. +Virtue, he says, consists in loving and hating in the proper way, and +implies, therefore, a delight in the proper emotions; but emotions of +any kind are produced by melody and rhythm; therefore by music a man +becomes accustomed to feeling the right emotions. Music has thus the +power to form character; and the various kinds of music, based on the +various modes, may be distinguished by their effects on character--one, +for example, working in the direction of melancholy, another of +effeminacy; one encouraging abandonment, another self-control, another +enthusiasm, and so on through the series. It follows that music may be +judged not merely by the pleasure it gives, but by the character of its +moral influence; pleasure, indeed, is essential or there would be no +art; but the different kinds of pleasure given by different kinds of +music are to be distinguished not merely by quantity, but by quality. +One will produce a right pleasure of which the good man will approve, +and which will have a good effect on character; another will be in +exactly the opposite case. Or, as Plato puts it, "the excellence of +music is to be measured by pleasure. But the pleasure must not be that +of chance persons; the fairest music is that which delights the best and +best-educated, and especially that which delights the one man who is +pre-eminent in virtue and education." [Footnote: Plato Laws. II. 6586.-- +Translated by Jowett.] + +We see then that even pure music, to the Greeks, had a distinct and +definite ethical bearing. But this ethical influence was further +emphasised by the fact that it was not their custom to enjoy their music +pure. What they called "music," as has been already pointed out, was an +intimate union of melody, verse and dance, so that the particular +emotional meaning of the rhythm and tune employed was brought out into +perfect lucidity by the accompanying words and gestures. Thus we find, +for example, that Plato characterises a tendency in his own time to the +separation of melody and verse as a sign of a want of true artistic +taste; for, he says, it is very hard, in the absence of words, to +distinguish the exact character of the mood which the rhythm and tune is +supposed to represent. In this connection it may be interesting to refer +to the use of the "_leit-motiv_" in modern music. Here too a +particular idea, if not a particular set of words, is associated with a +particular musical phrase; the intention of the practice being clearly +the same as that which is indicated in the passage just quoted, namely +to add precision and definiteness to the vague emotional content of pure +music. + +And this determining effect of words was further enhanced, in the music +of the Greeks, by the additional accompaniment of the dance. The +emotional character conveyed to the mind by the words and to the ear by +the tune, was further explained to the eye by gesture, pose, and beat of +foot; the combination of the three modes of expression forming thus in +the Greek sense a single "imitative" art. The dance as well as the +melody came thus to have a definite ethical significance; "it +imitates," says Aristotle, "character, emotion, and action." And Plato +in his ideal republic would regulate by law the dances no less than the +melodies to be employed, distinguishing them too as morally good or +morally bad, and encouraging the one while he forbids the other. + +The general Greek view of music which has thus been briefly expounded, +the union of melody and rhythm with poetry and the dance in view of a +definite and consciously intended ethical character, may be illustrated +by the following passage of Plutarch, in which he describes the music in +vogue at Sparta. The whole system, it will be observed, is designed with +a view to that military courage which was the virtue most prized in the +Spartan state, and the one about which all their institutions centred. +Music at Sparta actually was, what Plato would have had it in his ideal +republic, a public and state-regulated function; and even that vigorous +race which of all the Greeks came nearest to being Philistines of +virtue, thought fit to lay a foundation purely aesthetic for their +severe and soldierly ideal. + +"Their instruction in music and verse," says Plutarch, "was not less +carefully attended to than their habits of grace and good-breeding in +conversation. And their very songs had a life and spirit in them that +inflamed and possessed men's minds with an enthusiasm and ardour for +action; the style of them was plain and without affectation; the subject +always serious and moral; most usually, it was in praise of such men as +had died in defence of their country, or in derision of those that had +been cowards; the former they declared happy and glorified; the life of +the latter they described as most miserable and abject. There were also +vaunts of what they would do and boasts of what they had done, varying +with the various ages; as, for example, they had three choirs in their +solemn festivals, the first of the old men, the second of the young men, +and the last of the children; the old men began thus: + + We once were young and brave and strong; + +The young men answered them, singing; + + And we're so now, come on and try: + +The children came last and said: + + But we'll be strongest by and bye. + +Indeed if we will take the pains to consider their compositions, and the +airs on the flute to which they marched when going to battle, we shall +find that Terpander and Pindar had reason to say that music and valour +were allied." [Footnote: Plutarch, Lycurgus, ch. 21.--Clough's ed.] + +The way of regarding music which is illustrated in this passage, and in +all that is said on the subject by Greek writers, is so typical of the +whole point of view of the Greeks, that we may be pardoned for insisting +once again on the attitude of mind which it implies. Music, as we saw, +had an ethical value to the Greeks; but that is not to say that they put +the ethics first, and the music second, using the one as a mere tool of +the other. Rather an ethical state of mind was also, in their view, a +musical one. In a sense something more than metaphorical, virtue was a +harmony of the soul. The musical end was thus identical with the ethical +one. The most beautiful music was also the morally best, and _vice +versa_; virtue was not prior to beauty, nor beauty to virtue; they +were two aspects of the same reality, two ways of regarding a single +fact; and if aesthetic effects were supposed to be amenable to ethical +judgment, it was only because ethical judgments at bottom were +aesthetic. The "good" and the "beautiful" were one and the same thing; +that is the first and last word of the Greek ideal. + +And while thus, on the one hand, virtue was invested with the +spontaneity and delight of art, on the other, art derived from its +association with ethics emotional precision. In modern times the end of +music is commonly conceived to be simply and without more ado the +excitement of feeling. Its value is measured by the intensity rather +than the quality of the emotion which it is capable of arousing; and the +auditor abandons himself to a casual succession of highly wrought moods +as bewildering in the actual experience as it is exhausting in the +after-effects. In Greek music, on the other hand, if we may trust our +accounts, while the intensity of the feeling excited must have been far +less than that which it is in the power of modern instrumentation to +evoke, its character was perfectly simple and definite. Melody, rhythm, +gesture and words, were all consciously adapted to the production of a +single precisely conceived emotional effect; the listener was in a +position clearly to understand and appraise the value of the mood +excited in him; instead of being exhausted and confused by a chaos of +vague and conflicting emotion he had the sense of relief which +accompanies the deliverance of a definite passion, and returned to his +ordinary business "purged", as they said, and tranquillised, by a +process which he understood, directed to an end of which he approved. + + +Section 5. Poetry. + +If now, as we have seen, in the plastic arts, and in an art which +appears to us so pure as music, the Greeks perceived and valued, along +with the immediate pleasure of beauty, a definite ethical character and +bent, much more was this the case with poetry, whose material is +conceptions and ideas. The works of the poets, and especially of Homer, +were in fact to the Greeks all that moral treatises are to us; or +rather, instead of learning their lessons in abstract terms, they learnt +them out of the concrete representation of life. Poetry was the basis of +their education, the guide and commentary of their practice, the +inspiration of their speculative thought. If they have a proposition to +advance, they must back it by a citation: if they have a counsel to +offer, they must prop it with a verse. Not only for delight, but for +inspiration, warning and example, they were steeped from childhood +onwards in an ocean of melodious discourse; their national epics were to +them what the Bible was to the Puritans; and for every conjunction of +fortune, for every issue of home or state, they found therein a text to +prompt or reinforce their decision. Of this importance of poetry in the +life of ancient Greece, and generally of the importance of music and +art, the following passage from Plato is a striking illustration: "When +the boy has learned his letters and is beginning to understand what is +written, as before he understood only what was spoken, they put into his +hands the works of great poets, which he reads at school; in these are +contained many admonitions, and many tales, and praises, and encomia of +ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, in order +that he may imitate or emulate them and desire to become like them. Then +again the teachers of the lyre take similar care that their young +disciple is temperate and gets into no mischief; and when they have +taught him the use of the lyre, they introduce him to the poems of other +excellent poets, who are the lyric poets; and these they set to music +and make their harmonies and rhythms quite familiar to the children's +souls, in order that they may learn to be more gentle and harmonious and +rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and action; for the life of +man in every part has need of harmony and rhythm," [Footnote: Plato +Prot. 325c.--Translated by Jowett.] + +From this conception of poetry as a storehouse of practical wisdom the +transition is easy to a purely ethical judgment of its value; and that +transition, as has been already noted, was actually made by Plato, who +even goes so far as to prescribe to poets the direct inculcation of such +morals as are proper to a tract, as that the good and just man is happy +even though he be poor, and the bad and unjust man miserable even though +he be rich. This didacticism, no doubt, is a parody; but it is a parody +of the normal Greek view, that the excellence of a poem is closely bound +up with the compass and depth of its whole ethical content, and is not +to be measured, as many moderns maintain, merely by the aesthetic beauty +of its form. When Strabo says, "it is impossible to be a good poet +unless you are first a good man," he is expressing the common opinion of +the Greeks that the poet is to be judged not merely as an artist but as +an interpreter of life; and the same presupposition underlies the remark +of Aristotle that poets may be classified according as the characters +they represent are as good as, better, or worse than the average man. + +But perhaps the most remarkable illustration of this way of regarding +poetry is the passage in the "Frogs" of Aristophanes, where the comedian +has introduced a controversy between Aeschylus and Euripides as to the +relative merit of their works, and has made the decision turn almost +entirely on moral considerations, the question being really whether or +no Euripides is to be regarded as a corrupter of his countrymen. In the +course of the discussion Aeschylus is made to give expression to a view +of poetry which clearly enough Aristophanes endorses himself, and which +no doubt would be accepted by the majority of his audience. He appeals +to all antiquity to shew that poets have always been the instructors of +mankind, and that it is for this that they are held in honour. + + "Look to traditional history, look + To antiquity, primitive, early, remote; + See there, what a blessing illustrious poets + Conferr'd on mankind, in the centuries past. + Orpheus instructed mankind in religion, + Reclaim'd them from bloodshed and barbarous rites; + Musaeus deliver'd the doctrine of med'cine, + And warnings prophetic for ages to come; + Next came old Hesiod, teaching us husbandry, + Ploughing, and sowing, and rural affairs, + Rural economy, rural astronomy, + Homely morality, labour, and thrift; + Homer himself, our adorable Homer, + What was his title to praise and renown? + What, but the worth of the lessons he taught us + Discipline, arms, and equipment of war?" + [Footnote: Aristoph. Frogs, 1030.--Translated by Frere.] + +While then there is, as we should naturally expect, plenty of Greek +poetry which is simply the spontaneous expression of passionate feeling, +unrestrained by the consideration of ethical or other ends; yet if we +take for our type (as we are fairly entitled to do, from the prominent +place it held in Greek life), not the lyrics but the drama of Greece, we +shall find that in poetry even (as was to be expected) to a higher +degree than in music and the plastic arts, the beauty sought and +achieved is one that lies within the limits of certain definite moral +pre-suppositions. Let us consider this point in some detail; and first +let us examine the character of Greek tragedy. + + +Section 6. Tragedy. + +The character of Greek tragedy was determined from the very beginning by +the fact of its connection with religion. The season at which it was +performed was the festival of Dionysus; about his altar the chorus +danced; and the object of the performance was the representation of +scenes out of the lives of ancient heroes. The subject of the drama was +thus strictly prescribed; it must be selected out of a cycle of legends +familiar to the audience; and whatever freedom might be allowed to the +poet in his treatment of the theme, whatever the reflections he might +embroider upon it, the speculative or ethical views, the criticism of +contemporary life, all must be subservient to the main object originally +proposed, the setting forth, for edification as well as for delight, of +some episodes in the lives of those heroes of the past who were +considered not only to be greater than their descendants, but to be the +sons of gods and worthy themselves of worship as divine. + +By this fundamental condition the tragedy of the Greeks is distinguished +sharply, on the one hand from the Shakespearian drama, on the other from +the classical drama of the French. The tragedies of Shakespeare are +devoid, one might say, or at least comparatively devoid, of all +preconceptions. He was free to choose what subject he liked and to treat +it as he would; and no sense of obligation to religious or other points +of view, no feeling for traditions descended from a sacred past and not +lightly to be handled by those who were their trustees for the future, +sobered or restrained for evil or for good his half-barbaric genius. He +flung himself upon life with the irresponsible ardour of the discoverer +of a new continent; shaped and re-shaped it as he chose; carved from it +now the cynicism of Measure for Measure, now the despair of Hamlet and +of Lear, now the radiant magnanimity of the Tempest, and departed +leaving behind him not a map or chart, but a series of mutually +incompatible landscapes. + +What Shakespeare gave, in short, was a many-sided representation of +life; what the Greek dramatist gave was an interpretation. But an +interpretation not simply personal to himself, but representative of the +national tradition and belief. The men whose deeds and passions he +narrated were the patterns and examples on the one hand, on the other +the warnings of his race; the gods who determined the fortunes they +sang, were working still among men; the moral laws that ruled the past +ruled the present too; and the history of the Hellenic race moved, under +a visible providence, from its divine origin onward to an end that would +be prosperous or the reverse according as later generations should +continue to observe the worship and traditions of their fathers +descended from heroes and gods. + +And it is the fact that in this sense it was representative of the +national consciousness, that distinguishes the Greek tragedy from the +classical drama of the French. For the latter, though it imitated the +ancients in outward form, was inspired with a totally different spirit. +The kings and heroes whose fortunes it narrated were not the ancestors +of the French race; they had no root in its affections, no connection +with its religious beliefs, no relation to its ethical conceptions. The +whole ideal set forth was not that which really inspired the nation, but +at best that which was supposed to inspire the court; and the whole +drama, like a tree transplanted to an alien soil, withers and dies for +lack of the nourishment which the tragedy of the Greeks unconsciously +imbibed from its encompassing air of national tradition. + +Such then was the general character of the Greek tragedy--an +interpretation of the national ideal. Let us now proceed to follow out +some of the consequences involved in this conception. + +In the first place, the theme represented is the life and fate of +ancient heroes--of personages, that is to say, greater than ordinary +men, both for good and for evil, in their qualities and in their +achievements, pregnant with fateful issues, makers or marrers of the +fortunes of the world. Tragic and terrible their destiny may be, but +never contemptible or squalid. Behind all suffering, behind sin and +crime, must lie a redeeming magnanimity. A complete villain, says +Aristotle, is not a tragic character, for he has no hold upon the +sympathies; if he prosper, it is an outrage on common human feeling; if +he fall into disaster, it is merely what he deserves. Neither is it +admissible to represent the misfortunes of a thoroughly good man, for +that is merely painful and distressing; and least of all is it tolerable +gratuitously to introduce mere baseness, or madness, or other +aberrations from human nature. The true tragic hero is a man of high +place and birth who having a nature not ignoble has fallen into sin and +pays in suffering the penalty of his act. Nothing could throw more light +on the distinguishing characteristics of the Greek drama than these few +remarks of Aristotle, and nothing could better indicate how close, in +the Greek mind, was the connection between aesthetic and ethical +judgments. The canon of Aristotle would exclude as proper themes for +tragedy the character and fate, say, of Richard III.--the absolutely bad +man suffering his appropriate desert; or of Kent and Cordelia--the +absolutely good, brought into unmerited affliction; and that not merely +because such themes offend the moral sense, but because by so offending +they destroy the proper pleasure of the tragic art. The whole aesthetic +effect is limited by ethical presuppositions; and to outrage these is to +defeat the very purpose of tragedy. + +Specially interesting in this connection are the strictures passed on +Euripides in the passage of the "Frogs" of Aristophanes to which +allusion has already been made. Euripides is there accused of lowering +the tragic art by introducing--what? Women in love! The central theme of +modern tragedy! It is the boast of Aeschylus that there is not one of +his plays which touches on this subject:-- + + "I never allow'd of your lewd Sthenoboeas + Or filthy detestable Phaedras--not I! + Indeed I should doubt if my drama throughout + Exhibit an instance of woman in love!" + [Footnote: Aristoph. Frogs, 1043.--Translated by Frere.] + +And there can be little doubt that with a Greek audience this would +count to him as a merit, and that the shifting of the centre of interest +by Euripides from the sterner passions of heroes and of kings to this +tenderer phase of human feeling would be felt even by those whom it +charmed to be a declension from the height of the older tragedy. + +And to this limitation of subject corresponds a limitation of treatment. +The Greek tragedy is composed from a definite point of view, with the +aim not merely to represent but also to interpret the theme. Underlying +the whole construction of the plot, the dialogue, the reflections, the +lyric interludes, is the intention to illustrate some general moral law, +some common and typical problem, some fundamental truth. Of the elder +dramatists at any rate, Aeschylus and Sophocles, one may even say that +it was their purpose--however imperfectly achieved--to "justify the ways +of God to man." To represent suffering as the punishment of sin is the +constant bent of Aeschylus; to justify the law of God against the +presumption of man is the central idea of Sophocles. In either case the +whole tone is essentially religious. To choose such a theme as Lear, to +treat it as Shakespeare has treated it, to leave it, as it were, +bleeding from a thousand wounds, in mute and helpless entreaty for the +healing that is never to be vouchsafed--this would have been repulsive, +if not impossible, to a Greek tragedian. Without ever descending from +concrete art to the abstractions of mere moralising, without ever +attempting to substitute a verbal formula for the full and complex +perception that grows out of a representation of life, the ancient +dramatists were nevertheless, in the whole apprehension of their theme, +determined by a more or less conscious speculative bias; the world to +them was not merely a splendid chaos, it was a divine plan; and even in +its darkest hollows, its passes most perilous and bleak, they have their +hand, though doubtful perhaps and faltering, upon the clue that is to +lead them up to the open sky. + +It is consonant with this account of the nature of Greek tragedy that it +should have laid more stress upon action than upon character. The +interest was centred on the universal bearing of certain acts and +situations, on the light which the experience represented threw on the +whole tendency and course of human life, not on the sentiments and +motives of the particular personages introduced. The characters are +broad and simple, not developing for the most part, but fixed, and +fitted therefore to be the mediums of direct action, of simple issues, +and typical situations. In the Greek tragedy the general point of view +predominates over the idiosyncrasies of particular persons. It is human +nature that is represented in the broad, not this or that highly +specialised variation; and what we have indicated as the general aim, +the interpretation of life, is never obscured by the predominance of +exceptional and so to speak, accidental characteristics. Man is the +subject of the Greek drama; the subject of the modern novel is Tom and +Dick. + +Finally, to the realisation of this general aim, the whole form of the +Greek drama was admirably adapted. It consisted very largely of +conversations between two persons, representing two opposed points of +view, and giving occasion for an almost scientific discussion of every +problem of action raised in the play; and between these conversations +were inserted lyric odes in which the chorus commented on the situation, +bestowed advice or warning, praise or blame, and finally summed up the +moral of the whole. Through the chorus, in fact, the poet could speak in +his own person, and impose upon the whole tragedy any tone which he +desired. Periodically he could drop the dramatist and assume the +preacher; and thus ensure that his play should be, what we have seen was +its recognised ideal, not merely a representation but an interpretation +of life. + +But this without ceasing to be a work of art. In attempting to analyse +in abstract terms the general character of the Greek tragedy we have +necessarily thrown into the shade what after all was its primary and +most essential aspect; an aspect, however, of which a full appreciation +could only be attained not by a mere perusal of the text, but by what is +unfortunately for ever beyond our power, the witnessing of an actual +representation as it was given on the Greek stage. For from a purely +aesthetic point of view the Greek drama must be reckoned among the most +perfect of art forms. + +Taking place in the open air, on the sunny slope of a hill, valley and +plain or islanded sea stretching away below to meet the blazing blue of +a cloudless sky, the moving pageant, thus from the first set in tune +with nature, brought to a focus of splendour the rays of every separate +art. More akin to an opera than to a play it had, as its basis, music. +For the drama had developed out of the lyric ode, and retained +throughout what was at first its only element, the dance and song of a +mimetic chorus. By this centre of rhythmic motion and pregnant melody +the burden of the tale was caught up and echoed and echoed again, as the +living globe divided into spheres of answering song, the clear and +precise significance of the plot, never obscure to the head, being thus +brought home in music to the passion of the heart, the idea embodied in +lyric verse, the verse transfigured by song, and song and verse +reflected as in a mirror to the eye by the swing and beat of the limbs +they stirred to consonance of motion. And while such was the character +of the odes that broke the action of the play, the action itself was an +appeal not less to the ear and to the eye than to the passion and the +intellect. The circumstances of the representation, the huge auditorium +in the open air, lent themselves less to "acting" in our sense of the +term, than to attitude and declamation. The actors raised on high boots +above their natural height, their faces hidden in masks and their tones +mechanically magnified, must have relied for their effects not upon +facial play, or rapid and subtle variations of voice and gesture, but +upon a certain statuesque beauty of pose, and a chanting intonation of +that majestic iambic verse whose measure would have been obscured by a +rapid and conversational delivery. The representation would thus become +moving sculpture to the eye, and to the ear, as it were, a sleep of +music between the intenser interludes of the chorus; and the spectator +without being drawn away by an imitative realism from the calm of +impassioned contemplation into the fever and fret of a veritable actor +on the scene, received an impression based throughout on that clear +intellectual foundation, that almost prosaic lucidity of sentiment and +plot, which is preserved to us in the written text, but raised by the +accompanying appeal to the sense, made as it must have been made by such +artists as the Greeks, by the grouping of forms and colours, the +recitative, the dance and the song, to such a greatness and height of +aesthetic significance as can hardly have been realized by any other +form of art production. + +The nearest modern analogy to what the ancient drama must have been is +to be found probably in the operas of Wagner, who indeed was strongly +influenced by the tragedy of the Greeks. It was his ideal like theirs, +to combine the various branches of art, employing not only music but +poetry, sculpture, painting and the dance, for the representation of his +dramatic theme; and his conception also to make art the interpreter of +life, reflecting in a national drama the national consciousness, the +highest action and the deepest passion and thought of the German race. +To consider how far in this attempt he falls short of or goes beyond the +achievement of the Greeks, and to examine the wide dissimilarities that +underlie the general identity of aim, would be to wander too far afield +from our present theme. But the comparison may be recommended to those +who are anxious to form a concrete idea of what the effect of a Greek +tragedy may have been, and to clothe in imagination the dead bones of +the literary text with the flesh and blood of a representation to the +sense. + +Meantime, to assist the reader to realise with somewhat greater +precision the bearing of the foregoing remarks, it may be worth while to +give an outline sketch of one of the most celebrated of the Greek +tragedies, the "Agamemnon" of Aeschylus. + +The hero of the drama belongs to that heroic house whose tragic history +was among the most terrible and the most familiar to a Greek audience. +Tantalus, the founder of the family, for some offence against the gods, +was suffering in Hades the punishment which is christened by his name. +His son Pelops was stained with the blood of Myrtilus. Of the two sons +of the next generation, Thyestes seduced the wife of his brother Atreus; +and Atreus in return killed the sons of Thyestes, and made the father +unwittingly eat the flesh of the murdered boys. Agamemnon, son of +Atreus, to propitiate Artemis, sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia, and in +revenge was murdered by Clytemnestra his wife. And Clytemnestra was +killed by Orestes, her son, in atonement for the death of Agamemnon. For +generations the race had been dogged by crime and punishment; and in +choosing for his theme the murder of Agamemnon the dramatist could +assume in his audience so close a familiarity with the past history of +the House that he could call into existence by an allusive word that +sombre background of woe to enhance the terrors of his actual +presentation. The figures he brought into vivid relief joined hands with +menacing forms that faded away into the night of the future and the +past; while above them hung, intoning doom, the phantom host of Furies. + +Yet at the outset of the drama all promises well. The watchman on the +roof of the palace, in the tenth year of his watch, catches sight at +last of the signal fire that announces the capture of Troy and the +speedy return of Agamemnon. With joy he proclaims to the House the long- +delayed and welcome news; yet even in the moment of exultation lets slip +a doubtful phrase hinting at something behind, which he dares not name, +something which may turn to despair the triumph of victory. Hereupon +enter the chorus of Argive elders, chanting as they move to the measure +of a stately march. They sing how ten years before Agamemnon and +Menelaus had led forth the host of Greece, at the bidding of the Zeus +who protects hospitality, to recover for Menelaus Helen his wife, +treacherously stolen by Paris. Then, as they take their places and begin +their rhythmic dance, in a strain of impassioned verse that is at once a +narrative and a lyric hymn, they tell, or rather, present in a series of +vivid images, flashing as by illumination of lightning out of a night of +veiled and sombre boding, the tale of the deed that darkened the +starting of the host--the sacrifice of Iphigenia to the goddess whose +wrath was delaying the fleet at Aulis. In verse, in music, in pantomime, +the scene lives again--the struggle in the father's heart, the +insistence of his brother chiefs, the piteous glance of the girl, and at +last the unutterable end; while above and through it all rings like a +knell of fate the refrain that is the motive of the whole drama: + +"Sing woe, sing woe, but may the Good prevail." + +At the conclusion of the ode enters Clytemnestra. She makes a formal +announcement to the chorus of the fall of Troy; describes the course of +the signal-fire from beacon to beacon as it sped, and pictures in +imagination the scenes even then taking place in the doomed city. On her +withdrawal the chorus break once more into song and dance. To the music +of a solemn hymn they point the moral of the fall of Troy, the certain +doom of violence and fraud descended upon Paris and his House. Once more +the vivid pictures flash from the night of woe--Helen in her fatal +beauty stepping lightly to her doom, the widower's nights of mourning +haunted by the ghost of love, the horrors of the war that followed, the +slain abroad and the mourners at home, the change of living flesh and +blood for the dust and ashes of the tomb. At last with a return to their +original theme, the doom of insolence, the chorus close their ode and +announce the arrival of a messenger from Troy. Talthybius, the herald, +enters as spokesman of the army and king, describing the hardships they +have suffered and the joy of the triumphant issue. To him Clytemnestra +announces, in words of which the irony is patent to the audience, her +sufferings in the absence of her husband and her delight at the prospect +of his return. He will find her, she says, as he left her, a faithful +watcher of the home, her loyalty sure, her honour undefiled. Then +follows another choral ode, similar in theme to the last, dwelling on +the woe brought by the act of Paris upon Troy, the change of the bridal +song to the trump of war and the dirge of death; contrasting, in a +profusion of splendid tropes, the beauty of Helen with the curse to +which it is bound; and insisting once more on the doom that attends +insolence and pride. At the conclusion of this song the measure changes +to a march, and the chorus turn to welcome the triumphant king. +Agamemnon enters, and behind him the veiled and silent figure of a +woman. After greeting the gods of his House, the King, in brief and +stilted phrase, acknowledges the loyalty of the chorus, but hints at +much that is amiss which it must be his first charge to set right. +Hereupon enters Clytemnestra, and in a speech of rhetorical exaggeration +tells of her anxious waiting for her lord and her inexpressible joy at +his return. In conclusion she directs that purple cloth be spread upon +his path that he may enter the house as befits a conqueror. After a show +of resistance, Agamemnon yields the point, and the contrast at which the +dramatist aims is achieved. With the pomp of an eastern monarch, always +repellent to the Greek mind, the King steps across the threshold, steps, +as the audience knows, to his death. The higher the reach of his power +and pride the more terrible and swift is the nemesis; and Clytemnestra +follows in triumph with the enigmatic cry upon her lips: "Zeus who art +god of fulfilment, fulfil my prayers." As she withdraws the chorus begin +a song of boding fear, the more terrible that it is still indefinite. +Something is going to happen--the presentiment is sure. But what, but +what? They search the night in vain. Meantime, motionless and silent +waits the figure of the veiled woman. It is Cassandra, the prophetess, +daughter of Priam of Troy, whom Agamemnon has carried home as his prize. +Clytemnestra returns to urge her to enter the house; she makes no sign +and utters no word. The queen changes her tone from courtesy to anger +and rebuke; the figure neither stirs nor speaks; and Clytemnestra at +last with an angry threat leaves her and returns to the palace. Then, +and not till then, a cry breaks from the stranger's lips, a passionate +cry to Apollo who gave her her fatal gift. All the sombre history of the +House to which she has been brought, the woe that has been and the woe +that is to come, passes in pictures across her inner sense. In a series +of broken ejaculations, not sentences but lyric cries, she evokes the +scenes of the past and of the future. Blood drips from the palace; in +its chambers the Furies crouch; the murdered sons of Thyestes wail in +its haunted courts; and ever among the visions of the past that one of +the future floats and fades, clearly discerned, impossible to avert, the +murder of a husband by a wife; and in the rear of that, most pitiful of +all, the violent death of the seer who sees in vain and may not help. +Between Cassandra and the Chorus it is a duet of anguish and fear; in +the broken lyric phrases a phantom music wails; till at last, at what +seems the breaking-point, the tension is relaxed, and dropping into the +calmer iambic recitative, Cassandra tells her message in plainer speech +and clearly proclaims the murder of the King. Then, with a last appeal +to the avenger that is to come, she enters the palace alone to meet her +death.--The stage is empty. Suddenly a cry is heard from within; again, +and then again; while the chorus hesitate the deed is done; the doors +are thrown open, and Clytemnestra is seen standing over the corpses of +her victims. All disguise is now thrown off; the murderess avows and +triumphs in her deed; she justifies it as vengeance for the sacrifice of +Iphigenia, and sees in herself not a free human agent but the incarnate +curse of the House of Tantalus. And now for the first time appears the +adulterer Aegisthus, who has planned the whole behind the scenes. He too +is an avenger, for he is the son of that Thyestes who was made to feed +on his own children's flesh. The murder of Agamemnon is but one more +link in the long chain of hereditary guilt; and with that exposition of +the pitiless law of punishment and crime this chapter of the great drama +comes to a close. But the "Agamemnon" is only the first of a series of +three plays closely connected and meant to be performed in succession; +and the problem raised in the first of them, the crime that cries for +punishment and the punishment that is itself a new crime, is solved in +the last by a reconciliation of the powers of heaven and hell, and the +pardon of the last offender in the person of Orestes. To sketch, +however, the plan of the other dramas of the trilogy would be to +trespass too far upon our space and time. It is enough to have +illustrated, by the example of the "Agamemnon," the general character of +a Greek tragedy; and those who care to pursue the subject further must +be referred to the text of the plays themselves. + + +Section 7. Comedy. + +Even more remarkable than the tragedy of the Greeks, in its rendering of +a didactic intention under the forms of a free and spontaneous art, is +the older comedy known to us through the works of Aristophanes. As the +former dealt with the general conceptions, religious and ethical, that +underlay the Greek view of life, using as its medium of exposition the +ancient national myths, so the latter dealt with the particular phases +of contemporary life, employing the machinery of a free burlesque. The +achievement of Aristophanes, in fact, is more astonishing, in a sense, +than that of Aeschylus. Starting with what is always, _prima +facie_, the prose of everyday life, its acrid controversies, its +vulgar and tedious types, and even its particular individuals--for +Aristophanes does not hesitate to introduce his contemporaries in person +on the stage--he fits to this gross and heavy stuff the wings of +imagination, scatters from it the clinging mists of banality and spite +and speeds it forth through the lucid heaven of art amid peals of +musical laughter and snatches of lyric song. For Aristophanes was a poet +as well as a comedian, and his genius is displayed not only in the +construction of his fantastic plots, not only in the inexhaustible +profusion of his humane and genial wit, but in bursts of pure poetry as +melodious and inspired as ever sprang from the lips of the lyrists of +Greece or of the world. The basis of the comic as of the tragic art of +the Greeks was song and dance; and the chorus, the original element of +the play, still retains in the works of Aristophanes a place important +enough to make it clear that in comedy, too, a prominent aspect of the +art must have been the aesthetic appeal to the ear and the eye. In +general structure, in fact, comedy and tragedy were alike; aesthetically +the motives were similar, only they were set in a different key. + +But while primarily Aristophanes, like the tragedians, was a great +artist, he was also, like them, a great interpreter of life. His dramas +are satires as well as poems, and he was and expressed himself supremely +conscious of having a "mission" to fulfil. "He has scorned from the +first," he makes the chorus sing of himself in the "Peace": + + "He has scorned from the first to descend and to dip + Peddling and meddling in private affairs: + To detect and collect every petty defect + Of husband and wife and domestical life; + But intrepid and bold, like Alcides of old, + When the rest stood aloof, put himself to the proof + In his country's behoof." + [Footnote: Aristoph. Peace, 751 seq.--Translated by Frere.] + +His aim, in fact, was deliberately to instruct his countrymen in +political and social issues; to attack the abuses of the Assembly, of +the Law-courts and the home; to punish demagogues, charlatans, +professional politicians; to laugh back into their senses "revolting" +sons and wives; to defend the orthodox faith against philosophers and +men of science. These are the themes that he embodies in his plots, and +these the morals that he enforces when he speaks through the chorus in +his own person. And the result is an art-product more strange to the +modern mind in its union of poetry with prose, of aesthetic with +didactic significance, than even that marvellous creation, the Greek +tragedy. Of the character of this comedy the reader may form an idea +through the admirable and easily accessible translations of Frere; +[Footnote: In Morley's Universal Library.] and we are therefore +dispensed from the obligation to attempt, as in the case of tragedy, an +account of some particular specimen of the art. + + +Section 8. Summary. + +And here must conclude our survey of the character of Greek art. The +main point which we have endeavoured to make clear has been so often +insisted upon, that it is hardly necessary to dwell upon it further. The +key to the art of the Greeks, as well as to their ethics, is the +identification of the beautiful and the good; and it therefore is as +natural in treating of their art to insist on its ethical value as it +was to insist on the aesthetic significance of their moral ideal. But, +in fact, any insistance on either side of the judgment is misleading. +The two points of view had never been dissociated; and art and conduct +alike proceeded from the same imperative impulse, to create a harmony or +order which was conceived indifferently as beautiful or good. Through +and through, the Greek ideal is Unity. To make the individual at one +with the State, the real with the ideal, the inner with the outer, art +with morals, finally to bring all phases of life under the empire of a +single idea, which, with Goethe, we may call, as we will, the good, the +beautiful, or the whole--this was the aim, and, to a great extent, the +achievement of their genius. And of all the points of view from which we +may envisage their brilliant activity none perhaps is more central and +more characteristic than this of art, whose essence is the comprehension +of the many in the one, and the perfect reflection of the inner in the +outer. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CONCLUSION + + +Now that we have examined in some detail the most important phases of +the Greek view of life, it may be as well to endeavour briefly to +recapitulate and bring to a point the various considerations that have +been advanced. + +But, first, one preliminary remark must be made. Throughout the +preceding pages we have made no attempt to distinguish the Greek "view" +from the Greek "ideal"; we have interpreted their customs and +institutions, political, social, or religious, by the conceptions and +ideals of philosophers and poets, and have thus, it may be objected, +made the mistake of identifying the blind work of popular instinct with +the theories and aspirations of conscious thought. + +Such a procedure, no doubt, would be illegitimate if it were supposed to +imply that Greek institutions were the result of a deliberate intention +consciously adopted and approved by the average man. Like other social +products they grew and were not made; and it was only the few who +realised fully all that they implied. But on the other hand it is a +distinguishing characteristic of the Greek age that the ideal formulated +by thought was the direct outcome of the facts. That absolute separation +of what ought to be from what is which continues to haunt and vitiate +modern life had not yet been made in ancient Greece. Plato, idealist +though he be, is yet rooted in the facts of his age; his perfect +republic he bases on the institutions of Sparta and Crete; his perfect +man he shapes on the lines of the Greek citizen. That dislocation of the +spirit which opposed the body to the soul, heaven to earth, the church +to the state, the man of the world to the priest, was altogether alien +to the consciousness of the Greeks. To them the world of fact was also +the world of the ideal; the conceptions which inspired their highest +aims were already embodied in their institutions and reflected in their +life; and the realisation of what ought to be involved not the +destruction of what was, but merely its perfecting on its own lines. + +While then, on the one hand, it would be ridiculous so to idealise the +civilisation of the Greeks as to imply that they had eliminated discord +and confusion, yet, on the other, it is legitimate to say that they had +built on the plan of the ideal, and that their life both in public and +private was, by the very law of its existence, an effort to realise +explicitly that type of Good which was already implicitly embodied in +its structure. + +The ideal, in a word, in ancient Greece, was organically related to the +real; and that is why it is possible to identify the Greek view with the +Greek ideal. + +Bearing this in mind we may now proceed to recapitulate our conclusions +as to what that view was. And, first, let us take the side of +speculation. Here we are concerned not with the formal systems of Greek +thought, but with that half-unconscious working of imagination as much +as of mind whose expression was their popular religion. Of this +religion, as we saw, the essential feature was that belief in +anthropomorphic gods, by virtue of which a reconciliation was effected +between man and the powers whether of nature or of his own soul. Behind +phenomena, physical or psychic, beings were conceived of like nature +with man, beings, therefore, whose actions he could interpret and whose +motives he could comprehend. For his imagination, if not for his +intellect, a harmony was thus induced between himself and the world that +was not he. A harmony! and in this word we have the key to the dominant +idea of the Greek civilisation. + +For, turning now to the practical side, we find the same impulse to +reconcile divergent elements. That antithesis of soul and body which was +emphasised in the mediaeval view of life and dominates still our current +ethical conceptions, does not appear in the normal consciousness of the +Greeks. Their ideal for the individual life included the perfection of +the body; beauty no less than goodness was the object of their quest, +and they believed that the one implied the other. But since the +perfection of the body required the co-operation of external aids, they +made these also essential to their ideal. Not merely virtue of the soul, +not merely health and beauty of the body, but noble birth, sufficient +wealth and a good name among men, were included in their conception of +the desirable life. Harmony, in a word, was the end they pursued, +harmony of the soul with the body and of the body with its environment; +and it is this that distinguishes their ethical ideal from that which in +later times has insisted on the fundamental antagonism of the inner to +the outer life, and made the perfection of the spirit depend on the +mortification of the flesh. + +The same ideal of harmony dominates the Greek view of the relation of +the individual to the state. This relation, it is true, is often +described as one in which the parts were subordinated to the whole; but +more accurately it may be said that they were conceived as finding in +the whole their realisation. The perfect individual was the individual +in the state; the faculties essential to his excellence had there only +their opportunity of development; the qualities defined as virtues had +there only their significance; and it was only in so far as he was a +citizen that a man was properly a man at all. Thus that opposition +between the individual and the state which perplexes our own society had +hardly begun to define itself in Greece. If on the one hand the state +made larger claims on the liberty of the individual, on the other, the +liberty of the individual consisted in a response to the claims. So that +in this department also harmony was maintained by the Greeks between +elements which have developed in modern times their latent antagonism. + +Thus, both in speculation and in practice, in his relation to nature and +in his relation to the state, both internally, between the divergent +elements of which his own being was composed, and externally between +himself and the world that was not he, it was the aim, conscious or +unconscious, and, in part at least, the achievement of the Greeks, to +create and maintain an essential harmony. The antitheses of which we in +our own time are so painfully and increasingly aware, between Man as a +moral being and Nature as an indifferent law, between the flesh and the +spirit, between the individual and the state, do not appear as factors +in that dominant consciousness of the Greeks under whose influence their +religion, their institutions and their customary ideals had been formed. +And so regarded, in general, under what may fairly be called its most +essential aspect, the Greek civilisation is rightly described as that of +harmony. + +But, on the other hand, and this is the point to which we must now turn +our attention, this harmony which was the dominant feature in the +consciousness of the Greeks and the distinguishing characteristic of +their epoch in the history of the world, was nevertheless, after all, +but a transitory and imperfect attempt to reconcile elements whose +antagonism was too strong for the solution thus proposed. The factors of +disruption were present from the beginning in the Greek ideal; and it +was as much by the development of its own internal contradictions as by +the invasion of forces from without that that fabric of magical beauty +was destined to fall. These contradictions have already been indicated +at various points in the text, and it only remains to bring them +together in a concluding summary. + +On the side of speculation, the religion of the Greeks was open, as we +saw, to a double criticism. On the one hand, the ethical conceptions +embodied in those legends of the gods which were the product of an +earlier and more barbarous age, had become to the contemporaries of +Plato revolting or ridiculous. On the other hand, to metaphysical +speculation, not only was the existence of the gods unproved, but their +mutually conflicting activities, their passions and their caprice, were +incompatible with that conception of universal law which the developing +reason evolved as the form of truth. The reconciliation of man with +nature which had been effected by the medium of anthropomorphic gods was +a harmony only to the imagination, not to the mind. Under the action of +the intellect the unstable combination was dissolved and the elements +that had been thus imperfectly joined fell back into their original +opposition. The religion of the Greeks was destroyed by the internal +evolution of their own consciousness. + +And in the sphere of practice we are met with a similar dissolution. The +Greek conception of excellence included, as we saw, not only bodily +health and strength, but such a share at least of external goods as +would give a man scope for his own self-perfection. And since these +conditions were not attainable by all, the sacrifice of the majority to +the minority was frankly accepted and the pursuit of the ideal confined +to a privileged class. + +Such a conception, however, was involved in internal contradictions. For +in the first place, even for the privileged few, an excellence which +depended on external aids was, at the best, uncertain and problematical. +Misfortune and disease were possibilities that could not be ignored; old +age and death were imperative certainties; and no care, no art, no +organisation of society, could obviate the inherent incompatibility of +individual perfection with the course of nature. Harmony between the +individual and his environment was perhaps more nearly achieved by and +for the aristocracy of ancient Greece than by any society of any other +age. But such a harmony, even at the best, is fleeting and precarious; +and no perfection of life delivers from death. + +And, in the second place, to secure even this imperfect realisation, it +was necessary to restrict the universal application of the ideal. +Excellence, in Greece, was made the end for some, not for all. But this +limitation was felt, in the development of consciousness, to be self- +contradictory; and the next great system of ethics that succeeded to +that of Aristotle, postulated an end of action that should be at once +independent of the aids of fortune and open alike to all classes of +mankind. The ethics of a privileged class were thus expanded into the +ethics of humanity; but this expansion was fatal to its essence, which +had depended on the very limitations by which it was destroyed. + +With the Greek civilisation beauty perished from the world. Never again +has it been possible for man to believe that harmony is in fact the +truth of all existence. The intellect and the moral sense have developed +imperative claims which can be satisfied by no experience known to man. +And as a consequence of this the goal of desire which the Greeks could +place in the present, has been transferred, for us, to a future +infinitely remote, which nevertheless is conceived as attainable. +Dissatisfaction with the world in which we live and determination to +realise one that shall be better, are the prevailing characteristics of +the modern spirit. The development is one into whose meaning and end +this is not the place to enter. It is enough that we feel it to be +inevitable; that the harmony of the Greeks contained in itself the +factors of its own destruction; and that in spite of the fascination +which constantly fixes our gaze on that fairest and happiest halting- +place in the secular march of man, it was not there, any more than here, +that he was destined to find the repose of that ultimate reconciliation +which was but imperfectly anticipated by the Greeks. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE GREEK VIEW OF LIFE *** + +This file should be named 6200.txt or 6200.zip + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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