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diff --git a/old/8mgrh10h.htm b/old/8mgrh10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d026d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8mgrh10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,23796 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html lang="en"> +<head> +<title>Mosaics of Grecian History</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> +<style type="text/css"> +<meta name="keywords" content= +"Greece, Greek, History, Athens, Sparta, Homer, Byron, Iliad"> +<meta name="rating" content="General"> +<meta name="ROBOTS" content="ALL"> +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + P.just { text-indent: 3mm; text-align: justify; } + H1 { text-align: center; } + H2 { text-align: center; } + H3 { text-align: center; } + H4 { text-align: center; } + H5 { text-align: center; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; } + --> + +</style> +</head> +<body bgcolor="white"> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mosaics of Grecian History +by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson + +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: Mosaics of Grecian History + +Author: Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson + +Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6841] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[The text file was first posted on January 31, 2003] +[This html file was first posted on August 5, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOSAICS OF GRECIAN HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by Robert J. Hall +</pre> + +<table summary="Greece" border="0" width="90%" align="center"> +<tr> +<td><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>MOSAICS OF GRECIAN HISTORY</h1> + +<h2>BY MARCIUS WILLSON<br> +AND ROBERT PIERPONT WILLSON</h2> + +<br> +<br> +<h3>PREFACE.</h3> + +<p class="just">The leading object had in view in the preparation +of the present volume has been to produce, within a moderate +compass, a History of Greece that shall not only be trustworthy, +but interesting to all classes of readers.</p> + +<p class="just">It must be acknowledged that our standard +historical works, with all their worth, do not command a perusal +by the people at large; and it is equally plain that our ordinary +School Manuals--the abridgments and outlines of more voluminous +works--do not meet with any greater favor. The mere outline +system of historical study usually pursued in the schools is +interesting to those only to whom it is suggestive of the details +on which it is based; and we have long been satisfied that it is +not the best for beginners and for popular use; that it inverts +the natural order of acquisition; that for the young to master it +is drudgery; that its statistical enumeration, if ever learned by +them, is soon forgotten; that it tends to create a prejudice +against the study of history; that it does not lay the proper +foundation for future historical reading; and that, outside of +the enforced study of the school-room, it is seldom made use of. +The people in general--the masses--do not read such works, while +they do read with avidity historical legends, historical +romances, historical poems and dramas, and biographical sketches. +And we do not hesitate to assert that from Shakspeare's +historical plays the reading public have acquired (together with +much other valuable information) a hundred-fold more knowledge of +certain portions of English history than from all the ponderous +tomes of formal history that have ever been written. It may be +said that people ought to read Hume, and Lingard, and Mackintosh, +and Hallam, and Froude, and Freeman, instead of Shakspeare's +"King John," and "Richard II.," and "Henry IV.," and "Henry +VIII.," etc. It is a sufficient reply to say they do not.</p> + +<p class="just">Historical works, therefore, to be read by the +masses, must be adapted to the popular taste. It was an +acknowledgment of this truth that led Macaulay, the most +brilliant of historians, to remark, "We are not certain that the +best histories are not those in which a little of the +exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. +Something is lost in accuracy, but much is gained in effect. The +fainter lines are neglected, but the great characteristic +features are imprinted on the mind forever." If the result to +which Macaulay refers be once attained by an introductory work so +interesting that it shall come into general use, it will, we +believe, naturally lead to the reading of some of the best +standard works in the same historical field. In our attempt to +make this a work of such a preparatory character, we have borne +in mind the demand that has arisen for poetic illustration in the +reading and teaching of history, and have given this delightful +aid to historical study a prominent place--ofttimes making it the +sole means of imparting information. And yet we have introduced +nothing that is not strictly consistent with our ideal of what +history should be; for although some of the poetic selections are +avowedly wholly legendary, and others, still, in a greater or +less degree fictitious in their minor details--like the by-plays +in Shakspeare's historic dramas--we believe they do no violence +to historical verity, as they are faithful pictures of the times, +scenes, incidents, principles, and beliefs which they are +employed to illustrate. Aside, too, from their historic interest, +they have a literary value. Many prose selections from the best +historians are also introduced, giving to the narrative a +pleasing variety of style that can be found in no one writer, +even if he be a Grote, a Gibbon, or a Macaulay.</p> + +<hr width="20%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<h5>THE PRINCIPAL HISTORIES OF GREECE.</h5> + +<p class="just">Believing that it may be of some advantage to the +general reader, we give herewith a brief sketch of the principal +histories of Greece now before the public. We may mention, among +those of a comprehensive character, the works of Goldsmith, +Gillies, Mitford, Thirlwall, Grote, and Curtius:</p> + +<p class="just">OLIVER GOLDSMITH, "the popular poet, the charming +novelist, the successful dramatist, and the witty essayist," +wrote a popular history of Greece, in two volumes, 8vo, 1774, +embracing a period from the earliest date down to the death of +Alexander the Great. It is an attractive work, elegantly written, +but is superficial and inaccurate.</p> + +<p class="just">In 1786 was published a history of ancient +Greece, in several volumes, by DR. JOHN GILLIES, who succeeded +Dr. Robertson as historiographer of Scotland. This is a work of +considerable merit but it is written in a spirit of decidedly +monarchical tendencies, although the author evidently aimed at +great fairness in his political views.</p> + +<p class="just">He says: "The history of Greece exposes the +dangerous turbulence of democracy, and arraigns the despotism of +tyrants. By describing the incurable evils inherent in every +republican policy, it evinces the inestimable benefits resulting +to liberty itself from the lawful dominion of hereditary kings, +and the steady operation of well-regulated monarchy."</p> + +<p class="just">In the year 1784 appeared the first volume of +WILLIAM MITFORD'S <i>History of Greece</i>, subsequently extended +to eight and ten volumes, 8vo. It is the first history of Greece +that combines extensive research and profound philosophical +reflection; but it is "a monarchical" history, by a writer of +very strong anti-republican principles. "It was composed," says +Alison, the distinguished historian of modern Europe, "during, or +shortly after, the French Revolution; and it was mainly intended +to counteract the visionary ideas in regard to the blessings of +Grecian democracy, which had spread so far in the world, from the +magic of Athenian genius." Says Chancellor Kent: "Mitford does +not scruple to tell the truth, and the whole truth, and to paint +the stormy democracies of Greece in all their grandeur and in all +their wretchedness." Lord Byron said of the author: "His great +pleasure consists in praising tyrants, abusing Plutarch, spelling +oddly, and writing quaintly; and--what is strange, after +all--<i>his</i> is the best modern history of Greece in any +language." But this was penned before Thirlwall's and Grote's +histories were published. Lord Macaulay says of Mitford: +"Whenever this historian mentions Demosthenes he violates all the +laws of candor and even of decency: he weighs no authorities, he +makes no allowances, he forgets the best authenticated facts in +the history of the times, and the most generally recognized +principles of human nature." The <i>North British Review</i>, +after calling Mitford "a bad scholar, a bad historian, and a bad +writer of English," says, farther, that "he was the first writer +of any note who found out that Grecian history was a living thing +with a practical bearing."</p> + +<p class="just">The next truly important and comprehensive +Grecian history, published from 1835 to 1840, in eight volumes, +8vo, was written by CONNOP THIRLWALL, D. D., Bishop of St. +David's. It is a scholarly, elaborate, and philosophical work +evincing a thorough knowledge of Greek literature and of the +German commentators. The historian Grote said that, if it had +appeared a few years earlier, he should probably never have +undertaken his own history of Greece. "I should certainly," he +says, "not have been prompted to the task by any deficiencies +such as those I felt and regretted in Mitford."</p> + +<p class="just">In comparing Thirlwall's history with Grote's, +the <i>North British Review</i> has the following judicious +remarks: "Many persons, probably, who have no special devotion to +Grecian history wish to study its main outlines in something +higher than a mere school-book. To such readers we should +certainly recommend Thirlwall rather than Grote. The comparative +brevity, the greater clearness and terseness of the narrative, +the freedom from diversions and digressions, all render it far +better suited for such a purpose. But for the political thinker, +who regards Grecian history chiefly in its practical bearing, Mr. +Grote's work is far better adapted. The one is the work of a +scholar, an enlarged and practical scholar indeed, but still one +in whom the character of the scholar is the primary one. The +other is the work of a politician and man of business, a London +banker, a Radical M. P., whose devotion to ancient history and +literature forms the most illustrious confutation of the charges +brought against such studies as being useless and +impractical."</p> + +<p class="just">"The style of Thirlwall," says Dr. Samuel Warren +of England, in his <i>Introduction to Law Studies</i>, "is dry, +terse, and exact--not fitted, perhaps, for the historical tyro, +but most acceptable to the advanced student who is in quest of +<i>things</i>."</p> + +<p class="just">GEORGE GROTE, Member of Parliament, and a London +banker, who wrote a history of Greece in twelve volumes, +published from 1846 to 1855, has been styled, by way of eminence, +<i>the</i> historian of Greece, because his work is universally +admitted by critics to be the best for the advanced student that +has yet been written. The London <i>Athenæum</i> styles his +history "a great literary undertaking, equally notable whether we +regard it as an accession of standard value in our language, or +as an honorable monument of what English scholarship can do." The +London <i>Quarterly Review</i> says: "Errors the most inveterate, +that have been handed down without misgiving from generation to +generation, have been for the first time corrected by Mr. Grote; +facts the most familiar have been presented in new aspects and +relations; things dimly seen, and only partially apprehended +previously, have now assumed their true proportions and real +significance; while numerous traits of Grecian character; and new +veins of Grecian thought and feeling, have been revealed to the +eyes of scholars by Mr. Grote's searching criticism, like new +forms of animated nature by the microscope."</p> + +<p class="just">The general character of the work has been +farther well summed up by Sir Archibald Alison. He says: "A +decided liberal, perhaps even a republican, in politics, Mr. +Grote has labored to counteract the influence of Mitford in +Grecian history, and construct a history of Greece from authentic +materials, which should illustrate the animating influence of +democratic freedom upon the exertions of the human mind. In the +prosecution of this attempt he has displayed an extent of +learning, a variety of research, a power of combination, which +are worthy of the very highest praise, and have secured for him a +lasting place among the historians of modern Europe."<br> +</p> + +<p class="just">We may also mention, in this connection, the +valuable and scholarly work of the German professor, Ernst +Curtius (1857-'67), in five volumes, translated by A. Ward +(1871-'74). His sympathies are monarchical, and his views more +nearly accord with those of Mitford and Thirlwall than with those +of Grote.</p> + +<p class="just">The work by William Smith, in one volume, 1865, +is an excellent summary of Grecian history, as is also that of +George W. Cox, 1876. The former work, which to a considerable +extent is an abridgment of Grote, has been brought down, in a +Boston edition, from the Roman Conquest to the middle of the +present century, by Dr. Felton, late President of Harvard +College. President Felton has also published two volumes of +scholarly lectures on Ancient and Modern Greece (1867).<br> +</p> + +<p class="just">The works devoted to limited periods of Grecian +history and special departments of research are very numerous. +Among the most valuable of the former is the <i>History of the +Peloponnesian War</i>, by the Greek historian Thucydides, of +which there are several English versions. He was born in Athens, +about the year 471 B.C. His is one of the ablest histories ever +written.</p> + +<p class="just">Herodotus, the earliest and best of the romantic +historians, sometimes called the "Father of History," was +contemporary with Thucydides. He wrote, in a charming style, an +elaborate work on the Persian and Grecian wars, most of the +scenes of which he visited in person; and in numerous episodes +and digressions he interweaves the most valuable history that we +have of the early Asiatic nations and the Egyptians; but he +indulges too much in the marvelous to be altogether +reliable."</p> + +<p class="just">Of the numerous works of Xenophon, an Athenian +who is sometimes called the "Attic Muse," from the simplicity and +beauty of his style, the best known and the most pleasing are the +<i>Anab'asis</i>, the <i>Memorabil'ia</i> of Socrates, and the +<i>Cyropedi'a</i>, a political romance. He was born about 443 +B.C. The best English translation of his works is by Watson, in +Harper's "New Classical Library."</p> + +<p class="just">The work of the Greek historian, Polybius, +originally in forty volumes, of which only five remain entire +covered a period from the downfall of the Macedonian power to the +subversion of Grecian liberty by the Romans, 146 B.C. It is a +work of great accuracy, but of little rhetorical polish, and +embraces much of Roman history from which Livy derived most of +the materials for his account of the wars with Carthage.</p> + +<p class="just">In the first century of our era, Plutarch, a +Greek biographer, wrote the "Parallel Lives" of forty-six +distinguished Greeks and Romans--a charming and instructive work, +translated by John and William Langhorne in 1771, and by Arthur +Hugh Clough in 1858.</p> + +<p class="just">A history of Greece, in seven volumes, by George +Finlay, a British historian, long resident at Athens, is noted +for a thorough knowledge of Greek topography, art, and antiquity. +The completed work embraces a period from the conquest of Greece +by the Romans to the middle of the present century.</p> + +<p class="just"><i>A History of Greek Literature</i>, by J. P. +Mahaffy, is the most polished descriptive work in the department +which it embraces. It is happily supplemented by J. Addington +Symonds' <i>Studies of the Greek Poets</i>. Mr. Mahaffy, in +common with many German scholars, is an unbeliever in the unity +of the <i>Iliad</i>.<br> +<br> +<br> +</p> + +<h3>CONTENTS.</h3> + +<hr width="20%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<small>[The names of authors from whom illustrative prose +selections are taken in SMALL CAPITALS; those from whom poetic +selections are taken are in <i>italics</i>.]</small> + +<hr width="20%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + <br> +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterI">CHAPTER I.</a></p> + +<p align="center">GENERAL VIEW OF THE GRECIAN STATES AND +ISLANDS.</p> + +<ol type="1"> +<li style="list-style: none"> +<p><small><b>Introductory.</b>-- Olympus.-- <i>Hemans</i>.-- +Pi'e-rus.-- <i>Pope</i>.</small></p> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Thessaly.</b>-- Tem'pe.-- +<i>Hemans</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small><b>Epi'rus.</b>-- Cocy'tus, Ach'eron, Dodo'na.-- +<i>Milton</i>: <i>Haygarth</i>: <i>Byron</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small><b>Acarna'nia.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>Æto'lia.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>Lo'cris.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>Do'ris.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>Pho'cis.</b>-- Parnassus.-- <i>Byron</i>.-- +Delphi.-- <i>Hemans.</i></small></li> + +<li><small><b>Boeo'tia.</b>-- Thebes.-- +<i>Schiller</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small><b>Attica.</b>-- <i>Byron</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small><b>Corinth.</b>-- <i>Byron</i>: +<i>Haygarth</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small><b>Acha'ia.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>Arca'dia.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>Ar'golis.</b>-- Myce'næ.-- +<i>Hemans</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small><b>Laco'nia.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>Messe'nia.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>E'lis.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>The Isles of Greece.</b>-- +<i>Byron</i>.</small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Lemnos.-- Euboe'a.-- +Cyc'la-des.-- De'los.-- Spor'a-des.-- Crete.-- Rhodes.-- +Sal'amis.-- Ægi'na.-- Cyth'-era.-- "Venus Rising from the +Sea."-- <i>Woolner</i>.<br> + Stroph'a-des.-- <i>Virgil</i>.-- Paxos.-- Zacyn'thus.-- +Cephalo'nia.-- Ith'aca.-- Leu'cas or Leuca'dia.-- Corcy'ra or +Cor'fu.-- "Gardens of Alcin'o-us."</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterII">CHAPTER II.</a></p> + +<p align="center">THE FABULOUS AND LEGENDARY PERIOD OF GRECIAN +HISTORY.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li><small><b>Grecian Mythology.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Value of the Grecian +Fables.-- <i>J. Stuart Blackie</i><br> + The Battle of the Giants.-- <i>He'siod</i><br> + Hymn to Jupiter.-- <i>Clean'thes</i><br> + The god Apollo.-- <i>Ov'id</i>.<br> + Fancies of the Greek Mind.-- <i>Wordsworth</i>: LIDDELL: +<i>Blackie</i>.<br> + The Poet's Lament.-- <i>Schiller</i>.<br> + The Creation.-- <i>Ovid</i>.<br> + The Origin of Evil.-- <i>Hesiod</i>.<br> + What Prome'theus Personified.-- <i>Blackie</i>.<br> + The Punishment of Prometheus.-- <i>Æs'chylus</i>: +<i>Shelley</i><br> + Deluge of Deuca'lion.-- <i>Ovid</i>.<br> + Moral Characteristics of the Gods, etc.-- MAHAFFY: GLADSTONE: +<i>Homer</i>: <i>Æschylus</i>: <i>Hesiod</i>.<br> + Oaths.-- <i>Homer</i>: <i>Æschylus</i>: <i>Soph'ocles</i>: +<i>Virgil</i>.<br> + The Future State.-- <i>Homer</i>.<br> +</small> + +<ol type="1"> +<li><small>Story of Tan'talus.-- <i>Blackie</i></small></li> + +<li><small>The Descent of Or'pheus.-- <i>Ovid</i>: +<i>Homer</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small>The Elys'ium.-- <i>Homer</i>: +<i>Pindar</i>.</small></li> +</ol> + +<small>Hindu and Greek Skepticism.-- (Cornhill +Magazine).</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Earliest Inhabitants of +Greece.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>The Founding of Athens.-- +<i>Blackie</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Heroic Age.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Heroic Times foretold to +Adam.-- <i>Milton</i><br> + Twelve Labors of Hercules.-- <i>Homer</i>.<br> + Fable of Hercules and Antæ'us.-- <i>Collins</i>.<br> + The Argonautic Expedition.-- <i>Pindar</i>.<br> + Legend of Hy'las.-- <i>Bayard Taylor</i>.<br> + The Trojan War.<br> +</small> + +<ol type="1"> +<li><small>The Greek Armament.-- <i>Eurip'ides</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small>The name Helen.-- <i>Æschylus</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small>Ulysses and Thersi'tes.-- <i>Homer</i>. +(Pope).</small></li> + +<li><small>Combat of Menela'us and Paris.-- <i>Homer</i>. +(Pope).</small></li> + +<li><small>Parting of Hector and Androm'a-che.-- <i>Homer</i>. +(Pope).</small></li> + +<li><small>Hector's Exploits and Death of Patro'clus.-- +<i>Homer</i>. (Pope).</small></li> + +<li><small>The Shield of Achilles.-- <i>Homer</i>. +(Sotheby).</small></li> + +<li><small>Address of Achilles to his Horses.-- <i>Homer</i>. +(Pope).</small></li> + +<li><small>The Death of Hector.-- <i>Homer</i>. +(Bryant).</small></li> + +<li><small>Priam Begging for Hector's Body.-- <i>Homer</i>. +(Cowper).</small></li> + +<li><small>Lamentations of Andromache and Helen.-- <i>Homer</i>. +(Pope).</small></li> +</ol> + +<small>The Fate of Troy.-- <i>Virgil</i>: <i>Schiller</i>.<br> + Beacon Fires from Troy to Argos.-- <i>Æschlus</i>.<br> + Remarks on the Trojan War.-- THIRLWALL: GROTE.<br> + Fate of the Actors in the Conflict.-- <i>Ennius</i>: +<i>Landor</i>: <i>Lang</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Arts and Civilization in the Heroic +Age.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Political Life of the +Greeks.-- MAHAFFY: HEEREN.<br> + Domestic Life and Character.-- MAHAFFY: <i>Homer</i>.<br> + The Raft of Ulysses.-- <i>Homer</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Conquest of Peloponnesus, and Colonies in Asia +Minor.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Return of the +Heracli'dæ.-- <i>Lucan</i>.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterIII">CHAPTER III.</a></p> + +<p align="center">EARLY GREEK LITERATURE, AND GREEK COMMUNITY OF +INTERESTS.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Ionian Language and +Culture.--FELTON.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Homer and his Poems.</b>-- <i>Antip'ater</i>: +FELTON: TALFOURD: <i>Pope</i>: COLERIDGE.</small></li> + +<li><small><b>Some Causes of Greek Unity.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>The Grecian Festivals.<br> +</small> + +<ol type="1"> +<li><small>Chariot Race and Death of Ores'tes.-- +<i>Sophocles</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small>Apollo's Conflict with the Python.-- +<i>Ovid</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small>The Apollo Belvedere.-- <i>Thomson</i>.</small></li> +</ol> + +<small>National Councils.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterIV">CHAPTER IV.</a></p> + +<p align="center">SPARTA, AND THE LEGISLATION OF LYCURGUS.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Description of Sparta.-- +<i>Thomson</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Constitution of Lycurgus.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Spartan Patriotic Virtue.-- +<i>Tymnoe'us</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Spartan Poetry and Music.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Spartan March.-- CAMPBELL.: +<i>Hemans</i>.<br> + Songs of the Spartans.-- PLUTARCH: <i>Terpan'der</i>: +<i>Pindar</i>: <i>Ion</i></small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Sparta's Conquests.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>War-song.-- +<i>Tyrtoe'us</i>.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterV">CHAPTER V.</a></p> + +<p align="center">FORMS OF GOVERNMENT, AND CHANGES IN GRECIAN +POLITICS.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Introductory.--THIRLWALL: +LEG'ARÉ.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Changes from Aristocracies to +Oligarchies.</b>--HEEREN.</small></li> + +<li><small><b>Changes from Oligarchies to +Despotisms.</b>--THIRLWALL: HEEREN: BULWER: +<i>Theog'nis</i>.</small></li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterVI">CHAPTER VI.</a></p> + +<p align="center">THE EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li><small><b>The Legislation of Dra'co.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>The Legislation of So'lon.</b>--PLUTARCH: +<i>A'kenside: Solon: Thomson: Solon</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small><b>The Usurpation of Pisis'tratus.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>The Usurper and his +Stratagem.--<i>Akenside</i>.<br> + Solon's Appeal to the Athenians.--<i>Akenside</i>.<br> + Character of Pisistratus.--THIRLWALL.<br> + Conspiracy of Harmodius and +Aristogi'ton.--<i>Callis'tratus</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Birth of Democracy.</b>--THIRLWALL.</small></li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterVII">CHAPTER VII.</a></p> + +<p align="center">A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GREEK COLONIES.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 4em"><small>The Cave of the +Cumæ'an Sibyl.--<i>Virgil:</i> GROTE.<br> + The'ron of Agrigen'tum.--<i>Pindat</i>.<br> + Increase among the Sicilian Greeks.--GROTE.</small></div> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterVIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></p> + +<p align="center">PROGRESS OF LITERATURE AND THE ARTS.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li><small><b>The Poems of Hesiod.</b>--"Winter."--FELTON: MURE: +THIRLWALL: MAHAFFY.</small></li> + +<li><small><b>Lyric Poetry.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Calli'nus of Ephesus.--"War +Elegy".<br> + Archil'ochus of Pa'ros--SYMONDS: MAHAFFY.<br> + Alc'man.--"Sleep, or Night."--MURE.<br> + Ari'on.--Stesich'orus.--MAHAFFY. --"Spoils of +War."--<i>Akenside</i>. --"Defence of."--SYMONDS: +<i>Antip'ater</i>.<br> + Anac'reon.--"The Grasshopper."--<i>Akenside</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Early Grecian Philosophy.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>The Seven +Sages.--(Maxims).--GROTE.<br> + Tha'les, Anaxim'enes, Heracli'tus, Diog'enes, Anaximan'der, and +Xenoph'anes.<br> + Pythag'oras and his Doctrines.--<i>Blackie: Thomson: Coleridge: +Lowell</i>.<br> + The Eleusin'ian Mysteries.--<i>Virgil</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Architecture.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>The Cyclo'pean +Walls.--<i>Lord Houghton</i>.<br> + Dor'ic, Ion'ic, and Corinthian Orders.--<i>Thomson</i>.<br> + Cher'siphron, and the Temple of Diana.--<i>Story</i>.<br> + Temples at Pæs'tum.--<i>Cranch</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Sculpture.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Glaucus, Rhoe'cus, +Theodo'rus, Dipæ'nus, Scyllis.<br> + Cause of the Progress of Sculpture.--THIRLWALL.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterIX">CHAPTER IX.</a></p> + +<p align="center">THE PERSIAN WARS.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li><small><b>The Ionic Revolt.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>The First Persian War.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>The Battle of Marathon.<br> + Legends of the Battle.--<i>Hemans: Blackie</i>.<br> + The Death of Milti'ades: his Character.--GROTE: GILLIES.<br> + Aristi'des and Themis'tocles:--<i>Thomson:</i> PLUTARCH: +THIRLWALL.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Second Persian Invasion.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Xerxes at +Aby'dos.--HEROD'OTUS.<br> + Bridging of the Hellespont.--<i>Juvenal: Milton</i>.<br> + The Battle of Thermop'ylæ.<br> +</small> + +<ol type="1"> +<li><small>Invincibility of the +Spartans.--<i>Haygarth</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small>Description of the +Contest.--<i>Haygarth</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small>Epitaphs on those who +fell.--<i>Simon'ides</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small>The Tomb of Leon'idas.--<i>Anon</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small>Eulogy on the Fallen.--<i>Byron</i></small></li> +</ol> + +<small>Naval Conflict at Artemis'ium.--PLUTARCH: +<i>Pindar</i>.<br> + The Abandonment of Athens.<br> + The Battle of Salamis.<br> +</small> + +<ol type="1"> +<li><small>Xerxes Views the Conflict.--<i>Byron</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small>Flight of Xerxes.--<i>Juvenal: +Alamanni</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small>Celebrated Description of the Battle.--MITFORD: +<i>Æschylus</i>.</small></li> + +<li><small>Another Account.--<i>Blackie</i>.</small></li> +</ol> + +<small>The Battle of Platæ'a.<br> +</small> + +<ol type="1"> +<li><small>Description of the Battle.--BULWER.</small></li> + +<li><small>Importance of the Victory.--<i>Southey</i>: +BULWER.</small></li> + +<li><small>Victory at Myc'a-le.--BULWER.</small></li> + +<li><small>"The Wasps."--<i>Aristophanes</i>.</small></li> +</ol> +</div> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterX">CHAPTER X.</a></p> + +<p align="center">THE RISE AND GROWTH OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li><small><b>The Disgrace and Death of +Themistocles.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Tributes to his +Memory.--<i>Plato</i>: <i>Geminus</i>: THIRLWALL.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Rise and Fall of Cimon.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Character of +Cimon--<i>Thomson</i>.<br> + Battle of Eurym'edon.--<i>Simonides</i>.<br> + Earthquake at Sparta, and Revolt of the Helots.--BULWER: +ALISON.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Accession of Pericles to +Power.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Changes in the Athenian +Constitution.--BULWER.<br> + Tribute to Pericles.--<i>Croly</i>.<br> + Picture of Athens in Peace.--<i>Haygarth</i>.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterXI">CHAPTER XI.</a></p> + +<p align="center">THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS, AND THE FALL OF +ATHENS.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Speech of Pericles for +War.--THUCYD'IDES.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The First Peloponnesian War.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Funeral Oration of +Pericles.--THUCYDIDES.<br> + Comments on the Oration.--CURTIUS.<br> + The Plague at Athens.--<i>Lucretius</i>.<br> + Death of Pericles.--<i>Croly</i>: THIRLWALL: BULWER.<br> + Character of Pericles.--MITFORD.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Athenian Demagogues.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Cleon, the +Demagogue.--GILLIES: ARISTOPH'ANES.<br> + The Peace of Ni'cias.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Sicilian Expedition.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Treatment of the Athenian +Prisoners.--<i>Byron</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Second Peloponnesian War.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Humiliation of Athens.<br> + Barbarities of the Contest.--MAHAFFY.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterXII">CHAPTER XII.</a></p> + +<p align="center">GRECIAN LITERATURE AND ART, FROM THE BEGINNING +OF THE PERSIAN TO THE CLOSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS (B.C. +500-403).</p> + +<p align="center">LITERATURE.</p> + +<br> +<br> + + +<ol type="I"> +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Introductory.<br> +</small> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>The Era of Athenian +Greatness.--SYMONDS.</small></div> +</div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Lyric Poetry.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Simonides.--"Lamentation of +Dan'a-ë."--MAHAFFY.<br> + Pindar.--"Threnos."--THIRLWALL: <i>Prior</i>: SYMONDS: <i>Gray: +Pope: Horace</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Drama.</b>--BULWER.</small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<ol type="1"> +<li><small><b>Tragedy.</b>--Melpom'ene.--<i>Akenside</i>.<br> +</small> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Æschylus.--"Death of +Agamemnon."--PLUMPTRE: LAWRENCE: VAN SCHLEGEL: <i>Byron</i>: +MAHAFFY.<br> + Sophocles.--OEd'ipus Tyran'nus."--TALFOURD: <i>Phryn'ichus: +Sim'mias</i>.<br> + Euripides.--"Alcestis Preparing for Death."--SYMONDS: +<i>Milton</i>: MAHAFFY.<br> + The Transitions of Tragedy.--GROTE.<br> +</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Comedy.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Characterization of.<br> + Aristophanes.--Extracts from "The Cloud." "Choral Song from The +Birds."--<i>Plato</i>: GROTE: SEWELL: <i>Milton</i>: +RUSKIN.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> +</li> + +<li><small><b>History.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Hecatæ'ns.--MAHAFFY: +NIEBUHR.<br> + Herodotus.--"Introduction to History."--LAWRENCE.<br> + Herodotus and his Writings.--MACAULAY.<br> + Thucyd'i-des.--MAHAFFY.<br> + Thucydides and Herodotus.--BROWNE.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Philosophy.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Anaxag'oras: his +Death.--<i>William Canton</i>.<br> + The Sophists.--MAHAFFY.<br> + Socrates.--"Defence of Socrates."--"Socrates' Views of a Future +State."--MAHAFFY: <i>Thomson</i>: SMITH: TYLER: +GROTE.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<p align="center">ART.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li><small><b>Sculpture and Painting.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Phid'ias.--LÜBKE: +GILLIES: LÜBKE.<br> + Polygno'tus.--Apollodo'rus.--Zeux'is.--Parrha'sius. +--Timan'thes.<br> + Parrhasius and his Captive.--SENECA: +<i>Willis</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Architecture.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<small>Introductory.--<i>Thomson</i>.<br> + The Adornment of Athens.--BULWER.<br> +</small></div> + +<ol type="1"> +<li><small><b>The Acrop'olis and its Splendors.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>The +Parthenon.--<i>Hemans</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Other Architectural Monuments of +Athens.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>The Temple of +The'seus.--<i>Haygarth</i>.<br> + Athenian Enthusiasm for Art.--BULWER.<br> + The Glory of Athens.--<i>Talfourd</i>.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterXIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></p> + +<p align="center">THE SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACIES.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li><small><b>The Expedition of Cyrus, and the Retreat of the Ten +Thousand.</b>--<i>Thomson</i>: CURTIUS.</small></li> + +<li><small><b>The Supremacy of Sparta.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>The Rise and Fall of Thebes.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Pelop'idas and +Epaminon'das.--<i>Thomson</i>: CURTIUS.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterXIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></p> + +<p align="center">THE SICILIAN GREEKS.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 4em"><small>The Founding of +Ætna.--<i>Pindar</i>.<br> + Hi'ero's Victory at Cu'mæ.--<i>Pindar</i>.<br> + Admonitions to Hiero.--<i>Pindar</i>.<br> + Dionysius the Elder.--PLUTARCH.<br> + Damon and Pythias.--The Hostage.--<i>Schiller</i>.<br> + Archime'des.--<i>Schiller</i><br> + Visit of Cicero to the Grave of +Archimedes.--WINTHROP.</small></div> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterXV">CHAPTER XV.</a></p> + +<p align="center">THE MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li><small><b>The Sacred War.</b>--THIRLWALL.</small></li> + +<li><small><b>Sketch of Macedonia.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>Interference of Philip of Macedon.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Demosthenes.--"The First +Philippic."--GROTE.<br> + Pho'cion.--His Influence at Athens.--GROTE.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>War with Macedon.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>Accession of Alexander the Great.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>Alexander Invades Asia.</b></small></li> + +<li><small><b>The Battle of Arbe'la.</b>--Flight and Death of +Dari'us.-- GROTE: ÆS'CHINES.</small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Alexander's Feast at +Persep'olis.--<i>Dryden</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Death of Alexander.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>His Career and his +Character.--<i>Lu'can</i>.<br> + Reflections on his Life, etc.--<i>Juvenal: +Byron</i>.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterXVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></p> + +<p align="center">FROM THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER TO THE CONQUEST OF +GREECE BY THE ROMANS.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li><small><b>A Retrospective Glance at Greece.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Oration of Æschines +against Ctes'iphon.<br> + Oration of Demosthenes on the Crown.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Wars that followed Alexander's +Death.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Character of Ptolemy +Philadelphus--<i>Theoc'ritus</i></small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Celtic Invasion, and the War with +Pyrrhus.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Queen +Archidami'a.--<i>Anon</i>.</small></div> + +<br> +<br> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Achæ'an League.--Philip V. of +Macedon.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Epigrams on Philip and the +Macedonians.--<i>Alcoe'us</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Greece Conquered by Rome.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>"The Liberty of +Greece."--<i>Wordsworth</i>.<br> + Desolation of Corinth.--<i>Antipater</i>.<br> + Last Struggles of Greece.--THIRLWALL: +<i>Horace</i>.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterXVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></p> + +<p align="center">LITERATURE AND ART AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE +PELOPONNESIAN WAR.</p> + +<p align="center">LITERATURE</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li><small><b>The Drama.</b>--MAHAFFY.</small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Phile'mon.--"Faith in +God."<br> + Menander.--"Human Existence."--SYMONDS: LAWRENCE.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Oratory.</b>--<i>Milton</i>: CICERO.</small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Æs'chines and +Demosthenes.--LEGARÉ: BROUGHAM: HUME.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Philosophy.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Plato.--<i>Haygarth</i>: +BROUGHAM: KENDRICK: MITCHELL.<br> + Aristotle.--<i>Pope</i>: BROWNE: LAWRENCE: SMITH: MAHAFFY.<br> + Academe.--<i>Arnold</i>.<br> + Epicu'rus and Ze'no.--<i>Lucretius</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>History.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Xen'ophon.--MITCHELL.<br> + Polyb'ius.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<p align="center">ART.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li><small><b>Architecture and Sculpture.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Changes in +Statuary.--WEYMAN.<br> + The Dying Gladiator.--LÜBKE: <i>Thomson</i>.<br> + The La-oc'o-on.--<i>Thomson: Holland</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Painting.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Venus Rising from the +Sea.--<i>Antipater</i>.<br> + Apel'les and Protog'enes.--ANTHON.<br> + Protogenes' Picture at Rhodes.--<i>Thomson</i>.</small></div> + +<p><small>Concluding Reflections.<br> +</small></p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>The Image of +Athens.--<i>Shelley</i>.<br> + Immortal Influence of Athens.--MACAULAY: +<i>Haygarth</i>.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<hr width="10%" align="center" noshade size="1"> +<br> +<br> + + +<p align="center"><a href="#chapterXVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></p> + +<p align="center">GREECE SUBSEQUENT TO THE ROMAN CONQUEST.</p> + +<ol type="I"> +<li><small><b>Greece under the Romans.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>The Revolt.--FINLAY.<br> + Christianity in Greece.--FELTON.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Changes down to the Fourteenth +Century.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Courts of the Crusading +Chieftains.--EDINBURGH REVIEW.<br> + The Duchy of Athens.--FELTON.<br> + The Turkish Invasion.--<i>Hemans</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Contests between the Turks and +Venetians.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Past and Present of the +Acropolis of Athens.<br> + The Siege and Fall of Corinth.--<i>Byron</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Final Conquest of Greece by +Turkey.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Turkish +Oppressions.--TENNENT.<br> + The Slavery of Greece.--<i>Canning: Byron</i>.<br> + First Steps to Secure Liberty.--The Klephts.--FELTON.<br> + Greek War-Songs.--<i>Rhigas: Polyzois</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>The Greek Revolution.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>A Prophetic Vision of the +Struggle.--<i>Shelley's</i> "Hellas".<br> + Song of the Greeks.--<i>Campbell</i>.<br> + American Sympathy with Greece.--TUCKERMAN: WEBSTER.<br> + The Sortie at Missolon'ghi.--WARBURTON.<br> + A Visit to Missolonghi.--STEPHENS.<br> + Marco Bozzar'is.--<i>Halleck</i>.<br> + Battle of Navari'no.--<i>Campbell</i>.</small></div> +</li> + +<li><small><b>Greece under a Constitutional +Monarchy.</b></small></li> + +<li style="list-style: none"> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>Revolution against King +Otho.--BENJAMIN.<br> + The Deposition of King Otho: Greece under his Rule. --TUCKERMAN: +BRITISH QUARTERLY.<br> + Accession of King George.--His Government.--TUCKERMAN.<br> + Progress in Modern Greece.--COOK.</small></div> +</li> +</ol> + +<br> + + +<p><a href="#index">INDEX</a></p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterI">CHAPTER I.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>GENERAL VIEW OF THE GRECIAN STATES AND +ISLANDS.</b></p> + +<p class="just">The country called HELLAS by the +<i>Helle'nes</i>, its native inhabitants, and known to us by the +name of Greece, forms the southern part of the most easterly of +the three great peninsulas of Southern Europe, extending into the +Mediterranean between the Æge'an Sea, or Grecian +Archipelago, on the east, and the Ionian Sea on the west. The +whole area of this country, so renowned in history, is only about +twenty thousand square miles; which is considerably less than +that of Portugal, and less than half that of the State of +Pennsylvania.</p> + +<p class="just">The mainland of ancient Greece was naturally +divided into Northern Greece, which embraced Thessaly and +Epi'rus; Central Greece, comprising the divisions of Acarna'nia, +Æto'lia, Lo'cris, Do'ris, Pho'cis, Breo'tia, and At'tica +(the latter forming the eastern extremity of the whole +peninsula); and Southern Greece, which the ancients called +<i>Pel-o-pon-ne'sus</i>, or the Island of Pe'lops, which would be +an island were it not for the narrow Isthmus of Corinth, which +connects it on the north with Central Greece. Its modern name, +the <i>Mo-re'a</i>, was bestowed upon it from its resemblance to +the leaf of the mulberry. The chief political divisions of +Peloponnesus were Corinth and Acha'ia on the north, Ar'golis on +the east, Laco'nia and Messe'nia at the southern extremity of the +peninsula, E'lis on the west, and the central region of +Arca'dia.</p> + +<p class="just">Greece proper is separated from Macedonia on the +north by the Ceraunian and Cambunian chain of mountains, +extending in irregular outline from the Ionian Sea on the west to +the Therma'ic Gulf on the east, terminating, on the eastern +coast, in the lofty summit of Mount Olympus, the fabled residence +of the gods, where, in the early dawn of history, Jupiter (called +"the father of gods and men") was said to hold his court, and +where he reigned supreme over heaven and earth. Olympus rises +abruptly, in colossal magnificence, to a height of more than six +thousand feet, lifting its snowy head far above the belt of +clouds that nearly always hangs upon the sides of the +mountain.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Wild and august in consecrated +pride,<br> +There through the deep-blue heaven Olympus towers,<br> +Girdled with mists, light-floating as to hide<br> +The rock-built palace of immortal powers.<br> + --HEMANS.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In the Olympian range, also, was Mount Pie'rus, +where was the Pierian fountain, one of the sacred resorts of the +Muses, so often mentioned by the poets, and to which POPE, with +gentle sarcasm, refers when he says,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">A little learning is a dangerous +thing:<br> +Drink deep, or taste not the <i>Pierian</i> spring.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">1. <tt>Thessaly.</tt>--From the northern chain of +mountains, the central Pindus range, running south, separates +Thessaly on the east from Epi'rus on the west. The former region, +enclosed by mountain ranges broken only on the east, and watered +by the Pene'us and its numerous tributaries, embraced the largest +and most fertile plain in all Greece. On the Thessalian coast, +south of Olympus, were the celebrated mounts Ossa and Pe'lion, +which the giants, in their wars against the gods, as the poets +fable, piled upon Olympus in their daring attempt to scale the +heavens and dethrone the gods. Between those mounts lay the +celebrated vale of Tem'pe, through which the Pene'us flowed to +the sea.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Romantic Tempe! thou art yet the +same--<br> +Wild as when sung by bards of elder time:<br> +Years, that have changed thy river's classic name,<br> +[<small>Footnote: The modern name of the Pene'us is Selembria or +Salamvria.</small>]<br> +Have left thee still in savage pomp sublime.<br> + --HEMANS.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Farther south, having the sea on one side and the +lofty cliffs of Mount OE'ta on the other, was the celebrated +narrow pass of Thermop'ylæ, leading from Thessaly into +Central Greece.</p> + +<p class="just">2. <tt>Epi'rus.</tt>--The country of Epirus, on +the west of Thessaly, was mostly a wild and mountainous region, +but with fertile intervening valleys. Among the localities of +Epirus celebrated in fable and in song was the river Cocy'tus, +which the poets, on account of its nauseous waters, described as +one of the rivers of the lower world--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Cocytus, named of lamentation +loud<br> +Heard on the rueful stream.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The Ach'eron was another of the rivers--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and +deep--<br> + --MILTON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">which was assigned by the poets to the lower +world, and over which the souls of the dead were said to be first +conveyed, before they were borne the Le'the, or "stream of +oblivion," beyond. The true Acheron of Epirus has been thus +described:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Yonder rolls Acheron his dismal +stream,<br> +Sunk in a narrow bed: cypress and fir<br> +Wave their dim foliage on his rugged banks;<br> +And underneath their boughs the parched ground,<br> +Strewed o'er with juniper and withered leaves,<br> +Seems blasted by no mortal tread.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">As the Acheron falls into the lake Acheru'sia, +and after rising from it flows underground for some distance, +this lake also has been connected by the poets with the gloomy +legend of its fountain stream.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> This is the +place<br> +Sung by the ancient masters of the lyre,<br> +Where disembodied spirits, ere they left<br> +Their earthly mansions, lingered for a time<br> +Upon the confines of eternal night,<br> +Mourning their doom; and oft the astonished hind,<br> +As home he journeyed at the fall of eve,<br> +Viewed unknown forms flitting across his path,<br> +And in the breeze that waved the sighing boughs<br> +Heard shrieks of woe.<br> + --HAYGARTH.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In Epirus was also situated the celebrated city +of Dodo'na, with the temple of that name, where was the most +ancient oracle in Greece, whose fame extended even to Asia. But +in the wide waste of centuries even the site of this once famous +oracle is forgotten.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Where, now, Dodona! is thine aged +grove,<br> +Prophetic fount, and oracle divine?<br> +What valley echoes the response of Jove?<br> +What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine?<br> +All, all forgotten!<br> + --BYRON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">3. <tt>Acarna'nia.</tt>--Coming now to Central +Greece, lying northward of the Corinthian Gulf, we find Acarnania +on the far west, for the most part a productive country with good +harbors: but the Acarnanians, a rude and warlike people, were +little inclined to Commercial pursuits; they remained far behind +the rest of the Greeks in culture, and scarcely one city of +importance was embraced within their territory.</p> + +<p class="just">4. <tt>Æto'lia</tt>, generally a rough and +mountainous country, separated, on the west, from Acarnania by +the river Ach-e-lo'us, the largest of the rivers of Greece, was +inhabited, like Acarnania, by a hardy and warlike race, who long +preserved the wild and uncivilized habits of a barbarous age. The +river Achelous was intimately connected with the religion and +mythology of the Greeks. The hero Hercules contended with the +river-god for the hand of De-i-a-ni'ra, the most beautiful woman +of his time; and so famous was the stream itself that the Oracle +of Dodona gave frequent directions "to sacrifice to the +Achelous," whose very name was used, in the language of poetry, +as an appellation for the element of water and for rivers.</p> + +<p class="just">5. <tt>Lo'cris</tt>, lying along the Corinthian +Gulf east of Ætolia, was inhabited by a wild, uncivilized +race, scarcely Hellen'ic in character, and said to have been +addicted, from the earliest period, to theft and rapine. Their +two principal towns were Amphis'sa and Naupac'tus, the latter now +called Lepanto. There was another settlement of the Locri north +of Pho'cis and Boeo'tia.</p> + +<p class="just">6. <tt>Do'ris</tt>, a small territory in the +north-eastern angle of Ætolia proper--a rough but fertile +country--was the early seat of the Dorians, the most enterprising +and the most powerful of the Hellenic tribes, if we take into +account their numerous migrations, colonies and conquests. Their +colonies in Asia Minor founded six independent republics, which +were confined within the bounds of as many cities. From this +people the Doric order of architecture--a style typical of +majesty and imposing grandeur, and the one the most employed by +the Greeks in the construction of their temples--derived its +origin.</p> + +<p class="just">7. <tt>Pho'cis.</tt>--On the east of Locris, +Ætolia, and Doris was Phocis, a mountainous region, +bordered on the south by the Corinthian Gulf. In the northern +central part of its territory was the famed Mount Parnassus, +covered the greater part of the year with snow, with its sacred +cave, and its Castalian fount gushing forth between two of its +lofty rocks. The waters were said to inspire those who drank of +them with the gift of poetry. Hence both mountain and fount were +sacred to the Muses, and their names have come down to our own +times as synonymous with poetry and song. BYRON thus writes of +Parnassus, in lines almost of veneration, as he first viewed it +from Delphi, on the southern base of the mountain:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now +survey,<br> +Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye,<br> +Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,<br> +But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky<br> +In the wild pomp of mountain majesty!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Oft have I dreamed of thee! whose +glorious name<br> +Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore:<br> +And now I view thee, 'tis, alas! with shame<br> +That I in feeblest accents must adore.<br> +When I recount thy worshippers of yore<br> +I tremble, and can only bend the knee;<br> +Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar,<br> +But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy<br> +In silent joy to think at last I look on thee!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The city of Delphi was the seat of the celebrated +temple and oracle of that name. Here the Pythia, the priestess of +Apollo, pronounced the prophetic responses, in <i>extempore</i> +prose or verse; and here the Pythian Games were celebrated in +honor of Apollo.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Here, thought-entranced, we +wander, where of old<br> + From Delphi's chasm the mystic vapor rose,<br> + And trembling nations heard their doom foretold<br> + By the dread spirit throned 'midst rocks and snows.<br> + Though its rich fanes be blended with the dust,<br> + And silence now the hallowed haunt possess,<br> + Still is the scene of ancient rites august,<br> + Magnificent in mountain loneliness;<br> + Still Inspiration hovers o'er the ground,<br> +Where Greece her councils held, her Pythian victors crowned.<br> + --MRS. HEMANS.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">8. <tt>Boeo'tia.</tt>--Boeotia, lying to the east +of Phocis, bordering on the Euri'pus, or "Euboe'an Sea," a narrow +strait which separates it from the Island of Euboe'a, and +touching the Corinthian Gulf on the south-west, is mostly one +large basin enclosed by mountain ranges, and having a soil +exceedingly fertile. It was the most thickly settled part of +Greece; it abounded in cities of historic interest, of which +Thebes, the capital, was the chief--whose walls were built, +according to the fable, to the sound of the Muses:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">With their ninefold symphonies<br> + There the chiming Muses throng;<br> +Stone on stone the walls arise<br> + To the choral Music-song.<br> + --SCHILLER.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Boeotia was the scene of many of the legends +celebrated by the poets, and especially of those upon which were +founded the plays of the Greek tragedians. Near a fountain on +Mount Cithæ'ron, on its southern border, the hunter +Actæ'on, having been changed into a stag by the goddess +Diana, was hunted down and killed by his own hounds. Pen'theus, +an early king of Thebes, having ascended Cithæron to +witness the orgies of the Bacchanals, was torn in pieces by his +own mother and aunts, to whom Bacchus made him appear as a wild +beast. On this same mountain range also occurred the exposure of +OEd'ipus, the hero of the most famous tragedy of Sophocles. Near +the Corinthian Gulf was Mount Hel'icon, sacred to Apollo and the +Muses. Its slopes and valleys were renowned for their fertility; +it had its sacred grove, and near it was the famous fountain of +Aganip'pe, which was believed to inspire with oracular powers +those who drank of its waters. Nearer the summit was the fountain +Hippocre'ne, which is said to have burst forth when the winged +horse Peg'asus, the favorite of the Muses, struck the ground with +his hoofs, and which Venus, accompanied by her constant +attendants, the doves, delighted to visit. Here, we are told,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Her darling doves, light-hovering +round their Queen,<br> +Dipped their red beaks in rills from Hippocrene.<br> +[<small>Footnote: Always Hip-po-cre'ne in prose; but it is +allowable to contract it into three syllables in poetry, as in +the example above.</small>]</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">It was here, also--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> near this fresh +fount,<br> +On pleasant Helicon's umbrageous mount--</div> + +<p class="just">that occurred the celebrated contest between the +nine daughters of Pie'rus, king of E-ma'thi-a (the ancient name +of Macedonia), and the nine Muses. It is said that "at the song +of the daughters of Pierus the sky became dark, and all nature +was put out of harmony; but at that of the Muses the heavens +themselves, the stars, the sea, and the rivers stood motionless, +and Helicon swelled up with delight, so that its summit reached +the sky." The Muses then, having turned the presumptuous maidens +into chattering magpies, first took the name of +<i>Pi-er'i-des</i>, from Pieria, their natal region.</p> + +<p class="just">9. <tt>Attica.</tt>--Bordering Boeotia on the +south-east was the district of Attica, nearly in the form of a +triangle, having two of its sides washed by the sea, and the +other--the northern--shut off from the east of Central Greece by +the mountain range of Cithæron on the north-west, and +Par'nes on the east. Its other noted mountains were Pentel'icus +(sometimes called Mende'li), so celebrated for its quarries of +beautiful marble, and Hymet'tus, celebrated for its excellent +honey, and the broad belt of flowers at its base, which scented +the air with their delicious perfume. It could boast of its chief +city, the favored seat of the goddess Minerva--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Athens, the eye of Greece, mother +of arts<br> +And eloquence--</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">as surpassing all other cities in beauty and +magnificence, and in the great number of its illustrious +citizens. Yet the soil of Attica was, on the whole, exceedingly +barren, with the exception of a few very fertile spots; but olive +groves abounded, and the olive was the most valuable product.</p> + +<p class="just">The general sterility of Attica was the great +safety of her people in their early history. "It drove them +abroad; it filled them with a spirit of activity, which loved to +grapple with danger and difficulty; it told them that, if they +would maintain themselves in the dignity which became them, they +must regard the resources of their own land as nothing, and those +of other countries as their own." Added to this, the situation of +Attica marked it out in an eminent manner for a commercial +country; and it became distinguished beyond all the other states +of Greece for its extensive commercial relations, while its +climate was deemed the most favorable of all the regions of the +civilized world for the physical and intellectual development of +man. It was called "a sunny land," and, notwithstanding the +infertility of its soil, it was full of picturesque beauty. The +poet BYRON, in his apostrophe to Greece, makes many striking and +beautiful allusions to the Attica of his own time:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Yet are thy skies as blue, thy +crags as wild;<br> + Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,<br> + Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled,<br> + And still its honeyed wealth Hymettus yields.<br> + There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,<br> + The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air;<br> + Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,<br> + Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare;<br> +Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">10. Entering now upon the isthmus which leads +into Southern Greece, we find the little state of +<tt>Corinth</tt>, with its famous city of the same name, keeping +guard over the narrow pass, with one foot on the Corinthian Gulf +and the other on the Saron'ic, thereby commanding both the Ionian +and Æge'an seas, controlling the commerce that passed +between them, and holding the keys of Peloponnesus. It was a +mountainous and barren region, with the exception of a small +plain north-west of the city. Thus situated, Corinth early became +the seat of opulence and the arts, which rendered her the +ornament of Greece. On a lofty eminence overhanging the city, +forming a conspicuous object at a great distance, was her famous +citadel--so important as to be styled by Philip of Macedon "the +fetters of Greece." Rising abruptly nearly two thousand feet +above the surrounding plain, the hill itself, in its natural +defences, is the strongest mountain fortress in Europe.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The whirlwind's wrath, the +earthquake's shock,<br> +Have left untouched her hoary rock,<br> +The key-stone of a land which still,<br> +Though fallen, looks proudly on that hill,<br> +The landmark to the double tide<br> +That purpling rolls on either side,<br> +As if their waters chafed to meet,<br> +Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet.<br> + --BYRON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The ascent to the citadel, in the days of +Corinthian glory, was lined on both sides with temples and +altars; but temples and altars are gone, and citadel and city +alike are now in ruins. Antip'ater of Sidon describes the city as +a scene of desolation after it had been conquered, plundered, and +its walls thrown down by the Romans, 146 B.C. Although the city +was partially rebuilt, the description is fully applicable to its +present condition. A modern traveller thus describes the site of +the ancient city:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The hoarse wind sighs around the +mouldering walls<br> +Of the vast theatre, like the deep roar<br> +Of distant waves, or the tumultuous rush<br> +Of multitudes: the lichen creeps along<br> +Each yawning crevice, and the wild-flower hangs<br> +Its long festoons around each crumbling stone.<br> +The window's arch and massive buttress glow<br> +With time's deep tints, whilst cypress shadows wave<br> +On high, and spread a melancholy gloom.<br> + Silent forever is the voice<br> +Of Tragedy and Eloquence. In climes<br> +Far distant, and beneath a cloudy sky,<br> +The echo of their harps is heard; but all<br> +The soul-subduing energy is fled.<br> + --HAYGARTH.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">11. Adjoining the Corinthian territory on the +west, and extending about sixty-five miles along the southern +coast of the Corinthian Gulf, was <tt>Acha'ia</tt>, mountainous +in the interior; but its coast region for the most part was +level, exposed to inundations, and without a single harbor of any +size. Hence the Achæ'ans were never famous for maritime +enterprise. Of the eleven Achæan cities that formed the +celebrated Achæan league, Pal'træ (now Patras') alone +survives. Si'çy-on, on the eastern border of Achaia, was +at times an independent state.</p> + +<p class="just">12. South of Achaia was the central region of +<tt>Arcadia</tt>, surrounded by a ring of mountains, and +completely encompassed by the other states of the Peloponnesus. +Next to Laconia it was the largest of the ancient divisions of +Greece, and the most picturesque and beautiful portion (not +unlike Switzerland in its mountain character), and without either +seaports or navigable rivers. It was inhabited by a people simple +in their habits and manners, noted for their fondness for music +and dancing, their hospitality, and pastoral customs. With the +poets Arcadia was a land of peace, of simple pleasures, and +untroubled quiet; and it was natural that the pipe-playing Pan +should first appear here, where musical shepherds led their +flocks along the woody vales of impetuous streams.</p> + +<p class="just">13. <tt>Ar'golis</tt>, east of Arcadia, was +mostly a rocky peninsula lying between the Saron'ic and Argol'ic +gulfs. It was in great part a barren region, with the exception +of the plain adjoining its capital city, Argos, and in early +times was divided into a number of small but independent +kingdoms, that afterward became republics. The whole region is +rich in historic associations of the Heroic Age. Here was +Tir'yns, whose massive walls were built by the one-eyed Cy'clops, +and whence Hercules departed at the commencement of his twelve +labors. Here, also, was the Lernæ'an Lake, where the hero +slew the many-headed hydra; Ne'mea, the haunt of the lion slain +by Hercules, and the seat of the celebrated Ne'mean games; and +Myce'næ, the royal city of Agamemnon, who commanded the +Greeks in the Trojan War--now known, only by its ruins and its +legends of by-gone ages.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">And still have legends marked the +lonely spot<br> + Where low the dust of Agamemnon lies;<br> +And shades of kings and leaders unforgot,<br> + Hovering around, to fancy's vision rise.<br> + --HEMANS.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">14. At the south-eastern extremity of the +Peloponnesus was <tt>Laconia</tt>, the fertile portions of which +consisted mostly of a long, narrow valley, shut in on three sides +by the mountain ranges of Ta-yg'etus on the west and Parnon on +the north and east, and open only on the south to the sea. +Through this valley flows the river Euro'tas, on whose banks, +about twenty miles from the sea, stood the capital city, +Lacedæ'mon, or Sparta, which was unwalled and unfortified +during its most flourishing period, as the Spartans held that the +real defence of a town consists solely in the valor of its +citizens. The sea-coast of Laconia was lined with towns, and +furnished with numerous ports and commodious harbors. While +Sparta was equaled by few other Greek cities in the magnificence +of its temples and statues, the private houses, and even the +palace of the king, were always simple and unadorned.</p> + +<p class="just">15. West of Laconia was <tt>Messe'nia</tt>, the +south-western division of Greece, a mountainous country, but with +many fertile intervening valleys, the whole renowned for the +mildness and salubrity of its climate. Its principal river, the +Pami'sus, rising in the mountains of Arcadia, flows southward to +the Messenian Gulf through a beautiful plain, the lower portion +of which was so celebrated for its fertility that it was called +<i>Maca'ria</i>, or "the blessed;" and even to this day it is +covered with plantations of the vine, the fig, and the mulberry, +and is "as rich in cultivation as can be well imagined."</p> + +<p class="just">16. One district more--that of <tt>E'lis</tt>, +north of Messenia and west of Arcadia, and embracing the western +slopes of the Achaian and Arcadian mountains--makes up the +complement of the ancient Peloponnesian states. Though hilly and +mountainous, like Messenia, it had many valleys and hill-sides of +great fertility. The river Alphe'us, which the poets have made +the most celebrated of the rivers of Greece, flows westward +through Elis to the Ionian Sea, and on its banks was Olympia, the +renowned seat of the Olympian games. Here, also, was the sacred +grove of olive and plane trees, within which were temples, +monuments, and statues, erected in honor of gods, heroes, and +conquerors. In the very midst stood the great temple of Jupiter, +which contained the colossal gold and ivory statue of the god, +the masterpiece of the sculptor Phidias. Hence, by the common law +of Greece Elis was deemed a sacred territory, and its cities were +unwalled, as they were thought to be sufficiently protected by +the sanctity of the country; and it was only when the ancient +faith began to give way that the sacred character of Elis was +disregarded.</p> + +<p class="just">17. <tt>The Isles of Greece</tt>.--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The Isles of Greece! the Isles of +Greece!<br> + Where burning Sappho loved and sung--<br> +Where grew the arts of war and peace,<br> + Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung!<br> +Eternal summer gilds them yet,<br> +But all except their sun is set.<br> + --BYRON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The main-land of Greece was deeply indented by +gulfs and almost land-locked bays, and the shores were lined with +numerous islands, which were occupied by the Grecian race. +Beginning our survey of these in the northern Æge'an, we +find, off the coast of Thessaly, the Island of Lemnos, which is +fabled as the spot on which the fire-god Vulcan--the Lucifer of +heathen mythology--fell, after being hurled down from Olympus. +Under a volcano of the island be established his workshop, and +there forged the thunder-bolts of Jupiter and the arms of the +gods and of godlike heroes.</p> + +<p class="just">Of the Grecian islands proper, the largest is +Euboe'a, a long and narrow island lying east of Central Greece, +from which it is separated by the narrow channel of the Euri'pus, +or Euboe'an Sea. South-east of Euboea are the Cyc'la-des, +[<small>Footnote: From the Greek word <i>kuklos</i>, a +circle.</small>] a large group that kept guard around the sacred +Island of Delos, which is said to have risen unexpectedly out of +the sea. The Spor'a-des [<small>Footnote: From the Greek word +<i>speiro</i>, to sow; <i>scattered</i>, like seed, so numerous +were they. Hence our word <i>spores</i>.</small>] were another +group, scattered over the sea farther east, toward the coast of +Asia Minor. The large islands of Crete and Rhodes were south-east +of these groups. In the Saron'ic Gulf, between Attica and +Ar'golis, were the islands of Sal'amis and Ægi'na, the +former the scene of the great naval conflict between the Greeks +on the one side and the Persians, under Xerxes, on the other, and +the latter long the maritime rival of Athens.</p> + +<p class="just">Cyth'era, now Cer'igo, an island of great +importance to the Spartans, was separated by a narrow channel +from the southern extremity of Laconia. It was on the coast of +this island that the goddess Venus is fabled to have first +appeared to mortals as she arose out of the foam of the sea, +having a beautifully enameled shell for her chariot, drawn by +dolphins, as some paintings represent; but others picture her as +borne on a shining seahorse. She was first called Cyth-er-e'a, +from the name of the island. The nymphs of ocean, of the land, +and the streams, the fishes and monsters of the deep, and the +birds of heaven, with rapturous delight greeted her coming, and +did homage to the beauty of the Queen of Love. The following fine +description of the scene, truly Grecian in spirit, is by a modern +poet:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Uprisen from the sea when +Cytherea,<br> +Shining in primal beauty, paled the day,<br> +The wondering waters hushed, They yearned in sighs<br> +That shook the world--tumultuously heaved<br> +To a great throne of azure laced with light<br> +And canopied in foam to grace their queen.<br> +Shrieking for joy came O-ce-an'i-des,<br> +And swift Ner-e'i-des rushed from afar,<br> +Or clove the waters by. Came eager-eyed<br> +Even shy Na-i'a-des from inland streams,<br> +With wild cries headlong darting through the waves;<br> +And Dryads from the shore stretched their long arms,<br> +While, hoarsely sounding, heard was Triton's shell;<br> +Shoutings uncouth, bewildered sounds,<br> +And innumerable splashing feet<br> +Of monsters gambolling around their god,<br> +Forth shining on a sea-horse, fierce and finned.<br> +Some bestrode fishes glinting dusky gold,<br> +Or angry crimson, or chill silver bright;<br> +Others jerked fast on their own scanty tails;<br> +And sea-birds, screaming upward either side,<br> +Wove a vast arch above the Queen of Love,<br> +Who, gazing on this multitudinous<br> +Homaging to her beauty, laughed. She laughed<br> +The soft, delicious laughter that makes mad;<br> +Low warblings in the throat, that clinch man's life<br> +Tighter than prison bars.<br> + --THOMAS WOOLNER.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Off the coast of Elis were the two small islands +called the Stroph'a-des, noted as the place of habitation of +those fabled winged monsters, the Harpies. Here Æne'as +landed in his flight from the ruins of Troy, but no pleasant +greetings met him there.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"At length I land upon the +Strophades,<br> +Safe from the dangers of the stormy seas.<br> +Those isles are compassed by th' Ionian main,<br> +The dire abode where the foul Harpies reign:<br> +Monsters more fierce offended Heaven ne'er sent<br> +From hell's abyss for human punishment.<br> +We spread the tables on the greensward ground;<br> +We feed with hunger, and the bowls go round;<br> +When from the mountain-tops, with hideous cry<br> +And clattering wings, the hungry Harpies fly:<br> +They snatch the meat, defiling all they find,<br> +And, parting, leave a loathsome stench behind."<br> + --VIRGIL'S <i>Æneid</i>, B. III.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">North of the Strophades, along the western coast +of Greece, were the six Ionian islands known in Grecian history +as Paxos, Zacyn'thus, Cephalo'nia, Ith'aca (the native island of +Ulysses), Leu'cas (or Leuca'dia), and Corcy'ra (now Corfu), which +latter island Homer calls Phæa'cia, and where he places the +fabled gardens of Alcin'o-us. It was King Alcinous who kindly +entertained Ulysses in his island home when the latter was +shipwrecked on his coast. He is highly praised in Grecian legends +for his love of agriculture; and his gardens, so beautifully +described by Homer, have afforded a favorite theme for poets of +succeeding ages. HOMER'S description is as follows:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<p> Close to the gates a spacious garden lies,<br> +From storms defended and inclement skies;<br> +Four acres was the allotted space of ground,<br> +Fenced with a green enclosure all around;<br> +Tall thriving trees confessed the fruitful mould,<br> +And reddening apples ripen here to gold.<br> +Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows;<br> +With deeper red the full pomegranate glows;<br> +The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear,<br> +And verdant olives flourish round the year.<br> +The balmy spirit of the western gale<br> +Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail;<br> +Each dropping pear a following pear supplies;<br> +On apples apples, figs on figs arise:<br> +The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,<br> +The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow.</p> + +<p> Here ordered vines in equal ranks appear,<br> +With all the united labors of the year;<br> +Some to unload the fertile branches run,<br> +Some dry the blackening clusters in the sun,<br> +Others to tread the liquid harvest join,<br> +The groaning presses foam with floods of wine.<br> +Here are the vines in early flower descried,<br> +Here grapes discolored on the sunny side,<br> +And there in Autumn's richest purple dyed.<br> +Beds of all various herbs, forever green,<br> +In beauteous order terminate the scene.</p> + +<p> Two plenteous fountains the whole prospect crowned:<br> +This through the garden leads its streams around,<br> +Visits each plant, and waters all the ground;<br> +While that in pipes beneath the palace flows,<br> +And thence its current on the town bestows.<br> +To various use their various streams they bring;<br> +The people one, and one supplies the king.<br> + --<i>Odyssey</i>, B. VII. POPE'S <i>Trans.</i></p> +</div> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterII">CHAPTER II.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>THE FABULOUS AND LEGENDARY PERIOD OF GRECIAN +HISTORY.</b></p> + +<h4>I. GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY.</h4> + +<p class="just">As the Greeks, in common with the Egyptians and +other Eastern nations, placed the reign of the gods anterior to +the race of mortals, Grecian <i>mythology</i>--which is a system +of myths, or fabulous opinions and doctrines respecting the +universe and the deities who were supposed to preside over +it--forms the most natural and appropriate introduction to +Grecian history.</p> + +<p class="just">Our principal knowledge of this system is derived +from the works of Homer, He'si-od, and other ancient writers, who +have gathered the floating legends of which it consists into +tales and epic poems, many of them of great power and beauty. +Some of these legends are exceedingly natural and pleasing, while +others shock and disgust us by the gross impossibilities and +hideous deformities which they reveal. Yet these legends are the +spontaneous and the earliest growth of the Grecian mind, and were +long accepted by the people as serious realities. They are, +therefore, to be viewed as exponents of early Grecian +philosophy,--of all that the early Greeks believed, and felt, and +conjectured, respecting the universe and its government, and +respecting the social relations, duties, and destiny of +mankind,--and their influence upon national character was great. +As a Scotch poet and scholar of our own day well remarks,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Old fables these, and fancies +old!<br> + But not with hasty pride<br> +Let logic cold and reason bold<br> + Cast these old dreams aside.<br> +Dreams are not false in all their scope:<br> + Oft from the sleepy lair<br> +Start giant shapes of fear and hope<br> + That, aptly read, declare<br> +Our deepest nature. God in dreams<br> + Hath spoken to the wise;<br> +<i>And in a people's mythic themes<br> + A people's wisdom lies.</i><br> + --J. STUART BLACKIE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">According to Grecian philosophy, first in the +order of time came Cha'os, a heterogeneous mass, containing all +the seeds of nature. This was formed by the hand of an unknown +god, into "broad-breasted Earth" (the mother of the gods), who +produced U'ranus, or Heaven. Then Earth married Uranus, or +Heaven; and from this union came a numerous and powerful +brood--the Ti'tans, and the Cyclo'pes, and the gods of the wintry +season Kot'-tos, Bria're-us, and Gy'ges, who had each a hundred +hands), supposed to be personifications of the hail, the rain, +and the snow.</p> + +<p class="just">The Titans made war upon their father, Uranus, +who was wounded by Chro'nos, or Saturn, the youngest and bravest +of his sons. From the drops of blood which flowed from the wound +and fell upon the earth sprung the Furies, the Giants, and the +Me'lian nymphs; and from those which fell into the sea sprang +Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. Uranus being dethroned, +Saturn was permitted by his brethren to reign, on condition that +he would destroy all his male children. But Rhe'a (his wife), +unwilling to see her children perish, concealed from him the +birth of Zeus' (or Jupiter), Pos-ei'don (or Neptune), and +Pluto.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS.</h5> + +<p class="just">The Titans, informed that Saturn had saved his +children, made war upon him and dethroned him; but he was soon +restored by his son Jupiter. Yet Jupiter soon afterward conspired +against his father, and after a long war with him and his giant +progeny, that lasted full ten years, he drove Saturn from the +kingdom, which he held against the repeated assaults of all the +gods, who were finally destroyed or imprisoned by his +overmastering power. This contest is termed "the Battle of the +Giants," and is very celebrated in Grecian mythology. The +description of it which HESIOD has given in his <i>Theogony</i> +is considered "one of the most sublime passages in classical +poetry, conceived with great boldness, and executed with a power +and force which show a masterly though rugged genius. It will +bear a favorable comparison with Milton's 'Battle of the Angels,' +in <i>Paradise Lost</i>." We subjoin the following extracts from +it:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The immeasurable sea tremendous +dashed<br> +With roaring, earth resounded, the broad heaven<br> +Groaned, shattering; huge Olympus reeled throughout,<br> +Down to its rooted base, beneath the rush<br> +Of those immortals. The dark chasm of hell<br> +Was shaken with the trembling, with the tramp<br> +Of hollow footsteps and strong battle-strokes,<br> +And measureless uproar of wild pursuit.<br> +So they against each other through the air<br> +Hurled intermixed their weapons, scattering groans<br> +Where'er they fell.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> The voice of +armies rose<br> +With rallying shout through the starred firmament,<br> +And with a mighty war-cry both the hosts<br> +Encountering closed. Nor longer then did Jove<br> +Curb down his force, but sudden in his soul<br> +There grew dilated strength, and it was filled<br> +With his omnipotence; his whole of might<br> +Broke from him, and the godhead rushed abroad.<br> +The vaulted sky, the Mount Olympus, flashed<br> +With his continual presence, for he passed<br> +Incessant forth, and lightened where he trod.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Thrown from his nervous grasp the +lightnings flew,<br> +Reiterated swift; the whirling flash,<br> +Cast sacred splendor, and the thunder-bolt<br> +Fell. Then on every side the foodful earth<br> +Roared in the burning flame, and far and near<br> +The trackless depth of forests crashed with fire;<br> +Yea, the broad earth burned red, the floods of Nile<br> +Glowed, and the desert waters of the sea.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Round and round the Titans' earthy +forms<br> +Rolled the hot vapor, and on fiery surge<br> +Streamed upward, swathing in one boundless blaze<br> +The purer air of heaven. Keen rushed the light<br> +In quivering splendor from the writhen flash;<br> +Strong though they were, intolerable smote<br> +Their orbs of sight, and with bedimming glare<br> +Scorched up their blasted vision. Through the gulf<br> +Of yawning chaos the supernal flame<br> +Spread, mingling fire with darkness.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The whirlwinds were abroad, and +hollow aroused<br> +A shaking and a gathering dark of dust,<br> +Crushing the thunders from the clouds of air,<br> +Hot thunder-bolts and flames, the fiery darts<br> +Of Jove; and in the midst of either host<br> +They bore upon their blast the cry confused<br> +Of battle, and the shouting. For the din<br> +Tumultuous of that sight-appalling strife<br> +Rose without bound. Stern strength of hardy proof<br> +Wreaked there its deeds, till weary sank the war.<br> + --<i>Trans.</i> by ELTON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Thus Jupiter, or Jove, became the head of the +universe; and to him is ascribed the creation of the subsequent +gods, of man, and of all animal life, and the supreme control and +government of all. His supremacy is beautifully sung in the +following hymn by the Greek philosopher CLE-AN'THES, said to be +the only one of his numerous writings that has been preserved. +Like many others of the ancient hymns of adoration, it presents +us with high spiritual conceptions of the unity and attributes of +Deity; and had it been addressed to Jehovah it would have been +deemed a grand tribute to his majesty and a noble specimen of +deep devotional feeling.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Hymn to Jupiter.</i></p> + +<p>Most glorious of th' immortal powers above--<br> +O thou of many names--mysterious Jove!<br> +For evermore almighty! Nature's source,<br> +That govern'st all things in their ordered course,<br> +All hail to thee! Since, innocent of blame,<br> +E'en mortal creatures may address thy name--<br> +For all that breathe and creep the lowly earth<br> +Echo thy being with reflected birth--<br> +Thee will I sing, thy strength for aye resound!<br> +The universe that rolls this globe around<br> +Moves wheresoe'er thy plastic influence guides,<br> +And, ductile, owns the god whose arm presides.</p> + +<p>The lightnings are thy ministers of ire,<br> +The double-forked and ever-living fire;<br> +In thy unconquerable hand they glow,<br> +And at the flash all nature quakes below.<br> +Thus, thunder-armed, thou dost creation draw<br> +To one immense, inevitable law;<br> +And with the various mass of breathing souls<br> +Thy power is mingled and thy spirit rolls.<br> +Dread genius of creation! all things bow<br> +To thee! the universal monarch thou!<br> +Nor aught is done without thy wise control<br> +On earth, or sea, or round the ethereal pole,<br> +Save when the wicked, in their frenzy blind,<br> +Act o'er the follies of a senseless mind.</p> + +<p>Thou curb'st th' excess; confusion to thy sight<br> +Moves regular; th' unlovely scene is bright.<br> +Thy hand, educing good from evil, brings<br> +To one apt harmony the strife of things.<br> +One ever-during law still binds the whole,<br> +Though shunned, resisted, by the sinner's soul.<br> +Wretches! while still they course the glittering prize,<br> +The law of God eludes their ears and eyes.<br> +Life then were virtue, did they this obey;<br> +But wide from life's chief good they headlong stray.</p> + +<p>Now glory's arduous toils the breast inflame;<br> +Now avarice thirsts, insensible of shame;<br> +Now sloth unnerves them in voluptuous ease,<br> +And the sweet pleasures of the body please.<br> +With eager haste they rush the gulf within,<br> +And their whole souls are centred in their sin.<br> +But oh, great Jove! by whom all good is given--<br> +Dweller with lightnings and the clouds of heaven--<br> +Save from their dreadful error lost mankind!<br> +Father, disperse these shadows of the mind!<br> +Give them thy pure and righteous law to know,<br> +Wherewith thy justice governs all below.<br> +Thus honored by the knowledge of thy way,<br> +Shall men that honor to thyself repay,<br> +And bid thy mighty works in praises ring,<br> +As well befits a mortal's lips to sing;<br> +More blest nor men nor heavenly powers can be<br> +Than when their songs are of thy law and thee.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> ELTON.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Jupiter is said to have divided the dominion of +the universe between himself and his two brothers, Neptune and +Pluto, taking heaven as his own portion, and having his throne +and holding his court on Mount Olympus, in Thessaly, while he +assigned the dominion of the sea to Neptune, and to Pluto the +lower regions--the abodes of the dead. Jupiter had several wives, +both goddesses and mortals; but last of all he married his sister +Juno, who maintained permanently the dignity of queen of the +gods. The offspring of Jupiter were numerous, comprising both +celestial and terrestrial divinities. The most noted of the +former were Mars, the god of war; Vulcan, the god of fire (the +Olympian artist who forged the thunder-bolts of Jupiter and the +arms of all the gods); and Apollo, the god of archery, prophecy, +music, and medicine.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Mine is the invention of the +charming lyre;<br> +Sweet notes, and heavenly numbers I inspire.<br> +Med'cine is mine: what herbs and simples grow<br> +In fields and forests, all their powers I know,<br> +And am the great physician called below."<br> + --Apollo to Daphne, in OVID'S <i>Metam.</i> PRYDEN'S +<i>Trans.</i></div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Then come Mercury, the winged messenger, +interpreter and ambassador of the gods; Diana, queen of the woods +and goddess of hunting, and hence the counterpart of her brother +Apollo; and finally, Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and skill, +who is said to have Sprung full-armed from the brain of +Jupiter.</p> + +<p class="just">Besides these divinities there were many +others--as Ceres, the goddess of grain and harvests; and Vesta, +the goddess of home joys and comforts, who presided over the +sanctity of the domestic hearth. There were also inferior gods +and goddesses innumerable--such as deities of the woods and the +mountains, the meadows and the rivers--some terrestrial, others +celestial, according to the places over which they were supposed +to preside, and rising in importance in proportion to the powers +they manifested. Even the Muses, the Fates, and the Graces were +numbered among Grecian deities.</p> + +<p class="just">But while, undoubtedly, the great mass of the +Grecian people believed that their divinities were real persons, +who presided over the affairs of men, their philosophers, while +encouraging this belief as the best adapted to the understanding +of the people, took quite a different view of them, and explained +the mythological legends as allegorical representations of +general physical and moral truths. Thus, while Jupiter, to the +vulgar mind, was the god or the upper regions, "who dwelt on the +Summits of the highest mountains, gathered the clouds about him, +shook the air with his thunder, and wielded the lightning as the +instrument of his wrath," yet in all this he was but the symbol +of the ether or atmosphere which surrounds the earth; and hence, +the numerous fables of this monarch of the gods may be considered +merely as "allegories which typify the great generative power of +the universe, displaying itself in a variety of ways, and under +the greatest diversity of forms." So, also, Apollo was, in all +likelihood, originally the sun-god of the Asiatic nations; +displaying all the attributes of that luminary; and because fire +is "the great agent in reducing and working the metals, Vulcan, +the fire-god, naturally became an artist, and is represented as +working with hammer and tongs at his anvil. Thus the Greeks, +instead of worshipping Nature, worshipped the Powers of Nature, +as personified in the almost infinite number of their +deities.</p> + +<p class="just">The process by which the beings of Grecian +mythology came into existence, among an ardent and superstitious +people, is beautifully described by the poet WORDSWORTH as very +naturally arising out of the</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Teeming Fancies of the Greek Mind.</i></p> + +<p>The lively Grecian, in a land of hills,<br> +Rivers, and fertile plains, and sounding shores,<br> +Under a copse of variegated sky,<br> +Could find commodious place for every god.<br> +In that fair clime the lonely herdsman, stretched<br> +On the soft grass through half a summer's day,<br> +With music lulled his indolent repose;<br> +And in some fit of weariness, if he,<br> +When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear<br> +A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds<br> +Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetch'd<br> +Even from the blazing chariot of the sun<br> +A beardless youth, who touched a golden lute,<br> +And filled the illumined groves with ravishment.</p> + +<p>The night hunter, lifting a bright eye<br> +Up toward the crescent moon, with grateful heart<br> +Called on the lovely wanderer who bestow'd<br> +That timely light to share his joyous sport.<br> +And hence a beaming goddess, with her nymphs,<br> +Across the lawn, and through the darksome grove<br> +(Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes,<br> +By echo multiplied from rock or cave),<br> +Swept in the storm of chase, as moon and stars<br> +Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven<br> +When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slacked<br> +His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thank'd<br> +The Naiad. Sunbeams, upon distant hills<br> +Gliding apace, with shadows in their train,<br> +Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed<br> +Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly.</p> + +<p>The Zephyrs fanning, as they passed, their wings,<br> +Lacked not for love fair objects, whom they wooed<br> +With gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque,<br> +Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,<br> +From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth<br> +In the low vale, or on steep mountain side--<br> +And sometimes intermixed with stirring horns<br> +Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard--<br> +These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood<br> +Of gamesome deities; or Pan himself,<br> +The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Similar ideas are expressed in an article on the +<i>Nature of Early History</i>, by a celebrated English scholar, +[<small>Footnote: Henry George Liddell, D. D., Dean of +Christchurch College, Oxford.</small>] who says: "The legends, or +mythic fables, of the Greeks are chiefly connected with religious +ideas, and may mostly be traced to that sort of awe or wonder +with which simple and uneducated minds regard the changes and +movements of the natural world. The direct and easy way in which +the imagination of such persons accounts for marvelous phenomena, +is to refer them to the operation of Persons. When the attention +is excited by the regular movements of sun, and moon, and stars, +by the alternations of day and night, by the recurrence of the +seasons, by the rising and falling of the seas, by the ceaseless +flow of rivers, by the gathering of clouds, the rolling of +thunder, and the flashing of lightning, by the operations of life +in the vegetable and animal worlds--in short, by any exhibition +of an active and motive power--it is natural for uninstructed +minds to consider such changes and movements as the work of +divine Persons. In this manner the early Greek legends associate +themselves with personifications of the powers of Nature. All +attempts to account for the marvels which surround us are +foregone; everything is referred to the immediate operation of a +god. 'Cloud-compelling Zeus' is the author of the phenomenon of +the air; 'Earth-shaking Pos-ei'don,' of all that happens in the +water under the earth; Nymphs are attached to every spring or +tree; De-me'ter, or Mother Earth, for six months rejoices in the +presence of Proserpine, [<small>Footnote: In some legends +Proserpine is regarded as the daughter of Mother Earth, or Ceres, +and a personification of the growing corn.</small>] the green +herb, her daughter, and for six months regrets her absence in +dark abodes beneath the earth.</p> + +<p class="just">"This tendency to deify the powers of Nature is +due partly to a clear atmosphere and sunny climate, which incline +a people to live much in the open air in close communion with all +that Nature offers to charm the senses and excite the +imagination; partly to the character of the people, and partly to +the poets who in early times wrought these legendary tales into +works which are read with increased delight in ages when science +and method have banished the simple faith which procured +acceptance for these legends.</p> + +<p class="just">"Among the Greeks all these conditions were found +existing. They lived, so to say, out-of-doors; their powers of +observation were extremely quick, and their imagination +singularly vivid; and their ancient poems are the most noble +specimens of the old legendary tales that have been preserved in +any country."</p> + +<p class="just">This tendency of the Grecian mind is also very +happily set forth in the following lines by PROFESSOR +BLACKIE:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The old Greek men, the old Greek +men--<br> + No blinking fools were they,<br> +But with a free and broad-eyed ken<br> + Looked forth on glorious day.<br> +They looked on the sun in their cloudless sky,<br> + And they saw that his light was fair;<br> +And they said that the round, full-beaming eye<br> + Of a blazing GOD was there!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">They looked on the vast spread +Earth, and saw<br> +The various fashioned forms, with awe<br> + Of green and creeping life,<br> +And said, "In every moving form,<br> +With buoyant breath and pulses warm,<br> +In flowery crowns and veined leaves,<br> +A GODDESS dwells, whose bosom heaves<br> + With organizing strife."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">They looked and saw the billowy +sea,<br> +With its boundless rush of water's free,<br> +Belting the firm earth, far and wide,<br> +With the flow of its deep, untainted tide;<br> +And wondering viewed, in its clear blue flood,<br> +A quick and scaly-glancing brood,<br> +Sporting innumerous in the deep<br> +With dart, and plunge, and airy leap;<br> +And said, "Full sure a GOD doth reign<br> +King of this watery, wide domain,<br> +And rides in a car of cerulean hue<br> +O'er bounding billows of green and blue;<br> +And in one hand a three-pronged spear<br> +He holds, the sceptre of his fear,<br> +And with the other shakes the reins<br> +Of his steeds, with foamy, flowing manes,<br> + And coures o'er the brine;<br> +And when he lifts his trident mace,<br> +Broad Ocean crisps his darkling face,<br> + And mutters wrath divine;<br> +The big waves rush with hissing crest,<br> +And beat the shore with ample breast,<br> + And shake the toppling cliff:</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">A wrathful god has roused the +wave--<br> +Vain is all pilot's skill to save,<br> +And lo! a deep, black-throated grave<br> + Ingulfs the reeling skiff."<br> +Anon the flood less fiercely flows,<br> +The rifted cloud blue ether shows,<br> + The windy buffets cease;<br> +Poseidon chafes his heart no more,<br> +His voice constrains the billows' roar,<br> + And men may sail in peace.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">[<small>Footnote: +<i>Pos-ei'don</i>, another name for Neptune, the +sea-god.</small>]</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">In the old oak a Dryad dwelt;<br> +The fingers of a nymph were felt<br> + In the fine-rippled flood;<br> +At drowsy noon, when all was still,<br> +Faunus lay sleeping on the hill,<br> +And strange and bright-eyed gamesome creatures,<br> +With hairy limbs and goat-like features,<br> + Peered from the prickly wood.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">[<small>Footnote: The +Sa'tyrs.</small>]</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Thus every power that zones the +sphere<br> +With forms of beauty and of fear,<br> +In starry sky, on grassy ground,<br> +And in the fishy brine profound,<br> +Were, to the hoar Pelasgic men<br> +That peopled erst each Grecian glen,<br> +GODS--or the <i>actions</i> of a god:<br> +Gods were in every sight and sound<br> +And every spot was hallowed ground<br> +Where these far-wandering patriarchs trod.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">But all this fairy world has passed away, to live +only as shadows in the realms of fancy and of song. SCHILLER +gives expression to the poet's lament in the following lines:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Art thou, fair world, no more?<br> + Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face!<br> +Ah, only on the minstrel's magic shore<br> + Can we the footsteps of sweet Fable trace!<br> +The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;<br> + Vainly we search the earth, of gods bereft;<br> +Where once the warm and living shapes were rife<br> + Shadows alone are left.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The Latin poet OV'ID, who lived at the time of +the Christian era, has collected from the fictions of the early +Greeks and Oriental nations, and woven into one continuous +history, the pagan accounts of the Creation, embracing a +description of the primeval world, and the early changes it +underwent, followed by a history of the four eras or ages of +primitive mankind, the deluge of Deuca'lion, and then onward down +to the time of Augustus Cæsar. This great work of the pagan +poet, called <i>The Metamorphoses</i>, is not only the most +curious and valuable record extant of ancient mythology, but some +have thought they discovered, in every story it contains, a moral +allegory; while others have attempted to trace in it the whole +history of the Old Testament, and types of the miracles and +sufferings of our Savior. But, however little of truth there may +be in the last of these suppositions, the beautiful and +impressive account of the Creation given by this poet, of the +Four Ages of man's history which followed, and of the Deluge, +coincides in so many remarkable respects with the Bible +narrative, and with geological and other records, that we give it +here as a specimen of Grecian fable that contains some traces of +true history. The translation is by Dryden:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Account of the Creation.</i></p> + +<p>Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,<br> +And heaven's high canopy, that covers all,<br> +One was the face of Nature--if a face--<br> +Rather, a rude and indigested mass;<br> +A lifeless lump, unfashioned and unframed,<br> +Of jarring elements, and CHAOS named.</p> + +<p>No sun was lighted up the world to view,<br> +Nor moon did yet her blunted horns renew,<br> +Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky,<br> +Nor, poised, did on her own foundations lie,<br> +Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;<br> +But earth, and air, and water were in one.<br> +Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,<br> +And water's dark abyss unnavigable.<br> +No certain form on any was impressed;<br> +All were confused, and each disturbed the rest.</p> + +<p>Thus disembroiled they take their proper place;<br> +The next of kin contiguously embrace,<br> +And foes are sundered by a larger space.<br> +The force of fire ascended first on high,<br> +And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky;<br> +Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire,<br> +Whose atoms from inactive earth retire;<br> +Earth sinks beneath and draws a numerous throng<br> +Of ponderous, thick, unwieldy seeds along.<br> +About her coasts unruly waters roar,<br> +And, rising on a ridge, insult the shore.<br> +Thus when the god--whatever god was he--<br> +Had formed the whole, and made the parts agree,<br> +That no unequal portions might be found,<br> +He moulded earth into a spacious round;<br> +Then, with a breath, he gave the winds to blow,<br> +And bade the congregated waters flow.<br> +He adds the running springs and standing lakes,<br> +And bounding banks for winding rivers makes.<br> +Some parts in earth are swallowed up; the most,<br> +In ample oceans disembogued, are lost.<br> +He shades the woods, the valleys he restrains<br> +With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.</p> + +<p>Then, every void of nature to supply,<br> +With forms of gods Jove fills the vacant sky;<br> +New herds of beasts sends the plains to share;<br> +New colonies of birds to people air;<br> +And to their cozy beds the finny fish repair.<br> +A creature of a more exalted kind<br> +Was wanting yet, and then was Man designed;<br> +Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,<br> +For empire formed and fit to rule the rest;<br> +Whether with particles of heavenly fire<br> +The God of nature did his soul inspire,<br> +Or earth, but new divided from the sky,<br> +And pliant, still retained the ethereal energy.<br> +Thus while the mute creation downward bend<br> +Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,<br> +Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes<br> +Beholds his own hereditary skies.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>FOUR AGES OF MAN.</h5> + +<p class="just">The poet now describes the Ages, or various +epochs in the civilization of the human race. The first is the +Golden Age, a period of patriarchal simplicity, when Earth +yielded her fruits spontaneously, and spring was eternal.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The GOLDEN AGE was first, when man, +yet new,<br> +No rule but uncorrupted reason knew,<br> +And, with a native bent, did good pursue.<br> +Unforced by punishment, unawed by fear.<br> +His words were simple and his soul sincere;<br> +Needless were written laws where none oppressed;<br> +The law of man was written on his breast.<br> +No suppliant crowds before the judge appeared,<br> +No court erected yet, nor cause was heard,<br> +But all was safe, for conscience was their guard.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">No walls were yet, nor fence, nor +moat, nor mound;<br> +Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet's angry sound;<br> +Nor swords were forged; but, void of care and crime,<br> +The soft creation slept away their time.<br> +The teeming earth, yet guiltless of the plough,<br> +And unprovoked, did fruitful stores allow;<br> +The flowers, unsown, in fields and meadows reigned,<br> +And western winds immortal spring maintained.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The next; or the Silver Age, was marked by the +change of seasons, and the division and cultivation of lands.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Succeeding times a SILVER AGE +behold,<br> +Excelling brass, but more excelled by gold.<br> +Then summer, autumn, winter did appear,<br> +And spring was but a season of the year;<br> +The sun his annual course obliquely made,<br> +Good days contracted, and enlarged the bad.<br> +Then air with sultry heats began to glow,<br> +The wings of wind were clogged with ice and snow;<br> +And shivering mortals, into houses driven,<br> +Sought shelter from the inclemency of heaven.<br> +Those houses then were caves or homely sheds,<br> +With twining osiers fenced, and moss their beds.<br> +Then ploughs for seed the fruitful furrows broke,<br> +And oxen labored first beneath the yoke.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Then followed the Brazen Age, which was an epoch +of war and violence.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">To this came next in course the +BRAZEN AGE;<br> +A warlike offspring, prompt to bloody rage,<br> +Not impious yet.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">According to He'siod, the next age is the Heroic, +in which the world began to aspire toward better things; but OVID +omits this altogether, and gives, as the fourth and last, the +Iron Age, also called the Plutonian Age, full of all sorts of +hardships and wickedness. His description of it is as +follows:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Hard steel succeeded +then,<br> +And stubborn as the metal were the men.<br> +Truth, Modesty, and Shame the world forsook;<br> +Fraud, Avarice, and Force their places took.<br> +Then sails were spread to every wind that blew;<br> +Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new:<br> +Trees rudely hollowed did the waves sustain,<br> +Ere ships in triumph plough'd the watery plain.<br> + Then landmarks limited to each his right;<br> +For all before was common as the light.<br> +Nor was the ground alone required to bear<br> +Her annual income to the crooked share;<br> +But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,<br> +Digged from her entrails first the precious ore;<br> +(Which next to hell the prudent gods had laid),<br> +And that alluring ill to sight displayed:<br> +Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold,<br> +Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold;<br> +And double death did wretched man invade,<br> +By steel assaulted, and by gold betrayed.<br> +Now (brandished weapons glittering in their hands)<br> +Mankind is broken loose from moral bands:<br> +No rights of hospitality remain;<br> +The guest by him who harbored him is slain;<br> +The son-in-law pursues the father's life;<br> +The wife her husband murders, he the wife;<br> +The step-dame poison for the son prepares,<br> +The son inquires into his father's years.<br> +Faith flies, and Piety in exile mourns;<br> +And Justice, here oppressed, to heaven returns.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The Scriptures assert that the wickedness of +mankind was the cause of the Noachian flood, or deluge. So, also, +we find that, in Grecian mythology, like causes led to the deluge +of Deuca'lion. Therefore, before giving Ovid's account of this +latter event, we give, from Hesiod, a curious account of</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE ORIGIN OF EVIL, AND ITS INTRODUCTION INTO THE WORLD.</h5> + +<p class="just">It appears from the legend that, during a +controversy between the gods and men, Pro-me'theus, +[<small>Footnote: In most Greek proper names ending in +<i>eus</i>, the <i>eus</i> is pronounced in one syllable; as +<i>Or'pheus</i>, pronounced <i>Or'phuse</i>.</small>] who is said +to have surpassed all his fellow-men in intellectual vigor and +sagacity, stole fire from the skies, and, concealing it in a +hollow staff, brought it to man. Jupiter, angry at the theft of +that which had been reserved from mortals for wise purposes, +resolved to punish Prometheus, and through him all mankind, to +show that it was not given to man to elude the wisdom of the +gods. He therefore caused Vulcan to form an image of air and +water, to give it human voice and strength, and make it assume +the form of a beautiful woman, like the immortal goddesses +themselves. Minerva endowed this new creation with artistic +skill, Venus gave her the witchery of beauty, Mercury inspired +her with an artful disposition, and the Graces added all their +charms. But we append the following extracts from the beautifully +written account by Hesiod, beginning with the command which +Jupiter gave to Vulcan, the fire-god:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Thus spoke the sire, whom heaven +and earth obey,<br> +And bade the fire-god mould his plastic clay;<br> +In-breathe the human voice within her breast;<br> +With firm-strung nerves th'elastic limbs invest;<br> +Her aspect fair as goddesses above--<br> +A virgin's likeness, with the brows of love.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">He bade Minerva teach the skill +that dyes<br> +The wool with color's as the shuttle flies:<br> +He called the magic of Love's charming queen<br> +To breathe around a witchery of mien;<br> +Then plant the rankling stings of keen desire<br> +And cares that trick the limbs with pranked attire:<br> +Bade Her'mes [<small>Footnote: Mercury.</small>] last impart the +Craft refined<br> +Of thievish manners, and a shameless mind.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">He gives command--the inferior +powers obey--<br> +The crippled artist [<small>Footnote: Vulcan.</small>] moulds the +tempered clay:<br> +A maid's coy image rose at Jove's behest;<br> +Minerva clasped the zone, diffused too vest;<br> +Adored Persuasion and the Graces young<br> +Her tapered limbs with golden jewels hung;<br> +Round her smooth brow the beauteous-tressed Hours<br> +A garland twined of Spring's purpureal flowers.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The whole attire Minerva's graceful +art<br> +Disposed, adjusted, formed to every part;<br> +And last, the winged herald [<small>Footnote: Mercury.</small>] +of the skies,<br> +Slayers of Argus, gave the gift of lies--<br> +Gave trickish manners, honeyed words instilled,<br> +As he that rolls the deepening thunder willed:<br> +Then by the feathered messenger of Heaven<br> +The name PANDO'RA to the maid was given;<br> +For all the gods conferred a gifted grace<br> +To crown this mischief of the mortal race.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Thus furnished, Pandora was brought as a gift +from Jupiter to the dwelling of Ep-i-me'theus, the brother of +Prometheus; and the former, dazzled by her charms, received her +in spite of the warnings of his sagacious brother, and made her +his wife.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The sire commands the winged herald +bear<br> +The finished nymph, th' inextricable snare.<br> +To Epimetheus was the present brought:<br> +Prometheus' warning vanished from his thought--<br> +That he disdain each offering of the skies,<br> +And straight restore, lest ill to man arise.<br> +But he received, and, conscious, knew too late<br> +Th' insidious gift, and felt the curse of fate.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In the dwelling of Epimetheus stood a closed +casket, which he had been forbidden to open; but Pandora, +disregarding the injunction, raised the lid; when lo! to her +consternation, all the evils hitherto unknown to mortals poured +out, and spread themselves over the earth. In terror at the sight +of these monsters, Pandora shut down the lid just in time to +prevent the escape of <i>Hope</i>, which thus remained to man, +his chief support and consolation amid the trials of his +pilgrimage.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">On earth, of yore, the sons of men +abode<br> +From evil free, and labor's galling load;<br> +Free from diseases that; with racking rage,<br> +Precipitate the pale decline of age.<br> +Now swift the days of manhood haste away,<br> +And misery's pressure turns the temples gray.<br> +The Woman's hands an ample casket bear;<br> +She lifts the lid--she scatters ill in air.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Hope sole remained within, nor took +her flight--<br> +Beneath the vessel's verge concealed from light;<br> +Issued the rest, in quick dispersion buried,<br> +And woes innumerous roamed the breathing world:<br> +With ills the land is full, with ills the sea;<br> +Diseases haunt our frail humanity;<br> +Self-wandering through the noon, at night they glide<br> +Voiceless--a voice the power all-wise denied:<br> +Know, then, this awful truth: it is not given<br> +To elude the wisdom of omniscient Heaven.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> ELTON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">PROFESSOR BLACKIE has made this legend the +subject of a pleasing poem, from which we take the following +extracts, beginning with the acceptance by Epimetheus of the gift +from Jupiter. The deluded mortal exclaims--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Bless thee, bless thee, gentle +Hermes!<br> + Once I sinned, and strove<br> +Vainly with my haughty brother<br> + 'Gainst Olympian Jove.<br> +Now my doubts his love hath vanquished;<br> + Evil knows not he,<br> +Whose free-streaming grace prepared<br> + Such gift of gods for me.<br> +Henceforth I and fair Pandora,<br> + Joined in holy love,<br> +Only one in heaven will worship--<br> + Cloud-compelling Jove."<br> +Thus he; and from the god received<br> + The glorious gift of Jove,<br> +And with fond embracement clasped her,<br> + Thrilled by potent love;<br> +And in loving dalliance with her<br> + Lived from day to day,<br> +While her bounteous smiles diffusive<br> + Scared pale care away.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">By the mountain, by the river,<br> + 'Neath the shaggy pine,<br> +By the cool and grassy fountain<br> + Where clear waters shine,<br> +He with her did lightly stray,<br> + Or softly did recline,<br> +Drinking sweet intoxication<br> + From that form divine.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">One day, when the moon had +wheeled<br> + Four honeyed weeks away,<br> +From her chamber came Pandora<br> + Decked with trappings gay,<br> +And before fond Epimetheus<br> + Fondly she did stand,<br> +A box all bright with lucid opal<br> + Holding in her hand.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Dainty box!" cried Epimetheus.<br> + "Dainty well may't be,"<br> +Quoth Pandora--"curious Vulcan<br> + Framed it cunningly;<br> +Jove bestowed it in my dowry:<br> + Like bright Phoebus' ray<br> +It shines without; within, what wealth<br> + I know not to this day."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">It will be observed in what follows that the poet +does not strictly adhere to the legend as given by Hesiod, in +which it is stated that Pandora, probably under the influence of +curiosity, herself raised the lid of the mysterious casket. The +poet, instead, attributes the act to Epimetheus, and so relieves +Pandora of the odium and the guilt.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Let me see," quoth Epimetheus,<br> + "What my touch can do!"<br> +And swiftly to his finger's call<br> + The box wide open flew.<br> +O heaven! O hell! What Pandemonium<br> + In the pouncet dwells!<br> +How it quakes, and how it quivers;<br> + How it seethes and swells!<br> +Misty steams from it upwreathing,<br> + Wave on wave is spread!<br> +Like a charnel-vault, 'tis breathing<br> + Vapors of the dead!<br> +Fumes on fumes as from a throat<br> + Of sooty Vulcan rise,<br> +Clouds of red and blue and yellow<br> + Blotting the fair skies!<br> +And the air, with noisome stenches,<br> + As from things that rot,<br> +Chokes the breather--exhalation<br> + From the infernal pot.<br> +And amid the thick-curled vapors<br> + Ghastly shapes I see<br> +Of dire diseases, Epimetheus,<br> + Launched on earth by thee.<br> +A horrid crew! Some lean and dwindled,<br> + Some with boils and blains<br> +Blistered, some with tumors swollen,<br> + And water in the veins;<br> +Some with purple blotches bloated,<br> + Some with humors flowing<br> +Putrid, some with creeping tetter<br> + Like a lichen growing<br> +O'er the dry skin scaly-crusted;<br> + Some with twisted spine<br> +Dwarfing low with torture slow<br> + The human form divine;<br> +Limping some, some limbless lying;<br> + Fever, with frantic air,<br> +And pale consumption veiling death<br> + With looks serenely fair.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">All the troop of cureless +evils,<br> + Rushing reinless forth<br> +From thy damned box, Pandora,<br> + Seize the tainted earth!<br> +And to lay the marshalled legions<br> + Of our fiendish pains,<br> +Hope alone, a sorry charmer,<br> + In the box remains.<br> +Epimetheus knew the dolors,<br> + But he knew too late;<br> +Jealous Jove himself, now vainly,<br> + Would revoke the fate.<br> +And he cursed the fair Pandora,<br> + But he cursed in vain;<br> +Still, to fools, the fleeting pleasure<br> + Buys the lasting pain!</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>WHAT PROMETHEUS PERSONIFIED.</h5> + +<p class="just">PROFESSOR BLACKIE says, regarding Prometheus, +that the common conception of him is, that he was the +representative of freedom in contest with despotism. He thinks, +however, that Goethe is nearer the depth of the myth when, in his +beautiful lyric, he represents Prometheus as the impersonation of +that indefatigable endurance in man which conquers the earth by +skilful labor, in opposition to and despite; those terrible +influences of the wild, elemental forces of Nature which the +Greeks supposed were concentrated in the person of Jove. +Accordingly, PROFESSOR BLACKIE, in his <i>Legend of +Prometheus</i>; represents him as proclaiming, in the following +language, his empire on the earth, in opposition to the powers +above:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Jove rules above: Fate willed it +so.<br> +'Tis well; Prometheus rules below.<br> +Their gusty games let wild winds play,<br> +And clouds on clouds in thick array<br> +Muster dark armies in the sky:<br> +Be mine a harsher trade to ply--<br> +This solid Earth, this rocky frame<br> +To mould, to conquer, and to tame--<br> +And to achieve the toilsome plan<br> + My workman shall be MAN.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"The Earth is young. Even with +these eyes<br> +I saw the molten mountains rise<br> +From out the seething deep, while Earth<br> +Shook at the portent of their birth.<br> +I saw from out the primal mud<br> +The reptiles crawl, of dull, cold blood,<br> +While winged lizards, with broad stare,<br> +Peered through the raw and misty air.<br> +Where then was Cretan Jove? Where then<br> + This king of gods and men?</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"When, naked from his mother +Earth,<br> +Weak and defenceless, man crept forth,<br> +And on mis-tempered solitude<br> +Of unploughed field and unclipped wood<br> +Gazed rudely; when; with brutes, he fed<br> +On acorns, and his stony bed<br> +In dark, unwholesome caverns found,<br> +No skill was then to tame the ground,<br> +No help came then from him above--<br> + This tyrannous, blustering Jove.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"The Earth is young. Her latest +birth,<br> +This weakling man, my craft shall girth<br> +With cunning strength. Him I will take,<br> +And in stern arts my scholar make.<br> +This smoking reed, in which hold<br> +The empyrean spark, shall mould<br> +Rock and hard steel to use of man:<br> +He shall be as a god to plan<br> +And forge all things to his desire<br> + By alchemy of fire.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"These jagged cliffs that flout the +air,<br> +Harsh granite rocks, so rudely bare,<br> +Wise Vulcan's art and mine shall own<br> +To piles of shapeliest beauty grown.<br> +The steam that snorts vain strength away<br> +Shall serve the workman's curious sway,<br> +Like a wise child; as clouds that sail<br> +White-winged before the summer gale,<br> +The smoking chariot o'er the land<br> + Shall roll at his command.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"'Blow, winds, and crack your +checks!' my home<br> +Stands firm beneath Jove's rattling dome,<br> +This stable Earth. Here let me work!<br> +The busy spirits that eager lurk<br> +Within a thousand laboring breasts<br> +Here let me rouse; and whoso rests<br> +From labor, let him rest from life.<br> +To 'live's to strive;' and in the strife<br> +To move the rock and stir the clod<br> + <i>Man makes himself a god!</i>"</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>THE PUNISHMENT OF PROMETHEUS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Regarding the punishment of Prometheus for his +daring act, the legend states that Jupiter bound him with chains +to a rock or pillar, supposed to be in Scythia, and sent an eagle +to prey without ceasing on his liver, which grew every night as +much as it had lost during the day. After an interval of thirty +thousand years Hercules, a hero of great strength and courage, +slew the eagle and set the sufferer free. The Greek poet +ÆS'CHYLUS, justly styled the father of Grecian tragedy, has +made the punishment of Prometheus the basis of a drama, entitled +<i>Prometheus Bound</i>, which many think is this poet's +masterpiece, and of which it has been remarked:</p> + +<p class="just">"Nothing can be grander than the scenery in which +the poet has made his hero suffer. He is chained to a desolate +and stupendous rock at the extremity of earth's remotest wilds, +frowning over old ocean. The daughters of O-ce'a-nus, who +constitute the chorus of the tragedy, come to comfort and calm +him; and even the aged Oceanus himself, and afterward Mercury, do +all they can to persuade him to submit to his oppressor, Jupiter. +But all to no purpose; he sternly and triumphantly refuses. +Meanwhile, the tempest rages, the lightnings flash upon the rock, +the sands are torn up by whirlwinds, the seas are dashed against +the sky, and all the artillery of heaven is leveled against his +bosom, while he proudly defies the vengeance of his tyrant, and +sinks into the earth to the lower regions, calling on the Powers +of Justice to avenge his wrongs."</p> + +<p class="just">In trying to persuade the defiant Prometheus to +relent, Æschylus represents Mercury as thus addressing +him:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"I have indeed, methinks, said much +in vain,<br> +For still thy heart, beneath my showers of prayers,<br> +Lies dry and hard! nay, leaps like a young horse<br> +Who bites against the new bit in his teeth,<br> +And tugs and struggles against the new-tried rein,<br> +Still fiercest in the weakest thing of all,<br> +Which sophism is--for absolute will alone,<br> +When left to its motions in perverted minds,<br> +Is worse than null for strength! Behold and see,<br> +Unless my words persuade thee, what a blast<br> +And whirlwind of inevitable woe<br> +Must sweep persuasion through thee! For at first<br> +The Father will split up this jut of rock<br> +With the great thunder and the bolted flame,<br> +And hide thy body where the hinge of stone<br> +Shall catch it like an arm! and when thou hast passed<br> +A long black time within, thou shalt come out<br> +To front the sun; and Zeus's winged hound,<br> +The strong, carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down<br> +To meet thee--self-called to a daily feast--<br> +And set his fierce beak in thee, and tear off<br> +The long rags of thy flesh, and batten deep<br> +Upon thy dusky liver!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "Do not +look<br> +For any end, moreover, to this curse,<br> +Or ere some god appear to bear thy pangs<br> +On his own head vicarious, and descend<br> +With unreluctant step the darks of hell,<br> +And the deep glooms enringing Tartarus!<br> +Then ponder this: the threat is not growth<br> +Of vain invention--it is spoken and meant!<br> +For Zeus's mouth is impotent to lie,<br> +And doth complete the utterance in the act.<br> +So, look to it, thou! take heed! and nevermore<br> +Forget good counsel to indulge self-will!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">To which Prometheus answers as follows:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Unto me, the foreknower, this +mandate of power,<br> + He cries, to reveal it!<br> +And scarce strange is my fate, if I suffer from hate<br> + At the hour that I feel it!<br> +Let the rocks of the lightning, all bristling and whitening,<br> + Flash, coiling me round!<br> +While the ether goes surging 'neath thunder and scourging<br> + Of wild winds unbound!<br> +Let the blast of the firmament whirl from its place<br> + The earth rooted below--<br> +And the brine of the ocean, in rapid emotion,<br> + Be it driven in the face<br> +Of the stars up in heaven, as they walk to and fro!<br> +Let him hurl me anon into Tartarus--on--<br> + To the blackest degree,<br> +With necessity's vortices strangling me down!<br> +But he cannot join death to a fate meant for <i>me!</i>"<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>THE SUFFERINGS OF PROMETHEUS.</h5> + +<p class="just">We close this subject with a brief extract from +the <i>Prometheus Bound</i> of the English poet SHELLEY, in which +the sufferings of the defiant captive are vividly portrayed:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"No change, no pause, no hope! yet +I endure.<br> +I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt?<br> +I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun,<br> +Has it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm,<br> +Heaven's ever-changing shadow, spread below,<br> +Have its deaf waves not heard my agony?<br> +Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, forever!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The crawling glaciers pierce me +with the spears<br> +Of their moon-freezing crystals; the bright chains<br> +Eat with their burning gold into my bones.<br> +Heaven's winged hound, polluting from thy lips<br> +His beak in poison not his own, tears up<br> +My heart; and shapeless sights come wandering by--<br> +The ghastly people of the realm of dream<br> +Mocking me; and the Earthquake fiends are charged<br> +To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds<br> +When the rocks split and close again behind;<br> +While from their loud abysses howling throng<br> +The genii of the storm."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Returning now to the poet Ovid, we present the +account which he gives of the Deluge, or the destruction of +mankind by a flood, called by the Greeks,</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE DELUGE OF DEUCALION.</h5> + +<p class="just">Deucalion is represented as the son of +Prometheus, and is styled the father of the Greek nation of +post-diluvian times. When Jupiter determined to destroy the human +race on account of its impiety, it was his first design, OVID +tells us, to accomplish it with fire. But his own safety demanded +the employment of a less dangerous agency.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Already had Jove tossed the flaming +brand,<br> +And rolled the thunder in his spacious hand,<br> +Preparing to discharge on seas and land;<br> +But stopped, for fear, thus violently driven,<br> +The sparks should catch his axle-tree of heaven--<br> +Remembering, in the Fates, a time when fire<br> +Should to the battlements of heaven aspire,<br> +And all his blazing worlds above should burn,<br> +And all the inferior globe to cinders turn.<br> +His dire artillery thus dismissed, he bent<br> +His thoughts to some securer punishment;<br> +Concludes to pour a watery deluge down,<br> +And what he durst not burn resolves to drown.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In all this myth, it will be seen, Jupiter may +very properly be considered as a personification of the elemental +strife that drowned a guilty world. Deucalion, warned, by his +father, of the coming deluge, thereupon made himself an ark or +skiff, and, putting provisions into it, entered it with his wife, +Pyrrha. The whole earth is then overspread with the flood of +waters, and all animal life perishes, except Deucalion and his +wife.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> The northern breath that freezes +floods, Jove binds,<br> +With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds:<br> +The south he loosed, who night and horror brings,<br> +And fogs are shaken from his flaggy wings.<br> +From his divided beard two streams he pours;<br> +His head and rheumy eyes distil in showers.<br> +The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound;<br> +And showers enlarged come pouring on the ground. + +<p>Nor from his patrimonial heaven alone<br> +Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down:<br> +Aid from his brother of the seas he craves,<br> +To help him with auxiliary waves.<br> +The watery tyrant calls his brooks and floods,<br> +Who roll from mossy caves, their moist abodes,<br> +And with perpetual urns his palace fill;<br> +To whom, in brief, he thus imparts his will:</p> + +<p> "Small exhortation needs; your powers employ,<br> +And this bad world (so Jove requires) destroy.<br> +Let loose the reins to all your watery store;<br> +Bear down the dams and open every door."</p> + +<p> The floods, by nature enemies to land,<br> +And proudly swelling with their new command,<br> +Remove the living stones that stopped their way,<br> +And, gushing from their source, augment the sea.<br> +Then with his mace their monarch struck the ground:<br> +With inward trembling Earth received the wound,<br> +And rising stream a ready passage found.<br> +The expanded waters gather on the plain,<br> +They float the fields and overtop the grain;<br> +Then, rushing onward, with a sweepy sway,<br> +Bear flocks and folds and laboring hinds away.<br> +Nor safe their dwellings were; for, sapped by floods,<br> +Their houses fell upon their household gods.<br> +The solid hills, too strongly built to fall,<br> +High o'er their heads behold a watery wall.<br> +Now seas and earth were in confusion lost--<br> +A world of waters, and without a coast.</p> + +<p>One climbs a cliff; one in his boat is borne,<br> +And ploughs above where late he sowed his corn.<br> +Others o'er chimney-tops and turrets row,<br> +And drop their anchors on the meads below;<br> +Or, downward driven, they bruise the tender vine,<br> +Or, tossed aloft, are hurled against a pine.<br> +And where of late the kids had cropped the grass,<br> +The monsters of the deep now take their place.<br> +Insulting Ner'e-ids on the cities ride,<br> +And wondering dolphins o'er the palace glide.<br> +On leaves and masts of mighty oaks they browse,<br> +And their broad fins entangle in the boughs.</p> + +<p>The frighted wolf now swims among the sheep,<br> +The yellow lion wanders in the deep;<br> +His rapid force no longer helps the boar,<br> +The stag swims faster than he ran before.<br> +The fowls, long beating on their wings in vain,<br> +Despair of land, and drop into the main.<br> +Now hills and vales no more distinction know,<br> +And levelled nature lies oppressed below.<br> +The most of mortals perished in the flood,<br> +The small remainder dies for want of food.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Deucalion and Pyrrha were conveyed to the summit +of Mount Parnassus, the highest mountain in Central Greece. +According to Ovid, Deucalion now consulted the ancient oracle of +Themis respecting the restoration of mankind, and received the +following response: "Depart from the temple, veil your heads, +loosen your girded vestments, and cast behind you the great bones +of your parent." At length Deucalion discovered the meaning of +the oracle--the bones being, by a very natural figure, the +stones, or rocky heights, of the earth. The poet then gives the +following account of the abatement of the waters, and of the +appearance of the earth:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "When Jupiter, surveying earth +from high,<br> +Beheld it in a lake of water lie--<br> +That, where so many millions lately lived,<br> +But two, the best of either sex, survived--<br> +He loosed the northern wind: fierce Boreas flies<br> +To puff away the clouds and purge the skies:<br> +Serenely, while he blows, the vapors driven<br> +Discover heaven to earth and earth to heaven;<br> +The billows fall while Neptune lays his mace<br> +On the rough sea, and smooths its furrowed face.<br> +Already Triton [<small>Footnote: Son of Neptune.</small>] at his +call appears<br> +Above the waves: a Tyrian robe he wears,<br> +And in his hands a crooked trumpet bears.<br> +The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire,<br> +And give the waves the signal to retire.<br> +The waters, listening to the trumpet's roar,<br> +Obey the summons, and forsake the shore.<br> +A thin circumference of land appears,<br> +And Earth, but not at once, her visage rears,<br> +And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds:<br> +The streams, but just contained within their bounds,<br> +By slow degrees into their channels crawl,<br> +And earth increases as the waters fall:<br> +In longer time the tops of trees appear,<br> +Which mud on their dishonored branches bear.<br> + At length the world was all restored to view,<br> +But desolate, and of a sickly hue:<br> +Nature beheld herself, and stood aghast,<br> +A dismal desert and a silent waste.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">When the waters had abated Deucalion left the +rocky heights behind him, in obedience to the direction of the +oracle, and went to dwell in the plains below.</p> + +<br> +<h5>MORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GODS, AND OF THEIR RULE OVER +MANKIND.</h5> + +<p class="just">It is a prominent feature of the polytheistic +system of the Greeks that the gods are represented as subject to +all the passions and frailties of human nature. There were, +indeed, among them personifications of good and of evil, as we +see in A'te, the goddess of revenge or punishment, and in the +Erin'nys (or Furies), who avenge violations of filial duty, +punish perjury, and are the maintainers of order both in the +moral and the natural world; yet while these moral ideas +restrained and checked men, the gods seem to have been almost +wholly free from such control. "The society of Olympus, +therefore," says MAHAFFY, "is only an ideal Greek society in the +lowest sense--the ideal of the school-boy who thinks all control +irksome, and its absence the greatest good--the ideal of a +voluptuous man, who has strong passions, and longs for the power +to indulge them without unpleasant consequences. It appears, +therefore, that the Homeric picture of Olympus is very valuable, +as disclosing to us the poet's notion of a society freed from the +restraints of religion; for the rhapsodists [<small>Footnote: +Rhapsodist, a term applied to the reciters of Greek +verse.</small>] were dealing a death-blow (perhaps unconsciously) +to the received religious belief by these very pictures of sin +and crime among the gods. Their idea is a sort of +semi-monarchical aristocracy, where a number of persons have the +power to help favorites, and thwart the general progress of +affairs; where love of faction overpowers every other +consideration, and justifies violence or deceit. +[<small>Footnote: "Social Life in Greece," by J. P. +Mahaffy.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">MR. GLADSTONE has given us, in the following +extract, his views of what he calls the "intense humanity" of the +Olympian system, drawn from what its great expounder has set +forth in the <i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i>. "That system," +he says, "exhibits a kind of royal or palace life of man, but on +the one hand more splendid and powerful, on the other more +intense and free. It is a wonderful and a gorgeous creation. It +is eminently in accordance with the signification of the English +epithet--rather a favorite, apparently, with our old writers--the +epithet <i>jovial</i>, which is derived from the Latin name of +its head. It is a life of all the pleasures of mind and body, of +banquet and of revel, of music and of song; a life in which +solemn grandeur alternates with jest and gibe; a life of childish +willfulness and of fretfulness, combined with serious, manly, and +imperial cares; for the Olympus of Homer has at least this one +recommendation to esteem--that it is not peopled with the merely +lazy and selfish gods of Epicurus, but its inhabitants busily +deliberate on the government of man, and in their debates the +cause of justice wins.</p> + +<p class="just">"I do not now discuss the moral titles of the +Olympian scheme; what I dwell upon is its intense humanity, alike +in its greatness and its littleness, its glory and its shame. As +the cares and joys of human life, so the structure of society +below is reflected, by the wayward wit of man, on heaven above. +Though the names and fundamental traditions of the several +deities were wholly or in great part imported from abroad, their +characters, relations, and attributes passed under a Hellenizing +process, which gradually marked off for them special provinces +and functions, according to laws which appear to have been mainly +original and indigenous, and to have been taken by analogy from +the division of labor in political society. The Olympian society +has its complement of officers and servants, with their proper +functions. He-phæs'tus (or Vulcan) moulds the twenty golden +thrones which move automatically to form the circle of the +council of the gods, and builds for each of his brother deities a +separate palace in the deep-folded recesses of the mighty +mountain. Music and song are supplied by Apollo and the Muses; +Gan-y-me'de and He'be are the cup-bearers, Hermes and Iris are +the messengers; but Themis, in whom is impersonated the idea of +deliberation and of relative rights, is the summoner of the Great +Assembly of the gods in the Twentieth Iliad, when the great issue +of the Trojan war is to be determined." [<small>Footnote: Address +to the Edinburgh University, November 3, 1865.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">But, however prone the gods were to evil +passions, and subject to human frailties, they were not believed +to approve (in men) of the vices in which they themselves +indulged, but were, on the contrary, supposed to punish +violations of justice and humanity, and to reward the brave and +virtuous. We learn that they were to be appeased by libations and +sacrifice; and their aid, not only in great undertakings, but in +the common affairs of life, was to be obtained by prayer and +supplication. For instance, in the Ninth Book of HOMER'S +<i>Iliad</i> the aged Phoe'nix--warrior and sage--in a beautiful +allegory personifying "Offence" and "Prayers," represents the +former as robust and fleet of limb, outstripping the latter, and +hence roaming over the earth and doing immense injury to mankind; +but the Prayers, following after, intercede with Jupiter, and, if +we avail ourselves of them, repair the evil; but if we neglect +them we are told that the vengeance of the wrong shall overtake +us. Thus, Phoenix says of the gods,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "If a mortal +man<br> +Offend them by transgression of their laws,<br> +Libation, incense, sacrifice, and prayer,<br> +In meekness offered, turn their wrath away.<br> + Prayers are Jove's daughters,<br> +Which, though far distant, yet with constant pace<br> +Follow Offence. Offence, robust of limb,<br> +And treading firm the ground, outstrips them all,<br> +And over all the earth before them runs,<br> +Hurtful to man. They, following, heal the hurt.<br> +Received respectfully when they approach,<br> +They yield us aid and listen when we pray;<br> +But if we slight, and with obdurate heart<br> +Resist them, to Saturinian Jove they cry.<br> +Against us, supplicating that Offence<br> +May cleave to us for vengeance of the wrong."<br> + --COWPER'S <i>Trans.</i></div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In the Seventeenth Book, Men-e-la'us is +represented going into battle, "supplicating, first, the sire of +all"--that is, Jupiter, the king of the gods. In the Twenty-third +Book, Antil'ochus attributes the ill-success of Eu-me'lus in the +chariot-race to his neglect of prayer. He says,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "He should have offered prayer; +then had be not<br> +Arrived, as now, the hindmost of us all."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Numerous other instances might be given, from the +works of the Grecian poets, of the supposed efficacy of prayer to +the gods.</p> + +<p class="just">The views of the early Greeks respecting the +dispensations of an overruling Providence, as shown in their +belief in retributive justice, are especially prominent in some +of the sublime choruses of the Greek tragedians, and in the +<i>Works and Days</i> of Hesiod. For instance, Æschylus +says,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The ruthless and oppressive +power<br> +May triumph for its little hour;<br> + But soon, with all their vengeful train,<br> + The sullen Furies rise,<br> + Break his full force, and whirl him down<br> +Thro' life's dark paths, unpitied and unknown.<br> + --POTTER'S <i>Trans.</i></div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The following extracts from Hesiod illustrate the +certainty with which Justice was believed to overtake and punish +those who pervert her ways, while the good are followed by +blessings. They also show that the crimes of one are often +"visited on all."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Earth's crooked judges--lo! the +oath's dread god<br> +Avenging runs, and tracks them where they trod.<br> +Rough are the ways of Justice as the sea,<br> +Dragged to and fro by men's corrupt decree;<br> +Bribe-pampered men! whose hands, perverting, draw<br> +The right aside, and warp the wrested law. + +<p>Though while Corruption on their sentence waits<br> +They thrust pale Justice from their haughty gates,<br> +Invisible their steps the Virgin treads,<br> +And musters evil o'er their sinful heads.<br> +She with the dark of air her form arrays,<br> +And walks in awful grief the city ways:<br> +Her wail is heard; her tear, upbraiding, falls<br> +O'er their stained manners and devoted walls.</p> + +<p>But they who never from the right have strayed--<br> +Who as the citizen the stranger aid--<br> +They and their cities flourish: genial peace<br> +Dwells in their borders, and their youth increase;<br> +Nor Jove, whose radiant eyes behold afar,<br> +Hangs forth in heaven the signs of grievous war;<br> +Nor scath, nor famine; on the righteous prey--<br> +Peace crowns the night, and plenty cheers the day.<br> +Rich are their mountain oaks: the topmost tree<br> +The acorns fill, its trunk the hiving bee;<br> +Their sheep with fleeces pant; their women's race<br> +Reflect both parents in the infant face:<br> +Still flourish they, nor tempt with ships the main;<br> +The fruits of earth are poured from every plain.</p> + +<p>But o'er the wicked race, to whom belong<br> +The thought of evil and the deed of wrong,<br> +Saturnian Jove, of wide-beholding eyes,<br> +Bids the dark signs of retribution rise;<br> +And oft the deeds of one destructive fall--<br> +The crimes of one--are visited on all.<br> +The god sends down his angry plagues from high--<br> +Famine and pestilence--in heaps they die!<br> +Again, in vengeance of his wrath, he falls<br> +On their great hosts, and breaks their tottering walls;<br> +Scatters their ships of war; and where the sea<br> +Heaves high its mountain billows, there is he!</p> + +<p>Ponder, O Judges! in your inmost thought<br> +The retribution by his vengeance wrought.<br> +Invisible, the gods are ever nigh,<br> +Pass through the midst, and bend th' all-seeing eye.<br> +The man who grinds the poor, who wrests the right,<br> +Aweless of Heaven, stands naked to their sight:<br> +For thrice ten thousand holy spirits rove<br> +This breathing world, the delegates of Jove;<br> +Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys<br> +The upright judgments and the unrighteous ways.</p> + +<p>A virgin pure is Justice, and her birth<br> +August from him who rules the heavens and earth--<br> +A creature glorious to the gods on high,<br> +Whose mansion is yon everlasting sky.<br> +Driven by despiteful wrong she takes her seat,<br> +In lowly grief, at Jove's eternal feet.<br> +There of the soul unjust her plaints ascend:<br> +So rue the nations when their kings offend--<br> +When, uttering wiles and brooding thoughts of ill,<br> +They bend the laws, and wrest them to their will.<br> +Oh! gorged with gold, ye kingly judges, hear!<br> +Make straight your paths, your crooked judgments fear,<br> +That the foul record may no more be seen--<br> +Erased, forgot, as though it ne'er had been.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> ELTON.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>OATHS.</h5> + +<p class="just">As in the beginning of the foregoing extract, so +the poets frequently refer to the <i>oaths</i> that were taken by +those who entered into important compacts, showing that then as +now, and as in Old Testament times, some overruling deity was +invoked to witness the agreement or promise, and punish its +violation. Sometimes the person touched the altar of the god by +whom he swore, or the blood that was shed in the ceremonial +sacrifice, while some walked through the fire to sanctify their +oaths. When Abraham swore unto the King of Sodom that he would +not enrich himself with any of the king's goods, he lifted up his +hand to heaven, pointing to the supposed residence of the Deity, +as if calling on him to witness the oath. When he requires his +servant to take an oath unto him he says, "Put, I pray thee, thy +hand under my thigh: and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the +God of heaven and earth;" and Jacob requires the same ceremony +from Joseph when the latter promises to carry his father's bones +up out of Egypt.</p> + +<p class="just">When the goddess Vesta swore an oath in the very +presence of Jupiter, as represented in Homer's hymn, she touched +his head, as the most fitting ceremonial.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Touching the head of +Ægis-bearing Jove,<br> +A mighty oath she swore, and hath fulfilled,<br> +That she among the goddesses of heaven<br> +Would still a virgin be.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">We find a military oath described by +Æschylus in the drama of <i>The Seven Chiefs against +Thebes</i>:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">O'er the hollow of a brazen +shield<br> +A bull they slew, and, touching with their hands<br> +The sacrificial stream, they called aloud<br> +On Mars, Eny'o, and blood-thirsty Fear,<br> +And swore an oath or in the dust to lay<br> +These walls, and give our people to the sword,<br> +Or, perishing, to steep the land in blood!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">That there was sometimes a fire ordeal to +sanctify the oath, we learn from the <i>Antig'o-ne</i> of +SOPHOCLES. The Messenger who brought tidings of the burial of +Polyni'ces says,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Ready were we to grasp the burning +steel,<br> +To pass through fire, and by the gods to swear<br> +The deed was none of ours, nor aught we knew<br> +Of living man by whom 'twas planned or done."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In the Twelfth Book of VIRGIL'S +<i>Æne'id</i>, when King Turnus enters into a treaty with +the Trojans, he touches the altars of his gods and the flames, as +part of the ceremony:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"I touch the sacred altars, touch +the flames,<br> +And all these powers attest, and all their names,<br> +Whatever chance befall on either side,<br> +No term of time this union shall divide;<br> +No force nor fortune shall my vows unbind,<br> +To shake the steadfast tenor of my mind."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The ancient poets and orators denounce perjury in +the strongest terms, and speak of the offence as one of a most +odious character.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE FUTURE STATE.</h5> + +<p class="just">The future state in which the Greeks believed was +to some extent one of rewards and punishments. The souls of most +of the dead, however, were supposed to descend to the realms of +Ha'des, where they remained, joyless phantoms, the mere shadows +of their former selves, destitute of mental vigor, and, like the +spectres of the North American Indians, pursuing, with dreamlike +vacancy, the empty images of their past occupations and +enjoyments. So cheerless is the twilight of the nether world that +the ghost of Achilles informs Ulysses that it would rather live +the meanest hireling on earth than be doomed to continue in the +shades below, even though as sovereign ruler there. Thus Achilles +asks him--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"How hast thou dared descend into +the gloom<br> +Of Hades, where the shadows of the dead,<br> +<i>Forms without intellect</i>, alone reside?"</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">And when Ulysses tries to console him by +reminding him that he was even there supreme over all his +fellow-shades, he receives this reply:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Renowned Ulysses! think not death +a theme<br> +Of consolation: I would rather live<br> +The servile hind for hire, and eat the bread<br> +Of some man scantily himself sustained,<br> +Than sovereign empire hold o'er all the shades."<br> + --<i>Odyssey</i>, by COWPER, B. XI.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">But even in Hades a distinction is made between +the good and the bad, for there Ulysses finds Mi'nos, the early +law-giver of Crete, advanced to the position of judge over the +assembled shades-- absolving the just, and condemning the +guilty.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">High on a throne, tremendous to +behold,<br> +Stern Minos waves a mace of burnished gold;<br> +Around, ten thousand thousand spectres stand,<br> +Through the wide dome of Dis, a trembling band;<br> +Whilst, as they plead, the fatal lots he rolls,<br> +Absolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls.<br> + --<i>Odyssey</i>, by POPE, B. XI.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The kinds of punishment inflicted here are, as +might be expected, wholly earthly in their nature, and may be +regarded rather as the reflection of human passions than as moral +retributions by the gods. Thus, Tan'talus, placed up to his chin +in water, which ever flowed away from his lips, was tormented +with unquenchable thirst, while the fruits hanging around him +constantly eluded his grasp. The story of Tantalus is well told +by PROFESSOR BLACKIE, as follows:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Tantalus.</i></p> + +<p>O Tantalus! thou wert a man<br> +More blest than all since earth began<br> + Its weary round to travel;<br> +But, placed in Paradise, like Eve,<br> +Thine own damnation thou didst weave,<br> + Without help from the devil.<br> +Alas! I fear thy tale to tell;<br> +Thou'rt in the deepest pool of hell,<br> + And shalt be there forever.<br> +For why? When thou on lofty seat<br> +Didst sit, and eat immortal meat<br> + With Jove, the bounteous Giver,<br> +The gods before thee loosed their tongue,<br> +And many a mirthful ballad sung,<br> +And all their secrets open flung<br> + Into thy mortal ear.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The poet then goes on to describe the gossip, and +pleasures, and jealousies, and scandals of Olympus which Tantalus +heard and witnessed, and then proceeds as follows:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">But witless he such grace to +prize;<br> + And, with licentious babble,<br> +He blazed the secrets of the skies<br> + Through all the human rabble,<br> +And fed the greed of tattlers vain<br> + With high celestial scandal,<br> +And lent to every eager brain<br> + And wanton tongue a handle<br> +Against the gods. For which great sin,<br> + By righteous Jove's command,<br> +In hell's black pool up to the chin<br> + The thirsty king doth stand:<br> +With-parched throat he longs to drink,<br> + But when he bends to sip,<br> +The envious waves receding sink,<br> + And cheat his pining lip.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Like in character was the punishment inflicted +upon Sis'y-phus, "the most crafty of men," as Homer calls him. +Being condemned to roll a huge stone up a hill, it proved to be a +never-ending, still-beginning toil, for as soon as the stone +reached the summit it rolled down again into the plain. So, also, +Ix-i'on, "the Cain of Greece," as he is expressly called--the +first shedder of kindred blood--was doomed to be fastened, with +brazen bands, to an ever-revolving fiery wheel. But the very +refinement of torment, similar to that inflicted upon Prometheus, +was that suffered by the giant Tit'y-us, who was placed on his +back, while vultures constantly fed upon his liver, which grew +again as fast as it was eaten.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE DESCENT OF OR'PHEUS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Only once do we learn that these torments ceased, +and that was when the musician Orpheus, lyre in hand, descended +to the lower world to reclaim his beloved wife, the lost +Eu-ryd'i-ce. At the music of his "golden shell" Tantalus forgot +his thirst, Sisyphus rested from his toil, the wheel of Ixion +stood still, and Tityus ceased his moaning. The poet OVID thus +describes the wonderful effects of the musician's skill:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The very bloodless shades attention +keep,<br> +And, silent, seem compassionate to weep;<br> +Even Tantalus his flood unthirsty views,<br> +Nor flies the stream, nor he the stream pursues:<br> +Ixion's wondrous wheel its whirl suspends,<br> +And the voracious vulture, charmed, attends;<br> +No more the Bel'i-des their toil bemoan,<br> +And Sisyphus, reclined, sits listening on the stone.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> CONGREVE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Pope's translation of this scene from the +<i>Iliad</i> is peculiarly melodious:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">But when, through all the infernal +bounds<br> +Which flaming Phleg'e-thon surrounds,<br> +Love, strong as death, the poet led<br> +To the pale nations of the dead,<br> +What sounds were heard,<br> +What scenes appeared,<br> +O'er all the dreary coasts!<br> +Dreadful gleams,<br> +Dismal screams,<br> +Fires that glow,<br> +Shrieks of woe,<br> +Sullen moans,<br> +Hollow groans,<br> +And cries of tortured ghost!!!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">But hark! he strikes the golden +lyre;<br> +And see! the tortured ghosts respire!<br> +See! shady forms advance!<br> +Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,<br> +Ixion rests upon his wheel,<br> +And the pale spectres dance;<br> +The Furies sink upon their iron beds,<br> +And snakes uncurled hang listening round their heads.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The Greeks also believed in an Elys'ium--some +distant island of the ocean, ever cooled by refreshing breezes, +and where spring perpetual reigned--to which, after death, the +blessed were conveyed, and where they were permitted to enjoy it +happy destiny. In the Fourth Book of the <i>Odyssey</i> the sea +god Pro'teus, in predicting for Menelaus a happier lot than that +of Hades, thus describes the Elysian plains:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">But oh! beloved of Heaven! reserved +for thee<br> +A happier lot the smiling Fates decree:<br> +Free from that law beneath whose mortal sway<br> +Matter is changed and varying forms decay,<br> +Elysium shall be thine--the blissful plains<br> +Of utmost earth, where Rhadaman'thus reigns.<br> +Joys ever young, unmixed with pain or fear,<br> +Fill the wide circle of the eternal year.<br> +Stern Winter smiles on that auspicious clime;<br> +The fields are florid with unfading prime;<br> +From the bleak pole no winds inclement blow,<br> +Mould the round hail, or flake the fleecy snow;<br> +But from the breezy deep the blest inhale<br> +The fragrant murmurs of the western gale.<br> + --POPE'S <i>Trans.</i></div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Similar views are expressed by the lyric poet +PINDAR in the following lines:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">All whose steadfast virtue +thrice<br> + Each side the grave unchanged hath stood,<br> +Still unseduced, unstained with vice--<br> + They, by Jove's mysterious road,<br> +Pass to Saturn's realm of rest--<br> +Happy isle, that holds the blest;<br> +Where sea-born breezes gently blow<br> +O'er blooms of gold that round them glow,<br> +Which Nature, boon from stream or strand<br> + Or goodly tree, profusely showers;<br> +Whence pluck they many a fragrant band,<br> + And braid their locks with never-fading flowers.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> A. MOORE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">There is so much similarity between the mythology +of the early Greeks and that of many of the Asiatic nations, that +we give place here to the supposed meditations of a Hindu prince +and skeptic on the great subject of a future state of existence, +as a fitting close of our brief review of the religious beliefs +of the ancients. Among the Asiatic nations are to be found +accounts of the Creation, and of multitudes of gods, good and +evil, all quite as pronounced as those that are derived from the +Grecian myths; and while the wildest and grossest of +superstitious fancies have prevailed among the common people, +skepticism and atheistic doubt are known to have been nearly +universal among the learned. The poem which we give in this +connection, therefore, though professedly a Hindu creation, may +be accepted not only as portraying Hindu doubt and despondency, +but also as a faithful picture of the anxiety, doubt, and almost +utter despair, not only of the ancient Greeks; but of the entire +heathen world, concerning the destiny of mankind.</p> + +<p class="just">The Hindu skeptic tells us that ever since +mankind began their race on this earth they have been seeking for +the "signs and steps of a God;" and that in mystical India, where +the deities hover and swarm, and a million shrines stand open, +with their myriad idols and, legions of muttering priests, +mankind are still groping in darkness; still listening, and as +yet vainly hoping for a message that shall tell what the wonders +of creation mean, and whither they tend; ever vainly seeking for +a refuge from the ills of life, and a rest beyond for the weary +and heavy-laden, He turns to the deified heroes of his race, and +though long he watches and worships for a solution of the +mysteries of life, he waits in vain for an answer, for their +marble features never relax in response to his prayers and +entreaties; and he says, mournfully, "Alas! for the gods are +dumb." The darts of death still fall as surely as ever, hurled by +a Power unseen and a hand unknown; and beyond the veil all is +obscurity and gloom.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center">I.</p> + +All the world over, I wonder, in lands that I never have +trod,<br> +Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and steps of a +God?<br> +Westward across the ocean, and northward beyond the snow,<br> +Do they all stand gazing, as ever? and what do the wisest know? + +<p align="center">II.</p> + +Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm<br> +Like the wild bees heard in the tree-tops, or the gusts of a +gathering storm;<br> +In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are +seen,<br> +Yet we all say, "Whence is the message--and what may the<br> + wonders mean?" + +<p align="center">III.</p> + +A million shrines stand open, and ever the censer swings,<br> +As they bow to a mystic symbol or the figures of ancient +kings;<br> +And the incense rises ever, and rises the endless cry<br> +Of those who are heavy-laden, and of cowards loath to die. + +<p align="center">IV.</p> + +For the destiny drives us together like deer in a pass of the +hills:<br> +Above is the sky, and around us the sound and the shot that +kills.<br> +Pushed by a Power we see not, and struck by a hand unknown,<br> +We pray to the trees for shelter, and press our lips to a stone. + +<p align="center">V.</p> + +The trees wave a shadowy answer, and the rock frowns hollow and +grim,<br> +And the form and the nod of the demon are caught in the twilight +dim;<br> +And we look to the sunlight falling afar on the mountain +crest--<br> +Is there never a path runs upward to a refuge there and a rest? + +<p align="center">VI.</p> + +The path--ah, who has shown it, and which is the faithful +guide?<br> +The haven--ah, who has known it? for steep is the +mountain-side.<br> +For ever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath<br> +Of the praying multitude rises, whose answer is only death! + +<p align="center">VII.</p> + +Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the first of an ancient +name--<br> +Chiefs who were slain on the war-field, and women who died in +flame.<br> +They are gods, these kings of the foretime, they are spirits who +guard our race:<br> +Ever I watch and worship--they sit with a marble face. + +<p align="center">VIII.</p> + +And the myriad idols around me, and the legion of muttering +priests--<br> +The revels and rites unholy, the dark, unspeakable feasts--<br> +What have they wrung from the silence? Hath even a Whisper +come<br> +Of the secret--whence and whither? Alas! for the gods are +dumb.</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p class="just">Getting no light from the religious guides of his +own country, he turns to the land where the English--the present +rulers of India--dwell, and asks,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center">IX.</p> + +Shall I list to the word of the English, who come from the +uttermost sea?<br> +"The secret, hath it been told you? and what is your message to +me?<br> +It is naught but the wide-world story, how the earth and the +heavens began--<br> +How the gods are glad and angry, and a deity once was man.</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p class="just">And so he gathers around him the mantle of doubt +and despondency; he asks if life is, after all, but a dream and +delusion, while ever and ever is forced upon him that other +question, "<i>Where shall the dreamer awake?</i>"</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center">X.</p> + +I had thought, "Perchance in the cities where the rulers of India +dwell,<br> +Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with a +spell,<br> +They have fathomed the depths we float on, or measured the +unknown main--"<br> +Sadly they turn from the venture, and say that the quest is vain. + + +<p align="center">XI.</p> + +Is life, then, a dream and delusion? and where shall the dreamer +awake?<br> +Is the world seen like shadows on water? and what if the mirror +break?<br> +Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is +gathered and gone<br> +From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are +level and lone? + +<p align="center">XII.</p> + +Is there naught in the heaven above, whence the hail and the +levin are hurled,<br> +But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling +world--<br> +The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and +sleep,<br> +With the dirge and the sounds of lamenting, and voices of women +who weep?<br> + --<i>The Cornhill Magazine.</i> </td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">What a commentary on all this doubt and +despondency are the meditations of the Christian, who, "sustained +and soothed by an unfaltering trust," approaches his grave</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Like one who wraps the drapery of +his couch<br> +About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams!<br> + --BRYANT.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>II. THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE.</h4> + +<p class="just">The earliest reliable information that we possess +of the country called Greece represents it in the possession of a +number of rude tribes, of which the Pelas'gians were the most +numerous and powerful, and probably the most ancient. Of the +early character of the Pelasgians, and of the degree of +civilization to which they had attained before the reputed +founding of Argos, we have unsatisfactory and conflicting +accounts. On the one hand, they are represented as no better than +the rudest barbarians, dwelling in caves, subsisting on reptiles, +herbs, and wild fruits, and strangers to the simplest arts of +civilized life. Other and more reliable traditions, however, +attribute to them a knowledge of agriculture, and some little +acquaintance with navigation; while there is a strong probability +that they were the authors of those huge structures commonly +called Cyclopean, remains of which are still visible in many +parts of Greece and Italy, and on the western coast of Asia +Minor.</p> + +<p class="just">Argos, the capital of Ar'golis, is generally +considered the most ancient city of Greece; and its reputed +founding by In'achus, a son of the god O-ce'anus, 1856 years +before the Christian era, is usually assigned as the period of +the commencement of Grecian history. But the massive Cyclopean +walls of Argos evidently show the Pelasgic origin of the place, +in opposition to the traditionary Phoenician origin of Inachus, +whose very existence is quite problematical. Indeed, although +many of the traditions of the Greeks point to a contrary +conclusion, the accounts usually given of early foreign settlers +in Greece, who planted colonies there, founded dynasties, built +cities, and introduced a knowledge of the arts unknown to the +ruder natives, must be taken with a great degree of abatement. +The civilization of the Greeks and the development of their +language bear all the marks of home growth, and probably were +little affected by foreign influence. Still, many of these +traditions are exceedingly interesting, and have attained great +celebrity. One of the most celebrated is that which describes the +founding of Athens, one of the renowned Grecian cities.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE FOUNDING OF ATHENS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Ce'crops, an Egyptian, is said to have led a +colony from the Delta to Greece, about the year 1556 B.C. Two +years later he proceeded to Attica, which had been desolated by a +deluge a century before, and there he is said to have founded, on +the Cecropian rock--the Acrop'olis--a city which, under the +following circumstances, he called Athens, in honor of the +Grecian goddess Athe'na, whom the Romans called Minerva.</p> + +<p class="just">It is an ancient Attic legend that about this +time the gods had begun to choose favorite spots among the +dwellings of man for their own residence; and whatever city a god +chose, he gave to that city protection, and there that particular +deity was worshipped with special homage. Now, it happened that +both Neptune and Minerva contended for the supremacy over this +new city founded by Cecrops; and Cecrops was greatly troubled by +the contest, as he knew not to which deity to render homage. So +Jove summoned a council of the gods, and they decided that the +supremacy should be given to the one who should confer the +greatest gift upon the favored city. The story of the contest is +told by PROFESSOR BLACKIE in the following verses.</p> + +<p class="just">Mercury, the messenger of the gods, being sent to +Cecrops, thus announces to him the decision of the Council:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"On the peaks of Olympus, the +bright snowy-crested,<br> + The gods are assembled in council to-day,<br> +The wrath of Pos-ei'don, the mighty broad-breasted,<br> + 'Gainst Pallas, the spear-shaking maid, to allay.<br> +And thus they decree--that Poseidon offended<br> + And Pallas shall bring forth a gift to the place:<br> +On the hill of Erech'theus the strife shall be ended,<br> + When she with her spear, and the god with his mace,<br> +Shall strike the quick rock; and the gods shall deliver<br> + The sentence as Justice shall order; and thou<br> +Shalt see thy loved city established forever,<br> + With Jove for a judge, and the Styx for a vow."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">So the gods assembled, in the presence of Cecrops +himself, on the "hill of Erechtheus"--afterward known as the +Athenian Acropolis--to witness the trial between the rival +deities, as described in the following language. First; Neptune +strikes the rock with his trident:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Lo! at the touch of his trident a +wonder!<br> + Virtue to earth from his deity flows;<br> +From the rift of the flinty rock, cloven asunder,<br> + A dark-watered fountain ebullient rose.<br> +Inly elastic, with airiest lightness<br> + It leapt, till it cheated the eyesight; and, lo!<br> +It showed in the sun, with a various brightness,<br> + The fine-woven hues of the heavenly bow.<br> +"WATER IS BEST!" cried the mighty, broad-breasted<br> + Poseidon; "O Cecrops, I offer to thee<br> +To ride on the back of the steeds foamy-crested<br> + That toss their wild manes on the huge-heaving sea.<br> +The globe thou shalt mete on the path of the waters,<br> + To thy ships shall the ports of far ocean be free;<br> +The isles of the sea shall be counted thy daughters,<br> + The pearls of the East shall be gathered for thee!"</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Thus Neptune offered, as his gift--symbolized in +the salt spring that he caused to issue from the rock--the +dominion of the sea, with all the wealth and renown that flow +from unrestricted commerce with foreign lands.</p> + +<p class="just">But Minerva was now to make her trial:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Then the gods, with a high-sounding +pæan,<br> + Applauded; but Jove hushed the many-voiced tide;<br> +"For now with the lord of the briny Æge'an<br> + Athe'na shall strive for the city," he cried.<br> +"See where she comes!" and she came, like Apollo,<br> + Serene with the beauty ripe wisdom confers;<br> +The clear-scanning eye, and the sure hand to follow<br> + The mark of the far-sighted purpose, were hers.<br> +Strong in the mail of her father she standeth,<br> + And firmly she holds the strong spear in her hand;<br> +But the wild hounds of war with calm power she commandeth,<br> + And fights but to pledge surer peace to the land.<br> +Chastely the blue-eyed approached, and, surveying<br> + The council of wise-judging gods without fear,<br> +The nod of her lofty-throned father obeying,<br> + She struck the gray rock with her nice-tempered spear.<br> +Lo! from the touch of the virgin a wonder!<br> + Virtue to earth from her deity flows:<br> +From the rift of the flinty rock, cloven asunder,<br> + An olive-tree, greenly luxuriant, rose--<br> +Green but yet pale, like an eye-drooping maiden,<br> + Gentle, from full-blooded lustihood far;<br> +No broad-staring hues for rude pride to parade in,<br> + No crimson to blazon the banners of war.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Mutely the gods, with a calm +consultation,<br> + Pondered the fountain and pondered the tree;<br> +And the heart of Poseidon, with high expectation,<br> + Throbbed till great Jove thus pronounced the decree:<br> +"Son of my father, thou mighty, broad-breasted<br> + Poseidon, the doom that I utter is true;<br> +Great is the might of thy waves foamy-crested<br> + When they beat the white walls of the screaming sea-mew;<br> +Great is the pride of the keel when it danceth,<br> + Laden with wealth, o'er the light-heaving wave--<br> +When the East to the West, gayly floated, advanceth,<br> + With a word from the wise and a help from the brave.<br> +But earth--solid earth--is the home of the mortal<br> + That toileth to live, and that liveth to toil;<br> +And the green olive-tree twines the wreath of his portal<br> + Who peacefully wins his sure bread from the soil,"<br> +Thus Jove: and to heaven the council celestial<br> + Rose, and the sea-god rolled back to the sea;<br> +But Athena gave Athens her name, and terrestrial<br> + Joy from the oil of the green olive-tree.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Thus Jove decided in favor of the peaceful +pursuits of industry on the land, as against the more alluring +promises but uncertain results of commerce, thereby teaching this +lesson in political economy--that a people consisting of mere +merchants, and neglecting the cultivation of the soil, never can +become a great and powerful nation. So Minerva, the goddess of +wisdom, and patroness of all the liberal arts and sciences, +became the tutelary deity of Athens. The contest between her and +Neptune was represented on one of the pediments of the +Parthenon.</p> + +<p class="just">Of the history of Athens for many centuries +subsequent to its alleged founding by Cecrops we have no certain +information; but it is probable that down to about 683 B.C. it +was ruled by kings, like all the other Grecian states. Of these +kings the names of The'seus and Co'drus are the most noted. To +the former is ascribed the union of the twelve states of Attica +into one political body, with Athens as the capital, and other +important acts of government which won for him the love of the +Athenian people. Consulting the oracle of Delphi concerning his +new government, he is said to have received the following +answer:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">From royal stems thy honor, +Theseus, springs;<br> +By Jove beloved, the sire supreme of kings.<br> +See rising towns, see wide-extended states,<br> +On thee dependent, ask their future fates!<br> +Hence, hence with fear! Thy favored bark shall ride<br> +Safe o'er the surges of the foamy tide.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">About half a century after the time of Cecrops +another Egyptian, named Dan'a-us, is said to have fled to Greece, +with a family of fifty daughters, and to have established a +second Egyptian colony in the vicinity of Argos. He subsequently +became king of Argos, and the inhabitants were called Dan'a-i. +About the same time Cadmus, a Phoenician, is reported to have led +a colony into Boeo'tia, bringing with him the Phoenician +alphabet, the basis of the Grecian; and to have founded Cadme'a, +which afterward became the citadel of Thebes. Another colony is +said to have been led from Asia by Pe'lops, from whom the +southern peninsula of Greece derived its name of Peloponne'sus, +and of whom Agamemnon, King of Myce'næ, was a lineal +descendant. About this time a people called the +<i>Helle'nes</i>--but whether a Pelasgic tribe or otherwise is +uncertain--first appeared in the south of Thessaly, and, +gradually diffusing themselves over the whole country, became, by +their martial spirit and active, enterprising genius, the ruling +class, and impressed new features upon the Grecian character. The +Hellenes gave their name to the population of the whole +peninsula, although the term <i>Grecians</i> was subsequently +applied to them by the Romans.</p> + +<p class="just">In accordance with the Greek custom of +attributing the origin of their tribes or nations to some remote +mythical ancestor, Hel'len, a son of the fabulous Deuca'lion and +Pyrrha, is represented as the father of the Hellen'ic nation. His +three sons were Æ'o-lus, Do'rus, and Xu'thus, from the two +former of whom are represented to have descended the +Æo'lians and Do'rians; and from Achæ'us and I'on, +sons of Xuthus, the Achæ'ans and Io'nians. These four +Hellen'ic or Grecian tribes were distinguished from one another +by many peculiarities of language and institutions. Hellen is +said to have left his kingdom to Æolus, his eldest son; and +the Æolian tribe spread the most widely, and long exerted +the most influence in the affairs of the nation; but at a later +period it was surpassed by the fame and the power of the Dorians +and Ionians.</p> + +<br> +<h4>III. THE HEROIC AGE.</h4> + +<p class="just">The period from the time of the first appearance +of the Hellenes in Thessaly to the return of the Greeks from the +expedition against Troy--a period of about two hundred years--is +usually called the Heroic Age. It is a period abounding in +splendid fictions of heroes and demi-gods, embracing, among +others, the twelve wonderful labors of Hercules; the exploits of +the Athenian king The'seus, and of Mi'nos, King of Crete, the +founder of Grecian law and civilization; the events of the +Argonautic expedition; the Theban and Argol'ic wars; the +adventures of Beller'ophon, Per'seus, and many others; and +concluding with the Trojan war and the supposed fall of Troy. +These seem to have been the times which the archangel Michael +foretold to Adam when he said,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">For in those days might only shall +be admired,<br> +And valor and heroic virtue called:<br> +To overcome in battle, and subdue<br> +Nations, and bring home spoils with infinite<br> +Manslaughter, shall be held the highest pitch<br> +Of human glory; and, for glory done,<br> +Of triumph to be styled great conquerors,<br> +Patrons of mankind, gods, and sons of gods--<br> +Destroyers rightly called, and plagues of men.<br> + --<i>Paradise Lost</i>, B. XI.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>THE LABORS OF HERCULES.</h5> + +<p class="just">The twelve arduous labors of the celebrated hero +Hercules, who was a son of Jupiter by the daughter of an early +king of Mycenæ, are said to have been imposed upon him by +an enemy--Eurys'theus--to whose will Jupiter, induced by a fraud +of Juno and the fury-goddess A'te, and unwittingly bound by an +oath, had made the hero subservient for twelve years. Jupiter +grieved for his son, but, unable to recall the oath which he had +sworn, he punished Ate by hurling her from Olympus down to the +nether world.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Grief seized the Thunderer, by his +oath engaged;<br> +Stung to the soul, he sorrowed and he raged.<br> +From his ambrosial head, where perched she sate,<br> +He snatched the fury-goddess of debate:<br> +The dread, the irrevocable oath he swore,<br> +The immortal seats should ne'er behold her more;<br> +And whirled her headlong down, forever driven<br> +From bright Olympus and the starry heaven:<br> +Thence on the nether world the fury fell,<br> +Ordained with man's contentious race to dwell.<br> +Full oft the god his son's hard toils bemoaned,<br> +Cursed the dire folly, and in secret groaned.<br> + --HOMER'S <i>Iliad</i>, B. XIX. POPE'S <i>Trans.</i></div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The following, in brief, are the twelve labors +attributed to Hercules: 1. He strangled the Ne'mean lion, and +ever after wore his skin. 2. He destroyed the Lernæ'an +hydra, which had nine heads, eight of them mortal and one +immortal. 3. He brought into the presence of Eurystheus a stag +famous for its incredible swiftness and golden horns. 4. He +brought to Mycenæ the wild boar of Eryman'thus, and slew +two of the Centaurs, monsters who were half men and half horses. +5. He cleansed the Auge'an stables in one day by changing the +courses of the rivers Alphe'us and Pene'us. 6. He destroyed the +carnivorous birds of the lake Stympha'lus, in Arcadia. 7. He +brought into Peloponnesus the prodigious wild bull which ravaged +Crete. 8. He brought from Thrace the mares of Diome'de, which fed +on human flesh. 9. He obtained the famous girdle of Hippol'y-te, +queen of the Amazons. 10. He slew the monster Ge'ry-on, who had +the bodies of three men united. 11. He brought from the garden of +the Hesper'i-des the golden apples, and slew the dragon which +guarded them. 12. He went down to the lower regions and brought +upon earth the three-headed dog Cer'berus.</p> + +<p class="just">The favor of the gods had completely armed +Hercules for his undertakings, and his great strength enabled him +to perform them. This entire fable of Hercules is generally +believed to be merely a fanciful representation of the sun in its +passage through the twelve signs of the zodiac, in accordance +with Phoenician mythology, from which the legend is supposed to +be derived. Thus Hercules is the sun-god. In the first month of +the year the sun passes through the constellation <i>Leo</i>, the +lion; and in his first labor the hero slays the Nemean lion. In +the second month, when the sun enters the sign <i>Virgo</i>, the +long-extended constellation of the <i>Hydra</i> sets--the stars +of which, like so many heads, rise one after another; and, +therefore, in his second labor, Hercules destroys the +Lernæan hydra with its nine heads. In like manner the +legend is explained throughout. Besides these twelve labors, +however, Hercules is said to have achieved others on his own +account; and one of these is told in the fable of Hercules and +Antæ'us, in which the powers of art and nature are supposed +to be personified.</p> + +<br> +<h5>FABLE OF HERCULES AND ANTÆUS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Antæ'us--a son of Neptune and Terra, who +reigned over Libya, or Africa, and dwelt in a forest cave--was so +famed for his Titanic strength and skill in wrestling that he was +emboldened to leave his woodland retreat and engage in a contest +with the renowned hero Hercules. So long as Antæus stood +upon the ground he could not be overcome, whereupon Hercules +lifted him up in the air, and, having apparently squeezed him to +death in his arms, threw him down; but when Antæus touched +his mother Earth and lay at rest upon her bosom, renewed life and +fresh power were given him.</p> + +<p class="just">In this fable Antæus, who personifies the +woodland solitude and the desert African waste, is easily +overcome by his adversary, who represents the river Nile, which, +divided into a thousand arms, or irrigating canals, prevents the +arid sand from being borne away and then back again by the winds +to desolate the fertile valley. Thus the legend is nothing more +than the triumph of art and labor, and their reclaiming power +over the woodland solitudes and the encroaching sands of the +desert. An English poet has very happily versified the spirit of +the legend, to which he has appended a fitting moral, doubtless +suggested by the warning of his own approaching sad +fate.[<small>Footnote: This gifted poet, Mortimer Collins, died +in 1876, at the age of forty-nine, a victim to excessive literary +labor and anxiety.</small>]</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Deep were the meanings of that +fable. Men<br> +Looked upon earth with clearer eyesight then,<br> +Beheld in solitude the immortal Powers,<br> +And marked the traces of the swift-winged Hours.<br> +Because it never varies, all can bear<br> +The burden of the circumambient air;<br> +Because it never ceases, none can hear<br> +The music of the ever-rolling sphere--<br> +None, save the poet, who, in moor and wood,<br> +Holds converse with the spirit of Solitude.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">And I remember how Antæus +heard,<br> +Deep in great oak-woods, the mysterious word<br> +Which said, "Go forth across the unshaven leas<br> +To meet unconquerable Hercules."<br> +Leaving his cavern by the cedar-glen,<br> +This Titan of the primal race of men,<br> +Whom the swart lions feared, and who could tear<br> +Huge oaks asunder, to the combat bare<br> +Courage undaunted. Full of giant grace,<br> +Built up, as 'twere, from earth's own granite base.<br> +Colossal, iron-sinewed, firm he trod<br> +The lawns. How vain against a demi-god!<br> +Oh, sorrow of defeat! He plunges far<br> +Into his forests, where deep shadows are,<br> +And the wind's murmur comes not, and the gloom<br> +Of pine and cedar seems to make a tomb<br> +For fallen ambition. Prone the mortal lies<br> +Who dared mad warfare with the unpitying skies,<br> +But lo! as buried in the waving ferns,<br> +The baffled giant for oblivion yearns,<br> +Cursing his human feebleness, he feels<br> +A sudden impulse of new strength, which heals<br> +His angry wounds; his vigor he regains--<br> +His blood is dancing gayly through his veins.<br> +Fresh power, fresh life is his who lay at rest<br> +On bounteous Hertha's kind creative breast.<br> +[<small>Footnote: <i>Hertha</i>, a goddess of the ancient +Germans,<br> +the same as Terra, or the Earth. Her favorite retreat<br> +was a sacred grove in an island of the ocean.</small>]</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Even so, O poet, by the world +subdued,<br> +Regain thy health 'mid perfect solitude.<br> +In noisy cities, far from hills and trees,<br> +The brawling demi-god, harsh Hercules,<br> +Has power to hurt thy placid spirit--power<br> +To crush thy joyous instincts every hour,<br> +To weary thee with woes for mortals stored,<br> +Red gold (coined hatred) and the tyrant's sword.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Then--then, O sad Antæus, +wilt thou yearn<br> +For dense green woodlands and the fragrant fern;<br> +Then stretch thy form upon the sward, and rest<br> +From worldly toil on Hertha's gracious breast;<br> +Plunge in the foaming river, or divide<br> +With happy arms gray ocean's murmuring tide,<br> +And drinking thence each solitary hour<br> +Immortal beauty and immortal power,<br> +Thou may'st the buffets of the world efface<br> +And live a Titan of earth's earliest race.<br> + --MORTIMER COLLINS.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>THE ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.</h5> + +<p class="just">From what was probably a maritime adventure that +plundered some wealthy country at a period when navigation was in +its infancy among the Greeks, we get the fable of the Argonautic +Expedition. The generally accepted story of this expedition is as +follows: Pe'lias, a descendant of Æ'o-lus, the mystic +progenitor of the Great Æol'ic race, had deprived his +half-brother Æ'son of the kingdom of Iol'cus in Thessaly. +When Jason, son of Æson, had attained to manhood, he +appeared before his uncle and demanded the throne. Pelias +consented only on condition that Jason should first capture and +bring to him the golden fleece of the ram which had carried +Phrix'us and Hel'le when they fled from their stepmother I'no. +Helle dropped into the sea between Sigæ'um and the +Cher'sonese, which was named from her Hellespon'tus; but Phrixus +succeeded in reaching Col'chis, a country at the eastern +extremity of the Euxine, or Black Sea. Here he sacrificed the +ram, and nailed the fleece to an oak in the grove of Mars, where +it was guarded by a sleepless dragon.</p> + +<p class="just">Joined by the principal heroes of Greece, +Hercules among the number, Jason set sail from Iolcus in the ship +Argo, after first invoking the favor of Jupiter, the winds, and +the waves, for the success of the expedition. The ceremony on +this occasion, as descried by the poets, reads like an account of +the "christening of the ship" in modern times, but we seem to +have lost the full significance of the act.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">And soon as by the vessel's bow<br> +The anchor was hung up,<br> +Then took the leader on the prow<br> +In hands a golden cup,<br> +And on great father Jove did call;<br> +And on the winds and waters all<br> +Swept by the hurrying blast,<br> +And on the nights, and ocean ways,<br> +And on the fair auspicious days,<br> +And sweet return at last.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">From out the clouds, in answer +kind,<br> +A voice of thunder came,<br> +And, shook in glistening beams around,<br> +Burst out the lightning flame.<br> +The chiefs breathed free, and, at the sign,<br> +Trusted in the power divine.<br> +Hinting sweet hopes, the seer cried<br> +Forthwith their oars to ply,<br> +And swift went backward from rough hands<br> +The rowing ceaselessly.<br> + --PINDAR. <i>Trans. by</i> Rev. H. F. CARY.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">After many adventures Jason reached Col'chis, +where, by the aid of magic and supernatural arts, and through the +favor of Me-de'a, daughter of the King of Colchis, he succeeded +in capturing the fleece. After four months of continued danger +and innumerable hardships, Jason returned to Iolcus with the +prize, accompanied by Medea, whom he afterward deserted, and +whose subsequent history is told by the poet Euripides in his +celebrated tragedy entitled <i>Medea</i>.</p> + +<p class="just">Growing out of the Argonautic legend is one +concerning the youth Hy'las, a member of the expedition, and a +son of the King of Mys'ia, a country of Asia Minor. Hylas was +greatly beloved by Hercules. On the coast of Mysia the Argonauts +stopped to obtain a supply of water, and Hylas, having gone from +the vessel alone with an urn for the same purpose, takes the +opportunity to bathe in the river Scaman'der, under the shadows +of Mount Ida. He throws his purple chlamys, or cloak, over the +urn, and passes down into the water, where he is seized by the +nymphs of the stream, and, in spite of his struggles and +entreaties, he is borne by them "down from the noonday brightness +to their dark caves in the depths below." Hercules went in search +of Hylas, and the ship sailed from its anchorage without him. We +have a faithful and beautiful reproduction of this Greek legend, +both in theme and spirit, in a poem by BAYARD TAYLOR, from which +the following extracts are taken:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Hylas.</i></p> + +<p>Storm-wearied Argo slept upon the water.<br> +No cloud was seen: on blue and craggy Ida<br> +The hot noon lay, and on the plains enamel;<br> +Cool in his bed, alone, the swift Scamander.<br> +"Why should I haste?" said young and rosy Hylas;<br> +The seas are rough, and long the way from Colchis.<br> +Beneath the snow-white awning slumbers Jason,<br> +Pillowed upon his tame Thessalian panther;<br> +The shields are piled, the listless oars suspended<br> +On the black thwarts, and all the hairy bondsmen<br> +Doze on the benches. They may wait for water<br> +Till I have bathed in mountain-born Scamander."</p> + +<p>He saw his glorious limbs reversely mirrored<br> +In the still wave, and stretched his foot to press it<br> +On the smooth sole that answered at the surface:<br> +Alas! the shape dissolved in glittering fragments.<br> +Then, timidly at first, he dipped, and catching<br> +Quick breath, with tingling shudder, as the waters<br> +Swirled round his limbs, and deeper, slowly deeper,<br> +Till on his breast the river's cheek was pillowed;<br> +And deeper still, till every shoreward ripple<br> +Talked in his ear, and like a cygnet's bosom<br> +His white, round shoulder shed the dripping crystal.</p> + +<p>There, as he floated with a rapturous motion,<br> +The lucid coolness folding close around him,<br> +The lily-cradling ripples murmured, "Hylas!"<br> +He shook from off his ears the hyacinthine<br> +Curls that had lain unwet upon the water,<br> +And still the ripples murmured, "Hylas! Hylas!"<br> +He thought--"The voices are but ear-born music.<br> +Pan dwells not here, and Echo still is calling<br> +From some high cliff that tops a Thracian valley;<br> +So long mine ears, on tumbling Hellespontus,<br> +Have heard the sea-waves hammer Argo's forehead,<br> +That I misdeem the fluting of this current<br> +For some lost nymph"--again the murmur, "Hylas!"</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The sound that seemed to come from the lilies was +the voice of the sea-nymphs, calling to him to go with them where +they wander--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Down beneath the green translucent +ceiling--<br> +Where, on the sandy bed of old Scamander,<br> +With cool white buds we braid our purple tresses,<br> +Lulled by the bubbling waves around us stealing."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">To all their entreaties Hylas exclaims:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "Leave +me, naiads!<br> +Leave me!" he cried. "The <i>day</i> to me is dearer<br> +Than all your caves deep-spread in ocean's quiet.<br> +I would not change this flexile, warm existence,<br> +Though swept by storms, and shocked by Jove's dread thunder,<br> +To be a king beneath the dark-green waters.<br> +Let me return! the wind comes down from Ida,<br> +And soon the galley, stirring from her slumber,<br> +Will fret to ride where Pelion's twilight shadow<br> +Falls o'er the towers of Jason's sea-girt city.<br> +I am not yours--I cannot braid the lilies<br> +In your wet hair, nor on your argent bosoms<br> +Close my drowsed eyes to hear your rippling voices.<br> +Hateful to me your sweet, cold, crystal being--<br> +Your world of watery quiet. Help, Apollo!"</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">But the remonstrances and struggles of Hylas +unavailing:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The boy's blue eyes, upturned, +looked through the water<br> +Pleading for help; but heaven's immortal archer;<br> +Was swathed in cloud. The ripples hid his forehead;<br> +And last, the thick, bright curls a moment floated,<br> +So warm and silky that the stream upbore them,<br> +Closing reluctant as he sank forever.<br> +The sunset died behind the crags of Imbros.<br> +Argo was tugging at her chain; for freshly<br> +Blew the swift breeze, and leaped the restless billows.<br> +The voice of Jason roused the dozing sailors,<br> +And up the mast was heaved the snowy canvas.<br> +But mighty Hercules, the Jove-begotten,<br> +Unmindful stood beside the cool Scamander,<br> +Leaning upon his club. A purple chlamys<br> +Tossed o'er an urn was all that lay before him;<br> +And when he called, expectant, "Hylas! Hylas!"<br> +The empty echoes made him answer--"Hylas!"</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>THE TROJAN WAR.</h5> + +<p class="just">Of all the events of the Heroic period, however, +the Trojan war has been rendered the most celebrated, through the +genius of Homer. The alleged causes of the war, briefly stated, +are these: Helen, the most beautiful woman of the age, and the +daughter of Tyn'darus, King of Sparta, was sought in marriage by +all the Princes of Greece. Tyndarus, perplexed with the +difficulty of choosing one of the suitors without displeasing all +the rest, being advised by the sage Ulysses, bound all of them by +an oath that they would approve of the uninfluenced choice of +Helen, and would unite to restore her to her husband, and to +avenge the outrage, if ever she was carried off. Menela'us became +the choice of Helen, and soon after, on the death of Tyndarus, +succeeded to the vacant throne of Sparta.</p> + +<p class="just">Three years subsequently, Paris, son of Priam, +King of Ilium, or Troy, visited the court of Menelaus, where he +was hospitably received; but during the temporary absence of the +latter he corrupted the fidelity of Helen, and induced her to +flee with him to Troy. When Menelaus returned he assembled the +Grecian princes, and prepared to avenge the outrage. Combining +their forces under the command of Agamem'non, King of +Myce'næ, a brother of Menelaus, they sailed with a great +army for Troy. The imagination of the poet EURIPIDES describes +this armament as follows:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> With eager +haste<br> +The sea-girt Aulis strand I paced,<br> +Till to my view appeared the embattled train<br> +Of Hellas, armed for mighty enterprise,<br> +And galleys of majestic size,<br> +To bear the heroes o'er the main;<br> + A thousand ships for Ilion steer,<br> + And round the two Atridæ's spear<br> +The warriors swear fair Helen to regain.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">After a siege of ten years Troy was taken by +stratagem, and the fair Helen was recovered. On the fanciful +etymology of the word Helen, from a Greek verb signifying to take +or seize, the poet ÆCHYLUS indulges in the following +reflections descriptive of the character and the history of this +"spear-wooed maid of Greece:"</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Who gave her a name<br> + So true to her fame?<br> +Does a Providence rule in the fate of a word?<br> +Sways there in heaven a viewless power<br> +O'er the chance of the tongue in the naming hour?<br> + Who gave her a name,<br> +This daughter of strife, this daughter of shame,<br> + The spear-wooed maid of Greece!<br> + Helen the taker! 'tis plain to see,<br> + A taker of ships, a taker of men,<br> + A taker of cities is she!<br> +From the soft-curtained chamber of Hymen she fled,<br> + By the breath of giant Zephyr sped,<br> +And shield-bearing throngs in marshalled array<br> +Hounded her flight o'er the printless way,<br> + Where the swift-flashing oar<br> + The fair booty bore<br> + To swirling Sim'o-is' leafy shore,<br> +And stirred the crimson fray.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> BLACKIE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">According to Homer, the principal Greek heroes +engaged in the siege of Troy, aside from Agamemnon, were +Menelaus, Achilles, Ulysses, Ajax (the son of Tel'amon), Di'omed, +Patro'clus, and Palame'des; while among the bravest of the +defenders of Troy were Hector, Sarpe'don, and Æne'as.</p> + +<p class="just">The poet's story opens, in the tenth year of the +siege, with an account of a contentious scene between two of the +Grecian chiefs --Achilles and Agamemnon--which resulted in the +withdrawal of Achilles and his forces from the Grecian army. The +aid of the gods was invoked in behalf of Achilles, and Jupiter +sent a deceitful vision to Agamemnon, seeking to persuade him to +lead his forces to battle, in order that the Greeks might realize +their need of Achilles. Agamemnon first desired to ascertain the +feeling or disposition of the army regarding the expedition it +had undertaken, and so proposed a return to Greece, which was +unanimously and unexpectedly agreed to, and an advance was made +toward the ships. But through the efforts of the valiant and +sagacious Ulysses all discontent on the part of the troops was +suppressed, and they returned to the plains of Troy.</p> + +<p class="just">Among those in the Grecian camp who had +complained of their leaders, and of the folly of the expedition +itself, was a brawling, turbulent, and tumultuous character named +Thersi'tes, whose insolence Ulysses sternly and effectively +rebuked. The following sketch of Thersites reads like a picture +drawn from modern life; while the merited reproof administered by +Ulysses is in the happiest vein of just and patriotic +indignation:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Ulysses and Thersites.</i></p> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p>Thersites only clamored in the throng,<br> +Loquacious, loud, and turbulent of tongue;<br> +Awed by no shame, by no respect controlled,<br> +In scandal busy, in reproaches bold;<br> +With witty malice, studious to defame;<br> +Scorn all his joy, and censure all his aim;<br> +But chief he gloried, with licentious style,<br> +To lash the great, and monarchs to revile.</p> + +<p>His figure such as might his soul proclaim:<br> +One eye was blinking, and one leg was lame;<br> +His mountain shoulders half his breast o'erspread,<br> +Thin hairs bestrew'd his long misshapen head;<br> +Spleen to mankind his envious heart possessed,<br> +And much he hated all--but most, the best.<br> +Ulysses or Achilles still his theme;<br> +But royal scandal his delight supreme.<br> +Long had he lived the scorn of every Greek,<br> +Vext when he spoke, yet still they heard him speak:<br> +Sharp was his voice; which, in the shrillest tone,<br> +Thus with injurious taunts attacked the throne.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Ulysses, in his tent, listens awhile to the +complaints, and censures, and scandals against the chiefs, with +which Thersites addresses the throng gathered around him, and at +length--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">With indignation sparkling in his +eyes,<br> +He views the wretch, and sternly thus replies:<br> + "Peace, factious monster, born to vex the state<br> +With wrangling talents formed for foul debate,<br> +Curb that impetuous tongue, nor, rashly vain,<br> +And singly mad, asperse the sovereign reign.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Have we not known thee, slave! of +all our host<br> +The man who acts the least, upbraids the most?<br> +Think not the Greeks to shameful flight to bring;<br> +Nor let those lips profane the name of King.<br> +For our return we trust the heavenly powers;<br> +Be that <i>their</i> care; to fight like men be +<i>ours</i>.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"But grant the host, with wealth +our chieftain load;<br> +Except detraction, what hast <i>thou</i> bestowed?<br> +Suppose some hero should his spoil resign,<br> +Art thou that hero? Could those spoils be thine?<br> +Gods! let me perish on this hateful shore,<br> +And let these eyes behold my son no more,<br> +If on thy next offence this hand forbear<br> +To strip those arms thou ill deserv'st to wear,<br> +Expel the council where our princes meet,<br> +And send thee scourged and howling through the fleet."<br> + --B. II. POPE'S <i>Trans.</i></div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>COMBAT OF MENELAUS AND PARIS.</h5> + +<p class="just">The opposing armies being ready to engage, a +single combat is agreed upon between Menelaus, and Paris son of +Priam, for the determination of the war. Paris is soon +vanquished, but is rescued from death by Venus; and, according to +the terms on which the combat took place, Agamemnon demands the +restoration of Helen. But the gods declare that the war shall go +on. So the conflict begins, and Diomed, assisted by the goddess +Pallas (or Minerva), performs wonders in this day's battle, +wounding and putting to flight Pan'darus, Æneas, and the +goddess Venus, even wounding the war-god Mars, who had challenged +him to combat, and sending him groaning back to heaven.</p> + +<p class="just">Hector, the eldest son of Priam King of Troy, and +the chief hero of the Trojans, leaves the field for a brief +space, to request prayers to Minerva for assistance, and +especially for the removal of Diomed from the fight. This done, +he seeks a momentary interview with his wife, the fair and +virtuous Androm'a-che, whose touching appeal to him, and his +reply, are both, perhaps, without a parallel in tender, natural +solicitude.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Parting of Hector and Andromache.</i></p> + +<p> "Too daring prince! ah, whither dost thou run?<br> +Ah, too forgetful of thy wife and son!<br> +And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be,<br> +A widow I, a helpless orphan he?<br> +For sure such courage length of life denies,<br> +And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice.<br> +Greece in her single heroes strove in vain;<br> +Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain!<br> +Oh grant me, gods! ere Hector meets his doom,<br> +All I can ask of heaven, an early tomb!<br> +So shall my days in one sad tenor run,<br> +And end with sorrows as they first begun.</p> + +<p>"No parent now remains my griefs to share,<br> +No father's aid, no mother's tender care.<br> +The fierce Achilles wrapp'd our walls in fire,<br> +Laid The'be waste, and slew my warlike sire!<br> +By the same arm my seven brave brothers fell;<br> +In one sad day beheld the gates of hell.<br> +My mother lived to bear the victor's bands,<br> +The queen of Hippopla'cia's sylvan lands.</p> + +<p> "Yet, while my Hector still survives, I see<br> +My father, mother, brethren, all in thee:<br> +Alas! my parents, brothers, kindred, all<br> +Once more will perish, if my Hector fall.<br> +Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share:<br> +Oh, prove a husband's and a father's care!<br> +That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy,<br> +Where yon wild fig-trees join the walls of Troy;<br> +Thou from this tower defend the important post;<br> +There Agamemnon points his dreadful host,<br> +That pass Tydi'des, Ajax, strive to gain,<br> +And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train.<br> +Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have given,<br> +Or led by hopes, or dictated from heaven.<br> +Let others in the field their arms employ,<br> +But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy."</p> + +<p> The chief replied: "That post shall be my care,<br> +Nor that alone, but all the works of war.<br> +How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown'd,<br> +And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground,<br> +Attaint the lustre of my former name,<br> +Should Hector basely quit the field of fame!<br> +My early youth was bred to martial pains,<br> +My soul impels me to the embattled plains:<br> +Let me be foremost to defend the throne,<br> +And guard my father's glories and my own.</p> + +<p>"Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates;<br> +(How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!)<br> +The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend,<br> +Must see thy warriors fall, thy glories end.<br> +And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind,<br> +My mother's death, the ruin of my kind,<br> +Not Priam's hoary hairs defiled with gore,<br> +Not all my brothel's gasping on the shore,<br> +As thine, Andromache! thy griefs I dread.</p> + +<p> "I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led!<br> +In Argive looms our battles to design,<br> +And woes, of which so large a part was thine!<br> +To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring<br> +The weight of waters from Hype'ria's spring.<br> +There, while you groan beneath the load of life,<br> +They cry: 'Behold the mighty Hector's wife!'<br> +Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see,<br> +Embitters all thy woes by naming me.<br> +The thoughts of glory past, and present shame,<br> +A thousand griefs shall waken at the name!<br> +May I lie cold before that dreadful day,<br> +Pressed with a load of monumental clay!<br> +Thy Hector, wrapt in everlasting sleep,<br> +Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep."</p> + +<p> Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy<br> +Stretched his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy.<br> +The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast,<br> +Scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest.<br> +With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled,<br> +And Hector hasted to relieve his child;<br> +The glittering terrors from his brows unbound,<br> +And placed the beaming helmet on the ground.<br> +Then kissed the child, and, lifting high in air,<br> +Thus to the gods preferred a father's prayer:</p> + +<p> "O thou! whose glory fills the ethereal throne,<br> +And all ye deathless powers! protect my son!<br> +Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,<br> +To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown,<br> +Against his country's foes the war to wage,<br> +And rise the Hector of the future age!<br> +So when triumphant from successful toils,<br> +Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils,<br> +Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim,<br> +And say, 'This chief transcends his father's fame;'<br> +While pleased, amidst the general shouts of Troy,<br> +His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy."</p> + +<p> He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms,<br> +Restored the pleasing burden to her arms;<br> +Soft on her fragrant breast the babe he laid,<br> +Hush'd to repose, and with a smile survey'd.<br> +The troubled pleasure soon chastised by fear,<br> +She mingled with the smile a tender tear.<br> +The soften'd chief with kind compassion view'd,<br> +And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued:</p> + +<p> "Andromache, my soul's far better part,<br> +Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart?<br> +No hostile hand can antedate my doom,<br> +Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb.<br> +Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth;<br> +And such the hard condition of our birth,<br> +No force can then resist, no flight can save--<br> +All sink alike, the fearful and the brave.<br> +No more--but hasten to thy tasks at home,<br> +There guide the spindle and direct the loom:<br> +Me, glory summons to the martial scene--<br> +The field of combat is the sphere of men;<br> +Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim,<br> +The first in danger, as the first in fame."</p> + +<p> Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes<br> +His towery helmet black with shading plumes.<br> +His princess parts with a prophetic sigh,<br> +Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye,<br> +That stream'd at every look; then, moving slow,<br> +Sought her own palace and indulged her woe.<br> +There, while her tears deplored the godlike man,<br> +Through all her train the soft infection ran:<br> +The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed,<br> +And mourn the living Hector as the dead.<br> + --B. VI. POPE'S. <i>Trans.</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>HECTOR'S EXPLOITS, AND DEATH OF PATRO'CLUS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Hector hastened to the field, and there his +exploits aroused the enthusiasm and courage of his countrymen; +who drove back the Grecian hosts. Disheartened, the Greeks sent +Ulysses and Ajax to Achilles to plead with that warrior for his +return with his forces to the Grecian camp. But Achilles +obstinately refused to take part in the conflict, which was +continued with varying success, until the Trojans succeeded in +breaking through the Grecian wall, and attempted to fire the +Greek ships, which were saved by the valor of Ajax. In compliance +with the request of the aged Nestor, however, of whom the poet +YOUNG tells us that--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">When Nestor spoke, none asked if he +prevailed;<br> +That god of sweet persuasion <i>never</i> failed--</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Achilles now placed his own armor on Patroclus, +and, giving him also his shield, sent him to the aid of the +Greeks. The Trojans, supposing Patroclus to be the famous +Achilles, became panic-stricken, and were pursued with great +slaughter to the walls of Troy.</p> + +<p class="just">Apollo now goes to the aid of the Trojans, smites +Patroclus, whose armor is strewn on the plain, and then the hero +is killed by Hector, who proudly places the plume of Achilles on +his own helmet.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> His spear in shivers falls; his +ample shield<br> +Drops from his arm; his baldric strews the field;<br> +The corslet his astonished breast forsakes;<br> +Loose is each joint; each nerve with horror shakes;<br> +Stupid he stares, and all assistless stands:<br> +Such is the force of more than mortal hands.<br> + Achilles' plume is stained with dust and gore:<br> +That plume which never stooped to earth before,<br> +Long used, untouched, in fighting fields to shine,<br> +And shade the temples of the mad divine.<br> +Jove dooms it now on Hector's helm to nod;<br> +Not long--for fate pursues him, and the god.<br> + --B. XVI.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Then ensued a most terrific conflict for the body +of the slain warrior, in which Ajax, Glaucus, Hector, +Æneas, and Menelaus participated, the latter finally +succeeding in bearing it off to the ships. The grief of Achilles +over the body of his friend, and at the loss of his wonderful +armor, is represented as being intense; and so great a blow to +the Greeks was the loss of the armor considered, that Vulcan +formed for Achilles a new one, and also a new shield. Homer's +description of the latter piece of marvelous workmanship--which +is often referred to as a truthful picture of the times, and +especially of the advanced condition of some of the arts and +sciences in the Heroic, or post-Heroic, age--is too long for +insertion here entire; but we proceed to give sufficient extracts +from it to show at least the magnificent conception of the +poet.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><em>How Vulcan Formed the Shield of +Achilles.</em></p> + +<p> He first a vast and massive buckler made;<br> +There all the wonders of his work displayed,<br> +With silver belt adorned, and triply wound,<br> +Orb within orb, the border beaming round.<br> +Five plates composed the shield; these Vulcan's art<br> +Charged with his skilful mind each varied part.</p> + +<p> There earth, there heaven appeared; there ocean flowed;<br> +There the orbed moon and sun unwearied glowed;<br> +There every star that gems the brow of night--<br> +Ple'iads and Hy'ads, and O-ri'on's might;<br> +The Bear, that, watchful in his ceaseless roll<br> +Around the star whose light illumes the pole,<br> +Still eyes Orion, nor e'er stoops to lave<br> +His beams unconscious of the ocean wave.</p> + +<p> There, by the god's creative power revealed,<br> +Two stately cities filled with life the shield.<br> +Here nuptials--solemn rites--and throngs of gay<br> +Assembled guests; forth issuing filled the way.<br> +Bright blazed the torches as they swept along<br> +Through streets that rung with hymeneal song;<br> +And while gay youths, swift circling round and round,<br> +Danced to the pipe and harp's harmonious sound,<br> +The women thronged, and wondering as they viewed,<br> +Stood in each portal and the pomp pursued.</p> + +<p> Next on the shield a forum met the view;<br> +Two men, contending, there a concourse drew:<br> +A citizen was slain; keen rose the strife--<br> +'Twas compensation claim'd for loss of life.<br> +This swore, the mulct for blood was strictly paid:<br> +This, that the fine long due was yet delayed.<br> +Both claim'd th' award and bade the laws decide;<br> +And partial numbers, ranged on either side,<br> +With eager clamors for decision call,<br> +Till the feared heralds seat and silence all.<br> +There the hoar elders, in their sacred place,<br> +On seats of polished stone the circle grace;<br> +Rise with a herald's sceptre, weigh the cause,<br> +And speak in turn the sentence of the laws;<br> +While, in the midst, for him to bear away<br> +Who rightliest spoke, two golden talents lay.</p> + +<p> The other city on the shield displayed<br> +Two hosts that girt it, in bright mail arrayed;<br> +Diverse their counsel: these to burn decide,<br> +And those to seize, and all its wealth divide.<br> +The town their summons scorned, resistance dared,<br> +And secretly for ambush arms prepared.<br> +Wife, grandsire, child, one soul alike in all,<br> +Stand on the battlements and guard the wall.<br> +Mars, Pallas, led their host: gold either god,<br> +A golden radiance from their armor flowed.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Next, described as displayed on the shield, is a +picture of spies at a distance, an ambuscade, and a battle; the +scene then changes to ploughing and sowing, and the incidents +connected with the gathering of a bountiful harvest; then are +introduced a vineyard, the gathering of the grapes, and a +merrymaking by the youths at the close of the day; then we have a +wild outlying scene of herdsmen with their cattle, the latter +attacked by two famished lions, and the tumult that followed. The +description closes as follows:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Now the god's changeful artifice +displayed<br> +Fair flocks at pasture in a lovely glade;<br> +And folds and sheltering stalls peeped up between,<br> +And shepherd-huts diversified the scene.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Now on the shield a choir +appear'd to move,<br> +Whose flying feet the tuneful labyrinth wove;<br> +Youths and fair girls there, hand in hand, advanced,<br> +Timed to the song their steps, and gayly danced.<br> +Round every maid light robes of linen flowed;<br> +Round every youth a glossy tunic glowed;<br> +Those wreathed with flowers, while from their partners hung<br> +Swords that, all gold, from belts of silver swung.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Train'd by nice art each flexile +limb to wind,<br> +Their twinkling feet the measured maze entwined,<br> +Fleet as the wheel whose use the potter tries,<br> +When, twirl'd beneath his hand, its axle flies.<br> +Now all at once their graceful ranks combine,<br> +Each rang'd against the other, line with line.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> The crowd flock'd round, and, +wondering as they view'd,<br> +Thro' every change the varying dance pursued;<br> +The while two tumblers, as they led the song,<br> +Turned in the midst and rolled themselves along.<br> +Then, last, the god the force of Ocean bound,<br> +And poured its waves the buckler's orb around.<br> + --B. XVIII. SOTHEBY'S <i>Trans.</i></div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<p align="center"><i>Achilles Engages in the Fight.</i></p> + +<p class="just">Desire to avenge the death of Patroclus proves +more powerful in the breast of Achilles than anger against +Agamemnon, and, clad in his new armor, he is with difficulty +restrained from rushing alone into the fight while his comrades +are resting. Turning and addressing his horses, he reproaches +them with the death of Patroclus. One of them is represented as +being Miraculously endowed with voice, and, replying to Achilles, +prophesies his death in the near future; but, with unabated rage, +the intrepid chief replies:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "So let +it be!<br> +Portents and prodigies are lost on me.<br> +I know my fate: to die, to see no more<br> +My much-loved parents and my native shore.<br> +Enough--when Heaven ordains I sink in night.<br> +Now perish Troy!" he said, and rushed to fight.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Jupiter now assembles the gods in council, and +permits them to assist either party. The poet vividly describes +the terrors of the combat and the tumult that arose when "the +powers descending swelled the fight." Achilles first encounters +Æne'as, who is preserved by Neptune; he then meets Hector, +whom he is on the point of killing, when Apollo rescues him and +carries him away in a cloud. The Trojans, defeated with terrible +slaughter, are driven into the river Scamander, where Achilles +receives the aid of Neptune and Pallas.</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>This Death of Hector.</i></p> + +<p class="just">Vulcan having dried up the Scamander in aid of +the Trojans, all those who survive, save Hector, seek refuge in +Troy. This hero alone remains without the walls to oppose +Achilles. At the latter's advance, however, Hector's resolution +and courage fail him, and he flees, pursued by Achilles three +times around the city; At length he turns upon his pursuer, +determined to meet his fate; and the account of the meeting and +contest with Achilles, as translated by BRYANT, is as +follows:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">He spake, and drew the keen-edged +sword that hung,<br> +Massive and finely tempered, at his side,<br> +And sprang--as when an eagle high in heaven<br> +Through the thick cloud darts downward to the plain,<br> +To clutch some tender lamb or timid hare.<br> +So Hector, brandishing that keen-edged sword,<br> +Sprang forward, while Achilles opposite<br> +Leaped toward him, all on fire with savage hate,<br> +And holding his bright buckler, nobly wrought,<br> +Before him. As in the still hours of night<br> +Hesper goes forth among the host of stars,<br> +The fairest light of heaven, so brightly shone,<br> +Brandished in the right hand of Pe'leus' son,<br> +The spear's keen blade, as, confident to slay<br> +The noble Hector, o'er his glorious form<br> +His quick eye ran, exploring where to plant<br> +The surest wound. The glittering mail of brass<br> +Won from the slain Patroclus guarded well<br> +Each part, save only where the collar-bones<br> +Divide the shoulder from the neck, and there<br> +Appeared the throat, the spot where life is most<br> +In peril. Through that part the noble son<br> +Of Peleus drave his spear; it went quite through<br> +The tender neck, and yet the brazen blade<br> +Cleft not the windpipe, and the power to speak<br> +Remained.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> And then the crested Hector +faintly said:<br> +"I pray thee, by thy life, and by thy knees,<br> +And by thy parents, suffer not the dogs<br> +To tear me at the galleys of the Greeks.<br> +Accept abundant store of brass and gold,<br> +Which gladly will my father and the queen,<br> +My mother, give in ransom. Send to them<br> +My body, that the warriors and the dames<br> +Of Troy may light for me the funeral pile."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> The swift Achilles answered, with +a frown:<br> +"Nay, by my knees entreat me not, thou cur,<br> +Nor by my parents. I could even wish<br> +My fury prompted me to cut thy flesh<br> +In fragments and devour it, such the wrong<br> +That I have had from thee. There will be none<br> +To drive away the dogs about thy head,<br> +Not though thy Trojan friends should bring to me<br> +Tenfold and twentyfold the offered gifts,<br> +And promise others--not though Priam, sprung<br> +From Dar'danus, should send thy weight in gold.<br> +Thy mother shall not lay thee on thy bier,<br> +To sorrow over thee whom she brought forth;<br> +But dogs and birds of prey shall mangle thee."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> And then the crested Hector, +dying, said:<br> +"I know thee, and too clearly I foresaw<br> +I should not move thee, for thou hast a heart<br> +Of iron. Yet reflect that for my sake<br> +The anger of the gods may fall on thee<br> +When Paris and Apollo strike thee down,<br> +Strong as thou art, before the Scæ'an gates."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Thus Hector spake, and +straightway o'er him closed<br> +The light of death; the soul forsook his limbs,<br> +And flew to Hades, grieving for its fate,<br> +So soon divorced from youth and youthful might.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The great achievement of Achilles was followed by +funeral games in honor of Patroclus, and by the institution of +various other festivities. At their close Jupiter sends The'tis +to Achilles to influence him to restore the dead body of Hector +to his family, and sends Iris to Priam to encourage him to go in +person to treat for it. Priam thereupon sets out upon his +journey, and, having arrived at the camp of Achilles, thus +appeals to his compassion:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Priam Begging for the Body of +Hector.</i></p> + +<p> "Think, O Achilles, semblance of the gods,<br> +On thine own father, full of days like me,<br> +And trembling on the gloomy verge of life.<br> +Some neighbor chief, it may be, even now<br> +Oppresses him, and there is none at hand,<br> +No friend, to succor him in his distress.<br> +Yet, doubtless, hearing that Achilles lives,<br> +He still rejoices, hoping day by day<br> +That one day he shall see the face again<br> +Of his own son, from distant Troy returned.<br> +But me no comfort cheers, whose bravest sons,<br> +So late the flowers of Ilium, are all slain.</p> + +<p> "When, Greece came hither I had fifty sons;<br> +But fiery Mars hath thinned them. One I had--<br> +One, more than all my sons, the strength of Troy,<br> +Whom, standing for his country, thou hast slain--<br> +Hector. His body to redeem I come<br> +Into Achaia's fleet, bringing, myself,<br> +Ransom inestimable to thy tent.<br> +Rev'rence the gods, Achilles! recollect<br> +Thy father; for his sake compassion show<br> +To me, more pitiable still, who draw<br> +Home to my lips (humiliation yet<br> +Unseen on earth) his hand who slew my son!"<br> + --COWPER'S <i>Trans.</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Achilles, moved with compassion, granted the +request of the grief-stricken father, and sent him home with the +body of his son. First to the corse the weeping Androm'ache flew, +and thus spoke:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Lamentation of Andromache.</i></p> + +<p> "And oh, my Hector! Oh, my lord! (she cries)<br> +Snatched in thy bloom from these desiring eyes!<br> +Thou to the dismal realms forever gone!<br> +And I abandoned, desolate, alone!<br> +An only son, once comfort of our pains,<br> +Sad product now of hapless love, remains!<br> +Never to manly age that son shall rise,<br> +Or with increasing graces glad my eyes;<br> +For Ilion now (her great defender slain)<br> +Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p> "Who now protects her wives with guardian care?<br> +Who saves her infants from the rage of war?<br> +Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er<br> +(Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore:<br> +Thou too, my son, to barbarous climes shalt go,<br> +The sad companion of thy mother's woe;<br> +Or else some Greek whose father pressed the plain,<br> +Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain,<br> +In Hector's blood his vengeance shall enjoy,<br> +And hurl thee headlong from the towers of Troy."<br> +[<small>Footnote: Such was the fate of Astyanax, Hector's<br> +son, when Troy was taken:</small></p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>"Here, from the tower by +stem Ulysses thrown,<br> +Andromache bewailed her infant son."<br> + --MERRICK'S <i>Tryphiodo'rus.</i></small>]</div> + +<br> +<br> + </td> +</tr> +</table> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The death of Hector was also lamented by Helen, +and her lamentation is thus spoken of by COLERIDGE: "I have +always thought the following speech, in which Helen laments +Hector, and hints at her own invidious and unprotected situation +in Troy, as almost the sweetest passage in the poem. It is +another striking instance of that refinement of feeling and +softness of tone which so generally distinguish the last book of +the <i>Iliad</i> from the rest."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Helen's Lamentation.</i></p> + +<p> "Ah, dearest friend! in whom the gods had joined<br> +The mildest manners with the bravest mind,<br> +Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o'er<br> +Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore;<br> +(Oh, had I perished ere that form divine<br> +Seduced this soft, this easy heart of mine!)<br> +Yet was it ne'er my fate from thee to find<br> +A deed ungentle, or a word unkind:<br> +When others cursed the authoress of their woe,<br> +Thy pity checked my sorrows in their flow:<br> +If some proud brother eyed me with disdain,<br> +Or scornful sister, with her sweeping train,<br> +Thy gentle accents softened all my pain.<br> +For thee I mourn; and mourn myself in thee,<br> +The wretched source of all this misery.<br> +The fate I caused forever I bemoan;<br> +Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone!<br> +Through Troy's wide streets abandoned shall I roam!<br> +In Troy deserted, as abhorred at home!"<br> + --POPE'S <i>Trans.</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>THE FATE OF TROY.</h5> + +<p class="just">Homer's <i>Iliad</i> ends with the burial of +Hector, and gives no account of the result of the war and the +fate of the chief actors in the conflict. But in VIRGIL'S +<i>Æne'id</i>, which gives an account of the escape of +Æne'as, from the flames of Troy, and of his wanderings +until he reaches the shores of Italy, the way in which Troy is +taken, soon after the death of Hector, is told by Æneas to +Dido, the Queen of Carthage. By the advice of Ulysses a huge +wooden horse was constructed in the Greek camp, in which he and +other Grecian warriors concealed themselves, while the remainder +burned their tents and sailed away to the island of Ten'edos, +behind which they secreted their vessels. Æneas begins his +account as follows:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "By destiny compelled, and in +despair,<br> +The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war,<br> +And by Minerva's aid a fabric reared<br> +Which like a steed of monstrous height appeared.<br> +The sides were planked with pine: they feigned it made<br> +For their return, and this the vow they paid.<br> +Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side<br> +Selected numbers of their soldiers hide;<br> +With inward arms the dire machine they load,<br> +And iron bowels stuff the dark abode. + +<p> "In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an isle<br> +(While Fortune did on Priam's empire smile)<br> +Renowned for wealth; but since, a faithless bay,<br> +Where ships exposed to wind and weather lay.<br> +There was their fleet concealed. We thought for Greece<br> +Their sails were hoisted, and our fears release.<br> +The Trojans, cooped within their walls so long,<br> +Unbar their gates, and issue in a throng,<br> +Like swarming bees, and with delight survey<br> +The camp deserted where the Grecians lay.<br> +The quarters of the sev'ral chiefs they showed--<br> +Here Phoenix, here Achilles, made abode;<br> +Here joined the battles; there the navy rode.</p> + +<p> "Part on the pile their wond'ring eyes employ--<br> +The pile by Pallas raised to ruin Troy.<br> +Thymoe'tes first ('tis doubtful whether hired,<br> +Or so the Trojan destiny required)<br> +Moved that the ramparts might be broken down<br> +To lodge the monster fabric in the town.<br> +But Ca'pys, and the rest of sounder mind,<br> +The fatal present to the flames designed,<br> +Or to the wat'ry deep; at least to bore<br> +The hollow sides, and hidden frauds explore.</p> + +<p> "The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide,<br> +With noise say nothing, and in parts divide.<br> +La-oc'o-on, followed by a num'rous crowd,<br> +Ran from the fort, and cried, from far, aloud:<br> +'O wretched countrymen! what fury reigns?<br> +What more than madness has possessed your brains?<br> +Think you the Grecians from your coasts are gone?<br> +And are Ulysses' arts no better known?<br> +This hollow fabric either must enclose,<br> +Within its blind recess, our hidden foes;<br> +Or 'tis an engine raised above the town<br> +T' o'erlook the walls, and then to batter down.<br> +Somewhat is sure designed by fraud or force--<br> +Trust not their presents, nor admit the horse.'</p> + +<p> "Thus having said, against the steed he threw<br> +His forceful spear, which, hissing as it flew,<br> +Pierced through the yielding planks of jointed wood,<br> +And trembling in the hollow belly stood.<br> +The sides, transpierced, return a rattling sound,<br> +And groans of Greeks enclosed came issuing through the wound;<br> +And, had not Heaven the fall of Troy designed,<br> +Or had not men been fated to be blind,<br> +Enough was said and done t' inspire a better mind.<br> +Then had our lances pierced the treacherous wood,<br> +And Ilion's towers and Priam's empire stood."</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Deceived by the treachery of Sinon, a captive +Greek, who represents that the wooden horse was built and +dedicated to Minerva to secure the aid that the goddess had +hitherto refused the Greeks, and that, if it were admitted within +the walls of Troy, the Grecian hopes would be forever lost, the +infatuated Trojans break down a portion of the city's wall, and, +drawing in the horse, give themselves up to festivity and +rejoicing. Æneas continues the story as follows:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "With such deceits he gained +their easy hearts,<br> +Too prone to credit his perfidious arts.<br> +What Di'omed, nor Thetis' greater son,<br> +A thousand ships, nor ten years' siege, had done--<br> +False tears and fawning words the city won. + +<pre> + * * * * * +</pre> + +<p> "A spacious breach is made; the town lies bare;<br> +Some hoisting levers, some the wheels prepare,<br> +And fasten to the horse's feet; the rest<br> +With cables haul along th' unwieldy beast:<br> +Each on his fellow for assistance calls.<br> +At length the fatal fabric mounts the walls,<br> +Big with destruction. Boys with chaplets crowned,<br> +And choirs of virgins, sing and dance around.<br> +Thus raised aloft, and then descending down,<br> +It enters o'er our heads, and threats the town.<br> +O sacred city, built by hands divine!<br> +O valiant heroes of the Trojan line!<br> +Four times he struck; as oft the clashing sound<br> +Of arms was heard, and inward groans rebound.<br> +Yet, mad with zeal, and blinded with our fate,<br> +We haul along the horse in solemn state,<br> +Then place the dire portent within the tower.<br> +Cassandra cried and cursed th' unhappy hour,<br> +Foretold our fate; but, by the gods' decree,<br> +All heard, and none believed the prophecy.<br> +With branches we the fane adorn, and waste<br> +In jollity the day ordained to be the last."<br> + --<i>The Æneid</i>. Book II.--DRYDEN.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In the dead of night Sinon unlocked the horse, +the Greeks rushed out, opened the gates of the city, and raised +torches as a signal to those at Tenedos, who returned, and Troy +was soon captured and given over to fire and the sword. Then +followed the rejoicings of the victors, and the weeping and +wailing of the Trojan women about to be carried away captive into +distant lands, according to the usages of war.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The stately walls of Troy had +sunken,<br> + Her towers and temples strewed the soil;<br> +The sons of Hellas, victory-drunken,<br> + Richly laden with the spoil,<br> +Are on their lofty barks reclined<br> + Along the Hellespontine strand;<br> +A gleesome freight the favoring wind<br> + Shall bear to Greece's glorious land;<br> + And gleesome chant the choral strain,<br> + As toward the household altars now<br> + Each bark inclines the painted prow--<br> + For Home shall smile again!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">And there the Trojan women, +weeping,<br> + Sit ranged in many a length'ning row;<br> +Their heedless locks, dishevelled, sweeping<br> + Adown the wan cheeks worn with woe.<br> + No festive sounds that peal along,<br> +<i>Their</i> mournful dirge can overwhelm;<br> + Through hymns of joy one sorrowing song,<br> +Commingled, wails the ruined realm.<br> + "Farewell, beloved shores!" it said:<br> + "From home afar behold us torn,<br> + By foreign lords as captives borne--<br> + Ah, happy are the dead!"<br> + --SCHILLER.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">For ten long years the Greeks at Argos had +watched nightly for the beacon fires, lighted from point to +point, that should announce the doom of Troy. When, in the +<i>Agamemnon</i> of ÆSCHYLUS, Clytemnes'tra declares that +Troy has fallen, and the chorus, half incredulous, demands what +messenger had brought the intelligence, she replies:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"A gleam--a gleam--from Ida's +height<br> + By the fire-god sent, it came;<br> +From watch to watch it leaped, that light;<br> + As a rider rode the flame!<br> + It shot through the startled sky,<br> + And the torch of that blazing glory<br> + Old Lemnos caught on high<br> + On its holy promontory,<br> + And sent it on, the jocund sign,<br> + To Athos, mount of Jove divine.<br> + Wildly the while it rose from the isle,<br> +So that the might of the journeying light<br> +Skimmed over the back of the gleaming brine!<br> + Farther and faster speeds it on,<br> +Till the watch that keep Macis'tus steep<br> + See it burst like a blazing sun!<br> + Doth Macistus sleep<br> + On his tower-clad steep?<br> +No! rapid and red doth the wildfire sweep:<br> + It flashes afar on the wayward stream<br> + Of the wild Euri'pus, the rushing beam!<br> +It rouses the light on Messa'pion's height,<br> +And they feed its breath with the withered heath.<br> + But it may not stay!<br> + And away--away--<br> + It bounds in its fresh'ning might.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "Silent and soon<br> + Like a broadened moon<br> + It passes in sheen Aso'pus green,<br> +And bursts in Cithæ'ron gray.<br> +The warden wakes to the signal rays,<br> +And it swoops from the hills with a broader blaze:<br> + On--on the fiery glory rode--<br> + Thy lonely lake, Gorgo'pis, glowed--<br> + To Meg'ara's mount it came;<br> + They feed it again,<br> + And it streams amain--<br> + A giant beard of flame!<br> +The headland cliffs that darkly down<br> +O'er the Saron'ic waters frown,<br> +Are passed with the swift one's lurid stride,<br> +And the huge rock glares on the glaring tide.<br> +With mightier march and fiercer power<br> +It gained Arach'ne's neighboring tower--<br> +Thence on our Ar'give roof its rest it won,<br> +Of Ida's fire the long-descended son!<br> + Bright harbinger of glory and of joy!<br> +So first and last with equal honor crowned,<br> +In solemn feasts the race-torch circles round.<br> +And these my heralds, this my sign of Peace!<br> +Lo! while we breathe, the victor lords of Greece<br> + Stalk, in stern tumult through the halls of Troy."<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> BULWER.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Such, in brief, is the commonly received account +of the Trojan war, as we find it in Homer and other ancient +writers. Concerning it the historian THIRLWALL remarks: "We +consider it necessary to admit the reality of the Trojan war as a +general fact, but beyond this we scarcely venture to proceed a +single step. We find it impossible to adopt the poetical story of +Helen, partly on account of its inherent improbability, and +partly because we are convinced that Helen is a merely +mythological person." GROTE says:[<small>Footnote: "History of +Greece." Chap. XV.</small>] "In the eyes of modern inquiry the +Trojan war is essentially a legend and nothing more. If we are +asked if it be not a legend embodying portions of historical +matter, and raised upon a basis of truth--whether there may not +really have occurred at the foot of the hill of Ilium a war +purely human and political, without gods, without heroes, without +Helen, without Amazons, without Ethiopians under the beautiful +son of Eos, without the wooden horse, without the characteristic +and expressive features of the old epic war--if we are asked if +there was not really some such historical Trojan war as this, our +answer must be, that as the possibility of it cannot be denied, +so neither can the reality of it be affirmed." In this connection +it is interesting to note that the discoveries of the German +explorer, Schliemann, upon the site of ancient Troy, indicate +that Homer "followed actual occurrences more closely than an +over-skeptical historical criticism was once willing to +allow."</p> + +<br> +<h5>FATE OF THE CHIEF ACTORS IN THE CONFLICT.</h5> + +<p class="just">Of the fate of some of the principal actors in +the Trojan war it may be stated that, of the prominent Trojans, +Æneas alone escaped. After many years of wanderings he +landed in Italy with a small company of Trojans; and the Roman +writers trace to him the origin of their nation. Priam was killed +by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, during the burning of Troy; +while Achilles himself fell some time before, shot with an arrow +in the heel by Paris, as Hector had prophesied would be the +manner of his death. Ajax, after the death of Achilles, had a +contest with Ulysses for the armor of the dead hero, but was +unsuccessful, and died by his own hand. The poet EN'NIUS ascribes +the following declaration to Tel'amon, the father of Ajax, when +he heard of his son's death:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">I knew, when I begat him, he must +die,<br> +And trained him to no other destiny--<br> +Knew, when I sent him to the Trojan shore,<br> +'Twas not to halls of feast, but fields of gore.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> PETERS.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Agamemnon, on his return to Greece, was +barbarously murdered by his unfaithful queen, Clytemnestra. +Diomed was driven from Greece, and barely escaped with his life. +It is uncertain where or how he died. Ulysses, after almost +innumerable troubles and hardships by sea and land, at last +returned in safety to Ithaca. His wanderings are the subject of +Homer's <i>Odyssey</i>.</p> + +<p class="just">But it may be asked, what became of Helen, the +primary cause of the Trojan war, disastrous alike to victors and +vanquished? According to Virgil, [<small>Footnote: +<i>Æneid</i>, B. VI.</small>] after the death of Paris she +married the Trojan hero, De-iph'o-bus, and on the night after the +city was taken betrayed him to Menela'us, to whom she became +reconciled, and whom she accompanied, as Homer relates, +[<small>Footnote: <i>Odyssey</i> B. IV.</small>] during the eight +years of his wandering, on his return to Greece. LANDOR, in one +of his <i>Hellen'ics</i>, represents Menelaus, after the fall of +Troy, as pursuing Helen up the steps of the palace, and +threatening her with death. He thus addresses her:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "Stand, traitress, on +that stair--<br> +Thou mountest not another, by the gods!<br> +Now take the death thou meritest, the death,<br> +Zeus, who presides over hospitality--<br> +And every other god whom thou has left,<br> +And every other who abandons thee<br> +In this accursed city--sends at last.<br> +Turn, vilest of vile slaves! turn, paramour<br> +Of what all other women hate, of cowards;<br> +Turn, lest this hand wrench back thy head, and toss<br> +It and its odors to the dust and flames."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Helen penitently receives his reproaches, and +welcomes the threatened death; and when he speaks of their +daughter, Hermi'o-ne, whom, an infant, she had so cruelly +deserted, she exclaims:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "O my +child!<br> +My only one! thou livest: 'tis enough;<br> +Hate me, abhor me, curse me--these are duties--<br> +Call me but mother in the shades of death!<br> +She now is twelve years old, when the bud swells,<br> +And the first colors of uncertain life<br> +Begin to tinge it."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Menelaus turns aside to say,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "Can she think of +home?<br> +Hers once, mine yet, and sweet Hermione's!<br> +Is there one spark that cheered my hearth, one left<br> +For thee, my last of love?"</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">When she beseeches him to delay not her merited +fate, her words greatly move him, and he exclaims +(<i>aside</i>),</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "Her voice is +musical<br> +As the young maids who sing to Artemis:<br> +How glossy is that yellow braid my grasp<br> +Seized and let loose! Ah, can ten years have passed<br> +Since--but the children of the gods, like them,<br> +Suffer not age.[<small>Footnote: Jupiter was fabled to be<br> +the father of Helen.</small>]<br> + (<i>Then turning to Helen</i>.) Helen! speak honestly,<br> +And thus escape my vengeance--was it force<br> +That bore thee off?"</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Her words and grief move him to pity, if not to +love, and he again turns aside to say,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"The true alone and loving sob like +her.<br> +Come, Helen!" (<i>He takes her hand</i>.)<br> + <i>Helen.</i> Oh, let never Greek see this!<br> +Hide me from Argos, from Amy'clæ [<small>Footnote: A +town<br> +of Laconia, where was a temple of Apollo. It was a<br> +short distance to the south-west of Sparta.</small>] hide me,<br> +Hide me from all.<br> + <i>Menelaus.</i> Thy anguish is too strong<br> +For me to strive with.<br> + <i>Helen.</i> Leave it all to me.<br> + <i>Menelaus.</i> Peace! peace! The wind, I hope, is fair for +Sparta.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The intimation, by Landor and others who have +sought to exculpate Helen, that she was unwillingly borne away by +Paris, has been amplified, with much poetic skill and beauty, by +a recent poet,[<small>Footnote: A. Lang, in his "Helen of +Troy."</small>] into the story that the goddess Venus appeared to +her, and, while Helen was shrinking with apprehension and fear of +her power, told her that she should fall into a deep slumber, and +on awaking should be oblivious of her past life, "ignorant of +shame, and blameless of those evil deeds that the goddess should +thrust upon her." Venus declares to her:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Thou art the toy of gods, an +instrument<br> + Wherewith all mortals shall be plagued or blest,<br> +Even at my pleasure; yea, thou shalt be bent<br> + This way and that, howe'er it like me best:<br> + And following thee, as tides the moon, the West<br> +Shall flood the Eastern coasts with waves of war,<br> + And thy vexed soul shall scarcely be at rest,<br> +Even in the havens where the deathless are.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"The instruments of men are blind +and dumb,<br> + And this one gift I give thee, to be blind<br> +And heedless of the thing that is to come,<br> + And ignorant of that which is behind;<br> + Bearing an innocent, forgetful mind<br> +In each new fortune till I visit thee<br> + And stir thy heart, as lightning and the wind<br> +Bear fire and tumult through a sleeping sea.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Thou shalt forget Hermione! +forget,<br> + Forget thy lord, thy lofty palace, and thy kin;<br> +Thy hand within a stranger's shalt thou set,<br> + And follow him, nor deem it any sin;<br> + And many a strange land wand'ring shalt thou win;<br> +And thou shalt come to an unhappy town,<br> + And twenty long years shalt thou dwell therein,<br> +Before the Argives mar its towery crown.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"And of thine end I speak not, but +thy name--<br> + Thy name which thou lamentest--that shall be<br> +A song in all men's speech, a tongue of flame<br> + Between the burning lips of Poesy;<br> + And the nine daughters of Mnemos'y-ne,<br> +With Prince Apollo, leader of the nine,<br> + Shall make thee deathless in their minstrelsy!<br> +Yea, for thou shalt outlive the race divine."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">As the goddess had declared, so it came to pass, +for when Helen awoke from her long slumber,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">She had no memory of unhappy +things,<br> + She knew not of the evil days to come,<br> +Forgotten were her ancient wanderings;<br> + And as Lethæ'an waters wholly numb<br> + The sense of spirits in Elysium,<br> +That no remembrance may their bliss alloy,<br> + Even so the rumor of her days was dumb,<br> +And all her heart was ready for new joy.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The reconciliation of Menelaus with Helen is +easily effected by the same kind of artifice; for when, on the +taking of Troy, he meets her and draws his sword to slay her, the +goddess, again appearing, throws her witching spell over him +also:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Then fell the ruthless sword that +never fell<br> + When spear bit harness in the battle din,<br> +For Aphrodi'te spake, and like a spell<br> + Wrought her sweet voice persuasive, till within<br> + His heart there lived no memory of sin;<br> +No thirst for vengeance more, but all grew plain,<br> + And wrath was molten in desire to win<br> +The golden heart of Helen once again.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">It is said that after the death of Menelaus Helen +was driven from the Peloponnesus by the indignant Spartans.</p> + +<br> +<h4>IV. ARTS AND CIVILIZATION IN THE HEROIC AGE.</h4> + +<p class="just">Although but little confidence can be placed in +the reality of the persons and events mentioned in the poems of +Homer, yet there is one kind of truth from which the poet can +hardly have deviated, or his writings would not have been so +acceptable as they evidently were to his contemporaries--and that +is, a faithful portraiture of the government, usages, +institutions, manners, and general condition of the Greeks during +the age in which he lived, and which undoubtedly differed little +from the manners and customs of the Heroic Age. The pictures of +life and character that he had drawn must have had a reality of +existence, and they unquestionably give us, to a considerable +extent, a true insight into the condition of Grecian society at +that early period of the world's history.</p> + +<p class="just">And yet we must bear in mind that <i>epics</i> +such as those of Homer, describing the manners and customs of a +half-barbarous age, and intended to honor chieftains by extolling +the deeds and lives of their ancestors, and to be recited in the +courts of kings and princes, would, very naturally, be +accommodated to the wishes, partialities, and prejudices of their +noble hearers. And this leads us to consider how far even the +great epic of Homer is to be relied on for a faithful picture of +the <i>political</i> life of the Greeks during the Heroic Age. We +quote the following suggestive remarks on this subject from a +recent writer and able Greek critic:</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE POLITICAL LIFE OF THE GREEKS, AS REPRESENTED IN THEIR +GREAT EPICS.</h5> + +<p class="just">"Although, in the Greek epics, the rank and file +of the army are to be marshaled by the kings, and to raise the +shout of battle, they actually disappear from the action, and +leave the field perfectly clear for the chiefs to perform their +deeds of valor. There is not, perhaps, an example in all the +<i>Iliad</i> of a chief falling, or even being wounded, by an +ignoble hand. Amid the cloud of missiles that were flying on the +plains of Troy, amid the crowd of chiefs and kings that were +marshaled on either side, we never hear how a 'certain man drew a +bow at a venture, and smote a king between the joints of the +harness.' Yet this must necessarily have occurred in any +prolonged combats such as those about the walls of Troy.</p> + +<p class="just">"Here, then, is a plain departure from truth, and +even from reasonable probability. It is indeed a mere omission +which does not offend the reader; but such inaccuracies suggest +serious reflections. If the epic poets ignore the importance of +the masses on the battlefield, is it not likely that they +underrate it in the public assemblies? Is it not possible that +here too, to please their patrons, they describe the glorious +ages of the past as the days when the assembled people would not +question the superior wisdom of their betters, but merely +assembled to be taught and to applaud? I cannot, therefore, as +Mr. Grote does, accept the political condition of things in the +Homeric poems, especially in the <i>Iliad</i>, as a safe guide to +the political life of Greece in the poet's own day.</p> + +<p class="just">"The figure of Thersites seems drawn with special +spite and venom, as a satire upon the first critics that rose up +among the assembled people to question the divine right of kings +to do wrong. We may be sure the real Thersites, from whom the +poet drew his picture, was a very different and a far more +serious power in debate than the misshapen buffoon of the +<i>Iliad</i>. But the king who had been thwarted and exposed by +him in the day would, over his cups in the evening, enjoy the +poet's travesty, and long for the good old times when he could +put down all impertinent criticism by the stroke of his knotty +sceptre. The Homeric Agora could hardly have existed had it been +so idle a form as the poets represent. But as the lower classes +were carefully marshaled on the battle-field, from a full sense +of the importance which the poet denies them, so they were +marshaled in the public assembly, where we may be sure their +weight told with equal effect, though the poet neglected it for +the greater glory of the counseling chiefs." [<small>Footnote: +"Social Life in Greece, from Homer to Menander," by Rev. J. P. +Mahaffy.</small>] Notwithstanding all this, as HEEREN says, +"Homer is the best source of information that we possess +respecting the Heroic Age."</p> + +<p class="just">The form of government that prevailed among the +early Greeks, especially after the Pelasgic race had yielded to +the more warlike and adventurous Hellenes, was evidently that of +the kingly order, on a democratic basis, although it is difficult +to ascertain the precise extent of the royal prerogatives. In all +the Grecian states there appears to have been an hereditary class +of chiefs or nobles, distinguished from the common freemen or +people by titles of honor, superior wealth, dignity, valor, and +noble birth; which latter implied no less than a descent from the +gods themselves, to whom every princely house seems to have +traced its origin.</p> + +<p class="just">But the kings, although generally hereditary, +were not always so, nor were they absolute monarchs; they were +rather the most eminent of the nobility, having the command in +war, and the chief seat in the administration of justice; and +their authority was more or less extended in proportion to the +noble qualities they possessed, and particularly to their valor +in battle. Unless distinguished by courage and strength, kings +could not even command in time of war; and during peace they were +bound to consult the people in all important matters. Among their +pecuniary advantages were the profits of an extensive domain +which seems to have been attached to the royal office, and not to +have been the private property of the individual. Thus, Homer +represents Telem'achus as in danger not only of losing his throne +by the adverse choice of the people, but also, among the rights +of the crown, the domains of Ulysses, his father, should he not +be permitted to succeed him.[<small>Footnote: See the +<i>Odyssey</i> (Cowper's Trans.), xi., 207-223.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">During the Heroic Age the Greeks appear to have +had no fixed laws established by legislation. Public opinion and +usage, confirmed and expounded by judicial decisions, were the +only sources to which the weak and injured could look for +protection and redress. Private differences were most often +settled by private means, and in these cases the weak and +deserving were generally plundered and maltreated by the powerful +and guilty; but in quarrels that threatened to disturb the peace +of the community the public compelled the injured party to +accept, and the aggressor to pay, a stipulated compensation. As +among the savage tribes of America, and even among our early +Saxon ancestors, the murderer was often allowed to pay a +stipulated compensation, which stayed the spirit of revenge, and +was received as a full expiation of his guilt. The mutual +dealings of the several independent Grecian states with one +another were regulated by no established principles, and +international law had no existence at this early period.</p> + +<br> +<h5>DOMESTIC LIFE AND CHARACTER.</h5> + +<p class="just">In the domestic relations of life there was much +in the conduct of the Greeks that was meritorious. Children were +treated with affection, and much care was bestowed on their +education; and, on the other hand, the respect which they showed +their parents, even after the period of youth and dependence, +approached almost to veneration. As evidence of a rude age, +however, the father disposed of his daughter's hand in marriage +with absolute authority; and although we meet with many models of +conjugal affection, as in the noble characters of Andromache and +Penelope, yet the story of Helen, and other similar ones, suggest +too plainly that the faithlessness of the wife was not regarded +as a very great offence. The wife, however, occupied a station of +as much, if not more influence in the family than was the case in +the historical period; but she was not the equal of her husband, +and even Homer portrays none of those feelings of love which +result from a higher regard for the female sex.</p> + +<p class="just">We gather from Homer that there was a low sense +of <i>truth</i> among the Greeks of the Homeric Age, but that the +people were better than might be expected from the examples set +them by the gods in whom they professed to believe. Says MAHAFFY: +"At no period did the nation attain to that high standard which +is the great feature in Germanic civilization. Even the Romans, +with all their coarseness and vulgarity, stood higher in this +respect. But neither in the <i>Iliad</i> nor the <i>Odyssey</i> +is there, except in phrases, any reprobation of deceit as such. +To deceive an enemy is meritorious; to deceive a stranger, +innocent; to deceive even a friend, perfectly unobjectionable, if +any object is to be gained. So it is remarked of Menelaus--as it +were, exceptionally--that he <i>will</i> tell the truth if you +press him, for he is very considerate. But the really leading +characters in the <i>Odyssey</i> and <i>Iliad</i> (except +Achilles) do not hesitate at all manner of lying. Ulysses is +perpetually inventing, and so is his patroness, Pallas Athe'ne; +and she actually mentions this quality of wily deceit as her +special ground of love and affection for him." Thus, we read in +the <i>Odyssey</i> that when Ulysses, in response to what the +goddess--then disguised and unknown to him--had said,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">With unembarrassed readiness +returned<br> +Not truth, but figments to truth opposite,<br> +For guile, in him, stood never at a pause--</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">the goddess, seemingly well pleased with his +"tricks of speech delusive," thus replied:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Who passes thee in artifice +well-framed;<br> +And in impostures various, need shall find<br> +Of all his policy, although a god.<br> +Canst thou not cease, inventive as thou art<br> +And subtle, from the wiles which thou hast loved<br> +Since thou wast infant, and from tricks of speech<br> +Delusive, even in thy native land?<br> +But come; dismiss we these ingenious shifts<br> +From our discourse, in which we both excel;<br> +For thou of all men in expedients most<br> +Abound'st and eloquence, and I throughout<br> +All heaven have praise for wisdom and for art."<br> + --COWPER'S <i>Trans.</i></div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">To the foregoing it may be added that "Zeus +deceives both gods and men; the other gods deceive Zeus; in fact, +the whole Homeric society is full of guile and falsehood. There +is still, however, an expectation that if the gods are called to +witness a transaction by means of an oath, they will punish +deceit. The poets clearly held that the gods, if they were under +no restraint or fear of punishment from Zeus, were at liberty to +deceive as they liked. One safeguard yet remained--the oath by +the Styx, [<small>Footnote: see the index at the end of the +volume.</small>] the penalties of violating which are enumerated +in Hesiod's <i>Theogony</i>, and consist of nine years' +transportation, with solitary confinement and hard labor. As for +oaths, the Hymn to Hermes shows that in succeeding generations +their solemnity was openly ridiculed. Among the Homeric gods, as +well as among the heroes, there were, indeed, old-fashioned +characters who adhered to probity. The character of Apollo is +unstained by deceit. So is that of Menelaus."</p> + +<p class="just">The Greeks in the Heroic Age were divided into +the three classes--nobles, freemen, and slaves. Of the first we +have already spoken. The condition of the freemen it is difficult +to fully ascertain; but the majority possessed portions of land +which they cultivated. There was another class of freemen who +possessed no property, and who worked for hire on the property of +others. "Among the freemen," says one writer, "we find certain +professional persons whose acquirements and knowledge raised them +above their class, and procured for them the respect and society +of the nobles. Such were the seer, the bard, the herald, and +likewise the smith and the carpenter." The slaves were owned by +the nobles alone, and were treated with far more kindness and +consideration than were the slaves of republican Greece.</p> + +<p class="just">During this period the Greeks had but little +knowledge of geography beyond the confines of Greece and its +islands and the coasts of the Ægean Sea. The habitable +world was supposed to be surrounded by an ocean-like river, like +that which Homer describes as bordering the shield of Achilles, +beyond which were realms of darkness, dreams, and death. +Legitimate commerce appears to have been deemed of little +importance. The largest ships were slender, half-decked +row-boats, capable of carrying, at most, only about a hundred +men, and having a movable mast, which was hoisted, and a sail +attached, only to take advantage of a favorable wind. Most of the +navigation at this early period was undertaken for the purposes +of plunder, and piracy was not deemed dishonorable. When Mentor +and Telemachus came to the court of Nestor, that prince, after +entertaining them kindly, asked them, as a matter of curiosity, +whether they were travelers or robbers!</p> + +<p class="just">But the Heroic Age was not one essentially rude +and barbarous. Greece was then a populous and well-cultivated +country, with numerous and large cities surrounded by walls and +adorned with palaces and temples. Homer describes the different +branches of agriculture, and the various labors of farming, the +culture of the grape, and the duties of the herdsmen. The weaving +of woolen and of linen fabrics was the chief occupation of the +women, and was carried to a high degree of perfection. While +Homer may have drawn largely upon his imagination for his +brilliant pictures, still their main features were undoubtedly +taken from life, and many ancient remains of Grecian art attest +the general fidelity of his representations: In the wonderful +description of the shield of Achilles we get some insight into +the progress which the arts of metallurgy and engraving had made, +and in the following description, in the Fifth Book of the +<i>Odyssey</i>, of the raft of Ulysses, on which this wandering +hero floated after leaving Calypso's isle, we learn to what +degree the art of ship-building had attained in the Heroic Age. +Calypso furnishes him the material for constructing his raft.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>The Raft of Ulysses.</i></p> + +<p>She gave him, fitted to the grasp, an axe<br> +Of iron, ponderous, double-edged, with haft<br> +Of olive-wood inserted firm, and wrought<br> +With curious art. Then placing in his hand<br> +A polished adze, she led herself the way<br> +To her isle's utmost verge, where loftiest stood<br> +The alder, poplar, and cloud-piercing fir,<br> +Though sapless, sound, and fittest for his use,<br> +As buoyant most. To that most verdant grove<br> +His steps the beauteous nymph Calypso led,<br> +And sought her home again. Then slept not he,<br> +But, swinging with both hands the axe, his task<br> +Soon finished; trees full twenty to the ground<br> +He cast; which, dexterous, with his adze he smoothed,<br> +The knotted surface chipping by a line.<br> +Meantime the lovely goddess to his aid<br> +Sharp augers brought, with which he bored the beams,<br> +Then placed them side by side, adapting each<br> +To other, and the seams with wadding closed.</p> + +<p>Broad as an artist, skilled in naval works,<br> +The bottom of a ship of burden spreads,<br> +Such breadth Ulysses to his raft assigned.<br> +He decked her over with long planks, upborne<br> +On massy beams; he made the mast, to which<br> +He added suitable the yard; he framed<br> +Rudder and helm to regulate her course;<br> +With wicker-work he bordered all her length<br> +For safety, and much ballast stowed within.<br> +Meantime Calypso brought him for a sail<br> +Fittest materials, which he also shaped,<br> +And to his sail due furniture annexed<br> +Of cordage strong, foot-ropes and ropes aloft,<br> +Then heaved her down with levers to the deep.<br> + --<i>Odyssey</i>, B. V. COWPER'S <i>Trans.</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">We notice in this description the use of the +adze--of the double-edged axe; of augers for boring the beams; +the caulking of the hull; the decking made of planks; the single +mast; the yard from which the sail was spread; the use of the +rudder and the helm; "foot-ropes and ropes aloft;" while, for +safety, a wicker-work of cordage surrounds the deck, and much +"ballast" is stowed within.</p> + +<p class="just">To what extent the higher orders of art--those +which became in later times the highest glory of Greece, and in +which she will always stand unrivalled--were cultivated before +the time of Homer, is a subject of much uncertainty. It is clear, +however, that poetry and music, which were almost inseparably +united, were early made prominent instruments of the religious, +martial, and political education of the people. The aid of +poetical song was called in to enliven and adorn the banquets of +the great public assemblies, the Olympic and other games, and +scarcely a social or public gathering can be mentioned that would +not have appeared to the ardent Grecians cold and spiritless +without this accompaniment.</p> + +<p class="just">It is not equally clear, however, whether +architecture, in Homer's time, had arrived at such a stage as to +deserve a place among the fine arts. But it is probable that +while the private dwellings which the poet describes were strong +and convenient rather than ornamental and elegant in design, the +public buildings--the temples, palaces, etc.--were elegant in +design and in architectural decoration. Statuary was cultivated +in this age, as appears from the remains of many of the Greek +cities; and, although no paintings are spoken of in Homer, yet +his descriptions prove that his contemporaries must have been +acquainted with the art of design. Whether the Greeks were +acquainted at this early period with the art of writing is, +perhaps, the most important of all the questions connected with +the progress of art and knowledge at this time, as it has +received the most attention. The prevalent opinion is that the +art of writing was then unknown, and that no written compositions +were extant until many years after the time of Homer.</p> + +<br> +<h4>V. THE CONQUEST OF THE PELOPONNESUS, AND COLONIES IN ASIA +MINOR.</h4> + +<p class="just">Although not yet fully out of the fabulous era of +Grecian history, we now enter upon a period when the crude +fictions of more than mortal heroes begin to give place to the +realities of human existence; but still the vague, disputed, and +often contradictory annals on which we are obliged to rely shed +only an uncertain light around us; and even what we can gather as +the most reliable cannot be taken wholly as undoubted historic +truth.</p> + +<p class="just">The immediate consequences of the Trojan war, as +represented by Greek historians, were scarcely less disastrous to +the victors than to the vanquished. The return of the Grecian +heroes to their homes is represented, as we have seen, to have +been full of tragic adventures, and their long absence encouraged +usurpers to seize many of their thrones. Hence arose fierce wars +and intestine commotions, which greatly retarded the progress of +Grecian civilization. Among these petty revolutions, however, no +events of general interest occurred until about sixty years after +the fall of Troy, when a people from Epi'rus, passing over the +mountain-chain of Pindus, descended into the rich plains which +lie along the banks of the Pene'us, and finally conquered the +country, to which they gave the name of Thessaly. The fugitives +from Thessaly, driven from their own country, passed over into +Boeo'tia, which they subdued after a long struggle, in their turn +driving out the ancient inhabitants of the land. This event is +supposed to have occurred in 1124 B.C.</p> + +<p class="just">The unsettled state of society caused by the +Thessalian and Boeotian conquests occasioned what is known as the +"Æo'lian Migration," so-called from the race that took the +principal share in it. These people passed over into Asia Minor, +and established their settlements in the vicinity of the ruins of +Troy. This became known as the Æolian Confederacy.</p> + +<br> +<h5>RETURN OF THE HERACLI'DÆ</h5> + +<p class="just">About twenty years after the Thessalian conquest, +the Dorians, who had frequently changed their homes, and had +finally settled in a mountainous region on the south of Thessaly, +commenced a migration to the Peloponnesus, accompanied by +portions of other tribes, and led, as was asserted, by +descendants of Hercules, who had been deprived of their dominions +in the latter country, and who had hitherto made several +unsuccessful attempts to recover them. This important event in +Grecian history is therefore called the "Return of the +Heraclidæ." The Dorians could muster about twenty thousand +fighting men; and although they were greatly inferior in numbers +to the inhabitants of the country they invaded, the whole of +Peloponnesus, except a few districts, was subdued and apportioned +among the conquerors. Of the Heraclidæ, Tem'enus received +Argos, the sons of Aristode'mus obtained Sparta, and Cresphon'tes +was given Messe'nia. Some of the unconquered tribes of the +southern part of the peninsula seized upon the province of +Acha'ia, and expelled its Ionian inhabitants. The latter sought a +retreat on the western coast of Asia Minor, south of the +Æolian cities, and the settlements thus formed received the +name of Ionia. At a still later period, bands of the Dorians, not +content with their conquest of the Peloponnesus, thronged to Asia +Minor, where they peopled several cities south of Ionia; so that +the Ægean Sea was finally circled by Grecian settlements, +and its islands covered with them.</p> + +<p class="just">The Dorians did not become undisputed masters of +the Peloponnesus until they had conquered Corinth in the next +generation. The capture of Corinth was attended by another +expedition which drew the Dorians north of the Isthmus. They +invaded Attica, and encamped before the walls of Athens. Before +proceeding to attack the city they consulted the oracle at +Delphi--the most remarkable oracle of the ancient world, of which +the poet LU'CAN thus writes:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The listening god, still ready with +replies,<br> +To none his aid or oracle denies;<br> +Yet wise, and righteous ever, scorns to hear<br> +The fool's fond wishes, or the guilty's prayer;<br> +Though vainly in repeated vows they trust,<br> +None e'er find grace before him but the just.<br> +Oft to a banished, wandering, houseless race<br> +The sacred dictates have assigned a place:<br> +Oft from the strong he saves the weak in war,<br> +And heals the barren land, and pestilential air.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The Dorians were told by the oracle that they +would be successful as long as the Athenian king, Co'drus, was +uninjured. The latter, being informed of the answer of the +oracle, disguised himself as a peasant, and, going forth from the +city, was met and slain by a Dorian soldier, thus sacrificing +himself for his country's good. The superstitious Dorians, now +deeming the war hopeless, withdrew from Attica; and the +Athenians, out of respect for Codrus, declared that no one was +worthy to succeed him, and abolished the form of royalty +altogether. Magistrates called Archons were first appointed for +life from the family of Codrus, and these were finally exchanged +for others appointed for ten years. These and other successive +encroachments on the royal prerogatives resulted in the +establishment of an aristocratic government of the nobility, and +are almost the only events that fill the meager annals of Athens +for several centuries.</p> + +<p class="just">The foundation of the Greek colonies in Asia +Minor may be said to form the conclusion of the Mythical Period +of Grecian history, and likewise to furnish the basis for the +earlier forms of authentic Greek literature. Before proceeding, +therefore, to the general events that distinguish the authentic +period of Greek history, we will give, first, a brief sketch of +this early literature as embodied chiefly in the poems of Homer; +and, second, will point out some of the causes that tended to +unite the Greeks as a people, notwithstanding their separation +into so many independent communities or states.</p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterIII">CHAPTER III.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>EARLY GREEK LITERATURE, AND GREEK COMMUNITY +OF INTERESTS.</b></p> + +<p class="just">The earliest written compositions of the Greeks, +of which tradition or history has preserved any record, were +poetical; a circumstance which, noticed in other nations also, +has led to the assertion that poetry is preeminently the language +of Nature. But the first poetical compositions of the Greeks were +not written. The earliest of them were undoubtedly the religious +teachings of the priests and seers; and these were soon followed +by others founded on the legends and genealogies of the Grecian +heroes, which were addressed, by their authors, to the ear and +feelings of a sympathizing audience, and were then taken up by +professional reciters, called Rhapsodists, who traveled from +place to place, rehearsing them before private companies or at +the public festivals.</p> + +<p class="just">Of the Greek colonists of Asia the Ionians +possessed the highest culture, and with them we find the first +development of Greek poetry. Drawing from the common language a +richer tone and a clearness and graphic power that their +neighbors never equaled, they early unfolded the ancient legends +and genealogies of the race into new and enlarged forms of +poetical beauty. Says DR. C. C. FELTON,[<small>Footnote: +"Lectures on Ancient and Modern Greece," vol. i., p. 78.</small>] +"In Ionia the popular enthusiasm took a poetical turn, and the +genius of that richly gifted race responded nobly to the call. +The poets--singers as they were first called--found in the Orally +transmitted ballads the richest mines of legendary lore, which +they wrought into new forms of rhythmical beauty and splendor. +Instead of short ballads, pieces of great length, with more fully +developed characters and more of dramatic action, were required +by a beauty loving and pleasure seeking race; and the leisure of +peace and the demands of refined luxury furnished the occasion +and the impelling motive to this more extended species of epic +song." From the highly esteemed work of Dr. Felton we transcribe +some observations on the beauties of the Ionian dialect, and on +the poetical taste and ingenuity that finally developed the +immortal epics of Homer:</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>Ionian Language and Culture.</i></p> + +<p class="just">"The Ionian dialect, remoulded from the Asiatic +forms and elements which had traveled through the North and +recrossed the Ægean Sea, under the happy influences of a +serene and beautiful heaven, amid the most varied and lovely +scenery in nature, by a people of manly vigor and exquisite +mental and physical organization--of the keenest susceptibility +to beauty of sound as well as of form, of the most vivid and +creative imagination, combined with a childlike impulsiveness and +simplicity--this Ionian language, so sprung and so nurtured, +attained a descriptive force, a copiousness and harmony, which +made it the most admirable instrument on which poet ever played. +For every mood of mind, every shade of passion, every affection +of the heart, every form and aspect of the outward world, it had +its graphic phrase, its clear, appropriate, and rich expression. +Its pictured words and sentences placed the things described, and +thoughts that breathe, in living form before the reader's eye and +mind. It was vivid, rich, melodious; in its general character +strikingly concrete and objective; a charm to the ear, a delight +to the imagination; copious and infinitely flexible; free and +graceful in movement and structure, having at the beginning +passed over the chords of the lyre, and been modulated by the +living voice of the singer; obeying the impulse of thought and +feeling, rather than the formal principles of grammar.</p> + +<p class="just">"It expressed the passions of robust manhood with +artless and unconscious truth. Its freedom, its voluble +minuteness of delineation, its rapid changes of construction, its +breaks, pauses, significant and sudden transitions, its easy +irregularities, exhibit the intellectual play of national youth; +while in boldness and splendor it meets the demands of highest +invention and the most majestic sweep of the imagination, and +bears the impress of genius in the full strength of its maturity. +Frederic Jacobs says, fancifully yet truly, that 'the language of +Ionia resembles the smooth mirror of a broad and silent lake, +from whose depth a serene sky, with its soft and sunny vault, and +the varied nature along its smiling shores are reflected in +transfigured beauty.' In Ionia, to borrow the expressions of the +same eloquent writer, the mind of man 'enjoyed a life exempt from +drudgery, among fair festivals and solemn assemblies, full of +sensibility and frolic joy, innocent curiosity and childlike +faith. Surrendered to the outer world, and inclined to all that +was attractive by novelty, beauty, and greatness, it was here +that the people listened, with greatest eagerness, to the history +of the men and heroes whose deeds, adventures, and wanderings +filled a former age with their renown, and, when they were echoed +in song, moved to ecstasy the breasts of the hearers.</p> + +<p class="just">"The Ionians had from the beginning a superior +natural endowment for literature and art; and when this most +gifted race came into contact with the antique culture and +boundless commercial wealth of Asia and Africa, the loveliest and +most fragrant flowers of the intellect shot forth in every +direction. Carrying with them the traditions of their race and +the war-songs of their bards to the very scenes where the famous +deeds of their forefathers had been performed, these local +circumstances awakened a fresh interest in the old legends, and +epic poetry took a new start, a bolder character, a loftier +sweep, a wider range. A general expansion of the intellectual +powers and the poetical spirit suddenly took place in the midst +of the new prosperity and the unaccustomed luxuries of the +East--in the midst of the gay and festive life which succeeded +the ages of wandering, toil, hardship, and conflict, like the +Sabbath repose following the weary warfare of the week. The +loveliness of nature on the Ionian shores, and in the isles that +crown the Ægean deep, was soon embellished by the genius of +art. Stately processions, hymns chanted in honor of the gods, +graceful dances before the altars, statues, and shrines, +assemblies for festal or solemn purposes in the open air under +the soft sky of Ionia, or within the halls of princes and +nobles--these fill up the moments of the new and dazzling +existence which the excitable Hellenic race are invited here and +now to enjoy.</p> + +<p class="just">"Their first and deepest want--that which, in the +foregoing periods of their existence, had been the first +supplied--was the longing of the heart, the demand of the +imagination, for poetry and song; and it would have been +surprising if the bright genius of Ionia, under all these +favoring circumstances, had not broken upon the world with a +splendor which outshone all its former achievements. Poets sprang +up, obedient to the call, and a new school of poetical +composition rapidly developed itself, embodying the Hellenic +traditions of the Trojan story, and the legends handed down by +the Trojans themselves. Troops or companies of these +poets--singers, as they were called--were formed, and their +pieces were the delight of the listening multitudes that thronged +around them. At last, among these minstrels who consecrated the +flower of their lives to the service of the Muses, appeared a man +whose genius was to eclipse them all. This man was Homer."</p> + +<br> +<h4>I. HOMER AND HIS POEMS.</h4> + +<p class="just">Not only was Homer the greatest of the poets of +antiquity, but he is generally admitted to be distinguished +before all competitors by a clear and even a vast superiority. +The circumstances of his life are but little known, except that +he was a wandering poet, and, in his later years at least, was +blind. He is supposed to have lived nearly one thousand years +before the Christian era; but, strange as it may seem, nothing is +known, with certainty, of his parentage or his birthplace. +Although he was probably a native of the island of Chi'os, yet +seven Grecian cities contended for the honor of his birth. In +view of this controversy, and of the real doubt that hung over +the subject, the poet ANTIP'ATER, of Sidon, who flourished just +before the Christian era, as if he could not give to his great +predecessor too high an exaltation, attributes his birthplace to +heaven, and he ascribes to the goddess Calli'o-pe, one of the +Muses, who presided over epic poetry and eloquence, the +distinction of being his mother.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">From Col'ophon some deem thee +sprung;<br> + From Smyrna some, and some from Chios;<br> +<i>These</i> noble Sal'amis have sung,<br> + While <i>those</i> proclaim thee born in Ios;<br> +And others cry up Thessaly,<br> +The mother of the Lap'ithæ.<br> +Thus each to Homer has assigned<br> +The birthplace just which suits his mind.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">But if I read the volume right,<br> + By Phoebus to his followers given,<br> +I'd say they're all mistaken quite,<br> + And that his real country's heaven;<br> +While, for his mother, she can be<br> +No other than Calliope.<br> + --<i>Trans.</i> by MERIVALE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The principal works of Homer, and, in fact, the +only ones that have not been declared spurious, are the +<i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i>. The former, as we have seen, +relates some of the circumstances of the closing year of the +Trojan war; and the latter tells the story of the wanderings of +the Grecian prince Ulysses after the fall of Troy. The ancients, +to whom the writings of Homer were so familiar, fully believed +that he was the author of the two great epics attributed to him. +It was left to modern critics to maintain the contrary. In 1795 +Professor F. A. Wolf, of Germany, published his +<i>Prolegomena</i>, or prefatory essay to the <i>Iliad</i>, in +which he advanced the hypothesis that both the <i>Iliad</i> and +the <i>Odyssey</i> were a collection of separate lays by +different authors, for the first time reduced to writing and +formed into the two great poems by the despot Pisis'tratus, of +Athens, and his friends. [<small>Footnote: Nearly all the modern +German writers follow the views of Wolf against the Homeric +authorship of this poem, but among the English critics there is +more diversity of opinion. Colonel Mure, Mr. Gladstone, and +others oppose the German view, while Grote, Professor Geddes, +Professor Mahaffy and others of note adopt it, so far at least as +to believe that Homer was not the sole author of the +poems.</small>] We cannot here enter into the details of the +controversy to which this theory has given rise, nor can we +undertake to say on which side the weight of authority is to be +found. The following extracts well express the views of those who +adhere to the common theory on the subject. PROFESSOR FELTON thus +remarks, in the preface to his edition of the <i>Iliad</i>: "For +my own part I prefer to consider it, as we have received it from +ancient editors, as one poem--the work of one author, and that +author Homer, the first and greatest of minstrels. As I +understand the <i>Iliad</i>, there is a unity of plan, a harmony +of parts, a consistency among the different situations of the +same character, which mark it as the production of one mind; but +of a mind as versatile as the forms of nature, the aspects of +life, and the combinations of powers, propensities, and passions +in man are various."</p> + +<p class="just">On the same subject, the English author and +critic, THOMAS NOON TALFOURD, makes these interesting +observations: "The hypothesis to which the antagonists of Homer's +personality must resort, implies something far more wonderful +than the theory which they impugn. They profess to cherish the +deepest veneration for the genius displayed in the poems. They +agree, also, in the antiquity usually assigned to them, and they +make this genius and this antiquity the arguments to prove that +one man could not have composed them. They suppose, then, that in +a barbarous age, instead of one being marvelously gifted, there +were many: a mighty race of bards, such as the world has never +since seen--a number of miracles instead of one. All experience +is against this opinion. In various periods of the world great +men have arisen, under very different circumstances, to astonish +and delight it; but that the intuitive power should be so +strangely diffused, at any one period, among a great number, who +should leave no successors behind them, is unworthy of credit. +And we are requested to believe this to have occurred in an age +which those who maintain the theory regard as unfavorable to +poetic art! The common theory, independent of other proofs, is +the most probable. Since the early existence of the works cannot +be doubted, it is easier to believe in one than in twenty +Homers."</p> + +<p class="just">Very numerous and varied are the +characterizations of Homer and the writings ascribed to him. +POPE, in his <i>Temple of Fame</i>, pays this tribute to the +ancient bard:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">High on the list the mighty Homer +shone;<br> +Eternal adamant composed his throne;<br> +Father of verse! in holy fillets dressed,<br> +His silver beard waved gently o'er his breast;<br> +Though blind, a boldness in his look appears;<br> +In years he seemed, but not impaired by years.<br> +The wars of Troy were round the pillars seen:<br> +Here fierce Tydi'des wounds the Cyprian queen;<br> +Here Hector, glorious from Patro'clus' fall;<br> +Here, dragged in triumph round the Trojan wall.<br> +Motion and life did every part inspire,<br> +Bold was the work, and proud the master's fire:<br> +A strong expression most he seemed to affect,<br> +And here and there disclosed a brave neglect.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">It is admitted by all that the Homeric characters +are drawn, each in its way, by a master's hand. "The most +pervading merit of the <i>Iliad</i>," says one, "is its fidelity +and vividness as a mirror of man, and of the visible sphere in +which he lived, with its infinitely varied imagery, both actual +and ideal; and the task which the great poet set for himself was +perfectly accomplished." "The mind of Homer," says another, "is +like an Æolian harp, so finely strung that it answers to +the faintest movement of the air by a proportionate vibration. +With every stronger current its music rises along an almost +immeasurable scale, which begins with the lowest and softest +whisper, and ends in the full swell of the organ."</p> + +<p class="just">The "lofty march" of the <i>Iliad</i> is also +often spoken of as characteristic of the style in which that +great epic is written. And yet, as has been said, "though its +versification is always appropriate, and therefore never mean, it +only rises into stateliness, or into a terrible sublimity, when +Homer has occasion to brace his energies for an effort. Thus he +ushers in with true grandeur the marshalling of the Greek army, +in the Second Book, partly by the invocation of the Muses, and +partly by an assemblage of no less than six consecutive similes, +which describe, respectively--1st, the flash of the Greek arms +and the splendor of the Grecian hosts; 2d, the swarming numbers; +3d, the resounding tramp; 4th, the settling down of the ranks as +they form the line; 5th, the busy marshalling by the commanders; +6th, the majesty of the great chief Agamemnon, 'like Mars or +Neptune, such as Jove ordained him, eminent above all his +fellow-chiefs.'"</p> + +<p class="just">These similes are brought in with great effect as +introductory to a catalogue of the ships and forces of the +Greeks; thus pouring, from a single point, a broad stream of +splendor over the whole; and although the enumeration which +follows is only a plain matter of business, it is not without its +poetical embellishment, and is occasionally relieved by short +legends of the countries and noted warriors of the different +tribes. We introduce these striking similes here as marked +characteristics of the art of Homer, from whom, it is little +exaggeration to say, a very large proportion of the similes of +all subsequent writers have been, more or less directly, either +copied or paraphrased.</p> + +<p class="just">When it has been decided to lead the army to +battle, the aged Nestor thus addresses Agamemnon:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Now bid thy heralds sound the loud +alarms,<br> +And call the squadrons sheathed in brazen arms;<br> +Now seize the occasion, now the troops survey,<br> +And lead to war when heaven directs the way."<br> +He said: the monarch issued his commands;<br> +Straight the loud heralds call the gathering bands:<br> +The chiefs enclose their king; the hosts divide,<br> +In tribes and nations ranked on either side.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The appearance of the gathering hosts is then +described in the following</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td colspan="2" align="center"><i>Similes.</i></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td valign="top">(1.) </td> +<td>As on some mountain, through the lofty grove,<br> +The crackling flames ascend, and blaze above;<br> +The fires expanding, as the winds arise,<br> +Shoot their long beams, and kindle half the skies;<br> +So from the polished arms and brazen shields<br> +A gleamy splendor flashed along the fields.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td valign="top">(2.) </td> +<td>Not less their number than the embodied cranes,<br> +Or milk-white swans on A'sius' watery plains,<br> +That, o'er the windings of Ca-ys'ter's springs,<br> +Stretch their long necks, and clap their rustling wings;<br> +Now tower aloft, and course in airy rounds,<br> +Now light with noise; with noise the field resounds.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td valign="top">(3.) </td> +<td>Thus numerous and confused, extending wide,<br> +The legions crowd Scamander's flowery side;<br> +With rushing troops the plains are covered o'er,<br> +And thundering footsteps shake the sounding shore.'</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td valign="top">(4.) </td> +<td>Along the river's level meads they stand,<br> +Thick as in spring the flowers adorn the land,<br> +Or leaves the trees; or thick as insects play,<br> +The wandering nation of a summer's day,<br> +That, drawn by milky streams, at evening hours,<br> +In gathered swarms surround the rural bowers;<br> +From pail to pail with busy murmur run<br> +The gilded legions, glittering in the sun.<br> +So thronged, so close the Grecian squadrons stood<br> +In radiant arms, athirst for Trojan blood.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td valign="top">(5.) </td> +<td>Each leader now his scattered force conjoins<br> +In close array, and forms the deepening lines.<br> +Not with more ease the skilful shepherd swain<br> +Collects his flocks from thousands on the plain.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> </td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td valign="top">(6.) </td> +<td>The king of kings, majestically tall,<br> +Towers o'er his armies, and outshines them all;<br> +Like some proud bull, that round the pastures leads<br> +His subject herds, the monarch of the meads,<br> +Great as the gods, the exalted chief was seen,<br> +His chest like Neptune, and like Mars his mien;<br> +Jove o'er his eyes celestial glories spread,<br> +And dawning conquest played around his head.<br> +--POPE'S <i>Trans.</i> </td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Similes abound on nearly every page of the +<i>Iliad</i>, and they are always appropriate to the subject. We +select from them the following additional specimen, in which the +brightness and number of the fires of the Trojans, in their +encampment, are likened to the moon and stars in their +glory--when, as Cowper translates the fourth line, "not a vapor +streaks the boundless blue."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">As when the moon, refulgent lamp of +night,<br> +O'er heaven's blue azure spreads her sacred light,<br> +When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,<br> +And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;<br> +Around her throne the vivid planets roll,<br> +And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole,<br> +O'er the dark trees a yellow verdure shed,<br> +And tip with silver every mountain head;<br> +Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,<br> +A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;<br> +The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,<br> +Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light;<br> +So many fires before proud Ilion blaze,<br> +And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays.<br> +--<i>Iliad</i>, B. VIII. POPE'S <i>Trans.</i></div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, is said to have +declared of the two great epics of Homer:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Read Homer once, and you can read +no more,<br> +For all books else appear so mean, so poor;<br> +Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read,<br> +And Homer will be all the books you need.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The following characterization, from the pen of +HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, is both true and pleasing:</p> + +<p class="just">"There are many hearts and minds to which one of +these matchless poems will be more delightful than the other; +there are many to which both will give equal pleasure, though of +different kinds; but there can hardly be a person, not utterly +averse to the Muses, who will be quite insensible to the manifold +charms of one or the other. The dramatic action of the +<i>Iliad</i> may command attention where the diffused narrative +of the <i>Odyssey</i> would fail to do so; but how can anyone, +who loves poetry under any shape, help yielding up his soul to +the virtuous siren-singing of Genius and Truth, which is forever +resounding from the pages of either of These marvelous and truly +immortal poems? In the <i>Iliad</i> will be found the sterner +lessons of public justice or public expedience, and the examples +are for statesmen and generals; in the <i>Odyssey</i> we are +taught the maxims of private prudence and individual virtue, and +the instances are applicable to all mankind: in both, Honesty, +Veracity, and Fortitude are commended, and set up for imitation; +in both, Treachery, Falsehood, and Cowardice are condemned, and +exposed for our scorn and avoidance.</p> + +<p class="just">"Born, like the river of Egypt, in secret light, +these poems yet roll on their great collateral streams, wherein a +thousand poets have bathed their sacred heads, and thence drunk +beauty and truth, and all sweet and noble harmonies. Known to no +man is the time or place of their gushing forth from the earth's +bosom, but their course has been among the fields and by the +dwellings of men, and our children now sport on their banks and +quaff their salutary waters. Of all the Greek poetry, I, for one, +have no hesitation in saying that the <i>Iliad</i> and the +<i>Odyssey</i> are the most delightful, and have been the most +instructive works to me; there is a freshness about them both +which never fades, a truth and sweetness which charmed me as a +boy and a youth, and on which, if I attain to it, I count largely +for a soothing recreation in my old age."</p> + +<br> +<h4>II. SOME CAUSES OF GREEK UNITY.</h4> + +<p class="just">The natural causes which tended to unite the +Greeks as a people were a common descent, a common language, and +a common religion. Greek genius led the nation to trace its +origin, where historical memory failed, to fabulous persons +sprung from the earth or the gods; and under the legends of +primitive and heroic ancestors lie the actual migrations and +conquests of rude bands sprung from related or allied tribes. +These poetical tales, accepted throughout Hellas as historical, +convinced the people of a common origin. Thus the Greeks had a +common share in the renown of their ancient heroes, upon whose +achievements or lineage the claims of families to hereditary +authority, and of states to the leadership of confederacies, were +grounded. The pride or the ambition of political rivals led to +the gradual embellishment of these traditions, and ended in +ancestral worship. Thus Attica had a temple to Theseus, the +Ionian hero; the shrine of Æsculapius at Epidau'rus was +famous throughout the classic world; and the exploits of Hercules +were commemorated by the Dorians at the tomb of a Ne'mean king. +When the bard and the playwright clothed these tales in verse, +all Greece hearkened; and when the painter or the sculptor took +these subjects for his skill, all Greece applauded. Thus was +strengthened the national sense of fraternal blood.</p> + +<p class="just">The possession of a common speech is so great a +means of union, that the Romans imposed the Latin tongue on all +public business and official records, even where Greek was the +more familiar language; and the Mediæval Church displayed +her unity by the use of Latin in every bishopric on all occasions +of public worship. A language not only makes the literature +embodied in it the heritage of all who speak it, but it diffuses +among them the subtle genius which has shaped its growth. The +lofty regard in which the Greeks held their own musical and +flexible language is illustrated by an anecdote of Themis'tocles, +who put to death the interpreter of a Persian embassy to Athens +because he dared "to use the Greek tongue to utter the demands of +the barbarian king." From Col'chis to Spain some Grecian dialect +attested the extent and the unity of the Hellenic race.</p> + +<p class="just">The Greek institutions of religion were still +more powerful instruments of unity. It was the genius of a race +destitute of an organized priesthood, and not the fancy of the +poet, which animated nature by personifying its forces. Zeus was +the all-embracing heavens, the father of gods and men; Neptune +presided over the seas; Deme'ter gave the harvest; Juno was the +goddess of reproduction, and Aphrodi'te the patroness of Jove; +while Apollo represented the joy-inspiring orb of day. The same +imagination raised the earth to sentient life by assigning Dryads +to the trees, Naiads to the fountains and brooks, O're-ads to the +hills, Ner'e-ids to the seas, and Satyrs to the fields; and in +this many-sided and devout sympathy with nature the imagination +and reverence of all Greece found expression. But Greek religion +in its temples, its oracles, its games, and its councils, +provided more tangible bonds of union than those of sentiment. +Each city had its tutelary deity, whose temple was usually the +most beautiful building in it, and to which any Greek might have +access to make his offering or prayer. The sacred precincts were +not to be profaned by those who were polluted with unexpiated +crime, nor by blood, nor by the presence of the dead: Hence the +temples of Greece were places of refuge for those who would +escape from private or judicial vengeance. The more famous +oracles of Greece were at Dodo'na, at Delphi, at Lebade'a in +Boeotia, and at Epidaurus in Ar'golis. They were consulted by +those who wished to penetrate the future. To this superstition +the Greeks were greatly addicted, and they allowed the gravest +business to wait for the omens of the diviner. A people thus +disposed demanded and secured unmolested access to the oracle. +The city in whose custody it was must be inviolable, and the +roads thereto unobstructed. The oracle was a national possession, +and its keepers were national servants.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE GRECIAN FESTIVALS.</h5> + +<p class="just">The public games or festivals of the Greeks were +probably of greater efficacy in promoting a spirit of union than +any other outgrowth of the religions sentiment of Greece. The +Greeks exhibited a passionate fondness for festivals and games, +which were occasionally celebrated in every state for the +amusement of the people. These, however, were far less +interesting than the four great public games, sacred to the gods, +which were--the Pythian, at Delphos, sacred to Apollo; the +Isth'mian, at Corinth, to Neptune; the Nemean, at Nemea, to +Hercules; and the Olympic, at Olympia in E'lis, to Jupiter. To +these cities flocked the young and the aged, the private citizen +and the statesman, the trader and the artist, to witness or +engage in the spectacles. The games were open to all citizens who +could prove their Hellenic origin; and prizes were awarded for +the best exhibitions of skill in poetry--and in running, +wrestling, boxing, leaping, pitching the discus, or quoit, +throwing the javelin, and chariot-racing.</p> + +<p class="just">The most important of these games was the +Olympic, though it involved many principles common to the others. +Its origin is obscure; and, though it appears that during the +Heroic Age some Grecian chiefs celebrated their victories in +public games at Olympia, yet it was not until the time of +Lycurgus, in 776 B.C., that the games at Olympia were brought +under certain rules, and performed at certain periods. At that +time they were revived, so to speak, and were celebrated at the +close of every fourth year. From their quadrennial occurrence all +Hellas computed its chronology, the interval that elapsed between +one celebration and the next being called an Olympiad. During the +month that the games continued there was a complete suspension of +all hostilities, to enable every Greek to attend them without +hindrance or danger.</p> + +<p class="just">One of the most popular and celebrated of all the +matches held at these games was chariot-racing, with four horses. +The following description of one of these races is taken from a +tragedy of SOPHOCLES--the <i>Electra</i>--translated by Bulwer. +Orestes, son of Agamemnon, had gained five victories on the first +day of the trial; and on the second, of which the account is here +given, he starts with nine competitors--an Achæan, a +Spartan, two Libyans, an Ætolian, a Magnesian; an +Æ'ni-an, an Athenian, and a Boeotian --and meets his death +in the moment of triumph.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>The Chariot-race, and the Death of +Orestes.</i></p> + +<p>They took their stand where the appointed judges<br> +Had cast their lots and ranged the rival cars.<br> +Rang out the brazen trump! Away they bound!<br> +Cheer the hot steeds and shake the slackened reins;<br> +As with a body the large space is filled<br> +With the huge clangor of the rattling cars;<br> +High whirl aloft the dust-clouds; blent together<br> +Each presses each, and the lash rings, and loud<br> +Snort the wild steeds, and from their fiery breath,<br> +Along their manes, and down the circling wheels,<br> +Scatter the flaking foam.</p> + +<p> Orestes still,<br> +Aye, as he swept around the perilous pillar<br> +Last in the course, wheeled in the rushing axle,<br> +The left rein curbed--that on the outer hand<br> +Flung loose. So on erect the chariots rolled!<br> +Sudden the Ænian's fierce and headlong steeds<br> +Broke from the bit, and, as the seventh time now<br> +The course was circled, on the Libyan car<br> +Dashed their wild fronts: then order changed to ruin;<br> +Car dashed on car; the wide Crissæ'an plain<br> +Was, sea-like, strewn with wrecks: the Athenian saw,<br> +Slackened his speed, and, wheeling round the marge,<br> +Unscathed and skilful, in the midmost space,<br> +Left the wild tumult of that tossing storm.</p> + +<p>Behind, Orestes, hitherto the last,<br> +Had kept back his coursers for the close;<br> +Now one sole rival left--on, on he flew,<br> +And the sharp sound of the impelling scourge<br> +Rang in the keen ears of the flying steeds.<br> +He nears--he reaches--they are side by side;<br> +Now one--now th' other--by a length the victor.<br> +The courses all are past, the wheels erect--<br> +All safe--when, as the hurrying coursers round<br> +The fatal pillar dashed, the wretched boy<br> +Slackened the <i>left</i> rein. On the column's edge<br> +Crashed the frail axle--headlong from the car,<br> +Caught and all mesh'd within the reins, he fell;<br> +And! masterless, the mad steeds raged along!</p> + +<p>Loud from that mighty multitude arose<br> +A shriek--a shout! But yesterday such deeds--<br> +To-day such doom! Now whirled upon the earth,<br> +Now his limbs dashed aloft, they dragged him, those<br> +Wild horses, till, all gory, from the wheels<br> +Released--and no man, not his nearest friends,<br> +Could in that mangled corpse have traced Orestes.<br> +They laid the body on the funeral pyre,<br> +And, while we speak, the Phocian strangers bear,<br> +In a small, brazen, melancholy urn,<br> +That handful of cold ashes to which all<br> +The grandeur of the beautiful hath shrunk.<br> +Within they bore him--in his father's land<br> +To find that heritage, a tomb.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<br> +<br> +</div> + +<p class="just">The Pythian games are said to have been +established in honor of the victory that Apollo gained at Delphi +over the serpent Py'thon, on setting out to erect his temple. +This monster, said to have sprung from the stagnant waters of the +deluge of Deucalion, may have been none other than the +<i>malaria</i> which laid waste the surrounding country, and +which some early benefactor of the race overcame by draining the +marshes; or, perhaps, as the English writer, Dodwell, suggests, +the true explanation of the allegorical fiction is that the +serpent was the river Cephis'sus, which, after the deluge had +overflowed the plains, surrounded Parnassus with its serpentine +involutions, and was at length reduced, by the rays of the +sun-god, within its due limits. The poet OVID gives the following +relation of the fable:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Apollo's Conflict with Python.</i></p> + +<p>From hence the surface of the ground, with mud<br> +And slime besmeared (the refuse of the flood),<br> +Received the rays of heaven, and sucking in<br> +The seeds of heat, new creatures did begin.<br> +Some were of several sorts produced before;<br> +But, of new monsters, earth created more.<br> +Unwillingly, but yet she brought to light<br> +Thee, Python, too, the wondering world to fright,<br> +And the new nations, with so dire a sight,<br> +So monstrous was his bulk; so large a space<br> +Did his vast body and long train embrace;<br> +Whom Phoebus, basking on a bank, espied.<br> +Ere now the god his arrows had not tried<br> +But on the trembling deer or mountain-goat:<br> +At this new quarry he prepares to shoot.</p> + +<p>Though every shaft took place, he spent the store<br> +Of his full quiver; and 'twas long before<br> +The expiring serpent wallowed in his gore.<br> +Then, to preserve the fame of such a deed,<br> +For Python slain he Pythian games decreed,<br> +Where noble youths for mastership should strive--<br> +To quoit, to run, and steeds and chariots drive.<br> +The prize was fame; in witness of renown,<br> +An oaken garland did the victor crown.<br> +The laurel was not yet for triumphs born,<br> +But every green, alike by Phoebus worn,<br> +Did, with promiscuous grace, his flowing locks adorn.<br> + --<i>Metamorphoses. Trans.</i> by DRYDEN.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The victory of Apollo over the Python is +represented by a statue called Apollo Belvedere, perhaps the +greatest existing work of ancient art. It was found in 1503, +among the ruins of ancient Antium, and it derives its name from +its position in the belvedere, or open gallery, of the Vatican at +Rome, where it was placed by Pope Julius II. It shows the +conception which the ancients had of this benign deity, and also +the high degree of perfection to which they had attained in +sculpture. A modern writer gives the following account of it:</p> + +<p class="just">"The statue is of heroic size, and shows the very +perfection of manly beauty. The god stands with the left arm +extended, still holding the bow, while the right hand, which has +just left the string, is near his hip. This right hand and part +of the right arm, as well as the left hand, were wanting in the +statue when found, and were restored by Angelo da Montor'soli, a +pupil of Michael Angelo. The figure is nude; only a short cloak +hangs over the left shoulder. The breast is full and dilated; the +muscles are conspicuous, though not exaggerated; the body seems a +little thin about the hips, but is poised with such singular +grace as to impart to the whole a beauty hardly possessed by any +other statue. The sculptor is not known: many attribute the +statue to He-ge'si-as, the Ephesian, others to Praxit'e-les or +Cal'amis; but its origin and date must remain a matter of +conjecture."</p> + +<p class="just">The following poetical description of this +wonderful statue is given us by THOMSON:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">All conquest-flushed, from +prostrate Python came<br> +The quivered god. In graceful act he stands,<br> +His arm extended with the slackened bow:<br> +Light flows his easy robe, and fair displays<br> +A manly, softened form. The bloom of gods<br> +Seems youthful o'er the bearded cheek to wave;<br> +His features yet heroic ardor warms;<br> +And, sweet subsiding to a native smile,<br> +Mixed with the joy elating conquest gives,<br> +A scattered frown exalts his matchless air.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>THE NATIONAL COUNCILS.</h5> + +<p class="just">While the elements of union we have been +considering produced a decided effect in forming Greek national +character--serving to strengthen, in the mind of the Greek, the +feelings which bound him to his country by keeping alive his +national love and pride, and exerting an important influence over +his physical education and discipline--they possessed little or +no efficacy as a bond of political union--what Greece so much +needed. It was probably a recognition of this need that led, at +an early period, to the formation of national councils, the +primary object of which was the regulation of mutual intercourse +between the several states.</p> + +<p class="just">Of these early councils we have an example in the +several associations known as the Amphicty'o-nes, of which the +only one that approached a national senate received the +distinctive title of the "Amphictyon'ic Council." This is said to +have been instituted by Amphic'tyon, a son of Deucalion, King of +Thessaly; but he was probably a fictitious personage, invented to +account for the origin of the institution attributed to him. The +council is said to have been composed, originally, of deputies +from twelve tribes or nations--two from each tribe. But, as +independent states or cities grew up, each of these also was +entitled to the same representation; and no state, however +powerful, was entitled to more. The council met twice every year; +in the spring at Delphi, and in the autumn at Anthe'la, a village +near Thermopylæ.</p> + +<p class="just">While the objects of this council, so far as they +can be learned, were praiseworthy, and its action tended to +produce the happiest political effects, it was, after all, more +especially a religious association. It had no right of +interference in ordinary wars between the communities represented +in it, and could not turn aside schemes of ambition and conquest, +or subdue the jealousies of rival states. The oath taken by its +members ran thus: "We will not destroy any Amphictyonic town, nor +cut it off from running water in war or peace; if anyone shall do +so, we will march against him and destroy his city. If anyone +shall plunder the property of the god, or shall take treacherous +counsel against the things in his temple at Delphi, we will +punish him with foot, and hand, and voice, and by every means in +our power." Its chief functions, as we see, were to guard the +temple of Delphi and the interests of religion; and it was only +in cases of a violation of these, or under that pretence, that it +could call for the cooperation of all its members. Inefficient as +it had proved to be in many instances, yet Philip of Macedon, by +placing himself at its head, overturned the independence of +Greece; but its use ceased altogether when the Delphic oracle +lost its influence, a considerable time before the reign of +Constantine the Great.</p> + +<p class="just">Aside from the causes already assigned, the want +of political union among the Greeks may be ascribed to a natural +and mutual jealousy, which, in the language of Mr. Thirlwall, +"stifled even the thought of a confederacy" that might have +prevented internal wars and saved Greece from foreign dominion. +This jealousy the institutions to which we have referred could +not remove; and it was heightened by the great diversity of the +forms of government that existed in the Grecian states. As +another writer has well observed, "The independent sovereignty of +each city was a fundamental notion in the Greek mind. The +patriotism of a Greek was confined to his city, and rarely +kindled into any general love for the welfare of Hellas. So +complete was the political division between the Greek cities, +that the citizen of one was an alien and a stranger in the +territory of another. He was not merely debarred from all share +in the government, but he could not acquire property in land or +houses, nor contract a marriage with a native woman, nor sue in +the courts except through the medium of a friendly citizen. The +cities thus repelling each other, the sympathies and feelings of +a Greek became more central in his own."</p> + +<p class="just">In view of these conditions it is not surprising +that Greece never enjoyed political unity; and just here was her +great and suicidal weakness. The Romans reduced various races, in +habitual war with one another and marked by variations of dialect +and customs, into a single government, and kept them there; but +the Greeks, though possessing a common inheritance, a common +language, a common religion, and a common type of character, of +manners, and of aspirations, allowed all these common interests, +that might have created an indissoluble political union, to be +subordinated to mutual jealousies--to an "exclusive patriotism" +that rendered it difficult for them to unite even under +circumstances of common and terrible danger. "It was this +political disunion that always led them to turn their arms +against one another, and eventually subjected them to the power +of Macedon and of Rome."</p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterIV">CHAPTER IV.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>SPARTA, AND THE LEGISLATION OF +LYCURGUS.</b></p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Spread on Eurotas' +bank,<br> +Amid a circle of soft rising hills,<br> +The patient Sparta stood; the sober, hard,<br> +And man-subduing city; which no shape<br> +Of pain could conquer, nor of pleasure charm.<br> +Lycurgus there built, on the solid base<br> +Of equal life, so well a tempered state,<br> +That firm for ages, and unmoved, it stood<br> +The fort of Greece!<br> + --THOMSON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Returning to the Dorians of Peloponnesus, we +find, in early historical times, that Sparta was gradually +acquiring an ascendancy over the other Dorian states, and +extending her dominions throughout the southern portion of the +peninsula. This result was greatly aided by her geographical +position. On a table-land environed by hills, and with arduous +descents to the sea, her natural state was one of great strength, +while her sterile soil promoted frugality, hardihood, and +simplicity among her citizens.</p> + +<p class="just">Some time in the ninth century Polydec'tes, one +of the Spartan kings, died without children, and the reins of +government fell into the hands of his brother Lycurgus, who +became celebrated as the "Spartan law-giver." But Lycurgus soon +resigned the crown to the posthumous son of Polydectes, and went +into voluntary exile. He is said to have visited many foreign +lands, observing their institutions and manners, conversing with +their sages, and employing his time in maturing a plan for +remedying the many disorders which afflicted his native country. +On his return he applied himself to the work of framing a new +Constitution, having first consulted the Delphic oracle, which +assured him that "the Constitution he should establish would be +the most excellent in the world."</p> + +<br> +<h4>I. THE CONSTITUTION OF LYCURGUS.</h4> + +<p class="just">Having enlisted the aid of most of the prominent +citizens, who took up arms to support him, Lycurgus procured the +enactment of a code of laws founded on the institutions of the +Cretan Minos, by which the form of government, the military +discipline of the people, the distribution of property, the +education of the citizens, and the rules of domestic life were to +be established on a new and immutable basis. The account which +Plutarch gives of these regulations asserts that Lycurgus first +established a senate of thirty members, chosen for life, the two +kings being of the number, and that the former shared the power +of the latter. There were also to be assemblies of the people, +who were to have no right to propose any subject of debate, but +were only authorized to ratify or reject what might be proposed +to them by the senate and the kings. Lycurgus next made a +division of the lands, for here he found great inequality +existing, as there were many indigent persons who had no lands, +and the wealth was centered in the hands of a few.</p> + +<p class="just">In order farther to remove inequalities among the +citizens, Lycurgus next attempted to divide the movable property; +but as this measure met with great opposition, he had recourse to +another method for accomplishing the same object. He stopped the +currency of gold and silver coin, and permitted iron money only +to be used; and to a great quantity and weight of this he +assigned but a small value, so that to remove one or two hundred +dollars of this money would require a yoke of oxen. This +regulation is said to have put an end to many kinds of injustice; +for "who," says Plutarch, "would steal or take a bribe; who would +defraud or rob when he could not conceal the booty--when he could +neither be dignified by the possession of it nor be served by its +use?" Unprofitable and superfluous arts were also excluded, trade +with foreign states was abandoned, and luxury, losing its sources +of support, died away of itself.</p> + +<p class="just">Through the efforts of Lycurgus, Sparta was +delivered from the evils of anarchy and misrule, and began a long +period of tranquillity and order. Its progress was mainly due, +however, to that part of the legislation of Lycurgus which +related to the military discipline and education of its citizens. +The position of Sparta, an unfortified city surrounded by +numerous enemies, compelled the Spartans to be a nation of +soldiers. From his birth every Spartan belonged to the state; +sickly and deformed children were destroyed, those only being +thought worthy to live who promised to become useful members of +society. The principal object of Spartan education, therefore, +was to render the Spartan youth expert in manly exercises, hardy, +and courageous; and at seven years of age he began a course of +physical training of great hardship and even torture. Manhood was +not reached until the thirtieth year, and thenceforth, until his +sixtieth year, the Spartan remained under public discipline and +in the service of the state. The women, also, were subjected to a +course of training almost as rigorous as that of the men, and +they took as great an interest in the welfare of their country +and in the success of its arms. "Return, either with your shield +or upon it," was their exhortation to their sons when the latter +were going to battle. The following lines, supposed to be +addressed by a Spartan mother to the dead body of her son, whom +she had slain because he had ingloriously fled from the +battle-field, will illustrate the Spartan idea of patriotic +virtue which was so sedulously instilled into every Spartan:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Deme'trius, when he basely fled the +field,<br> +A Spartan born, his Spartan mother killed;<br> +Then, stretching forth his bloody sword, she cried<br> +(Her teeth fierce gnashing with disdainful pride),<br> +"Fly, cursed offspring, to the shades below,<br> +Where proud Euro'tas shall no longer flow<br> +For timid hinds like thee! Fly, trembling slave,<br> +Abandoned wretch, to Pluto's darkest cave!<br> +For I so vile a monster never bore:<br> +Disowned by Sparta, thou'rt my son no more."<br> + --TYMNÆ'US.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">There were three classes among the population of +Laconia--the Dorians, of Sparta; their serfs, the He'lots; and +the people of the provincial districts. The former, properly +called Spartans, were the ruling caste, who neither employed +themselves in agriculture nor practiced any mechanical art. The +Helots were slaves, who, as is generally believed, on account of +their obstinate resistance in some early wars, and subsequent +conquest, had been reduced to the most degrading servitude. The +people of the provincial districts were a mixed race, composed +partly of strangers who had accompanied the Dorians and aided +them in their conquest, and partly of the old inhabitants of the +country who had submitted to the conquerors. The provincials were +under the control of the Spartan government, in the +administration of which they had no share, and the lands which +they held were tributary to the state; they formed an important +part of the military force of the country, and had little to +complain of but the want of political independence.</p> + +<br> +<h4>II. SPARTAN POETRY AND MUSIC.</h4> + +<p class="just">With all her devotion to the pursuit of arms, the +bard, the sculptor, and the architect found profitable employment +in Sparta. While the Spartans never exhibited many of those +qualities of mind and heart which were cultivated at Athens with +such wonderful success, they were not strangers to the influences +of poetry and music. Says the poet CAMPBELL, "The Spartans used +not the trumpet in their march into battle, because they wished +not to excite the rage of their warriors. Their charging step was +made to the 'Dorian mood of flute and soft recorder.' The valor +of a Spartan was too highly tempered to require a stunning or +rousing impulse. His spirit was like a steed too proud for the +spur."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">They marched not with the trumpet's +blast,<br> + Nor bade the horn peal out,<br> +And the laurel-groves, as on they passed,<br> + Rung with no battle-shout!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">They asked no clarion's voice to +fire<br> + Their souls with an impulse high;<br> +But the Dorian reed and the Spartan lyre<br> + For the sons of liberty!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">And still sweet flutes, their path +around,<br> + Sent forth Eolian breath;<br> +They needed not a sterner sound<br> + To marshal them for death!<br> + --MRS. HEMANS.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">"The songs of the Spartans," says PLUTARCH, "had +a spirit which could rouse the soul, and impel it in an +enthusiastic manner to action. They consisted chiefly of the +praises of heroes that had died for Sparta, or else of +expressions of detestation for such wretches as had declined the +glorious opportunity. Nor did they forget to express an ambition +for glory suitable to their respective ages. Of this it may not +be amiss to give an instance. There were three choirs in their +festivals, corresponding with the three ages of man. The old men +began,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">'Once in battle bold we +shone;'</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p>the young men answered,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">'Try us; our vigor is not +gone;'</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p>and the boys concluded,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">'The palm remains for us +alone.'</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p>Indeed, if we consider with some attention such of the +Lacedæmonian poems as are still extant, and enter into the +spirit of those airs which were played upon the flute when +marching to battle, we must agree that Terpan'der and Pindar have +very fitly joined valor and music together. The former thus +speaks of Lacedæmon:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Then gleams the youth's bright +falchion; then the Muse<br> +Lifts her sweet voice; then awful Justice opes<br> +Her wide pavilion.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p>And Pindar sings,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Then in grave council sits the +sage:<br> +Then burns the youth's resistless rage<br> + To hurl the quiv'ring lance;<br> +The Muse with glory crowns their arms,<br> +And Melody exerts her charms,<br> + And Pleasure leads the dance.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p>Thus we are informed not only of their warlike turn, but of +their skill in music."</p> + +<p class="just">The poet ION, of Chios, gives us the following +elegant description of the power of Sparta:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The town of Sparta is not walled +with words;<br> +But when young A'res falls upon her men,<br> +Then reason rules, and the hand does the deed.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>III. SPARTA'S CONQUESTS.</h4> + +<p class="just">Under the constitution of Lycurgus Sparta began +her career of conquest. Of the death of the great law-giver we +have no reliable account; but it is stated that, having bound the +Spartans to make no change in the laws until his return, he +voluntarily banished himself forever from his country and died in +a foreign land. During a century or more subsequent to the time +of Lycurgus, the Spartans remained at peace with their neighbors; +but jealousies arose between them and the Messe'nians, a people +west of Laconia, which, stimulated by insults and injuries on +both sides, gave rise to the FIRST MESSENIAN WAR, 743 years +before the Christian era. For the first four years the Spartans +made little progress; but in the fifth year of the war a great +battle was fought, and, although its result was indecisive, the +Messenians deemed it prudent to retire to the strongly fortified +mountain of Itho'me. In the eighteenth year of the conflict the +Spartans suffered a severe defeat, and were driven back into +their own territory; but at the close of the twentieth year the +Messenians were obliged to abandon their fortress of Ithome, and +leave their rich fields in the undisturbed possession of their +conquerors. Many of the inhabitants fled into Arcadia and other +friendly territories, while those who remained were treated with +great severity, and reduced to the condition of the Helots.</p> + +<p class="just">The war thus closed developed the warlike spirit +that the institutions of Lycurgus were so well calculated to +encourage; and the Spartans were so stern and unyielding in their +exactions, that they drove the Messenians to revolt thirty-nine +years later, 685 B.C. The Messenians found an able leader in +Aristom'enes, whose valor in the first battle struck fear into +his enemies, and inspired his countrymen with confidence. In this +struggle the Argives, Arcadians, Si-çy-o'nians, and +Pisa'tans aided Messenia, while the Corinthians assisted Sparta. +In alarm the Spartans sought the advice of the Delphic oracle, +and received the mortifying response that they must seek a leader +from the Athenians, between whose country and Laconia there had +been no intercourse for several centuries. Fearing to disobey the +oracle, but reluctant to further the cause of the Spartans, the +Athenians sent to the latter the poet TYRTÆ'US, who had no +distinction as a warrior. His patriotic and martial odes, +however, roused the spirit of the Spartans, and animated them to +new efforts against the foe. He appears as the great hero of +Sparta during the SECOND MESSENIAN WAR, and of his songs that +have come down to us we give the following as a specimen:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">To the field, to the field, gallant +Spartan band,<br> +Worthy sons, like your sires, of our warlike land!<br> +Let each arm be prepared for its part in the fight,<br> +Fix the shield on the left, poise the spear with the right;<br> +Let no care for your lives in your bosoms find place,<br> +No such care knew the heroes of old Spartan race.<br> +[<small>Footnote: Mure's "History of Greek Literature,"<br> +vol. iii., p. 195.</small>]</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">But the Spartans were not immediately successful. +In the first battle that ensued they were defeated with severe +loss; but in the third year of the war the Messenians suffered a +signal defeat, owing to the treachery of Aristoc'rates, the king +of their Arcadian allies, who deserted them in the heat of +battle, and Aristomenes retired to the mountain fortress of Ira. +The war continued, with varying success, seventeen years in all; +throughout the whole of which period Aristomenes distinguished +himself by many noble exploits; but all his efforts to save his +country were ineffectual. A second time Sparta conquered (668 +B.C.), and the yoke appeared to be fixed on Messenia forever. +Thenceforward the growing power of Sparta seemed destined to +undisputed pre-eminence, not only in the Peloponnesus, but +throughout all Greece. Before 600 B.C. Sparta had conquered the +upper valley of the Eurotas from the Arcadians, and, forty years +later, compelled Te'gea, the capital of Arcadia, to acknowledge +her supremacy. Still later, in 524 B.C., a long struggle with the +Argives was terminated in favor of Sparta, and she was now the +most powerful of the Grecian states.</p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterV">CHAPTER V.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>FORMS OF GOVERNMENT, AND CHANGES IN GRECIAN +POLITICS.</b></p> + +<p class="just">Although Greek political writers taught that +there were, primarily, but three forms of government--monarchy, +or the rule of one; aristocracy, that of the few; and democracy, +that of the many--the latter always limited by the Greeks to the +<i>freemen</i>--yet it appears that when anyone of these +degenerated from its supposed legitimate object, the welfare of +the state, it was marked by a peculiar name. Thus a monarchy in +which selfish aims predominated became a tyranny; and in later +Grecian history, such was the prevailing sentiment in opposition +to kingly rule that all kings were called <i>tyrants</i>: an +aristocracy which directed its measures chiefly to the +preservation of its power became an oligarchy; and a democracy +that departed from the civil and political equality which was its +supposed basis, and gave ascendancy to a faction, was sometimes +designated by the term <i>ochlocracy</i>, or the dominion of the +rabble. "A democracy thus corrupted," says THIRLWALL, "exhibited +many features of a tyranny. It was jealous of all who were +eminently distinguished by birth, fortune, or reputation; it +encouraged flatterers and sycophants; was insatiable in its +demands on the property of the rich, and readily listened to +charges which exposed them to death or confiscation. The class +which suffered such oppression, commonly ill satisfied with the +principle of the Constitution itself, was inflamed with the most +furious animosity by the mode in which it was applied, and it +regarded the great mass of its fellow-citizens as its mortal +enemies."</p> + +<p class="just">As in all the Greek states there was a large +class of people not entitled to the full rights of citizenship, +including, among others, persons reduced to slavery as prisoners +of war, and foreign settlers and their descendants, so there was +no such form of government as that which the moderns understand +by a complete democracy. Of a republic also, in the modern +acceptation of the term--that is, a <i>representative</i> +democracy--the Greeks knew nothing. As an American statesman +remarks, "Certain it is that the greatest philosophers among them +would have regarded as something monstrous a <i>republic</i> +spreading over half a continent and embracing twenty-six states, +each of which would have itself been an empire, and not a +<i>commonwealth</i>, in their sense of the +word."[<small>Footnote: Hugh S. Legaré's Writings, vol. +i., p.440.</small>]</p> + +<br> +<h4>I. CHANGES FROM ARISTOCRACIES TO OLIGARCHIES.</h4> + +<p class="just">During several centuries succeeding the period of +the supposed Trojan war, a gradual change occurred in the +political history of the Grecian states, the results of which +were an abandonment of much of the kingly authority that +prevailed through the Heroic Age. At a still later period this +change was followed by the introduction and establishment, at +first, of aristocracies, and, finally, of democratic forms of +government; which latter decided the whole future character of +the public life of the Grecians. The three causes, more prominent +than the rest, that are assigned by most writers for these +changes, and the final adoption of democratic forms, are, first, +the more enlarged views occasioned by the Trojan war, and the +dissensions which followed the return of those engaged in it; +second, the great convulsions that attended the Thessalian, +Boeotian, and Dorian migrations; and, third, the free principles +which intercourse and trade with the Grecian colonies naturally +engendered.</p> + +<p class="just">But of these causes the third tended, more than +any other one, to change the political condition of the Grecians. +Whether the migrations of the Greek colonists were occasioned, as +they generally were, by conquests that drove so many from their +homes to seek an asylum in foreign lands, or were undertaken, as +was the case in some instances, with the consent and +encouragement of the parent states, there was seldom any feeling +of dependence on the one side, and little or no claim of +authority on the other. This was especially the case with the +Ionians, who had scarcely established themselves in Asia Minor +when they shook off the authority of the princes who conducted +them to their new settlements, and established a form of +government more democratic than any which then existed in +Greece.</p> + +<p class="just">With the rapid progress of mercantile industry +and maritime discovery, on which the prosperity of the colonies +depended, a spirit of independence grew up, which erelong exerted +an influence on the parent states of Greece, and encouraged the +growth of free principles there. "Freedom," says an eloquent +author,[<small>Footnote: Heeren, "Polities of Ancient Greece," p. +103.</small>] "ripens in colonies. Ancient usage cannot be +preserved, cannot altogether be renewed, as at home. The former +bonds of attachment to the soil, and ancient customs, are broken +by the voyage; the spirit feels itself to be more free in the new +country; new strength is required for the necessary exertions; +and those exertions are animated by success. When every man lives +by the labor of his hands, equality arises, even if it did not +exist before. Each day is fraught with new experience; the +necessity of common defence is more felt in lands where the new +settlers find ancient inhabitants desirous of being free from +them. Need we wonder, then, if the authority of the founders of +the Grecian colonies, even where it had originally existed, soon +gave way to liberty?"</p> + +<p class="just">But the changes in the political principles of +the Grecian states were necessarily slow, and were usually +attended with domestic quarrels and convulsions. Monarchy, in +most instances, was abolished by first taking away its title, and +substituting that of archon, or chief magistrate, a term less +offensive than that of king; next, by making the office of chief +ruler elective, first in one family, then in more--first for +life, then for a term of years; and, finally, by dividing the +power among several of the nobility, thus forming an aristocracy +or oligarchy. At the time in Grecian history to which we have +come democracy was as yet unknown; but the principal Grecian +states, with the exception of Sparta, which always retained the +kingly form of government, had abolished royalty and substituted +oligarchy. This change did not better the condition of the +people, who, increasing in numbers and intelligence, while the +ruling class declined in numbers and wealth, became conscious of +their resources, and put forward their claims to a representation +in the government.</p> + +<br> +<h4>II. FROM OLIGARCHIES TO DESPOTISMS.</h4> + +<p class="just">The fall of the oligarchies was not accomplished, +however, by the people. "The commonalty," says THIRLWALL, "even +when really superior in strength, could not all at once shake off +the awe with which it was impressed by years of subjection. It +needed a leader to animate, unite, and direct it; and it was +seldom that one capable of inspiring it with confidence could be +found in its own ranks," Hence this leader was generally found in +an ambitions citizen, perhaps a noble or a member of the +oligarchy, who, by artifice and violence, would make himself the +supreme ruler of the state. Under such circumstances the +overthrow of an oligarchy was not a triumph of the people, but +only the triumph of a then popular leader. To such a one was +given the name of <i>tyrant</i>, but not in the sense that we use +the term. HEEREN says, "The Grecians connected with this word the +idea of an illegitimate, but not necessarily of a cruel, +government." As the word therefore signifies simply the +irresponsible rule of a single person, such person may be more +correctly designated by the term <i>despot</i>, or +<i>usurper</i>; although, in point of fact, the government was +frequently of the most cruel and tyrannical character.</p> + +<p class="just">"The merits of this race of rulers," says BULWER, +"and the unconscious benefits they produced, have not been justly +appreciated, either by ancient or modern historians. Without her +tyrants Greece might never have established her democracies. The +wiser and more celebrated tyrants were characterized by an +extreme modesty of deportment: they assumed no extraordinary +pomp, no lofty titles--they left untouched, or rendered yet more +popular, the outward forms and institutions of the +government--they were not exacting in taxation--they affected to +link themselves with the lowest orders and their ascendancy was +usually productive of immediate benefit to the working-classes, +whom they employed in new fortifications or new public +buildings--dazzling the citizens by a splendor that seemed less +the ostentation of an individual than the prosperity of a state. +It was against the aristocracy, not against the people, that they +directed their acute sagacities and unsparing energies. Every +politic tyrant was a Louis the Eleventh, weakening the nobles, +creating a middle class. He effected his former object by violent +and unscrupulous means. He swept away by death or banishment all +who opposed his authority or excited his fears. He thus left +nothing between the state and a democracy but himself; and, +himself removed, democracy naturally and of course +ensued."[<small>Footnote: "Athens: Its Rise and Fall," vol. i., +pp. 148, 149.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">From the middle of the seventh century B.C., and +during a period of over one hundred and fifty years, there were +few Grecian cities that escaped a despotic government. While the +history of Athens affords, perhaps, the most striking example of +it, the longest tyranny in Greece was that in the city of +Si'çyon, which lasted a hundred years under Orthag'orus +and his sons. Their dynasty was founded about 676 B.C., and its +long duration is ascribed to its mildness and moderation. The +last of this dynasty was Clis'thenes, whose daughter became the +mother of the Athenian Clisthenes, the founder of democracy at +Athens on the expulsion of the Pisistrat'idæ. The despots +of Corinth were more celebrated. Their dynasty endured +seventy-four years, having been founded in the year 655. Under +Perian'der, who succeeded to power in 625, and whose government +was cruel and oppressive, Corinth reached her highest prosperity. +His reign lasted upward of forty years, and soon after his death +the dynasty ended, being overpowered by Sparta.</p> + +<p class="just">Across the isthmus from Corinth was the city of +Meg'ara, of which, in 630 B.C., Theag'enes, a bold and ambitious +man, made himself despot. Like many other usurpers of his time, +he adorned the city with splendid and useful buildings. But he +was overthrown after a rule of thirty years, and a violent +struggle then ensued between the oligarchy and the people. At +first the latter were successful; they banished many of the +nobles, and confiscated their property, but the exiles returned, +and by force of arms recovered their power. Still the struggle +continued, and it was not until after many years that an +oligarchical government was firmly established. Much interest is +added to these revolutions in Megara by the writings of +THEOG'NIS, a contemporary poet, and a member of the oligarchical +party. "His writings," says THIRLWALL, "are interesting, not so +much for the historical facts contained in them as for the light +they throw on the character and feelings of the parties which +divided his native city and so many others."</p> + +<p class="just">In the poems of THEOGNIS "his keen sense of his +personal sufferings is almost absorbed in the vehement grief and +indignation with which he contemplates the state of Megara, the +triumph of the <i>bad</i> [his usual term for the people], and +the degradation of the <i>good</i> [the members of the old +aristocracy]." Some of the social changes which the popular +revolution had effected are thus described:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Our commonwealth preserves its +former fame:<br> +Our common people are no more the same.<br> +They that in skins and hides were rudely dressed,<br> +Nor dreamed of law, nor sought to be redressed<br> +By rules of right, but in the days of old<br> +Lived on the land like cattle in the fold,<br> +Are now the <i>Brave</i> and <i>Good</i>; and we, the rest,<br> +Are now the <i>Mean</i> and <i>Bad</i>, though once the +best.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">It appears, also, that some of the aristocracy by +birth had so far forgotten their leading position as to +inter-marry with those who had become possessed of much wealth; +and of this condition of things the poet complains as +follows:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">But in the daily matches that we +make<br> +The price is everything; for money's sake<br> +Men marry--women are in marriage given;<br> +The <i>Bad</i> or <i>Coward</i>, that in wealth has thriven,<br> +May match his offspring with the proudest race:<br> +Thus everything is mixed, noble and base.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The usurpations in Sicyon, Corinth, and Megara +furnish illustrations of what occurred in nearly all of the +Grecian states during the seventh and sixth centuries before the +Christian era. Some of those of a later period will be noticed in +a subsequent chapter.</p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterVI">CHAPTER VI.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>THE EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS.</b></p> + +<h4>I. THE LEGISLATION OF DRACO.</h4> + +<p class="just">As we have already stated, the successive +encroachments on the royal prerogatives that followed the death +of Co'drus, and that finally resulted in the establishment of an +oligarchy, are almost the only events that fill the meager annals +of Athens for several centuries, or down to 683 B.C. "Here, as +elsewhere," says a distinguished historian, "a wonderful +stillness suddenly follows the varied stir of enterprise and +adventure, and the throng of interesting characters that present +themselves to our view in the Heroic Age. Life seems no longer to +offer anything for poetry to celebrate, or for history to +record." The history of Athens, therefore, may be said to begin +with the institution of the nine annual archons in 683 B.C. These +possessed all authority, religious, civil, and military. The +Athenian populace not only enjoyed no political rights, but were +reduced to a condition only a little above servitude; and it +appears to have been owing to the anarchy that arose from the +ruinous extortions of the nobles on the one hand, and the +resistance of the people on the other, that Dra'co, the most +eminent of the nobility, was chosen to prepare the first written +code of laws for the government of the state (624 B.C.).</p> + +<p class="just">Draco prepared his code in conformity to the +spirit and the interest of the ruling class, and the severity of +his laws has made his name proverbial. It has been said of them +that they were written, not in ink, but in blood. He attached the +same penalty to petty thefts as to sacrilege and murder, saying +that the former offences deserved death, and he had no greater +punishment for the latter. Of course, the legislation of Draco +failed to calm the prevailing discontent, and human nature soon +revolted against such legalized butchery. Says an English author, +"The first symptoms in Athens of the political crisis which, as +in other of the Grecian states, marked the transition of power +from the oligarchic to the popular party, now showed itself." +Cy'lon, an Athenian of wealth and good, family, had married the +daughter of Theagenes, the despot of Megara. Encouraged by his +father-in-law's success, he conceived the design of seizing the +Acropolis at the next Olympic festival and making himself master +of Athens. Accordingly, at that time he seized the Acropolis with +a considerable force; but not having the support of the mass of +the people the conspiracy failed, and most of those engaged in it +were put to death.</p> + +<br> +<h4>II. LEGISLATION OF SOLON.</h4> + +<p class="just">The Commonwealth was finally reduced to complete +anarchy, without law, or order, or system in the administration +of justice, when Solon, who was descended from Codrus, was raised +to the office of first magistrate (594 B.C.). Solon was born in +Salamis, about 638 B.C., and his first appearance in public life +at Athens occurred in this wise: A few years prior to the year +600 the Island of Salamis had revolted from Athens to Megara. The +Athenians had repeatedly failed in their attempts to recover it, +and, finally, the odium of defeat was such that a law was passed +forbidding, upon pain of death, any proposition for the renewal +of the enterprise. Indignant at this pusillanimous policy, Solon +devised a plan for rousing his countrymen to action. Having some +poetical talent, he composed a poem on the loss of Salamis, and, +feigning madness in order to evade the penalty of the law, he +rushed into the market-place. PLUTARCH says, "A great number of +people flocking about him there, he got up on the herald's stone, +and sang the elegy which begins thus:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">'Hear and attend; from Salamis I +came<br> +To show your error.'"</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The stratagem was successful: the law was +repealed, an expedition against Salamis was intrusted to the +command of Solon, and in one campaign he drove the Megarians from +the island.</p> + +<p class="just">Solon the poet, orator, and soldier, became the +judicious law-giver, whose fame reached the remotest parts of the +then known world, and whose laws became the basis of those of the +Twelve Tables of Rome. Says an English poet,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Who knows not Solon, last, and +wisest far,<br> +Of those whom Greece, triumphant in the height<br> +Of glory, styled her father? him whose voice<br> +Through Athens hushed the storm of civil wrath;<br> +Taught envious Want and cruel Wealth to join<br> +In friendship, and with sweet compulsion tamed<br> +Minerva's eager people to his laws,<br> +Which their own goddess in his breast inspired?<br> + --AKENSIDE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Having been raised, as stated, to the office of +first archon, Solon was chosen, by the consent or an parties, as +the arbiter of their differences, and invested with full +authority to frame a new Constitution and a new code of laws. He +might easily have perverted this almost unlimited power to +dangerous uses, and his friends urged him to make himself supreme +ruler of Athens. But he told them, "Tyranny is a fair field, but +it has no outlet;" and his stern integrity was proof against all +temptations to swerve from the path of honor and betray the trust +reposed in him.</p> + +<p class="just">The ridicule to which he was exposed for +rejecting a usurper's power he has described as follows</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Nor wisdom's palm, nor deep-laid +policy<br> +Can Solon boast. For when its noblest blessings<br> +Heaven poured into his lap, he spurned them from him;<br> +Where was his sense and spirit when enclosed<br> +He found the choicest prey, nor deigned to draw it?<br> +Who, to command fair Athens but one day,<br> +Would not himself, with all his race, have fallen<br> +Contented on the morrow?</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The grievous exactions of the ruling orders had +already reduced the laboring classes to poverty and abject +dependence; and all whom bad times or casual disasters had +compelled to borrow had been impoverished by the high rates of +interest; while thousands of insolvent debtors had been sold into +slavery, to satisfy the demands of relentless creditors. In this +situation of affairs the most violent or needy demanded a new +distribution of property; while the rich would have held on to +all the fruits of their extortion and tyranny. Pursuing a middle +course between these extremes, Solon relieved the debtor by +reducing the rate of interest and enhancing the value of the +currency: he also relieved the lands of the poor from all +encumbrances; he abolished imprisonment for debt; he restored to +liberty those whom poverty had placed in bondage; and he repealed +all the laws of Draco except those against murder. He next +arranged all the citizens in four classes, according to their +landed property; the first class alone being eligible to the +highest civil offices and the highest commands in the army, while +only a few of the lower offices were open to the second and third +classes. The latter classes, however, were partially relieved +from taxation; but in war they were required to do duty, the one +as cavalry, and the other as heavy-armed infantry.</p> + +<p class="just">Individuals of the fourth class were excluded +from all offices, but in return they were wholly exempt from +taxation; and yet they had a share in the government, for they +were permitted to take part in the popular assemblies, which had +the right of confirming or rejecting new laws, and of electing +the magistrates; and here their votes counted the same as those +of the wealthiest of the nobles. In war they served only as light +troops or manned the fleets. Thus the system of Solon, being +based primarily on property qualifications, provided for all the +freemen; and its aim was to bestow upon the commonalty such a +share in the government as would enable it to protect itself, and +to give to the wealthy what was necessary for retaining their +dignity--throwing the burdens of government on the latter, and +not excluding the former from its benefits.</p> + +<p class="just">Solon retained the magistracy of the nine +archons, but with abridged powers; and, as a guard against +democratical extravagance on the one hand, and a check to undue +assumptions of power on the other, he instituted a Senate of Four +Hundred, and founded or remodeled the court of the Areop'agus. +The Senate consisted of members selected by lot from the first +three classes; but none could be appointed to this honor until +they had undergone a strict examination into their past lives, +characters, and qualifications. The Senate was to be consulted by +the archons in all important matters, and was to prepare all new +laws and regulations, which were to be submitted to the votes of +the assembly of the people. The court of the Areopagus, which +held its sittings on an eminence on the western side of the +Athenian Acropolis, was composed of persons who had held the +office of archon, and was the supreme tribunal in all capital +cases. It exercised, also, a general superintendence over +education, morals, and religion; and it could suspend a +resolution of the public assembly, which it deemed foolish or +unjust, until it had undergone a reconsideration. It was this +court that condemned the philosopher Socrates to death; and +before this same venerable tribunal the apostle Paul, six hundred +years later, made his memorable defence of Christianity.</p> + +<p class="just">Such is a brief outline of the institutions of +Solon, which exhibit a mingling of aristocracy and democracy well +adapted to the character of the age and the circumstances of the +people. They evidently exercised much less control over the +pursuits and domestic habits of individuals than the Spartan +code, but at the same time they show a far greater regard for the +public morals. The success of Solon is well summed up in the +following brief tribute to his virtues and genius, by the poet +THOMSON:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> He built his commonweal<br> +On equity's wide base: by tender laws<br> +A lively people curbing, yet undamped;<br> +Preserving still that quick, peculiar fire,<br> +Whence in the laurelled field of finer arts<br> +And of bold freedom they unequalled shone,<br> +The pride of smiling Greece, and of mankind.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Solon is said to have declared that his laws were +not the best which he could devise, but were the best that the +Athenians could receive. In the following lines we have his own +estimate of the services he rendered in behalf of his distracted +state:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"The force of snow and furious hail +is sent<br> +From swelling clouds that load the firmament.<br> +Thence the loud thunders roar, and lightnings glare<br> +Along the darkness of the troubled air.<br> +Unmoved by storms, old Ocean peaceful sleeps<br> +Till the loud tempest swells the angry deeps.<br> +And thus the State, in full distraction toss'd,<br> +Oft by its noblest citizen is lost;<br> +And oft a people once secure and free,<br> +Their own imprudence dooms to tyranny.<br> +My laws have armed the crowd with useful might,<br> +Have banished honors and unequal right,<br> +Have taught the proud in wealth, and high in place,<br> +To reverence justice and abhor disgrace;<br> +And given to both a shield, their guardian tower,<br> +Against ambition's aims and lawless power."</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>III. THE USURPATION OF PISIS'TRATUS.</h4> + +<p class="just">The legislation of Solon was not followed by the +total extinction of party-spirit, and, while he was absent from +Athens on a visit to Egypt and other Eastern countries, the three +prominent factions in the state renewed their ancient feuds. +Pisistratus, a wealthy kinsman of Solon, who had supported the +measures of the latter by his eloquence and military talents, had +the art to gain the favor of the mass of the people and +constitute himself their leader. AKENSIDE thus happily describes +him as--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The great Pisistratus! that chief +renowned,<br> +Whom Hermes and the Ida'lian queen had trained,<br> +Even from his birth, to every powerful art<br> +Of pleasing and persuading; from whose lips<br> +Flowed eloquence which, like the vows of love,<br> +Could steal away suspicion from the hearts<br> +Of all who listened. Thus, from day to day<br> +He won the general suffrage, and beheld<br> +Each rival overshadowed and depressed<br> +Beneath his ampler state; yet oft complained<br> +As one less kindly treated, who had hoped<br> +To merit favor, but submits perforce<br> +To find another's services preferred,<br> +Nor yet relaxeth aught of faith or zeal.<br> +Then tales were scattered of his envious foes,<br> +Of snares that watched his fame, of daggers aimed<br> +Against his life.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">When his schemes were ripe for execution, +Pisistratus one day drove into the public square of Athens, his +mules and himself disfigured with recent wounds inflicted by his +own hands, but which he induced the multitude to believe had been +received from a band of assassins, whom his enemies, the +nobility, had hired to murder "the friend of the people." Of this +scene the same poet says:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> At last, with +trembling limbs,<br> +His hair diffused and wild, his garments loose,<br> +And stained with blood from self-inflicted wounds,<br> +He burst into the public place, as there,<br> +There only were his refuge; and declared<br> +In broken words, with sighs of deep regret,<br> +The mortal danger he had scarce repelled.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The ruse was successful. An assembly was at once +convoked by his partisans, and the indignant crowd immediately +voted him a guard of fifty citizens to protect his person, +although Solon, who had returned to Athens and was present, +warned them of the pernicious consequences of such a measure.</p> + +<p class="just">Pisistratus soon took advantage of the favor he +had gained, and, arming a large body of his adherents, he threw +off the mask and seized the Acropolis. Solon alone, firm and +undaunted, publicly presented himself in the market-place, and +called upon the people to resist the usurpation.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Solon, with swift +indignant strides<br> +The assembled people seeks; proclaims aloud<br> +It was no time for counsel; in their spears<br> +Lay all their prudence now: the tyrant yet<br> +Was not so firmly seated on his throne,<br> +But that one shock of their united force<br> +Would dash him from the summit of his pride<br> +Headlong and grovelling in the dust.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">But his appeal was in vain, and Pisistratus, +without opposition, made himself master of Athens. The usurper +made no change in the Constitution, and suffered the laws to take +their course. He left Solon undisturbed; and it is said that the +aged patriot, rejecting all offers of favor, went into voluntary +exile, and soon after died at Salamis. Twice was Pisistratus +driven from Athens by a coalition of the opposing factions, but +he regained the sovereignty and succeeded in holding it until his +death (527 B.C.). Although he tightened the reins of government, +he ruled with equity and mildness, and adorned Athens with many +magnificent and useful works, among them the Lyceum, that +subsequently became the famous resort of philosophers and poets. +He is also said to have been the first person in Greece who +collected a library, which he threw open to the public; and to +him posterity is indebted for the collection of Homer's poems. +THIRLWALL says: "On the whole, though we cannot approve of the +steps by which Pisistratus mounted to power, we must own that he +made a princely use of it; and may believe that, though under his +dynasty Athens could never have risen to the greatness she +afterward attained, she was indebted to his rule for a season of +repose, during which she gained much of that strength which she +finally unfolded."</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE TYRANNY AND THE DEATH OF HIP'PIAS.</h5> + +<p class="just">On the death of Pisistratus his sons Hippias, +Hippar'chus, and Thes'salus succeeded to his power, and for some +years trod in his steps and carried out his plans, only taking +care to fill the most important offices with their friends, and +keeping a standing force of foreign mercenaries to secure +themselves from hostile factions and popular outbreaks. After a +joint reign of fourteen years, a conspiracy was formed to free +Attica from their rule, at the head of which were two young +Athenians, Harmo'dius and Aristogi'ton, whose personal resentment +had been provoked by an atrocious insult to the family of the +former. One of the brothers was killed, but the two young +Athenians also lost their lives in the struggle. Hippias, the +elder of the rulers, now became a cruel tyrant, and soon +alienated the affections of the people, who obtained the aid of +the Spartans, and the family of the Pisistratids was driven from +Athens, never to regain its former ascendancy (510 B.C.). Hippias +fled to the court of Artapher'nes, governor of Lydia, then a part +of the Persian dominion of Dari'us, where his intrigues largely +contributed to the opening of a war between Persia and +Greece.</p> + +<p class="just">The names of Harmodius and Aristogiton have been +immortalized by what some writers term "the ignorant or +prejudiced gratitude of the Athenians." DR. ANTHON considers them +cowardly conspirators, entitled to no heroic honors. But, as he +says, statues were erected to them at the public expense; and +when an orator wished to suggest the idea of the highest merit +and of the noblest services to the cause of liberty, he never +failed to remind his hearers of Harmodius and Aristogiton. Their +names never ceased to be repeated with affectionate admiration in +the convivial songs of Athens, which assigned them a place in the +islands of the "blessed," by the side of Achilles and Tydi'des. +From one of the most famous and popular of these songs, by +CALLIS'TRATUS, we give the following verses:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td>Harmodius, hail! Though 'reft of breath,<br> +Thou ne'er shalt feel the stroke of death;<br> +The heroes' happy isles shall be<br> +The bright abode allotted thee.<br> +<pre> + * * * * * +</pre> + +While freedom's name is understood<br> +You shall delight the wise and good;<br> +You dared to set your country free,<br> +And gave her laws equality.</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>IV. THE BIRTH OF DEMOCRACY.</h4> + +<p class="just">On the expulsion of Hippias, Clis'thenes, to whom +Athens was mainly indebted for its liberation from the +Pisistratids, aspired to the political leadership of the state. +But he was opposed by Isag'oras, who was supported by the +nobility. In order to make his cause popular, Clisthenes planned, +and succeeded in executing, a change in the Constitution of +Solon, which gave to the people a greater share in the +government. He divided the people into ten tribes, instead of the +old Ionic four tribes, and these in turn were subdivided into +districts or townships called <i>de'mes</i>. He increased the +powers and duties of the Senate, giving to it five hundred +members, with fifty from each tribe; and he placed the +administration of the military service in the hands of ten +generals, one being taken from each tribe. The reforms of +Clisthenes gave birth to the Athenian democracy. As THIRLWALL +observes, "They had the effect of transforming the commonalty +into a new body, furnished with new organs, and breathing a new +spirit, which was no longer subject to the slightest control from +any influence, save that of wealth and personal qualities, in the +old nobility. The whole frame of the state was reorganized to +correspond with the new division of the country."</p> + +<p class="just">On the application of Isagoras and his party, +Sparta, jealous of the growing strength of Athens, made three +unsuccessful attempts to overthrow the Athenian democracy, and +reinstate Hippias in supreme command. She finally abandoned the +project, as she could find no allies to assist in the enterprise. +"Athens had now entered upon her glorious career. The +institutions of Clisthenes had given her citizens a personal +interest in the welfare and the grandeur of their country, and a +spirit of the warmest patriotism rapidly sprung up among them. +The Persian wars, which followed almost immediately, exhibit a +striking proof of the heroic sacrifices which they were prepared +to make for the liberty and the independence of their state."</p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterVII">CHAPTER VII.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GREEK +COLONIES.</b></p> + +<p class="just">An important part of the history of Greece is +that which embraces the age of Grecian colonization, and the +extension of the commerce of the Greeks to nearly all the coasts +of the Mediterranean. Of the various circumstances that led to +the planting of the Greek colonies, and especially of the Ionic, +Æolian, and Dorian colonies on the coast of Asia Minor and +the islands of the Ægean Sea, we have already spoken. These +latter were ever intimately connected with Greece proper, in +whose general history theirs is embraced; but the cities of +Italy, Sicily, and Cyrena'ica were too far removed from the drama +that was enacted around the shores of the Ægean to be more +than occasionally and temporarily affected by the changing +fortunes of the parent states. A brief notice, therefore, of some +of those distant settlements, that eventually rivaled even Athens +and Sparta in power and resources, cannot be uninteresting, while +it will serve to give more accurate views of the extent and +importance of the field of Grecian history.</p> + +<p class="just">At an early period the shores of Southern Italy +and Sicily were peopled by Greeks; and so numerous and powerful +did the Grecian cities become that the whole were comprised by +Strabo and others under the appellation <i>Magna +Græcia</i>, or Great Greece. The earliest of these distant +settlements appear to have been made at Cu'mæ and +Neap'olis, on the western coast of Italy, about the middle of the +eleventh century. Cumæ was built on a rocky hill washed by +the sea; and the same name is still applied to the ruins that lie +scattered around its base. Some of the most splendid fictions of +Virgil's <i>Æneid</i> relate to the Cumæan Sibyl, +whose supposed cave, hewn out of the solid rock, actually existed +under the city:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">A spacious cave, within its farmost +part,<br> +Was hewed and fashioned by laborious art,<br> +Through the hill's hollow sides; before the place<br> +A hundred doors a hundred entries grace;<br> +As many voices issue, and the sound<br> +Of Sibyl's words as many times rebound.<br> + --<i>Æneid</i> B. VI.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">GROTE says: "The myth of the Sibyl passed from +the Cymæ'ans in Æ'olis, along with the other +circumstances of the tale of Æne'as, to their brethren, the +inhabitants of Cumæ in Italy. In the hollow rock under the +very walls of the town was situated the cavern of the Sibyl; and +in the immediate neighborhood stood the wild woods and dark lake +of Avernus, consecrated to the subterranean gods, and offering an +establishment of priests, with ceremonies evoking the dead, for +purposes of prophecy or for solving doubts and mysteries. It was +here that Grecian imagination localized the Cimme'rians and the +fable of O-dys'seus."[<small>Footnote: The voyage of Ulysses +(Odysseus) to the infernal regions. <i>Odyssey</i>, B. +XI.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">The extraordinary fertility of Sicily was a great +attraction to the Greek colonists. Naxos, on the eastern coast of +the island, was founded about the year 735 B.C.; and in the +following year some Corinthians laid the foundations of Syracuse. +Ge'la, on the western coast of the island, and Messa'na, now +Messï'na, on the strait between Italy and Sicily, were +founded soon after. Agrigen'tum, on the south-western coast, was +founded about a century later, and became celebrated for the +magnificence of its public buildings. Pindar called it "the +fairest of mortal cities," and to The'ron, its ruler from 488 to +472, the poet thus refers in the second Olympic ode:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Come, now, my soul! now draw the +string;<br> +Bend at the mark the bow:<br> +To whom shall now the glorious arrow wing<br> +The praise of mild benignity?<br> +To Agrigentum fly,<br> +Arrow of song, and there thy praise bestow;<br> +For I shall swear an oath: a hundred years are flown,<br> +But the city ne'er has known<br> +A hand more liberal, a more loving heart,<br> +Than, Theron, thine! for such thou art.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Yet wrong hath risen to blast his +praise;<br> +Breath of injustice, breathed from men insane,<br> +Who seek in brawling strain<br> +The echo of his virtues mild to drown,<br> +And with their violent deeds eclipse the days<br> +Of his serene renown.<br> +Unnumbered are the sands of th' ocean shore;<br> +And who shall number o'er<br> +Those joys in others' breasts which Theron's hand hath sown?<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> ELTON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In the mean time the Greek cities Syb'aris, +Croto'na, and Taren'tum had been planted on the south-eastern +coast of Italy, and had rapidly grown to power and opulence. The +territorial dominions of Sybaris and Crotona extended across the +peninsula from sea to sea. The former possessed twenty-five +dependent towns, and ruled over four distinct tribes or nations. +The territories of Crotona were still more extensive. These two +Grecian states were at the maximum of their power about the year +560 B.C.--the time of the accession of Pisistratus at Athens--but +they quarreled with each other, and the result of the contest was +the ruin of Sybaris, in 510 B.C. Tarentum was settled by a colony +of Spartans about the year 707 B.C., soon after the first +Messenian war. No details of its history during the first two +hundred and thirty years of its existence are known to us; but in +the fourth century B.C. the Tar'entines stood foremost among the +Italian Greeks, and they maintained their power down to the time +of Roman supremacy.</p> + +<p class="just">During the first two centuries after the founding +of Naxos, in Sicily, Grecian settlements were extended over the +eastern, southern, and western sides of the island, while Him'era +was the only Grecian town on the northern coast. These two +hundred years were a period of prosperity among the Sicilian +Greeks, who dwelt chiefly in fortified towns, and exercised +authority over the surrounding native population, which gradually +became assimilated in manners, language, and religion to the +higher civilization of the Greeks. "It cannot be doubted," says +GROTE, "that these first two centuries were periods of steady +increase among the Sicilian Greeks, undisturbed by those +distractions and calamities which supervened afterward, and which +led indeed to the extraordinary aggrandizement of some of their +communities, but also to the ruin of several others; moreover, it +seems that the Carthaginians in Sicily gave them no trouble until +the time of Ge'lon. Their position will seem singularly +advantageous, if we consider the extraordinary fertility of the +soil in this fine island, especially near the sea; its capacity +for corn, wine, and oil, the species of cultivation to which the +Greek husbandman had been accustomed under less favorable +circumstances; its abundant fisheries on the coast, so important +in Grecian diet, and continuing undiminished even at the present +day--together with sheep, cattle, hides, wool, and timber from +the native population in the interior."[<small>Footnote: "History +of Greece," vol. iii., p. 367.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">During the sixth century before the Christian era +the Greek cities in Sicily and Southern Italy were among the most +powerful and flourishing that bore the Hellenic name. Ge'la and +Agrigentum, on the south side of Sicily, had then become the most +prominent of the Sicilian governments; and at the beginning of +the fifth century we find Gelon, a despot of the former city, +subjecting other towns to his authority. Finally obtaining +possession of Syracuse, he made it the seat of his empire (485 +B.C.), leaving Gela to be governed by his brother Hi'ero, the +first Sicilian ruler of that name.</p> + +<p class="just">Gelon strengthened the fortifications and greatly +enlarged the limits of Syracuse, while to occupy the enlarged +space he dismantled many of the surrounding towns and transported +their inhabitants to his new capital, which now became not only +the first city in Sicily, but, according to Herodotus, superior +to any other Hellenic power. When, in 480 B.C., a formidable +Carthaginian force under Hamil'-car invaded Sicily at the +instigation of Xerxes, King of Persia, who had overrun Greece +proper and captured Athens, Gelon, at the head of fifty-five +thousand men, engaged the Carthaginians in battle at Himera, and +defeated them with terrible slaughter, Hamilcar himself being +numbered among the slain. The victory at Himera procured for +Sicily immunity from foreign war, while the defeat of Xerxes at +Salamis, on the very same day, dispelled the terrific cloud that +overhung the Greeks in that quarter.</p> + +<p class="just">Syracuse continued a flourishing city for several +centuries later; but the subsequent events of interest in her +history will be related in a later chapter. Another Greek colony +of importance was that of Cyre'ne, on the northern coast of +Africa, between the territories of Egypt and Carthage. It was +founded about 630 B.C., and, having the advantages of a fertile +soil and fine climate, it rapidly grew in wealth and power. For +eight generations it was governed by kings; but about 460 B.C. +royalty was abolished and a democratic government was +established: Cyrene finally fell under the power of the +Carthaginians, and thus remained until Carthage was destroyed by +the Romans. We have mentioned only the most important of the +Grecian colonies, and even the history that we have of these, the +best known, is unconnected and fragmentary.</p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterVIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>PROGRESS OF LITERATURE AND THE ARTS.</b></p> + +<h4>I. THE POEMS OF HE'SIOD.</h4> + +<p class="just">The rapid development of literature and the arts +is one of the most pleasing and striking features of Grecian +history. As one writer has well said, "There was an uninterrupted +progress in the development of the Grecian mind from the earliest +dawn of the history of the people to the downfall of their +political independence; and each succeeding age saw the +production of some of those master-works of genius which have +been the models and the admiration of all subsequent time." The +first period of Grecian literature, ending about 776 B.C., may be +termed the period of epic poetry. Its chief monuments are the +epics of Homer and of Hesiod. The former are essentially heroic, +concerning the deeds of warriors and demi-gods; while the latter +present to us the different phases of domestic life, and are more +of an ethical and religious character. Homer represents the +poetry, or school of poetry, belonging chiefly to Ionia, in Asia +Minor. Of his poems we have already given some account, and, +passing over the minor intervening poets, called <i>Cyclic</i>, +of whose works we have scarcely any knowledge, we will here give +a brief sketch of the poems ascribed to Hesiod.</p> + +<p class="just">Hesiod is the representative of a school of bards +which first developed in Boeotia, and then spread over Phocis and +Euboea. The works purporting to be his, that have come down to +us, are three in number--the <i>Works and Days</i>, the +<i>Theogony</i>, and the <i>Shield of Hercules</i>. The latter, +however, is now generally considered the production of some other +poet. From DR. FELTON we have the following general +characterization of these poems: "Aside from their intrinsic +merit as poetical compositions, these poems are of high value for +the light they throw on the mythological conceptions of those +early times, and for the vivid pictures presented, by the +<i>Works and Days</i>, of the hardships and pleasures of daily +life, the superstitious observances, the homely wisdom of common +experience, and the proverbial philosophy into which that +experience had been wrought. For the truthfulness of the +delineation generally all antiquity vouched; and there is in the +style of expression and tone of thought a racy freshness redolent +of the native soil." Of the poet himself we learn, from his +writings, that he was a native of As'cra, a village at the foot +of Mount Hel'icon, in Boeotia. Of the time of his birth we have +no account, but it is probable that he flourished from half a +century to a century later than Homer. But few incidents of his +life are related, and these he gives us in his works, from which +we learn that be was engaged in pastoral pursuits, and that he +was deprived of the greater part of his inheritance by the +decision of judges whom his brother Per'ses had bribed. This +brother subsequently became much reduced in circumstances, and +applied to Hesiod for relief. The poet assisted him, and then +addressed to him the <i>Works and Days</i>, in which he lays down +certain rules for the regulation and conduct of his life.</p> + +<p class="just">The design of Hesiod, as a prominent writer +observes, was "to communicate to his brother in emphatic +language, and in the order, or it might be the disorder, which +his excited feelings suggested, his opinions or counsels on a +variety of matters of deep interest to both, and to the social +circle in which they moved. The <i>Works and Days</i> may be more +appropriately entitled 'A Letter of Remonstrance or Advice' to a +brother; of remonstrance on the folly of his past conduct, of +advice as to the future. Upon these two fundamental data every +fact, doctrine, and illustration of the poem depends, as +essentially as the plot of the <i>Iliad</i> on the anger of +Achilles." [<small>Footnote: Mure's "Language and Literature of +Ancient Greece," vol. ii., p.384.</small>] The whole work has +been well characterized by another writer as "the most ancient +specimen of didactic poetry, consisting of ethical, political, +and minute economical precepts. It is in a homely and +unimaginative style, but is impressed throughout with a lofty and +solemn feeling, founded on the idea that the gods have ordained +justice among men, have made labor the only road to prosperity, +and have so ordered the year that every work has its appointed +season, the sign of which may be discerned."</p> + +<p class="just">There are three remarkable episodes in the +<i>Works and Days</i>. The first is the tale of Prome'theus, +which is continued in the <i>Theogony</i>; and the second is that +of the Four Ages of Man. Both of these are types of certain +stages or vicissitudes of human destiny. The third episode is a +description of Winter, a poem not so much in keeping with the +spirit of the work, but "one in which there is much fine and +vigorous painting." The following extract from it furnishes a +specimen of the poet's descriptive powers:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Winter.</i></p> + +<p>Beware the January month, beware<br> +Those hurtful days, that keenly-piercing air<br> +Which flays the herds; when icicles are cast<br> +O'er frozen earth, and sheathe the nipping blast.<br> +From courser-breeding Thrace comes rushing forth<br> +O'er the broad sea the whirlwind of the north,<br> +And moves it with his breath: the ocean floods<br> +Heave, and earth bellows through her wild of woods.<br> +Full many an oak of lofty leaf he fells,<br> +And strews with thick-branch'd pines the mountain dells:<br> +He stoops to earth; the crash is heard around;<br> +The depth of forest rolls the roar of sound.<br> +The beasts their cowering tails with trembling fold,<br> +And shrink and shudder at the gusty cold;<br> +Thick is the hairy coat, the shaggy skin,<br> +But that all-chilling breath shall pierce within.<br> +Not his rough hide can then the ox avail;<br> +The long-hair'd goat, defenceless, feels the gale:<br> +Yet vain the north wind's rushing strength to wound<br> +The flock with sheltering fleeces fenced around.<br> +He bows the old man crook'd beneath the storm,<br> +But spares the soft-skinn'd virgin's tender form.<br> +Screened by her mother's roof on wintry nights,<br> +And strange to golden Venus' mystic rites,<br> +The suppling waters of the bath she swims,<br> +With shiny ointment sleeks her dainty limbs;<br> +Within her chamber laid on downy bed,<br> +While winter howls in tempest o'er her head.</p> + +<p> Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet,<br> +Starved 'midst bleak rocks, his desolate retreat;<br> +For now no more the sun, with gleaming ray,<br> +Through seas transparent lights him to his prey.<br> +And now the hornéd and unhornéd kind,<br> +Whose lair is in the wood, sore-famished, grind<br> +Their sounding jaws, and, chilled and quaking, fly<br> +Where oaks the mountain dells embranch on high:<br> +They seek to conch in thickets of the glen,<br> +Or lurk, deep sheltered, in some rocky den.<br> +Like aged men, who, propp'd on crutches, tread<br> +Tottering, with broken strength and stooping head,<br> +So move the beasts of earth, and, creeping low,<br> +Shun the white flakes and dread the drifting snow.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> ELTON.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The <i>Theogony</i> embraces subjects of a higher +order than the <i>Works and Days</i>. "It ascends," says +THIRLWALL, "to the birth of the gods and the origin of nature, +and unfolds the whole order of the world in a series of +genealogies, which personify the beings of every kind contained +in it." A late writer of prominence says that "it was of greater +value to the Greeks than the <i>Works and Days</i>, as it +contained an authorized version of the genealogy of their gods +and heroes--an inspired dictionary of mythology--from which to +deviate was hazardous." [<small>Footnote: "The Greek Poets," by +John Addington Symonds.</small>] This work, however, has not the +poetical merit of the other, although there are some passages in +it of fascinating power and beauty. "The famous passage +describing the Styx," says PROFESSOR MAHAFFY, "shows the poet to +have known and appreciated the wild scenery of the river Styx in +Arcadia; and the description of Sleep and Death, which +immediately precedes it, is likewise of great beauty. The +conflict of the gods and Titans has a splendid crash and thunder +about it, and is far superior in conception, though inferior in +execution, to the battle of the gods in the <i>Iliad</i>." +[<small>Footnote: Mahaffy's "History of Classical Greek +Literature," vol. i., p. 111.</small>] The poems of Hesiod early +became popular with the country population of Greece; but in the +cities, and especially in Sparta, where war was considered the +only worthy pursuit, they were long cast aside for the more +heroic lines of Homer.</p> + +<br> +<h4>II. LYRIC POETRY.</h4> + +<p class="just">From the time of Homer, down to about 560 B.C., +many kinds of composition for which the Greeks were subsequently +distinguished were practically unknown. We are told that the +drama was in its infancy, and that prose writing, although more +or less practiced during this period for purposes of utility or +necessity, was not cultivated as a branch of popular literature. +There was another kind of composition, however, which was carried +to its highest perfection in the last stage of the epic period, +and that was lyric poetry. But of the masterpieces of lyric +poetry only a few fragments remain.</p> + +<br> +<h5>CALLI'NUS.</h5> + +<p class="just">The first representative of this school that we +may mention was Callinus, an Ephesian of the latter part of the +eighth century B.C., to whom the invention of the elegiac +distich, the characteristic form of the Ionian poetry, is +attributed. Among the few fragments from this poet is the +following fine war elegy, occasioned, probably, by a Persian +invasion of Asia Minor:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">How long will ye slumber! when will +ye take heart,<br> + And fear the reproach of your neighbors at hand?<br> +Fie! comrades, to think ye have peace for your part,<br> + While the sword and the arrow are wasting our land!<br> +Shame! Grasp the shield close! cover well the bold breast!<br> + Aloft raise the spear as ye march on the foe!<br> +With no thought of retreat, with no terror confessed,<br> + Hurl your last dart in dying, or strike your last blow.<br> +Oh, 'tis noble and glorious to fight for our all--<br> + For our country, our children, the wife of our love!<br> +Death comes not the sooner; no soldier shall fall<br> + Ere his thread is spun out by the sisters above.<br> +Once to die is man's doom: rush, rush to the fight!<br> + He cannot escape though his blood were Jove's own.<br> +For a while let him cheat the shrill arrow by flight;<br> + Fate will catch him at last in his chamber alone.<br> +Unlamented he dies--unregretted? Not so<br> + When, the tower of his country, in death falls the brave;<br> +Thrice hallowed his name among all, high or low,<br> + As with blessings alive, so with tears in the grave.<br> + --Trans. by H. N. COLERIDGE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">[<small>Footnote: The "sisters" +here alluded to were the<br> +<i>Par'coe</i>, or <i>Fates</i>--three goddesses who presided +over<br> +the destinies of mortals: 1st, Clo'tho, who held the<br> +distaff; 2d, Lach'esis, who spun each one's portion<br> +of the thread of life; and, 3d, At'ropos, who cut off<br> +the thread with her scissors.</small></div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 4em"><small>Clotho and Lachesis, whose +boundless sway,<br> +With Atropos, both men and gods obey. --HESIOD.</small>]</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>ARCHIL'OCHUS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Next in point of time comes Archilochus of +Pa'ros, a satirist who flourished between 714 and 676 B.C. He is +generally considered to be the first Greek poet who wrote in the +Iambic measure; but there are evidences that this measure existed +before his time. This poet was betrothed to the daughter of a +noble of Paros; but the father, probably tempted by the alluring +offers of a richer suitor, forbade the nuptials. Archilochus +thereupon composed so bitter a lampoon upon the family that the +daughters of the nobleman are said to have hanged themselves. +Says SYMONDS, "He made Iambic metre his own, and sharpened it +into a terrible weapon of attack. Each verse he wrote was +polished, and pointed like an arrow-head. Each line was steeped +in the poison of hideous charges against his sweetheart, her +sisters, and her father." [<small>Footnote: "The Greek Poets;" +First Series, p. 108.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">Thenceforth Archilochus led a wandering life, +full of vicissitudes, but replete with evidences of his merit. +"While Hesiod was in the poor and backward parts of central +Greece, modifying with timid hand the tone and style of epic +poetry, without abandoning its form, Archilochus, storm-tossed +amid wealth and poverty, amid commerce and war, amid love and +hate, ever in exile and yet everywhere at home--Archilochus broke +altogether with the traditions of literature, and colonized new +territories with his genius." [<small>Footnote: "Classical Greek +Literature," vol. i., p.157.</small>] He is said to have returned +to Paros a short time before his death, where, on account of a +victory he had won at the Olympic festival, the resentment and +hatred formerly entertained against him were turned into +gratitude and admiration. His death, which occurred on the field +of battle, could not extinguish his fame, and his memory was +celebrated by a festival established by his countrymen, during +which his verses were sung alternately with the poems of Homer. +"Thus," says an old historian, "by a fatality frequently +attending men of genius, he spent a life of misery, and acquired +honor after death. Reproach, ignominy, contempt, poverty, and +persecution were the ordinary companions of his person; +admiration, glory, respect, splendor, and magnificence were the +attendants of his shade." With the exception of Homer, no poet of +classical antiquity acquired so high a celebrity. Among the +Greeks and Romans he was equally esteemed. Cicero classed him +with Sophocles, Pindar, and even Homer; Plato called him the +"wisest of poets;" and Longinus "speaks with rapture of the +torrent of his divine inspiration."</p> + +<br> +<h5>ALC'MAN.</h5> + +<p class="just">Passing over Simonides of Amorgos, who is chiefly +celebrated for a very ungallant but ingenious and smooth satire +on women, and over Tyrtæ'us, whose animating and patriotic +odes, as we have seen, proved the safety of Sparta in one of the +Messenian wars, we come to the first truly lyric poet of +Greece--Alcman-- originally a Lydian slave in a Spartan family, +but emancipated by his master on account of his genius. He +flourished after the second Messenian war, and his poems partake +of the character of this period, which was one of pleasure and +peace. They are chiefly erotic, or amatory, or in celebration of +the enjoyments of social life. He successfully cultivated choral +poetry, and his <i>Parthenia</i>, made up of a variety of +subjects, was composed to be sung by the maidens of Tayge'tus. +"His excellence," says MURE, "appears to have lain in his +descriptive powers. The best, and one of the longest extant +passages of his works is a description of sleep, or rather of +night; a description unsurpassed, perhaps unrivalled, by any +similar passage in the Greek or any other language, and which has +been imitated or paraphrased by many distinguished poets." +[<small>Footnote: "History of Greek Literature," vol. iii., p. +205.</small>] The following is this author's translation of +it:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Now o'er the drowsy earth still +night prevails.<br> +Calm sleep the mountain tops and shady vales,<br> +The rugged cliffs and hollow glens;<br> +The wild beasts slumber in their dens,<br> +The cattle on the hill. Deep in the sea<br> +The countless finny race and monster brood<br> +Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee<br> +Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood<br> +No more with noisy hum of insect rings;<br> +And all the feathered tribes, by gentle sleep subdued,<br> +Roost in the glade and hang their drooping wings.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>ARI'ON AND STESICH'ORUS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Arion, the greater part of whose life was spent +at the court of Periander, despot of Corinth, and Stesichorus, of +Himera, in Sicily, who flourished about 608 B.C., were two Greek +poets especially noted for the improvements they made in choral +poetry. The former invented the wild, irregular, and impetuous +dithyramb, [<small>Footnote: From <i>Dithyrambus</i>, one of the +appellations of Bacchus.</small>] originally a species of lyric +poetry in honor of Bacchus; but of his works there is not a +single fragment extant. The latter's original name was Tis'ias, +and he was called Stesichorus, which signifies a "leader of +choruses." A late historian characterizes him as "the first to +break the monotony of the choral song, which had consisted +previously of nothing more than one uniform stanza, by dividing +it into the Strophe, the Antistrophe, and the Epodus--the turn, +the return, and the rest." PROFESSOR MAHAFFY observes of him as +follows: "Finding the taste for epic recitation decaying, he +undertook to reproduce epic stories in lyric dress, and present +the substance of the old epics in rich and varied metres, and +with the measured movements of a trained chorus. This was a +direct step to the drama, for when anyone member of the chorus +came to stand apart and address the rest of the choir, we have +already the essence of Greek tragedy before us." +[<small>Footnote: "Classical Greek Literature," vol. i., p. +203.</small>] The works of Stesichorus comprised hymns in honor +of the gods and in praise of heroes, love-songs, and songs of +revelry.</p> + +<br> +<h5>ALCÆ'US.</h5> + +<p class="just">Among the lyric poets of Greece some writers +assign the very first place to Alcæus, a native of Lesbos, +who flourished about 610 B.C., and who has been styled the ardent +friend and defender of liberty, more because he talked so well of +patriotism than because of his deeds in its behalf. The poet +AKENSIDE, however, calls him "the Lesbian patriot," and thus +contrasts his style with that of Anac'reon:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Broke from the fetters of his +native land,<br> + Devoting shame and vengeance to her lords,<br> +With louder impulse and a threat'ning hand<br> + The Lesbian patriot smites the sounding chords:<br> + "Ye wretches, ye perfidious train!<br> + Ye cursed of gods and free-born men!<br> +Ye murderers of the laws!<br> + Though now ye glory in your lust,<br> + Though now ye tread the feeble neck in dust,<br> +Yet Time and righteous Jove will judge your dreadful +cause."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The poems of Alcæus were principally war +and drinking songs of great beauty, and it is said that they +furnished to the Latin poet Horace "not only a metrical model, +but also the subject-matter of some of his most beautiful odes." +The poet fought in the war between Athens and Mityle'ne (606 +B.C.), and enjoyed the reputation of being a brave and skilful +warrior, although on one occasion he is said to have fled from +the field of battle leaving his arms behind him. Of his warlike +odes we have a specimen in the following description of the +martial embellishment of his own house:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>The Spoils of War.</i></p> + +<p>Glitters with brass my mansion wide;<br> +The roof is decked on every side,<br> + In martial pride,<br> +With helmets ranged in order bright,<br> +And plumes of horse-hair nodding white,<br> + A gallant sight!<br> +Fit ornament for warrior's brow--<br> +And round the walls in goodly row<br> + Refulgent glow<br> +Stout greaves of brass, like burnished gold,<br> +And corselets there in many a fold<br> + Of linen foiled;<br> +And shields that, in the battle fray,<br> +The routed losers of the day<br> + Have cast away.<br> +Euboean falchions too are seen,<br> +With rich-embroidered belts between<br> + Of dazzling sheen:<br> +And gaudy surcoats piled around,<br> +The spoils of chiefs in war renowned,<br> + May there be found:<br> +These, and all else that here you see,<br> +Are fruits of glorious victory<br> + Achieved by me.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> MERIVALE.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>SAPPHO.</h5> + +<p class="just">Contemporary with Alcæus was the poetess +Sappho, the only female of Greece who ever ranked with the +illustrious poets of the other sex, and whom Alcæus called +"the dark-haired, spotless, sweetly smiling Sappho." Lesbos was +the center of Æolian culture, and Sappho was the center of +a society of Lesbian ladies who applied themselves successfully +to literature. Says SYMONDS: "They formed clubs for the +cultivation of poetry and music. They studied the arts of beauty, +and sought to refine metrical forms and diction. Nor did they +confine themselves to the scientific side of art. Unrestrained by +public opinion, and passionate for the beautiful, they cultivated +their senses and emotions, and indulged their wildest passions." +Sappho devoted her whole genius to the subject of Love, and her +poems express her feelings with great freedom. Hence arose the +charges of a later age, that were made against her character. But +whatever difference of view may exist on this point, there is +only one opinion as to her poetic genius. She was undoubtedly the +greatest erotic poet of antiquity. Plato called her the tenth +Muse, and Solon, hearing one of her poems, prayed that he might +not die until he had committed it to memory. We cannot forbear +introducing the following eloquent characterization of her +writings:</p> + +<p class="just">"Nowhere is a hint whispered that the poetry of +Sappho is aught but perfect. Of all the poets of the world, of +all the illustrious artists of all literatures, Sappho is the one +whose every word has a peculiar and unmistakable perfume, a seal +of absolute perfection and inimitable grace. In her art she was +unerring. Even Archilochus seems commonplace when compared with +her exquisite rarity of phrase. Whether addressing the maidens +whom, even in Elysium, as Horace says, Sappho could not forget, +or embodying the profounder yearnings of an intense soul after +beauty which has never on earth existed, but which inflames the +hearts of noblest poets, robbing the eyes of sleep and giving +them the bitterness of tears to drink--these dazzling +fragments,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">'Which still, like sparkles of +Greek fire,<br> +Burn on through time and ne'er expire,'</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">are the ultimate and finished forms of passionate +utterance--diamonds, topazes, and blazing rubies--in which the +fire of the soul is crystallized forever." [<small>Footnote: +Symond's "Greek Poets," First Series, p. 189.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">It is related that an associate of Sappho once +derided her talents, or stigmatized her poetical labors as +unsuited to her sex and condition. The poetess, burning with +indignation, thus replied to her traducer:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Whenever Death shall seize thy +mortal frame,<br> +Oblivion's pen shall blot thy worthless name;<br> +For thy rude hand ne'er plucked the beauteous rose<br> +That on Pie'ria's sky-clad summit blows:<br> +[Symond's "Greek Poets," First Series, p. 139.]<br> +Thy paltry soul with vilest souls shall go<br> +To Pluto's kingdom--scenes of endless woe;<br> +While I on golden wings ascend to fame,<br> +And leave behind a muse-enamored, deathless name.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The memory of this poetess of Love rouses the +following strain of celebration in ANTIP'ATER of Sidon:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Does Sappho, then, beneath thy +bosom rest,<br> +Æolian earth? that mortal Muse confessed<br> +Inferior only to the choir above,<br> +That foster-child of Venus and of Love;<br> +Warm from whose lips divine Persuasion came,<br> +Greece to delight, and raise the Lesbian name?<br> +O ye, who ever twine the threefold thread,<br> +Ye Fates, why number with the silent dead<br> +That mighty songstress, whose unrivalled powers<br> +Weave for the Muse a crown of deathless flowers?<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> FRANCIS HODGSON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>ANAC'REON.</h5> + +<p class="just">The last lyric poet of this period that we shall +notice was Anacreon, a native of Teos, in Ionia, who flourished +about 530 B.C. He was a voluptuary, who sang beautifully of love, +and wine, and nature, and who has been called the courtier and +laureate of tyrants, in whose society, and especially in that of +Polyc'rates and Hippar'chus, his days were spent. The poet +AKENSIDE thus characterizes him:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">I see Anacreon smile and sing,<br> + His silver tresses breathe perfume;<br> +His cheeks display a second spring,<br> + Of roses taught by wine to bloom.<br> +Away, deceitful cares, away,<br> +And let me listen to his lay;<br> + Let me the wanton pomp enjoy,<br> +While in smooth dance the light-winged hours<br> +Lead round his lyre its patron powers,<br> + Kind laughter and convivial joy.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The following is Cowper's translation of a pretty +little poem by Anacreon on the grasshopper:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Happy songster, perched above,<br> +On the summit of the grove,<br> +Whom a dew-drop cheers to sing<br> +With the freedom of a king,<br> +From thy perch survey the fields,<br> +Where prolific Nature yields<br> +Naught that, willingly as she,<br> +Man surrenders not to thee.<br> +For hostility or hate,<br> +None thy pleasures can create.<br> +Thee it satisfies to sing<br> +Sweetly the return of spring,<br> +Herald of the genial hours,<br> +Harming neither herbs nor flowers.<br> +Therefore man thy voice attends,<br> +Gladly; thou and he are friends.<br> +Nor thy never-ceasing strains<br> +Phoebus and the Muse disdains<br> +As too simple or too long,<br> +For themselves inspire the song.<br> +Earth-born, bloodless; undecaying,<br> +Ever singing, sporting, playing,<br> +What has Nature else to show<br> +Godlike in its kind as thou?</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>III. EARLY GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.</h4> + +<p class="just">We now enter upon a new phase of Greek +literature. While the first use of prose in writing may be +assigned to a date earlier than 700 B.C., it was not until the +early part of the sixth century B.C. that use was made of prose +for literary purposes; and even then prose compositions were +either mythological, or collections of local legends, whether +sacred or profane. The importance and the practical uses of +genuine history were neither known nor suspected until after the +Persian wars. But Grecian philosophy had an earlier dawn, and was +coeval with the poetical compositions of Hesiod, although it was +in the sixth century that it began to be separated from poetry +and religion, and to be cultivated by men who were neither bards, +priests, nor seers. This is the era when the practical maxims and +precepts of the Seven Grecian sages began to be collected by the +chroniclers, and disseminated among the people.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE SEVEN SAGES.</h5> + +<p class="just">Concerning these sages, otherwise called the +"Seven Wise Men of Greece," the accounts are confused and +contradictory, and their names are variously given; but those +most generally admitted to the honor are Solon (the Athenian +legislator); Bias, of Ionia; Chi'lo (Ephor of Sparta); Cleobu'lus +(despot of Lindos, in the Island of Rhodes); Perian'der (despot +of Corinth); Pit'tacus (ruler of Mityle'ne); and Tha'les, of +Mile'tus, in accordance with the following enumeration:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"First Solon, who made the Athenian +laws;<br> +While Chilo, in Sparta, was famed for his saws;<br> +In Miletus did Thales astronomy teach;<br> +Bias used in Prie'ne his morals to preach;<br> +Cleobulus of Lindus was handsome and wise;<br> +Mitylene 'gainst thraldom saw Pittacus rise;<br> +Periander is said to have gained, through his court,<br> +The title that Myson, the Chenian, ought."<br> +[<small>Footnote: It is Plato who says that Periander,<br> +tyrant of Corinth; should give place to Myson.</small>]</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The seven wise men were distinguished for their +witty sayings, many of which have grown into maxims that are in +current use even at the present day. Out of the number the +following seven were inscribed as mottoes, in later days, in the +temple at Delphi: "Know thyself," <i>Solon</i>; "Consider the +end," <i>Chilo</i>; "Suretyship is the forerunner of ruin" (He +that hateth suretyship is sure; <i>Prov.</i> xi. 15), +<i>Thales</i>; "Most men are bad" (There is none that doeth good, +no, not one, <i>Psalm</i> xiv. 3), <i>Bias</i>; "Avoid extremes" +(the golden mean), <i>Cleobulus</i>; "Know thy opportunity" +(Seize time by the forelock), <i>Pittacus</i>; "Nothing is +impossible to industry" (Patience and perseverance overcome +mountains), <i>Periander</i>. GROTE says of the seven sages: +"Their appearance forms an epoch in Grecian history, inasmuch as +they are the first persons who ever acquired an Hellenic +reputation grounded on mental competency apart from poetical +genius or effect--a proof that political and social prudence was +beginning to be appreciated and admired on its own account."</p> + +<p class="just">The eldest school of Greek philosophy, called the +Ionian, was founded by Thales of Miletus, about the middle of the +sixth century B.C. In the investigation of natural causes and +effects he taught, as a distinguishing tenet of his philosophy, +that <i>water</i>, or some other fluid, is the primary element of +all things--a theory which probably arose from observations on +the uses of moisture in the nourishment of animal and vegetable +life. A similar process of reasoning led Anaxim'enes, of Miletus, +half a century later, to substitute <i>air</i> for water; and by +analogous reasoning Heracli'tus, of Ephesus, surnamed "the +naturalist," was led to regard the basis of <i>fire</i> or +<i>flame</i> as the fundamental principle of all things, both +spiritual and material. Diog'enes, the Cretan, was led to regard +the universe as issuing from an intelligent principle--a rational +as well as sensitive soul--but without recognizing any +distinction between mind and matter; while Anaximan'der conceived +the primitive state of the universe to have been a vast chaos or +infinity, containing the elements from which the world was +constructed by inherent or self-moving processes of separation +and combination. This doctrine was revived by Anaxag'oras, an +Ionian, a century later, who combined it with the philosophy of +Diogenes, and taught the existence of one supreme mind.</p> + +<br> +<h5>XENOPH'ANES AND PYTHAG'ORAS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Two widely different schools of philosophy now +arose in the western Greek colonies of lower Italy. Xenophanes, a +native of Ionia, who had fled to E'lea, was the founder of one, +and Pythagoras, of Samos, of the other. The former, known as the +Eleat'ic philosophy, admitted a supreme intelligence, eternal and +incorporeal, pervading all things, and, like the universe itself, +spherical in form. This system was developed in the following +century by Parmen'ides and Zeno, who exercised a great influence +upon the Greek mind. Pythagoras was the first Grecian to assume +the title of philosopher, although he was more of a religious +teacher. Having traveled extensively in the East, he returned to +Samos about 540 B.C.; but, finding the condition of his country, +which was then ruled by the despot Polycrates, unfavorable to the +progress of his doctrines, he moved to Croto'na, in Italy, and +established his school of philosophy there.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> + Pythagoras,<br> +Vexed with the Samian despot's lawless sway<br> +(For tyrants ne'er loved wisdom), crossed the seas,<br> +And found a home on the Hesperian shore,<br> +Time when the Tarquin arched the infant Rome<br> +With vaults, the germ of Cæsar's golden hall.<br> +There, in Crotona's state, he held a school<br> +Of wisdom and of virtue, teaching men<br> +The harmony of aptly portioned powers,<br> +And of well-numbered days: whence, as a god,<br> +Men honored him; and, from his wells refreshed,<br> +The master-builder of pure intellect,<br> +Imperial Plato, piled the palace where<br> +All great, true thoughts have found a home forever.<br> + --J. STUART BLACKIE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Pythagoras made some important discoveries in +geometry, music, and astronomy. The demonstration of the +forty-seventh proposition of Euclid is attributed to him. He also +discovered the chords in music, which led him to conceive that +the planets, striking upon the ether through which they move in +their celestial orbits; produce harmonious sounds, varying +according to the differences of the magnitudes, velocities, and +relative distances of the planets, in a manner corresponding to +the proportion of the notes in a musical scale. Hence the "music +of the spheres." From what can be gathered of the astronomical +doctrine of Pythagoras, it has been inferred that he was +possessed of the true idea of the solar system, which was revived +by Coper'nicus and fully established by Newton. With respect to +God, Pythagoras appears to have taught that he is the universal, +ever-existent mind, the first principle of the universe, the +source and cause of all animal life and motion, in substance +similar to light, in nature like truth, incapable of pain, +invisible, incorruptible, and only to be comprehended by the +mind. His philosophy and teachings are thus pictured by the poet +THOMSON:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Here dwelt the Samian sage; to him +belongs<br> +The brightest witness of recording fame.<br> +He sought Crotona's pure, salubrious air,<br> +And through great Greece his gentle wisdom taught.<br> +His mental eye first launched into the deeps<br> +Of boundless ether; where unnumbered orbs,<br> +Myriads on myriads, through the pathless sky<br> +Unerring roll, and wind their steady way.<br> +There he the full consenting choir beheld;<br> +There first discerned the secret band of love,<br> +The kind attraction, that to central suns<br> +Binds circling earths, and world with world unites.<br> +Instructed thence, he great ideas formed<br> +Of the whole-moving, all-informing God,<br> +The Sun of Beings! beaming unconfined--<br> +Light, life, and love, and ever active power:<br> +Whom naught can image, and who best approves<br> +The silent worship of the moral heart,<br> +That joys in bounteous Heaven and spreads the joy.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Pythagoras also taught the doctrine of the +transmigration of souls, which he probably derived from the +Egyptians; and he professed to preserve a distinct remembrance of +several states of existence through which his soul had passed. It +is related of him that on one occasion, seeing a dog beaten, he +interceded in its behalf, saying, "It is the soul of a friend of +mine, whom I recognize by its voice." It would seem as if the +poet COLERIDGE had at times been dimly conscious of the reality +of this Pythagorean doctrine, for he says:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Oft o'er my brain does that strange +fancy roll<br> + Which makes the present (while the flash doth last)<br> + Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,<br> +Mixed with such feelings as perplex the soul<br> +Self-questioned in her sleep: and some have said<br> + We lived ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">One of our favorite American poets; LOWELL, +indulges in a like fancy in the following lines from that dream, +like, exquisite fantasy, "In the Twilight," found in the +<i>Biglow Papers</i>:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Sometimes a breath floats by +me,<br> + An odor from Dream-land sent,<br> +That makes the ghost seem nigh me<br> + Of a splendor that came and went,<br> +Of a life lived somewhere, I know not<br> + In what diviner sphere--<br> +Of memories that stay not and go not,<br> + Like music once heard by an ear<br> +That cannot forget or reclaim it--<br> +A something so shy, it would shame it<br> + To make it a show--<br> +A something too vague, could I name it,<br> + For others to know,<br> +As if I had lived it or dreamed it,<br> +As if I had acted or schemed it,<br> + Long ago!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">And yet, could I live it over,<br> + This life that stirs in my brain--<br> +Could I be both maiden and lover,<br> +Moon and tide, bee and clover,<br> + As I seem to have been, once again--<br> +Could I but speak and show it,<br> + This pleasure, more sharp than pain,<br> + That baffles and lures me so,<br> +The world should not lack a poet,<br> + Such as it had<br> + In the ages glad<br> + Long ago.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">On the whole, the system of Pythagoras, with many +excellencies, contained some gross absurdities and superstitions, +which were dignified with the name of philosophy, and which +exerted a pernicious influence over the opinions of many +succeeding generations.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE ELEUSIN'IAN MYSTERIES.</h5> + +<p class="just">Closely connected with the public and private +instruction that the philosophers gave in their various systems, +were certain national institutions of a secret character, which +combined the mysteries of both philosophy and religion. The most +celebrated of these, the great festival of Eleusinia, sacred to +Ce'res and Pros'erpine, was observed every fourth year in +different parts of Greece, but more particularly by the people of +Athens every fifth year, at Eleu'sis, in Attica.</p> + +<p class="just">What is known of the rites performed at Eleusis +has been gathered from occasional incidental allusions found in +the pages of nearly all the classical authorities; and although +the penalty of a sudden and ignominious death impended over +anyone who divulged these symbolic ceremonies, yet enough is now +known to describe them with much minuteness of detail. We have +not the space to give that detailed description here, but the +ceremonies occupied nine days, from the 15th to the 23d of +September, inclusive. The first day was that on which the +worshippers merely assembled; the second, that on which they +purified themselves by bathing in the sea; the third, the day of +sacrifices; the fourth, the day of offerings to the goddess; the +fifth, the day of torches, when the multitude roamed over the +meadows at nightfall carrying flambeaus, in imitation of Ceres +searching for her daughter; the sixth, the day of Bacchus, the +god of Vintage; the seventh, the day of athletic pastimes; the +eighth, the day devoted to the lesser mysteries and celestial +revelations; and the ninth, the day of libations.</p> + +<p class="just">The language that Virgil puts into the mouth of +Anchi'ses, in the Sixth Book of the <i>Æneid</i>, is +regarded as a condensed definition of the secrets of Eleusis and +the creed of Pythagoras. The same book, moreover, is believed to +represent several of the scenes of the mysteries. In the +following words the shade of Anchises answers the inquiries of +"his godlike son:"</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Know, first, that heav'n, and +earth's contracted frame,<br> +And flowing waters, and the starry flame,<br> +And both the radiant lights, one common soul<br> +Inspires and feeds--and animates the whole.<br> +This active mind, infused through all the space,<br> +Unites and mingles with the mighty mass.<br> +Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain,<br> +And birds of air, and monsters of the main.<br> +Th' ethereal vigor is in all the same;<br> +And ev'ry soul is fill'd with equal flame--<br> +As much as earthy limbs, and gross allay<br> +Of mortal members subject to decay,<br> +Blunt not the beams of heav'n and edge of day.<br> +From this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts,<br> +Desire and fear by turns possess their hearts,<br> +And grief and joy: nor can the grovelling mind,<br> +In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined,<br> +Assert the native skies, or own its heav'nly kind:<br> +Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains;<br> +But long-contracted filth ev'n in the soul remains.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"The relics of invet'rate vice they +wear<br> +And spots of sin obscene in ev'ry face appear.<br> +For this are various penances enjoin'd;<br> +And some are hung to bleach upon the wind,<br> +Some plunged in waters, others purged in fires,<br> +Till all the dregs are drain'd, and all the rust expires.<br> +All have their ma'nes, and those manes bear:<br> +The few, so cleansed, to these abodes repair,<br> +And breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air.<br> +Then are they happy, when by length of time<br> +The scurf is worn away of each committed crime;<br> +No speck is left of their habitual stains,<br> +But the pure ether of the soul remains.<br> +But, when a thousand rolling years are past<br> +(So long their punishments and penance last),<br> +Whole droves of minds are, by the driving god,<br> +Compell'd to drink the deep Lethe'an flood,<br> +In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares<br> +Of their past labors and their irksome years,<br> +That, unrememb'ring of its former pain,<br> +The soul may suffer mortal flesh again."<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> DRYDEN.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>IV. ARCHITECTURE.</h4> + +<p class="just">In architecture and sculpture Greece stands +pre-eminently above all other nations. The first evidences of the +former art that we discover are in the gigantic walls of Tiryns, +Mycenæ, and other Greek cities, constructed for purposes of +defence in the very earliest periods of Greek history, and +generally known by the name of Cyclo'pean, because supposed by +the early Greeks to have been built by those fabled giants, the +Cyclo'pes.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Ye cliffs of masonry, enormous +piles,<br> + Which no rude censure of familiar time<br> +Nor record of our puny race defiles,<br> + In dateless mystery ye stand sublime,<br> +Memorials of an age of which we see<br> +Only the types in things that once were ye.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Whether ye rest upon some bosky +knoll,<br> + Your feet by ancient myrtles beautified,<br> +Or seem, like fabled dragons, to unroll<br> + Your swarthy grandeurs down a bleak hill-side,<br> +Still on your savage features is a spell<br> +That makes ye half divine, ineffable.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">With joy upon your height I stand +alone,<br> + As on a precipice, or lie within<br> +Your shadow wide, or leap from stone to stone,<br> + Pointing my steps with careful discipline,<br> +And think of those grand limbs whose nerve could bear<br> +These masses to their places in mid-air:</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Of Anakim, and Titans, and of +days<br> + Saturnian, when the spirit of man was knit<br> +So close to Nature that his best essays<br> + At Art were but in all to follow it,<br> +In all--dimension, dignity, degree;<br> +And thus these mighty things were made to be.<br> + --LORD HOUGHTON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">It was in the erection of the temples of the +gods, however, that Grecian architecture had its ornamental +origin, and also made its most rapid progress. The primeval +altar, differing but little from a common hearth, was supplanted +by the wooden habitation of the god, and the latter in turn gave +way to the temple of stone. Then rapidly rose the three famed +orders of architecture --the Doric, the Ionic, and the +Corinthian--the first solemn, massive, and imposing, while the +others exhibit, in their ornamental features, a gradual advance +to perfection.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> First, +unadorned,<br> +And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose;<br> +The Ionic then, with decent matron grace,<br> +Her airy pillar heaved; luxuriant last,<br> +The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath.<br> + --THOMSON,</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Passing over the earlier structures devoted to +purposes of worship, we find at the beginning of the sixth +century several magnificent temples in course of erection. Among +these the most celebrated were the Temple of He'ra (Juno), at +Samos, and the Temple of Ar'temis (Diana), at Ephesus. The order +of architecture adopted in the first was Doric, and in the second +Ionic. Both were built of white marble. The former was 346 feet +in length and 189 feet in breadth; while the latter was 425 feet +long and 220 feet broad. Its columns were 127 in number, and 60 +feet in height; and the blocks of marble composing the +architrave, or chief beams resting immediately on the columns, +were 30 feet in length.</p> + +<br> +<h5>CHER'SIPHRON, AND THE TEMPLE OF DIANA.</h5> + +<p class="just">The great Temple of Diana was commenced under the +supervision of Chersiphron, an architect of Crete, but it +occupied over two hundred years in building. It is related of +Chersiphron that, having erected the jambs of the great door to +the temple, he failed, after repeated efforts, continued for many +days, to bring the massive lintel to its place in line with the +jambs. He finally sank down in despair, and fell asleep. In his +dreams he saw the divine form of the goddess, who assured him +that those who labored for the gods should not go unrewarded. On +awaking he beheld the massive lintel in its proper place, laid +there by the hand of the goddess herself. An American sculptor +and poet relates the incident, and gives its moral in the +following poem:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">When to the utmost we have tasked +our powers,<br> +And Nem'esis still frowns and shakes her head;<br> +When, wearied out and baffled, we confess<br> +Our utter weakness, and the tired hand drops,<br> +And Hope flees from us, and in blank despair<br> +We sink to earth, the face, so stern before,<br> +August will smile--the hand before withdrawn<br> +Reach out the help we vainly pleaded for,<br> +Take up our task, and in a moment do<br> +What all our strength was powerless to achieve.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Unless the gods smile, human toil +is vain.<br> +The crowning blessing of all work is drawn<br> +Not from ourselves, but from the powers above.<br> +And this none better knew than Chersiphron,<br> +When on the plains of Ephesus he reared<br> +The splendid temple built to Artemis.<br> +With patient labor he had placed at last<br> +The solid jambs on either side the door,<br> +And now for many a weary day he strove<br> +With many a plan and many a fresh device,<br> +Still seeking and still failing, on the jambs<br> +Level to lay the lintel's massive weight:<br> +Still it defied him; and, worn out at last,<br> +Along the steps he laid him down at night.<br> +Sleep would not come. With dull distracting pain<br> +The problem hunted through his feverish thoughts,<br> +Till in his dark despair he longed for death,<br> +And threatened his own life with his own hand.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Peace came at last upon him, and he +slept;<br> +And in his sleep, before his dreaming eyes<br> +He saw the form divine of Artemis:<br> +O'er him she bent and smiled, and softly said,<br> +"Live, Chersiphron! Who labor for the gods<br> +The gods reward. Behold, your work is done!"<br> +Then, like a mist that melts into the sky,<br> +She vanished; and awaking, he beheld,<br> +Laid by her hand above the entrance-door,<br> +The ponderous lintel level on the jambs.<br> + --W. W. STORY.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Another celebrated temple of this period was that +of Delphi, which was rebuilt, after its destruction by fire in +548 B.C., at a cost equivalent to more than half a million of +dollars. It was in the Doric style, and was faced with Parian +marble. About the same time the Temple of Olympian Jove was +commenced or restored at Athens by Pisistratus. All the temples +mentioned have nearly disappeared. That of Diana, at Ephesus, was +burned by Heros'tratus, in order to immortalize his name, on the +night that Alexander the Great was born (356 B.C.). It was +subsequently rebuilt with greater magnificence, and enriched by +the genius of Sco'pas, Praxit'eles, Parrha'sius, Apel'les, and +other celebrated sculptors and painters. A few of its columns +support the dome of the Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople, +two of its pillars are in the great church at Pi'sa, and recent +excavations have brought to light portions of its foundation. +Other temples, however, erected as far back as the fourth and +fifth centuries, have more successfully resisted the ravages of +time. Among these are the six, of the Doric order, whose ruins +appear at Selinus, in Sicily; while at Pæstum, in Southern +Italy, are the celebrated ruins of two temples, which, with the +exception of the temple of Corinth, are the most massive examples +of Doric architecture extant. "It was in the larger of these two +temples," says a visitor, "during the moonlight of a troubled +sky, that we experienced the emotions of the awful and sublime, +such as impress a testimony, never to be forgotten, of the power +of art over the affections."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">There, down Salerno's bay,<br> +In deserts far away,<br> +Over whose solitudes<br> +The dread malaria broods,<br> +No labor tills the land--<br> +Only the fierce brigand,<br> +Or shepherd, wan and lean,<br> +O'er the wide plains is seen.<br> +Yet there, a lovely dream,<br> +There Grecian temples gleam,<br> +Whose form and mellowed tone<br> +Rival the Parthenon.<br> +The Sybarite no more<br> +Comes hither to adore,<br> +With perfumed offering,<br> +The ocean god and king.<br> +The deity is fled<br> +Long-since, but, in his stead,<br> +The smiling sea is seen,<br> +The Doric shafts between;<br> +And round the time-worn base<br> +Climb vines of tender grace,<br> +And Pæstum's roses still<br> +The air with fragrance fill.<br> + --CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>V. SCULPTURE.</h4> + +<p class="just">Like architecture, sculpture, or, more properly +speaking, statuary, owed its origin to religion, and was +introduced into Greece from Egypt. With the Egyptians the art +never advanced beyond the types established at its birth; but the +Greeks, led on, as a recent writer well says, "by an intuitive +sense of beauty which was with them almost a religious principle, +aimed at an ideal perfection, and, by making Nature in her most +perfect forms their model, acquired a facility and a power of +representing every class of form unattained by any other people, +and which have rendered the terms Greek and perfection, with +reference to art, almost synonymous." The first specimens of +Greek sculpture were rough, unhewn wooden representations of the +gods. These were followed, a little later, by wooden images +having some resemblance to life, and clothed and decorated with +ornaments of various kinds. While this branch of the art long +remained in a rude state, sculptured figures on architectural +monuments were executed in a superior style as early as the age +of Homer.</p> + +<p class="just">Long before the period of authentic history, +other materials than wood were used in making statues; and as +early as 700 B.C. a statue was executed of Zeus, or Jupiter, in +bronze. The art of soldering metals is attributed to Glaucus of +Chios, about 690 B.C.; while to Rhoe'cus and his son Theodo'rus, +of Samos, is ascribed the invention of modeling and casting +figures of bronze in a mould. The use of marble, also, for +statues, was introduced in the early part of the sixth century by +Dipoe'nus and Scyl'lis of Crete, who are the first artists +celebrated for works in this material. But, while these +improvements were important, they did not necessarily involve any +change in <i>style</i>; and it was the removal of the restraints +imposed by religion and hereditary cultivation that laid the +foundation for the rapid progress of the art and its subsequent +perfection. These changes, and the results produced by them, are +well summed up in the following extract from THIRLWALL:</p> + +<p class="just">"The principal cause of the progress of sculpture +was the enlargement which it experienced in the range of its +subjects, and the consequent multiplicity of its productions. As +long as statues were confined to the interior of the temples, and +no more were seen in each sanctuary than the idol of its worship, +there was little room and motive for innovation; and, on the +other hand, there were strong inducements for adhering to the +practice of antiquity. But, insensibly, piety or ostentation +began to fill the temples with groups of gods and heroes, +strangers to the place, and guests of the power who was properly +invoked there. The deep recesses of their pediments were peopled +with colossal forms, exhibiting some legendary scene appropriate +to the place or the occasion of the building. The custom of +honoring the victors at the public games with a statue--an honor +afterward extended to other distinguished persons--contributed, +perhaps, still more to the same effect; for, whatever restraints +may have been imposed on the artists in the representation of +sacred subjects, either by usage or by a religious scruple, these +were removed when the artists were employed in exhibiting the +images of mere mortals. As the field of the art was widened to +embrace new objects, the number of masters increased; they were +no longer limited, where this had before been the case, to +families or guilds; their industry was sharpened by a more active +competition and by richer rewards. As the study of nature became +more earnest, the sense of beauty grew quicker and steadier; and +so rapid was the march of the art, that the last vestiges of the +arbitrary forms which had been hallowed by time or religion had +not yet everywhere disappeared when the final union of truth and +beauty, which we sometimes endeavor to express by the term +<i>ideal</i>, was accomplished in the school of Phid'ias." +[<small>Footnote: Thirlwall's "History of Greece," vol. i., p. +206.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">We cannot attempt to give here the names of the +masters of sculpture who flourished prior to 500 B.C., or trace +the still extant remains of their genius; but their works were +numerous, and the beauty and grandeur of many of them caused them +to be highly valued in all succeeding ages. In fact, before the +Persian wars had commenced, the branch of sculpture termed +statuary had attained nearly the summit of its perfection.</p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterIX">CHAPTER IX.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>THE PERSIAN WARS.</b></p> + +<p class="just">Returning now to the political and military +history of Greece, we find that, about the year 550 B.C., the +independence of the Grecian colonies on the coast of Asia Minor +was crushed by Croe'sus, King of Lydia, who conquered their +territories. Thus the Asiatic Greeks became subject to a +barbarian power; but Croesus ruled them with great mildness, +leaving their political institutions undisturbed, and requiring +of them little more than the payment of a moderate tribute. A few +years later they experienced a change of masters, and, together +with Lydia, fell by conquest under the dominion of Persia, of +which Cyrus the elder was then king. Under Darius Hystas'pes, the +second king after Cyrus, the Persian empire attained its greatest +extent-- embracing, in Asia, all that at a later period was +contained in Persia proper and Turkey; in Africa taking in Egypt +as far as Nubia, and the coast of the Mediterranean as far as +Barca; thus stretching from the Ægean Sea to the Indus, and +from the plains of Tartary to the cataracts of the Nile. Such was +the empire against whose united strength a few Grecian +communities were soon to contend for the preservation of their +very name and existence.</p> + +<br> +<h4>I. THE IONIC REVOLT.</h4> + +<p class="just">Like the Lydians, the Persians ruled the Greek +colonies with a degree of moderation, and permitted them to +retain their own form of government by paying tribute; yet the +Greeks seized every opportunity to deliver themselves from this +species of thraldom, and in 502 B.C. an insurrection broke out in +one of the Ionian states, which soon assumed a formidable +character. Before the Persians could collect sufficient forces to +quell the revolt, the Ionians sought the aid of their Grecian +countrymen, making application first to Sparta, but in vain, and +then to Athens and the islands of the Ægean Sea. The +Athenians, regarding Darius as an avowed enemy, gladly took part +with the Ionians, and, in connection with Euboe'a, furnished them +a fleet of twenty-five vessels. The allied Grecians, though at +first successful, were defeated near Ephesus with great loss. +Their commanders then quarreled, and the Athenians sailed for +home, leaving the Asiatic Greeks (divided among themselves) to +contend alone against the whole power of Persia. Still, the +revolt attained to considerable proportions, and was protracted +during a period of six years. It was terminated by the capture of +Miletus, the capital of the Ionian Confederacy, in 495 B.C. The +inhabitants of this city who escaped the sword were carried into +captivity by the conquerors, and the subjugation of Ionia was +complete.</p> + +<p class="just">The principal achievement of the allied Grecians +during this war was the burning of Sardis, the capital of the old +Lydian monarchy. When Darius was informed of it he burst into a +paroxysm of rage, directing his wrath chiefly against the +Athenians and Euboeans who had dared to invade his dominions. +"The Athenians!" he exclaimed, "who are <i>they</i>?" Upon being +told, he took his bow and shot an arrow high into the air, +saying, "Grant me, Jove, to take vengeance upon the Athenians." +He also charged one of his attendants to call aloud to him thrice +every day at dinner, "Sire, remember the Athenians!" As soon, +therefore, as Darius had satisfied his vengeance against the +Greek cities and islands of Asia, he turned his attention to the +Athenians and Euboeans, in pursuance of his vow. He meditated, +however, nothing less than the conquest of all Greece; but the +Persian fleet that was to aid in carrying out his plans was +checked in its progress, off Mount Athos, by a storm so violent +that it is said to have destroyed three hundred vessels and over +twenty thousand lives; and his son-in-law, Mardo'nius, who had +entered Thrace and Macedon at the head of a large army, abruptly +terminated his campaign and recrossed the Hellespont to Asia.</p> + +<br> +<h4>II. THE FIRST PERSIAN WAR.</h4> + +<p class="just">Darius, having renewed his preparations for the +conquest of Greece, sent heralds through the Grecian cities, +demanding earth and water as tokens of submission. Some of the +smaller states, intimidated by his power, submitted; but Athens +and Sparta haughtily rejected the demands of the Eastern monarch, +and put his heralds to death with cruel mockery, throwing one +into a pit and another into a well, and bidding them take thence +their earth and water.</p> + +<p class="just">In the spring of 490 B.C. a Persian fleet of six +hundred ships, conveying an army of 120,000 men, and guided by +the aged tyrant Hippias, directed its course toward the shores of +Greece. Several islands of the Ægean submitted without a +struggle. Euboea was severely punished; and with but little +opposition the Persian host landed and advanced to the plains of +Marathon, within twenty miles of Athens. The Athenians called on +the Platæans and the Spartans for aid, and the former sent +their entire force of one thousand men; but the Spartans refused +to give the much-needed help, because it lacked a few days of the +full moon, and it was contrary to their religious customs to +begin a march during this interval. Meantime the Athenians had +marched to Marathon, and were encamped on the hills that +surrounded the plain. Their army numbered ten thousand men, and +was commanded by Callim'achus, the Pol'emarch or third Archon, +and ten generals, among whom were Milti'ades, Themis'tocles, and +Aristi'des, who subsequently acquired immortal fame. Five of the +ten generals were afraid to hazard a battle without the aid of +the Spartans; but the arguments of Miltiades finally prevailed +upon Callimachus to give his casting vote in favor of immediate +action. Although the ten generals were to command the whole army +successively, each for one day, it was agreed to invest Miltiades +with the command at once, and intrust to his military skill the +fortunes of Athens. He immediately drew up the little army in +order of battle.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.</h5> + +<p class="just">The Persians were extended in a line across the +middle of the plain, having their best troops in the center, +while their fleet was ranged behind them along the beach. The +Athenians were drawn up in a line opposite, but having their main +strength in the extreme wings of their army. Miltiades quickly +advanced his force across the mile of plain that separated it +from the foe, and fell upon the immense army of the Persians. As +he had foreseen, the center of his line was soon broken, while +the extremities of the enemy's line, made up of motley and +undisciplined bands of all nations, were routed and driven toward +the shore, and into the adjoining morasses. Miltiades now hastily +concentrated his two wings and directed their united force +against the Persian center, which, deeming itself victorious, was +taken completely by surprise. The Persians, defeated, fled in +disorder to their ships, but many perished in the marshes; the +shore was strewn with their dead, and seven of their ships were +destroyed. Their loss was six thousand four hundred; that of the +Athenians, not including the Platæans, only one hundred and +ninety two. Such, in brief, was the famous battle of Marathon. +The Persians were strong in the terror of their name, and in the +renown of their conquests; and it required a most heroic +resolution in the Athenians to face a danger that they had not +yet learned to despise.</p> + +<br> +<h5>LEGENDS OF THE BATTLE.</h5> + +<p class="just">The victory at Marathon was viewed by the people +as a deliverance by the gods themselves. It is fabled that before +the battle the voice of the god Pan was heard in the mountains, +uttering warnings and threatenings to the Persians, and inspiring +the Greeks with courage. Hence the wonderful legends of the +battle, in which Theseus, Hercules, and other local heroes are +represented as engaging in the combat, and dealing death among +the flying barbarians. In the following lines MRS. HEMANS has +embraced the description which the Greeks gave of the appearance +and deeds of Theseus on that occasion:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">There was one, a leader +crowned,<br> + And armed for Greece that day;<br> +But the falchions made no sound<br> + On his gleaming war array.<br> +In the battle's front he stood,<br> + With his tall and shadowy crest;<br> +But the arrows drew no blood,<br> + Though their path was through his vest.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">His sword was seen to flash<br> + Where the boldest deeds were done;<br> +But it smote without a clash;<br> + The stroke was heard by none!<br> +His voice was not of those<br> + Who swelled the rolling blast,<br> +And his steps fell hushed like snows--<br> + 'Twas the shade of Theseus passed!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Far sweeping through the foe<br> + With a fiery charge he bore;<br> +And the Mede left many a bow<br> + On the sounding ocean-shore.<br> +And the foaming waves grew red,<br> + And the sails were crowded fast,<br> +When the sons of Asia fled,<br> + As the shade of Theseus passed!<br> + When banners caught the breeze,<br> + When helms in sunlight shone,<br> + When masts were on the seas,<br> + And spears on Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">It is said that to this day the peasant believes +the field of Marathon to be haunted with spectral warriors, whose +shouts are heard at midnight, borne on the wind, and rising above +the din of battle. Viewed in the light of such legends, the +following poem on Marathon, by PROFESSOR BLACKIE, is full of +interest and poetic beauty:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">From Pentel'icus' pine-clad +height<br> +[<small>Footnote: <i>Pentelicus</i> overhangs the south side of +the plain of<br> +Marathon.</small>]<br> + A voice of warning came,<br> +That shook the silent autumn night<br> + With fear to Media's name.<br> +[<small>Footnote: After the absorption of the Median kingdom into +that<br> +of Persia, the terms <i>Mede</i> and <i>Persian</i> were +interchangeably used,<br> +with little distinction.</small>]<br> +Pan, from his Marathonian cave,<br> +[<small>Footnote: <i>Pan</i> was said to have a famous cave near +Marathon. For<br> +the somewhat prominent part which Pan played in the great +Persian<br> +war, see Herodotus, vi. p.105.</small>]<br> + Sent screams of midnight terror.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">And darkling horror curled the +wave<br> + On the broad sea's moonlit mirror.<br> + Woe, Persia, woe! thou liest low--low!<br> + Let the golden palaces groan!<br> + Ye mothers weep for sons that shall sleep<br> + In gore on Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Where Indus and Hydaspes roll,<br> + Where treeless deserts glow,<br> +Where Scythians roam beneath the pole,<br> + O'er hills of hardened snow,<br> +The great Darius rules: and now,<br> + Thou little Greece, to thee<br> +He comes: thou thin-soiled Athens, how<br> + Shalt thou dare to be free?<br> + There is a God that wields the rod<br> + Above: by him alone<br> + The Greek shall be free, when the Mede shall flee<br> + In shame from Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">He comes; and o'er the bright +Ægean,<br> + Where his masted army came,<br> +The subject isles uplift the pæan<br> + Of glory to his name.<br> +Strong Naxos, strong Ere'tria yield;<br> + His captains near the shore<br> +Of Marathon's fair and fateful field,<br> + Where a tyrant marched before.<br> + And a traitor guide, the sea beside,<br> + Now marks the land for his own,<br> + Where the marshes red shall soon be the bed<br> + Of the Mede in Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Who shall number the host of the +Mede?<br> + Their high-tiered galleys ride,<br> +Like locust-bands with darkening speed,<br> + Across the groaning tide.<br> +Who shall tell the many hoofed tramp<br> + That shakes the dusty plain?<br> +Where the pride of his horse is the strength of his camp,<br> + Shall the Mede forget to gain?<br> + O fair is the pride of the cohorts that ride,<br> + To the eye of the morning shown!<br> + But a god in the sky hath doomed them to lie<br> + In dust on Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Dauntless, beside the sounding +sea,<br> + The Athenian men reveal<br> +Their steady strength. That they are free<br> + They know; and inly feel<br> +Their high election, on that day,<br> + In foremost fight to stand,<br> +And dash the enslaving yoke away<br> + From all the Grecian land.<br> + Their praise shall sound the world around,<br> + Who shook the Persian throne,<br> + When the shout of the free travelled over the sea<br> + From famous Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">From dark Cithæ'ron's sacred +slope<br> + The small Platæan band<br> +Bring hearts that swell with patriot hope,<br> + To wield a common brand<br> +With Theseus' sons, at danger's gates,<br> + While spellbound Sparta stands,<br> +And for the pale moon's changes waits<br> + With stiff and stolid hands;<br> + And hath no share in the glory rare,<br> + That Athens shall make her own,<br> + When the long-haired Mede with fearful speed<br> + Falls back from Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"On, sons of the Greeks!" the +war-cry rolls;<br> + "The land that gave you birth,<br> +Your wives, and all the dearest souls<br> + That circle round each hearth;<br> +The shrines upon a thousand hills,<br> + The memory of your sires,<br> +Nerve now with brass your resolute wills,<br> + And fan your valorous fires!"<br> + And on like a wave came the rush of the brave--<br> + "Ye sons of the Greeks, on, on!"<br> + And the Mede stepped back from the eager attack<br> + Of the Greek in Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Hear'st thou the rattling of spears +on the right?<br> + Seest thou the gleam in the sky?<br> +The gods come to aid the Greeks in the fight,<br> + And the favoring heroes are nigh.<br> +The lion's hide I see in the sky,<br> + And the knotted club so fell,<br> +And kingly Theseus's conquering eye,<br> + And Maca'ria, nymph of the well.<br> +[<small>Footnote: The nymph <i>Macaria</i>, daughter of Hercules, +was said<br> +to have a fountain on the field of Marathon. There is a well<br> +near the north end of the plain, where the fountain is +supposed<br> +to have been.</small>]<br> + Purely, purely, the fount did flow,<br> + When the morn's first radiance shone;<br> + But eve shall know the crimson flow<br> + Of its wave, by Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">On, son of Cimon, bravely on!<br> +[<small>Footnote: Milti'ades, the general in command, whose +father's<br> +name was Cimon.</small>]<br> + And Aristides the just!<br> +Your names have made the field your own,<br> + Your foes are in the dust!<br> +The Lydian satrap spurs his steed,<br> + The Persian's bow is broken:<br> +His purple pales; the vanquished Mede<br> + Beholds the angry token<br> + Of thundering Jove, who rules above;<br> + And the bubbling marshes moan<br> +[<small>Footnote: There are two extensive marshes on the plain +of<br> +Marathon, one at each extremity. The Persians were driven +back<br> +into the marsh at the north end.</small>]<br> + With the trampled dead that have found their bed<br> + In gore, at Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The ships have sailed from +Marathon<br> + On swift disaster's wings;<br> +And an evil dream hath fetched a groan<br> + From the heart of the king of kings.<br> +An eagle he saw, in the shades of night,<br> + With a dove that bloodily strove;<br> +And the weak hath vanquished the strong in fight,<br> + The eagle hath fled from the dove.<br> +[<small>Footnote: Reference is here made to A-tos'sa's dream, +as<br> +given by Æschylus in his tragedy of <i>The +Persians</i>.</small>]<br> + Great Jove, that reigns in the starry plains,<br> + To the heart of the king hath shown<br> + That the boastful parade of his pride was laid<br> + In dust at Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">But through Pentelicus' winding +vales<br> + The hymn triumphal runs,<br> +And high-shrined Athens proudly hails<br> + Her free-returning sons.<br> +And Pallas, from her ancient rock,<br> +[<small>Footnote: <i>Pallas</i>, or Minerva.</small>]<br> + With her shield's refulgent round,<br> +Blazes; her frequent worshippers flock,<br> + And high the pæans sound,<br> + How in deathless glory the famous story<br> + Shall on the winds be blown,<br> + That the long-haired Mede was driven with speed<br> + By the Greeks, from Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">And Greece shall be a hallowed +name,<br> + While the sun shall climb the pole,<br> +And Marathon fan strong freedom's flame<br> + In many a pilgrim soul.<br> +And o'er that mound where heroes sleep,<br> +[<small>Footnote: This famous mound is still to be seen on +the<br> +battle-field.</small>]<br> + By the waste and reedy shore,<br> +Full many a patriot eye shall weep,<br> + Till Time shall be no more.<br> + And the bard shall brim with a holier hymn,<br> + When he stands by that mound alone,<br> + And feel no shrine on earth more divine<br> + Than the dust of Marathon.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>THE DEATH OF MILTIADES.</h5> + +<p class="just">Soon after the Persian defeat, Miltiades, who at +first received all the honors that a grateful people could +bestow, met a fate that casts a melancholy gloom over his +history, and that has often been cited in proof of the assertion +that "republics are fickle and ungrateful." History shows, +however, that the Athenians were not greatly in the wrong in +their treatment of Miltiades. He obtained of them the command of +an expedition whose destination was known to himself alone; +assuring them of the honorableness and the success of the +enterprise. But much treasure was spent, many lives were lost, +and through the seeming treachery of Miltiades the expedition +terminated in disaster and disgrace. It was found, upon +investigation, that the motive of the expedition was private +resentment against a prominent citizen of Paros. Miltiades was +therefore condemned to death; but gratitude for his previous +valuable services mitigated the penalty to a fine of fifty +talents. His death occurred soon after, from a wound that he +received in a fall while at Paros, and the fine was paid by his +son Cimon.</p> + +<p class="just">As GROTE well observes, "The fate of Miltiades, +so far from illustrating either the fickleness or the ingratitude +of his countrymen, attests their just appreciation of deserts. It +also illustrates another moral of no small importance to the +right comprehension of Grecian affairs; it teaches us the painful +lesson how perfectly maddening were the effects of a copious +draught of glory on the temperament of an enterprising and +ambitious Greek. There can be no doubt that the rapid transition, +in the course of about one week, from Athenian terror before the +battle to Athenian exultation after it, must have produced +demonstrations toward Miltiades such as were never paid to any +other man in the whole history of the commonwealth. Such +unmeasured admiration unseated his rational judgment, so that his +mind became abandoned to the reckless impulses of insolence, +antipathy, and rapacity-- that distempered state for which +(according to Grecian morality) the retributive Nemesis was ever +on the watch, and which, in his case, she visited with a judgment +startling in its rapidity, as well as terrible in its amount." +[<small>Footnote: "History of Greece," Chap. xxxvi.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">But, as GILLIES remarks, "The glory of Miltiades +survived him. At the distance of half a century, when the battle +of Marathon was painted by order of the state, it was ordered +that the figure of Miltiades be placed in the foreground, +animating the troops to victory--a reward which, during the +virtuous simplicity of the ancient commonwealth, conferred more +real honor than all that magnificent profusion of crowns and +statues which, in the later times of the republic, were rather +extorted by general fees than bestowed by public admiration." +[See Oration of Æsehines, pp. 424-426.]</p> + +<br> +<h5>ARISTI'DES AND THEMIS'TOCLES.</h5> + +<p class="just">After the death of Miltiades, Themistocles and +Aristides became the most prominent men among the Athenians. The +former, a most able statesman, but influenced by ambitious +motives, aimed to make Athens great and powerful that he himself +might rise to greater eminence; while the later was a pure +patriot, wholly destitute of selfish ambition, and knew no cause +but that of justice and the public welfare. The poet THOMSON thus +characterizes him:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Then Aristides lifts his honest +front;<br> +Spotless of heart, to whom the unflattering voice<br> +Of Freedom gave the name of Just.<br> +In pure majestic poverty revered;<br> +Who, e'en his glory to his country's weal<br> +Submitting, swelled a haughty rival's fame.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">But the very integrity of Aristides made for him +secret enemies, who, although they charged him with no crimes, +were yet able to procure his banishment by the process of +<i>ostracism</i>, in which his great rival, Themistocles, took a +leading part. This kind of condemnation was not inflicted as a +punishment, but as a precautionary measure against a degree of +personal popularity that might be deemed dangerous to the public +welfare. The process was as follows: In an assembly of the people +each man was at liberty to write on a shell the name of the +person whom he wished to have banished, and if six thousand votes +or more were recorded, that person against whom the greatest +number of votes had been given was banished for ten years, but +with leave to enjoy his estate, and return after that period. +PLUTARCH relates the following incident connected with the +banishment of Aristides: "An illiterate burgher coming to +Aristides, whom he took for some ordinary person, and giving him +his shell, desired him to write 'Aristides' upon it. The good +man, surprised at the adventure, asked him 'Whether Aristides had +ever injured him?' 'No,' said he, 'nor do I even know him; but it +vexes me to hear him everywhere called <i>the Just</i>.' +Aristides made no answer, but took the shell, and, having written +his own name upon it, returned it to the man. When he quitted +Athens, he lifted up his hands toward heaven, and, agreeably to +his character, made a prayer, very different from that of +Achilles; namely, 'that the people of Athens might never see the +day which should force them to remember Aristides.'"</p> + +<p class="just">But it was, perhaps, fortunate for the liberties +of Greece that Themistocles, instead of Aristides, was left in +full power at Athens. "The peculiar faculty of his mind," says +THIRLWALL, "which Thucydides contemplated with admiration, was +the quickness with which it seized every object that came in its +way, perceived the course of action required by new situations +and sudden junctures, and penetrated into remote consequences. +Such were the abilities which were most needed at this period for +the service of Athens." Soon after the battle of Marathon a war +had broken out between Athens and Ægina, which still +continued, and which gave Themistocles an opportunity to exercise +his powers of ready invention and prompt execution. Ægina +was one of the wealthiest of the Grecian islands, and possessed +the most powerful navy in all Greece. Themistocles soon saw that +to successfully cope with this formidable rival, as well as rise +to a higher rank among the Grecian states, Athens must become a +great maritime power. He therefore obtained the consent of the +Athenians to devote a large surplus then in the public treasury, +but which belonged to individual citizens, to the building of a +hundred galleys; and, by this sacrifice of individual emolument +to the general good, the Athenian navy was increased to two +hundred ships. But the foresight of Themistocles extended still +farther, and it was no less his design, in making Athens a +first-class maritime power, to protect her against Persia, which, +as he well knew, was preparing for another and still more +formidable attack on Greece.</p> + +<br> +<h4>III. THE SECOND PERSIAN INVASION.</h4> + +<p class="just">For three years subsequent to the battle of +Marathon Darius made great preparations for a second invasion of +Greece, intending to lead his forces in person; but death put an +end to his plans. Xerxes, his son and successor, was urged by +many advisers to carry out his father's intentions. His uncle +Artaba'nus alone endeavored to divert him from the enterprise; +but Xerxes, having spent four years in collecting a large fleet +and a vast body of troops from all quarters of his extensive +dominions, set out from Sardis with great ostentation, in the +spring of the year 480, to avenge the disgrace of Marathon. +HERODOTUS relates that, on reaching Aby'dos, on the Hellespont, +Xerxes reviewed his vast host, and wept when he thought of the +shortness of human life, and considered that of all his immense +host not one man would be alive when a hundred years had passed +away. The historian's account is as follows:</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>Xerxes at Abydos.</i></p> + +<p class="just">"Arrived here, Xerxes wished to look upon his +host; so, as there was a throne of white marble upon a hill near +the city, which they of Abydos had prepared beforehand, by the +king's bidding, for his especial use, Xerxes took his seat on it, +and, gazing thence upon the shore below, beheld at one view all +his land forces and all his ships. As he looked and saw the whole +Hellespont covered with the vessels of his fleet, and all the +shore and every plain about Abydos as full as could be of men, +Xerxes congratulated himself on his good-fortune; but, after a +little while, he wept. Then Artabanus, the king's uncle (the same +who at the first so freely spake his mind to the king, and +advised him not to lead his army against Greece), when he heard +that Xerxes was in tears, went to him, and said:</p> + +<p class="just">"'How different, sire, is what thou art now doing +from what thou didst a little while ago! Then thou didst +congratulate thyself, and now, behold! thou weepest.'</p> + +<p class="just">"'There came upon me,' replied he, 'a sudden pity +when I thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered +that of all this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be +alive when a hundred years are gone by.'</p> + +<p class="just">"'And yet there are sadder things in life than +that,' returned the other. 'Short. as our time is, there is no +man, whether it be here among this multitude or elsewhere, who is +so happy as not to have felt the wish--I will not say once, but +full many a time--that he were dead rather than alive. Calamities +fall upon us, sicknesses vex and harass us, and make life, short +though it be, to appear long. So death, through the wretchedness +of our life, is a most sweet refuge to our race; and God, who +gives us the tastes we enjoy of pleasant times, is seen, in his +very gift, to be envious.'"<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> RAWLINSON.</p> + +<br> +<p class="just">Much that is told about Xerxes--how he cut off +Mount Athos from the main-land by a canal; how he made a bridge +of boats across the Hellespont, where it is three miles wide, and +ordered the waters to be scourged because they destroyed the +bridge; how he constructed new bridges, over which his vast army +crossed the Hellespont as along a royal road; and how his army +drank a whole river dry--all of which is gravely related by +Herodotus as fact, is discredited by the Latin poet JUVENAL, who +attributes these stories to the imaginations of "browsy +poets."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Old Greece a tale of Athos would +make out,<br> +Cut from the continent and sailed about;<br> +Seas bid with navies, chariots passing o'er<br> +The channel on a bridge from shore to shore;<br> +Rivers, whose depths no sharp beholder sees,<br> +Drunk, at an army's dinner, to the lees;<br> +With a long legend of romantic things,<br> +Which, in his cups, the browsy poet sings.<br> + --<i>Tenth Satire. Trans. by</i> DRYDEN.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">That Xerxes bridged the Hellespont, however, in +the manner related by Herodotus, is an accepted fact of history. +As MILTON says,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Xerxes, the liberty of Greece to +yoke,<br> +From Susa, his Memnonian palace high,<br> +Came to the sea, and over Hellespont<br> +Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joined.<br> + --<i>Paradise Regained</i>.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">He crossed to Ses'tus, a city of Thrace, and +entered Europe at the head of an army the greatest the world has +ever seen, and whose numbers have been estimated at over two +millions of fighting men. Having marched along the coast through +Thrace and Macedonia, this immense force passed through Thessaly, +and arrived, without opposition, at the Pass of +Thermop'ylæ, a narrow defile on the western shore of the +gulf that lies between Thessaly and Euboea, and almost the only +road by which Greece proper, or ancient Greece, could be entered +on the north-east by way of Thessaly. In the mean time the Greeks +had not been idle. The winter before Xerxes left Asia a general +congress of the Grecian states was held at the isthmus of +Corinth, at which the differences between Athens and Ægina +were first settled, and then a vigorous effort was made by Athens +and Sparta to unite the states and cities in one great league +against the power of Persia. But, notwithstanding the common +danger, only a few of the states responded to the call, and the +only people north and east of the isthmus who joined the league +were the Athenians, Phocians, Platæans, and Thespians. The +command of both the land and naval forces was relinquished by +Athens to the Spartans; and it was resolved to make the first +stand against Persia at the Pass of Thermopylæ.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLÆ.</h5> + +<p class="just">When the Persian monarch reached +Thermopylæ, he found a body of but eight thousand men, +commanded by the Spartan king Leonidas, prepared to dispute his +passage. A herald was sent to the Greeks commanding them to lay +down their arms; but Leonidas replied, with true Spartan brevity, +"Come and take them!" When it was remarked that the Persians were +so numerous that their darts would darken the sun, "Then," +replied Dien'eces, a Spartan, "we shall fight in the shade." +Trained from youth to the endurance of all hardships, and +forbidden by their laws ever to flee from an enemy, the sons of +Sparta were indeed formidable antagonists for the Persians to +encounter.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Stern were her sons. Upon Euro'tas' +bank,<br> +Where black Ta-yg'etus o'er cliff and peak<br> +Waves his dark pines, and spreads his glistening snows,<br> +On five low hills their city rose: no walls,<br> +No ramparts closed it round; its battlements<br> +And towers of strength were <i>men--high-minded men</i>,<br> +Who heard the cry of danger with more joy<br> +Than softer natures listen to the voice<br> +Of pleasure; who, with unremitting toil<br> +In chase, in battle, or athletic course,<br> +To fierceness steeled their native hardihood;<br> +Who sunk in death as tranquil as in sleep,<br> +And, hemmed by hostile myriads, never turned<br> +To flight, but closer drew before their breasts<br> +The massy buckler, firmer fixed the foot,<br> +Bit the writhed lip, and, where they struggled, fell.<br> + --HAYGARTH.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Xerxes, astonished that the Greeks did not +disperse at the sight of his vast army, waited four days, and +then ordered a body of his troops to attack them, and lead them +captive before him; but the barbarians fell in heaps in the very +presence of the king, and blocked the narrow pass with their +dead. Xerxes now thought the contest worthy of the superior +prowess of his own guards, the ten thousand Immortals. These were +led up as to a certain victory; but the Greeks stood their ground +as before. The combat lasted a whole day, and the slaughter of +the enemy was terrible. Another day of combat followed, with like +results, and the confidence of the Persian monarch was changed +into despondence and perplexity.</p> + +<p class="just">While in the uncertainty caused by these repeated +failures to force a passage, Xerxes learned, from a Greek +traitor, of a secret path over the mountains, by which he was +able to throw a force of twenty thousand men into the rear of the +brave defenders of the pass. Leonidas, seeing that his post was +no longer tenable, now dismissed all his allies that desired to +retire, and retained only three hundred fellow-Spartans, with +some Thespians and Thebans--in all about one thousand men. He +would have saved two of his kinsmen, by sending them with +messages to Sparta; but the one said he had come to bear arms, +not to carry letters, and the other that his deeds would tell all +that Sparta desired to know. Leonidas did not wait for an attack, +but sallying forth from the pass, and falling suddenly upon the +Persians, he penetrated to the very center of their host, where +the battle raged furiously, and two of the brothers of Xerxes +were slain. Then the surviving Greeks, with the exception of the +Thebans, fell back within the pass and took their final stand +upon a hillock, where they fought with the valor of desperation +until every man was slain. The Thebans, however, who from the +first had been distrusted by Leonidas, threw down their arms +early in the fight, and begged for quarter.</p> + +<p class="just">The conflict itself, and the glory of the +struggle on the part of the Spartans, have been favorite themes +with the poets of succeeding ages. The following description is +by HAYGARTH:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Long and doubtful was the +fight;<br> +Day after day the hostile army poured<br> +Its choicest warriors, but in vain; they fell,<br> +Or fled inglorious. Foul treachery<br> +At last prevailed; a steep and dangerous path,<br> +Known only to the wandering mountaineers,<br> +By difficult ascent led to the rear<br> +Of the heroic Greeks. The morning dawned,<br> +And the brave chieftain, when he raised his head<br> +From the cold rock on which he rested, viewed<br> +Banner and helmet, and the waving fire<br> +From lance and buckler, glancing high amidst<br> +Each pointed cliff and copse which stretch along<br> +Yon mountain's bosom. Then he saw his fate;<br> +But saw it with an unaverted eye:<br> +Around his spear he called his countrymen,<br> +And with a smile that o'er his rugged cheek<br> +Pass'd transient, like the momentary flash<br> +Streaking a thunder-cloud--"But we will die"<br> +(He cried) "like Grecians; we will leave our sons<br> +A bright example. Let each warrior bind<br> +Firmly his mail, and grasp his lance, and scowl<br> +From underneath his helm a frown of death<br> +Upon his shrinking foe; then let him fix<br> +His firm, unbending knee, and where he fights<br> +There fall." They heard, and, on their shields<br> +Clashing the war-song with a noble rage,<br> +Rushed headlong in the conflict of the fight,<br> +And died, as they had lived, triumphantly.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The Greek historian Diodorus, followed by the +biographer Plutarch and the Latin historian Justin, states that +Leonidas made the attack on the Persian camp during the night, +and in the darkness and in the confusion of the struggle nearly +penetrated to the royal tent of Xerxes. On this basis of supposed +facts the poet CROLY wrote his stirring poem descriptive of the +conflict; but the statement of Diodorus, which is irreconcilable +with Herodotus, is generally discredited by modern writers.</p> + +<p class="just">Monuments to the memory of the Greeks who fell +were erected on the battle-ground, and many were the epitaphs +written to commemorate the heroism of the famous three hundred; +but the oldest, best, and most celebrated of these is the +inscription that was placed on their altar-tomb, written by the +poet SIMON'IDES, of Ce'os. It consists of only two lines in the +Original Greek. [<small>Footnote: The following is the original +Greek of the epitaph: "O xeiu hangeddeiy Dakedaimouiois hoti +taede keimetha, tois keiuoy hraemasi peithomeuoi."</small>] All +Greece for centuries had them by heart; but in the lapse of time +she forgot them, and then, in the language of "Christopher +North," "Greece was living Greece no more." There have been no +less than three Latin and eighteen English versions of this +epitaph; and herewith we give three of the latter:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Go, stranger, and to +Laç-e-dæ'mon tell<br> +That here, obedient to her laws, we fell.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Stranger, to Sparta say that here +we rest<br> +In death, obedient to her high behest.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Go, tell the Spartans, thou who +passest by,<br> +That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Another inscription, said to have been written by +Simonides for the tombs of the heroes of Thermopylæ, is as +follows:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Happy they, the chosen brave,<br> + Whom Destiny, whom Valor led<br> +To their consecrated grave<br> + 'Mid Thessalia's mountains dread.<br> + Their sepulchre's a holy shrine,<br> + Their epitaph, the engraven line<br> + Recording former deeds divine;<br> + And Pity's melancholy wail<br> +Is changed to hymns of praise that load the evening gale.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Entombed in noble deed's they're +laid--<br> + Nor silent rust, nor Time's inexorable hour,<br> + Shall e'er have power<br> +To rend that shroud which veils their hallowed shade.<br> + Hellas mourns the dead<br> + Sunk in their narrow grave;<br> + But thou, dark Sparta's chief, whose bosom bled<br> + First in the battle's wave,<br> +Bear witness that they fell as best beseems the brave.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Leonidas himself fell in the plain, and his body +was carried into the defile by his followers. He was buried at +the north entrance to the pass, and over his grave was erected a +mound, on which was placed the figure of a lion sculptured in +stone. The sculptured lion marked the grave of the hero down to +the time Of Herodotus.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">On Phocis' shores the cavern's +gloom<br> +Imbrowns yon solitary tomb:<br> +There, in the sad and silent grave<br> +Repose the ashes of the brave<br> +Who, when the Persian from afar<br> +On Hellas poured the stream of war,<br> +At Freedom's call, with martial pride,<br> +For his loved country fought and died.<br> +Seek'st thou the place where, 'midst the dead<br> +The hero of the battle bled?<br> +Yon sculptured lion, frowning near,<br> +Points out Leonidas's bier.<br> + --ANON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The poet BYRON, who was peculiarly the friend of +Greece, and an earnest admirer of both the genius and the heroic +deeds of her sons, has written the following lines commemorating +the glory of those who fell at Thermopylæ:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">They fell devoted, but undying;<br> +The very gale their names seemed sighing:<br> +The waters murmured of their name;<br> +The woods were peopled with their fame;<br> +The silent pillar, lone and gray,<br> +Claimed kindred with their sacred clay:<br> +Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain,<br> +Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain;<br> +The meanest rill, the mightiest river<br> +Rolled mingling with their fame forever.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>THE ABANDONMENT OF ATHENS.</h5> + +<p class="just">While fighting was in progress at +Thermopylæ, a Greek fleet, under the command of the Spartan +Eurybi'ades, that had been sent to guard the Euboean Sea, +encountered the Persian ships at Artemis'ium. In several +engagements that occurred, the Athenian vessels, commanded by +Themistocles, were especially distinguished; and although the +contests with the enemy were not decisive, yet, says PLUTARCH, +"they were of great advantage to the Greeks, who learned by +experience that neither the number of ships, nor the beauty and +splendor of their ornaments, nor the vaunting shouts and songs of +the Persians, were anything dreadful to men who know how to fight +hand-to-hand, and are determined to behave gallantly. These +things they were taught to despise when they came to close action +and grappled with the foe. Hence in this respect, and for this +reason, Pindar's sentiments appear just, when he says of the +fight at Artemisium,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"'Twas then that Athens the +foundation laid<br> + Of Liberty's fair structure.'"</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Although the Greeks were virtually the victors in +these engagements, at least one-half of their vessels were +disabled; and, hearing of the defeat of Leonidas at +Thermopylæ, they resolved to retreat. Having sailed through +the Euboean Sea, the fleet kept on its way until it reached the +Island of Salamis, in the Saron'ic Gulf. Here Themistocles +learned that no friendly force was guarding the frontier of +Attica, although the Peloponnesian states had promised to send an +army into Boeotia; and he saw that there was nothing to prevent +the Persians from marching on Athens. He therefore advised the +Athenians to abandon the city to the mercy of the Persians, and +commit their safety and their hopes of victory to the navy. The +advice was adopted, though not without a hard struggle; and those +of the inhabitants who were able to bear arms retired to the +Island of Salamis, while the old and infirm, the women and +children, found shelter in a city of Argolis.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Xerxes pursued his march through Greece unopposed +except by Thespiæ and Platæa, which towns he reduced, +and spread desolation over Attica until he arrived at the foot of +the Cecropian hill, which he found guarded by a handful of +desperate citizens who refused to surrender. But the brave +defenders were soon put to the sword, and Athens was plundered +and then burned to the ground. About this time the Persian fleet +arrived in the Bay of Phale'rum, and Xerxes immediately +dispatched it to block up that of the Greeks in the narrow strait +of Salamis. Eurybiades, the Spartan, who still commanded the +Grecian fleet, was urged by Themistocles, and also by Aristides, +who had been recalled from exile, to hazard an engagement at once +in the narrow strait, where the superior numbers of the Persians +would be of little avail. The Peloponnesian commanders, however, +wished to move the fleet to the Isthmus of Corinth, where it +would have the aid of the land forces. At last the counsel of +Themistocles prevailed, and the Greeks made the attack. The +engagement was a courageous and persistent one on both sides, but +the Greeks came off victorious. Xerxes had caused a royal throne +to be erected on one of the neighboring heights, where, +surrounded by his army, he might witness the naval conflict in +which he was so confident of victory. But he had the misfortune +to see his magnificent navy almost utterly annihilated. Among the +slain was the brother of Xerxes, who commanded the navy, and many +other Persians of the highest rank.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">A king sate on the rocky brow<br> + Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis;<br> +And ships, by thousands, lay below,<br> + And men in nations--all were his!<br> +He counted them at break of day--<br> + And when the sun set, where were they?<br> + --BYRON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Anxious now for his own personal safety, the +Persian monarch's whole care centered on securing his retreat by +land. He passed rapidly into Thessaly, and, after a march of +forty-five days, reached the shores of the Hellespont to find his +bridges washed away.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">But how returned he? Say; this soul +of fire,<br> +This proud barbarian, whose impatient ire<br> +Chastised the winds that disobeyed his nod<br> +With stripes ne'er suffered by the Æolian god--<br> +But how returned he? say; his navy lost,<br> +In a small bark he fled the hostile coast,<br> +And, urged by terror, drove his laboring prore<br> +Through floating carcasses and fields of gore.<br> +So Xerxes sped; so sped the conquering race:<br> +They catch at glory, and they clasp disgrace.<br> + --JUVENAL, <i>Satire X. Trans. by</i> GIFFORD.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The ignominious retreat of Xerxes was in marked +contrast to the pomp and magnificence of his advance into Greece. +Death from famine and distress spread its ravages among his +troops, and the remnant that returned with him to Asia was but "a +wreck, or fragment, rather than a part of his huge host."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">O'er Hellespont and Athos' marble +head,<br> +More than a god he came, less than a man he fled.<br> + --LUIGI ALAMANNI. <i>Trans. by</i> AUBREY DE VERE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<p align="center"><i>A Celebrated Description of the +Battle.</i></p> + +<p class="just">Among the Athenians who nobly fought at Marathon, +and who also took part in the battle of Salamis, was the +tragedian Æschylus; and so much did he distinguish himself +in the capacity of soldier, that, in the picture which the +Athenians caused to be painted representing the former battle, +the figure of Æschylus held so prominent a place as to be +at once recognized, even by a casual observer. Eight years after +the latter battle Æschylus composed his tragedy of <i>The +Persians</i>, which portrays, in vivid colors, the defeat of +Xerxes, and gives a fuller, and, indeed, better account of that +memorable sea-fight than is found even in the pages of +Herodotus.</p> + +<p class="just">Says MITFORD, "It is matter of regret, not indeed +that Æschylus was a poet; but that prose-writing was yet in +his age so little common that his poetical sketch of this great +transaction is the most authoritative, the clearest, and the most +consistent of any that has passed to posterity." In the famous +tragedy of Æschylus the account of the destruction of the +Persian fleet is supposed to be given by a Persian messenger, +escaped from the fight, to Atos'sa, the mother of Xerxes. The +scene is laid at Susa, the Persian capital, near the tomb of +Darius. The whole drama may be considered as a proud triumphal +song in favor of Liberty.</p> + +<p class="just">Atossa, appearing with her attendants, and +anxious for news of her son, first inquires in what clime are the +towers of Athens-- the conquest of which her son had willed--and +what mighty armies, what arms, and what treasures the Athenians +boast, and what mighty monarch rules over them; and is told, to +her surprise, that instead of the strong bow, like the Persians, +they have stout spears and massy bucklers; and although their +rich earth is a copious fount of silver, yet the people, "slaves +to no lord, own no kingly power." Then enters the messenger, who +exclaims:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Woe to the towns of Asia's peopled +realms!<br> +Woe to the land of Persia, once the port<br> +Of boundless wealth! All, at a blow, has perished!<br> +Ah me! How sad his task who brings ill tidings!<br> +But, to my tale of woe--I needs must tell it.<br> +Persians--the whole barbaric host has fallen!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">At this astounding news the chorus breaks out in, +concert:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Oh horror, horror, what a train of +ills!<br> +Alas! Is Hellas then unscathed? And has<br> +Our arrowy tempest spent its force in vain?<br> +Raise the funereal cry--with dismal notes<br> +Wailing the wretched Persians. Oh, how ill<br> +They planned their measures! All their army perished!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Then the messenger exclaims:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">I speak not from report; but these +mine eyes<br> +Beheld the ruin which my tongue would utter.<br> +In heaps the unhappy dead lie on the strand<br> +Of Salamis, and all the neighboring shores.<br> +Oh, Salamis--how hateful is thy name!<br> +Oh, how my heart groans but to think of Athens!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Atossa at length finds words to say:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Astonished with these ills, my +voice thus long<br> +Hath wanted utterance: griefs like these exceed<br> +The power of speech or question: yet e'en such,<br> +Inflicted by the gods, must mortal man,<br> +Constrained by loud necessity endure.<br> +But tell me all: without distraction, tell me<br> +All this calamity, though many a groan<br> +Burst from thy laboring heart. Who is <i>not</i> fallen?<br> +What leader must we wail? What sceptred chief,<br> +Dying, hath left his troops without a lord?</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The messenger tells her that Xerxes himself +lives, and still beholds the light, and then gives her a general +summary of the disasters that befell the Persians, the names of +the chiefs that were slain, the numbers of the horsemen, and the +spearmen, and the seamen that lay "slaughtered on the rocks," +"buried in the waters," or "mouldering on the dreary shore." At +the request of Atossa he then proceeds to give the following more +detailed account, which, as we have said, is the best history +that we have of this memorable naval conflict:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Our evil genius, lady, or some +god<br> +Hostile to Persia, led to every ill.<br> +Forth from the troops of Athens came a Greek,<br> +And thus addressed thy son, the imperial Xerxes:<br> +"Soon as the shades of night descend, the Grecians<br> +Shall quit their station: rushing to their oars,<br> +They mean to separate, and in secret flight<br> +Seek safety." At these words the royal chief,<br> +Little dreaming of the wiles of Greece,<br> +And gods averse, to all the naval leaders<br> +Gave his high charge: "Soon as yon sun shall cease<br> +To dart his radiant beams, and dark'ning night<br> +Ascends the temple of the sky, arrange<br> +In three divisions your well-ordered ships,<br> +And guard each pass, each outlet of the seas:<br> +Others enring around this rocky isle<br> +Of Salamis. Should Greece escape her fate,<br> +And work her way by secret flight, your heads<br> +Shall answer the neglect." This harsh command<br> +He gave, exulting in his mind, nor knew<br> +What Fate designed. With martial discipline<br> +And prompt obedience, snatching a repast,<br> +Each manner fixed well his ready oar. + +<p>Soon as the golden sun was set, and night<br> +Advanced, each, trained to ply the dashing oar,<br> +Assumed his seat; in arms each warrior stood,<br> +Troop cheering troop through all the ships of war.<br> +Each to the appointed station steers his course,<br> +And through the night his naval force each chief<br> +Fix'd to secure the passes. Night advanced,<br> +But not by secret flight did Greece attempt<br> +To escape. The morn, all beauteous to behold,<br> +Drawn by white steeds, bounds o'er the enlighten'd earth:</p> + +<p>At once from every Greek, with glad acclaim,<br> +Burst forth the song of war, whose lofty notes<br> +The echo of the island rocks returned,<br> +Spreading dismay through Persia's host, thus fallen<br> +From their high hopes; no flight this solemn strain<br> +Portended, but deliberate valor bent<br> +On daring battle; while the trumpet's sound<br> +Kindled the flames of war. But when their oars<br> +(The pæan ended) with impetuous force<br> +Dash'd the surrounding surges, instant all<br> +Rush'd on in view; in orderly array<br> +The squadron of the right first led, behind<br> +Rode their whole fleet; and now distinct was heard<br> +From every part this voice of exhortation:</p> + +<p>"Advance, ye sons of Greece, from thraldom save<br> +Your country--save your wives, your children save,<br> +The temples of your gods, the sacred tomb<br> +Where rest your honor'd ancestors; this day<br> +The common cause of all demands your valor."<br> +Meantime from Persia's hosts the deep'ning shout<br> +Answer'd their shout; no time for cold delay;<br> +But ship 'gainst ship its brazen beak impell'd.</p> + +<p>First to the charge a Grecian galley rush'd;<br> +Ill the Phoenician bore the rough attack--<br> +Its sculptured prow all shatter'd. Each advanced,<br> +Daring an opposite. The deep array<br> +Of Persia at the first sustain'd the encounter;<br> +But their throng'd numbers, in the narrow seas<br> +Confined, want room for action; and deprived<br> +Of mutual aid, beaks clash with beaks, and each<br> +Breaks all the other's oars: with skill disposed,<br> +The Grecian navy circled them around<br> +In fierce assault; and, rushing from its height,<br> +The inverted vessel sinks.</p> + +<p> The sea no more<br> +Wears its accustomed aspect, with foul wrecks<br> +And blood disfigured; floating carcasses<br> +Roll on the rocky shores; the poor remains<br> +Of the barbaric armament to flight<br> +Ply every oar inglorious: onward rush<br> +The Greeks amid the ruins of the fleet,<br> +As through a shoal of fish caught in the net,<br> +Spreading destruction; the wide ocean o'er<br> +Wailings are heard, and loud laments, till night,<br> +With darkness on her brow, brought grateful truce.<br> +Should I recount each circumstance of woe,<br> +Ten times on my unfinished tale the sun<br> +Would set; for be assured that not one day<br> +Could close the ruin of so vast a host.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">After some farther account, by the messenger, of +the magnitude of the ruin that had overwhelmed the Persian host, +the mother of Xerxes thus apostrophizes and laments that +"invidious fortune" which had pulled down this ruin on her son's +devoted head:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Invidious fortune, how thy +baleful power<br> +Hath sunk the hopes of Persia! Bitter fruit<br> +My son hath tasted from his purposed vengeance<br> +On Athens, famed for arms; the fatal field<br> +Of Marathon, red with barbaric blood,<br> +Sufficed not: that defeat he thought to avenge,<br> +And pulled this hideous ruin on his head!<br> + Ah me! what sorrows for our ruined host<br> +Oppress my soul! Ye visions of the night,<br> +Haunting my dreams, how plainly did you show<br> +These ills! You set them in too fair a light.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In the <i>Epode</i>, or closing portion of the +tragedy, the following "Lament" may be considered as expressing +the feelings with which the Persians bewailed this defeat, with +reference to its effects upon Persian authority over the Asiatic +nations:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> With sacred awe<br> + The Persian law<br> + No more shall Asia's realm revere:<br> + To their lord's hand,<br> + At his command,<br> + No more the exacted tribute bear.<br> +Who now falls prostrate at the monarch's throne?<br> + His regal greatness is no more.<br> +Now no restraint the wanton tongue shall own,<br> + Free from the golden curb of power;<br> +For on the rocks, washed by the beating flood,<br> +His awe-commanding nobles lie in blood.<br> + --POTTER'S <i>trans.</i></div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Among the modern poems on Xerxes and the battle +of Salamis, is one by the Scotch poet and translator, JOHN STUART +BLACKIE, from which we take the following extracts:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Seest thou where, sublimely seated +on a silver-footed throne,<br> +With a high tiara crested, belted with a jewelled zone,<br> +Sits the king of kings, and, looking from the rocky +mountain-side,<br> +Scans, with masted armies studded far, the fair Saronic tide?<br> +Looks he not with high hope beaming? looks he not with pride +elate?<br> +Seems he not a god? The words he speaks are big with instant +fate. + +<p>He hath come from far Euphrates, and from Tigris' rushing +tide,<br> +To subdue the strength of Athens, to chastise the Spartan's +pride;<br> +He hath come with countless armies, gathered slowly from +afar,<br> +From the plain, and from the mountain, marshalled ranks of motley +war;<br> +From the land and from the ocean, that the burdened billows +groan,<br> +That the air is black with banners, which great Xerxes calls his +own.</p> + +<p>Soothly he hath nobly ridden o'er the fair fields, o'er the +waste,<br> +As the earth might bear the burden, with a weighty-footed +haste;<br> +He hath cut in twain the mountain, he hath bridged the rolling +main,<br> +He hath lashed the flood of Hel'le, bound the billow with a +chain;<br> +And the rivers shrink before him, and the sheeted lakes are +dry,<br> +From his burden-bearing oxen, and his hordes of cavalry;<br> +And the gates of Greece stand open; Ossa and Olympus fail;<br> +And the mountain-girt Æmo'nia spreads the river and the +gale.</p> + +<p>Stood nor man nor god before him; he hath scoured the Attic +land,<br> +Chased the valiant sons of Athens to a barren island's +strand;<br> +He hath hedged them round with triremes, lines on lines of +bristling war;<br> +He hath doomed the prey for capture; he hath spread his meshes +far;<br> +And he sits sublimely seated on a throne with pride elate,<br> +To behold the victim fall beneath the sudden swooping Fate.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Then follows an account of the nations which +formed the Persian hosts, their arrangement to entrap the Greeks, +who were thought to be meditating flight, the patriotic +enthusiasm of the latter, the naval battle which followed, and +the disastrous defeat of the Persians, the poem closing with the +following satirical address to Xerxes:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Wake thee! wake thee! blinded +Xerxes! God hath found thee out at last;<br> +Snaps thy pride beneath his judgment, as the tree before the +blast.<br> +Haste thee! haste thee! speed thy couriers--Persian couriers +travel lightly--<br> +To declare thy stranded navy, that by cruel death unsightly<br> +Dimmed thy glory. Hie thee! hie thee! hence, even by what way +thou camest,<br> +Dwarfed to whoso saw thee mightiest, and where thou wert +fiercest, tamest! + +<p>Frost and fire shall league together, angry heaven to earth +respond,<br> +Strong Poseidon with his trident break thy impious-vaunted +bond;<br> +Where thou passed, with mouths uncounted, eating up the famished +land,<br> +With few men a boat shall ferry Xerxes to the Asian strand.<br> +Haste thee! haste thee! they are waiting by the palace gates for +thee;<br> +By the golden gates of Susa eager mourners wait for thee.<br> +Haste thee! where the guardian elders wait, a hoary-bearded +train;<br> +They shall see their king, but never see the sons they loved, +again.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Where thy weeping mother waits +thee, Queen Atossa waits to see<br> +Dire fulfilment of her troublous, vision-haunted sleep in +thee.<br> +She hath dreamt, and she shall see it, how an eagle, cowed with +awe,<br> +Gave his kingly crest to pluck before a puny falcon's claw.<br> +Haste thee! where the mighty shade of great Darius through the +gloom<br> +Rises dread, to teach thee wisdom, couldst thou learn it, from +the tomb.<br> +There begin the sad rehearsal, and, while streaming tears are +shed,<br> +To the thousand tongues that ask thee, tell the myriads of thy +dead!</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>THE BATTLE OF PLATÆ'A.</h5> + +<p class="just">When Xerxes returned to his own dominions he left +his general, Mardo'nius, with three hundred thousand men, to +complete, if possible, the conquest of Greece. Mardonius passed +the winter in Thessaly, but in the following summer his army was +totally defeated, and himself slain, in the battle of +Platæa. Two hundred thousand Persians fell here, and only a +small remnant escaped across the Hellespont. We extract from +BULWER'S <i>Athens</i> the following eloquent description of this +battle, both for the sake of its beauty and to show the effect of +the religion of the Greeks upon the military character of the +people. Mardonius had advanced to the neighbor-hood of +Platæa, when he encountered that part of the Grecian army +composed mostly of Spartans and Lacedæmonians, commanded by +Pausa'nias, and numbering about fifty thousand men. The Athenians +had previously fallen back to a more secure position, where the +entire army had been ordered to concentrate; and Pausanias had +but just commenced the retrograde movement when the Persians made +their appearance.</p> + +<p class="just">BULWER says: "As the troops of Mardonius +advanced, the rest of the Persian armament, deeming the task was +now not to fight but to pursue, raised their standards and poured +forward tumultuously, without discipline or order. Pausanias, +pressed by the Persian line, lost no time in sending to the +Athenians for succor. But when the latter were on their march +with the required aid, they were suddenly intercepted by the +Greeks in the Persian service, and cut off from the rescue of the +Spartans.</p> + +<p class="just">"The Spartans beheld themselves thus unsupported +with considerable alarm. Committing himself to the gods, +Pausanias ordained a solemn sacrifice, his whole army awaiting +the result, while the shafts of the Persians poured on them near +and fast. But the entrails presented discouraging omens, and the +sacrifice was again renewed. Meanwhile the Spartans evinced their +characteristic fortitude and discipline--not one man stirring +from the ranks until the auguries should assume a more favoring +aspect; all harassed, and some wounded by the Persian arrows, +they yet, seeking protection only beneath their broad bucklers, +waited with a stern patience the time of their leader and of +Heaven. Then fell Callic'rates, the stateliest and strongest +soldier in the whole army, lamenting not death, but that his +sword was as yet undrawn against the invader.</p> + +<p class="just">"And still sacrifice after sacrifice seemed to +forbid the battle, when Pausanias, lifting his eyes, that +streamed with tears, to the Temple of Juno, that stood hard by, +supplicated the goddess that, if the fates forbade the Greeks to +conquer, they might at least fall like warriors; and, while +uttering this prayer, the tokens waited for became suddenly +visible in the victims, and the augurs announced the promise of +coming victory. Therewith the order of battle ran instantly +through the army, and, to use the poetical comparison of +Plutarch, the Spartan phalanx suddenly stood forth in its +strength like some fierce animal, erecting its bristles, and +preparing its vengeance for the foe. The ground, broken into many +steep and precipitous ridges, and intersected by the Aso'pus, +whose sluggish stream winds over a broad and rushy bed, was +unfavorable to the movements of cavalry, and the Persian foot +advanced therefore on the Greeks.</p> + +<p class="just">"Drawn up in their massive phalanx, the +Lacedæmonians presented an almost impenetrable +body--sweeping slowly on, compact and serried--while the hot and +undisciplined valor of the Persians, more fortunate in the +skirmish than the battle, broke itself in a thousand waves upon +that moving rock. Pouring on in small numbers at a time, they +fell fast round the progress of the Greeks --their armor slight +against the strong pikes of Sparta--their courage without skill, +their numbers without discipline; still they fought gallantly, +even when on the ground seizing the pikes with their naked hands, +and, with the wonderful agility that still characterizes the +Oriental swordsmen, springing to their feet and regaining their +arms when seemingly overcome, wresting away their enemies' +shields, and grappling with them desperately hand to hand.</p> + +<p class="just">"Foremost of a band of a thousand chosen +Persians, conspicuous by his white charger, and still more by his +daring valor, rode Mardonius, directing the attack--fiercer +wherever his armor blazed. Inspired by his presence the Persians +fought worthily of their warlike fame, and, even in falling, +thinned the Spartan ranks. At length the rash but gallant leader +of the Asiatic armies received a mortal wound--his skull was +crushed in by a stone from the hand of a Spartan. His chosen +band, the boast of the army, fell fighting around him, but his +death was the general signal of defeat and flight. Encumbered by +their long robes, and pressed by the relentless conquerors, the +Persians fled in disorder toward their camp, which was secured by +wooden intrenchments, by gates, and towers, and walls. Here, +fortifying themselves as they best might, they contended +successfully, and with advantage, against the +Lacedæmonians, who were ill skilled in assault and +siege.</p> + +<p class="just">"Meanwhile the Athenians gained the victory on +the plains over the Greek allies of Mardonius, and now joined the +Spartans at the camp. The Athenians are said to have been better +skilled in the art of siege than the Spartans; yet at that time +their experience could scarcely have been greater. The Athenians +were at all times, however, of a more impetuous temper; and the +men who had 'run to the charge' at Marathon were not to be +baffled by the desperate remnant of their ancient foe. They +scaled the walls; they effected a breach through which the +Tege'ans were the first to rush; the Greeks poured fast and +fierce into the camp. Appalled, dismayed, stupefied by the +suddenness and greatness of their loss, the Persians no longer +sustained their fame; they dispersed in all directions, falling, +as they fled, with a prodigious slaughter, so that out of that +mighty armament scarce three thousand effected an escape."</p> + +<p class="just">But the final overthrow of the Persian hosts on +the battle-field of Platæa has an importance far greater +than that of the deliverance of the Greeks from immediate danger. +Perhaps no other event in ancient history has been so momentous +in its consequences; for what would have been the condition of +Greece had she then become a province of the Persian empire? The +greatness which she subsequently attained, and the glory and +renown with which she has filled the earth, would never have had +an existence. Little Greece sat at the gates of a continent, and +denied an entrance to the gorgeous barbarism of Asia. She +determined that Europe should not be Asiatic; that civilization +should not sink into the abyss of unmitigated despotism. She +turned the tide of Persian encroachment back across the +Hellespont, and Alexander only followed the refluent wave to the +Indus.</p> + +<p class="just">"'Twas then," as SOUTHEY says,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "The +fate<br> +Of unborn ages hung upon the fray:<br> +T'was at Platæa, in that awful hour<br> +When Greece united smote the Persian's power.<br> +For, had the Persian triumphed, then the spring<br> + Of knowledge from that living source had ceased;<br> +All would have fallen before the barbarous king--<br> + Art, Science, Freedom: the despotic East,<br> +Setting her mark upon the race subdued,<br> +Had stamped them in the mould of sensual servitude."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Furthermore, on this subject we subjoin the +following reflections from the author previously quoted:</p> + +<p class="just">"When the deluge of the Persian arms rolled back +to its Eastern bed, and the world was once more comparatively at +rest, the continent of Greece rose visibly and majestically above +the rest of the civilized earth. Afar in the Latian plains the +infant state of Rome was silently and obscurely struggling into +strength against the neighboring and petty states in which the +old Etrurian civilization was rapidly passing into decay. The +genius of Gaul and Germany, yet unredeemed from barbarism, lay +scarce known, save where colonized by Greeks, in the gloom of its +woods and wastes.</p> + +<p class="just">"The ambition of Persia, still the great monarchy +of the world, was permanently checked and crippled; the strength +of generations had been wasted, and the immense extent of the +empire only served yet more to sustain the general peace, from +the exhaustion of its forces. The defeat of Xerxes paralyzed the +East. Thus Greece was left secure, and at liberty to enjoy the +tranquillity it had acquired, and to direct to the arts of peace +the novel and amazing energies which had been prompted by the +dangers and exalted by the victories of war."</p> + +<p class="just">On the very day of the battle of Platæa the +remains of the Persian fleet which had escaped at Salamis, and +which had been drawn up on shore at Myc'a-le, on the coast of +Ionia, were burned by the Grecians; and Tigra'nes, the Persian +commander of the land forces, and forty thousand of his men, were +slain. This was the first signal blow struck by the Greek at the +power of Persia on the continent. "Lingering at Sardis," says +BULWER, "Xerxes beheld the scanty and exhausted remnants of his +mighty force, the fugitives of the fatal days of Mycale and +Platæa. The army over which he had wept in the zenith of +his power had fulfilled the prediction of his tears; and the +armed might of Media and Egypt, of Lydia and Assyria, was now no +more!"</p> + +<p class="just">In one of the comedies of the Greek poet +ARISTOPH'ANES, entitled <i>The Wasps</i>, which is designed +principally to satirize the passion of the Athenians for the +excitement of the law courts, there occurs the following episode, +that has for its basis the activity of the Athenians at the +battle of Platæa. We learn from this episode that the +appellation, the "Attic Wasp," had its origin in the venomous +persistence with which the Athenians, swarming like wasps, stung +the Persians in their retreat, after the defeat of Mardonius. +Occurring in a popular satirical comedy, it also shows how +readily any allusion to the famous victories of Greece could be +made to do service on popular occasions--an allusion that the +dramatist knew would awaken in the popular heart great admiration +for him and his work:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">With torch and brand the Persian +horde swept on from east to west,<br> +To storm the hives that we had stored, and smoke us from our +nest;<br> +Then we laid our hand to spear and targe, and met him on his +path;<br> +Shoulder to shoulder, close we stood, and bit our lips for +wrath.<br> +So fast and thick the arrows flew, that none might see the +heaven,<br> +But the gods were on our side that day, and we bore them back at +even.<br> +High o'er our heads, an omen good, we saw the owlet wheel,<br> +And the Persian trousers in their backs felt the good Attic +steel.<br> +Still as they fled we followed close, a swarm of vengeful +foes,<br> +And stung them where we chanced to light, on cheek, and lip, and +nose.<br> +So to this day, barbarians say, when whispered far or near,<br> +More than all else the ATTIC WASP is still a name of fear.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> W. LUCAS COLLINS.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterX">CHAPTER X.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>THE RISE AND GROWTH OF THE ATHENIAN +EMPIRE.</b></p> + +<h4>I. THE DISGRACE AND DEATH OF THEMISTOCLES.</h4> + +<p class="just">Six years after the battle of Platæa the +career of Xerxes was terminated by assassination, and his son, +Artaxerxes Longim'anus, succeeded to the throne. In the mean time +Athens had been rebuilt and fortified by Themistocles, and the +Piræus (the port of Athens) enclosed within a wall as large +in extent as that of Athens, but of greater height and thickness. +But Themistocles, by his selfish and arbitrary use of power, +provoked the enmity of a large body of his countrymen; and +although he was acquitted of the charge of treasonable +inclinations toward Persia, popular feeling soon after became so +strong against him that he was condemned to exile by the same +process of ostracism that he had directed against Aristides, and +he retired to Argos (471 B.C.) Some time before this a Grecian +force, composed of Athenians under Aristides, and Cimon the son +of Miltiades, and Spartans under Pausanias the victor of +Platæa, waged a successful war upon the Persian +dependencies of the Ægean, and the coasts of Asia Minor. +The Ionian cities were aided in a successful revolt, and Cyprus +and Byzantium--the latter now Constantinople--fell into the hands +of the Grecians. Pausanias, who was at the head of the whole +armament, now began to show signs of treasonable conduct, which +was more fully unfolded by a communication that he addressed to +the Persian court, seeking the daughter of Xerxes in marriage, +and promising to bring Sparta and the whole of Greece under +Persian dominion.</p> + +<p class="just">When news of the treason of Pausanias reached +Sparta, he was immediately recalled, and, though no definite +proof was at first furnished against him, his guilt was +subsequently established, and he perished from starvation in the +Temple of Minerva, whither he had fled for refuge, and where he +was immured by the eph'ors. The fate of Pausanias involved that +of Themistocles. In searching for farther traces of the former's +plot some correspondence was discovered that furnished sufficient +evidence of the complicity of Themistocles in the crime, and he +was immediately accused by the Spartans, who insisted upon his +being punished. The Athenians sent ambassadors to arrest him and +bring him to Athens; but Themistocles fled from Argos, and +finally sought refuge at the court of Persia. He died at +Magne'sia, in Asia Minor, which had been appointed his place of +residence by Artaxerxes, and a splendid monument was raised to +his memory; but in the time of the Roman empire a tomb was +pointed out by the sea-side, within the port of Piræus, +which was generally believed to contain his remains, and of which +the comic poet PLATO thus wrote:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">By the sea's margin, on the watery +strand,<br> +Thy monument, Themistocles, shall stand.<br> +By this directed to thy native shore,<br> +The merchant shall convey his freighted store;<br> +And when our fleets are summoned to the fight<br> +Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> CUMBERLAND.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Although "the genius of Themistocles did not +secure him from the seductions of avarice and pride, which led +him to sacrifice both his honor and his country for the tinsel of +Eastern pomp," yet, as THIRLWALL says, "No Greek had then +rendered services such as those of Themistocles to the common +country; and no Athenian, except Solon, had conferred equal +benefits on Athens. He had first delivered her from the most +imminent danger, and then raised her to the pre-eminence on which +she now stood. He might claim her greatness; and even her being, +as his work." The following tribute to his memory is from the pen +of TULLIUS GEM'INUS, a Latin poet:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Greece be thy monument; around her +throw<br> + The broken trophies of the Persian fleet;<br> +Inscribe the gods that led the insulting foe,<br> + And mighty Xerxes, at the tablet's feet.<br> +There lay Themistocles; to spread his fame<br> + A lasting column Salamis shall be;<br> +Raise not, weak man, to that immortal name<br> + The little records of mortality.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> MERIVALE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>II. THE RISE AND FALL OF CIMON.</h4> + +<p class="just">Foremost among the rivals of Themistocles in +ability and influence, was Cimon, the son of Miltiades. In his +youth he was inordinately fond of pleasure, and revealed none of +those characteristics for which he subsequently became +distinguished. But his friends encouraged him to follow in his +father's footsteps, and Aristides soon discovered in him a +capacity and disposition that he could use to advantage in his +own antagonism to Themistocles. To Aristides, therefore, Cimon +was largely indebted for his influence and success, as well as +for his mild temper and gentle manners.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Reared by his care, of softer ray +appears<br> +Cimon, sweet-souled; whose genius, rising strong,<br> +Shook off the load of young debauch; abroad<br> +The scourge of Persian pride, at home the friend<br> +Of every worth and every splendid art;<br> +Modest and simple in the pomp of wealth.<br> + --THOMSON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">On the banishment of Themistocles Aristides +became the undisputed leader of the aristocratical party at +Athens, and on his death, four years subsequently, Cimon +succeeded him. The later was already distinguished for his +military successes, and was undoubtedly the greatest commander of +his time. He continued the successful war against Persia for many +years, and among his notable victories was one obtained on both +sea and land, in Pamphyl'ia, in Asia Minor, and called</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE BATTLE OF EURYM'EDON.</h5> + +<p class="just">After dispersing a fleet of two hundred ships +Cimon landed his troops, flushed with victory, and completely +routed a large Persian army. The poet SIMONIDES praises this +double victory in the following verse:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Ne'er since that olden time, when +Asia stood<br> +First torn from Europe by the ocean flood,<br> +Since horrid Mars first poured on either shore<br> +The storm of battle and its wild uproar,<br> +Hath man by land and sea such glory won<br> +As by the mighty deed this day was done.<br> +By land, the Medes in myriads press the ground;<br> +By sea, a hundred Tyrian ships are drowned,<br> +With all their martial host; while Asia stands<br> +Deep groaning by, and wrings her helpless hands.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> MERIVALE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The same poet pays the following tribute to the +Greeks who fell in this conflict:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">These, by the streams of famed +Eurymedon,<br> +There, envied youth's short brilliant race have run:<br> +In swift-winged ships, and on the embattled field,<br> +Alike they forced the Median bows to yield,<br> +Breaking their foremost ranks. Now here they lie,<br> +Their names inscribed on rolls of victory.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> MERIVALE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">On the recall of Pausanias from Asia Minor Sparta +lost, and Athens acquired, the command in the war against Persia. +Athens was now rapidly approaching the summit of her military +renown. The war with Persia did not prevent her from extending +her possessions in Greece by force of arms; and island after +island of the Ægean yielded to her sway, while her colonies +peopled the winding shores of Thrace and Macedon. The other +states and cities of Greece could not behold her rapid, and +apparently permanent, growth in power without great +dissatisfaction and anxiety. When the Persian war was at its +height, a sense of common danger had caused many of them to seek +an alliance with Athens, the result of what is known as the +Confederacy of Delos; but, now that the danger was virtually +passed, long existing jealousies broke out, which led to +political dissensions, and, finally, to the civil wars that +caused the ruin of the Grecian republics. Sparta, especially, had +long viewed with indignation the growing resources of Athens and +was preparing to check them by an invasion of Attica, when sudden +and complicated disasters forced her to abandon her designs, and +turn her attention to her own dominions. In 464 B.C. the city was +visited by an earthquake that laid it in ruins and buried not +less than twenty thousand of its chosen citizens; and this +calamity was immediately followed by a general revolt of the +Helots. BULWER'S description of this terrible earthquake, and of +the memorable conduct of the Laconian government in opposing, +under such trying circumstances, the dreadful revolt that +occurred, has been greatly admired for its eloquence and its +strict adherence to facts.</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>The Earthquake at Sparta and the Revolt of +the Helots.</i></p> + +<p class="just">"An earthquake, unprecedented in its violence, +occurred in Sparta. In many places throughout Laconia the rocky +soil was rent asunder. From Mount Ta-yg'e-tus, which overhung the +city, and on which the women of Lacedæmon were wont to hold +their bacchanalian orgies, huge fragments rolled into the +suburbs. The greater portion of the city was absolutely +overthrown; and it is said, probably with exaggeration, that only +five houses wholly escaped disaster from the shock. This terrible +calamity did not cease suddenly as it came; its concussions were +repeated; it buried alike men and treasure: could we credit +Diodorus, no less than twenty thousand persons perished in the +shock. Thus depopulated, impoverished, and distressed, the +enemies whom the cruelty of Sparta nursed within her bosom +resolved to seize the moment to execute their vengeance and +consummate her destruction. Under Pausanias the Helots were ready +for revolt; and the death of that conspirator checked, but did +not crush, their designs of freedom. Now was the moment, when +Sparta lay in ruins--now was the moment to realize their dreams. +From field to field, from village to village, the news of the +earthquake became the watchword of revolt. Up rose the +Helots--they armed themselves, they poured on--a wild and +gathering and relentless multitude resolved to slay, by the wrath +of man, all whom that of nature had yet spared. The earthquake +that leveled Sparta rent their chains; nor did the shock create +one chasm so dark and wide as that between the master and the +slave.</p> + +<p class="just">"It is one of the sublimest and most awful +spectacles in history--that city in ruins--the earth still +trembling, the grim and dauntless soldiery collected amid piles +of death and ruin; and in such a time, and such a scene, the +multitude sensible not of danger, but of wrong, and rising not to +succor, but to revenge--all that should have disarmed a feebler +enmity giving fire to theirs; the dreadest calamity their +blessing--dismay their hope. It was as if the Great Mother +herself had summoned her children to vindicate the long-abused, +the all-inalienable heritage derived from her; and the stir of +the angry elements was but the announcement of an armed and +solemn union between nature and the oppressed.</p> + +<p class="just">"Fortunately for Sparta, the danger was not +altogether unforeseen. After the confusion and the horror of the +earthquake, and while the people, dispersed, were seeking to save +their effects, Archida'mus, who, four years before, had succeeded +to the throne of Lacedæmon, ordered the trumpets to sound +as to arms. That wonderful superiority of man over matter which +habit and discipline can effect, and which was ever so visible +among the Spartans, constituted their safety at that hour. +Forsaking the care of their property, the Spartans seized their +arms, flocked around their king, and drew up in disciplined +array. In her most imminent crisis Sparta was thus saved. The +Helots approached, wild, disorderly, and tumultuous; they came +intent only to plunder and to slay; they expected to find +scattered and affrighted foes --they found a formidable army; +their tyrants were still their lords. They saw, paused, and fled, +scattering themselves over the country, exciting all they met to +rebellion, and soon joined with the Messenians, kindred to them +by blood and ancient reminiscences of heroic struggles; they +seized that same Ithome which their hereditary Aristodemus had +before occupied with unforgotten valor. This they fortified, and, +occupying also the neighboring lands, declared open war upon +their lords." [<small>Footnote: "Athens: Its Rise and Fall," pp. +176, 177.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">"The incident here related of the King of +Sparta," says ALISON, "amid the yawning of the earthquake and the +ruin of his capital, sounding the trumpets to arms, and the +Lacedæmonians assembling in disciplined array around him, +is one of the sublimest recorded in history. We need not wonder +that a people capable of such conduct in such a moment, and +trained by discipline and habit to such docility in danger, +should subsequently acquire and maintain supreme dominion in +Greece." The general insurrection of the Helots is known in +history as the THIRD MESSENIAN WAR. After two or three years had +passed in vain attempts to capture Ithome, the Spartans were +obliged to call for aid on the Athenians, with whom they were +still in avowed alliance. The friends of Pericles, the rival of +Cimon and the leader of the democratic party at Athens, opposed +granting the desired relief; but Cimon, after some difficulty, +persuaded his countrymen to assist the Lacedæmonians, and +he himself marched with four thousand men to Ithome. The aid of +the Athenians was solicited on account of their acknowledged +skill in capturing fortified places; but as Cimon did not succeed +in taking Ithome, the Spartans became suspicious of his designs, +and summarily sent him back to Athens.</p> + +<br> +<h4>III. THE ACCESSION OF PERICLES TO POWER.</h4> + +<p class="just">The ill success of the expedition of Cimon gave +Pericles the opportunity to place himself and the popular party +in power at Athens; for the constitutional reforms that had been +gradually weakening the power of the aristocracy were now made +available to sweep it almost entirely away. The following extract +from BULWER'S <i>Athens</i> briefly yet fully tells what was +accomplished in this direction:</p> + +<p class="just">"The Constitution previous to Solon was an +oligarchy of birth. Solon rendered it an aristocracy of property. +Clisthenes widened its basis from property to population; and it +was also Clisthenes, in all probability, who weakened the more +illicit and oppressive influences of wealth by establishing the +ballot of secret suffrage, instead of the open voting which was +common in the time of Solon. The Areop'agus was designed by Solon +as the aristocratic balance to the popular assembly. This +constitutional bulwark of the aristocratic party of Athens became +more and more invidious to the people, and when Cimon resisted +every innovation on that assembly he only insured his own +destruction, while he expedited the policy he denounced. +Ephial'tes, the friend and spokesman of Pericles, directed all +the force of the popular opinion against this venerable senate; +and at length, though not openly assisted by Pericles, who took +no prominent part in the contention, that influential statesman +succeeded in crippling its functions and limiting its +authority."</p> + +<p class="just">With regard to the nature of the constitutional +changes effected, the same writer adds: "It appears to me most +probable that the Areopagus retained the right of adjudging cases +of homicide, and little besides of its ancient constitutional +authority; that it lost altogether its most dangerous power in +the <i>indefinite police</i> it had formerly exercised over the +habits and morals of the people; that any control of the finances +was wisely transferred to the popular senate; that its +irresponsible character was abolished, and that it was henceforth +rendered accountable to the people." The struggle between the +contending parties was long and bitter, and the fall of Cimon was +one of the necessary consequences of the political change. +Charged, among other things, with too great friendship for +Sparta, he was driven into exile. Pericles now persuaded the +Athenians to renounce the alliance with Sparta, and he increased +the power of Athens by alliances with Argos and other cities. He +also continued the construction of the long walls from Athens to +the Piræus and Phalerum--a project that Themistocles had +advised and that Cimon had commenced.</p> + +<p class="just">The long existing jealousy of Sparta at last +broke out in open hostilities. While the siege of Ithome was in +progress, Sparta, still powerful in her alliances, sent her +allied forces into Boeotia to counteract the growing influence of +the Athenians in that quarter. The indignant Athenians, led by +Pericles, marched out to meet them, but were worsted in the +battle of Tan'agra. Before this conflict began, Cimon, the +banished commander, appeared in the Athenian camp and begged +permission to enter the ranks against the enemy. His request +being refused, he left his armor with his friends, of whom there +were one hundred among the Athenians, with the charge to refute, +by their valor, the accusation that he and they were the friends +of Sparta. Everyone of the one hundred fell in the conflict. +About two months after, in the early part of the year 456 B.C., +the Athenians wiped off the stain of their defeat at Tanagra by a +victory over the combined Theban and Boeotian forces, then in +alliance with Sparta; whereby the authority and influence of +Sparta were again confined to the Peloponnesus.</p> + +<p class="just">The Athenians were now masters of Greece, from +the Gulf of Corinth to the Pass of Thermopylæ, and in the +following year they sent an expedition round the Peloponnesus, +which captured, among other cities, Naupactus, on the Corinthian +Gulf. The third and last Messenian war had just been concluded by +the surrender of Ithome, on terms which permitted the Messenians +and their families to retire from the Peloponnesus, and they +joined the colony which Athens planted at Naupactus. But the +successes of Athens in Greece were counterbalanced, in the same +year, by reverses in Egypt, where the Athenians were fighting +Persia in aid of In'arus, a Libyan prince. These, with some other +minor disasters, and the state of bitter feeling that existed +between the two parties at Athens, induced Pericles to recall +Cimon from exile and put him in command of an expedition against +Cyprus and Egypt. In 449, however, Cimon was taken ill, and he +died in the harbor of Ci'tium, to which place he was laying +siege.</p> + +<p class="just">Before the death of Cimon, and through his +intervention, a five years' truce had been concluded with Sparta, +and soon after his death peace was made with Persia. From this +time the empire of Athens began to decline. In the year 447 B.C. +a revolt in Boeotia resulted in the overthrow of Athenian +supremacy there, while the expulsion of the Athenians from +Pho'cis and Lo'cris, and the revolt of Euboea and Megara, +followed soon after. The revolt of Euboea was soon quelled, but +this was the only success that Athens achieved. Meanwhile a +Spartan army invaded Attica and marched to the neighborhood of +Eleusis. Having lost much of her empire, with a fair prospect of +losing all of it if hostilities continued, Athens concluded a +thirty years' truce with Sparta and her allies, by the terms of +which she abandoned her conquests in the Peloponnesus, and Megara +became an ally of Sparta (445 B.C.)</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE "AGE OF PERICLES."</h5> + +<p class="just">With the close of the Persian contest, and the +beginning of the Thirty Years' truce, properly begins what has +been termed the "Age of Pericles"--the inauguration of a new and +important era of Athenian greatness and renown. Having won the +highest military honors and political ascendancy, Athens now took +the lead in intellectual progress. Themistocles and Cimon had +restored to Athens all that of which Xerxes had despoiled it--the +former having rebuilt its ruins, and the latter having given to +its public buildings a degree of magnificence previously unknown. +But Pericles surpassed them both:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">He was the ruler of the land<br> + When Athens was the land of fame;<br> +He was the light that led the band<br> + When each was like a living flame;<br> +The centre of earth's noblest ring,<br> +Of more than men the more than king.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Yet not by fetter nor by spear<br> + His sovereignty was held or won:<br> +Feared--but alone as freemen fear;<br> + Loved--but as freemen love alone;<br> +He waved the sceptre o'er his kind<br> +By nature's first great title--<i>mind!</i><br> + --CROLY.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Orator and philosopher, as well as statesman and +general, Pericles had the most lofty views. "Athens," says a +modern writer, "was to become not only the capital of Greece, but +the center of art and refinement, and, at the same time, of those +democratical theories which formed the <i>beau ideal</i> of the +Athenian notions of government." Athens became the center and +capital of the most polished communities of Greece; she drew into +a focus all the Grecian intellect, and she obtained from her +dependents the wealth to administer the arts, which universal +traffic and intercourse taught her to appreciate. The treasury of +the state being placed in the hands of Pericles, he knew no limit +to expenditure but the popular will, which, fortunately for the +glories of Grecian art, kept pace with the vast conceptions of +the master designer. Most of those famous structures that crowned +the Athenian Acropolis, or surrounded its base, were either built +or adorned by his direction, under the superintendence of the +great sculptor, Phidias. The Parthenon, the Ode'um, the gold and +ivory statue of the goddess Minerva, and the Olympian +Jupiter--the latter two the work of the great sculptor +himself--were alone sufficient to immortalize the "Age of +Pericles." Of these miracles of sculpture and of architecture, as +well as of the literature of this period, we shall speak farther +in a subsequent place.</p> + +<p class="just">Of the general condition and appearance of Athens +during the fourteen years that the Thirty Years' Truce was +observed, HAYGARTH gives us the following poetical +description:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> All the din of +war<br> +Was hushed to rest. Within a city's walls,<br> +Beneath a marble portico, were seen<br> +Statesmen and orators, in robes of peace,<br> +Holding discourse. The assembled multitude<br> +Sat in the crowded theatre, and bent<br> +To hear the voice of gorgeous Tragedy<br> +Breathing, in solemn verse, or ode sublime,<br> +Her noble precepts. The broad city's gates<br> +Poured forth a mingled throng--impatient steeds<br> +Champing their bits, and neighing for the course:<br> +Merchants slow driving to the busy port<br> +Their ponderous wains: Religion's holy priests<br> +Leading her red-robed votaries to the steps<br> +Of some vast temple: young and old, with hands<br> +Crossed on their breasts, hastening to walks and shades<br> +Suburban, where some moralist explained<br> +The laws of mind and virtue. On a rock<br> +A varied group appeared: some dragged along<br> +The rough-hewn block; some shaped it into form;<br> +Some reared the column, or with chisel traced<br> +Forms more than human; while Content sat near,<br> +And cheered with songs the toil of Industry.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p>But, as the poet adds,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Soon passed this peaceful pageant: +War again<br> +Brandished his bloody lance--</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">and then began that dismal period between the +"Age of Pericles" and the interference of the Romans--embracing +the three Peloponnesian wars, the rising power of Macedonia under +Philip of Macedon, the wars of Alexander and the contentions that +followed--known as the period of the civil convulsions of +Greece.</p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterXI">CHAPTER XI.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS, AND THE FALL OF +ATHENS.</b></p> + +<h5>CAUSES OF THE FIRST WAR.</h5> + +<p class="just">The various successful schemes of Pericles for +enriching and extending the power of Athens were regarded with +fear and jealousy by Sparta and her allies, who were only waiting +for a reasonable excuse to renew hostilities. The opportunity +came in 435 B.C. Corinth, the ally of Sparta, had become involved +in a war with Corcy'ra, one of her colonies, when the latter +applied to Athens for assistance. Pericles persuaded the +Athenians to grant the assistance, and a small fleet was +dispatched to Corcyra. The engagement that ensued, in which the +Athenian ships bore a part --the greatest contest, Thucydides +observes, that had taken place between Greeks to that day--was +favorable to the Corinthians; but the sight of a larger Athenian +squadron advancing toward the scene of action caused the +Corinthians to retreat. This first breach of the truce was soon +followed by another. Potidæ'a, a Corinthian colony, but +tributary to Athens, revolted, on account of some unjust demands +that the Athenians had enforced against it, and claimed and +obtained the assistance of the Corinthians. Thus, in two +instances, were Athens and Corinth, though nominally at peace, +brought into conflict as open enemies.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE CONGRESS AT SPARTA.--THE PERSECUTION OF PERICLES.</h5> + +<p class="just">The Lacedæmonians meanwhile called a +meeting of the Peloponnesian Confederacy at Sparta, at which +Ægina, Meg'ara, and other states made their complaints +against Athens. It was also attended by envoys from Athens, who +seriously warned it not to force Athens into a struggle that +would be waged for its very existence. But a majority of the +Confederacy were of the opinion that Athens had violated her +treaties, and the result of the deliberations was a declaration +of war against her. Not with any real desire for peace, but in +order to gain time for her preparations before the declaration +was made public, Sparta opened negotiations with Athens; but her +preliminary demands were of course refused, while her ultimatum, +that Athens should restore to the latter's allies their +independence, was met with a like demand by the Athenians --that +no state in Peloponnesus should be forced to accommodate itself +to the principles in vogue at Sparta, "Let this be our answer," +said Pericles, in closing his speech in the Athenian assembly: +"We have no wish to begin war, but whosoever attacks us, him we +mean to repel; for our guiding principle ought to be no other +than this: that the power of that state which our fathers made +great we will hand down undiminished to our posterity." The +advice of Pericles was adopted, all farther negotiations were +thereupon concluded, and Athens prepared for war.</p> + +<p class="just">Although the political authority of Pericles was +now at its height, and his services were receiving unwonted +public recognition, he had many enemies among all classes of +citizens, who made his position for a time extremely hazardous. +These at first attacked his friends--Phidias, Anaxagoras, +Aspasia, and others--who were prominent representatives of his +opinions and designs. The former was falsely accused of theft, in +having retained for himself a part of the gold furnished to him +for the golden robe of Athene Par'thenos, and of impiety for +having reproduced his own features in one of the numerous figures +on the shield of the goddess. He was cast into prison, where he +died before his trial was concluded. Anaxagoras, having exposed +himself to the penalties of a decree by which all who abjured the +current religious views were to be indicted and tried as state +criminals, barely escaped with his life; while Aspasia, the +mistress of Pericles, charged with impiety and base immorality, +was only saved by the eloquence and tears of the great statesman, +which flowed freely and successfully in her behalf before the +jury. Finally, Pericles was attacked in person. He was accused of +a waste of the public moneys, and was commanded to render an +exact account of his expenditures. Although he came forth +victorious from this and all other attacks, it is evident, as one +historian observes, that "the endeavors of his enemies did not +fail to exercise a certain influence upon the masses; and this +led Pericles, who believed that war was in any case inevitable, +to welcome its speedy commencement, as he hoped that the common +danger would divert public attention from home affairs, render +harmless the power of his adversaries, strengthen patriotic +feeling, and make manifest to the Athenians their need of his +services."</p> + +<br> +<h4>1. THE FIRST PELOPONNESIAN WAR.</h4> + +<p class="just">On the side of Sparta was arrayed the whole of +Peloponnesus, except Argos and Acha'ia, together with the +Megarians, Phocians, Locrians, Thebans, and some others; while +the allies of Athens were the Thessalians, Acarnanians, +Messenians, Platæans, Chi'ans, Lesbians, her tributary +towns in Thrace and Asia Minor, and all the islands north of +Crete with two exceptions--Me'los and The'ra. Hostilities were +precipitated by a treacherous attack of the Thebans upon +Platæa in 431 B.C.; and before the close of the same year a +Spartan army of sixty thousand ravaged Attica, and sat down +before the very gates of Athens, while the naval forces of the +Athenians desolated the coasts of the Peloponnesus. The Spartans +were soon called from Attica to protect their homes, and Pericles +himself, at the lead of a large force, spread desolation over the +little territory of Megaris. This expedition closed the +hostilities for the year, and, on his return to Athens, Pericles +was intrusted with the duty of pronouncing the oration at the +public funeral which, in accordance with the custom of the +country, was solemnized for those who had fallen in the war.</p> + +<p class="just">This occasion afforded Pericles an opportunity to +animate the courage and the hopes of his countrymen, by such a +description of the glories and the possibilities of Athens as he +alone could give. Commencing his address with a eulogy on the +ancestors and immediate forefathers of the Athenians, he proceeds +to show the latter "by what form of civil polity, what +dispositions and habits of life," they have attained their +greatness; graphically contrasting their institutions with those +of other states, and especially with those of the Spartans, their +present enemies.<br> +</p> + +<p align="center"><i>The Oration of Pericles.</i></p> + +<p>[<small>Footnote: From "History of Thucydides," translated by +S. T. Bloomfield, D. D., vol. I., p. 366.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">"We enjoy a form of government not framed on an +imitation of the institutions of neighboring states, but, are +ourselves rather a model to, than imitative of, others; and +which, from the government being administered not for the few but +for the many, is denominated a democracy. According to its laws, +all participate in an equality of rights as to the determination +of private suits, and everyone is preferred to public offices +with a regard to the reputation he holds, and according as each +is in estimation for anything; not so much for being of a +particular class as for his personal merit. Nor is any person who +can, in whatever way, render service to the state kept back on +account of poverty or obscurity of station. Thus liberally are +our public affairs administered, and thus liberally, too, do we +conduct ourselves as to mutual suspicions in our private and +every-day intercourse; not bearing animosity toward our neighbor +for following his own humor, nor darkening our countenance with +the scowl of censure, which pains though it cannot punish. While, +too, we thus mix together in private intercourse without +irascibility or moroseness, we are, in our public and political +capacity, cautiously studious not to offend; yielding a prompt +obedience to the authorities for the time being, and to the +established laws; especially those which are enacted for the +benefit of the injured, and such as, though unwritten, reflect a +confessed disgrace on the transgressors."</p> + +<p class="just">Having referred to the recreation provided for +the public mind by the exhibition of games and sacrifices +throughout the whole year, as well as to some points in military +matters in which the Athenians excel, Pericles proceeds as +follows: "In these respects, then, is our city worthy of +admiration, and in others also; for we study elegance combined +with frugality, and cultivate philosophy without effeminacy. +Riches we employ at opportunities for action, rather than as a +subject of wordy boast. To confess poverty with us brings no +disgrace; not to endeavor to escape it by exertion is disgrace +indeed. There exists, moreover, in the same persons an attention +both to their domestic concerns and to public affairs; and even +among such others as are engaged in agricultural occupations or +handicraft labor there is found a tolerable portion of political +knowledge. We are the only people who account him that takes no +share in politics, not as an <i>intermeddler in nothing</i>, but +one who is good for nothing. We are, too, persons who examine +aright, or, at least, fully revolve in mind our measures, not +thinking that words are any hindrance to deeds, but that the +hindrance rather consists in the not being informed by words +previously to setting about <i>in deed</i> what is to be done. +For we possess this point of superiority over others, that we +execute a bold promptitude in what we undertake, and yet a +cautious prudence in taking forethought; whereas with others it +is ignorance alone that makes them daring, while reflection makes +them dastardly.</p> + +<p class="just">"In short, I may affirm that the city at large is +the instructress of Greece, and that individually each person +among us seems to possess the most ready versatility in adapting +himself, and that not ungracefully, to the greatest variety of +circumstances and situations that diversify human life. That all +this is not a mere boast of words for the present purpose, but +rather the actual truth, this very power of the state, unto which +by these habits and dispositions we have attained, clearly +attests; for ours is the only one of the states now existing +which, on trial, approves itself greater than report; it alone +occasions neither to an invading enemy ground for chagrin at +being worsted by such, nor to a subject state aught of +self-reproach, as being under the power of those unworthy of +empire. A power do we display not unwitnessed, but attested by +signs illustrious, which will make us the theme of admiration +both to the present and future ages; nor need we either a Homer, +or any such panegyrist, who might, indeed, for the present +delight with his verses, but any idea of our <i>actions</i> +thence formed the actual truth of them might destroy: nay, every +sea and every land have we compelled to become accessible to our +adventurous courage; and everywhere have we planted eternal +monuments both of good and of evil. For <i>such</i> a state, +then, these our departed heroes (unwilling to be deprived of it) +magnanimously fought and fell; and in such a cause it is right +that everyone of us, the survivors, should readily encounter +toils and dangers."</p> + +<p>After paying a handsome tribute to the memory of the departed +warriors whose virtues, he says, helped to adorn Athens with all +that makes it the theme of his encomiums, Pericles exhorts his +hearers to emulate the spirit of those who contributed to their +country the noblest sacrifice. "They bestowed," he adds, "their +persons and their lives upon the public; and therefore, as their +private recompense, they receive a deathless renown and the +noblest of sepulchres, [<small>Footnote:<br> +</small></p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>While kings, in dusty +darkness hid,<br> +Have left a nameless pyramid,<br> +Thy heroes, though the general doom<br> +Hath swept the column from their tomb,<br> +A mightier monument command--<br> +The mountains of their native land!<br> +These, points thy muse, to stranger's eye--<br> +The graves of those that cannot die!<br> + --BYRON.</small>]</div> + +<br> +<br> + not so much that wherein their bones are entombed as in which +their glory is preserved--to be had in everlasting remembrance on +all occasions, whether of speech or action. For to the +illustrious the whole earth is a sepulchre; nor do monumental +inscriptions in their own country alone point it out, but an +unwritten and mental memorial in foreign lands, which, more +durable than any <i>monument</i>, is deeply seated in the breast +of everyone. Imitating, then, these illustrious +models--accounting that happiness is liberty, and that liberty is +valor--be not backward to encounter the perils of war. +[<small>Footnote: It was a kindred spirit that led our own great +statesman, Webster, in quoting from this oration, to ask: "Is it +Athens or America? Is Athens or America the theme of these +immortal strains? Was Pericles speaking of his own country as he +saw it or knew it? or was he gazing upon a bright vision, then +two thousand years before him, which we see in reality as he saw +it in prospect?"</small>] For the unfortunate and hopeless are +not those who have most reason to be lavish of their lives, but +rather such as, while they live, have to hazard a chance to the +opposite, and who have most at stake; since great would be the +reverse should they fall into adversity. For to the high-minded, +at least, more grievous is misfortune overwhelming them amid the +blandishments of prosperity; than the stroke of death overtaking +them in the full pulse of vigor and common hope, and, moreover, +almost unfelt." <br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Says the historian from whose work the speech of +Pericles is taken: "Such was the funeral solemnity which took +place this winter, with the expiration of which the first year of +the war was brought to a close." DR. ERNST CURTIUS comments as +follows on the oration: "With lofty simplicity Pericles extols +the Athenian Constitution, popular in the fullest sense through +having for its object the welfare of the entire people, and +offering equal rights to all the citizens; but at the same time, +and in virtue of this its character, adapted for raising the best +among them to the first positions in the state. He lauds the high +spiritual advantages offered by the city, the liberal love of +virtue and wisdom on the part of her sons, their universal +sympathy in the common weal, their generous hospitality, their +temperance and vigor, which peace and the love of the beautiful +had not weakened, so that the city of the Athenians must, in any +event, be an object of well-deserved admiration both for the +present and for future ages. Such were the points of view from +which Pericles displayed to the citizens the character of their +state, and described to them the people of Athens, as it ought to +be. He showed them their better selves, in order to raise them +above themselves and arouse them to self-denial, to endurance, +and to calm resolution. Full of a new vital ardor they returned +home from the graves, and with perfect confidence confronted the +destinies awaiting them in the future." [<small>Footnote: "The +History of Greece," vol. iii., p. 66; by Dr. Ernst +Curtius.</small>]</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS.</h5> + +<p class="just">In the spring of 430 B.C. the Spartans again +invaded Attica, and the Athenians shut themselves up in Athens. +But here the plague, a calamity more dreadful than war, attacked +them and swept away multitudes. This plague, which not only +devastated Athens, but other Grecian cities also, is described at +considerable length, with a harrowing minuteness of detail, by +the Latin poet LUCRETIUS. His description is based upon the +account given by Thucydides. We give here only the beginning and +the close of it:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<p>A plague like this, a tempest big with fate,<br> +Once ravaged Athens and her sad domains;<br> +Unpeopled all the city, and her paths<br> +Swept with destruction. For amid the realms<br> +Begot of Egypt, many a mighty tract<br> +Of ether traversed, many a flood o'erpassed,<br> +At length here fixed it; o'er the hapless realm<br> +Of Cecrops hovering, and the astonished race<br> +Dooming by thousands to disease and death.</p> + +<pre> + * * * * * +</pre> + +<p>Thus seized the dread, unmitigated pest<br> +Man after man, and day succeeding day,<br> +With taint voracious; like the herds they fell<br> +Of bellowing beeves, or flocks of timorous sheep:<br> +On funeral, funeral hence forever piled.<br> +E'en he who fled the afflicted, urged by love<br> +Of life too fond, and trembling for his fate,<br> +Repented soon severely, and himself<br> +Sunk in his guilty solitude, devoid<br> +Of friends, of succor, hopeless and forlorn;<br> +While those who nursed them, to the pious task<br> +Roused by their prayers, with piteous moans commixt,<br> +Fell irretrievable: the best by far,<br> +The worthiest, thus most frequent met their doom.<br> + --Trans. by J. MASON GOOD.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>THE DEATH OF PERICLES.</h5> + +<p class="just">Oppressed by both war and pestilence, the +Athenians were seized with rage and despair, and accused Pericles +of being the author of their misfortunes. But that determined man +still adhered to his plans, and endeavored to soothe the popular +mind by an expedition against Peloponnesus, which he commanded in +person. After committing devastations upon various parts of the +enemy's coasts, Pericles returned to find the people still more +impatient of the war and clamorous for peace. An embassy was sent +to Sparta with proposals for a cessation of hostilities, but it +was dismissed without a hearing. This repulse increased the +popular exasperation, and, although at an assembly that he called +for the purpose Pericles succeeded, by his power of speech, in +quieting the people, and convincing them of the justice and +patriotism of his course, his political enemies charged him with +peculation, of which he was convicted, and his nomination as +general was cancelled. He retired to private life, but his +successors in office were incompetent and irresolute, and it was +not long before he was re-elected general. He appeared to recover +his ascendancy; but in the middle of the third year of the war he +died, a victim to the plague.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">He perished, but his wreath was +won;<br> + He perished in his height of fame:<br> +Then sunk the cloud on Athens' sun,<br> + Yet still she conquered in his name.<br> +Filled with his soul, she could not die;<br> +Her conquest was Posterity!<br> + --CROLY.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Thucydides relates that when Pericles was near +his end, and apparently insensible, the friends who had gathered +round his bed relieved their sorrow by recalling the remembrance +of his military exploits, and of the trophies which he had +raised. He interrupted them, observing that they had omitted the +most glorious praise which he could claim: "Other generals have +been as fortunate, but I have never caused the Athenians to put +on mourning"-- referring, doubtless, to his success in achieving +important advantages with but little loss of life; and which +THIRLWALL considers "a singular ground of satisfaction, if +Pericles had been conscious of having involved his country in the +bloodiest war it had ever waged."</p> + +<p class="just">The success of Pericles in retaining, for so many +years, his great influence over the Athenian people, must be +attributed, in large part, to his wonderful powers of persuasion. +Cicero is said to have regarded him as the first example of an +almost perfect orator; and Bulwer says that "the diction of his +speeches, and that consecutive logic which preparation alone can +impart to language, became irresistible to a people that had +itself become a Pericles." Whatever may be said of Pericles as a +politician, his intellectual superiority cannot be questioned. As +the accomplished man of genius, and the liberal patron of +literature and art, he is worthy of the highest admiration; for +"by these qualities he has justly given name to the most +brilliant intellectual epoch that the world has ever seen." The +following extract from MITFORD'S <i>History of Greece</i>, may be +considered a correct sketch of the great democratic ruler:</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>The Character of Pericles.</i></p> + +<p class="just">"No other man seems to have been held in so high +estimation by most of the ablest writers of Greece and Rome, for +universal superiority of talents, as Pericles. The accounts +remaining of his actions hardly support his renown, which was +yet, perhaps, more fairly earned than that of many, the merit of +whose achievements has been, in a great degree, due to others +acting under them, whose very names have perished. The philosophy +of Pericles taught him not to be vain-glorious, but to rest his +fame upon essentially great and good rather than upon brilliant +actions. It is observed by Plutarch that, often as he commanded +the Athenian forces, he never was defeated; yet, though he won +many trophies, he never gained a splendid victory. A battle, +according to a great modern authority, is the resource of +ignorant generals; when they know not what to do they fight a +battle. It was almost universally the resource of the age of +Pericles; little conception was entertained of military +operations beyond ravage and a battle. His genius led him to a +superior system, which the wealth of his country enabled him to +carry into practice. His favorite maxim was to spare the lives of +his soldiers; and scarcely any general ever gained so many +important advantages with so little bloodshed.</p> + +<p class="just">"This splendid character, however, perhaps may +seem to receive some tarnish from the political conduct of +Pericles; the concurrence, at least, which is imputed to him, in +depraving the Athenian Constitution, to favor that popular power +by which he ruled, and the revival and confirmation of that +pernicious hostility between the democratical and aristocratical +interests, first in Athens and then by the Peloponnesian war +throughout the nation. But the high respect with which he is +always spoken of by three men in successive ages, Thucydides, +Xenophon, and Isoc'rates, all friendly to the aristocratical +interest, and all anxious for concord with Lacedæmon, +strongly indicates that what may appear exceptionable in his +conduct was, in their opinion, the result, not of choice, but of +necessity. By no other conduct, probably, could the independence +of Athens have been preserved; and yet that, as the event showed, +was indispensable for the liberty of Greece."</p> + +<br> +<h4>II. THE ATHENIAN DEMAGOGUES.</h4> + +<p class="just">Soon after the death of Pericles the results of +the political changes introduced by him, as well as of the moral +and social changes that had taken place in the people from +various causes, became apparent in the raising to power of men +from the lower walks of life, whose popularity was achieved and +maintained mainly by intrigue and flattery. Chief among these +rose Cle'on, a tanner, who has been characterized as "the violent +demagogue whose arrogant presumption so unworthily succeeded the +enlightened magnanimity of Pericles." In the year 428 Mityle'ne, +the capital of the Island of Lesbos, revolted against the +supremacy of Athens, but was speedily reduced to subjection, and +one thousand or more Mityleneans were sent as prisoners to +Athens, to be disposed of as the Athenian assembly should direct. +Cleon first prominently appears in public in connection with the +disposal of these prisoners. With the capacity to transact +business in a popular manner, and possessing a stentorian voice +and unbounded audacity, he had become "by far the most persuasive +speaker in the eyes of the people;" and now, taking the lead in +the assembly debate, he succeeded in having the unfortunate +prisoners cruelly put to death. From this period his influence +steadily increased, and in the year 425 he was elected commander +of the Athenian forces. For several years circumstances favored +him. With the aid of his general, Demosthenes, he captured Py'lus +from the Spartans, and on his return to Athens he was received +with demonstrations of great favor; but his military incompetence +lost him both the victory and his life in the battle of +Amphip'olis, 422 B.C.</p> + +<p class="just">What we know of the political conduct of Cleon +comes from measurably unreliable sources. Aristoph'anes, the +chief of the comic poets, describes him as "a noisy brawler, loud +in his criminations, violent in his gestures, corrupt and venal +in his principles, a persecutor of rank and merit, and a base +flatterer and sycophant of the people." Thucydides also calls him +"a dishonest politician, a wrongful accuser of others, and the +most violent of all the citizens." Both these writers, however, +had personal grievances. Of course Cleon very naturally became a +target for the invective of the poet. "The taking of Pylus," says +GILLIES, "and the triumphant return of Cleon, a notorious coward +transformed by caprice and accident into a brave and successful +commander, were topics well suiting the comic vein of +Aristophanes; and in the comedy first represented in the seventh +year of the war--<i>The Knights</i>--he attacks him in the moment +of victory, when fortune had rendered him the idol of a +licentious multitude, when no comedian was so daring as to play +his character, and no painter so bold as to design his mask." The +poet himself, therefore, appeared on the stage, "only disguising +his face, the better to represent the part of Cleon." As another +writer has said, "Of all the productions of Aristophanes, so +replete with comic genius throughout, <i>The Knights</i> is the +most consummate and irresistible; and it presents a portrait of +Cleon drawn in colors broad and glaring, most impressive to the +imagination, and hardly effaceable from the memory." The +following extract from the play will show the license indulged in +on the stage in democratic Athens, the boldness of the poet's +attacks, and will serve, also, as a sample of his style:</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>Cleon the Demagogue.</i></p> + +<p class="just">The chorus come upon the stage; and thus commence +their attack upon Cleon:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<p> <i>Chorus</i>. Close around him, and confound him, the +confounder of us all;<br> +Pelt him, pummel him, and maul him; rummage, ransack, overhaul +him;<br> +Overbear him and outbawl him; bear him down, and bring him +under.<br> +Bellow, like a burst of thunder, robber! harpy! sink of +plunder!<br> +Rogue and villain! rogue and cheat! rogue and villain, I +repeat!<br> +Oftener than I can repeat it has the rogue and villain +cheated.<br> +Close around him, left and right; spit upon him, spurn and +smite:<br> +Spit upon him as you see; spurn and spit at him like me.<br> +But beware, or he'll evade you! for he knows the private +track<br> +Where En'crates was seen escaping with his mill-dust on his +back.</p> + +<p> <i>Cleon</i>. Worthy veterans of the jury, you that, either +right or wrong,<br> +With my threepenny provision I've maintained and cherished +long,<br> +Come to my aid! I'm here waylaid--assassinated and betrayed"!</p> + +<p> <i>Chorus</i>. Rightly served! we serve you rightly, for +your hungry love of pelf;<br> +For your gross and greedy rapine, gormandizing by yourself--<br> +You that, ere the figs are gathered, pilfer with a privy +twitch<br> +Fat delinquents and defaulters, pulpy, luscious, plump, and +rich;<br> +Pinching, fingering, and pulling--tempering, selecting, +culling;<br> +With a nice survey discerning which are green and which are +turning,<br> +Which are ripe for accusation, forfeiture, and confiscation.<br> +Him, besides, the wealthy man, retired upon an easy rent,<br> +Hating and avoiding party, noble-minded, indolent,<br> +Fearful of official snares; intrigues, and intricate +affairs--<br> +<i>Him</i> you mark; you fix and hook him, while he's gaping +unawares;<br> +At a fling, at once you bring him hither from the Chersonese;<br> +Down you cast him, roast and baste him, and devour him at your +ease.</p> + +<p> <i>Cleon</i>. Yes; assault, insult, abuse me! This is the +return I find<br> +For the noble testimony, the memorial I designed:<br> +Meaning to propose proposals for a monument of stone,<br> +On the which your late achievements should be carved and neatly +done.</p> + +<p> <i>Chorus</i>. Out, away with him! the slave! the pompous, +empty, fawning knave!<br> +Does he think with idle speeches to delude and cheat us all,<br> +As he does the doting elders that attend his daily call?<br> +Pelt him here, and bang him there; and here, and there, and<br> +everywhere.</p> + +<p> <i>Cleon</i>. Save me, neighbors! Oh, the monsters! Oh, my +side, my back, my breast!</p> + +<p> <i>Chorus</i>. What! you're forced to call for help? you +brutal, overpowering pest!</p> + +<p>[<i>Clean is pelted off the stage, pursued by the +Chorus</i>.]</p> +</div> + +<br> +<h5>THE PEACE OF NI'ÇI-AS.</h5> + +<p class="just">The struggle between Sparta and Athens continued +ten years without intermission, and without any successes of a +decisive character on either side. In the eleventh year of the +struggle (421 B.C.) a treaty for a term of fifty years was +concluded--called the Peace of Nicias, in honor of the Athenian +general of that name --by which the towns captured during the war +were to be restored, and both Athens and Sparta placed in much +the same state as when hostilities commenced. But this proved to +be a hollow truce; for the war was a virtual triumph for +Athens--and interest, inclination, and the ambitious views of her +party leaders were not long in finding plausible pretexts for +renewing the struggle. Again, the Boeotian, Megarian, and +Corinthian allies of Sparta refused to carry out the terms of the +treaty by making the required surrenders, and Sparta had no power +to compel them, while Athens would accept no less than she had +bargained for.</p> + +<p class="just">The Athenian general Nicias, through whose +influence the Fifty Years' Truce had been concluded, endeavored +to carry out its terms; but through the artifices of Alcibi'ades, +a nephew of Pericles, a wealthy Athenian, and an artful +demagogue, the treaty was soon dishonored on the part of Athens. +Alcibi'ades also managed to involve the Spartans in a war with +their recent allies, the Ar'gives, during which was fought the +battle of Mantine'a, 418 B.C., in which the Spartans were +victorious; and he induced the Athenians to send an armament +against the Dorian island of Me'los, which had provoked the +enmity of Athens by its attachment to Sparta, and which was +compelled, after a vigorous siege, to surrender at discretion. +Meanwhile the feeble resistance of Sparta, and her apparent +timidity, encouraged Athens to resume a project of aggrandizement +which she had once before undertaken, but had been obliged to +relinquish. This was no less than the virtual conquest of Sicily, +whose important cities, under the leadership of Syracuse, had +some years before joined the Peloponnesian confederacy.</p> + +<br> +<h4>III. THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION.</h4> + +<p class="just">Although opposed by Nicias, Socrates, and a few +of the wiser heads at Athens, the counsels of Alcibiades +prevailed, and, after three months of great preparation, an +expedition sailed from Athens for Sicily, under the plea of +delivering the town of Eges'ta from the tyranny of Syracuse (415 +B.C.). The armament fitted out on this occasion, the most +powerful that had ever left a Grecian port, was intrusted to the +joint command of Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lam'achus. The +expedition captured the city of Cat'ana, which was made the +headquarters of the armament; but here Alcibiades was summoned to +Athens on the absurd charge of impiety and sacrilege, connected +with the mutilation of the statues of the god Her'mes, that had +taken place just before he left Athens. He was also charged with +having profaned the Eleusinian mysteries by giving a +representation of them in his own house. Fearing to trust himself +to the giddy multitude in a trial for life, Alcibiades at once +threw himself upon the generosity of his open enemies, and sought +refuge at Sparta. When, soon after, he heard that the Athenians +had condemned him to death, he answered, "I will show them that I +am still alive."</p> + +<p class="just">By the death of Lamachus, Nicias was soon after +left in sole command of the Athenians. He succeeded in landing +near Syracuse and defeating the Syracusans in a well-fought +engagement; but he wasted his time in fortifying his camp, and in +useless negotiations, until his enemies, having received aid from +Corinth and Sparta, under the Spartan general Gylip'pus, were +able to bid him defiance. Although new forces were sent from +Athens, under the Athenian general Demosthenes, the Athenians +were defeated in several engagements, and their entire force was +nearly destroyed (413 B.C.). "Never, in Grecian history," says +THUCYDIDES, "had ruin so complete and sweeping, or victory so +glorious and unexpected, been witnessed." Both Nicias and +Demosthenes were captured and put to death, and the Syracusans +also captured seven thousand prisoners and sold them as slaves. +Some of the latter, however, are said to have received milder +treatment than the others, owing, it is supposed, to their +familiarity with the works of the then popular poet, Eurip'ides, +which in Sicily, historians tell us, were more celebrated than +known. It is to this incident, probably, that reference is made +by BYRON in the following lines:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">When Athens' armies fell at +Syracuse,<br> +And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war,<br> +Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse--<br> +Her voice their only ransom from afar.<br> +See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car<br> +Of the o'ermastered victor stops; the reins<br> +Fall from his hands--his idle scimitar<br> +Starts from its belt--he rends his captive's chains,<br> +And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains.<br> + --<i>Childe Harold</i>, IV., 16.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>IV. THE SECOND PELOPONNESIAN WAR.</h4> + +<p class="just">The aid which Gylippus had rendered the +Syracusans now brought Sparta and Athens in direct conflict. The +result of the Athenian expedition was the greatest calamity that +had befallen Athens, and the city was filled with affliction and +dismay. The Spartans made frequent forays into Attica, and Athens +was almost in a state of siege, while several of her allies, +instigated by Alcibiades, who was active in the Spartan councils, +revolted and joined the Spartans. It was not long, however, +before Athens regained her wonted determination and began to +repair her wasted energies. Samos still remained faithful to her +interests, and, with her help, a new flee was built, with which +Lesbos was recovered, and a victory was obtained over the +Peloponnesians at Miletus. Soon after this defeat Alcibiades, who +had forfeited the confidence of the Spartans by his conduct, was +denounced as a traitor and condemned to death. He escaped to the +court of Tissapher'nes, the most powerful Persian satrap in Asia +Minor. By his intrigues Alcibiades, who now sought a +reconciliation with his countrymen, partially detached +Tissaphernes from the interests of Sparta, and offered the +Athenians a Persian alliance as the price of his restoration to +his country. But, as he feared and hated the Athenian democracy, +he insisted that an oligarchy should be established in its +place.</p> + +<p class="just">The Athenian generals accepted the proposal as +the only means of salvation for Athens; and, although they +subsequently discovered that Alcibiades could not perform what he +had undertaken, a change of government was effected, after much +opposition from the people, from a democracy to an aristocracy of +four hundred of the nobility; but the new government, dreading +the ambition of Alcibiades, refused to recall him. Another change +soon followed. The defeat of the Athenian navy at Ere'tria, and +the revolt of Euboea, produced a new revolution at Athens, by +which the government of the four hundred was overthrown, and +democracy restored. Alcibiades was now recalled; but before his +return he aided in destroying the Peloponnesian fleet in the +battle of Cys'icus (411 B.C.). He was welcomed at Athens with +great enthusiasm, a golden crown was decreed him, and he was +appointed commander-in-chief of all the forces of the +commonwealth both by land and by sea.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE HUMILIATION OF ATHENS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Alcibiades was still destined to experience the +instability of fortune. He sailed from Athens in September, 407, +and proceeded to Samos. While he was absent from the main body of +his fleet on a predatory excursion, one of his subordinates, +contrary to instructions, attacked a Spartan fleet and was +defeated with a loss of fifteen ships. Although in command of a +splendid force, Alcibiades had accomplished really nothing, and +had now lost a part of his fleet. An unjust suspicion of +treachery fell upon him, the former charges against him were +revived, and he was deprived of his command and again banished. +In the year 406 the Athenians defeated a large Spartan fleet +under Callicrat'idas, but their victory secured them no permanent +advantages. Lysander, a general whose abilities the Athenians +could not match since they had deprived themselves of the +services of Alcibiades, was now in command of the Spartan forces. +He obtained the favor of Cyrus, the youngest son of the King of +Persia, who had been invested with authority over the whole +maritime region of Asia Minor, and, aided by Persian gold, he +manned a numerous fleet with which he met the Athenians at +Æ'gos-pot'ami, on the Hellespont, destroyed most of their +ships, and captured three thousand prisoners (405 B.C.). The +maritime allies of Athens immediately submitted to Lysander, who +directed the Athenians throughout Greece to repair at once to +Athens, with threats of death to all whom he found elsewhere; and +when famine began to prey upon the collected multitude in the +city, he appeared before the Piræus with his fleet, while a +large Spartan army blockaded Athens by land.</p> + +<p class="just">The Athenians had no hopes of effectual +resistance, and only delayed the surrender of their city to plead +for the best terms that could be obtained. Compelled at last to +submit to whatever terms were dictated to them, they agreed to +destroy their long walls and fortifications; to surrender all +their ships but twelve; to restore their exiles; to relinquish +their conquests; to become a member of the Peloponnesian +Confederacy; and to serve Sparta in all her expeditions, whether +by land or by sea. Thus fell imperial Athens (404 B.C. ), in the +seventy-third year after the formation of the Confederacy of +Delos, the origin of her subsequent empire. Soon after this +event, and in the same year, Alcibiades, who had been honored by +both Athens and Sparta, and was now the dread of both, met his +fate in a foreign land. While living in Phrygia he was murdered +by the Persian satrap at the instance of Sparta. It has been said +of him that, "with qualities which, if properly applied, might +have rendered him the greatest benefactor of Athens, he contrived +to attain the infamous distinction of being that citizen who had +inflicted upon her the most signal amount of damage."</p> + +<p class="just">The war just closed was characterized by many +instances of cruelty and heartlessness, in marked contrast with +the boasted clemency and culture of the age, of which two +prominent illustrations may be given. The first occurred at +Platæa in the year 427, soon after the execution by the +Athenians of the Mitylene'an prisoners. After a long and heroic +defence against the Spartans under King Archida'mus himself, and +after a solemn promise had been given that no harm should be +illegally done to any person within its walls, Platæa +surrendered. But a Spartan court soon after decreed that the +Platæan alliance with Athens was a treasonable offence, and +punishable, of course, with death. Thereupon all those who had +surrendered (two hundred Platæans and twenty-five +Athenians) were barbarously murdered. The other instance occurred +at Lamp'sacus, where the three thousand prisoners taken by +Lysander at Ægospotami were tried by court-martial and put +to death.</p> + +<p class="just">Referring to these barbarities, MAHAFFY observes, +in his <i>Social Life in Greece</i>, that, "though seldom +paralleled in human history, they appear to have called forth no +cry of horror in Greece. Phil'ocles, the unfortunate Athenian +general at Ægospotami, according to Theophrastus, submitted +with dignified resignation to a fate which he confessed would +have attended the Lacedæmonians had they been vanquished. +[<small>Footnote: Plutarch relates that when Lysander asked +Philocles what punishment he thought he deserved, undismayed by +his misfortunes, he answered, "Do not start a question where +there is no judge to decide it; but, now you are a conqueror, +proceed as you would have been proceeded with had you been +conquered." After this he bathed, dressed himself in a rich robe, +and then led his countrymen to execution, being the first to +offer his neck to the axe.</small>] The barbarity of the Greeks +is but one evidence out of a thousand that, hitherto in the +world's history, no culture, no education, no political training, +has been able to rival the mature and ultimate effects of +Christianity in humanizing society."</p> + +<br> +<h5>CHANGES IN GOVERNMENT AT ATHENS.</h5> + +<p class="just">The change of government which followed the +Spartan occupation of Athens conformed to the aristocratic +character of the Spartan institutions. All authority was placed +by Lysander in the hands of thirty archons, who became known as +the Thirty Tyrants, and whose power was supported by a Spartan +garrison. Their cruelty and rapacity knew no bounds, and filled +Athens with universal dismay. The streets of Athens flowed with +blood, and while many of the best men of the city fell, others +more fortunate succeeded in escaping to the territory of the +friendly Thebans, who, groaning under Spartan supremacy, +sympathized with Athens, and regarded the Thirty as mere +instruments for maintaining the Spartan dominion. A large band of +exiles soon assembled, and choosing one Thrasybu'lus for their +leader, they resolved to strike a blow for the deliverance of +their country.</p> + +<p class="just">They first seized a small fortress on the +frontier of Attica, when, their numbers rapidly increasing, they +were able to seize the Piræus, where they entrenched +themselves and defeated the force that was brought against them, +killing, among others, Cri'ti-as, the chief of the tyrants. The +loss of Critias threw the majority into the hands of a party who +resolved to depose the Thirty and constitute a new oligarchy of +Ten. The rule of the Thirty was overthrown; but the change in +government was simply a reduction in the number of tyrants, as +the Ten emulated the wickedness of their predecessors, and when +the populace turned against them, applied to Sparta for +assistance. Lysander again entered Athens at the head of a large +force; but the Spartan councils became divided, Lysander was +deposed from command, and eventually, by the aid of Sparta +herself, the Ten were overthrown. The Spartans now withdrew their +forces from Attica, and Athens again became a democracy (403 +B.C.). Freed from foreign domination, she soon obtained internal +peace; but her empire had vanished.</p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterXII">CHAPTER XII.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>GRECIAN LITERATURE AND ART I FROM THE +BEGINNING OF THE PERSIAN TO THE CLOSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS. +(500-403 B.C.)</b></p> + +<h3>LITERATURE.</h3> + +<p class="just">In a former chapter we briefly traced the growth +of Grecian literature and art from their beginnings down to the +time of the Persian wars. Within this period, as we noticed, +their progress was the greatest in the Grecian colonies, while, +of the cities of central Greece, the one destined to become +pre-eminent in literature and the fine arts--Athens--contributed +less than several others to intellectual advancement. "She +produced no artists to be compared with those of Argos, Corinth, +Si'cy-on, and of many other cities, while she could boast of no +poets as celebrated as those of the Ionian and Æolian +schools." But at the opening of the Persian wars the artistic and +literary talent of Greece began to center in Athens, and with the +close of that contest properly begins the era of Athenian +greatness. Athens, hitherto inferior in magnitude and political +importance, having borne the brunt and won the highest martial +honor of the conflict with Persia, now took the lead, as well in +intellectual progress as in political ascendancy. To this era +PROFESSOR SYMONDS refers, as follows:</p> + +<p class="just">"It was the struggle with Xerxes which developed +all the latent energies of the Greeks, which intensified their +national existence, and which secured for Athens, as the central +power on which the scattered forces of the race converged, the +intellectual dictatorship of Hellas. It was a struggle of +spiritual energy against brute force, of liberty against +oppression, of intellectual freedom against superstitious +ignorance, of civilization against barbarism; and Athens, who had +fought and won this battle of the Spirit--by spirit we mean the +greatness of the soul, liberty, intelligence, and everything +which raises men above brutes and slaves, and makes them free +beneath the arch of heaven--became immediately the recognized +impersonation of the spirit itself. Whatever was superb in human +nature found its natural home and sphere in Athens. We hear no +more of the colonies. All great works of art and literature are +now produced in Athens, and it is to Athens that the sages come +to teach and to be taught." [<small>Footnote: "The Greek Poets." +First Series, p. 19.</small>]</p> + +<br> +<h4>I. LYRIC POETRY.</h4> + +<h5>SIMON'IDES AND PINDAR.</h5> + +<p class="just">The rapid progress made in the cultivation of +lyric poetry preceding the Persian wars found its culmination, +during those wars, in Simonides of Ceos, the most brilliant +period of whose life was spent at Athens; and in Pindar, a native +of Thebes, who is considered the greatest lyric poet of all ages. +The life of Simonides was a long one, reaching from 556 to 469 +B.C. "Coming forward at a time," says MAHAFFY, "when the tyrants +had made poetry a matter of culture, and dissociated it from +politics, we find him a professional artist, free from all party +struggles, alike welcome at the courts of tyrants and among the +citizens of free states; he was respected throughout all the +Greek world, and knew well how to suit himself, socially and +artistically, to his patrons. The great national struggle with +Persia gave him the opportunity of becoming the spokesman of the +nation in celebrating the glories of the victors and the heroism +of the fallen patriots; and this exceptional opportunity made him +quite the foremost poet of his day, and decidedly better known +and more admired than Pindar, who has so completely eclipsed him +in the attention of posterity." [<small>Footnote: "Classical +Greek Literature," vol. i., p. 207.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">Simonides was the intimate friend of Miltiades +and Themistocles at Athens, of Pausanias at Sparta, and of the +tyrants of Sicily. In the first named city he composed his +epigrams on Marathon, Thermopylæ, Salamis, and +Platæa--"poems not destined to be merely sung or consigned +to parchment, but to be carved in marble or engraved in letters +of imperishable bronze upon the works of the noblest architects +and statuaries." In his elegy upon Marathon he carried away the +prize from Æschylus. He was a most prolific poet, and his +writings, comprising all the subjects that human life, with its +joys and sorrows, its hopes and disappointments, could furnish, +are noted for their sweetness and pure and exquisite polish. He +particularly excelled in the pathetic; and the most celebrated of +the existing fragments of his muse, the "Lamentation of +Dan'a-ë," is a piece of this character. The poem is based +upon a tradition concerning Danaë, the daughter of +Acris'ius, King of Argos, and her infant son, the offspring of +Jove. Acrisius had been told by the oracle that his life would be +taken by a son that his daughter should bear, and, for his own +preservation, when the boy had reached the age of four years, +Acrisius threw both him and his mother into a chest and set them +adrift on the sea. But they were rescued by Dictys, a fisherman +of the Island of Seri'phus, whose brother Polydec'tes, king of +the country, received and protected them. The boy grew up to +manhood, and became the famous hero Per'seus, who accidentally +killed Acrisius at the funeral games of Polydectes. The following +is the</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Lamentation of Dan'a-ë.</i></p> + +<p>While, around her lone ark sweeping,<br> + Wailed the winds and waters wild,<br> +Her young cheeks all wan with weeping,<br> + Danae clasped her sleeping child;<br> +And "Alas!" cried she, "my dearest,<br> + What deep wrongs, what woes are mine;<br> +But nor wrongs nor woes thou fearest<br> + In that sinless rest of thine.<br> +Faint the moonbeams break above thee,<br> + And within here all is gloom;<br> +But, fast wrapped in arms that love thee,<br> + Little reck'st thou of our doom.<br> +Not the rude spray, round thee flying,<br> + Has e'en damped thy clustering hair;<br> +On thy purple mantlet lying,<br> + O mine Innocent, my Fair!<br> +Yet, to thee were sorrow sorrow,<br> + Thou wouldst lend thy little ear;<br> +And this heart of thine might borrow,<br> + Haply, yet a moment's cheer.<br> +But no: slumber on, babe, slumber;<br> + Slumber, ocean's waves; and you,<br> +My dark troubles, without number--<br> + Oh, that ye would slumber too!<br> +Though with wrongs they've brimmed my chalice,<br> + Grant, Jove, that, in future years,<br> +This boy may defeat their malice,<br> + And avenge his mother's tears!"<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> W. PETER.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<p class="just">Simonides was nearly eighty years old when he +gained his last poetical prize at Athens, making the fiftieth +that he had won. He then retired to Syracuse, at the invitation +of Hi'ero, where he spent the remaining ten years of his life. He +was a philosopher as well as poet, and his wise sayings made him +a special favorite with the accomplished Hiero. When inquired of +by that monarch concerning the nature of God, Simonides requested +one day for deliberating on the subject; and when Hiero repeated +the question the next day, the poet asked for two days more. As +he still went on doubling the number of days, the monarch, lost +in wonder, asked him why he did so. "Because," replied Simonides, +"the longer I reflect on the subject, the more obscure does it +appear to me to be."</p> + +<p class="just">Pindar, the most celebrated of all the lyric +poets of Greece, was born about 520 B.C. At an early age he was +sent to Athens to receive instruction in the art of poetry: +returning to Thebes at twenty, his youthful genius was quickened +and guided by the influence of Myr'tis and Corin'na, two +poetesses who then enjoyed great celebrity in Boeotia. At a later +period "he undoubtedly experienced," says THIRLWALL, "the +animating influence of that joyful and stirring time which +followed the defeat of the barbarian invader, though, as a Theban +patriot, he could not heartily enjoy a triumph by which Thebes as +well as Persia was humbled." But his enthusiasm for Athens, which +he calls "the buttress of Hellas," is apparent in one of his +compositions; and the Athenians specially honored him with a +valuable present, and, after his death, erected a bronze statue +to his memory. It is probable, however, that while he was +sincerely anxious for the success of Greece in the great contest, +he avoided as much as possible offending his own people, whose +sympathies and hopes lay the other way.</p> + +<p class="just">The reputation of Pindar early became so great +that he was employed, by various states and princes, to compose +choral songs for special occasions. Like Simonides, he "loved to +bask in the sunshine of courts;" but he was frank, sincere, and +manly, assuming a lofty and dignified position toward princes and +others in authority with whom he came in contact. He was +especially courted by Hiero, despot of Syracuse, but remained +with him only a few years, his manly disposition creating a love +for an independent life that the courtly arts of his patron could +not furnish. As his poems show, he was a reserved man, learned in +the myths and ceremonies of the times, and specially devoted to +the worship of the gods. "The old myths," says a Greek +biographer, "were for the most part realities to him, and he +accepted them with implicit credence, except when they exhibited +the gods in a point of view which was repugnant to his moral +feelings; and he accordingly rejects some tales, and changes +others, because they are inconsistent with his moral +conceptions." As a poet correctly describes him, using one of the +names commonly applied to him,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Pindar, that eagle, mounts the +skies,<br> +While <i>virtue</i> leads the noble way.<br> + --PRIOR.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The poems of Pindar were numerous, and comprised +triumphal odes, hymns to the gods, pæans, dirges, and songs +of various kinds. His triumphal odes alone have come down to us +entire; but of some of his other compositions there are a few +sublime and beautiful fragments. The poet and his writings cannot +be better described than in the following general +characterization by SYMONDS:</p> + +<p class="just">"By the force of his originality Pindar gave +lyrical poetry a wholly new direction, and, coming last of the +great Dorian lyrists, taught posterity what sort of thing an ode +should be. His grand pre-eminence as an artist was due, in great +measure, to his personality. Frigid, austere, and splendid; not +genial like that of Simonides, not passionate like that of +Sappho, not acrid like that of Archil'ochus; hard as adamant, +rigid in moral firmness, glittering with the strong, keen light +of snow; haughty, aristocratic, magnificent--the unique +personality of the man Pindar, so irresistible in its influence, +so hard to characterize, is felt in every strophe of his odes. In +his isolation and elevation Pindar stands like some fabled +heaven-aspiring peak, conspicuous from afar, girdled at the base +with ice and snow, beaten by winds, wreathed round with steam and +vapor, jutting a sharp and dazzling outline into cold blue ether. +Few things that have life dare to visit him at his grand +altitude. Glorious with sunlight and with stars, touched by rise +and set of day with splendor, he shines when other lesser lights +are dulled. Pindar among his peers is solitary. He had no +communion with the poets of his day. He is the eagle; Simonides +and Bacchyl'ides are jackdaws. He soars to the empyrean; they +haunt the valley mists. Noticing this rocky, barren, severe, +glittering solitude of Pindar's soul, critics have not +infrequently complained that his poems are devoid of individual +interest. Possibly they have failed to comprehend and appreciate +the nature of this sublime and distant genius, whose character, +in truth, is just as marked as that of Dante or of Michael +Angelo."</p> + +<p class="just">After giving some illustrations of the impression +produced upon the imagination by a study of Pindar's odes, the +writer proceeds with his characterization, in the following +language: "He who has watched a sunset attended by the passing of +a thunder-storm in the outskirts of the Alps--who has seen the +distant ranges of the mountains alternately obscured by cloud and +blazing with the concentrated brightness of the sinking sun, +while drifting scuds of hail and rain, tawny with sunlight, +glistening with broken rainbows, clothe peak and precipice and +forest in the golden veil of flame-irradiated vapor--he who has +heard the thunder bellow in the thwarting folds of hills, and +watched the lightning, like a snakes tongue, flicker at intervals +amid gloom and glory --knows, in Nature's language, what Pindar +teaches with the voice of Art. It is only by a metaphor like this +that any attempt to realize the <i>Sturm and Drang</i> of +Pindar's style can be communicated. As an artist he combines the +strong flight of the eagle, the irresistible force of the +torrent, the richness of Greek wine, and the majestic pageantry +of Nature in one of her sublimer moods." [<small>Footnote: "The +Greek Poets." First Series, pp. 171, 174.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">Pindar, as we have seen, was compared to an +eagle, because of the daring flights and lofty character of his +poetry--a simile which has been beautifully expressed in the +following lines by GRAY:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The pride and ample pinion<br> +That the Theban eagle bare,<br> +Sailing with supreme dominion,<br> +Through the azure deeps of air.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Another image, also, has been employed to show +these features of his poetry. The poet POPE represents him riding +in a gorgeous chariot sustained by four swans:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Four swans sustain a car of silver +bright,<br> +With heads advanced and pinions stretched for flight;<br> +Here, like some furious prophet, Pindar rode,<br> +And seemed to labor with th' inspiring god.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">A third image, given to us by HORACE, represents +another characteristic of Pindar, which may be called "the stormy +violence of his song:"</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">As when a river, swollen by sudden +showers,<br> +O'er its known banks from some steep mountain pours;<br> +So, in profound, unmeasurable song,<br> +The deep-mouthed Pindar, foaming, pours along.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> FRANCIS.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">As a sample of the religious sentiment of Pindar +we give the following fragment of a threnos translated by MR. +SYMONDS, which, he says, "sounds like a trumpet blast for +immortality, and, trampling underfoot the glories of this world, +reveals the gladness of the souls that have attained +Elysium:"</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> For them, the night all +through,<br> + In that broad realm below,<br> +The splendor of the sun spreads endless light;<br> + 'Mid rosy meadows bright,<br> +Their city of the tombs, with incense-trees<br> + And golden chalices<br> + Of flowers, and fruitage fair,<br> + Scenting the breezy air,<br> +Is laden. There, with horses and with play,<br> +With games and lyres, they while the hours away.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> On every side around<br> + Pure happiness is found,<br> +With all the blooming beauty of the world;<br> + There fragrant smoke, upcurled<br> +From altars where the blazing fire is dense<br> + With perfumed frankincense,<br> + Burned unto gods in heaven,<br> + Through all the land is driven,<br> +Making its pleasant place odorous<br> +With scented gales, and sweet airs amorous.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>II. THE DRAMA.</h4> + +<p class="just">One of the most striking proofs that we possess +of the rapid growth and expansion of the Greek mind, is found in +the rise of the Drama, a new kind of poetical composition, which +united the leading features of every species before cultivated, +in a new whole "breathing a rhetorical, dialectical, and ethical +spirit" --a branch of literature that peculiarly characterized +the era of Athenian greatness. Its elements were found in the +religious festivals celebrated in Greece from the earliest ages, +and especially in the feast of Bacchus, where sacred odes of a +grave and serious character, intermixed with episodes of +mythological story recited by an actor, were sung by a chorus +that danced around the altar. A goat was either the principal +sacrifice on these occasions, or the participants, disguised as +Satyrs, had a goat-like appearance; and from the two Greek words +representing "goat" and "song" we get our word <i>tragedy</i>, +[<small>Footnote: From the Greek <i>tragos</i>, "a goat," and +<i>o'de</i>, "a song."</small>] or goat-song. At some of the more +rustic festivals in honor of the same god the performance was of +a more jocose or satirical character; and hence arose the term +<i>comedy</i>, [<small>Footnote: From the Greek <i>ko'me</i>, "a +village," and <i>o'de</i>, "a song."</small>] from the two Greek +words signifying "village" and "song"--village-song. In the +teller of mythological legends we find the first germ of +dialogue, as the chorus soon came to assist him by occasional +question and remark. This feature was introduced by Thespis, a +native of Ica'ria, in 535 B.C., under whose direction, and that +of Phryn'icus, his pupil, the first feeble rudiments of the drama +were established. In this condition it was found by +Æschylus, in 500 B.C., who brought a second actor upon the +scene; whence arose the increased prominence of the dialogue, and +the limitation and subsidiary character of the chorus. +Æschylus also added more expressive masks, and various +machinery and scenes calculated to improve and enlarge dramatic +representation. Of the effect of this new creation upon all kinds +of poetical genius we have the following fine illustration from +the pen of BULWER:</p> + +<p class="just">"It was in the very nature of the Athenian drama +that, when once established, it should concentrate and absorb +almost every variety of poetical genius. The old lyrical poetry, +never much cultivated in Athens, ceased in a great measure when +tragedy arose; or, rather, tragedy was the complete development, +the new and perfected consummation, of the dithyrambic ode. +Lyrical poetry transmigrated into the choral song as the epic +merged into the dialogue and plot of the drama. Thus, when we +speak of Athenian poetry we speak of dramatic poetry--they were +one and the same. In Athens, where audiences were numerous and +readers few, every man who felt within himself the inspiration of +the poet would necessarily desire to see his poetry put into +action--assisted with all the pomp of spectacle and music, +hallowed by the solemnity of a religious festival, and breathed +by artists elaborately trained to heighten the eloquence of words +into the reverent ear of assembled Greece. Hence the multitude of +dramatic poets; hence the mighty fertility of each; hence the +life and activity of this--the comparative torpor and barrenness +of every other-- species of poetry."</p> + +<br> +<h4>1. TRAGEDY.</h4> + +<p class="just">MELPOM'ENE, one of the nine Muses, whose name +signifies "To represent in song," is said to have been the +inventress of tragedy, over which she presided, always veiled, +bearing in one hand the lyre, as the emblem of her vocation, and +in the other a tragic mask. As queen of the lyre, every poet was +supposed to proclaim the marvels of her song, and to invoke her +aid.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Queen of the lyre, in thy +retreat<br> + The fairest flowers of Pindus glow,<br> + The vine aspires to crown thy seat,<br> + And myrtles round thy laurel grow:<br> + Thy strings adapt their varied strain<br> + To every pleasure, every pain,<br> + Which mortal tribes were born to prove;<br> + And straight our passions rise or fall,<br> + As, at the wind's imperious call,<br> + The ocean swells, the billows move.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">When midnight listens o'er the +slumbering earth,<br> +Let me, O Muse, thy solemn whispers hear:<br> +When morning sends her fragrant breezes forth,<br> +With airy murmurs touch my opening ear,<br> + --AKENSIDE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>ÆSCHYLUS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Æschylus, the first poet who rendered the +drama illustrious, and into whose character and writings the +severe and ascetic doctrines of Pythagoras entered largely, was +born at Eleu'sis, in Attica, in 525 B.C. He fought, as will be +remembered, in the combats of Marathon and Salamis, and also in +the battle of Platæa. He therefore flourished at the time +when the freedom of Greece, rescued from foreign enemies, was +exulting in its first strength; and his writings are +characteristic of the boldness and vigor of the age. In his works +we find the fundamental idea of the Greek drama--retributive +justice. The sterner passions alone are appealed to, and the +language is replete with bold metaphor and gigantic hyperbole. +Venus and her inspirations are excluded; the charms of love are +unknown: but the gods--vast, majestic, in shadowy outline, and in +the awful sublimity of power-pass before and awe the beholder. +[<small>Footnote: see Grote's "History of Greece," Chap. +lxvii.</small>] Says a prominent reviewer: "The conceptions of +the imagination of Æschylus are remarkable for a sort of +colossal sublimity and power, resembling the poetry of the Book +of Job; and those poems of his which embody a connected story may +be said to resemble the stupendous avenues of the Temple of +Elora, [Footnote: See <a href="#index">Index</a>.] with the vast +scenes and vistas; its strange, daring, though rude sculptures; +its awful, shadowy, impending horrors. Like the architecture, the +poems, too, seem hewn out of some massy region of mountain rock. +Æschylus appears as an austere poet-soul, brooding among +the grand, awful, and terrible myths which have floated from a +primeval world, in which traditions of the Deluge, of the early, +rudimental struggle between barbaric power and nascent +civilization, were still vital."</p> + +<p class="just">"The personal temperament of the man," says DR. +PLUMPTRE, [<small>Footnote: "The Tragedies of Æschylus," by +E. H. Plumptre, D.D.</small>] seems to have been in harmony with +the characteristics of his genius. Vehement, passionate, +irascible; writing his tragedies, as later critics judged, as if +half drunk; doing (as Sophocles said of him) what was right in +his art without knowing why; following the impulses that led him +to strange themes and dark problems, rather than aiming at the +perfection of a complete, all-sided culture; frowning with shaggy +brows, like a wild bull, glaring fiercely, and bursting into a +storm of wrath when annoyed by critics or rival poets; a Marlowe +rather than a Shakspeare: this is the portrait sketched by one +who must have painted a figure still fresh in the minds of the +Athenians. [<small>Footnote: Aristophanes, in <i>The +Frogs</i>.</small>] Such a man, both by birth and disposition, +was likely to attach himself to the aristocratic party, and to +look with scorn on the claims of the <i>demos</i> to a larger +share of power; and there is hardly a play in which some +political bias in that direction may not be traced."</p> + +<p class="just">Æschylus wrote his plays in trilogies, or +three successive dramas connected. Of the eighty tragedies that +he wrote, only seven have been preserved. From three of these, +<i>The Persians, Prome'theus</i>, and <i>Agamemnon</i>, we have +given extracts descriptive of historical and mythological events. +The latter is the first of three plays on the fortunes of the +house of A'treus, of Myce'næ; and these three, of which the +<i>Choëph'oroe</i> and <i>Eumenides</i> are the other two, +are the only extant specimen of a trilogy. The <i>Agamemnon</i> +is the longest, and by some considered the grandest, play left us +by Æschylus. "In the <i>Agamemnon</i>," says VON SCHLEGEL, +"it was the intention of Æschylus to exhibit to us a sudden +fall from the highest pinnacle of prosperity and renown into the +abyss of ruin. The prince, the hero, the general of the combined +forces of the Greeks, in the very moment of success and the +glorious achievement of the destruction of Troy, the fame of +which is to be re-echoed from the mouths of the greatest poets of +all ages, in the very act of crossing the threshold of his home, +after which he had so long sighed, and amidst the fearless +security of preparations for a festival, is butchered, according +to the expression of Homer, 'like an ox in the stall,' slain by +his faithless wife, his throne usurped by her worthless seducer, +and his children consigned to banishment or to hopeless +servitude." [<small>Footnote: "Lectures on Dramatic Art and +Literature," by Augustus William on Schlegel. Black's +translation.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">Among the fine passages of this play, the death +of Agamemnon, at the hand of Clytemnes'tra, is a scene that the +poet paints with terrible effect. Says MR. EUGENE LAWRENCE, +[<small>Footnote: "A Primer of Greek Literature," by Eugene +Lawrence, p.55.</small>] "Mr. E. C. Stedman's version of the +death of Agamemnon is an excellent one. A horror rests upon the +palace at Mycenæ; there is a scent of blood, the +exhalations of the tomb. The queen, Clytemnestra, enters the +inner room, terrible as Lady Macbeth. A cry is heard:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"'<i>Agam</i>. Woe's me! I'm +stricken a deadly blow within!'<br> +"'<i>Chor</i>. Hark! who is't cries "a blow?" Who meets his +death?'<br> +"'<i>Agam</i>. Woe's me! Again! again! a second time I'm +stricken!'<br> +"'<i>Chor</i>. The deed, methinks, from the king's cry, is +done.'</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">At length the queen appears, standing at her full +height, terrible, holding her bloody weapon in her hand. She +seeks no concealment. She proclaims her guilt:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"'I smote him! nor deny that thus I +did it;<br> +So that he could not flee or ward off doom.<br> +A seamless net, as round a fish, I cast<br> +About him, yea, a deadly wealth of robe,<br> +Then smote him twice; and with a double cry<br> +He loosed his limbs; and to him fallen I gave<br> +Yet a third thrust, a grace to Hades, lord<br> +Of the under-world and guardian of the dead.'"</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">But the most finished of the tragedies of +Æschylus is <i>Choëphoroe</i>, which is made the +subject of the revenge of Ores'tes, son of Agamemnon, who avenges +the murder of his father by putting his mother to death. For this +crime the <i>Eumenides</i> represents him as being driven insane +by the Furies; but his reason was subsequently restored. It is +the chief object of the poet, in this tragedy, to display the +distress of Orestes at the necessity he feels of avenging his +father's death upon his mother. To this BYRON refers in <i>Childe +Harold</i>:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">O thou! who never yet of human +wrong<br> +Left the unbalanced scale--great Nem'esis!<br> +Thou who didst call the Furies from the abyss,<br> +And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss<br> +For that unnatural retribution--just,<br> +Had it but been from hands less near--in this,<br> +Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">At the close of an interesting characterization +of Æschylus and his works--much too long for a full +quotation here--PROFESSOR MAHAFFY observes as follows:</p> + +<p class="just">"We always feel that Æschylus thought more +than he expressed, that his desperate compounds are never +affected or unnecessary. Although, therefore, he violated the +rules that bound weaker men, it is false to say that be was less +an artist than they. His art was of a different kind, despising +what they prized, and attempting what they did not dare, but not +the less a conscious and thorough art. Though the drawing of +character was not his main object, his characters are truer and +deeper than those of poets who attempted nothing else. Though +lyrical sweetness had little place in the gloom and terror of his +Titanic stage, yet here too, when he chooses, he equals the +masters of lyric song. So long as a single Homer was deemed the +author of the <i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i>, we might well +concede to him the first place, and say that Æschylus was +the second poet of the Greeks. But by the light of nearer +criticism, and with a closer insight into the structure of the +epic poems, we must retract this judgment, and assert that no +other poet among the Greeks, either in grandeur of conception or +splendor of execution, equals the untranslatable, unapproachable, +inimitable Æschylus." [<small>Footnote: "Classical Greek +Literature," vol. i., p.275.</small>]</p> + +<br> +<h5>SOPHOCLES.</h5> + +<p class="just">Æschylus was succeeded, as master of the +drama, by Sophocles--the Raffaelle of the drama, as Bulwer calls +him--who was also one of the generals of the Athenian expedition +against Samos in the year 440 B.C. He brought the drama to the +greatest perfection of which it was susceptible. In him we find a +greater range of emotions than in Æschylus--figures more +distinctly seen, a more expanded dialogue, simplicity of speech +mixed with rhetorical declamation, and the highest degree of +poetic beauty. Says a late writer: "The artist and the man were +one in Sophocles. We cannot but think of him as specially created +to represent Greek art in its most refined and exquisitely +balanced perfection. It is impossible to imagine a more plastic +nature, a genius more adapted to its special function, more +fittingly provided with all things needful to its full +development, born at a happier moment in the history of the +world, and more nobly endowed with physical qualities suited to +its intellectual capacity."</p> + +<p class="just">Sophocles composed one hundred and thirteen +plays, but only seven of them are extant. Of these the most +familiar is the tragedy of <i>OEd'ipus Tyran'nus</i>--"King +OEdipus." It is not only considered his masterpiece, but also, as +regards the choice and disposition of the fable on which it is +founded, the finest tragedy of antiquity. A new interest has been +given to it in this country by its recent representation in the +original Greek. Of its many translations, it is conceded that +none have done, and none can do it justice; they can do little +more than give its plan and general character. The following, in +brief, is the story of this famous tragedy:</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>OEdipus Tyrannus.</i></p> + +<p class="just">La'i-us, King of Thebes, was told by the Delphic +oracle that if a son should be born to him, by the hand of that +son he should surely die. When, therefore, his queen, Jocasta, +bare him a son, the parents gave the child to a shepherd, with +orders to cast it out, bound, on the hill Cithæ'ron to +perish. But the shepherd, moved to compassion, deceived the +parents, and intrusted the babe to a herdsman of Pol'ybus, King +of Corinth; and the wife of Polybus, being childless, named the +foundling OEdipus, and reared it as her own.</p> + +<p class="just">Thirty years later, OEdipus, ignorant of his +birth, and being directed by the oracle to shun his native +country, fled from Corinth; and it happened at the same time that +his father (Laius) was on his way to consult the oracle at +Delphi, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the child that +had been exposed had perished or not. As father and son, +strangers to each other, met in a narrow path in the mountains, a +dispute arose for the right of way, and in the contest that +ensued the father was slain.</p> + +<p class="just">Immediately after this event the goddess Juno, +always hostile to Thebes, sent a monster, called the sphinx, to +propound a riddle to the Thebans, and to ravage their territory +until some one should solve the riddle--the purport of which was, +"What animal is that which goes on four feet in the morning, on +two at noon, and on three at evening?" OEdipus, the supposed son +of Polybus, of Corinth, coming to Thebes, solved the riddle, by +answering the sphinx that it was man, who, when an infant, creeps +on all fours, in manhood goes on two feet, and when old uses a +staff. The sphinx then threw herself down to the earth and +perished; whereupon the Thebans, in their joy, chose OEdipus as +king, and he married the widowed queen Jocasta, by whom he had +two sons and two daughters. Although everything prospered with +him--as he loved the Theban people, and was beloved by them in +turn for his many virtues--soon the wrath of the gods fell upon +the city, which was visited by a sore pestilence. Creon, brother +of the queen, is now sent to consult the oracle for the cause of +the evil; and it is at the point of his return that the drama +opens. He brings back the response</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"That guilt of blood is blasting +all the state;"</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">that this guilt is connected with the death of +Laius, and that</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Now the god clearly bids us, he +being dead,<br> +To take revenge on those who shed his blood,"</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">OEdipus engages earnestly in the business of +unraveling the mystery connected with the death of Laius, the +cause of all the Theban woes. Ignorant that he himself bears the +load of guilt, he charges the Thebans to be vigilant and +unremitting in their efforts,--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"And for the man who did the guilty +deed,<br> +Whether alone he lurks, or leagued with more,<br> +I pray that he may waste his life away,<br> +For vile deeds vilely dying; and for me,<br> +If in my house, I knowing it, he dwells,<br> +May every curse I spake on my head fall."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">A blind and aged priest and prophet, Tire'sias, +is brought before OEdipus, and, being implored to lend the aid of +prophecy to "save the city from the curse" that had fallen on it, +he at first refuses to exert his prophetic power.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> <i>Tiresias</i>. Ah! Reason fails +you an, but ne'er will I<br> +Say what thou bidd'st, lest I thy troubles show.<br> +I will not pain myself nor thee. Why, then,<br> +All vainly question? Thou shalt never know.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">But, urged and threatened by the king, he at +length exclaims:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> <i>Tier</i>. And has it come to +this? I charge thee, hold<br> +To thy late edict, and from this day forth<br> +Speak not to me, nor yet to these, for thou--<br> +<i>Thou art the accursed plague-spot of the land</i>!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">OEdipus at first believes that the aged prophet +is merely the tool of others, who are engaged in a conspiracy to +expel him from the throne; but when Jocasta, in her innocence, +informs him of the death of Laius, names the mountain pass in +which he fell, slain, as was supposed, by a robber band, and +describes his dress and person, OEdipus is startled at the +thought that he himself was the slayer, and he exclaims,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Great Zeus! what fate hast thou +decreed for me?<br> +Woe! woe! 'tis all too clear."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Yet there is one hope left. The man whom he slew +in that same mountain pass fell by no robber band, and, +therefore, could not have been Laius. Soon even this hope deserts +him, when the story is truly told. He learns, moreover, that he +is not the son of Polybus, the Corinthian king, but a foundling +adopted by his queen. Connecting this with the story now told him +by Jocasta, of her infant son, whom she supposed to have perished +on the mountain, the horrid truth begins to dawn upon all. +Jocasta rushes from the presence of OEdipus, exclaiming,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Woe! woe! ill-fated one! my last +word this,<br> +This only, and no more for evermore."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">When the old shepherd, forced to declare the +truth, tells how he saved the life of the infant, and gave it +into the keeping of the herdsman of Polybus, the evil-starred +OEdipus exclaims, in agony of spirit:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Woe! woe! woe! all cometh clear at +last.<br> +O light! may this my last glance be on thee,<br> +Who now am seen owing my birth to those<br> +To whom I ought not, and with whom I ought not<br> +In wedlock living, whom I ought not slaying."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Horrors still thicken in this terrible tragedy. +Word is brought to OEdipus that Jocasta is dead--dead by her own +hand! He rushes in:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Then came a +sight<br> +Most fearful. Tearing from her robe the clasps,<br> +All chased with gold, with which she decked herself,<br> +He with them struck the pupils of his eyes,<br> +With words like these--"Because they had not seen<br> +What ills he suffered and what ills he did,<br> +They in the dark should look, in time to come,<br> +On those whom they ought never to have seen,<br> +Nor know the dear ones whom he fain had known."<br> +With such-like wails, not once or twice alone,<br> +Raising his eyes, he smote them; and the balls,<br> +All bleeding, stained his cheek, nor poured they forth<br> +Gore drops slow trickling, but the purple shower<br> +Fell fast and full, a pelting storm of blood.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The now blind and wretched OEdipus, bewailing his +fate and the evils he had so unwittingly brought upon Thebes, +begs to be cast forth with all speed from out the land.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0"> +<tr> +<td valign="top"><i>OEdipus</i>.</td> +<td>Lead me away, my friends, with utmost speed<br> + Lead me away; the foul, polluted one,<br> + Of all men most accursed,<br> + Most hateful to the gods.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td valign="top"><i>Chorus</i>.</td> +<td>Ah, wretched one, alike in soul and doom,<br> + I fain could wish that I had never known thee.</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td valign="top"><i>OEdipus</i>.</td> +<td>Ill fate be his who from the fetters freed<br> + The child upon the hills,<br> + And rescued me from death,<br> + And saved me--thankless boon!<br> + Ah! had I died but then,<br> + Nor to my friends nor me had been such woe.</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">A touching picture is presented in the farewell +of OEdipus, on departing from Thebes to wander an outcast upon +the earth. The tragedy concludes with the following moral by the +chorus:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><i> Chorus</i>. Ye men of Thebes, +behold this OEdipus,<br> +Who knew the famous riddle, and was noblest.<br> +Whose fortune who saw not with envious glances?<br> +And lo! in what a sea of direst trouble<br> +He now is plunged! From hence the lesson learn ye,<br> +To reckon no man happy till ye witness<br> +The closing day; until he pass the border<br> +Which Severs life from death unscathed by sorrow.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> E. H. PLUMPTRE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<p align="center"><i>Character of the Works of Sophocles.</i></p> + +<p class="just">The character of the works of Sophocles is well +described in the following extract from an <i>Essay on Greek +Poetry</i>, by THOMAS NOON TALFOURD: "The great and +distinguishing excellence of Sophocles will be found in his +excellent sense of the beautiful, and the perfect harmony of all +his powers. His conceptions are not on so gigantic a scale as +those of Æschylus; but in the circle which he prescribes to +himself to fill, not a place is left unadorned; not a niche +without its appropriate figure; not the smallest ornament which +is incomplete in the minutest graces. His judgment seems +absolutely perfect, for he never fails; he is always fully master +of himself and his subject; he knows the precise measure of his +own capacities; and while he never attempts a flight beyond his +reach, he never debases himself nor his art by anything beneath +him.</p> + +<p class="just">"Sophocles was undoubtedly the first +philosophical poet of the ancient world. With his pure taste for +the graceful he perceived, amidst the sensible forms around him, +one universal spirit of Jove pervading all things. Virtue and +justice, to his mind, did not appear the mere creatures of +convenience, or the means of gratifying the refined selfishness +of man; he saw them, having deep root in eternity, unchanging and +imperishable as their divine author. In a single stanza he has +impressed this sentiment with a plenitude of inspiration before +which the philosophy of expediency vanishes--a passage that has +neither a parallel nor equal of its kind, that we recollect, in +the whole compass of heathen poetry, and which may be rendered +thus: 'Oh for a spotless purity of action and of speech, +according to those sublime laws of right which have the heavens +for their birthplace, and God alone for their author--which the +decays of mortal nature cannot vary, nor time cover with +oblivion, for the divinity is mighty within them and waxes not +old!'"</p> + +<p class="just">Sophocles died in extreme old age, "without +disease and without suffering, and was mourned with such a +sincerity and depth of grief as were exhibited at the death of no +other citizen of Athens."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Thrice happy Sophocles! in good old +age,<br> +Blessed as a man, and as a craftsman blessed,<br> +He died: his many tragedies were fair,<br> +And fair his end, nor knew be any sorrow.<br> + --PHRYN'ICHUS.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Wind, gentle evergreen, to form a +shade<br> +Around the tomb where Sophocles is laid;<br> +Sweet ivy wind thy boughs, and intertwine<br> +With blushing roses and the clustering vine.<br> +Thus will thy lasting leaves, with beauties hung,<br> +Prove grateful emblems of the lays he sung,<br> +Whose soul, exalted by the god of wit,<br> +Among the Muses and the Graces writ.<br> + --SIM'MIAS, the Theban.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>EURIP'IDES.</h5> + +<p class="just">Contemporary with Sophocles was Euripides, born +in 480 B.C., the last of the three great masters of the +drama--the three being embraced within the limits of a single +century. Under Sophocles the principal changes effected in the +outward form of the drama were the introduction of a third actor, +and a consequent limitation of the functions of the chorus. +Euripides, however, changed the mode of handling tragedy. Unlike +Sophocles, who only limited the activity of the chorus, he +disconnected it from the tragic interest of the drama by giving +but little attention to the character of its songs. He also made +some other changes; and, as one writer expresses it, his +innovations "disintegrated the drama by destroying its artistic +unity." But although perhaps inferior, in all artistic point of +view, to his predecessors, the genius of Euripides supplied a +want that they did not meet. Although his plays are all connected +with the history and mythology of Greece, in them rhetoric is +more prominent than in the plays of either Æschylus or +Sophocles; the legendary characters assume more the garb of +humanity; the tender sentiments--love, pity, compassion--are +invoked to a greater degree, and an air of exquisite delicacy and +refinement embellishes the whole. These were the qualities in the +plays of Euripides that endeared him to the Greeks of succeeding +ages, and that gave to his works such an influence on the Roman +and modern drama.</p> + +<p class="just">Of Euripides MR. SYMONDS remarks: "His lasting +title to fame consists in his having dealt with the deeper +problems of life in a spirit which became permanent among the +Greeks, so that his poems never lost their value as expressions +of current philosophy. Nothing strikes the student of later Greek +literature more strongly than this prolongation of the Euripidean +tone of thought and feeling. In the decline of tragic poetry the +literary sceptre was transferred to comedy; and the comic +playwrights may be described as the true successors of Euripides. +The dialectic method, which he affected, was indeed dropped, and +a more harmonious form of art than the Euripidean was created for +comedy by Menan'der, when the Athenians, after passing through +their disputatious period, had settled down into a tranquil +acceptation of the facts of life. Yet this return to harmony of +form and purity of perception did not abate the influence of +Euripides. Here and there throughout his tragedies he had said, +and well said, what the Greeks were bound to think and feel upon +important matters; and his sensitive, susceptible temperament +repeated itself over and over again among his literary +successors. The exclamation of Phile'mon that, if he could +believe in immortality, he would hang himself to see Euripides, +is characteristic not only of Philemon, but also of the whole +Macedonian period of Greek literature." [<small>Footnote: "The +Greek Poets." Second Series, p. 300.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">Euripides wrote about seventy-five plays, of +which eighteen have come down to us. The <i>Me-de'a</i>, which is +thought to be his best piece, is occupied with the circumstances +of the vengeance taken by Medea on the ungrateful Jason, the hero +of the Argonautic expedition, for whom she had sacrificed all, +and who, after his return, abandoned her for a royal Corinthian +bride. [<small>Footnote: See Argonautic Expedition, p. +81.</small>] But the most touching of the plays of Euripides is +the <i>Alces'tis</i>, founded on the fable of Alcestis dying for +her husband, Adme'tus. MILTON thus alludes to the story, in his +sonnet on his deceased wife:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Methought I saw my late espoused +saint<br> + Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,<br> + Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,<br> +Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The substance of the story is as follows:</p> + +<p class="just">Admetus, King of Phe'ræ, in Thessaly, +married Alcestis, who became noted for her conjugal virtues. +Apollo, when banished from heaven, received so kind treatment +from Admetus that he induced the Fates to prolong the latter's +life beyond the ordinary limit, on condition that one of his own +family should die in his stead. Alcestis at once consented to die +for her husband, and when the appointed time came she heroically +and composedly gave herself to death. Soon after her departure, +however, the hero Hercules visited Admetus, and, pained with the +profound grief of the household, he rescued Alcestis from the +grim tyrant Death and restored her to her family. The whole play +abounds in touching scenes and descriptions; and the best modern +critics concede that there is no female character in either +Æschylus or Sophocles, not even excepting Antig'one, that +is so great and noble, and at the same time so purely tender and +womanly, as Alcestis. "Where has either Greek or modern +literature," says MAHAFFY, "produced a nobler ideal than the +Alcestis of Euripides? Devoted to her husband and children, +beloved and happy in her palace, she sacrifices her life calmly +and resignedly--a life which is not encompassed with afflictions, +but of all the worth that life can be, and of all the usefulness +which makes it precious to noble natures." [<small>Footnote: +"Social Life in Greece, p. 189.</small>] We give the following +short extract from the poet's account of the preparations made by +Alcestis for her approaching end:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Alcestis Preparing for Death.</i></p> + +<p> When she knew<br> +The destined day was come, in fountain water<br> +She bathed her lily-tinctured limbs, then took<br> +From her rich chests, of odorous cedar formed,<br> +A splendid robe, and her most radiant dress.<br> +Thus gorgeously arrayed, she stood before<br> +The hallowed flames, and thus addressed her prayer:<br> +"O queen, I go to the infernal shades;<br> +Yet, ere I go, with reverence let me breathe<br> +My last request: protect my orphan children;<br> +Make my son happy with the wife he loves,<br> +And wed my daughter to a noble husband;<br> +Nor let them, like their mother, to the tomb<br> +Untimely sink, but in their native land<br> +Be blessed through lengthened life to honored age."</p> + +<p>Then to each altar in the royal house<br> +She went, and crowned it, and addressed her vows,<br> +Plucking the myrtle bough: nor tear, nor sigh<br> +Came from her; neither did the approaching ill<br> +Change the fresh beauties of her vermeil cheek.<br> +Her chamber then she visits, and her bed;<br> +There her tears flowed, and thus she spoke: "O bed<br> +To which my wedded lord, for whom I die,<br> +Led me a virgin bride, farewell! to thee<br> +No blame do I impute, for me alone<br> +Hast thou destroyed: disdaining to betray<br> +Thee, and my lord, I die: to thee shall come<br> +Some other woman, not more chaste, perchance<br> +More happy." As she lay she kissed the couch,<br> +And bathed it with a flood of tears: that passed,<br> +She left her chamber, then returned, and oft<br> +She left it, oft returned, and on the couch<br> +Fondly, each time she entered, cast herself.<br> +Her children, as they hung upon her robes,<br> +Weeping, she raised, and clasped them to her breast<br> +Each after each, as now about to die.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> POTTER.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Euripides died in the year 406 B.C., in Macedon, +to which country he had been compelled to go on account of +domestic troubles; and the then king, Archela'us honored his +remains with a sumptuous funeral, and erected a monument over +them.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Divine Euripides, this tomb we +see<br> +So fair is not a monument for thee,<br> +So much as thou for it; since all will own<br> +That thy immortal fame adorns the stone.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">We have now observed the transitions through +which Grecian tragedy passed in the hands of its three great +masters, Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. As GROTE says, +"The differences between these three poets are doubtless +referable to the working of Athenian politics and Athenian +philosophy on the minds of the two latter. In Sophocles we may +trace the companion of Herodotus; in Euripides the hearer of +Anaxag'oras, Socrates, and Prod'icus; in both, the familiarity +with that wide-spread popularity of speech, and real, serious +debate of politicians and competitors before the dikastery, which +both had ever before their eyes, but which the genius of +Sophocles knew how to keep in subordination to his grand poetical +purpose." To properly estimate the influence which the tragedies +exerted upon the Athenians, we must remember that a large number +of them was presented on the stage every year; that it was rare +to repeat anyone of them; that the theatre of Bacchus, in which +they were represented, accommodated thirty thousand persons; +that, as religious observances, they formed part of the civil +establishment; and that admission to them was virtually free to +every Athenian citizen. Taking these things into consideration, +GROTE adds: "If we conceive of the entire population of a large +city listening almost daily to those immortal compositions whose +beauty first stamped tragedy as a separate department of poetry, +we shall be satisfied that such powerful poetic influences were +never brought to act upon any other people; and that the tastes, +the sentiments, and the intellectual standard of the Athenians +must have been sensibly improved and exalted by such lessons." +[<small>Footnote: "History of Greece," Chap, lxvii.</small>]</p> + +<br> +<h4>2. COMEDY.</h4> + +<p class="just">Another marked feature of Athenian life, and one +but little less influential than tragedy in its effects upon the +Athenian character, was comedy. It had its origin, as we have +seen, in the vintage festivals of Bacchus, where the wild songs +of the participants were frequently interspersed with coarse +witticisms against the spectators. Like tragedy, it was a Dorian +invention, and Sicily seems to have early become the seat of the +comic writers. Epichar'mus, a Dorian poet and philosopher, was +the first of these to put the Bacchic songs and dances into +dramatic form. The place of his nativity is uncertain, but he +passed the greater part of his life at Syracuse, in the society +of the greatest literary men of the age, and there he is supposed +to have written his comedies some years prior to the Persian war. +It seems, however, that comedy was introduced into Attica by +Susa'rion, a native of Meg'ara, long before the time of +Epichar'mus (578 B.C.). But the former's plays were so largely +made up of rude and abusive personalities that they were not +tolerated by the Pisistrati'dæ, and for over a century we +bear nothing farther of comedy in Attica--not until it was +revived by Chion'ides, about 488 B.C., or, according to some +authorities, twenty years later.</p> + +<p class="just">Under the contemporaries or successors of +Chionides comedy became an important agent in the political +warfare of Athens, although it was frequently the subject of +prohibitory or restrictive legal enactments. "Only a nation," +says a recent writer, "in the plenitude of self-contentment, +conscious of vigor, and satisfied with its own energy, could have +tolerated the kind of censorship the comic poets dared to +exercise."</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>Characterization of the Old Comedy.</i></p> + +<p class="just">In the preliminary discourse to his translation +of the <i>Comedies of Aristophanes</i>, MR. THOMAS MITCHELL, an +English critic of note, makes these observations upon the +character of the Old Comedy: "The Old Comedy, as it is called, in +contradistinction to what was afterward named the Middle and the +New, stood in the extreme relation of contrariety and parody to +the tragedy of the Greeks --it was directed chiefly to the lower +orders of society at Athens; it served in some measure the +purposes of the modern journal, in which public measures and the +topics of the day might be fully discussed; and in consequence +the <i>dramatis personæ</i> were generally the poet's own +contemporaries, speaking in their own names and acting in masks, +which, as they bore only a caricature resemblance of their own +faces, showed that the poet, in his observations, did not mean to +be taken literally. Like tragedy, comedy constituted part of a +religious ceremony; and the character of the deity to whom it was +more particularly dedicated was stamped at times pretty visibly +upon the work which was composed in his honor. The Dionysian +festivals were the great carnivals of antiquity--they celebrated +the returns of vernal festivity or the joyous vintage, and were +in consequence the great holidays of Athens--the seasons of +universal relaxation.</p> + +<p class="just">"The comic poet was the high-priest of the +festival; and if the orgies of his divinity (the god of wine) +sometimes demanded a style of poetry which a Father of our Church +probably had in his eye when he called all poetry the <i>devil's +wine</i>, the organ of their utterance (however strange it may +seem to us) no doubt considered himself as perfectly absolved +from the censure which we should bestow on such productions: in +his compositions he was discharging the same pious office as the +painter, whose duty it was to fill the temples of the same deity +with pictures which our imaginations would consider equally +ill-suited to the habitations of divinity. What religion +therefore forbids among us, the religion of the Greeks did not +merely tolerate but enjoin. Nor was the extreme and even profane +gayety of the comedy without its excuse. To unite extravagant +mirth with a solemn seriousness was enjoined by law, even in the +sacred festival of Ceres.</p> + +<p class="just">"While the philosophers, therefore, querulously +maintained that man was the joke and plaything of the gods, the +comic poet reversed the picture, and made the gods the playthings +of men; in his hands, indeed, everything was upon the broad grin: +the gods laughed, men laughed, and animals laughed. Nature was +considered as a sort of fantastic being, with a turn for the +humorous; and the world was treated as a sort of extended +jest-book, where the poet pointed out the <i>bon-mots</i> +[<small>Footnote: French; pronounced <i>bong-mos</i></small>.] +and acted in some degree as corrector of the Press. If he +discharged this office sometimes in the sarcastic spirit of a +Mephistopheles, this, too, was considered as part of his +functions. He was the <i>Ter'roe Fil'ius</i> [<small>Footnote: +Terroe Filius, son of the earth; that is, a human being.</small>] +of the day; and lenity would have been considered, not as an act +of discretion, but as a cowardly dereliction of duty."</p> + +<p class="just">It was in the time of Pericles that the comedy +just described first dealt with men and subjects under their real +names; and in one of the plays of Crati'nus--under whom comedy +received its full development--Cimon is highly eulogized, and his +rival, Pericles, is bitterly derided. With unmeasured and +unsparing license comedy attacked, under the veil of satire, not +only all that was really ludicrous or base, but often cast scorn +and derision on that which was innocent, or even meritorious. For +the reason that the comic writers were so indiscriminate in their +attacks, frequently making transcendent genius and noble +personality, as well as demagogism and personal vice, the butt of +comic scorn; their writings have but little historical value +except in the few instances in which they are corroborated by +higher authority.</p> + +<br> +<h5>ARlSTOPH'ANES.</h5> + +<p class="just">Among the contemporaries of Cratinus were +Eu'polis and Aristophanes, the latter of whom became the chief of +what is known as the Old Attic Comedy. Of his life little is +known; but he was a member of the conservative or aristocratic +party at Athens, directing his attacks chiefly against the +democratic or popular party of Pericles, and continuing to write +comedies until about 392 B.C. While his comedies are replete with +coarse wit, they are wonderfully brilliant, and contain much, +also, that is pure and beautiful. As a late writer has well said, +"Beauty and deformity came to him with equal abundance, and his +wonderful pieces are made up of all that is low and all that is +pure and lovely."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The Muses, seeking for a shrine<br> + Whose glories ne'er should cease,<br> +Found, as they strayed, the soul divine<br> + Of Aristophanes.<br> + --PLATO, <i>trans. by</i> MERIVALE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">MR. GROTE characterizes the comedies of +Aristophanes as follows: "Never probably will the full and +unshackled force of comedy be so exhibited again. Without having +Aristophanes actually before us it would have been impossible to +imagine the unmeasured and unsparing license of attack assumed by +the old comedy upon the gods, the institutions, the politicians, +philosophers, poets, private citizens, specially named--and even +the women, whose life was entirely domestic--of Athens. With this +universal liberty in respect of subject there is combined a +poignancy of derision and satire, a fecundity of imagination and +variety of turns, and a richness of poetical expression such as +cannot be surpassed, and such as fully explains the admiration +expressed for him by the philosopher Plato, who in other respects +must have regarded him with unquestionable disapprobation. His +comedies are popular in the largest sense of the word, addressed +to the entire body of male citizens on a day consecrated to +festivity, and providing for their amusement or derision, with a +sort of drunken abundance, out of all persons or things standing +in any way prominent before the public eye." [<small>Footnote: +"History or Greece," Chap. lxvii.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">In his introduction to the <i>Dialogues of +Plato</i>, REV. WILLIAM SEWELL, an English clergyman and author, +observes that "Men smile when they hear the anecdote of +Chrys'ostom, one of the most venerable fathers of the Church, who +never went to bed without something from Aristophanes under his +pillow." He adds: "But the noble tone of morals, the elevated +taste, the sound political wisdom, the boldness and acuteness of +the satire, the grand object, which is seen throughout, of +correcting the follies of the day, and improving the condition of +his country--all these are features in Aristophanes which, +however disguised, as they intentionally are, by coarseness and +buffoonery, entitle him to the highest respect from every reader +of antiquity." Yet, while the purposes of Aristophanes were in +the main praiseworthy, and the persons and things he attacked +generally deserving of censure, he spared the vices of his own +party and associates; and, like all satirists, for effect he +often traduced character, as in the case of the virtuous +Socrates. In an attack on the Sophists, in his play of the +<i>Clouds</i>, he gives to Socrates the character of a vulgar +Sophist, and holds him up to the derision of the Athenian people. +But, as another has said, "Time has set all even; and 'poor +Socrates,' as Aristophanes called him--as a far loftier bard has +sung--</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> 'Poor +Socrates,<br> +By what he taught, and suffered for so doing,<br> +For truth's sake suffering death unjust, lives now,<br> +Equal in fame to proudest conquerors.'"<br> + --MILTON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<p align="center"><i>The Comedy of the "Clouds."</i></p> + +<p class="just">It is curious to observe in the <i>Clouds</i> of +Aristophanes that while the main object of the poet is to +ridicule Socrates, and through him to expose what he considers +the corrupt state of education in Athens, he does not disdain to +mingle with his low buffoonery the loftiest flights of the +imagination--reminding us of the not unlike anomaly of +Shakspeare's sublime simile of the "cloud-capp'd towers," in the +<i>Tempest</i>. In one part of the play, Strepsi'ades, who has +been nearly ruined in fortune by his spendthrift son, goes to +Socrates to learn from him the logic that will enable him "to +talk unjustly and--prevail," so that he may shirk his debts! He +finds the master teacher suspended in air, in a basket, that he +may be above earthly influences, and there "contemplating the +sun," and endeavoring to search out "celestial matters." To the +appeal of Strepsiades, Socrates, interrupted in his reveries, +thus answers:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><i>Socrates</i>. Old man, sit you +still, and attend to my will, and<br> + hearken in peace to my prayer. (<i>He then addresses the +Air</i>.)<br> +O master and king, holding earth in your swing, O measureless +infinite Air;<br> +And thou, glowing Ether, and Clouds who enwreathe her with +thunder and lightning and storms,<br> +Arise ye and shine, bright ladies divine, to your student, in +bodily forms.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Then we have the farther prayer of Socrates to +the Clouds, in which is pictured a series of the most sublime +images, colored with all the rainbow hues of the poet's fancy. We +are led, in imagination, to behold the dread Clouds, at first +sitting, in glorious majesty, upon the time-honored crest of +snowy Olympus --then in the soft dance beguiling the nymphs "'mid +the stately advance of old Ocean"--then bearing away, in their +pitchers of sunlight and gold, "the mystical waves of the Nile," +to refresh and fertilize other lands; at one time sporting on the +foam of Lake Mæo'tis, and at another playing around the +wintry summits of Mi'mas, a mountain range of Ionia, The farther +invocation of the Clouds is thus continued:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><i>Socrates</i>. Come forth, come +forth, ye dread Clouds, and to earth your glorious majesty +show;<br> +Whether lightly ye rest on the time-honored crest of Olympus, +environed in snow,<br> +Or tread the soft dance 'mid the stately advance of old Ocean, +the nymphs to beguile,<br> +Or stoop to enfold, with your pitchers of gold, the mystical +waves of the Nile,<br> +Or around the white foam of Mæotis ye roam, or Mimas all +wintry and bare,<br> +O hear while we pray, and turn not away from the rites which your +servants prepare.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Then the chorus comes forward and answers, as if +the Clouds were speaking:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<i>Chorus</i>. Clouds of all hue,<br> +Now rise we aloft with our garments of dew,<br> +We come from old Ocean's unchangeable bed,<br> +We come till the mountains' green summits we tread,<br> +We come to the peaks with their landscapes untold,<br> +We gaze on the earth with her harvests of gold,<br> +We gaze on the rivers in majesty streaming,<br> + We gaze on the lordly, invisible sea;<br> +We come, for the eye of the Ether is beaming,<br> + We come, for all Nature is flashing and free.<br> + Let us shake off this close-clinging dew<br> + From our members eternally new,<br> + And sail upward the wide world to view,<br> + Come away! Come away!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><i>Socr</i>. O goddesses mine, +great Clouds and divine, ye have heeded and answered my +prayer.<br> +Heard ye their sound, and the thunder around, as it thrilled +through the petrified air?</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><i>Streps</i>. Yes, by Zeus! and I +shake, and I'm all of a quake, and I fear I must sound a +reply,<br> +Their thunders have made my soul so afraid, and those terrible +voices so nigh--</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><i>Socr</i>. Don't act in our +schools like those comedy-fools, with their scurrilous, +scandalous ways.<br> +Deep silence be thine, while these Clusters divine their +soul-stirring melody raise.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">To which the chorus again responds. But we have +not room for farther extracts. The description of the +floating-cloud character of the scene is acknowledged by critics +to be inimitable. There is one passage, in particular, in which +Socrates, pointing to the clouds that have taken a sudden +slanting downward motion, says:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "They are drifting, +an infinite throng,<br> +And their long shadows quake over valley and brake"--</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">which, MR. RUSKIN declares, "could have been +written by none but an ardent lover of the hill scenery--one who +had watched hour after hour the peculiar, oblique, sidelong +action of descending clouds, as they form along the hollows and +ravines of the hills. [<small>Footnote: The line in Greek, which +is so vividly descriptive of this peculiar appearance and motion +of the clouds--</small></p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>dia toy koiloy kai toy +daseoy autai plagiai--</small></div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just"><small>loses so much in the rendering, that the +beauty of the passage can be fully appreciated only by the Greek +scholar.</small>] There are no lumpish solidities, no billowy +protuberances here. All is melting, drifting, evanescent, full of +air, and light as dew."</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>Choral Song from "The Birds."</i></p> + +<p class="just">In the following extract from the comedy of +<i>The Birds</i>, Aristophanes ridicules the popular belief of +the Greeks in signs and omens drawn from the birds of the air. +Though undoubtedly an exaggeration, it may nevertheless be taken +as a fair exposition of the superstitious notions of an age that +had its world-renowned "oracles," and as a good example of the +poet's comic style. The extract is from the Choral Song in the +comedy, and is a true poetic gem.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Ye children of man! whose life is a +span,<br> +Protracted with sorrow from day to day;<br> +Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous,<br> +Sickly, calamitous creatures of clay!<br> +Attend to the words of the sovereign birds,<br> +Immortal, illustrious lords of the air,<br> +Who survey from on high, with a merciful eye,<br> +Your struggles of misery, labor, and care.<br> +Whence you may learn and clearly discern<br> +Such truths as attract your inquisitive turn--<br> +Which is busied of late with a mighty debate,<br> +A profound speculation about the creation,<br> +And organical life and chaotical strife--<br> +With various notions of heavenly motions,<br> +And rivers and oceans, and valleys and mountains,<br> +And sources of fountains, and meteors on high,<br> +And stars in the sky.... We propose by-and-by<br> +(If you'll listen and hear) to make it all clear.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">All lessons of primary daily +concern<br> +You have learned from the birds (and continue to learn),<br> +Your best benefactors and early instructors.<br> +We give you the warnings of seasons returning:<br> +When the cranes are arranged, and muster afloat<br> +In the middle air, with a creaking note,</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Steering away to the Libyan +sand,<br> +Then careful farmers sow their lands;<br> +The craggy vessel is hauled ashore;<br> +The sail, the ropes, the rudder, and oar<br> +Are all unshipped and housed in store.<br> +The shepherd is warned, by the kite re-appearing,<br> +To muster his flock and be ready for shearing.<br> +You quit your old cloak at the swallow's behest,<br> +In assurance of summer, and purchase a vest.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> For Delphi, for Ammon, +Dodo'na--in fine,<br> +For every oracular temple and shrine--<br> +The birds are a substitute, equal and fair;<br> +For on us you depend, and to us you repair<br> +For counsel and aid when a marriage is made--<br> +A purchase, a bargain, or venture in trade:<br> +Unlucky or lucky, whatever has struck ye--<br> +A voice in the street, or a slave that you meet,<br> +A name or a word by chance overheard--<br> +If you deem it an omen you call it a bird;<br> +And if birds are your omens, it clearly will follow<br> +That birds are a proper prophetic Apollo.<br> + --Trans. by FRERE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>III. HISTORY.</h4> + +<p class="just">As we have stated in a former chapter, literary +compositions in prose first appeared among the Greeks in the +sixth century B.C., and were either mythological, or collections +of local legends, whether sacred or profane, of particular +districts. It was not until a still later period that the Grecian +prose writers, becoming more positive in their habits of thought, +broke away from speculative and mystical tendencies, and began to +record their observations of the events daily occurring about +them. In the writings of Hecatæ'us of Mile'tus, who +flourished about 500 B.C., we find the first elements of history; +and yet some modern writers think he can lay no claim whatever to +the title of historian, while others regard him as the first +historical writer of any importance. He visited Greece proper and +many of the surrounding countries, and recorded his observations +and experiences in a work of a geographical character, entitled +<i>Periodus</i>. He also wrote another work relating to the +mythical history of Greece, and died about 467 B.C.</p> + +<br> +<h5>HEROD'OTUS.</h5> + +<p class="just">MAHAFFY considers Hecatæ'us "the forerunner +of Herodotus in his mode of life and his conception of setting +down his experiences;" while NIE'BUHR, the great German +historian, absolutely denies the existence of any Grecian +histories before Herodotus gave to the world the first of those +illustrious productions that form another bright link in the +literary chain of Grecian glory. Born in Halicarnas'sus about the +year 484, of an illustrious family, Herodotus was driven from his +native land at an early age by a revolution, after which he +traveled extensively over the then known world, collecting much +of the material that he subsequently used in his writings. After +a short residence at Samos he removed to Athens, leaving there, +however, about the year 440 to take up his abode at Thu'rii, a +new Athenian colony near the site of the former Syb'aris. Here he +lived the rest of his life, dying about the year 420. Lucian +relates that, on completing his work, Herodotus went to Olympia +during the celebration of the Olympic games, and there recited to +his countrymen the nine books of which his history was composed. +His hearers were delighted, and immediately honored the books +with the title of the <i>Nine Muses</i>. A later account of this +scene says that Thucydides, then a young man, stood at the side +of Herodotus, and was affected to tears by his recitations.</p> + +<p class="just">Herodotus modestly states the object of his +history in the following paragraph, which is all the introduction +that he makes to his great work: "These are the researches of +Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes in the hope of +thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have +done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the +Greeks and the barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; +and, withal, to put on record what were their grounds of feud." +[<small>Footnote: Rawlinson's translation.</small>] But while he +portrays the military ambition of the Persian rulers, the +struggles of the Greeks for liberty, and their final triumph over +the Persian power, he also gives us a history of almost all the +then known world. "His work begins," says MR. LAWRENCE, "with the +causes of the hostility between Persia and Greece, describes the +power of Croe'sus, the wonders of Egypt, the expedition of Darius +into Scythia, and closes with the immortal war between the allied +Greeks and the Persian hosts. To his countrymen the story must +have had the intense interest of a national ode or epic. Athens, +particularly, must have read with touching ardor the graceful +narrative of its early glory; for when Herodotus finished his +work the brief period had already passed away. What +Æschylus and the other dramatists painted in brief and +striking pictures on the stage, Herodotus described with +laborious but never tedious minuteness. His pure Ionic diction +never wearies, his easy and simple narrative has never lost its +interest, and all succeeding ages have united in calling him 'the +Father of History.' His fame has advanced with the progress of +letters, and has spread over mankind."</p> + +<p class="just">The following admirable description of Herodotus +and of his writings is from an essay on "History," by LORD +MACAULAY:</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>Herodotus and his Writings.</i></p> + +<p class="just">"Of the romantic historians, Herodotus is the +earliest and the best. His animation, his simple-hearted +tenderness, his wonderful talent for description and dialogue, +and the pure, sweet flow of his language, place him at the head +of narrators. He reminds us of a delightful child. There is a +grace beyond the reach of affectation in his awkwardness, a +malice in his innocence, an intelligence in his nonsense, and an +insinuating eloquence in his lisp. We know of no other writer who +makes such interest for himself and his book in the heart of the +reader. He has written an incomparable book. He has written +something better, perhaps, than the best history; but he has not +written a really good history; for he is, from the first to the +last chapter, an inventor. We do not here refer merely to those +gross fictions with which he has been reproached by the critics +of later times, but we speak of that coloring which is equally +diffused over his whole narrative, and which perpetually leaves +the most sagacious reader in doubt what to reject and what to +receive. The great events are, no doubt, faithfully related; so, +probably, are many of the slighter circumstances, but which of +them it is impossible to ascertain. We know there is truth, but +we cannot exactly decide where it lies.</p> + +<p class="just">"If we may trust to a report not sanctioned, +indeed, by writers of high authority, but in itself not +improbable, the work of Herodotus was composed not to be read, +but to be heard. It was not to the slow circulation of a few +copies, which the rich only could possess, that the aspiring +author looked for his reward. The great Olympian festival was to +witness his triumph. The interest of the narrative and the beauty +of the style were aided by the imposing effect of recitation--by +the splendor of the spectacle, by the powerful influence of +sympathy. A critic who could have asked for authorities in the +midst of such a scene must have been of a cold and skeptical +nature, and few such critics were there. As was the historian, +such were the auditors--inquisitive, credulous, easily moved by +the religious awe of patriotic enthusiasm. They were the very men +to hear with delight of strange beasts, and birds, and trees; of +dwarfs, and giants, and cannibals; of gods whose very names it +was impiety to utter; of ancient dynasties which had left behind +them monuments surpassing all the works of later times; of towns +like provinces; of rivers like seas; of stupendous walls, and +temples, and pyramids; of the rites which the Magi performed at +daybreak on the tops of the mountains; of the secrets inscribed +on the eternal obelisks of Memphis. With equal delight they would +have listened to the graceful romances of their own country. They +now heard of the exact accomplishment of obscure predictions; of +the punishment of climes over which the justice of Heaven had +seemed to slumber; of dreams, omens, warnings from the dead; of +princesses for whom noble suitors contended in every generous +exercise of strength and skill; and of infants strangely +preserved from the dagger of the assassin to fulfil high +destinies.</p> + +<p class="just">"As the narrative approached their own times the +interest became still more absorbing. The chronicler had now to +tell the story of that great conflict from which Europe dates its +intellectual and political supremacy--a story which, even at this +distance of time, is the most marvelous and the most touching in +the annals of the human race--a story abounding with all that is +wild and wonderful; with all that is pathetic and animating; with +the gigantic caprices of infinite wealth and despotic power; with +the mightier miracles of wisdom, of virtue, and of courage. He +told them of rivers dried up in a day, of provinces famished for +a meal; of a passage for ships hewn through the mountains; of a +road for armies spread upon the waves; of monarchies and +commonwealths swept away; of anxiety, of terror, of confusion, of +despair! and then of proud and stubborn hearts tried in that +extremity of evil and not found wanting; of resistance long +maintained against desperate odds; of lives dearly sold when +resistance could be maintained no more; of signal deliverance, +and of unsparing revenge. Whatever gave a stronger air of reality +to a narrative so well calculated to inflame the passions and to +flatter national pride, was certain to be favorably +received."</p> + +<br> +<h5>THUCYDIDES.</h5> + +<p class="just">Greater even than Herodotus, in some respects, +but entirely different in his style of composition, was the +historian Thucydides, who was born in Athens about 471 B.C. In +early life he studied in the rhetorical and sophistical schools +of his native city; and he seems to have taken some part in the +political agitations of the period. In his forty-seventh year he +commanded an Athenian fleet that was sent to the relief of +Amphip'olis, then besieged by Bras'idas the Spartan. But +Thucydides was too late; on his arrival the city had surrendered. +His failure to reach there sooner appears to have been caused by +circumstances entirely beyond his control, although some English +scholars, including GROTE, declare that he was remiss and +dilatory, and therefore Deserving of the punishment he +received--banishment from Athens. He retired to Scaptes'y-le, a +small town in Thrace; and in this secluded spot, removed from the +shifting scenes of Grecian life, he devoted himself to the +composition of his great work. Tradition asserts that he was +assassinated when about eighty years of age, either at Athens or +in Thrace.</p> + +<p class="just">The history of Thucydides, unfinished at his +death, gives an account of nearly twenty-one years of the +Peloponnesian war. The author's style is polished, vigorous, +philosophical, and sometimes so concise as to be obscure. We are +told that even Cicero found some of his sentences almost +unintelligible. But, as MAHAFFY says: "Whatever faults of style, +whatever transient fashion of involving his thoughts, may be due +to a Sophistic education and to the desire of exhibiting depth +and acuteness, there cannot be the smallest doubt that in the +hands of Thucydides the art of writing history made an +extraordinary stride, and attained a degree of perfection which +no subsequent Hellenic (and few modern) writers have equaled. If +the subject which he selected was really a narrow one, and many +of the details trivial, it was nevertheless compassed with +extreme difficulty, for it is at all times a hard task to write +contemporary history, and more especially so in an age when +published documents were scarce, and the art of printing unknown. +Moreover, however trivial may be the details of petty military +raids, of which an account was yet necessary to the completeness +of his record, we cannot but wonder at the lofty dignity with +which he has handled every part of the subject. There is not a +touch of comedy, not a point of satire, not a word of familiarity +throughout the whole book, and we stand face to face with a man +who strikes us as strangely un-Attic in his solemn and severe +temper." [<small>Footnote: "History of Greek Literature," vol. +ii., p. 117.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">The following comparison, evidently a just one, +has been made between Thucydides and Herodotus:</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>Thucydides and Herodotus.</i></p> + +<p class="just">"In comparing the two great historians, it is +plain that the mind and talents of each were admirably suited to +the work which he took in hand. The extensive field in which +Herodotus labored afforded an opportunity for embellishing and +illustrating his history with the marvels of foreign lands; while +the glorious exploits of a great and free people stemming a tide +of barbarian invaders and finally triumphing over them, and the +customs and histories of the barbarians with whom they had been +at war, and of all other nations whose names were connected with +Persia, either by lineage or conquest, were subjects which +required the talents of a simple narrator who had such love of +truth as not willfully to exaggerate, and such judgment as to +select what was best worthy of attention. But Thucydides had a +narrower field. The mind of Greece was the subject of his study, +as displayed in a single war which was, in its rise, progress, +and consequences, the most important which Greece had ever seen. +It did not in itself possess that heart-stirring interest which +characterizes the Persian war. In it united Greece was not +struggling for her liberties against a foreign foe, animated by +one common patriotism, inspired by an enthusiastic Jove of +liberty; but it presented the sad spectacle of Greece divided +against herself, torn by the jealousies of race, and distracted +by the animosities of faction.</p> + +<p class="just">"The task of Thucydides, therefore, was that of +studying the warring passions and antagonistic workings of one +mind; and it was one which, in order to become interesting and +profitable, demanded that there should be brought to bear upon it +the powers of a keen, analytical intellect. To separate history +from the traditions and falsehoods with which it had been +overlaid, and to give the early history of Greece in its most +truthful form; to trace Athenian supremacy from its rise to its +ruin, and the growing jealousy of other states, whether inferiors +or rivals, to which that supremacy gave rise; to show its +connection with the enmities of race and the opposition of +politics; to point out what causes led to such wide results; how +the insatiable ambitions of Athens, gratifying itself in direct +disobedience to the advice of her wise statesman, Pericles, led +step by step to her ultimate ruin,--required not a mere narrator +of events, however brilliant, but a moral philosopher and a +statesman. Such was Thucydides. Although his work shows an +advance, in the science of historical composition, over that of +Herodotus, and his mind is of a higher, because of a more +thoughtful order, yet his fame by no means obscures the glory +which belongs to the Father of History. Their walks are +different; they can never be considered as rivals, and therefore +neither can claim superiority." [<small>Footnote: "Greek and +Roman Classical Literature," by Professor R. W. Browne, King's +College, London.</small>]</p> + +<br> +<h4>IV. PHILOSOPHY.</h4> + +<h5>ANAXAG'ORAS.</h5> + +<p class="just">The most illustrious of the Ionic philosophers, +and the first distinguished philosopher of this period of Grecian +history, was Anaxagoras, who was born at Clazom'enæ in the +year 499 B.C. At the age of twenty he went to Athens, where he +remained thirty years, teaching philosophy, and having for his +hearers Pericles, Socrates, Euripides, and other celebrated +characters. While the pantheistic systems of Tha'les, +Heracli'tus, and other early philosophers admitted, in accordance +with the fictions of the received mythology, that the universe is +full of gods, the doctrine of Anaxagoras led to the belief of but +one supreme mind or intelligence, distinct from the chaos to +which it imparts motion, form, and order. Hence he also taught +that the sun is an inanimate, fiery mass, and therefore not a +proper object of worship. He asserted that the moon shines by +reflected light, and he rightly explained solar and lunar +eclipses. He gave allegorical explanations of the names of the +Grecian gods, and struck a blow at the popular religion by +attributing the miraculous appearances at sacrifices to natural +causes. For these innovations he was stoned by the populace, and, +as a penalty for what was considered his impiety, he was +condemned to death; but through the influence of Pericles his +sentence was commuted to banishment. He retired to Lamp'sacus, on +the Hellespont, where he died at the age of seventy-two.</p> + +<p class="just">A short time before his death the senate of +Lampsacus sent to Anaxagoras to ask what commemoration of his +life and character would be most acceptable to him. He answered, +"Let all the boys and girls have a play-day on the anniversary of +my death." The suggestion was observed, and his memory was +honored by the people of Lampsacus for many centuries with a +yearly festival. The amiable disposition of Anaxagoras, and the +general character of his teachings, are pleasantly and very +correctly set forth in the following poem, which is a supposed +letter from the poet Cleon, of Lampsacus, to Pericles, giving an +account of the philosopher's death:</p> + +<br> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>The Death of Anaxagoras.</i></p> + +<p>Cleon of Lampsacus, to Pericles:<br> +Of him she banished now let Athens boast;<br> +Let now th' Athenian raise to him they stoned<br> +A statue. <i>Anaxagoras is dead!</i><br> +To you who mourn the master, called him friend,<br> +Beat back th' Athenian wolves who fanged his throat,<br> +And risked your own to save him--Pericles--<br> +I now unfold the manner of his end:</p> + +<p>The aged man, who found in sixty years<br> +Scant cause for laughter, laughed before he died,<br> +And died still smiling: Athens vexed him not!<br> +Not he, but your Athenians, he would say,<br> +Were banished in his exile!</p> + +<p> When the dawn<br> +First glimmers white o'er Lesser Asia,<br> +And little birds are twittering in the grass,<br> +And all the sea lies hollow and gray with mist,<br> +And in the streets the ancient watchmen doze,<br> +The master woke with cold. His feet were chill,<br> +And reft of sense; and we who watched him knew<br> +The fever had not wholly left his brain,<br> +For he was wandering, seeking nests of birds,<br> +An urchin from the green Ionian town<br> +Where he was born. We chafed his clay-cold limbs;<br> +And so he dozed, nor dreamed, until the sun<br> +Laughed out--broad day--and flushed the garden gods<br> +Who bless our fruits and vines in Lampsacus.</p> + +<p>Feeble, but sane and cheerful, he awoke,<br> +And took our hands and asked to feel the sun;<br> +And where the ilex spreads a gracious shade<br> +We placed him, wrapped and pillowed; and he heard<br> +The charm of birds, the whisper of the vines,<br> +The ripple of the blue Propontic sea.<br> +Placid and pleased he lay; but we were sad<br> +To see the snowy hair and silver beard<br> +Like withering mosses on a fallen oak,<br> +And feel that he, whose vast philosophy<br> +Had cast such sacred branches o'er the fields<br> +Where Athens pastures her dull sheep, lay fallen,<br> +And never more should know the spring! Confess<br> +You too had grieved to see it, Pericles!</p> + +<p>But Anaxagoras owned no sense of wrong;<br> +And when we called the plagues of all your gods<br> +On your ungrateful city, he but smiled:<br> +"Be patient, children! Where would be the gain<br> +Of wisdom and divine astronomy,<br> +Could we not school our fretful minds to bear<br> +The ills all life inherits? I can smile<br> +To think of Athens! Were they much to blame?<br> +Had I not slain Apollo? plucked the beard<br> +Of Jove himself? Poor rabble, who have yet<br> +Outgrown so little the green grasshoppers<br> +From whom they boast descent, are they to blame?<br> +[<small>Footnote: The Athenians claimed to be of indigenous +origin--<br> +<i>Autoch'tho-nes</i>, that is, Aborigines, sprung from the +earth<br> +itself. As emblematic of this origin they wore in their hair<br> +the golden forms of the <i>cicada</i>, or locust, often +improperly<br> +called grasshopper, which was believed to spring from the<br> +earth. So it was said that the Athenians boasted descent<br> +from grasshoppers.</small>]</p> + +<p>"How could they dream--or how believe when taught--<br> +The sun a red-hot iron ball, in bulk<br> +Not less than Peloponnesus? How believe<br> +The moon no silver goddess girt for chase,<br> +But earth and stones, with caverns, hills, and vales?<br> +Poor grasshoppers! who deem the gods absorbed<br> +In all their babble, shrilling in the grass!<br> +What wonder if they rage, should one but hint<br> +That thunder and lightning, born of clashing clouds,<br> +Might happen even with Jove in pleasant mood,<br> +Not thinking of Athenians at all!"</p> + +<p>He paused; and, blowing softly from the sea,<br> +The fresh wind stirred the ilex, shaking down<br> +Through chinks of sunny leaves blue gems of sky;<br> +And lying in the shadow, all his mind<br> +O'ershadowed by our grief, once more he spoke:<br> +"Let not your hearts be troubled! All my days<br> +Hath all my care been fixed on this vast blue,<br> +So still above us; now my days are done,<br> +Let it have care of me! Be patient, meek,<br> +Not puffed with doctrine! Nothing can be known;<br> +Naught grasped for certain: sense is circumscribed;<br> +The intellect is weak, and life is short!"</p> + +<p>He ceased, and mused a little while we wept.<br> +"And yet be nowise downcast; seek, pursue!<br> +The lover's rapture and the sage's gain<br> +Less in attainment lie than in approach.<br> +Look forward to the time which is to come!<br> +All things are mutable, and change alone<br> +Unchangeable. But knowledge grows! The gods<br> +Are drifting from the earth like morning mist;<br> +The days are surely at the doors when men<br> +Shall see but human actions in the world!<br> +Yea, even these hills of Lampsacus shall be<br> +The isles of some new sea, if time fail not!"</p> + +<p>And now the reverend fathers of our town<br> +Had heard the master's end was very near,<br> +And come to do him homage at the close,<br> +And ask what wish of his they might fulfil.<br> +But he, divining that they thought his heart<br> +Might yearn to Athens for a resting-place,<br> +Said gently, "Nay; from everywhere the way<br> +To that dark land you wot of is the same.<br> +I feel no care; I have no wish. The Greeks<br> +Will never quite forget my Pericles,<br> +And when they think of him will say of me,<br> +<i>'Twas Anaxagoras taught him!"</i></p> + +<p> Loath to go,<br> +No kindly office done, yet once again<br> +The reverend fathers pressed him for a wish.<br> +Then laughed the master: "Nay, if still you urge,<br> +And since 'twere churlish to reject good-will,<br> +I pray you, every year, when time brings back<br> +The day on which I left you, let the boys--<br> +All boys and girls in this your happy town--<br> +Be free of task and school for that one day."</p> + +<p>He lay back smiling, and the reverend men<br> +Departed, heavy at heart. He spoke no more,<br> +But, haply musing on his truant days,<br> +Passed from us, and was smiling when he died.<br> + --WILLIAM CANTON, in <i>The Contemporary Review</i>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The teachings of Anaxagoras were destined to +attain to wide-spread power over the Grecian mind. As auguries, +omens, and prodigies exercised a great influence on the public +affairs of Greece, a philosophical explanation of natural +phenomena had a tendency to diminish respect for the popular +religion in the eyes of the multitude, and to leave the minds of +rulers and statesmen open to the influences of reason, and to the +rejection of the follies of superstition. The doctrines taught by +Anaxagoras were the commencement of the contest between the old +philosophy and the new; and the varying phases of the struggle +appear throughout all subsequent Grecian history.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE SOPHISTS.</h5> + +<p class="just">In the fifth century there sprang up in Greece a +set of teachers who traveled about from city to city, giving +instruction (for money) in philosophy and rhetoric; under which +heads were included political and moral education. These men were +called "Sophists" (a term early applied to <i>wise</i> men, such +as the seven sages), and though they did not form a sect or +school, they resembled one another in many respects, exerting an +important, and, barring their skeptical tendencies, a healthful +influence in the formation of character. Among the most eminent +of these teachers were Protag'oras of Abde'ra, Gor'gias of +Leontini, and Prod'icus of Ce'os. That great philosopher of a +later age, Plato, while condemning the superficiality of their +philosophy, characterized these men as important and respectable +thinkers; but their successors, by their ignorance, brought +reproach upon their calling, and, in the time of Socrates, the +Sophists--so-called--had lost their influence and had fallen into +contempt. "Before Plato had composed his later Dialogues," says +MAHAFFY, "they had become too insignificant to merit refutation; +and in the following generation they completely disappear as a +class." This author thus proceeds to give the causes of their +fall:</p> + +<p class="just">"It is, of course, to be attributed not only to +the opposition of Socrates at Athens, but to the subdivision of +the profession of education. Its most popular and prominent +branch--that of Rhetoric--was taken up by special men, like the +orator An'tiphon, and developed into a strictly defined science. +The Philosophy which they had touched without sounding its depths +was taken up by the Socratic schools, and made the rule and +practice of a life. The Politics which they had taught were found +too general; nor were these wandering men, without fixed home, or +familiarity with the intricacies of special constitutions, likely +to give practical lessons to Greece citizens in the art of +state-craft. Thus they disappear almost as rapidly as they +rose--a sudden phase of spiritual awakening in Greece, like the +Encyclopædists of the French." [<small>Footnote: "History +of Classical Greek literature," vol. ii., p. 63.</small>]</p> + +<br> +<h5>SOCRATES.</h5> + +<p class="just">The greatest teacher of this age was Socrates, +who was born near Athens in 469 B.C. His father was a sculptor, +and the son for some time practiced the same profession at +Athens, meanwhile aspiring toward higher things, and pursuing the +study of philosophy under Anaxagoras and others. He served his +country in the field in the severe struggle between Sparta and +Athens, where he was distinguished for his bravery and endurance; +and when upward of sixty years of age he was chosen to represent +his district in the Senate of Five Hundred. Here, and under the +subsequent tyranny, his integrity remained unshaken; and his +boldness in denouncing the cruelties of the Thirty Tyrants nearly +cost him his life. As a teacher, Socrates assumed the character +of a moral philosopher, and he seized every occasion to +communicate moral wisdom to his fellow-citizens. Although often +classed with the Sophists, and unjustly selected by Aristophanes +as their representative, the whole spirit of his teachings was +directly opposed to that class. Says MAHAFFY, "The Sophists were +brilliant and superficial, he was homely and thorough; they +rested in skepticism, he advanced through it to deeper and +sounder faith; they were wandering and irresponsible, he was +fixed at Athens, and showed forth by his life the doctrines he +preached." GROTE, however, while denying that the Sophists were +intellectual and moral corrupters, as generally charged, also +denies that the reputation of Socrates properly rests upon his +having rescued the Athenian mind from their influences. He +admires Socrates for "combining with the qualities of a good man +a force of character and an originality of speculation as well as +of method, and a power of intellectually working on others, +generically different from that of any professional teacher, +without parallel either among contemporaries or successors." +[<small>Footnote: "History of Greece," Chap. lxviii.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">Socrates taught without fee or reward, and +communicated his instructions freely to high and low, rich and +poor. His chief method of instruction was derived from the style +of Zeno, of the Eleatic school, and consisted of attacking the +opinions of his opponents and pulling them to pieces by a series +of questions and answers. [<small>Footnote: A fine example of the +Socratic mode of disputation may be seen In "Alciphron; or, the +Minute Philosopher," by George Berkeley, D.D., Bishop of Cloyne, +Ireland. It is a defence of the Christian religion, and an +exposé of the weakness of infidelity and skepticism, and +is considered one of the most ingenious and excellent +performances of the kind in the English tongue.</small>] He made +this system "the most powerful instrument of philosophic teaching +ever known in the history of the human intellect." The +philosopher was an enthusiastic lover of Athens, and he looked +upon the whole city as his school. There alone he found +instruction and occupation, and through its streets he would +wander, standing motionless for hours in deep meditation, or +charming all classes and ages by his conversation. Alcibiades +declared of him that, "as he talks, the hearts of all who hear +leap up, and their tears are poured out." The poet THOMSON, +musing over the sages of ancient time, thus describes him:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">O'er all shone out the great +Athenian sage,<br> +And father of Philosophy!<br> +Tutor of Athens! he, in every street,<br> +Dealt priceless treasure; goodness his delight,<br> +Wisdom his wealth, and glory his reward.<br> +Deep through the human heart, with playful art,<br> +His simple question stole, as into truth<br> +And serious deeds he led the laughing race;<br> +Taught moral life; and what he taught he was.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Of the unjust attack made upon Socrates by the +poet Aristophanes we have already spoken. That occurred in 423 +B.C., and, as a writer has well said, "evaporated with the +laugh"--having nothing to do with the sad fate of the guiltless +philosopher twenty-four years after. Soon after the restoration +of the democracy in Athens (403 B.C.) Socrates was tried for his +life on the absurd charges of impiety and of corrupting the +morals of the young. His accusers appear to have been instigated +by personal resentment, which he had innocently provoked, and by +envy of his many virtues; and the result shows not only the +instability but the moral obliquity of the Athenian character. He +approached his trial with no special preparation for defence, as +he had no expectation of an acquittal; but he maintained a calm, +brave, and haughty bearing, and addressed the court in a bold and +uncompromising tone, demanding rewards instead of punishment. It +was the strong religious persuasion (or belief) of Socrates that +he was acting under a divine mission. This consciousness had been +the controlling principle of his life; and in the following +extracts which we have taken from his Apology, or Defence, in +which he explains his conduct, we see plain evidences of this +striking characteristic of the great philosopher:</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>The Defence of Socrates.</i></p> + +<p>[<small>Footnote: From the translation by Professor Jowett, of +Oxford University.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">"Strange, indeed, would be my conduct, O men of +Athens, if now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to +fulfil the philosopher's mission of searching into myself and +other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any +other fear: that would indeed be strange, and I might justly be +arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods, if I +disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death: then I should +be fancying I was wise when I was not wise. For this fear of +death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, +being the appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows +whether death, which he in his fear apprehends to be the greatest +evil, may not be the greatest good. Is there not here conceit of +knowledge which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance? And this is +the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, +and in which I might, perhaps, fancy myself wiser than other +men--that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not +suppose that I know; but I do know that injustice and +disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and +dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good +rather than a certain evil. And therefore should you say to me, +'Socrates, this time we will not mind An'ytus, and will let you +off, but upon one condition, that you are not to inquire and +speculate in this way any more, and that if you are caught doing +this again you shall die'--if this were the condition on which +you let me go, I should reply, 'Men of Athens, I honor and love +you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life +and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching +of philosophy, and exhorting, after my manner, any one whom I +meet.' I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and +young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your +properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest +improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by +money, but that from virtue come money and every other good of +man, public as well as private. This is my teaching; and if this +is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, my influence is ruinous +indeed. But if anyone says that this is not my teaching, he is +speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do +as Anytus bids or not as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or +not; but whatever you do, know that I shall never alter my ways, +not even if I have to die many times."</p> + +<p class="just">Socrates next refers to the indignation that he +may have occasioned because he has not wept, begged, and +entreated for his life, and has not brought forward his children +and relatives to plead for him, as others would have done on so +serious an occasion. He says that he has relatives, and three +children; but he declares that not one of them shall appear in +court for any such purpose --not from any insolent disposition on +his part, but because he believes that such a course would be +degrading to the reputation which he enjoys, as well as a +disgrace to the state. He then closes his defence as follows:</p> + +<p class="just">"But, setting aside the question of dishonor, +there seems to be something wrong in petitioning a judge, and +thus procuring an acquittal, instead of informing and convincing +him. For his duty is not to make a present of justice, but to +give judgment; and he has Sworn that he will adjudge according to +the law, and not according to his own good pleasure; and neither +he nor we should get into the habit of perjuring ourselves--there +can be no piety in that. Do not, then, require me to do what I +consider dishonorable, and impious, and wrong, especially now, +when I am being tried for impiety. For if, O men of Athens, by +force of persuasion and entreaty, I could overpower your oaths, +then I should be teaching you to believe that there are no gods, +and convict myself, in my own defence, of not believing in them. +But that is not the case; for I do believe that there are gods, +and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers +believe in them. And to you and to God I commit my cause, to be +determined by you as is best for you and me."</p> + +<p class="just">As he had expected, and as the tenor of his +speech had assured his friends would be the case, Socrates was +found guilty--but by a majority of only five or six in a body of +over five hundred. He would make no proposition, as was his +right, for a mitigation of punishment; and after sentence of +death had been passed upon him he spent the remaining thirty days +of his life in impressing on the minds of his friends the most +sublime lessons in philosophy and virtue. Many of these lessons +have been preserved to us in the works of Plato, in whose +<i>Phoe'do</i>, which pictures the last hours of the prison life +of Socrates, we find a sublime conversation on the immortality of +the soul. The following is an extract from this work:</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>Socrates' Views of a Future State.</i></p> + +<p class="just">"When the dead arrive at the place to which their +demon leads them severally, first of all they are judged, as well +those who have lived well and piously as those who have not. And +those who appear to have passed a middle kind of life, proceeding +to Ach'eron, and embarking in the vessels they have, on these +arrive at the lake, and there dwell; and when they are purified, +and have suffered punishment for the iniquities they may have +committed, they are set free, and each receives the reward of his +good deeds according to his deserts; but those who appear to be +incurable, through the magnitude of their offences, either from +having committed many and great sacrileges, or many unjust and +lawless murders, or other similar crimes, these a suitable +destiny hurls into Tartarus, whence they never come forth. But +those who appear to have been guilty of curable yet great +offences, such as those who through anger have committed any +violence against father or mother, and have lived the remainder +of their life in a state of penitence, or they who have become +homicides in a similar manner--these must, of necessity, fall +into Tartarus; but after they have fallen, and have been there a +year, the wave casts them forth, the homicide into Cocy'tus, +[<small>Footnote: <i>Co-cy'tus</i></small>] but the parricides +and matricides into Pyriphleg'ethon; [<small>Footnote: +<i>Pyr-i-phlege-thon</i>, "fire-blazing;" one of the rivers of +hell</small>] but when, being borne along, they arrive at the +Acheru'sian lake, [<small>Footnote: <i>Ach'e-ron</i>. Cocytus +signifies the river of wailing; Pyriphlegethon, the river that +burns with fire; Acheron, the river of woe; and the Styx, another +river of the lower world, the river of hatred. Thus Homer, in +describing "Pluto's murky abode," says:<br> +<br> +</small></p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"><small>There, into Acheron runs not +alone<br> +Dread Pyriphlegethon, but Cocytus loud,<br> +From Styx derived; there also stands a rock,<br> +At whose broad base the roaring rivers meet.<br> +<i>Odyssey</i>. B. X.</small>]</div> + +<br> +there they cry out to and invoke, some, those whom they slew, +others, those whom they injured; and, invoking them, they entreat +and implore them to suffer them to go out into the lake and to +receive them; and if they persuade them, they go out, and are +freed from their sufferings; but if not, they are borne back to +Tartarus, and thence again to the rivers, and they do not cease +from suffering this until they have persuaded those whom they +have injured--for this sentence was imposed on them by the +judges. But those who are found to have lived an eminently holy +life--these are they who, being freed and set at large from these +regions in the earth as from a prison--arrive at the pure abode +above, and dwell on the upper parts of the earth. And among +these, those who have sufficiently purified themselves by +philosophy shall live without bodies throughout all future time, +and shall arrive at habitations yet more beautiful than these, +which it is neither easy to describe, nor at present is there +sufficient time for the purpose. <br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">"For the sake of these things which we have +described we should use every endeavor to acquire virtue and +wisdom in this life, for the reward is noble and the hope great. +To affirm positively, however, that these things are exactly as I +have described them, does not become a man of sense; but that +either this, or something of the kind, takes place with respect +to our souls and their habitations--since our soul is certainly +immortal--appears to me most fitting to be believed, and worthy +the hazard for one who trusts in its reality; for the hazard is +noble, and it is right to allure ourselves with such things, as +with enchantments; for which reason I have prolonged my story to +such length. On account of these things, then, a man ought to be +confident about his soul, who during this life has disregarded +all the pleasures and ornaments of the body as foreign from his +nature, and who, having thought that they do more harm than good, +has zealously applied himself to the acquirement of knowledge, +and who, having adorned his soul not with a foreign but with its +own proper ornaments--temperance, justice, fortitude, freedom, +and truth-- thus waits for his passage to Hades as one who is +ready to depart whenever destiny shall summon him."</p> + +<p class="just">After some farther conversation with his friends +respecting the disposition to be made of his body, and having +said farewell to his family, Socrates drank the fatal hemlock +with as much composure as if it had been the last draught at a +cheerful banquet, and quietly laid himself down and died. "Thus +perished," says DR. SMITH, "the greatest and most original of +Grecian philosophers, whose uninspired wisdom made the nearest +approach to the divine morality of the Gospel." As observed by +PROFESSOR TYLER of Amherst College, "The consciousness of a +divine mission was the leading trait in his character and the +main secret of his power. This directed his conversations, shaped +his philosophy, imbued his very person, and controlled his life. +This was the power that sustained him in view of approaching +death, inspired him with more that human fortitude in his last +days, and invested his dying words with a moral grandeur that +'has less of earth in it than heaven.'" [<small>Footnote: Preface +to "Plato's Apology and Crito."</small>] There was a more special +and personal influence, however, to which Socrates deemed himself +subject through life, and which probably moved him to view death +with such calmness.</p> + +<p class="just">With all his practical wisdom, the great +philosopher was not free from the control of superstitious +fancies. He not only always gave careful heed to divinations, +dreams, and oracular intimations, but he believed that he was +warned and restrained, from childhood, by a familiar spirit, or +<i>demon</i>, which he was accustomed to speak of familiarly and +to obey implicitly. A writer, in alluding to this subject, says: +"There is no more curious chapter in Grecian biography than the +story of Socrates and his familiar demon, which, sometimes +unseen, and at other times, as he asserted, assuming human shape, +acted as his mentor; which preserved his life after the +disastrous battle of De'lium, by pointing out to him the only +secure line of retreat, while the lives of his friends, who +disregarded his entreaties to accompany him, were sacrificed; and +which, again, when the crisis of his fate approached, twice +dissuaded him from defending himself before his accusers, and in +the end encouraged him to quaff the poisoned cup presented to his +lips by an ungrateful people."</p> + +<br> +<h3>ART.</h3> + +<p class="just">Having briefly traced the history of Grecian +literature in its best period, it remains to notice some of the +monuments of art, "with which," as ALISON says, "the Athenians +have overspread the world, and which still form the standard of +taste in every civilized nation on earth."</p> + +<br> +<h4>I. SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.</h4> + +<p class="just">Grecian sculpture, as we have seen, had attained +nearly the summit of its perfection at the commencement of the +Persian wars. Among those who now gave to it a wider range may be +mentioned Pythagoras, of Rhegium, and Myron, a native of +Eleu'theræ. The former executed works in bronze +representing contests of heroes and athletes; but he was excelled +in this field by Myron, who was also distinguished for his +representations of animals. The energies of sculpture, however, +were to be still more directly concentrated and perfected in a +new school. That school was at Athens, and its master was +Phid'ias, an Athenian painter, sculptor, and architect, who +flourished about 460 B.C. "At this point," observes LÜBKE, +[<small>Footnote: "Outlines of the History of Art," by Wilhelm +Lübke; Clarence Cook's edition.</small>] "begins the period +of that wonderful elevation of Hellenic life which was ushered in +by the glorious victory over the Persians. Now, for the first +time, the national Hellenic mind rose to the highest +consciousness of noble independence and dignity. Athens +concentrated within herself, as in a focus, the whole exuberance +and many-sidedness of Greek life, and glorified it into beautiful +unity. Now, for the first time, the deepest thoughts of the +Hellenic mind were embodied in sculpture, and the figures of the +gods rose to that solemn sublimity in which art embodied the idea +of divinity in purely human form. This victory of the new time +over the old was effected by the power of Phidias, one of the +most wonderful artist-minds of all time."</p> + +<p class="just">Phidias was intrusted by Pericles with the +superintendence of the public works erected or adorned by that +lavish ruler, and his own hands added to them their most valuable +ornaments. But before he was called to this employment his +statues had adorned the most celebrated temples of Greece. "These +inimitable works," says GILLIES, [<small>Footnote: Gillies's +"History of Ancient Greece," p. 178.</small>] "silenced the voice +of envy; and the most distinguished artists of Greece--sculptors, +painters, and architects--were ambitious to receive the +directions, and to second the labors of Phidias, which were +uninterruptedly employed, during fifteen years, in the +embellishment of his native city." The chief characteristic of +Phidias was ideal beauty of the sublimest order in the +representation of divinities and their worship; and he +substituted ivory for marble in those parts of statues that were +uncovered, such as the face, hands, and feet, while for the +covered portion he substituted solid gold in place of wood +concealed with real drapery. The style and character of his work +are well described by LÜBKE, as follows:</p> + +<p class="just">"That Phidias especially excelled in creating +images of the gods, and that he preferred, as subjects for his +art, those among the divinities the essence of whose nature was +spiritual majesty, marks the fundamental characteristic of his +art, and explains its superiority, not only to all that had been +produced before his time, but to all that was contemporary with +him, and to all that came after him. Possessed of that +unsurpassable masterly power in the representation of the +physical form to which Greek art, shortly before his time, had +attained by unceasing endeavor, his lofty genius was called upon +to apply these results to the embodiment of the highest ideas, +and thus to invest art with the character of sublimity, as well +as with the attributes of perfect beauty. Hence it is said of +him, that he alone had seen images of the gods, and he alone had +made them visible to others. Even in the story that, in emulation +with other masters, he made an Amazon, and was defeated in the +contest by his great contemporary Polycle'tus, we see a +confirmation of the ideal tendency of his art. But that his works +realized the highest conceptions of the people, and embodied the +ideal of the Hellenic conception of the divinity, is proved by +the universal admiration of the ancient world. This sublimity of +conception was combined in him with an inexhaustible exuberance +of creative fancy, an incomparable care in the completion of his +work, and a masterly power in overcoming every difficulty, both +in the technical execution and in the material."</p> + +<p class="just">Probably the first important work executed by +Phidias at Athens was the colossal bronze image of Minerva, which +stood on the Acropolis. It was nearly seventy feet in height, and +was visible twenty miles out at sea. It was erected by the +Athenians, in memory of their victory over the Persians, with the +spoils of Marathon. A smaller bronze statue, on the same model, +was also erected on the Acropolis. But the greatest of the works +of Phidias at Athens was the ivory and gold statue of Minerva in +the Parthenon, erected with the booty taken at Salamis. It was +forty feet high, representing the goddess, "not with her shield +raised as the vigorous champion of her people, but as a peaceful, +protecting, and victory-giving divinity." Phidias was now called +to Elis, and there he executed his crowning work, the gold and +ivory statue of Jupiter at Olympia. "The father of the gods and +of men was seated on a splendid throne in the cella of his +Olympic temple, his head encircled with a golden olive-wreath; in +his right hand he held Nikè, who bore a fillet of victory +in her hands and a golden wreath on her head; in his left hand +rested the richly-decorated sceptre." The throne was adorned with +gold and precious stones, and on it were represented many +celebrated scenes. "From this immeasurable exuberance of +figures," says LÜBKE, "rose the form of the highest Hellenic +divinity, grand and solemn and wonderful in majesty. Phidias had +represented him as the kindly father of gods and men, and also as +the mighty ruler in Olympus. As he conceived his subject he must +have had in his mind those lines of Homer, in which Jupiter +graciously grants the request of Thetis:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">'As thus he spake, the son of +Saturn gave<br> +The nod with his dark brows. The ambrosial curls<br> +Upon the sovereign one's immortal head<br> +Were shaken, and with them the mighty Mount<br> +Olympus trembled.'" [<small>Footnote: <i>Iliad</i>, I., +528-580.<br> +Bryant's translation.</small>]</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">While the art of painting was early developed in +Greece, certainly as far back as 718 B.C., the first painter of +renown was Polygno'tus, of Tha'sos, who went to Athens about 463 +B.C., and established there what was called "the Athenian school" +of painting. Aristotle called him "the painter of character," as +he was the first to give variety to the expression of the +countenance, and ease and grace to the outlines of figures or the +flow of drapery. He painted many battle scenes, and with his +contemporaries, Diony'sius of Col'oplon, Mi'con, and others, he +embellished many of the public buildings in Athens, and notably +the Temple of Theseus, with representations of figures similar to +those of the sculptor. About 404 B.C. painting reached a farther +degree of excellence in the hands of Apollodo'rus, a native of +Athens, who developed the principles of light and shade and gave +to the art a more dramatic range. Of this school Zeux'is, +Parrha'sius, and Timan'thes became the chief masters.</p> + +<br> +<h5>PARRHASIUS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Of the artists of this period it has been +asserted by some authorities that Parrhasius was the most +celebrated, as he is said to have "raised the art of painting to +perfection in all that is exalted and essential;" uniting in his +works "the classic invention of Polygnotus, the magic tone of +Apollodorus, and the exquisite design of Zeuxis." He was a native +of Ephesus, but became a citizen of Athens, where he won many +victories over his contemporaries. One of these is recorded by +Pliny as having been achieved in a public contest with Zeuxis. +The latter displayed a painting of some grapes, which were so +natural as to deceive the birds, that came and pecked at them. +Zeuxis then requested that the curtain which was supposed to +screen the picture of Parrhasius be withdrawn, when it was found +that the painting of Parrhasius was merely the representation of +a curtain thrown over a picture-frame. The award of merit was +therefore given to Parrhasius, on the ground that while Zeuxis +had deceived the birds, Parrhasius had deceived Zeuxis +himself.</p> + +<p class="just">The Roman philosopher Seneca also tells a story +of Parrhasius as follows: While engaged in making a painting of +"Prometheus Bound," he took an old Olynthian captive and put him +to the torture, that he might catch, and transfer to canvas, the +natural expression of the most terrible of mortal sufferings. +This story, we may hope, is a fiction; but the incident is often +alluded to by the poets, and the American poet WILLIS has painted +the alleged scene in lines scarcely less terrible in their +coloring than those pallid hues of death-like agony which we may +suppose the painter-artist to have employed.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Parrhasius and his Captive.</i></p> + +<p>Parrhasius stood gazing forgetfully<br> +Upon his canvas. There Prometheus lay,<br> +Chained to the cold rocks of Mount Cau'casus--<br> +The vulture at his vitals, and the links<br> +Of the lame Lemnian festering in his flesh;<br> +[<small>Footnote: <i>Vulcan</i>; the Olympian artist, who,<br> +when hurled from heaven, fell upon the Island<br> +of Lemnos, in the Ægean. He forged the chain<br> +with which Prometheus was bound.</small>]<br> +And, as the painter's mind felt through the dim,<br> +Rapt mystery, and plucked the shadows forth<br> +With its far-reaching fancy, and with form<br> +And color clad them, his fine, earnest eye<br> +Flashed with a passionate fire; and the quick curl<br> +Of his thin nostril, and his quivering lip,<br> +Were like the wing'd god's, breathing from his flight.<br> +[<small>Footnote: The winged god Mercury.</small>]</p> + +<p> "Bring me the captive now!<br> +My bands feel skilful, and the shadows lift<br> +From my waked spirit airily and swift,<br> + And I could paint the bow.<br> +Upon the bended heavens, around me play<br> +Colors of such divinity to-day.</p> + +<p> "Ha! bind him on his back!<br> +Look! as Prometheus in my picture here!<br> +Quick, or he faints! stand with the cordial near!<br> + Now--bend him to the rack!<br> +Press down the poisoned links into his flesh,<br> +And tear agape that healing wound afresh!</p> + +<p> "So, let him writhe! How long<br> +Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now!<br> +What a fine agony works upon his brow!<br> + Ha! gray-haired, and so strong!<br> +How fearfully he stifles that short moan!<br> +Gods! if I could but paint a dying groan!</p> + +<p> "'Pity' thee! So I do.<br> +I pity the dumb victim at the altar;<br> +But does the robed priest for his pity falter?<br> + I'd rack thee though I knew<br> +A thousand lives were perishing in thine!<br> +What were ten thousand to a fame like mine?</p> + +<p> "Yet there's a deathless name!<br> +A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn,<br> +And like a steadfast planet mount and burn;<br> + And, though its crown of flame<br> +Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone,<br> +By all the fiery stars I'd bind it on!</p> + +<p> "Ay, though it bid me rifle<br> +My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst;<br> +Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first;<br> + Though it should bid me stifle<br> +The yearning in my throat for my sweet child,<br> +And taunt its mother till my brain went wild--</p> + +<p> "All--I would do it all<br> +Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot--<br> +Thrust foully into earth to be forgot!<br> + O heavens! but I appall<br> +Your heart, old man! Forgive--ha! on your lives<br> +Let him not faint!--rack him till he revives!</p> + +<p> "Vain--vain--give o'er. His eye<br> +Glazes apace. He does not feel you now;<br> +Stand back! I'll paint the death-dew on his brow.<br> + Gods I if he do not die<br> +But for one moment--one--till I eclipse<br> +Conception with the scorn of those calm lips!</p> + +<p> "Shivering! Hark! he mutters<br> +Brokenly now: that was a difficult breath--<br> +Another? Wilt thou never come, O Death?<br> + Look how his temple flutters!<br> +Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head!<br> +He shudders--gasps--Jove help him! So--he's dead!"</p> + +<pre> + * * * * * +</pre> + +<p>How like a mounting devil in the heart<br> +Rules the unreined ambition! Let it once<br> +But play the monarch, and its haughty brow<br> +Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought,<br> +And unthrones peace forever. Putting on<br> +The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns<br> +The heart to ashes, and with not a spring<br> +Left in the bosom for the spirit's lip,<br> +We look upon our splendor and forget<br> +The thirst of which we perish!</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>II. ARCHITECTURE.</h4> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">In Architecture, too, thy rank +supreme!<br> +That art where most magnificent appears<br> +The little builder, man; by thee refined,<br> +And smiling high, to full perfection brought.<br> + --THOMSON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">We have already referred, in general terms, to +the monuments of art for which the era of Athenian greatness was +distinguished, and have stated that it was more particularly in +the "Age of Pericles" that Athenian genius and enthusiasm found +their full development, in the erection or adornment of those +miracles of architecture that crowned the Athenian Acropolis or +surrounded its base. The following eloquent description, from the +pen of BULWER, will convey a vivid idea of the magnitude and the +brilliancy of the labors performed for</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>The Adornment of Athens.</i></p> + +<p class="just">"Then rapidly progressed those glorious fabrics +which seemed, as Plutarch gracefully express it, endowed with the +bloom of a perennial youth. Still the houses of private citizens +remained simple and unadorned; still were the streets narrow and +irregular; and, even centuries afterward, a stranger entering +Athens would not at first have recognized the claims of the +mistress of Grecian art. But to the homeliness of her common +thoroughfares and private mansions the magnificence of her public +edifices now made a dazzling contrast. The Acropolis, that +towered above the homes and thoroughfares of men--a spot too +sacred for human habitation-- became, to use a proverbial phrase, +'a city of the gods.' The citizen was everywhere to be reminded +of the majesty of the state --his patriotism was to be increased +by the pride in her beauty-- his taste to be elevated by the +spectacle of her splendor.</p> + +<p class="just">"Thus flocked to Athens all who throughout Greece +were eminent in art. Sculptors and architects vied with one +another in adorning the young empress of the seas: then rose the +masterpieces of Phidias, of Callic'rates, of Mnesicles, which, +either in their broken remains, or in the feeble copies of +imitators less inspired, still command so intense a wonder, and +furnish models so immortal. And if, so to speak, their bones and +relics excite our awe and envy, as testifying of a lovelier and +grander race, which the deluge of time has swept away, what, in +that day, must have been their brilliant effect, unmutilated in +their fair proportions-- fresh in all their lineaments and hues? +For their beauty was not limited to the symmetry of arch and +column, nor their materials confined to the marbles of +Pentel'icus and Pa'ros. Even the exterior of the temples glowed +with the richest harmony of colors, and was decorated with the +purest gold: an atmosphere peculiarly favorable to the display +and the preservation of art, permitted to external pediments and +friezes all the minuteness of ornament --the brilliancy of +colors, such as in the interior of Italian churches may yet be +seen--vitiated, in the last, by a gaudy and barbarous taste. Nor +did the Athenians spare any cost upon the works that were, like +the tombs and tripods of their heroes, to be the monuments of a +nation to distant ages, and to transmit the most irrefragable +proof 'that the power of ancient Greece was not an idle legend.'" +[<small>Footnote: "Athens: Its Rise and Fall," pp. 256, +257.</small>]</p> + +<br> +<h5>1. THE ACROPOLIS AND ITS SPLENDORS.</h5> + +<p class="just">The Acropolis, the fortress of Athens, was the +center of its architectural splendor. It is a rocky height rising +abruptly out of the Attic plain, and was accessible only on the +western side, where stood the Propylæ'a, a magnificent +structure of the Doric order, constructed under the direction of +Pericles by the architect Mnesicles, and which served as the gate +as well as the defence of the Acropolis. But the latter's chief +glory was the Parthenon, or Temple of Minerva, built in the time +of Pericles by Icti'nus and Callic'rates, and which stood on the +highest point, near the center. It was constructed entirely of +the most beautiful white marble from Mount Pentelicus, and its +dimensions were two hundred and twenty-eight feet by one hundred +and two --having eight Doric columns in each of the two fronts, +and seventeen in each of the sides, and also an interior range of +six columns in each end. The ceiling of the western part of the +main building was supported by four interior columns, and of the +eastern end by sixteen. The entire height of the building above +its platform was sixty-five feet. The whole was enriched within +and without with matchless works of art by various artists under +the direction of Phidias--its chief wonder, however, being the +gold and ivory statue of the Virgin Goddess, the work of Phidias +himself, elsewhere described.</p> + +<p class="just">This magnificent structure remained entire until +the year 1687, when, during a siege of Athens by the Venetians, a +bomb fell on the devoted Parthenon, and, setting fire to the +powder that the Turks had stored there, entirely destroyed the +roof and reduced the whole building almost to ruins. The eight +columns of the eastern front, however, and several of the lateral +colonnades, are still standing; and the whole, dilapidated as it +is, retains an air of inexpressible grandeur and sublimity.</p> + +<br> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>The Parthenon.</i></p> + +<p>Fair Parthenon! yet still must fancy weep<br> + For thee, thou work of nobler spirits flown.<br> +Bright as of old the sunbeams o'er thee sleep<br> + In all their beauty still--and thine is gone!<br> +Empires have sunk since thou wast first revered,<br> + And varying rites have sanctified thy shrine.<br> +The dust is round thee of the race that reared<br> + Thy walls, and thou--their fate must still be thine!<br> +But when shall earth again exult to see<br> +Visions divine like theirs renewed in aught like thee?</p> + +<p>Lone are thy pillars now--each passing gale<br> + Sighs o'er them as a spirit's voice, which moaned<br> +That loneliness, and told the plaintive tale<br> + Of the bright synod once above them throned.<br> +Mourn, graceful ruin! on thy sacred hill<br> + Thy gods, thy rites, a kindred fate have shared:<br> +Yet art thou honored in each fragment still<br> + That wasting years and barbarous hands have spared;<br> +Each hallowed stone, from rapine's fury borne,<br> +Shall wake bright dreams of thee in ages yet unborn.</p> + +<p>Yes; in those fragments, though by time defaced,<br> + And rude, insensate conquerors, yet remains<br> +All that may charm th' enlightened eye of taste,<br> + On shores where still inspiring freedom reigns.<br> +As vital fragrance breathes from every part<br> + Of the crushed myrtle, or the bruised rose,<br> +E'en thus th' essential energy of art<br> + There in each wreck imperishably glows!<br> +The soul of Athens lives in every line,<br> +Pervading brightly still the ruins of her shrine.<br> + --MRS. HEMANS.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">North of the Parthenon stood the Erechthe'um, an +irregular but beautiful structure of the Ionic order, dedicated +to the worship of Neptune and Minerva. Considerable remains of it +are still standing. In addition to the great edifices of the +Acropolis referred to, which were adorned with the most finished +paintings and sculptures, the entire platform of the hill appears +to have been covered with a vast composition of architecture and +sculpture, consisting of temples, monuments, and statues of gods +and heroes. The whole Acropolis was at once the fortress, the +sacred enclosure, and the treasury of the Athenian +people--forming the noblest museum of sculpture, the richest +gallery of painting, and the best school of architecture in the +world.</p> + +<br> +<h5>2. OTHER ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENTS OF ATHENS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Beneath the southern wall of the Acropolis was +the Theatre of Bacchus, capable of seating thirty thousand +persons, and the seats of which, rising one above another, were +cut out of the sloping rock. Adjoining this on the east was the +Ode'um, a smaller covered theatre, built by Pericles, and so +constructed as to imitate the form of Xerxes's tent. On the +north-east side was the Prytane'um, where were many statues, and +where citizens who had rendered service to the state were +maintained at the public expense. A short distance to the +north-west of the Acropolis, and separated from it only by some +hollow ground, was the small eminence called Areop'agus, or Hill +of Mars, at the eastern extremity of which was situated the +celebrated court of Areopagus. About a quarter of a mile +south-west stood the Pnyx, the place where the public assemblies +of Athens were held in its palmy days, and a spot that will ever +be associated with the renown of Demosthenes and other famed +orators. The steps by which the speaker mounted the rostrum, and +a tier of three seats for the audience, hewn in the solid rock, +are still visible.</p> + +<p class="just">The only other monument of art to which we shall +refer in this connection is the celebrated Temple of Theseus, +built of marble by Cimon as a resting-place for the bones of the +distinguished hero. [<small>Footnote: Cimon conquered the island +of Scy'ros, the haunt of pirates, and brought thence to Athens +what were supposed to be the bones of Theseus.</small>] It is of +the Doric order, one hundred and four feet by forty-five, and +surrounded by columns, of which there are six at each front and +thirteen at the sides. The roof, friezes, and cornices of this +temple have been but little impaired by time, and the whole is +one of the most noble remains of the ancient magnificence of +Athens, and the most nearly perfect, if not the most beautiful, +existing specimen of Grecian architecture.</p> + +<br> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>The Temple of Theseus.</i></p> + +<p>Here let us pause, e'en at the vestibule<br> +Of Theseus' fame. With what stern majesty<br> +It rears its ponderous and eternal strength,<br> +Still perfect, still unchanged, as on the day<br> +When the assembled throng of multitudes<br> +With shouts proclaimed the accomplished work, and fell<br> +Prostrate upon their faces to adore<br> +Its marble splendor!</p> + +<p> How the golden gleam<br> +Of noonday floats upon its graceful form,<br> +Tinging each grooved shaft, and storied frieze,<br> +And Doric triglyph! How the rays amid<br> +The opening columns, glanced from point to point,<br> +Stream down the gloom of the long portico!<br> +</p> + +<pre> + * * * * * +</pre> + + How the long pediment,<br> +Embrowned with shadows, frowns above, and spreads<br> +Solemnity and reverential awe! + +<p> Proud monument of old magnificence!<br> +Still thou survivest; nor has envious Time<br> +Impaired thy beauty, save that it has spread<br> +A deeper tint, and dimmed the polished glare<br> +Of thy refulgent whiteness.<br> + --HAYGARTH.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">So much for some of the architectural wonders of +Athens. As BULWER says, "It was the great characteristic of these +works that they were entirely the creation of the people. Without +the people Pericles could not have built a temple nor engaged a +sculptor. The miracles of that day resulted from the enthusiasm +of a population yet young--full of the first ardor for the +beautiful-- dedicating to the state, as to a mistress, the +trophies honorably won, or the treasures injuriously extorted, +and uniting the resources of a nation with the energy of an +individual, because the toil, the cost, were borne by those who +succeeded to the enjoyment and arrogated the glory." TALFOURD, in +his <i>Athenian Captive</i>, calls all that went to make up +Athens in the days of her glory</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> An opening world,<br> +Diviner than the soul of man hath yet<br> +Been gifted to imagine--truths serene<br> +Made visible in beauty, that shall glow<br> +In everlasting freshness, unapproached<br> +By mortal passion, pure amid the blood<br> +And dust of conquests, never waxing old,<br> +But on the stream of time, from age to age,<br> +Casting bright images of heavenly youth<br> +To make the world less mournful.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterXIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>THE SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACIES.</b></p> + +<h4>I. THE EXPEDITION OF CYRUS, AND THE RETREAT OF THE TEN +THOUSAND.</h4> + +<p class="just">The aid given by Cyrus the Persian to Sparta in +her contest with Athens, as related in a preceding chapter, was +bestowed with the understanding that Sparta should give him her +assistance against his elder brother, Artaxerxes Mne'mon, should +he ever require it. Accordingly, when the latter succeeded to the +Persian throne, on the death of his father, Cyrus, still governor +of the maritime region of Asia Minor, prepared to usurp his +brother's regal power. For this purpose he raised an army of one +hundred thousand Persians, which he strengthened with an +auxiliary force of thirteen thousand Greeks, drawn principally +from the cities of Asia under the dominion of Sparta. On the +Grecian force, commanded by Cle-ar'chus, a Spartan, Cyrus placed +his main reliance for success.</p> + +<p class="just">With these forces Cyrus marched from Sardis, in +the spring of 401, to within seventy miles of Babylon without the +least opposition. Here, however, he was met by Artaxerxes, it the +head of nine hundred thousand men. This immense force was at +first driven back; but in the conflict that ensued Cyrus rashly +charged the guards that surrounded his brother, and was slain. +His Persian troops immediately fled, leaving the Greeks almost +alone, in the presence of an immense hostile force, and more than +a thousand miles from any friendly territory. The victorious +enemy proposed to the Grecians terms of accommodation, but, +having invited Clearchus and other leaders to a conference, they +treacherously put them to death. No alternative now remained to +the Greeks but to submit to the Persians or fight their way back +to their own land. They bravely chose the latter course--and, +selecting Xenophon, a young Athenian, for their leader, after a +four months' march, attended with great suffering and almost +constant battling with brave and warlike tribes, ten thousand of +their number succeeded in reaching the Grecian settlements on the +Black Sea. Proclaiming their joy by loud shouts of "The sea! the +sea!" The Greek heroes gave vent to their exultation in tears and +mutual embraces.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Hence, through the continent, ten +thousand Greeks<br> +Urged a retreat, whose glory not the prime<br> +Of victories can reach. Deserts in vain<br> +Opposed their course; and hostile lands, unknown;<br> +And deep, rapacious floods, dire banked with death;<br> +And mountains, in whose jaws destruction grinned;<br> +Hunger and toil; Armenian snows and storms;<br> +And circling myriads still of barbarous foes.<br> +Greece in their view, and glory yet untouched,<br> +Their steady column pierced the scattering herds<br> +Which a whole empire poured; and held its way<br> +Triumphant, by the sage, exalted chief<br> +Fired and sustained. + +<p> O light, and force of mind,<br> +Almost mighty in severe extremes!<br> +The sea at last from Colchian mountains seen,<br> +Kind-hearted transport round their captains threw<br> +The soldiers' fond embrace; o'erflowed their eyes<br> +With tender floods, and loosed the general voice<br> +To cries resounding loud--"The sea! the sea!"<br> + --THOMSON.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Xenophon, who afterward became an historian of +his country, has left an admirable narrative of this expedition, +and "The Retreat of the Ten Thousand," in his <i>Anab'asis</i>, +written with great clearness and singular modesty. Referring to +the expedition, and to the historian's account of it, DR. CURTIUS +makes the following interesting observations:</p> + +<p class="just">"Although this military expedition possesses no +immediate significance for political history, yet it is of high +importance, not only for our knowledge of the East, but also for +that of the Greek character; and the accurate description which +we owe to Xenophon is, therefore, one of the most valuable +documents of antiquity. We see a band of Greeks of the most +various origin, torn out of all their ordinary spheres of life, +in a strange quarter of the globe, in a long complication of +incessant movements, and of situations ever-varying and full of +peril, in which the real nature of these men could not but +display itself with the most perfect truthfulness. This army is a +typical chart, in many colors, of the Greek population--a +picture, on a small scale, of the whole people, with all its +virtues and faults, its qualities of strength and of weakness--a +wandering political community, which, according to home usage, +holds its assemblies and passes its resolutions, and at the same +time a wild and not easily manageable band of free-lances. They +are men in full measure agitated by the unquiet spirit of the +times, which had destroyed in them their affection for their +native land; and yet how closely they cling to its most ancient +traditions! Visions in dream and omens, sent by the gods, decide +the most important resolutions, just as in the Homeric camp +before Troy: most assiduously the sacrifices are lit, the +pæans sung, altars erected, and games celebrated, in honor +of the savior gods, when at last the aspect of the longed-for sea +animates afresh their vigor and their courage.</p> + +<p class="just">"This multitude has been brought together by love +of lucre and quest of adventure; and yet in the critical moment +there manifest themselves a lively sense of honor and duty, a +lofty heroic spirit, and a sure tact in perceiving what counsels +are the best. Here, too, is visible the mutual jealousy existing +among the several tribes of the nation; but the feeling of their +belonging together, the consciousness of national unity, prevail +over all; and the great mass is capable of sufficient good-sense +and self-denial to subordinate itself to those who, by +experience, intelligence, and moral courage, attest themselves as +fitted for command. And how very remarkable it is that in this +mixed multitude of Greeks it is an Athenian who by his qualities +towers above all the rest, and becomes the real preserver of the +entire army! Xenophon had only accompanied the army as a +volunteer; yet it was he who, obeying an inner call, re-awakened +a higher, a Hellenic consciousness, courage, and prudence among +his comrades, and who brought about the first salutary +resolutions. Possessing the Athenian superiority of culture which +enabled him to serve these warriors as spokesman, negotiator, and +general, to him it was essentially due that, in spite of +unspeakable trials, they finally reached the coast." +[<small>Footnote: "History of Greece," vol. iv., pp. 191, +192.</small>]</p> + +<br> +<h4>II. THE SUPREMACY OF SPARTA.</h4> + +<p class="just">On the fall of Athens, Sparta became the mistress +of Greece. Her power and his own wealth induced Lysander to +appear again in public life. He first attempted to overthrow the +two regal families of Sparta, and, by making the crown an +elective office, secure his own accession to it. But he failed in +this, although, on the death of A'gis, King of Sparta, he +succeeded in setting aside Leo-tych'i-des, the son and rightful +successor of Agis, and giving the office to Agesila'us, the late +king's brother. The government of Sparta now became far more +oppressive than that of Athens had been, and it was not long +before some of the Grecian states under her sway united in a +league against her.</p> + +<p class="just">The part which the Greek cities of Asia took in +the expedition of Cyrus involved them in a war with Persia, in +which they were aided by the Spartans. Agesila'us entered Asia +with a considerable force (396 B.C.), and in the following year +he defeated the Persians in a great battle on the plains of +Sardis, in Lydia. But in 394 the Spartan king was called home to +avert the dangers which threatened his country in a war that had +been fomented by the Persian king in order to save his dominions +from the ravages of the Spartans. The King of Persia had supplied +Athens with a fleet which defeated the Spartan navy at Cni'dus, +and Persian gold rebuilt the walls of Athens. A battle soon +followed between the Spartans on one side and the Thebans and +Athenians on the other, in which the former were defeated and +Lysander was slain. On the other hand, Athens and her allies were +defeated, in the same year, in the vicinity of Corinth, and on +the plains of Corone'a. Finally, after the war had continued +eight years, and Sparta had virtually lost her maritime power, +the peace of Antal'cidas, as it is called, was concluded with +Persia, at the instance of Sparta, and was ratified by all the +states engaged in the contest (387 B.C.).</p> + +<p class="just">By the treaty with Persia, Athens regained three +of the islands she had been obliged to relinquish to Sparta under +Lysander; but the Greek cities in Asia were given up to Persia, +and both Athens and Sparta lost their former allies. It was the +unworthy jealousy of the Grecians, which the Persian king knew +how to stimulate, that prompted them to give up to a barbarian +the free cities of Asia; and this is the darkest shade in the +picture. Though Sparta was the most strongly in favor of the +terms of the treaty, yet Athens was the greatest gainer, for she +once more became an independent and powerful state.</p> + +<p class="just">It was not long before ambition, and the +resentment of past injuries, involved Sparta in new wars. When +her thirty years' truce with Mantine'a had expired, she compelled +that city, which had formerly been an unwilling ally, to throw +down her walls, and dismember her territory into the four or five +villages out of which it had been formed. Each of these divisions +was now left unfortified, and placed under a separate +oligarchical government. Sparta did this under the pretext that +the Mantine'ans had supplied one of her enemies with provisions +during the preceding war, and had evaded their share of service +in the Spartan army. The jealousy of Sparta was next aroused +against the rising power of Olynthus, a powerful confederacy in +the south-eastern part of Macedonia, which had become engaged in +hostilities with some rival cities; and the Spartans readily +accepted an invitation of one of the latter to send an army to +its aid.</p> + +<p class="just">The expedition against Olynthus led to an affair +of much importance. As one of the divisions of the Spartan army +was marching through the Theban territories it turned aside, and +the Spartan general treacherously seized upon the Cadme'a, or +Theban citadel, although a state of peace existed between Thebes +and Sparta (382 B.C.). The political morality of Sparta is +clearly exhibited in the arguments by which the Spartan king +justified this palpable and treacherous breach of the treaty of +Antal'cidas. He declared that the only question for the Spartan +people to consider was, whether they were gainers or losers by +the transaction. The assertion made by the Athenians on a prior +occasion was confirmed--that, "of all states, Sparta had most +glaringly shown by her conduct that in her political transactions +she measured honor by inclination, and justice by +expediency."</p> + +<p class="just">On the seizure of the Theban citadel the most +patriotic of the citizens fled to Athens, while a faction upheld +by a Spartan garrison ruled the place. Thebes now became a member +of the Spartan alliance, and furnished a force for the war +against Olynthus. After a struggle of four years Olynthus +capitulated, the Olynthian Confederacy was thereby dissolved, and +the cities belonging to it were compelled to join the Spartan +alliance. As a modern historian observes, "Sparta thus inflicted +a great blow upon Hellas; for the Olynthian Confederacy might +have served as a counterpoise to the growing power of Macedon, +destined soon to overwhelm the rest of Greece." The power of +Sparta had now attained its greatest height, but, as she was +leagued on all sides with the enemies of Grecian freedom, her +unpopularity was great, and her supremacy was doomed to a rapid +decline.</p> + +<br> +<h4>III. THE RISE AND FALL OF THEBES.</h4> + +<p class="just">Thebes had been nearly four years in the hands of +the Spartans when a few determined residents of the city rose +against their tyrants, and, aided by the exiles who had taken +refuge at Athens, and by some Athenian volunteers, they compelled +the Spartan garrison to capitulate (379 B.C.). At the head of the +revolution were two Theban citizens, Pelop'idas and Epaminon'das, +young men of noble birth and fortune, already distinguished for +their patriotism and private virtues. They are characterized by +the poet THOMSON, as</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Equal to the best; the Theban +Pair<br> +Whose virtues, in heroic concord joined,<br> +Their country raised to freedom, empire, fame.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">By their abilities they raised Thebes, hitherto +of but little political importance, to the first rank in power +among the Grecian states. They have been thus described by the +historian CURTIUS: "Pelopidas was the heroic champion and pioneer +who, like Miltiades and Cimon, with full energy accomplished the +tasks immediately at hand; while Epaminondas was a statesman +whose glance took a wider range, who organized the state at home, +and established its foreign relations upon a thoroughly +thought-out plan. He created the bases of the power of Thebes, as +Themistocles and Aristides had those of the power of Athens; and +he maintained them, so long as he lived, by the vigor of his +mind, like another Pericles. And, indeed, it would be difficult +to find in the entire course of Greek history any other two great +statesmen who, in spite of differences of character and of +outward conditions of life, resembled each other so greatly, and +were, as men, so truly the peers of each other, as Pericles and +Epaminondas."</p> + +<p class="just">The successes of Thebes revived the jealousy and +distrust of Athens, which concluded a peace with Sparta, and +subsequently formed an alliance with her. But the Thebans +continued to be successful, and at Teg'yra Pelopidas defeated a +greatly superior force and killed the two Spartan generals; while +at Leuc'tra Epaminondas, with a force of six thousand Thebans, +defeated the Lacedæmonian army of more than double that +number (371 B.C.). Leuctra has been called "the Marathon of the +Thebans," as their defensive war was turned by it into a war of +conquest. Aided now by the Arca'dians, Ar'gives, and E'leans, +Epaminondas invaded Laconia, appearing before the gates of +Sparta, where a hostile force had not been seen in five hundred +years; but he made no attempt upon the city, and, after laying +waste with fire and sword the valley of the Euro'tas, he retraced +his steps to the frontiers of Arcadia. Another expedition was +undertaken against the Peloponnesus in 367 B.C., and the cities +of Achaia immediately submitted, becoming the allies of Thebes. +In 362 the Peloponnesus was invaded for the last time, and at +Mantinea Epaminondas defeated the Spartans in the most sanguinary +contest ever fought among Grecians; but he fell in the moment of +victory, and the glory of Thebes departed with him. Before his +death, having been told that those whom he intended to be his +successors in command had been slain, he directed the Thebans to +make peace. His advice was followed, and a general peace was soon +after established, on the condition that each state should retain +its respective possessions.</p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterXIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>THE SICILIAN GREEKS.</b></p> + +<p class="just">Before proceeding to the history of the downfall +of Greece, and her subjugation by a foreign power--a result that +soon followed the events just narrated--we turn aside to notice +the affairs of the Sicilian Greeks, as more especially presented +in the history of Syracuse, in all respects the strongest and +most prominent of the Sicilian cities.<br> +</p> + +<h5>HIERO.</h5> + +<p class="just">On the death of Ge'lon, despot of Syracuse, a +year after the battle of Him'era, the government fell into the +hands of his brother Hi'ero, a man of great energy and +determination. He founded the city of Ætna, of which PINDAR +says:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">That city, founded strong<br> +In liberty divine,<br> +Measured by the Spartan line,<br> +Has Hiero 'stablish'd for his heritage;<br> +To whose firm-planted colony belong<br> +Their mother-country's laws,<br> +From many a distant age.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">He also added many cities to his government, and +his power was not inferior to that of Gelon. The city of +Cu'mæ, on the Italian coast, being harassed by the +Carthaginians, the aid of Hiero was solicited by its citizens, +and he sent a fleet which severely defeated and almost destroyed +the squadron of their enemies. Says PINDAR of this event:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">That leader of the Syracusan +host,<br> +With gallies swiftly-rushing, them pursued;<br> +And they his onset rued,<br> +When on the Cuman coast<br> +He dashed their youth in gulfy waves below,<br> +And rescued Greece from heavy servitude.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Hiero was likewise a liberal patron of literature +and the arts, inviting to his court many of the eminent poets and +philosophers of his time, including Pindar, Simon'ides, +Epichar'mus, Æs'chylus, and others; but his many great and +noble qualities were alloyed by insatiable cupidity and ambition, +and he became noted for "his cruel and rapacious government, and +as the organizer of that systematic espionage which broke up all +freedom of speech among his subjects." Although the eminent men +who visited his court have much to say in praise of Hiero, +Pindar, especially, was too honest and independent to ignore his +faults. As GROTE says, "Pindar's indirect admonitions and hints +sufficiently attest the real character of Hiero." Of these, the +following lines from the Pythian ode may be taken as a +sample:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The lightest word that falls from +thee, O King!<br> +Becomes a mighty and momentous thing:<br> +O'er many placed as arbiter on high,<br> +Many thy goings watchful see.<br> +Thy ways on every side<br> +A host of faithful witnesses descry;<br> +Then let thy liberal temper be thy guide.<br> +If ever to thine ear<br> +Fame's softest whisper yet was dear,<br> +Stint not thy bounty's flowing tide:<br> +Stand at the helm of state; full to the gale<br> +Spread thy wind-gathering sail.<br> +Friend! let not plausive avarice spread<br> +Its lures, to tempt thee from the path of fame:<br> +For know, the glory of a name<br> +Follows the mighty dead.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> ELTON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Hiero was succeeded on his death, in 467 B.C., by +his brother Thrasybu'lus; but the latter's tyranny caused a +popular revolt, and after being defeated in a battle with his +subjects he was expelled from the country. His expulsion was +followed by the extinction of the Gelonian dynasty at Syracuse, +and the institution of a popular government there and in other +Sicilian cities. These free governments, however, gave rise to +internal revolts and wars that continued many months; and finally +a general congress of the different cities was held, which +succeeded in adjusting the difficulties that had disturbed the +peace of all Sicily. The various cities now became +independent--though it is probable that the governments of all of +them continued to be more or less disturbed--and were soon +distinguished for their material and intellectual prosperity. +Syracuse maintained herself as the first city in power; and in +this condition of prosperity the Sicilian cities were found at +the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war.</p> + +<br> +<h5>DIONYESIUS THE ELDER.</h5> + +<p class="just">Of the Athenian league and expedition against +Syracuse we have already given some account. Soon after the +termination of this contest the Constitution of Syracuse was +rendered still more democratic by the adoption of a new code of +laws, prepared by Di'ocles, an eminent citizen, who became the +director of the government. But the Carthaginians now again +invaded Sicily, and established themselves over its entire +western half. Taking advantage of the popular alarm at these +aggressions, and of the ill success of Diocles and the Syracusan +generals in opposing them, Diony'sius the Elder, then a young +man, of low birth, but brave, determined, and talented, having +been raised by popular favor to the generalship of the Syracusan +army, subsequently made himself despot of the city (405 B.C.). +Dionysius ruled vigorously, but with extreme tyranny, for +thirty-eight years. By the year 384 he had extended his power +over nearly all Sicily and a part of <i>Magna Grecia</i>, and +under his sway Syracuse became one of the most powerful empires +on earth. PLUTARCH relates that Dionysius boasted that he +bequeathed to his son an empire "fastened by chains of adamant." +Like Hiero, Dionysius was a lover of literature, and sought to +gain distinction by his poetical compositions, some of which won +prizes at Athens. He also invited Plato to his court; but the +philosopher's moral conversations were distasteful to the tyrant, +who finally sold him into slavery, from which he was redeemed by +a friend.</p> + +<p class="just">It was during the reign of Dionysius the Elder +that occurred that memorable incident in the lives of Damon and +Pythias by which Dionysius himself is best remembered, and which +has passed into history as illustrative of the truest and noblest +friendship. Damon and Pythias were distinguished Syracusans, and +both were Pythagore'ans. Pythias, a strong republican, having +been seized for calling Dionysius a tyrant, and being condemned +to death for attempting to stab him, requested a brief respite in +order to arrange his affairs, promising to procure a friend to +take his place and suffer death if he should not return. Damon +gave himself up as surety, and Pythias was allowed to depart. +Just as Damon was about to be led to execution, Pythias, who had +been detained by unforeseen circumstances, returned to accept his +fate and save his friend. Dionysius was so struck by these proofs +of virtue and magnanimity on the part of the two friends that he +set both of them free, and requested to be admitted into their +friendship. The subject has been repeatedly dramatized, and has +formed the theme of numerous separate poems. Schiller has a +ballad on the subject; but he amplifies the incidents of the +original story, and substitutes other names in place of Damon and +Pythias. The following are the first three and the last three +verses from SCHILLER:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>The Hostage.</i></p> + +<p>The tyrant Di'onys to seek,<br> + Stern Moe'rus with his poniard crept;<br> + The watchful guards upon him swept;<br> +The grim King marked his changeless cheek:<br> +"What wouldst thou with thy poniard? Speak!"<br> +"The city from the tyrant free!"<br> +"The death-cross shall thy guerdon be."</p> + +<p>"I am prepared for death, nor pray,"<br> + Replied that haughty man, "to live;<br> + Enough if thou one grace wilt give:<br> +For three brief suns the death delay,<br> +To wed my sister--leagues away;<br> +I boast one friend whose life for mine,<br> +If I should fail the cross, is thine."</p> + +<p>The tyrant mused, and smiled, and said,<br> + With gloomy craft, "So let it be;<br> + Three days I will vouchsafe to thee.<br> +But mark--if, when the time be sped,<br> +Thou fail'st, thy surety dies instead.</p> + +<p>His life shall buy thine own release;<br> +Thy guilt atoned, my wrath shall cease."<br> +</p> + +<pre> + * * * * * +</pre> + +The sun sinks down--the gate's in view,<br> + The cross looms dismal on the ground--<br> + The eager crowd gape murmuring round.<br> +His friend is bound the cross unto.<br> +Crowd--guards--all--bursts he through;<br> +"Me! Doomsman, me," he shouts, "alone!<br> +His life is rescued--lo, mine own!" + +<p>Amazement seized the circling ring!<br> + Linked in each other's arms the pair--<br> + Weeping for joy, yet anguish there!<br> +Moist every eye that gazed: they bring<br> +The wondrous tidings to the King--<br> +His breast man's heart at last hath known,<br> +And the Friends stand before his throne.</p> + +<p>Long silent he, and wondering long,<br> + Gazed on the pair. "In peace depart,<br> + Victors, ye have subdued my heart!<br> +Truth is no dream! its power is strong.<br> +Give grace to him who owns his wrong!<br> +'Tis mine your suppliant now to be:<br> +Ah, let the band of Love--be THREE!"<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> BULWER.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Dionysius the Younger succeeded to the government +of Syracuse in 367, but he was incompetent to the task; and his +tyranny and debauchery brought about his temporary overthrow, ten +years later, by Dion, his father's brother-in-law. Dion had +enjoyed unusual favors under Dionysius the Elder, and was now a +man of wealth and high position, as well as of great energy and +marked mental capacities. For his talents he was largely indebted +to Plato, under whose teachings he became imbued "with that sense +of regulated polity, and submission of individual will to fixed +laws, which floated in the atmosphere of Grecian talk and +literature, and stood so high in Grecian morality." In one of his +letters Plato says, "When I explained the principles of +philosophy and humanity to Dion, I little thought that I was +insensibly opening a way to the subversion of tyranny!"</p> + +<p class="just">Long before the death of Dionysius the Elder, +Dion had conceived the idea of liberating Syracuse from despotism +and establishing an improved constitutional policy, originated by +himself; and, on becoming the chief adviser of the young +Dionysius, he tried to convince the latter of the necessity of +reforming himself and his government. Although at first favorably +impressed with the plans of Dion, the young monarch subsequently +became jealous of his adviser and expelled him from the country. +Gathering a few troops from various quarters, Dion returned to +Sicily ten years after, and, aided by a revolt in Syracuse, he +soon made himself master of the city. Dionysius had meanwhile +retired to Ortyg'ia, and soon left Sicily for Italy. But the +success of Dion was short-lived. "Too good for a despot, and yet +unfit for a popular leader, he could not remain long in the +precarious position he occupied." Both his dictatorship and his +life came to an end in 354. He became the victim of a conspiracy +originating with his most intimate friend, and was assassinated +in his own dwelling.</p> + +<p class="just">Dionysius soon after returned to Syracuse, from +the government of which he was finally expelled by Timo'leon, a +Corinthian, who had been sent from Corinth, at the request of +some exiled Syracusans, to the relief of their native city (343 +B.C.). Timoleon made himself master of the almost deserted +Syracuse, restored it to some degree of its former glory, checked +the aspiring power of Carthage by defeating one of its largest +armies, crushed the petty despots of Sicily, and restored nearly +the whole island to a state of liberty and order. The restoration +of liberty to Syracuse by Timoleon was followed by many years of +unexampled prosperity. Having achieved the purpose with which he +left Corinth, Timoleon at once resigned his command and became a +private citizen of Syracuse. But he became the adviser of the +Syracusans in their government, and the arbitrator of their +differences, enjoying to a good age "what Xenophon calls 'that +good, not human, but divine command over willing men, given +manifestly to persons of genuine and highly-trained temperance of +character.'"</p> + +<br> +<h5>HIERO II.</h5> + +<p class="just">In 317, Agath'ocles, a bold adventurer of +Syracuse, usurped its authority by the murder of several thousand +citizens, and for twenty-eight years maintained his power, +extending his dominion over a large portion of Sicily, and even +gaining successes in Africa. After his death, in 289, successive +tyrants ruled, until, in 270, Hiero II., a descendant of Gelon, +and commander of the Syracusan army, obtained the supreme power. +Meantime the Carthaginians had gained a decided ascendancy in +Sicily, and in 265 the Romans, alarmed by the movements of so +powerful a neighbor, and being invited to Sicily to assist a +portion of the people of Messa'na, commenced what is known in +history as the first Punic war. Hiero allied himself with the +Carthaginians, and the combined armies proceeded to lay siege to +Messana; but they were attacked and defeated by Ap'pius +Clau'dius, the Roman consul, and Hiero, panic-stricken, fled to +Syracuse. Seeing his territory laid waste by the Romans, he +prudently made a treaty with them, in 263. He remained their +steadfast ally; and when the Romans became sole masters of Sicily +they gave him the government of a large part of the island. His +administration was mild, yet firm and judicious, lasting in all +fifty-four years. With him ended the prosperity and independence +of Syracuse.</p> + +<br> +<h5>ARCHIME'DES.</h5> + +<p class="just">It was during the reign of Hiero II. that +Archimedes, a native of Syracuse, and a supposed distant relation +of the king, made the scientific discoveries and inventions that +have secured for him the honor of being the most celebrated +mathematician of antiquity. He was equally skilled in astronomy, +geometry, mechanics, hydrostatics, and optics. His discovery of +the principle of specific gravity is related in the following +well-known story: Hiero, suspecting that his golden crown had +been fraudulently alloyed with silver, put it into the hands of +Archimedes for examination. The latter, entering a bath-tub one +day, and noticing that he displaced a quantity of water equal in +bulk to that of his body, saw that this discovery would give him +a mode of determining the bulk and specific gravity of King +Hiero's crown. Leaping out of the tub in his delight, he ran +home, crying, "<i>Eure'ka! eureka!</i>" I have found it! I have +found it!</p> + +<p class="just">To show Hiero the wonderful effects of mechanical +power, Archimedes is said to have drawn some distance toward him, +by the use of ropes and pulleys, a large galley that lay on the +shore; and during the siege of his native city by the Romans, his +great mechanical skill was displayed in the invention and +manufacture of stupendous engines of defence. Later historians +than Polybius, Livy, and Plutarch say that on this occasion, +also, he burnt many Roman ships by concentrating upon them the +sun's rays from numerous mirrors. SCHILLER gives the following +poetic account of a visit, to Archimedes, by a young scholar who +asked to be taught the art that had won the great master's +fame:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">To Archimedes once a scholar +came:<br> +"Teach me;" he said, "the Art that won thy fame;<br> +The godlike Art which gives such boons to toil,<br> +And showers such fruit upon thy native soil;<br> +The godlike Art that girt the town when all<br> +Rome's vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!"<br> +"Thou call'st Art godlike--it is so, in truth,<br> +And was," replied the master to the youth,<br> +"Ere yet its secrets were applied to use--<br> +Ere yet it served beleaguered Syracuse.<br> +Ask'st thou from Art but what the Art is worth?<br> +The fruit? For fruit go cultivate the Earth.<br> +He who the goddess would aspire unto<br> +Must not the goddess as the woman woo!"<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> BULWER.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Among the discoveries of Archimedes was that of +the ratio between the cylinder and the inscribed sphere, and he +requested his friends to place the figures of a sphere and +cylinder on his tomb. This was done, and, one hundred and +thirty-six years after, it enabled Cicero, the Roman orator, to +find the resting-place of the illustrious inventor. The story of +his visit to Syracuse, and his search for the tomb of Archimedes, +is told by the HON. R C. WINTHROP in a lecture entitled +<i>Archimedes and Franklin</i>, from which we quote as +follows:</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>Visit of Cicero to the Grave of +Archimedes.</i></p> + +<p class="just">"While Cicero was quæstor in Sicily--the +first public office which he ever held, and the only one to which +he was then eligible, being but just thirty years old--he paid a +visit to Syracuse, then among the greatest cities of the world. +The magistrates of the city of course waited on him at once, to +offer their services in showing him the lions of the place, and +requested him to specify anything which he would like +particularly to see. Doubtless they supposed that he would ask +immediately to be conducted to some one of their magnificent +temples, that he might behold and admire those splendid works of +art with which --notwithstanding that Marcellus had made it his +glory to carry not a few of them away with him for the decoration +of the Imperial City--Syracuse still abounded, and which soon +after tempted the cupidity, and fell a prey to the rapacity, of +the infamous Verres.</p> + +<p class="just">"Or, haply, they may have thought that he would +be curious to see and examine the Ear of Dionysius, as it was +called--a huge cavern, cut out of the solid rock in the shape of +a human ear, two hundred and fifty feet long and eighty feet +high, in which that execrable tyrant confined all persons who +came within the range of his suspicion, and which was so +ingeniously contrived and constructed that Dionysius, by applying +his ear to a small hole, where the sounds were collected as upon +a tympanum, could catch every syllable that was uttered in the +cavern below, and could deal out his proscription and his +vengeance accordingly upon all who might dare to dispute his +authority or to complain of his cruelty. Or they may have +imagined, perhaps, that he would be impatient to visit at once +the sacred fountain of Arethusa; and the seat of those Sicilian +Muses whom Virgil so soon after invoked in commencing that most +inspired of all uninspired compositions, which Pope has so nobly +paraphrased in his glowing and glorious Eclogue--the +'Messiah.'</p> + +<p class="just">"To their great astonishment, however, Cicero's +first request was that they would take him to see the tomb of +<i>Archimedes</i>. To his own still greater astonishment, as we +may well believe, they told him in reply that they knew nothing +about the tomb of Archimedes, and had no idea where it was to be +found, and they even denied that any such tomb was still +remaining among them. But Cicero understood perfectly well what +he was talking about. He remembered the exact description of the +tomb. He remembered the very verses which had been inscribed on +it. He remembered the sphere and the cylinder which Archimedes +had himself requested to have wrought upon it, as the chosen +emblems of his eventful life. And the great orator forthwith +resolved to make search for it himself. Accordingly, he rambled +out into the place of their ancient sepulchres, and, after a +careful investigation, he came at last to a spot overgrown with +shrubs and bushes, where presently he descried the top of a small +column just rising above the branches. Upon this little column +the sphere and the cylinder were at length found carved, the +inscription was painfully deciphered, and the tomb of Archimedes +stood revealed to the reverent homage of the illustrious Roman +quæstor.</p> + +<p class="just">"This was in the year 76 before the birth of our +Savior. Archimedes died about the year 212 before Christ. One +hundred and thirty six years only had thus elapsed since the +death of this celebrated person, before his tombstone was buried +beneath briers and brambles; and before the place and even the +existence of it were forgotten by the magistrates of the very +city of which he was so long the proudest ornament in peace, and +the most effective defender in war. What a lesson to human pride, +what a commentary on human gratitude was here! It is an incident +almost precisely like that which the admirable and venerable DR. +WATTS imagined or imitated, as the topic of one of his most +striking and familiar Lyrics:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"'Theron, among his travels, +found<br> +A broken statue on the ground;<br> +And searching onward as he went,<br> +He traced a ruined monument.<br> +Mould, moss, and shades had overgrown<br> +The sculpture of the crumbling stone;<br> +Yet ere he passed, with much ado,<br> +He guessed and spelled out, Sci-pi-o.<br> +"Enough," he cried; "I'll drudge no more<br> +In turning the dull Stoics o'er; + +<pre> + * * * * * +</pre> + +For when I feel my virtue fail,<br> +And my ambitious thoughts prevail,<br> +I'll take a turn among the tombs,<br> +And see whereto all glory comes."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">I do not learn, however, that Cicero was cured of +his eager vanity and his insatiate love of fame by this "turn" +among the Syracusan tombs. He was then only just at the threshold +of his proud career, and he went back to pursue it to its bloody +end with unabated zeal, and with an ambition only extinguishable +with his life.'"</p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterXV">CHAPTER XV.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>THE MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY.</b></p> + +<h4>I. THE SACRED WAR.</h4> + +<p class="just">Four years after the battle of Mantine'a the +Grecian states again became involved in domestic hostilities, +known as the Sacred War, the second in Grecian history to which +that title was applied, the first having been carried on against +the inhabitants of Crissa, on the northern shore of the +Corinthian Gulf, in the time of Solon. The causes of this second +Sacred War were briefly these: The Pho'cians, allies of Sparta +against Thebes, had taken into cultivation a portion of the plain +of Delphos, sacred to Apollo; and the Thebans caused them to be +accused of sacrilege before the Amphictyonic Council, which +condemned them to pay a heavy fine. The Phocians refused +obedience, and, encouraged by the Spartans, on whom a similar +penalty had been imposed for their wrongful occupation of the +Theban capital, they took up arms to resist the decree, and +plundered the sacred Temple of Delphos to obtain means for +carrying on the war.</p> + +<p class="just">The Thebans, Thessa'lians, and nearly all the +states of northern Greece leagued against the Phocians, while +Athens and Sparta declared in their favor. After the war had +continued five years a new power was brought forward on the +theatre of Grecian history, in the person of Philip, who had +recently established himself on the throne of Maç'edon, +and to whom some of the Thessalians applied for aid against the +Phocians. The interference of Philip forms an important epoch in +Grecian affairs. "The most desirable of all conditions for Greece +would have been," says THIRLWALL, "to be united in a confederacy +strong enough to prevent intestine warfare among its members, and +so constituted as to guard against all unnecessary encroachment +on their independence. But the time had passed by when the +supremacy of any state could either have been willingly +acknowledged by the rest, or imposed upon them by force; and the +hope of any favorable change in the general condition of Greece +was now become fainter than ever." Wasted by her internal +dissensions, Greece was now about to suffer their natural +results, and we interrupt our narrative to briefly trace the +growth of that foreign power which, unexpectedly to Greece, +became its master.</p> + +<br> +<h4>II. SKETCH OF MACEDONIA.</h4> + +<p class="just">Maçedon--or Macedo'nia--whose boundaries +varied greatly at different times, had its south-eastern borders +on the Ægean Sea, while farther north it was bounded by the +river Strymon, which separated it from Thrace, and on the south +by Thessaly and Epirus. On the west Macedonia embraced, at times, +many of the Illyrian tribes which bordered on the Adriatic. On +the north the natural boundary was the mountain chain of +Hæ'mus. The principal river of Macedonia was the Ax'ius +(now the Vardar), which fell into the Thermaic Gulf, now called +the Gulf of Salonica.</p> + +<p class="just">The history of Macedonia down to the time of +Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, is involved in much +obscurity. The early Macedonians appear to have been an Illyrian +tribe, different in race and language from the Hellenes or +Greeks; but Herodotus states that the Macedonian monarchy was +founded by Greeks from Argos; and, according to Greek writers, +twelve or fifteen Grecian princes reigned there before the +accession of Philip, who took charge of the government about the +year 360 B.C., not as monarch, but as guardian of the infant son +of his elder brother.</p> + +<p class="just">Philip had previously passed several years at +Thebes as a hostage, where he eagerly availed himself of the +excellent opportunities which that city afforded for the +acquisition of various kinds of knowledge. He successfully +cultivated the study of the Greek language; and in the society of +such generals and statesmen as Epaminondas, Pelopidas, and their +friends, became acquainted with the details of the military +tactics of the Greeks, and learned the nature and working of +their democratical institutions. Thus, with the superior mental +and physical endowments which nature had given him, he became +eminently fitted for the part which he afterward bore in the +intricate game of Grecian politics.</p> + +<p class="just">After Philip had successfully defended the throne +of Maçedon during several years, in behalf of his nephew, +his military successes enabled him to assume the kingly title, +probably with the unanimous consent of both the army and the +nation. He annexed several Thracian towns to his dominions, +reduced the Illyrians and other nations on his northern and +western borders, and was at times an ally, and at others an +enemy, of Athens. At length, during the Sacred War against the +Phocians, the invitation which he received from the Thessalian +allies of Thebes, as already noticed, afforded him a pretext, +which he had long coveted, for a more active interference in the +affairs of his southern neighbors.</p> + +<br> +<h4>III. INTERFERENCE OF PHILIP OF MACEDON.</h4> + +<p class="just">Of all the Grecian states, Athens alone had +succeeded in regaining some of her former power, and she now +became the leader in the struggle with Macedonia. In response to +the invitation extended to him, Philip entered Thessaly on his +southern march, but was at first repulsed by the Phocians and +their allies, and obliged to retire to his own territory. He soon +returned, however, at the head of a more numerous army, defeated +the enemy in a decisive engagement near the Gulf of +Pag'asæ, and would have marched upon Phocis at once to +terminate the war, but he found the Pass of Thermopylæ +strongly guarded by the Athenians, and thought it prudent to +withdraw his forces.</p> + +<p class="just">The Sacred War still lingered, although the +Phocians desired peace; but the revengeful spirit of the Thebans +was not allayed, and Philip was again urged to crush the +profaners of the national religion. It was at this period that +the great Athenian orator, Demosthenes, came forward with the +first of those orations against Philip and his supposed policy, +which, from their subject, received the name of "the +Philippics"--a title since commonly given to any discourse or +declamation abounding in acrimonious invective. The penetration +of Demosthenes enabled him easily to divine the ambitious plans +of Philip, and as he considered him the enemy of the liberties of +Athens and of Greece, he sought to rouse his countrymen against +him. His discourse was essentially practical. As a writer has +said, "He alarms, but encourages his countrymen; Points out both +their weakness and their strength; rouses them to a sense of +danger, and shows the way to meet it; recommends not any +extraordinary efforts, for which at this moment there was no +urgent necessity, but unfolds a scheme, simple and feasible, +suiting the occasion, and calculated to lay the foundation of +better things."</p> + +<p class="just">In the following language he censures the +indolence and supineness of the Athenians:</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>The First Philippic of Demosthenes.</i></p> + +<p class="just">"When, O my countrymen I will you exert your +vigor? When roused by some event? When forced by some necessity? +What, then, are we to think of our present condition? To freemen, +the disgrace attending our misconduct is, in my opinion, the most +urgent necessity. Or, say, is it your sole ambition to wander +through the public places, each inquiring of the other, 'What new +advices?' Can anything be more new than that a man of +Maçedon should conquer the Athenians and give law to +Greece? 'Is Philip dead? No, but he is sick.' [<small>Footnote: +Philip had received a severe wound, which was followed by a fit +of sickness; hence these rumors and inquiries of the Athenians. +"Longinus quotes this whole passage as a beautiful instance of +those pathetic figures which give life and force and energy to an +oration."</small>] How are you concerned in these rumors? Suppose +he should meet some fatal stroke; you would soon raise up another +Philip, if your interests are thus regarded. For it is not to his +own strength that he so much owes his elevation as to our +supineness. And should some accident affect him--should Fortune, +who hath ever been more careful of the state than we ourselves, +now repeat her favors (and may she thus crown them!) --be assured +of this, that by being on the spot, ready to take advantage of +the confusion, you will everywhere be absolute masters; but in +your present disposition, even if a favorable juncture should +present you with Amphip'olis, [<small>Footnote: Amphipolis, a +city of Thrace founded by the Athenians, had fallen into the +hands of Philip after a siege, and the Athenians had nothing more +at heart than its recovery.</small>] you could not take +possession of it while this suspense prevails in your +councils.</p> + +<p class="just">"Some of you wander about crying, 'Philip hath +joined with the Lacedæmonians, and they are concerting the +destruction of Thebes, and the dissolution of some free states.' +Others assure us that he has sent an embassy to the king; +[<small>Footnote: The King of Persia, generally called <i>the +king</i> by the Greeks.</small>] others, that he is fortifying +places in Illyria. Thus we all go about framing our several +stories. I do believe, indeed, Athenians, that he is intoxicated +with his greatness, and does entertain his imagination with many +such visionary prospects, as he sees no power rising to oppose +him, and is elated with his success. But I cannot be persuaded +that he hath so taken his measures that the weakest among us know +what he is next to do--for the silliest are those who spread +these rumors. Let us dismiss such talk, and remember only that +Philip is our enemy--that he has spoiled us of our dominions, +that we have long been subject to his insolence, that whatever we +expected to be done for us by others has proved against us, that +all the resource left us is in ourselves, and that, if we are not +inclined to carry our arms abroad, we may be forced to engage at +home. Let us be persuaded of this, and then we shall come to a +proper determination; then we shall be freed from idle +conjectures. We need not be solicitous to know what particular +events will happen; we need but be convinced that nothing good +can happen unless you attend to your duty, and are willing to act +as becomes you.</p> + +<p class="just">"As for me, never have I courted favor by +speaking what I am not convinced is for your good; and now I have +spoken my whole mind frankly and unreservedly. I could have +wished, knowing the advantage of good counsel to you, that I were +equally certain of its advantage to the counselor; so should I +have spoken with more satisfaction. Now, with an uncertainty of +the consequence to myself, but with a conviction that you will +benefit by following my advice, I freely proffer it. And, of all +those opinions which are offered for your acceptance, may that be +chosen which will best advance the general weal." --LELAND'S +<i>trans.</i></p> + +<br> +<p class="just">The most prominent of the particular acts +specified by Demosthenes as indispensable to the Athenian +welfare, were the fitting out of a fleet of fifty vessels, to be +kept ready to sail, at a moment's notice, to any exposed portion +of the Athenian sea-coast; and the establishment of a permanent +land force of twenty-two hundred men, one-fourth to be citizens +of Athens. The expense was to be met by taxation, a system of +which he also presented for adoption. MR. GROTE says of the first +Philippic of Demosthenes:</p> + +<p class="just">"It is not merely a splendid piece of oratory, +emphatic and forcible in its appeal to the emotions; bringing the +audience, by many different roads, to the main conviction which +the orator seeks to impress; profoundly animated with genuine +Pan-hellenic patriotism, and with the dignity of that pre-Grecian +world now threatened by a monarch from without. It has other +merits besides, not less important in themselves, and lying more +immediately within the scope of the historian. We find +Demosthenes, yet only thirty years old--young in political +life--and thirteen years before the battle of Chærone'a, +taking accurate measure of the political relations between Athens +and Philip; examining those relations during the past, pointing +out how they had become every year more unfavorable, and +foretelling the dangerous contingencies of the future, unless +better precautions were taken; exposing with courageous frankness +not only the past mismanagement of public men, but also those +defective dispositions of the people themselves wherein such +mismanagement had its root; lastly, after fault found, +adventuring on his own responsibility to propose specific +measures of correction, and urging upon reluctant citizens a +painful imposition of personal hardship as well as of +taxation."</p> + +<p class="just">Of course Demosthenes and his policy were opposed +by a strong party, and his warnings and exhortations produced but +little effect. The latter result was largely due to the position +of the Athenian general and statesman Pho'cion--the last Athenian +in whom these two functions were united--who generally acted with +the peace-party. Unlike many prominent members of that party, +however, Phocion was pure and patriotic in his motives, and a man +of the strictest integrity. It was his unquestioned probity and +his peculiar disinterestedness that gave him such influence with +the people. As an orator, too, he commanded attention by his +striking and pithy brevity. "He knew so well," says GROTE, "on +what points to strike, that his telling brevity, strengthened by +the weight of character and position, cut through the fine +oratory of Demosthenes more effectively than any counter oratory +from men like Æsehines." Demosthenes was once heard to +remark, on seeing Phocion rise to speak, "Here comes the pruner +of my periods."</p> + +<p class="just">As MR. GROTE elsewhere adds: "The influence of +Phocion as a public adviser was eminently mischievous to Athens. +All depended upon her will; upon the question whether her +citizens were prepared in their own minds to incur the expense +and fatigue of a vigorous foreign policy--whether they would +handle their pikes, open their purses, and forego the comforts of +home, for the maintenance of Grecian and Athenian liberty against +a growing but not as yet irresistible destroyer. Now, it was +precisely at such a moment, and when such a question was pending, +that the influence of the peace-loving Phocion was most ruinous. +His anxiety that the citizens should be buried at home in their +own sepulchres--his despair, mingled with contempt, of his +countrymen and their refined habits--his hatred of the orators +who might profit by an increased war expenditure--all contributed +to make him discourage public effort, and await passively the +preponderance of the Macedonian arms; thus playing the game of +Philip, and siding, though himself incorruptible, with the +orators in Philip's pay." [<small>Footnote: "History of Greece," +vol. xi., p. 278.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">As no measures of importance were taken to check +the growing power of Philip, in the year 349 he attacked the +Olynthians, who were in alliance with Athens. They sent embassies +to Athens, seeking aid, and Demosthenes supported their cause in +the three "Olynthiac Orations," which roused the Athenians to +more vigorous efforts. But the latter were divided in their +counsels, and the aid they gave the Olynthians was inefficient. +In 347 Olynthus fell into the hands of Philip, who, having +somewhat lulled the suspicions of the Athenians by proposals of +an advantageous peace, marched into Phocis in 346, and compelled +the enemy to surrender at discretion. The Amphictyonic Council, +with the power of Philip to enforce its decrees, doomed Phocis to +lose her independence forever, to have her cities leveled with +the ground, her population to be distributed in villages of not +more than fifty dwellings, and to pay a yearly tribute of sixty +talents to the temple until the full amount of the plundered +treasure should be restored. Finally, the two votes that the +Phocians had possessed in the council were transferred to the +King of Maçedon and his successors.</p> + +<br> +<h4>IV. WAR WITH MAÇEDON.</h4> + +<p class="just">From an early period of his career Philip had +aspired to the sovereignty of all Greece, as a secondary object +that should prepare the way for the conquest of Persia, the great +aim and end of all his ambitious projects. The accession of power +he had just acquired now induced him to exert himself, by +negotiation and conquest, to extend his influence on every side +of his dominions. Demosthenes had been sent by the Athenians into +the Peloponnesus to counteract the intrigues of Philip there, and +had openly accused him of perfidy. To repel this charge, as well +as to secure farther influence, if possible, Philip sent an +embassy to Athens, headed by the orator Py'thon. It was on this +occasion that Demosthenes delivered his second "Philippic" (344 +B.C.), addressing himself principally to the Athenian +sympathizers with Philip, of whom the orator Æsehines was +the leader.</p> + +<p class="just">In his military operations Philip ravaged +Illyria, reduced Thessaly more nearly to a Macedonian province, +conquered a part of the Thracian territory, extended his power +into Epi'rus and Acarna'nia, and would have gained a footing in +E'lis and Acha'ia, on the western coast of Peloponnesus, had it +not been for the watchful jealousy of Athens which Demosthenes +finally succeeded in arousing. The first open rupture with the +Athenians occurred while Philip was subduing the Grecian cities +on the Thracian coast of the Hellespont, in what was called the +Thracian Chersone'sus. As yet Macedon and Athens were nominally +at peace, and Philip complained that the Athenians were +attempting to precipitate a conflict. He sent an embassy to +Athens, which gave occasion to the speech of Demosthenes, "On the +Chersonese" (341 B.C.). The rupture in the Chersonesus was +followed by Athenian successes in Euboe'a, whither Demosthenes +had succeeded in having an expedition sent, and, finally, by the +expulsion of Philip's forces from the Chersonesus. Soon after +this (339 B.C.) the Amphictyonic Council, through the influence +of the orator Æsehines, appointed Phillip to conduct a war +against Amphis'sa, a Lo'crian town, that had been convicted of a +sacrilege similar to that of the Phocians.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE SUCCESSES AND DEATH OF PHILIP.</h5> + +<p class="just">It was now that Philip first threw off the mask, +and revealed his designs against the liberties of Greece. Hastily +passing through Thrace at the head of a powerful army, he +suddenly seized and commenced fortifying Elate'a, the capital of +Phocis, which was conveniently situated for commanding the +entrance into Boeotia. Intelligence of this event reached Athens +at night, and caused great alarm. At daybreak on the following +morning the Senate of Five Hundred met, and the people assembled +in the Pnyx. Suddenly waking, at last, from their dream of +security, from which all the eloquent appeals of Demosthenes had +hitherto been unable fully to arouse them, the Athenians began to +realize their danger. At the instance of the great orator they +formed a treaty with the Thebans, and the two states prepared to +defend themselves from invasion; but most of the Peloponnesian +states kept aloof through indifference, rather than through +fear.</p> + +<p class="just">When the Athenian and Theban forces marched forth +to give Philip battle, dissensions pervaded their ranks; for the +spirit of Grecian liberty had already been extinguished. They +gained a minor advantage, however, in two engagements that +followed; but the decisive battle was fought in August of the +year 338, in the plain of Chærone'a, in Boeotia. The +hostile armies were nearly equal in numbers; but there was no +Pericles, or Epaminondas, to match the warlike abilities of +Philip and the young prince Alexander, the latter of whom +commanded a wing of the Macedonian army. The Grecian army was +completely routed, and the event broke up the feeble combination +against Philip, leaving each of the allied states at his mercy. +He treated the Thebans with much severity, but he exercised a +degree of leniency toward the Athenians which excited general +surprise--offering them terms of peace which they would scarcely +have ventured to propose to him. Now virtually master of Greece, +he assembled a Congress of the Grecian states at Corinth, at +which all his proposals were adopted; war was declared against +Persia, and Philip was appointed commander-in-chief of the +Grecian and Macedonian forces. But while he was preparing for his +great enterprise he was assassinated, during the festivities +attending the marriage of his daughter, by a young Macedonian of +noble birth, in revenge for some private wrong.</p> + +<br> +<h4>V. ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.</h4> + +<p class="just">Alexander, the son of Philip, then at the age of +twenty years, succeeded his father on the throne of Macedon. At +once the Illyrians, Thracians, and other northern tribes took up +arms to recover their independence; but Alexander quelled the +revolt in a single campaign. On the death of Philip, Demosthenes, +who had been informed of the event by a special messenger, +immediately took steps to incite Athens to shake off the +Macedonian yoke. In the words of a modern historian, "He resolved +to avail himself of the superstition of his fellow-citizens, by a +pious fraud. He went to the senate-house and declared to the Five +Hundred that Jove and Athe'na had forewarned him in a dream of +some great blessing that was in store for the Commonwealth. +Shortly afterward public couriers arrived with the news of +Philip's death. Demosthenes, although in mourning for the recent +loss of an only daughter, now came abroad dressed in white, and +crowned with a chaplet, in which attire he was seen sacrificing +at one of the public altars." He made vigorous preparations for +action, and sent envoys to the principal Grecian states to excite +them against Macedon. Several of the states, headed by the +Athenians and the Thebans, rose against the dominant oligarchy; +but Alexander, whose marches were unparalleled for their +rapidity, suddenly appeared in their midst. Thebes was taken by +assault; six thousand of her warriors were slain; the city was +leveled with the ground, and thirty thousand prisoners were +condemned to slavery. The other Grecian states hastily renewed +their submission; and Athens, with servile homage, sent an +embassy to congratulate the young king on his recent successes. +Alexander accepted the excuses of all, and having intrusted the +government of Greece and Macedon to Antip'ater, one of his +generals, he set out on his career of Eastern conquest with only +thirty-five thousand men, and a treasury of only seventy talents +of silver. He had distributed nearly all the remaining property +of his crown among his friends; and when he was asked what he had +reserved for himself, he answered, "<i>My hopes</i>."</p> + +<br> +<h4>VI. ALEXANDER INVADES ASIA.</h4> + +<p class="just">Early in the spring of 334 Alexander crossed the +Hellespont, and a few days later defeated a large Persian army on +the eastern bank of the Grani'cus, with the loss on his part of +only eighty-five horsemen and thirty light infantry. The gates of +Sardis and Ephesus were next thrown open to him, and he was soon +undisputed master of all Asia Minor. Early in the following year +he directed his march farther eastward, and on the coast of +Cili'cia, near Issus, again met the Persian or barbarian army, +numbering over seven hundred thousand men, and commanded by +Dari'us, the Persian king. Alexander, as usual, led his army in +person, and achieved a splendid victory. The wife, daughters, and +an infant son of Darius fell into the hands of the conqueror, and +were treated by him with the greatest kindness and respect, Some +time after, and just before his death, when Darius heard of the +generous treatment of his wife, who was accounted the most +beautiful woman in Asia --of her death from sudden illness, and +of the magnificent burial she had received from the conqueror--he +lifted up his hands to heaven and prayed that if his kingdom were +to pass from himself, it might be transferred to Alexander.</p> + +<p class="just">The conqueror now directed his march southward +through northern Syria and Palestine, conquering Tyre after a +vigorous siege of seven months. This was perhaps the greatest of +Alexander's military achievements; but it was tarnished by his +cruelty toward the conquered. Exasperated by the long and +desperate resistance of the besieged, he gave them no quarter. +Eight thousand of the inhabitants are said to have been +massacred, and thirty thousand were sold into slavery. After the +fall of Tyre Alexander proceeded into Egypt, which he easily +brought under subjection. After having founded the present city +of Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile, he returned to +Palestine, crossed the Euphrates, and marched into the very heart +of the Persian empire, declaring, "The world can no more admit +two masters than two suns."</p> + +<br> +<h4>VII. BATTLE OF ARBE'LA.--FLIGHT AND DEATH OF DARIUS.</h4> + +<p class="just">On a beautiful plain, twenty miles distant from +the town of Arbela, the Persian monarch, surrounded by all the +pomp and luxury of Eastern magnificence, had collected the +remaining strength of his empire, consisting of an army of more +than a million of infantry and forty thousand cavalry, besides +two hundred scythed chariots, and fifteen elephants brought from +the west of India. To oppose this immense force Alexander had +only forty thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry. But his +forces were well armed and disciplined, and were led by an able +general who had never known defeat. Darius sustained the conflict +with better judgment and more courage than at Issus; but the cool +intrepidity of the Macedonians was irresistible, and the field of +battle soon became a scene of slaughter, in which some say forty +thousand, and others three hundred thousand, of the barbarians +were slain, while the loss of Alexander did not exceed five +hundred men. Although Darius escaped with a portion of his +body-guard, the whole of the royal baggage and treasure was +captured at Arbela.</p> + +<p class="just">Now simply a fugitive, "with merely the title of +king," Darius crossed the mountains into Media, where he remained +six or seven months, and until the advance of Alexander in +pursuit compelled him to pass through the Caspian Gates into +Parthia. Here, on the near approach of the enemy, he was murdered +by Bessus, satrap of Bactria, because he refused to fly farther. +"Within four years and three months from the time Alexander +crossed the Hellespont," says GROTE, "by one stupendous defeat +after another Darius had lost all his Western empire, and had +become a fugitive eastward of the Caspian Gates, escaping +captivity at the hand of Alexander only to perish by that of the +satrap Bessus. All antecedent historical parallels--the ruin and +captivity of the Lydian Croe'sus, the expulsion and mean life of +the Syracusan Dionysius, both of them impressive examples of the +mutability of human condition--sink into trifles compared with +the overthrow of this towering Persian colossus. The orator +Æschines expressed the genuine sentiment of a Grecian +spectator when he exclaimed (in a speech delivered at Athens +shortly before the death of Darius):</p> + +<p class="just">"'What is there among the list of strange and +unexpected events which has not occurred in our time? Our lives +have transcended the limits of humanity; we are born to serve as +a theme for incredible tales to posterity. Is not the Persian +king--who dug through Athos and bridged the Hellespont, who +demanded earth and water from the Greeks, who dared to proclaim +himself, in public epistles, master of all mankind from the +rising to the setting sun--is not <i>he</i> now struggling to the +last, not for dominion over others, but for the safety of his own +person?' [<small>Footnote: He speaks of both Xerxes and Darius as +<i>the</i> Persian king.</small>] Such were the sentiments +excited by Alexander's career even in the middle of 330 B.C., +more than seven years before his death."</p> + +<p class="just">Babylon and Susa, where the riches of the East +lay accumulated, had meanwhile opened their gates to Alexander, +and thence he directed his march to Persepolis, the capital of +Persia, which he entered in triumph. Here he celebrated his +victories by a magnificent feast, at which the great musician +Timo'theus, of Thebes, performed on the flute and the lyre, +accompanied by a chorus of singers. Such was the wonderful power +of his music that the whole company are said to have been swayed +by it to feelings of love, or hate, or revenge, as if by the wand +of a magician. The poet DRYDEN has given us a description of this +feast in a poem that has been called by some "the lyric +masterpiece of English poetry," and by others "an inspired ode." +Though designed especially to illustrate the power of music, it +is based on historic facts. Only partial extracts from it can +here be given.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Alexander's Feast.</i></p> + +<p>'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won<br> + By Philip's warlike son:<br> + Aloft in awful state<br> + The godlike hero sate<br> + On his imperial throne:<br> +His valiant peers were placed around,<br> +Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound<br> + (So should desert in arms be crowned).<br> +The lovely Thais, by his side<br> +Sat, like a blooming Eastern bride,<br> +In flower of youth and beauty's pride.<br> + Happy, happy, happy pair!<br> + None but the brave,<br> + None but the brave,<br> + None but the brave deserve the fair.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In the second division of the poem Timo'theus is +represented as singing the praises of Jupiter, when the crowd, +carried away by the enthusiasm with which the music had inspired +them, proclaim Alexander a deity! The monarch accepts the +adoration of his subjects, and "assumes the god."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">The list'ning crowd admire the +lofty sound:<br> +"A present deity!" they shout around:<br> +"A present deity!" the vaulted roofs rebound.<br> + With ravished ears<br> + The monarch hears,<br> + Assumes the god,<br> + Affects to nod,<br> +And seems to shake the spheres.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The praises of Bacchus and the joys of wine being +next sung, the effects upon the king are described; and when the +strains had fired his soul almost to madness, Timotheus adroitly +changes the spirit and measure of his song, and as successfully +allays the tempest of passion that his skill had raised. The +effects of this change are thus described:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Soothed with the sound, the +king grew vain;<br> + Fought all his battles o'er again;<br> +And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the +slain.<br> + The master saw the madness rise;<br> + His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;<br> + And, while he Heaven and Earth defied,<br> + Changed his hand, and checked his pride.<br> + He chose a mournful Muse,<br> + Soft pity to infuse;<br> + He sung Darius, great and good,<br> + By too severe a fate,<br> + Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,<br> + Fallen from his high estate,<br> + And weltering in his blood;<br> + Deserted at his utmost need,<br> + By those his former bounty fed;<br> + On the bare earth exposed he lies,<br> + With not a friend to close his eyes.<br> + With downcast looks the joyless victor sat,<br> + Revolving in his altered soul<br> + The various turns of chance below;<br> + And, now and then a sigh he stole,<br> + And tear's began to flow.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Under the soothing influence of the next theme, +which is Love, Alexander sinks into a slumber, from which, +however, a change in the music to discordant strains arouses him +to feelings of revenge, as the singer draws a picture of the +Furies, and of the Greeks "that in battle were slain." Then it +was that Alexander, instigated by Thais, a celebrated Athenian +beauty who accompanied him on his expedition, set fire to the +palace of Persepolis, intending to burn the whole city--"the +wonder of the world." The poet compares Thais to Helen, whose +fatal beauty caused the downfall of Troy, 852 years before.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Now strike the golden lyre +again;<br> + A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.<br> + Break his bands of sleep asunder,<br> + And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.<br> + Hark! hark! the horrid sound<br> + Has raised up his head,<br> + As awaked from the dead,<br> + And, amazed, he stares around.<br> + Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries,<br> + See the Furies arise!<br> + See the snakes that they rear!<br> + How they hiss in their hair,<br> + And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!<br> + Behold a ghastly band,<br> + Each a torch in his hand!<br> +These are the Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,<br> + And unburied remain,<br> + Inglorious on the plain:<br> + Give the vengeance due<br> + To the valiant crew,<br> + Behold how they toss their torches on high!<br> + How they point to the Persian abodes,<br> + And glittering temples of their hostile gods!<br> +The princes applaud with a furious joy;<br> +And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;<br> + Thais led the way,<br> + To light him to his prey,<br> + And, like another Helen, fired another Troy!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">During four years Alexander remained in the heart +of Persia, reducing to subjection the chiefs who still struggled +for independence, and regulating the government of the conquered +provinces. Ambitious of farther conquests, he passed the Indus, +and invaded the country of the Indian king Po'rus, whom he +defeated in a sanguinary engagement, and took prisoner. Alexander +continued his march eastward until he reached the Hyph'asis, the +most eastern tributary of the Indus, when his troops, seeing no +end of their toils, refused to follow him farther, and he was +reluctantly forced to abandon the career of conquest, which he +had marked out for himself, to the Eastern ocean. He descended +the Indus to the sea, whence, after sending a fleet with a +portion of his forces around through the Persian Gulf to the +Euphrates, he marched with the remainder of his army through the +barren wastes of Gedro'sia, and after much suffering and loss +once more reached the fertile provinces of Persia.</p> + +<br> +<h4>VIII. THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER.</h4> + +<p class="just">For some time after his return Alexander's +attention was engrossed with plans for organizing, on a permanent +basis, the government of the mighty empire that he had won. +Aiming to unite the conquerors and the conquered, so as to form +out of both a nation independent alike of Macedonian and Persian +prejudices, he married Stati'ra, the oldest daughter of Darius, +and united his principal officers with Persian and Median women +of the noblest families, while ten thousand of his soldiers were +induced to follow the example of their superiors. But while he +was occupied with these cares, and with dreams of future +conquests, his career was suddenly terminated by death. On +setting out to visit Babylon, in the spring of 324, soon after +the decease of an intimate friend --Hephæs'tion--whose loss +caused a great depression of his spirits, he was warned by the +magicians that Babylon would be fatal to him; but he proceeded to +the city to conclude his preparations for his next ambitious +scheme--the subjugation of Arabia. Babylon was now to witness the +consummation of his triumphs and of his life. "As in the last +scene of some well-ordered drama," says a modern historian, "all +the results and tokens of his great achievements seemed to be +collected there to do honor to his final exit." Although his mind +was actively occupied in plans of conquest, he was haunted by +gloomy forebodings and superstitious fancies, and endeavored to +dispel his melancholy by indulging freely in the pleasures of the +table. Excessive drinking at last brought to a crisis a fever +which he had probably contracted in the marshes of Assyria, and +which suddenly terminated his life in the thirty-third year of +his age, and the thirteenth of his reign (323 B.C.). He was +buried in Babylon. From the Latin poet LUCAN we take the +following estimate of</p> + +<br> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>His Career and His Character.</i></p> + +<p>Here the vain youth, who made the world his prize,<br> +That prosperous robber, Alexander, lies:<br> +When pitying Death at length had freed mankind,<br> +To sacred rest his bones were here consigned:<br> +His bones, that better had been tossed and hurled,<br> +With just contempt, around the injured world.<br> +But fortune spared the dead; and partial fate,<br> +For ages fixed his Pha'rian empire's date.<br> +[<small>Footnote: <i>Pharian</i>. An allusion to the famous +light-house,<br> +the Pharos of Alexandria, built by Ptolemy Philadelphus,<br> +son of Ptolemy Soter, who succeeded Alexander in +Egypt.</small>]</p> + +<p>If e'er our long-lost liberty return,<br> +That carcass is reserved for public scorn;<br> +Now it remains a monument confessed,<br> +How one proud man could lord it o'er the rest.<br> +To Maçedon, a corner of the earth,<br> +The vast ambitious spoiler owed his birth:<br> +There, soon, he scorned his father's humbler reign,<br> +And viewed his vanquished Athens with disdain.</p> + +<p>Driven headlong on, by fate's resistless force,<br> +Through Asia's realms he took his dreadful course;<br> +His ruthless sword laid human nature waste,<br> +And desolation followed where he passed.<br> +Red Ganges blushed, and famed Euphrates' flood,<br> +With Persian this, and that with Indian blood.</p> + +<p>Such is the bolt which angry Jove employs,<br> +When, undistinguishing, his wrath destroys:<br> +Such to mankind, portentous meteors rise,<br> +Trouble the gazing earth, and blast the skies.<br> +Nor flame nor flood his restless rage withstand,<br> +Nor Syrts unfaithful, nor the Libyan sand:<br> +[<small>Footnote: <i>Syrts</i>. Two gulfs--Syrtis Minor and +Syrtis<br> +Major--on the northern coast of Africa, abounding in<br> +quicksands, and dangerous to navigation.</small>]<br> +O'er waves unknown he meditates his way,<br> +And seeks the boundless empire of the sea.</p> + +<p>E'en to the utmost west he would have gone,<br> +Where Te'thys' lap receives the setting sun;<br> +[<small>Footnote: <i>Tethys</i>, the fabled wife of Ocean, +and<br> +daughter of Heaven and Earth.</small>]<br> +Around each pole his circuit would have made,<br> +And drunk from secret Nile's remotest head,<br> +When Nature's hand his wild ambition stayed;<br> +With him, that power his pride had loved so well,<br> +His monstrous universal empire, fell;<br> +No heir, no just successor left behind,<br> +Eternal wars he to his friends assigned,<br> +To tear the world, and scramble for mankind.<br> + --LUCAN. <i>Trans. by</i> ROWE.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The poet JUVENAL, moralizing on the death of +Alexander, tells us that, notwithstanding his illimitable +ambition, the narrow tomb that be found in Babylon was +sufficiently ample for the small body that had contained his +mighty soul.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">One world sufficed not Alexander's +mind;<br> +Cooped up, he seemed in earth and seas confined,<br> +And, struggling, stretched his restless limbs about<br> +The narrow globe, to find a passage out!<br> +Yet, entered in the brick-built town, he tried<br> +The tomb, and found the straight dimensions wide.<br> +Death only this mysterious truth unfolds:<br> +The mighty soul, how small a body holds!<br> + --<i>Tenth Satire</i>. <i>Trans. by</i> DRYDEN.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The body of Alexander was removed from Babylon to +Alexandria by Ptolemy Soter, one of his generals, subsequently +King of Egypt, and was interred in a golden coffin. The +sarcophagus in which the coffin was enclosed has been in the +British Museum since 1802--a circumstance to which BYRON makes a +happy allusion in the closing lines of the following verse:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> How vain, how worse than vain, at +length appear<br> +The madman's wish, the Macedonian's tear!<br> +He wept for worlds to conquer; half the earth<br> +Knows not his name, or but his death and birth,<br> +And desolation; while his native Greece<br> +Hath all of desolation, save its peace.<br> +He "wept for worlds to conquer!" he who ne'er<br> +Conceived the globe he panted not to spare!<br> +With even the busy Northern Isle unknown,<br> +Which holds his urn, and never knew his throne.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterXVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>FROM THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER TO THE CONQUEST +OF GREECE BY THE ROMANS.</b></p> + +<h4>I. A RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE AT GREECE.</h4> + +<h5>PROSECUTION OF DEMOSTHENES.</h5> + +<p class="just">Turning now to the affairs of Greece, we find +that, three years after Alexander entered Asia, the Spartans made +a determined effort to throw off the Macedonian yoke. They were +joined by most of the Peloponnesian states, but Athens took no +part in the revolt. Although meeting with some successes at +first, the Spartans were finally defeated with great slaughter by +Antip'ater (331 B.C.), who had been left by Alexander in command +of Greece and Macedonia. This victory, and Alexander's successes +in the East, gave rise to active measures by the Macedonian party +in Athens against Demosthenes, who was holding two public +offices, and, by his ability and patriotism, was still doing +great service to the state. The occasion of this prosecution was +as follows:</p> + +<p class="just">Soon after the disastrous battle of +Chærone'a, Ctes'iphon, an Athenian citizen, proposed that a +golden crown [<small>Footnote: It was customary with the +Athenians, and some other Greeks also, to honor their most +meritorious citizens with a chaplet of olive interwoven with +gold, and this was called a "golden crown."</small>] should be +bestowed upon Demosthenes, in the public theatre, on the occasion +of the Dionysiac festival, as a reward for his patriotism and +public services. The special service for which the reward was +proposed was the rebuilding of the walls of Athens by +Demosthenes, partially at his own expense. After the Athenian +Senate had acquiesced in the measure, Æschines, the rival +of Demosthenes, brought an accusation against Ctesiphon for a +violation of the law, in that, among other things charged, it was +illegal to crown an official intrusted with the public moneys +before he had rendered an account of his office--a proceeding +which prevented the carrying of Ctesiphon's proposal to the +people for a final decision. Thus the matter slumbered during a +period of six years, when it was revived by Æschines, who +thought he saw, in the success of the Macedonian arms--on which +all his personal and political hopes were staked--a grand +opportunity to crush his great rival. He now, therefore, brought +the charges against Ctesiphon to trial. Although the latter was +the nominal defendant in the case, and Demosthenes was only his +counsel, it was well understood that the real object of attack +was Demosthenes himself, his whole policy and administration; and +a vast concourse of people flocked to Athens to hear the two most +celebrated orators in the world. A jury of not less than five +hundred, chosen from the citizens at large, was impaneled by the +archon; and before a dense and breathless audience the pleadings +began.</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>The Oration of Æschines against +Ctesiphon.</i></p> + +<p class="just">Æschines introduces his oration with the +following brief exordium: "You see, Athenians, what forces are +prepared, what numbers gathered and arrayed, what soliciting +through the assembly, by a certain party--and all this to oppose +the fair and ordinary course of justice in the state. As to me, I +stand here in firm reliance, first on the immortal gods, next on +the laws and you, convinced that faction never can have greater +weight with you than law and justice."</p> + +<p class="just">After Æschines had dwelt at length, and +with great ability, upon the nature of the offence with which +Ctesiphon is charged, the laws applicable to it, and the supposed +evasions of Demosthenes in his reply, he reads the decree of the +senate in favor of the bestowment of the crown, in the following +words:</p> + +<p class="just">"<i>And the herald shall make proclamation in the +theatre, in presence of the Greeks, that the community of Athens +hath crowned him, on account of his virtue and magnanimity, and +for his constant and inviolable attachment to the interests of +the state, through the course of all his counsels and +administration.</i>"</p> + +<p class="just">This gives the orator the opportunity to enter +upon an extended review of the public life and character of +Demosthenes, in which he boldly charges him with cowardice in the +battle of Chæronea, with bribery and fraud in his public +administration, and declares him to have been the prime cause of +innumerable calamities that had befallen his country. He +says:</p> + +<p class="just">"It is my part, as the prosecutor, to satisfy you +on this point, that the praises bestowed on Demosthenes are +false; that there never was a time in which he even began as a +faithful counselor, far from persevering in any course of conduct +advantageous to the state.</p> + +<p class="just">"It remains that I produce some instances of his +abandoned flattery. For one whole year did Demosthenes enjoy the +honor of a senator; and yet in all that time it never appears +that he moved to grant precedency to any ministers; for the first +time--the only time--he conferred this distinction on the +ministers of Philip; he servilely attended, to accommodate them +with his cushions and his carpets; by the dawn of day he +conducted them to the theatre, and, by his indecent and abandoned +adulation, raised a universal uproar of derision. When they were +on their departure toward Thebes, he hired three teams of mules, +and conducted them in state into that city. Thus did he expose +his country to ridicule.</p> + +<p class="just">"And yet this abject, this enormous flatterer, +when he had been the first that received advice of Philip's death +from the emissaries of Charide'mus, pretended a divine vision, +and, with a shameless lie, declared that this intelligence had +been conveyed to him, not by Charidemus, but by Jupiter and +Minerva. Thus he dared to boast that these divinities, by whom he +had sworn falsely in the day, had descended to hold communication +with him in the night, and to inform him of futurity. Seven days +had now scarcely elapsed since the death of his daughter when +this wretch, before he had performed the usual rites of +mourning--before he had duly paid her funeral honors--crowned his +head with a chaplet, put on his white robe, made a solemn +sacrifice in despite of law and decency; and this when he had +lost his child, the first, the only child that had ever called +him by the tender name of father. I say not this to insult his +misfortunes; I mean but to display his real character. For he who +hates his children, he who is a bad parent, cannot possibly prove +a good minister. He who is insensible to that natural affection +which should engage his heart to those who are most intimate and +near to him, can never feel a greater regard to <i>your</i> +welfare than to that of strangers. He who acts wickedly in +private life cannot prove excellent in his public conduct; he who +is base at home, can never acquit himself with honor when sent to +a strange country in a public character. For it is not the man, +but the scene that changes.</p> + +<p class="just">"Is not this, our state, the common refuge of the +Greeks, once the great resort of all the ambassadors from the +several cities sent to implore our protection as their sure +resource, now obliged to contend, not for sovereign authority, +but for our native land? And to these circumstances have we been +gradually reduced, from that time when Demosthenes first assumed +the administration. Well doth the poet Hesiod refer to such men, +in one part of his works, where he points out the duty of +citizens, and warns all societies to guard effectually against +evil ministers. I shall repeat his words; for I presume we +treasured up the sayings of poets in our memory when young, that +in our riper years we might apply them to advantage.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"'When one man's crimes the wrath +of Heaven provoke,<br> +Oft hath a nation felt the fatal stroke.<br> +Contagion's blast destroys at Jove's command,<br> +And wasteful famine desolates the land.<br> +Or, in the field of war, her boasted powers<br> +Are lost, and earth receives her prostrate towers.<br> +In vain in gorgeous state her navies ride,<br> +Dashed, wrecked, and buried in the boist'rous tide.'</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">"Take away the measure of these verses, consider +only the sentiment, and you will fancy that you hear, not some +part of Hesiod, but a prophecy of the administration of +Demosthenes; for true it is, that both fleets and armies, and +whole cities, have been completely destroyed by his +administration.</p> + +<p class="just">"Which, think ye, was the more worthy +citizen--Themistocles, who commanded your fleet when you defeated +the Persian in the sea-fight at Salamis, or this Demosthenes, who +deserted from his post? Miltiades, who conquered the barbarians +at Marathon, or this man? The chiefs who led back the people from +Phy'le; Aristides, surnamed the Just, or Demosthenes? No; by the +powers of heaven, I deem the names of these heroes too noble to +be mentioned in the same day with that of this savage! And let +Demosthenes show, when he comes to his reply, if ever decree was +made for granting a golden crown to them. Was then the state +ungrateful? No; but she thought highly of her own dignity. And +these citizens, who were not thus honored, appear to have been +truly worthy of such a state; for they imagined that they were +not to be honored by public records, but by the memories of those +they had obliged; and their honors have there remained, from that +time down to this day, in characters indelible and immortal. +There were citizens in those days who, being stationed at the +river Strymon, there patiently endured a long series of toils and +dangers, and at length gained a victory over the Medes. At their +return they petitioned the people for a reward; and a reward was +conferred upon them (then deemed of great importance) by erecting +three memorials of stone in the usual portico, on which, however, +their names were not inscribed, lest this might seem a monument +erected to the honor of the commanders, not to that of the +people. For the truth of this I appeal to the inscriptions. That +on the first statue was expressed thus:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"'Great souls! who fought near +Strymon's rapid tide,<br> +And braved the invader's arm, and quelled his pride,<br> +Ei'on's high towers confess'd the glorious deed,<br> +And saw dire famine waste the vanquished Mede.<br> +Such was our vengeance on the barb'rous host,<br> +And such the generous toils our heroes boast.'</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">"This was the inscription on the second:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"'This the reward which grateful +Athens gives!<br> +Here still the patriot and the hero lives!<br> +Here let the rising age with rapture gaze,<br> +And emulate the glorious deeds they praise.'</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">"On the third was the inscription:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"'Mnes'the-us hence led forth his +chosen train,<br> +And poured the war o'er hapless Ilion's plain.<br> +'Twas his (so speaks the bard's immortal lay)<br> +To form the embodied host in firm array.<br> +Such were our sons! Nor yet shall Athens yield<br> +The first bright honors of the sanguine field.<br> +Still, nurse of heroes! still the praise is thine,<br> +Of every glorious toil, of every art divine.'</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">"In these do we find the name of the general? No; +but that of the people. Fancy yourselves transported to the grand +portico; for, in this your place of assembling, the monuments of +all great actions are erected in full view. There we find a +picture of the battle of Marathon. Who was the general in this +battle? To this question you will all answer--Miltiades. And yet +his name is not inscribed. How? Did he not petition for such an +honor? He did petition; but the people refused to grant it. +Instead of inscribing his name, they consented that he should be +drawn in the foreground, encouraging his soldiers. In like +manner, in the temple of the great Mother adjoining the +senate-house, you may see the honors paid to those who brought +our exiles back from Phyle; nor were even these granted +precipitately, but after an exact previous examination by the +senate into the numbers of those who maintained their post there, +when the Lacedæmonians and the Thirty marched to attack +them--not of those who fled from their post at Chæronea on +the first appearance of an enemy." Æschines closes his very +able and brilliant oration with the following words:</p> + +<p>"And now bear witness for me, thou Earth, thou Sun, O +Virtue<br> +and Intelligence, and thou, O Erudition, which teachest us +the<br> +just distinction between vice and goodness, that I have stood<br> +up, that I have spoken in the cause of justice. If I have +supported<br> +my prosecution with a dignity befitting its importance, I +have<br> +spoken as my wishes dictated; if too deficiently, as my +abilities<br> +admitted. Let what hath now been offered, and what your own<br> +thoughts must supply, be duly weighed, and pronounce such a<br> +sentence as justice and the interests of the state demand."<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> THOMAS LELAND, D.D.</p> + +<p class="just">Æschines was immediately followed by +Demosthenes in a reply which has been considered "the greatest +speech of the greatest orator in the world." The historian GROTE +speaks of "the encomiums which have been pronounced upon it with +one voice, both in ancient and modern times, as the +unapproachable masterpiece of Grecian oratory." It has been +styled, from the occasion on which it was delivered,</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>The Oration of Demosthenes on the +Crown.</i></p> + +<p class="just">The orator opens his defence against the charges +brought forward by his adversary with the following exordium, +which Quintil'ian commends for its modesty:</p> + +<p class="just">"I begin, men of Athens, by praying to every god +and goddess that the same good-will which I have ever cherished +toward the Commonwealth, and all of you, may be requited to me on +the present trial. I pray likewise--and this specially concerns +yourselves, your religion, and your honor--that the gods may put +it in your minds, not to take counsel of my opponent touching the +manner in which I am to be heard [<small>Footnote: Æschines +had requested that Demosthenes should be "confined to the same +method in his defence" which he, Æschines, had pursued in +his charges against him.</small>]--that would indeed be +cruel!--but of the laws and of your oath; wherein (besides the +other obligations) it is prescribed that you shall hear both +sides alike. This means, not only that you must pass no +pre-condemnation, not only that you must extend your good-will +equally to both, but also that you must allow the parties to +adopt such order and course of defence as they severally choose +and prefer.</p> + +<p class="just">"Many advantages hath Æschines over me on +this trial; and two especially, men of Athens. First, our risk in +the contest is not the same. It is assuredly not the same for me +to forfeit your regard as for my adversary not to succeed in his +indictment. To me--but I will say nothing untoward at the outset +of my address. The prosecution, however, is play to him. My +second disadvantage is the natural disposition of mankind to take +pleasure in hearing invective and accusation, and to be annoyed +by them who praise themselves. To Æschines is assigned the +part which gives pleasure; that which is (I may fairly say) +offensive to all, is left for me. And if, to escape from this, I +make no mention of what I have done, I shall appear to be without +defence against his charges, without proof of my claims to honor; +whereas, if I proceed to give an account of my conduct and +measures, I shall be forced to speak frequently of myself. I will +endeavor, then, to do so with becoming modesty. What I am driven +to by the necessity of the case will be fairly chargeable to my +opponent, who has instituted such a prosecution.</p> + +<p class="just">"I think, men of the jury, you will all agree +that I, as well as Ctesiphon, am a party to this proceeding, and +that it is a matter of no less concern to me than to him. It is +painful and grievous to be deprived of anything, especially by +the act of one's enemy; but your good-will and affection are the +heaviest loss precisely as they are the greatest prize to +gain.</p> + +<p class="just">"Had Æschines confined his charge to the +subject of the prosecution, I too would have proceeded at once to +my justification of the decree. [<small>Footnote: The decree of +the senate procured by Ctesiphon in favor of +Demosthenes.</small>] But since he has wasted no fewer words in +the discussion, in most of them calumniating me, I deem it both +necessary and just, men of Athens, to begin by shortly adverting +to these points, that none of you may be induced by extraneous +arguments to shut your ears against my defence to the +indictment.</p> + +<p class="just">"To all his scandalous abuse about my private +life observe my plain and obvious answer. If you know me to be +such as he alleged--for I have lived nowhere else but among +you--let not my voice be heard, however transcendent my +statesmanship. Rise up this instant and condemn me. But if, in +your opinion and judgment, I am far better and of better descent +than my adversary; if (to speak without offence) I am not +inferior, I or mine, to any respectable citizens, then give no +credit to him for his other statements; it is plain they were all +equally fictions; but to me let the same good-will which you have +uniformly exhibited upon many former trials be manifested now. +With all your malice, Æschines, it was very simple to +suppose that I should turn from the discussion of measures and +policy to notice your scandal. I will do no such thing. I am not +so crazed. Your lies and calumnies about my political life I will +examine forthwith. For that loose ribaldry I shall have a word +hereafter, if the jury desire to hear it.</p> + +<p class="just">"If the crimes which Æschines saw me +committing against the state were as heinous as he so tragically +gave out, he ought to have enforced the penalties of the law +against them at the time; if he saw me guilty of an impeachable +offence, by impeaching and so bringing me to trial before you; if +moving illegal decrees, by indicting me for them. For surely, if +he can indict Ctesiphon on my account, he would not have forborne +to indict me myself had he thought he could convict me. In short, +whatever else he saw me doing to your prejudice, whether +mentioned or not mentioned in his catalogue of slander, there are +laws for such things, and trials, and judgments, with sharp and +severe penalties, all of which he might have enforced against me; +and, had he done so--had he thus pursued the proper method with +me--his charges would have been consistent with his conduct. But +now he has declined the straightforward and just course, avoided +all proofs of guilt at the time, and after this long interval +gets up to play his part withal--a heap of accusation, ribaldry, +and scandal. Then he arraigns me, but prosecutes the defendant. +His hatred of me he makes the prominent part of the whole +contest; yet, without having ever met me upon that ground, he +openly seeks to deprive a third party of his privileges. Now, men +of Athens, besides all the other arguments that may be urged in +Ctesiphon's behalf, this, methinks, may very fairly be +alleged--that we should try our quarrel by ourselves; not leave +our private dispute and look what third party we can damage. +That, surely, were the height of injustice."</p> + +<p class="just">Demosthenes now enters upon an elaborate review +of the history of Athens from the beginning of the Phocian war, +his own relations thereto, and the charges of Æschines in +connection therewith, fortifying his defence with numerous +citations from public documents, and boldly arraigning the +political principles and policy of his opponent, whom he accuses +of being in frequent communication with the emissaries of +Philip--"a spy by nature, and an enemy to his country." In the +following terms he speaks of his own public services, and reminds +Æschines that the people do not forget them:</p> + +<p class="just">"Many great and glorious enterprises has the +Commonwealth, Æschines, undertaken and succeeded in through +me; and she did not forget them. Here is the proof. On the +election of a person to speak the funeral oration immediately +after the event, you were proposed; but the people would not have +you, notwithstanding your fine voice; nor Dema'des, though he had +just made the peace; nor He-ge'mon, nor any other of your +party--but me. And when you and Pyth'ocles came forward in a +brutal and shameful manner (oh, merciful Heaven!) and urged the +same accusations against me which you now do, and abused me, they +elected me all the more. The reason--you are not ignorant of it, +yet I will tell you. The Athenians knew as well the loyalty and +zeal with which I conducted their affairs as the dishonesty of +you and your party; for what you denied upon oath in our +prosperity you confessed in the misfortunes of the republic. They +considered, therefore, that men who got security for their +politics by the public disasters had been their enemies long +before, and were then avowedly such. They thought it right, also, +that the person who was to speak in honor of the fallen, and +celebrate their valor, should not have sat under the same roof or +at the same table with their antagonists; that he should not +revel there and sing a pæan over the calamities of Greece +in company with their murderers, and then come here and receive +distinction; that he should not with his voice act the mourner of +their fate, but that he should lament over them with his heart. +And such sincerity they found in themselves and me, but not in +any of you: therefore they elected me, and not you. Nor, while +the people felt thus, did the fathers and brothers of the +deceased, who were chosen by the people to perform their +obsequies, feel differently. For having to order the funeral +(according to custom) at the house of the nearest relative of the +deceased, they ordered it at mine --and with reason: because, +though each to his own was nearer of kin than I was, no one was +so near to them all collectively. He that had the deepest +interest in their safety and success must surely feel the deepest +sorrow at their unhappy and unmerited misfortune. Read the +epitaph inscribed upon their monument by public authority. In +this, Æschines, you will find a proof of your absurdity, +your malice, your abandoned baseness. Read!</p> + +<br> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>The Epitaph.</i></p> + +<p>"'These are the patriot brave who, side by side,<br> +Stood to their arms and dashed the foeman's pride:<br> +Firm in their valor, prodigal of life,<br> +Hades they chose the arbiter of strife;<br> +That Greeks might ne'er to haughty victors bow,<br> +Nor thraldom's yoke, nor dire oppression know,<br> +They, fought, they bled, and on their country's breast<br> +(Such was the doom of Heaven) these warriors rest:<br> +Gods never lack success, nor strive in vain,<br> +But man must suffer what the Fates ordain.'</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">"Do you hear, Æschines, in this very +inscription, that 'the gods never lack success, nor strive in +vain?' Not to the statesman does it ascribe the power of giving +victory in battle, but to the gods. But one thing, O Athenians, +surprised me more than all--that, when Æschines mentioned +the late misfortunes of the country, he felt not as became a +well-disposed and upright citizen; he shed no tear, experienced +no such emotion: with a loud voice, exulting and straining his +throat, he imagined apparently that he was accusing me, while he +was giving proof against himself that our distresses touched him +not.</p> + +<p class="just">"Two things, men of Athens, are characteristic of +a well-disposed citizen; so may I speak of myself and give the +least offence. In authority his constant aim should be the +dignity and pre-eminence of the Commonwealth; in all times and +circumstances his spirit should be loyal. This depends upon +nature; power and might upon other things. Such a spirit, you +will find, I have ever sincerely cherished. Only see! When my +person was demanded--when they brought Amphictyonic suits against +me--when they menaced--when they promised--when they set these +miscreants like wild beasts upon me--never in any way have I +abandoned my affection for you. From the very beginning I chose +an honest and straightforward course in politics, to support the +honor, the power, the glory of my fatherland; these to exalt, in +these to have my being. I do not walk about the market-place gay +and cheerful because the stranger has prospered, holding out my +right hand and congratulating those who I think will report it +yonder, and on any news of our own success shudder and groan and +stoop to the earth like these impious men who rail at Athens, as +if in so doing they did not rail at themselves; who look abroad, +and if the foreigner thrives by the distresses of Greece, are +thankful for it, and say we should keep him so thriving to all +time.</p> + +<p class="just">"Never, O ye gods, may those wishes be confirmed +by you! If possible, inspire even in these men a better sense and +feeling! But if they are indeed incurable, destroy them by +themselves; exterminate them on land and sea; and for the rest of +us, grant that we may speedily be released from our present +fears, and enjoy a lasting deliverance." [<small>Footnote: Lord +Brougham says that "the music of this closing passage (in the +original) is almost as fine as the sense is impressive and grand, +and the manner dignified and calm," and he admits the difficulty +of preserving this in a translation. His own translation of the +passage is as follows: "Let not, O gracious God, let not such +conduct receive any measure of sanction from thee! Rather plant +even in these men a better spirit and better feelings! But if +they are wholly incurable, then pursue them, yea, themselves by +themselves, to utter and untimely perdition, by land and by sea; +and to us who are spared, vouchsafe to grant the speediest rescue +from our impending alarms, and an unshaken +security."</small>]<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> CHARLES RANN KENNEDY.</p> + +<br> +<p class="just">Æschines lost his case, and, not having +obtained a fifth part of the votes, became himself liable to a +penalty, and soon left the country in disgrace.</p> + +<br> +<h4>II. THE WARS THAT FOLLOWED ALEXANDER'S DEATH.</h4> + +<p class="just">When the intelligence of Alexander's death +reached Greece the country was already on the eve of a revolution +against Antip'ater. Athens found little difficulty in uniting +several of the states with herself in a confederacy against him, +and met with some successes in what is known as the La'mian war. +But the movement was short-lived, as Antipater completely +annihilated the confederate army in the battle of Cran'non (322 +B.C.). Athens was directed to abolish her democratic form of +government, pay the expenses of the war, and surrender a number +of her most famous men, including Demosthenes. The latter, +however, escaped from Athens, and sought refuge in the Temple of +Poseidon, in the island of Calaure'a. Here he took poison, and +expired as he was being led from the temple by a satellite of +Antipater.</p> + +<p class="just">The sudden death of Alexander left the government +in a very unsettled condition. As he had appointed no successor, +immediately following his death a council of his generals was +held, and the following division of his conquests was agreed +upon: Ptolemy Soter was to have Egypt and the adjacent countries; +Macedonia and Greece were divided between Antipater and +Crat'erus; Antig'onus was given Phrygia, Lycia, and Pamphyl'ia; +Lysim'achus was granted Thrace; and Eume'nes was given Cappadocia +and Paphlagonia. Soon after this division Perdic'cas, then the +most powerful of the generals who retained control in the East, +and had the custody of the infant Alexander, proclaimed himself +regent, and at once set out on a career of conquest. Antigonus, +Antipater, Craterus, and Ptolemy leagued against him, however, +and in 321, after an unsuccessful campaign in Egypt, Perdiccas +was murdered by his own officers.</p> + +<p class="just">Antipater died in 318, and shortly after his +death his son Cassander made himself master of Greece and +Macedon, and caused the surviving members of Alexander's family +to be put to death. Antigonus had, before this time, conquered +Eumenes, and overrun Syria and Asia Minor; but his increasing +power led Ptolemy, Seleu'cus, Lysimachus, and Cassander to unite +against him; and they fought with him the famous battle of Ipsus, +in Phrygia, that ended in the death of Antigonus and the +dissolution of his empire (301 B.C.). A new partition of the +country was now made into four independent kingdoms: Ptolemy was +given Egypt and Libya; Seleucus received the countries embraced +in the eastern conquests of Alexander, and the whole region +between the coast of Syria and the river Euphrates; Lysimachus +received the northern and western portions of Asia Minor, and +Cassander retained the sovereignty of Greece and Macedon.</p> + +<p class="just">Of these kingdoms the most powerful were Syria +and Egypt; the former of which continued under the dynasty of the +Seleucidæ, and the latter under that of the Ptolemies, +until both were absorbed by the Roman empire. Of all the +Ptolemies, Ptolemy Philadelphus was the most eminent. He was not +only a sovereign of ability, but was also distinguished for his +amiable qualities of mind, for his encouragement of the arts and +commerce, and he was called the richest and most powerful monarch +of his age. He was born in 309 B.C. and died in 247. The Greek +poet THEOCRITUS, who lived much at his court, thus characterizes +him:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">What is his character? A royal +spirit<br> +To point out genius and encourage merit;<br> +The poet's friend, humane and good and kind;<br> +Of manners gentle, and of generous mind.<br> +He marks his friend, but more he marks his foe;<br> +His hand is ever ready to bestow:<br> +Request with reason, and he'll grant the thing,<br> +And what be gives, he gives it like a king.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The poet then sings the praises of the king, and +describes the strength, the wealth, and the magnificence of his +kingdom, in the following striking lines:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Here, too, O Ptolemy, beneath thy +sway<br> +What cities glitter to the beams of day!<br> +Lo! with thy statelier pomp no kingdom vies,<br> +While round thee thrice ten thousand cities rise.<br> +Struck by the terror of thy flashing sword,<br> +Syria bowed down, Arabia called thee Lord;<br> +Phoenicia trembled, and the Libyan plain,<br> +With the black Ethiop, owned thy wide domain:<br> +E'en Lesser Asia and her isles grew pale<br> +As o'er the billows passed thy crowd of sail. + +<p>Earth feels thy nod, and all the subject sea;<br> +And each resounding river rolls for thee.<br> +And while, around, thy thick battalions flash,<br> +Thy proud steeds neighing for the warlike clash--<br> +Through all thy marts the tide of commerce flows,<br> +And wealth beyond a monarch's grandeur glows.<br> +Such gold-haired Ptolemy! whose easy port<br> +Speaks the soft polish of the mannered court;<br> +And whose severer aspect, as he wields<br> +The spear, dire-blazing, frowns in tented fields.</p> + +<p>And though he guards, while other kingdoms own<br> +His conquering arms, the hereditary throne,<br> +Yet in vast heaps no useless treasure stored<br> +Lies, like the riches of an emmet's hoard;<br> +To mighty kings his bounty he extends,<br> +To states confederate and illustrious friends.<br> +No bard at Bacchus' festival appears,<br> +Whose lyre has power to charm the ravished ears,<br> +But he bright honors and rewards imparts,<br> +Due to his merits, equal to his arts;<br> +And poets hence, for deathless song renowned,<br> +The generous fame of Ptolemy resound.<br> +At what more glorious can the wealthy aim<br> +Than thus to purchase fair and lasting fame?<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> FAWKES.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Cassander survived the establishment of his power +in Greece only four years, and as his sons quarreled over the +succession; Demetrius, son of Antigonus, seized the opportunity +to interfere in their disputes, cut off the brother who had +invited his aid, and made himself master of the throne of +Macedon, which was held by him and his posterity, except during a +brief interruption after his death, down to the time of the Roman +Conquest. For a number of years succeeding the death of +Demetrius, Macedon, Greece, and western Asia were harassed with +the wars excited by the various aspirants to power; and in this +situation of affairs a storm, unseen in the distance, but that +had long been gathering, suddenly burst upon Macedon, threatening +to convert, by its ravages, the whole Grecian peninsula into a +scene of desolation.</p> + +<br> +<h4>III. THE CELTIC INVASION, AND THE WAR WITH PYRRHUS.</h4> + +<p class="just">A vast horde of Celtic barbarians had for some +time been collecting around the head-waters of the Adriatic. +Influenced by hopes of plunder they now overran Macedon to the +borders of Thessaly, defeating Ptolemy Ceraunus, then King of +Macedonia, in a great battle. The walled towns alone held out +until the storm had spent its fury, when the Celts gradually +withdrew from a country in which there was but little left to +tempt their cupidity. But in the following year (279 B.C.) +another band of them, estimated at over two hundred thousand men, +overran Macedonia, passed through Thessaly, defeated the allied +Grecians at Thermopylæ, and then marched into Phocis, for +the purpose of plundering the treasures of Delphi. But their +atrocities aroused against them the whole population, and only a +remnant of them gained their original seats on the Adriatic.</p> + +<p class="just">The throne of Macedon now found an enemy in +Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, a connection of the royal family of +Macedon, and of whose exploits Roman history furnishes a full +account. A desultory contest was maintained for several years +between Pyrrhus and Antigonus II., the son of Demetrius, and then +King of Macedon. While Pyrrhus was engaged in this war, +Cleon'ymus, of the blood royal of Sparta, who had been excluded +from the throne by the Spartan people, to give place to A'reus, +invited Pyrrhus to his aid. Pyrrhus marched to Sparta, and, +supposing that he should not meet with any resistance, ordered +his tents to be pitched, and sat quietly down before the city. +Night coming on, the Spartans in consternation met in council, +and resolved to send their women to Crete for safety. Thereupon +the women assembled and remonstrated against it; and the queen, +Archidami'a, being appointed to speak for the rest, went into the +council-hall with a sword in her hand, and boldly upbraiding the +men, told them they did their wives great wrong if they thought +them so faint-hearted as to live after Sparta was destroyed. The +women then rushed to the defences of the city, and spent the +night aiding the men in digging trenches; and when Pyrrhus +attacked on the morrow, he was so severely repulsed that he soon +abandoned the siege and retired from Laconia. The patriotic +spirit and heroism of the Spartan women on this occasion are well +characterized in the following lines:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Queen Archidami'a.</i></p> + +<p>The chiefs were met in the council-hall;<br> + Their words were sad and few,<br> +They were ready to fight, and ready to fall,<br> + As the sons of heroes do.</p> + +<p>And moored in the harbor of Gyth'e-um lay<br> + The last of the Spartan fleet,<br> +That should bear the Spartan women away<br> + To the sunny shores of Crete.</p> + +<p>Their hearts went back to the days of old;<br> + They thought of the world-wide shock,<br> +When the Persian hosts like an ocean rolled<br> + To the foot of the Grecian rock;</p> + +<p>And they turned their faces, eager and pale,<br> + To the rising roar in the street,<br> +As if the clank of the Spartan mail<br> + Were the tramp of the conqueror's feet.</p> + +<p>It was Archidamia, the Spartan queen,<br> + Brave as her father's steel;<br> +She stood like the silence that comes between<br> + The flash and the thunder-peal.</p> + +<p>She looked in the eyes of the startled crowd;<br> + Calmly she gazed around;<br> +Her voice was neither low nor loud,<br> + But it rang like her sword on the ground.</p> + +<p>"Spartans!" she said--and her woman's face<br> + Flushed out both pride and shame--<br> +"I ask, by the memory of your race,<br> + Are ye worthy of the name?</p> + +<p>"Ye have bidden us seek new hearths and graves,<br> + Beyond the reach of the foe;<br> +And now, by the dash of the blue sea-waves,<br> + We swear that we will not go!</p> + +<p>"Is the name of Pyrrhus to blanch your cheeks?<br> + Shall he burn, and kill, and destroy?<br> +Are ye not sons of the deathless Greeks<br> + Who fired the gates of Troy?</p> + +<p>"What though his feet have scathless stood<br> + In the rush of the Punic foam?<br> +Though his sword be red to its hilt with the blood<br> + That has beat at the heart of Rome?</p> + +<p>"Brothers and sons! we have reared you men:<br> + Our walls are the ocean swell;<br> +Our winds blew keen down the rocky glen<br> + Where the staunch Three Hundred fell.</p> + +<p>"Our hearts are drenched in the wild sea-flow,<br> + In the light of the hills and the sky;<br> +And the Spartan women, if need be so,<br> + Will teach the men to die.</p> + +<p>"We are brave men's mothers, and brave men's wives:<br> + We are ready to do and dare;<br> +We are ready to man your walls with our lives,<br> + And string your bows with our hair.</p> + +<p>"Let the young and brave lie down to-night,<br> + And dream of the brave old dead,<br> +Their broad shields bright for to-morrow's fight,<br> + Their swords beneath their head.</p> + +<p>"Our breasts are better than bolts and bars;<br> + We neither wail nor weep;<br> +We will light our torches at the stars,<br> + And work while our warriors sleep.</p> + +<p>"We hold not the iron in our blood<br> + Viler than strangers' gold;<br> +The memory of our motherhood<br> + Is not to be bought and sold.</p> + +<p>"Shame to the traitor heart that springs<br> + To the faint soft arms of Peace,<br> +If the Roman eagle shook his wings<br> + At the very gates of Greece!</p> + +<p>"Ask not the mothers who gave you birth<br> + To bid you turn and flee;<br> +When Sparta is trampled from the earth<br> + Her women can die, and be free."</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Soon after the repulse at Sparta, Pyrrhus again +marched against Antig'onus; but having attacked Argos on the way, +and after having entered within the walls, he was killed by a +tile thrown by a poor woman from a house-top. The death of +Pyrrhus forms an important epoch in Grecian history, as it put an +end to the struggle for power among Alexander's successors in the +West, and left the field clear for the final contest between the +liberties of Greece and the power of Macedon. Antigonus now made +himself master of the greater part of Peloponnesus, and then +sought to reduce Athens, the defence of which was aided by an +Egyptian fleet and a Spartan army. Athens was at length taken +(262 B.C.), and all Greece, with the exception of Sparta, seemed +to lie helpless at the feet of Antigonus, who little dreamed that +the league of a few Achæan cities was to become a +formidable adversary to him and his house.</p> + +<br> +<h4>IV. THE ACHÆ'AN LEAGUE.--PHILIP V. OF MACEDON.</h4> + +<p class="just">The Achæan League at first comprised twelve +towns of Acha'ia, which were associated together for mutual +safety, forming a little federal republic. But about twenty years +after the death of Pyrrhus other cities gave in their adherence, +until the confederacy embraced nearly the whole of the +Peloponnesus. Athens had been reduced to great misery by +Antigonus, and was in no condition to aid the League, while +Sparta vigorously opposed it, and finally succeeded in inducing +Corinth and Argos to withdraw from it. Sparta subsequently made +war against the Achæans, and by her successes compelled +them to call in the aid of the Macedonians, their former enemies. +Antigonus readily embraced this opportunity to restore the +influence of his family in southern Greece, and, marching against +the Lacedæmonians, he obtained a decisive victory which +placed Sparta at his mercy; but he used his victory moderately, +and granted the Spartans peace on liberal terms (221 B.C.). +Antigonus died soon after this success, and was succeeded by his +nephew and adopted son, Philip V., a youth of only seventeen. The +Æto'lians, a confederacy of rude Grecian tribes, aided by +the Spartans, now began a series of unprovoked aggressions on +some of the Peloponnesian states. The Messenians, whose territory +they had invaded by way of the western coast of Peloponnesus, +called upon the Achæans for assistance; and the youthful +Philip having been placed at the head of the Achæan League, +a general war began between the Macedonians and Achæans on +the one side, and the Ætolians and their allies on the +other, that continued with great severity and obstinacy for four +years. Philip was on the whole successful, but new and more +ambitious designs led him to put an end to the unprofitable +contest. The great struggle going on between Rome and Carthage +attracted his attention, and he thought that an alliance with the +latter would open to himself prospects of future conquest and +glory. So a treaty was concluded with the Ætolians, which +left all the parties to the war in the enjoyment of their +respective possessions (217 B.C.), and Philip prepared to enter +the field against Rome.</p> + +<p class="just">After the battle between Carthage and Rome at +Can'næ (216 B.C.), which seemed to have extinguished the +last hopes of Rome, Philip sent envoys to Hannibal, the +Carthaginian general, and concluded with him a treaty of strict +alliance. He next sailed with a fleet up the Adriatic, to assist +Deme'trius of Pharos, who had been driven from his Illyrian +dominions by the Romans; but while besieging Apollo'nia, a small +town in Illyria, he was met and defeated by the Roman +prætor M. Vale'rius Lævi'nus, and was forced to burn +his ships and retreat overland to Macedon. Such was the issue of +his first encounter with the Romans. The latter now turned their +attention to Greece (211 B.C.), and contrived to keep Philip busy +at home by inciting a violation of the recent treaty with the +Ætolians, and by inducing Sparta and Elis to unite in a war +against Macedon. Philip was for a time supported by the +Achæans, under their renowned leader Philopoe'men; but +Athens, which Philip had besieged, called in the aid of a Roman +fleet (199 B.C.), and finally the Achæans themselves, being +divided into factions, accepted terms of peace with the Romans. +Philip continued to struggle against his increasing enemies until +his defeat in the great battle of Cynoceph'alæ (197 B.C.), +by the Roman consul Titus Flamin'ius, when he purchased peace by +the sacrifice of his navy, the payment of a tribute, and the +resignation of his supremacy over the Grecian states.</p> + +<p class="just">At this time there was a Grecian epigrammatic +poet, ALCÆ'US, of Messe'ne, who was an ardent partisan of +the Roman consul Flaminius, and who celebrated the defeat of +Philip in some of his epigrams. He wrote the following on the +expedition of Flaminius:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Xerxes from Persia led his mighty +host,<br> +And Titus his from fair Italia's coast.<br> +Both warred with Greece; but here the difference see:<br> +<i>That</i> brought a yoke--<i>this</i> gives us liberty.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">He also wrote the following sarcastic epigram on +the Macedonians of Philip's army who were slain at +Cynocephalæ:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Unmourned, unburied, passenger, we +lie,<br> +Three myriad sons of fruitful Thessaly,<br> +In this wide field of monumental clay.<br> +Ætolian Mars had marked us for his prey;<br> +Or he who, bursting from the Ausonian fold,<br> +In Titus' form the waves of battle rolled;<br> +And taught Æma'thia's boastful lord to run<br> +So swift that swiftest stags were by his speed outdone.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Philip is said to have retorted this insult by +the following inscription on a tree, in which he pretty plainly +states the chastisement Alcæus would receive were he to +fall into the hands of his enemy:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Unbarked, and leafless, passenger, +you see,<br> +Fixed in this mound Alcæus' gallows-tree.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> J. H. MERIVALE.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>V. GREECE CONQUERED BY ROME.</h4> + +<p class="just">At the Isthmian games, held at Corinth the year +after the downfall of Philip, the Roman consul Flaminius, a true +friend of Greece, under the authority of the Roman Senate caused +proclamation to be made, that Rome "took off all impositions and +withdrew all garrisons from Greece, and restored liberty, and +their own laws and privileges, to the several states" (196 B.C.). +The deluded Greeks received this announcement with exultation, +and the highest honors which a grateful people could bestow were +showered upon Flaminius. [<small>Footnote: See a more full +account of the events connected with this proclamation, in +<i>Mosaics of Roman History</i>.</small>]</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">A Roman master stands on Grecian +ground,<br> +And to the concourse of the Isthmian games<br> +He, by his herald's voice, aloud proclaims<br> +"The liberty of Greece!" The words rebound<br> +Until all voices in one voice are drowned;<br> +Glad acclamation by which the air was rent!<br> +And birds, high flying in the element,<br> +Dropped to the earth, astonished at the sound!<br> +A melancholy echo of that noise<br> +Doth sometimes hang on musing Fancy's ear.<br> +Ah! that a conqueror's words should be so dear;<br> +Ah! that a boon should shed such rapturous joys!<br> +A gift of that which is not to be given<br> +By all the blended powers of earth and heaven.<br> + --WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The Greeks soon realized that the freedom which +Rome affected to bestow was tendered by a power that could +withdraw it at pleasure. First, the Ætolians were reduced +to poverty and deprived of their independence, for having +espoused the cause of Anti'ochus of Syria, the enemy of Rome. At +a later period Perseus, the successor of Philip on the throne of +Macedon, being driven into a war by Roman ambition, finally lost +his kingdom in the battle of Pydna (168 B.C.); and then the +Achæans were charged with having aided Macedon in her war +with Rome, and, without a shadow of proof against them, one +thousand of their worthiest citizens were seized and sent to Rome +for trial (167 B.C.). Here they were kept seventeen years without +a hearing, when three hundred of their number, all who survived, +were restored to their country. These and other acts of cruelty +aroused a spirit of vengeance against the Romans, that soon +culminated in war. But the Achæans and their allies were +defeated by the consul Mum'mius, near Corinth (146 B.C.), and +that city, then the richest in Greece, was plundered of its +treasures and consigned to the flames. Corinth was specially +distinguished for its perfection in the arts of painting and +sculpture, and the poet ANTIP'ATER, of Sidon, thus describes the +desolation of the city after its destruction by the Romans:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Where, Corinth, are thy glories +now--<br> +Thy ancient wealth, thy castled brow,<br> +Thy solemn fanes, thy halls of state,<br> +Thy high-born dames, thy crowded gate?<br> +There's not a ruin left to tell<br> +Where Corinth stood, how Corinth fell.<br> +The Nereids of thy double sea<br> +Alone remain to wail for thee.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> GOLDWIN SMITH.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The last blow to the liberties of the Hellenic +race had now been struck, and all Greece, as far as Epi'rus and +Macedonia, became a Roman province under the name of Achaia. Says +THIRLWALL, "The end of the Achæan war was the last stage of +the lingering process by which Rome enclosed her victim in the +coils of her insidious diplomacy, covered it with the slime of +her sycophants and hirelings, crushed it when it began to +struggle, and then calmly preyed upon its vitals." But although +Greece had lost her independence, and many of her cities were +desolate, or had sunk into insignificance, she still retained her +renown for philosophy and the arts, and became the instructor of +her conquerors. In the well-known words of HORACE,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">When conquered Greece brought in +her captive arts,<br> +She triumphed o'er her savage conquerors' hearts.<br> + -Bk. II. Epistle 1.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">As another has said, "She still retained a +sovereignty which the Romans could not take from her, and to +which they were obliged to pay homage." In whatever quarter Rome +turned her victorious arms she encountered Greek colonies +speaking the Greek language, and enjoying the arts of +civilization. All these were absorbed by her, but they were not +lost. They diffused Greek customs, thought, speech, and art over +the Latin world, and Hellas survived in the intellectual life of +a new empire.</p> + +<br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterXVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>LITERATURE AND ART AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE +PELOPONNESIAN WAR.</b></p> + +<br> +<h3>LITERATURE.</h3> + +<h4>I. THE DRAMA.</h4> + +<p class="just">As we have seen in a former chapter, Greek +tragedy attained its zenith with the three great +masters--Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. As MAHAFFY +well says, "Its later annals are but a history of decay; and of +the vast herd of latter tragedians two only, and two of the +earliest--Ion of Chi'os, and Ag'athon--can be called living +figures in a history of Greek literature." Even these, it seems, +wrote before Sophocles and Euripides had closed their careers. +But few fragments of their genius have come down to us. Longi'nus +said of Ion, that he was fluent and polished, rather than bold or +sublime; while Agathon has been characterized as "the creator of +a new tragic style, combining the verbal elegancies and ethical +niceties of the Sophists with artistic claims of a luxurious +kind."</p> + +<p class="just">While tragedy declined, with comedy the case was +different, for its changes were progressive. Most writers divide +Greek comedy into the Old, the Middle, and the New; and although +the boundary lines between the three orders are very indistinct, +each has certain well-defined characteristics. It is asserted, as +we have elsewhere noted, that the chief subjects of the first +were the politics of the day and the characters and deeds of +leading persons; that the chief peculiarity of the second, in +which the action of the chorus was much curtailed, was the +exclusion of personal and political criticism, and the adoption +of parodies of the gods and ridicule of certain types of +character; and that the New Comedy, in which the chorus +disappeared, aimed to paint scenes and characters of domestic +life. The Middle Comedy, however, still continued to be in some +degree personal and political, and even in the New Comedy these +features of the Old are frequently apparent.</p> + +<p class="just">Aristoph'anes, the leader of the Old Comedy, +toward the close of his life produced <i>The Frogs</i>--a work +that signalized the transition from the Old to the Middle Comedy. +The latter school, however, took its rise in Sicily, and its most +distinguished authors were Antiph'anes, probably of Athens, born +in 404, and Alex'is of Thu'rii, born about 394. The New Comedy +arose after Athens had fallen under Macedonian supremacy, and as +many as sixty-four poets belong to this period, the later of whom +composed their plays in Alexandria, in the time of Alexander's +successors. The founder of this school was Phile'mon of Soli, in +Cilicia, born about 360 B.C. Of his ninety plays fragments of +fifty-six remain. The majority of these have been described as +"elegant but not profound reflections on the 'changes and chances +of this mortal life.'" A late critic chooses the following +fragment as illustrative of Philemon, and at the same time +favorable to his reputation:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Have faith in God, and fear; seek +not to know him;<br> +For thou wilt gain naught else beyond thy search;<br> +Whether he is or is not, shun to ask:<br> +As one who is, and sees thee, always fear him.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> J. A. SYMONDS.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>MENANDER.</h5> + +<p class="just">The acknowledged master and representative of +this period, however, and the last of the classical poets of +Greece, was Menan'der, an Athenian, son of Diopi'thes, the +general whom Demosthenes defended in his speech "On the +Chersonese," and a nephew of the poet Alexis. Menander was born +in 342 B.C.; and although only fragments of his writings exist, +he was so closely copied or imitated by the Roman comic poets +that his style and character can be very clearly traced. MR. +SYMONDS thus describes him: "His personal beauty, the love of +refined pleasure that distinguished him in life, the serene and +genial temper of his wisdom, the polish of his verse, and the +harmony of parts he observed in composition, justify us in +calling Menander the Sophocles of comedy. If we were to judge by +the fragments transmitted to us, we should have to say that +Menander's comedy was ethical philosophy in verse; so mature is +its wisdom, so weighty its language, so grave its tone. The +brightness of the beautiful Greek spirit is sobered down in him +almost to sadness. Yet the fact that Stobæ'us found him a +fruitful source of sententious quotations, and that alphabetical +anthologies were made of his proverbial sayings, ought not to +obscure his fame for drollery and humor. If old men appreciated +his genial or pungent worldly wisdom, boys and girls read him, we +are told, for his love-stories."</p> + +<p class="just">Menander was an intimate friend of Epicu'rus, the +philosopher, and is supposed to have adopted his teachings. On +this point, however, MR. SYMONDS thus remarks: "Speaking broadly, +the philosophy in vogue at Athens during the period of the New +Comedy was what in modern days is known as Epicureanism. Yet it +would be unjust to confound the grave and genial wisdom of +Menander with so trivial a philosophy as that which may be summed +up in the sentence 'eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' A +fragment from an unknown play of his expresses the pathos of +human existence with a depth of feeling that is inconsistent with +mere pleasure-seeking:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"'When thou would'st know thyself, +what man thou art,<br> +Look at the tombstones as thou passest by:<br> +Within those monuments lie bones and dust<br> +Of monarchs, tyrants, sages, men whose pride<br> +Rose high because of wealth, or noble blood,<br> +Or haughty soul, or loveliness of limb;<br> +Yet none of these things strove for them 'gainst time;<br> +One common death hath ta'en all mortal men.<br> +See thou to this, and know thee who thou art.'"</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">As EUGENE LAWRENCE says: "Most modern comedies +are founded on those of Menander. They revive their characters, +repeat their jokes, transplant their humor; and the wit of +Molière, Shakspeare, or Sheridan is often the same that +once awoke shouts of laughter on the Attic stage."</p> + +<br> +<h4>II. ORATORY.</h4> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Thence to the famous orators +repair,<br> +Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence<br> +Wielded at will that fierce democracy,<br> +Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece<br> +To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.<br> + --MILTON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Eloquence, or oratory, which Cicero calls "the +friend of peace and the companion of tranquillity, requiring for +her cradle a commonwealth already well-established and +flourishing," was fostered and developed in Greece by the +democratic character of her institutions. It was scarcely known +there until the time of Themistocles, the first orator of note; +and in the time of Pericles it suddenly rose, in Athens, to a +great height of perfection. Pericles himself, whose great aim was +to sway the assemblies of the people to his will, cultivated +oratory with such application and success, that the poets of his +day said of him that on some occasions the goddess of persuasion, +with all her charms, seemed to dwell on his lips; and that, at +other times, his discourse had all the vehemence of thunder to +move the souls of his hearers. The golden age of Grecian +eloquence is embraced in a period of one hundred and thirty years +from the time of Pericles, and during this period Athens bore the +palm alone.</p> + +<p class="just">Of the many Athenian orators the most +distinguished were Lys'ias, Isoc'rates, Æschines, and +Demosthenes. The first was born about 435 B.C., and was admired +for the perspicuity, purity, sweetness, and delicacy of his +style. Having become a resident of Thurii in early life, on his +return to Athens he was not allowed to speak in the assemblies, +or courts of justice, and therefore wrote orations for others to +deliver. Many of these are characterized by great energy and +power. Dionysius, the Roman historian and critic, praises Lysias +for his grace; Cicero commends him for his subtlety; and +Quintilian esteems him for his truthfulness. Isocrates was born +at Athens in 436. Having received the instructions of some of the +most celebrated Sophists of his time, he opened a school of +rhetoric, and was equally esteemed for the excellence of his +compositions--mostly political orations--and for his success in +teaching. His style was more philosophic, smooth, and elegant +than that of Lysias. "Cicero," says a modern critic, "whose style +is exceedingly like that of Isocrates, appears to have especially +used him as a model--as indeed did Demosthenes; and through these +two orators he has moulded all the prose of modern Europe." +Isocrates lived to the advanced age of ninety-eight, and then +died, it is said, by voluntary starvation, in grief for the fatal +battle of Chæronea.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "That dishonest +victory.<br> +At Chæronea, fatal to liberty,<br> +Killed with report that old man eloquent."</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>ÆSCHINES AND DEMOSTHENES.</h5> + +<p class="just">The orator Æschines was born in 398 B.C. He +is regarded as the father of extemporaneous speaking among the +Greeks, but is chiefly distinguished as the rival of Demosthenes, +rather than for his few orations (but three in number) that have +come down to us, although he was endowed by nature with +extraordinary rhetorical powers, and his orations are +characterized by ease, order, clearness, and precision. "The +eloquence of Æschines," says an American scholar and +statesman, [<small>Footnote: Hugh S. Legaré, of +Charleston, South Carolina, in an article on "Demosthenes" in the +<i>New York Review</i>.</small>] "is of a brilliant and showy +character, running occasionally, though very rarely, into a +Ciceronean declamation. In general his taste is unexceptionable; +he is clear in statement, close and cogent in argument, lucid in +arrangement, remarkably graphic and animated in style, and full +of spirit and pleasantry, without the least appearance of +emphasis or effort. He is particularly successful in description +and the portraiture of character. That his powers were +appreciated by his great rival is evident from the latter's +frequent admonitions to the assembly to remember that their +debates are no theatrical exhibitions of voice and oratory, but +deliberations involving the safety of their country."</p> + +<p class="just">On leaving Athens, after his defeat in the +celebrated contest with Demosthenes, Æschines went to +Rhodes, where he established a school of rhetoric. It is stated +that on one occasion he began his instruction by reading the two +orations that had been the cause of his banishment. His hearers +loudly applauded his own speech, but when he read that of +Demosthenes they were wild with delight. "If you thus praise it +from my reading it," exclaimed Æschines, "what would you +have said if you had heard Demosthenes himself deliver it?"</p> + +<p class="just">By the common consent of ancient and modern +times, Demosthenes stands pre-eminent for his eloquence, his +patriotism, and his influence over the Athenian people. He was +born about 383 B.C. On attaining his majority, his first speech +was directed against a cousin to whom his inheritance had been +intrusted, and who refused to surrender to him what was left of +it. Demosthenes won his case, and his victory brought him into +such prominent notice that he was soon engaged to write pleadings +for litigants in the courts. He devoted himself to incessant +study and practice in oratory, and, overcoming by various means a +weakly body and an impediment in his speech, he became the chief +of orators. Of his public life we have already seen something in +the history of Athens. With all his moral and intellectual force, +the closing years of his life were shaded with misery and +disgrace. Fifty years after his death the Athenians erected a +bronze statue to his memory, and upon the pedestal placed this +inscription:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Divine in speech, in judgment, too, +divine,<br> +Had valor's wreath, Demosthenes, been thine,<br> +Fair Greece had still her freedom's ensign borne,<br> +And held the scourge of Macedon in scorn!</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">With regard to the character of the orations of +Demosthenes, it must be confessed that somewhat conflicting views +have been entertained by the moderns. LORD BROUGHAM, while +admitting that Demosthenes "never wanders from the subject, that +each remark tells upon the matter in hand, that all his +illustrations are brought to bear upon the point, and that he is +never found making a step in any direction which does not advance +his main object, and lead toward the conclusion to which he is +striving to bring his hearers," still denies that he is +distinguished for those "chains of reasoning," and that "fine +argumentation" which are the chief merit of our greatest modern +orators. While he admits that Demosthenes abounds in the most +"appropriate topics, and such happy hits--to use a homely but +expressive phrase--as have a magical effect upon a popular +assembly, and that he clothes them in the choicest language, +arranges them in the most perfect order, and captivates the ear +with a music that is fitted, at his will, to provoke or to +soothe, and even to charm the sense," he regards all this as +better suited to great popular assemblies than to a more refined, +and a more select audience--such as one composed of learned +senators and judges. But this is admitting that he adapted +himself, with admirable tact and judgment, to the subject and the +occasion. But while the character thus attributed to the orations +of the great Athenian orator may be the true one, as regards the +Philippics, the speech against Æschines, and the one on the +Crown, it is not thought to be applicable to the many pleas which +he made on occasions more strictly judicial.</p> + +<p class="just">"That which distinguishes the eloquence of +Demosthenes above all others, ancient or modern," says the +American writer already quoted, "is earnestness, conviction, and +the power to persuade that belongs to a strong and deep +persuasion felt by the speaker. It is what Milton defines true +eloquence to be, 'none but the serious and hearty love of +truth'--or, more properly, what the speaker believes to be truth. +This advantage Demosthenes had over Æschines. He had faith +in his country, faith in her people (if they could be roused up), +faith in her institutions. He is mad at the bare thought that a +man of Macedon, a barbarian, should be beating Athenians in the +field, and giving laws to Greece. The Roman historian and critic, +Dionysius, said of his oratory, that its highest attribute was +the spirit of life that pervades it. Other remarkable features +were its amazing flexibility and variety, its condensation and +perfect logical unity, its elaborate and exquisite finish of +details, to which must be added that polished harmony and rhythm +which cannot be attained, to a like degree, in any modern +language. Moreover, however elaborately composed these speeches +were, they were still speeches, and had the appearance of being +the spontaneous effusions of the moment. No extemporaneous +harangues were ever more free and natural."</p> + +<p class="just">The historian HUME says of the style of +Demosthenes: "It was rapid harmony adjusted to the sense; +vehement reasoning without any appearance of art; disdain, anger, +boldness, and freedom, involved in a continued strain of +argument." Another writer says: "It was his undeviating firmness, +his disdain of all compromise, that made him the first of +statesmen and orators; in this lay the substance of his power, +the primary foundation of his superiority; the rest was merely +secondary. The mystery of his mighty influence, then, lay in his +honesty; and it is this that gave warmth and tone to his +feelings, an energy to his language, and an impression to his +manner before which every imputation of insincerity must have +immediately vanished."</p> + +<br> +<h4>III. PHILOSOPHY.</h4> + +<h5>PLATO.</h5> + +<p class="just">While oratory was thus attaining perfection in +Greece, philosophy was making equal progress in the direction +marked out by Socrates. Among the philosophers of the brighter +period of Grecian history are the names of Plato and Aristotle, +names that will ever be cherished and venerated while genius and +worth continue to be held in admiration. Of the pupils of +Socrates, Plato, born in Athens in 429 B.C., was by far the most +distinguished, and the only one who fully appreciated the +intellectual greatness and seized the profound conceptions of his +master. In fact, he came to surpass Socrates in the profoundness +of his views, and in the correctness and eloquence with which he +expressed them. On the death of his teacher, Plato left Athens +and passed twelve years in visiting different countries, engaged +in philosophic investigation. Returning to Athens, he founded his +school of philosophy in the Acade'mia, a beautiful spot in the +suburbs of the city, adorned with groves, walks, and fountains, +and which his name has immortalized.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Here +Philosophy<br> +With Plato dwelt, and burst the chains of mind;<br> +Here, with his stole across his shoulders flung,<br> +His homely garments with a leathern zone<br> +Confined, his snowy beard low clust'ring down<br> +Upon his ample chest, his keen dark eye<br> +Glancing from underneath the arched brow,<br> +He fixed his sandaled foot, and on his staff<br> +Leaned, while to his disciples he declared<br> +How all creation's mighty fabric rose<br> +From the abyss of chaos: next he traced<br> +The bounds of virtue and of vice; the source<br> +Of good and evil; sketched the ideal form<br> +Of beauty, and unfolded all the powers<br> +Of mind by which it ranges uncontrolled,<br> +And soars from earth to immortality.<br> + --HAYGARTH.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">To Plato, as the poet intimates in his closing +lines, we owe the first formal development of the Socratic +doctrine of the spirituality of the soul, and the first attempt +toward demonstrating its immortality. As a late writer has well +said, "It is the genius of Socrates that fills all Plato's +philosophy, and their two minds have flowed out over the world +together." Of his doctrine on this subject, as expressed in the +<i>Phoe'do</i>, LORD BROUGHAM thus wrote: "The whole tenor of it +refers to a renewal or continuation of the soul as a separate and +individual existence after the dissolution of the body, and with +a complete consciousness of personal identity: in short, to a +continuance of the same rational being's existence after death. +The liberation from the body is treated as the beginning of a new +and more perfect life." Plato's only work on physical science is +the <i>Timoe'us</i>. His works are all called "Dialogues," which +the critics divide into two classes--those of search, and those +of exposition. Among the latter, the <i>Republic</i> and the +<i>Laws</i> give us the author's political views; and, on the +former, More's <i>Uto'pia</i> and other works of like character +in modern times are founded.</p> + +<p class="just">"Plato, of all authors," says DR. A. C. KENDRICK, +[<small>Footnote: Article "Plato," in <i>Appleton's American +Cyclipoedia</i>.</small>] "is the one to whom the least justice +can be done by any formal analysis. In the spirit which pervades +his writings, in their untiring freshness, in their purity, love +of truth and of virtue, their perpetual aspiring to the loftiest +height of knowledge and of excellence, much more than in their +positive doctrines, lies the secret of their charm and of their +unfailing power. Plato is often styled an idealist. But this is +true of the spirit rather than of the form of his doctrine; for +strictly he is an intense realist, and differs from his great +pupil, Aristotle, far less in his mere philosophical method than +in his lofty moral and religious aspirations, which were +perpetually winging his spirit toward the beautiful and the good. +His formal errors are abundant; but even in his errors the truth +is often deeper than the error; and when that has been +discredited, the language adjusts itself to the deeper truth of +which it was rather an inadequate expression than a direct +contradiction." Concerning the <i>style</i> of Plato's writings, +a distinguished English scholar and translator observes as +follows: "Nor is the language in which his thoughts are conveyed +less remarkable than the thoughts themselves. In his more +elevated passages he rises, like his own Prometheus, to heaven, +and brings down from thence the noblest of all thefts, +[<small>Footnote: See the story of Prometheus.</small>] Wisdom +with Fire; but, in general, calm, pure, and unaffected, his style +flows like a stream which gurgles its own music as it runs; and +his works rise, like the great fabric of Grecian literature, of +which they are the best model, in calm and noiseless majesty." +[<small>Footnote: Thomas Mitchell.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">Plato died at the advanced age of eighty-one, his +mental powers unimpaired, and he was buried in the Academe. On +his tomb was placed the following inscription:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Here, first of all men for pure +justice famed,<br> + Aris'tocles, the moral teacher, lies:<br> + [<small>Footnote: The proper name of Plato was Aristocles:<br> + but in his youth he was surnamed Plato by his companions<br> + in the gymnasium, on account of his broad shoulders.<br> + (From the Greek word <i>platus</i>, "broad.")</small>]<br> + And if there ere has lived one truly wise,<br> +This man was wiser still: too great for envy.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>ARISTOTLE.</h5> + +<p class="just">Aristotle was born in 384 B.C., at Stagi'ra, in +Macedonia. Hence he is frequently called the "Stag'i-rite;" as +POPE calls him in the following tribute found in his <i>Temple of +Fame</i>:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Here, in a shrine that cast a +dazzing light,<br> +Sat, fixed in thought, the mighty Stagirite;<br> +His sacred head a radiant zodiac crowned,<br> +And various animals his sides surround;<br> +His piercing eyes, erect, appear to view<br> +Superior worlds, and look all nature through.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">He repaired to Athens at the age of seventeen, +and soon after became a pupil of Plato. His uncommon acuteness of +apprehension, and his indefatigable industry, early won the +notice and applause of his master, who called him the "mind" of +the school, and said, when he was absent, "Intellect is not +here." On the death of Plato, Aristotle left Athens, and in 343 +he repaired to Macedonia, on the invitation of Philip, and became +the instructor of the young prince Alexander. In after years +Alexander aided him in his scientific pursuits by sending to him +many objects of natural history, and giving him large sums of +money, estimated in all at two millions of dollars.</p> + +<p class="just">In the year 335 Aristotle returned to Athens, and +opened his school in the Lyce'um. He walked with his scholars up +and down the shady avenues, conversing on philosophy, and hence +his school was called the <i>peripatetic</i>. Aristotle nowhere +exhibits the merits of Plato in the service of metaphysics, yet +he was the most learned and most productive of the writers of +Greece. He had neither the poetical imagination nor the genius of +his teacher, but he mastered the whole philosophical and +historical science of his age, and, more than Plato, his +intellect has influenced the course of modern civilization. He +was eminently a practical philosopher--a cold inquirer, whose +mind did not reach the high and lofty teaching of Plato, +concerning Deity and the destiny of mankind. We find the +following just estimate of him in BROWNE'S <i>Greek Classical +Literature</i>: "One cannot set too high a value on the practical +nature of Aristotle's mind. He never forgot the bearing of all +philosophy upon the happiness of man, and he never lost sight of +man's wants and requirements. He saw the inadequacy of all +knowledge, unless he could trace in it a visible practical +tendency. But, beyond this one single point, he falls grievously +short of his great master, Plato. All his ideas of man's good are +limited to the consideration of this life alone. It is impossible +to trace in his writings any belief in a future state or +immortality."</p> + +<p class="just">For many centuries succeeding the Middle Ages, +especially from the eleventh to the fifteenth, the metaphysical +teachings of Aristotle held a tyrannic sway over the public mind; +but they have been gradually yielding to the more lofty and +sublime teachings of Plato. His investigations in natural +science, however, and his work as a logician and political +philosopher, constitute his greatness, and create the enormous +influence that he has wielded in the world. "Science owes to him +its earliest impulse," says MR. LAWRENCE. "He perfected and +brought into form," says DR. WILLIAM SMITH, "those elements of +the dialectic art which had been struck out by Socrates and +Plato, and wrought them by his additions into so complete a +system that he may be regarded as at once the founder and +perfecter of logic as an art." Says MAHAFFY, "He has built his +<i>politics</i> upon so sound a philosophic basis, and upon the +evidence of so large and varied a political experience, that his +lessons on the rise and fall of governments will never grow old, +and will be perpetually receiving fresh corroborations, so long +as human nature remains the same." Aristotle was a friend of the +Macedonians, and, on the death of Alexander, he fled, from Athens +to Chal'cis, in Euboea, to escape a trial for impiety. There he +died in 322 B.C. In the lives of the three great philosophers of +Greece--Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle--is embraced what is +commonly called "The Philosophical Era of Athens." To this era +MILTON has beautifully alluded in his well-known description of +the famous city; and for the Academe, or Academia, the beautiful +garden that was the resort of the philosophers, EDWIN ARNOLD +expresses these sentiments of veneration:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Pleasanter than the hills of +Thessaly,<br> +Nearer and dearer to the poet's heart<br> +Than the blue ripple belting Salamis,<br> +Or long grass waving over Marathon,<br> +Fair Academe, most holy Academe,<br> +Thou art, and hast been, and shalt ever be.<br> +I would be numbered now with things that were,<br> +Changing the wasting fever of to-day<br> +For the dear quietness of yesterday:<br> +I would be ashes, underneath the grass,<br> +So I had wandered in thy platane walks<br> +One happy summer twilight--even one.<br> +Was it not grand, and beautiful, and rare,<br> +The music and the wisdom and the shade,<br> +The music of the pebble-paven rills,<br> +And olive boughs, and bowered nightingales,<br> +Chorusing joyously the joyous things<br> +Told by the gray Silenus of the grove,<br> +Low-fronted and large-hearted Socrates!<br> +Oh, to have seen under the olive blossoms<br> +But once--only once in a mortal life,<br> +The marble majesties of ancient gods!<br> +And to have watched the ring of listeners--<br> +The Grecian boys gone mad for love of truth,<br> +The Grecian girls gone pale for love of him<br> +Who taught the truth, who battled for the truth;<br> +And girls and boys, women and bearded men,<br> +Crowding to hear and treasure in their hearts<br> +Matter to make their lives a happiness,<br> +And death a happy ending.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>EPICU'RUS AND ZE'NO.</h5> + +<p class="just">What is known as the Epicure'an school of +philosophy was founded by Epicurus, a native of Samos, born in +342, who went to Athens in early youth, and, at the age of +thirty, established himself as a philosophical teacher. He met +with great success. He did not believe in the soul's immortality, +and taught the pursuit of mental pleasure and happiness as the +highest good. While his learning was not great, he was a man of +unsullied morality, respected and loved by his followers to a +wonderful degree. Although he wrote books in advocacy of piety, +and the reverence due to the gods on account of the excellence of +their nature, he maintained that they had no concern in human +affairs. Hence the Roman poet LUCRETIUS, who lived when the old +belief in the gods and goddesses of the heathen world had nearly +faded away, attributes to the teachings of Epicurus the triumph +of philosophy over superstition.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">On earth in bondage base existence +lay,<br> +Bent down by Superstition's iron sway.<br> +She from the heavens disclosed her monstrous head,<br> +And dark with grisly aspect, scowling dread,<br> +Hung o'er the sons of men; but toward the skies<br> +A man of Greece dared lift his mortal eyes,<br> +And first resisting stood. Not him the fame<br> +Of deities, the lightning's forky flame,<br> +Or muttering murmurs of the threat'ning sky<br> +Repressed; but roused his soul's great energy<br> +To break the bars that interposing lay,<br> +And through the gates of nature burst his way. + +<p>That vivid force of soul a passage found;<br> +The flaming walls that close the world around<br> +He far o'erleaped; his spirit soared on high<br> +Through the vast whole, the one infinity.<br> +Victor, he brought the tidings from the skies<br> +What things in nature may, or may not, rise;<br> +What stated laws a power finite assign,<br> +And still with bounds impassable confine.<br> +Thus trod beneath our feet the phantom lies;<br> +We mount o'er Superstition to the skies.<br> + --<i>Trans. By</i> ELTON.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The school of the Stoics was founded by Zeno, a +native of Cyprus, who went to Athens about 299 B.C., and opened a +school in the <i>Poi'ki-le Sto'a</i>, or painted porch, whence +the name of his sect arose. As is well known, the chief tenets of +the Stoics were temperance and self-denial, which Zeno himself +practiced by living on uncooked food, wearing very thin garments +in winter, and refusing the comforts of life generally. To the +Stoics pleasure was irrational, and pain a visitation to be borne +with ease. Both Stoicism and Epicureanism flourished among the +Romans. The teachings of Epictetus, the Roman Stoic philosopher, +are summed up in the formula, "Bear and forbear;" and he is said +to have observed that "Man is but a pilot; observe the star, hold +the rudder, and be not distracted on thy way." Both these schools +of philosophy, however, passed into skepticism. Epicureanism +became a material fatalism and a search for pleasure; while +Stoicism ended in spiritual fatalism. But when the Gospel +awakened the human heart to life, it was the Greek mind which +gave mankind a Christian theology.</p> + +<br> +<h4>IV. HISTORY</h4> + +<h5>XENOPHON.</h5> + +<p class="just">The most distinguished Greek historian of this +period was Xenophon, of whom we have already seen something as +the leader of the famous "Retreat of the Ten Thousand," and as +the author of a delightful and instructive account of that +achievement. He was born in Athens about 443 B.C., and at an +early age became the pupil of Socrates, to whose principles he +strictly adhered through life, in practice as well as in theory. +Seemingly on account of his philosophical views he was banished +by the Athenians, before his return from the expedition into +Asia; but the Spartans, with whom he fought against Athens at +Coronea, gave him an estate at Scil'lus, in Elis, and here he +lived, engaging in literary pursuits, that were diversified by +domestic enjoyments and active field-sports. He died either at +Scillus or at Corinth--to which latter place some authorities +think he removed in the later years of his life--in the ninetieth +year of his age.</p> + +<p class="just">Among the works of Xenophon is the +<i>Anab'asis</i>, considered his best, descriptive of the advance +into Persia and the masterly retreat; the <i>Hellen'ica</i>, a +history of Greece, in seven books, from the time of Thucydides to +the battle of Mantine'a, in 362 B.C.; the <i>Cyropoedi'a</i>, a +political romance, based on the history of Cyrus the Great; a +treatise on the horse, and the duties of a cavalry commander; a +treatise on hunting; a picture of an Athenian banquet, and of the +amusement and conversation with which it was diversified; and, +the most pleasing of all, the <i>Memorabil'ia</i>, devoted to the +defence of the life and principles of Socrates. Concerning the +remarkable miscellany of Xenophon, MR. MITCHELL says: "The writer +who has thrown equal interest into an account of a retreating +army and the description of a scene of coursing; who has +described with the same fidelity a common groom and a perfect +pattern of conjugal faithfulness--such a man had seen life under +aspects which taught him to know that there were things of +infinitely more importance than the turn of a phrase, the music +of a cadence, and the other niceties which are wanted by a +luxurious and opulent metropolis. The virtuous feelings that were +necessary in a mind constituted as his was, took into their +comprehensive bosom the welfare of the world."</p> + +<p class="just">Although the genius of Xenophon was not of the +highest order, his writings have afforded, to all succeeding +ages, one of the best models of purity, simplicity, and harmony +of language: By some of his contemporaries he has been styled +"The Attic Muse;" by others, "The Athenian Bee;" while his +manners and personal appearance have been described by Diog'enes +Laer'tius, in his <i>Lives of the Philosophers</i>, in the +following brief but comprehensive sentence: "Modest in +deportment, and beautiful in person to a remarkable degree."</p> + +<br> +<h5>POLYB'IUS.</h5> + +<p class="just">Of the prominent Greek historians, Polybius was +the last. Born about 204 B.C., he lived and wrote in the closing +period of Grecian history. Having been carried a prisoner to Rome +with the one thousand prominent citizens of Achaia, his +accomplishments secured for him the friendship of Scip'io +Africa'nus Mi'nor, and of his father, Æmil'ius Pau'lus, at +whose house he resided. He spent his time in collecting materials +for his works, and in giving instruction to Scipio. In the year +150 B.C. he returned to his native country with the surviving +exiles, and actively exerted himself to induce the Greeks to keep +peace with the Romans, but, as we know, without success. After +the Roman conquest the Greeks seem to have awakened to the wisdom +of his advice, for on a statue erected to his memory was the +inscription, "Hellas would have been saved had the advice of +Polybius been followed." Polybius wrote a history in forty books, +embracing the time between the commencement of the Second Punic +War, in 218 B.C., and the destruction of Carthage and Corinth by +the Romans, in 146 B.C. It is the most trustworthy history we +possess of this period, and has been closely copied by subsequent +writers. A correct estimate of its character and worth will be +found in the following summary:</p> + +<p class="just">"The greater part of the valuable and laborious +work of Polybius has perished. We have only the first five books +entire, and fragments and extracts of the rest. As it is, +however, it is one of the most valuable historical works that has +come down to us. His style, indeed, will not bear a comparison +with the great masters of Greek literature: he is not eloquent, +like Thucydides; nor practical, like Herodotus; nor perspicuous +and elegant, like Xenophon. He lived at a time when the Greek +language had lost much of its purity by an intermixture of +foreign elements, and he did not attempt to imitate the language +of the Attic writers. He wrote as he spoke: he gives us the first +rough draft of his thoughts, and seldom imposes on himself the +trouble to arrange or methodize them; hence, they are often +meager and desultory, and not infrequently deviate entirely from +the subject.</p> + +<p class="just">"But in the highest quality of an historian--the +love of truth--Polybius has no superior. This always predominates +in his writings. He has judgment to trace effects to their +causes, a full knowledge of his subjects, and an impartiality +that forbids him to conceal it to favor any party or cause. In +his geographical descriptions he is not always clear, but his +descriptions of battles have never been surpassed. 'His writings +have been admired by the warrior, copied by the politician, and +imitated by the historian. Brutus had him ever in his hands, +Tully transcribed him, and many of the finest passages of Livy +are the property of the Greek historian.'"</p> + +<br> +<h3>ART.</h3> + +<h4>I. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE.</h4> + +<p class="just">After the close of the Peloponnesian war the +perfection and application of the several orders of Grecian +architecture were displayed in the laying out of cities on a +grander scale, and by an increase of splendor in private +residences, rather than by any marked change in the style of +public buildings and temples. Alexandria in Egypt, and Antioch in +Syria, were the finest examples of Grecian genius in this +direction, both in the regularity and size of their public and +private buildings, and in their external and internal adornment. +This period was also distinguished for its splendid sepulchral +and other monuments. Of these, probably the most exquisite gem of +architectural taste is the circular building at Athens, the +Cho-rag'ic Monument, or "Lantern of Demosthenes," erected in +honor of a victory gained by the chorus of Lysic'rates in 334 +B.C. "It is the purest specimen of the Corinthian order," says a +writer on architecture, "that has reached our time, whose +minuteness and unobtrusive beauty have preserved it almost entire +among the ruins of the mightiest piles of Athenian art." Other +celebrated monuments of this period were the one erected at +Halicarnas'sus by the Ca'rian queen Artemi'sia to the memory of +her husband Mauso'lus, adorned with sculptural decorations by +Sco'pas and others, and considered one of the seven wonders of +the world; and the octagonal edifice, the Horolo'gium of +Androni'cus Cyrrhes'tes, at Athens.</p> + +<p class="just">In sculpture, Athens still asserted its +pre-eminence, but the style and character of its later school +were materially different from those of the preceding one of +Phid'ias. "Toward the close of the Peloponnesian war," says a +recent writer, "a change took place in the habits and feelings of +the Athenian people, under the influence of which a new school of +statuary was developed. The people, spoiled by luxury, and +craving the pleasures and excitements which the prosperity of the +age of Pericles had opened to them, regarded the severe forms of +the older masters with even less patience than the austere +virtues of the generation which had driven the Persians out of +Greece. The sculptors, giving a reflex of the times in their +productions, instead of the grand and sublime cultivated the +soft, the graceful, and the flowing, and aimed at an expression +of stronger passion and more dramatic action. Jupiter, Juno, and +Minerva, the favorite subjects of the Phidian era, gave place to +such deities as Venus, Bacchus, and Amor; and with the departure +of the older gods departed also the serene and composed majesty +which had marked the representations of them." [<small>Footnote: +C. S. Weyman.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">The first great artist of this school was Scopas, +born at Paros, and who flourished in the first half of the fourth +century B.C. Although famous in architectural sculpture, he +excelled in single figures and groups, "combining strength of +expression with grace." The celebrated group of Ni'o-be and her +children slain by Ar'temis and Apollo, a copy of which is +preserved in the museum of Florence, and the statue of the +victorious Venus in the Louvre at Paris, are attributed to +Scopas. The most esteemed of his works, according to Pliny, was a +group representing Achilles conducted to the Island of Leu'ce by +sea deities. The only other artist of this school that we will +refer to is Praxit'eles, a contemporary of Scopas. He excelled in +representing the female figure, his masterpiece being the +Cnid'ian Aphrodi'te, a naked statue, in Parian marble, modeled +from life, representing Venus just leaving the bath. This statue +was afterward taken to Constantinople, where it was burned during +the reign of Justinian.</p> + +<p class="just">This Athenian school of sculpture was followed, +in the time of Alexander the Great, by what was called the +Si-çy-o'ni-an school, of which Euphra'nor, of Corinth, and +Lysip'pus, of Si'çy-on, were the leading representatives. +The former was a painter as well as sculptor. His statues were +executed in bronze and marble, and were admired for their +dignity. Lysippus worked only in bronze, and was the only +sculptor that Alexander the Great permitted to represent him in +statues. His works were very numerous, including the colossal +statue of Jupiter at Tarentum, sixty feet high, several of +Hercules, and many others. The succeeding and later Greek +sculptors made no attempt to open a new path of design, but they +steadily maintained the reputation of the art. Many works of +great excellence were produced in Rhodes, Alexandria, Ephesus, +and elsewhere in the East. Among these was the famous Colossus, a +statue of the sun, designed and executed by Cha'res of Rhodes, +that reared its huge form one hundred and five feet in height at +the entrance to Rhodes harbor; the Farnese Bull, at Naples, found +in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome, also the work of a Rhodian +artist; and the Apollo Belvedere, in the Vatican.</p> + +<p class="just">Two works of this late age deserve special +mention. One is the statue of the Dying Gladiator, in the +Capitoline Museum at Rome, supposed to have come from Pergamus. +Says LÜBKE, "It undoubtedly represents a Gaul who, in +battle, seeing the foe approach in overwhelming force, has fallen +upon his own sword to escape a shameful slavery. Overcome by the +faintness of approaching death, he has fallen upon his shield; +his right arm with difficulty prevents his sinking to the ground; +his life ebbs rapidly away with the blood streaming from the deep +wound beneath his breast; his broad head droops heavily forward; +the mists of death already cloud his eyes; his brows are knit +with pain; and his lips are parted in a last sigh. There is, +perhaps, no other statue in which the bitter necessity of death +is expressed with such terrible truth--all the more terrible +because the hardy body is so full of strength."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Supported on his shortened arm he +leans,<br> +Prone agonizing; with incumbent fate<br> +Heavy declines his head, yet dark beneath<br> +The suffering feature sullen vengeance lowers,<br> +Shame, indignation, unaccomplished rage;<br> +And still the cheated eye expects his fall.<br> + --THOMSON.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The other statue is that masterpiece of art, the +group of the La-oc'o-on, now in the Vatican at Rome, the work of +the three Rhodian sculptors, Agesan'dros, Polydo'rus, and +Athenodo'rus. It represents a scene, in connection with the fall +of Troy, that Virgil describes in the Second Book of the +<i>Æneid</i>. A Trojan priest, named Laocoon, endeavored to +propitiate Neptune by sacrifice, and to dissuade the Trojans from +admitting within the walls the fatal wooden horse, whereupon the +goddess Minerva, ever favorable to the Greeks, punished him by +sending two enormous serpents from the sea to destroy him and his +two sons. The poet THOMSON well describes the agony and despair +that the statue portrays:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Such passion +here!<br> +Such agonies! such bitterness of pain<br> +Seem so to tremble through the tortured stone<br> +That the touched heart engrosses all the view.<br> +Almost unmarked the best proportions pass<br> +That ever Greece beheld; and, seen alone,<br> +On the rapt eye the imperious passions seize:<br> +The father's double pangs, both for himself<br> +And sons, convulsed; to Heaven his rueful look,<br> +Imploring aid, and half-accusing, cast;<br> +His fell despair with indignation mixed<br> +As the strong-curling monsters from his side<br> +His full-extended fury cannot tear.<br> +More tender touched, with varied art, his sons<br> +All the soft rage of younger passions show:<br> +In a boy's helpless fate one sinks oppressed,<br> +While, yet unpierced, the frighted other tries<br> +His foot to steal out of the horrid twine.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">An American writer thus apostrophizes this grand +representation:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Laocoon! thou great embodiment<br> +Of human life and human history!<br> +Thou record of the past, thou prophecy<br> +Of the sad future! thou majestic voice,<br> +Pealing along the ages from old time!<br> +Thou wail of agonized humanity!<br> +There lives no thought in marble like to thee!<br> +Thou hast no kindred in the Vatican,<br> +But standest separate among the dreams<br> +Of old mythologies-alone-alone!<br> + --J. G. HOLLAND.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>II. PAINTING.</h4> + +<p class="just">In painting, the Asiatic school of Zeuxis and +Parrhasius was also followed by a "Si-çy-o'ni-an +school"--the third and last phase of Greek painting, founded by +Eupom'pus, of Si'çy-on. The characteristics of this school +were great ease, accuracy, and refinement. Among its chief +masters were Pam'philus, Apel'les, Protog'enes, Ni'cias, and +Aristides. Of these the most famous was Apelles, a native of +Col'ophon, in Ionia, who flourished in the time of Alexander the +Great, with whom he was a great favorite. Of his many fine +productions the finest was his painting of Venus rising from the +Sea, and concerning which ANTIPATER, the poet of Sidon, wrote the +following epigram:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Graceful as from her native sea she +springs,<br> + Venus, the labor of Apelles, view:<br> +With pressing hands her humid locks she wrings,<br> + While from her tresses drips the frothy dew:<br> +Ev'n Juno and Minerva now declare,<br> +No longer we contend whose form's most fair.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>APELLES AND PROTOGENES.</h5> + +<p class="just">A very pleasing story is told, by Pliny, of +Apelles and his brother-artist, Protogenes, which DR. ANTHON +relates as follows:</p> + +<p class="just">"Apelles, having come to Rhodes, where Protogenes +was then residing, paid a visit to the artist, but, not finding +him at home, obtained permission from a domestic in waiting to +enter his studio. Finding here a piece of canvas ready on the +frame for the artist's pencil, Apelles drew upon it a line +(according to some, a figure in outline) with wonderful +precision, and then retired without disclosing his name. +Protogenes, on returning home, and discovering what had been +done, exclaimed that Apelles alone could have executed such a +sketch. However, he drew another himself--a line more nearly +perfect than that of Apelles--and left directions with his +domestic that, when the stranger should call again, he should be +shown what had been done by him. Apelles came, accordingly, and, +perceiving that his line had been excelled by Protogenes, drew a +third one, much better than the other two, and cutting both. +Protogenes now confessed himself vanquished; he ran to the +harbor, sought for Apelles, and the two artists became the +warmest friends. The canvas containing this famous trial of skill +became highly prized, and at a later day was placed in the palace +of the Cæsars at Rome. Here it was burned in a +conflagration that destroyed the palace itself."</p> + +<p class="just">Protogenes was noted for his minute and +scrupulous care in the preparation of his works. He carried this +peculiarity to such excess that Apelles was moved to make the +following comparison: "Protogenes equals or surpasses me in all +things but one--the knowing when to remove his hand from a +painting." Protogenes survived Apelles, and became a very eminent +painter. It is stated that when Demetrius besieged Rhodes, and +could have reduced it by setting fire to a quarter of the city +that contained one of the finest productions of Protogenes, he +refused to do so lest he should destroy the masterpiece of art. +It is to this incident that the poet THOMSON undoubtedly refers +when he says,</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">E'en such enchantment then thy +pencil poured,<br> +That cruel-thoughted War the impatient torch<br> +Dashed to the ground; and, rather than destroy<br> +The patriot picture, let the city 'scape.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">From the time of Alexander the art of painting +rapidly deteriorated, and at the period of the Roman conquest it +had scarcely an existence. Grecian art, like Grecian liberty, had +lost its spirit and vitality, and the spoliation of public +buildings and galleries, to adorn the porticos and temples of +Rome, hastened its extinction. We have now reached the close of +the history of ancient Greece. But Hellas still lives in her +thousand hallowed associations of historic interest, and in the +numerous ruins of ancient art and splendor which cover her +soil--recalling a glorious Past, upon which we love to dwell as +upon the memory of departed friends or the scenes of a happy +childhood--"sweet, but mournful to the soul." And although the +ashes of her generals, her poets, her scholars, and her artists +are scattered from their urns, and her statuary and her temples +are mutilated and discolored ruins, ancient Greece lives also in +the song, the art, and the research of modern times. In +contemplating the influence of her genius, the mind is naturally +fixed upon the chief repository of her taste and talent--Athens, +"the eye of Greece"--from which have sprung "all the strength, +the wisdom, the freedom, and the glory of the western world."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Within the surface of Time's +fleeting river<br> + Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay,<br> +Immovably unquiet, and forever<br> + It trembles, but it cannot pass away!<br> +The voices of thy bards and sages thunder<br> + With an earth-awaking blast<br> + Through the caverns of the past;<br> +Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast;<br> + A wingèd sound of joy, and love, and wonder,<br> + Which soars where Expectation never flew,<br> + Rending the veil of space and time asunder!<br> + One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew;<br> +One sun illumines heaven; one spirit vast<br> + With life and love makes chaos ever new,<br> + As Athens doth the world with her delight renew.<br> + --SHELLEY.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Of the splendid literature of Athens LORD +MACAULAY says, "It is a subject in which I love to forget the +accuracy of a judge in the veneration of a worshipper and the +gratitude of a child." To Hellenic thought, as embodied and +exemplified in the great works of Athenian genius, he rightly +ascribes the establishment of an intellectual empire that is +imperishable; and from one of his valuable historical "Essays" we +quote the following graphic delineation of what may be termed</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>The Immortal Influence of Athens.</i></p> + +<p class="just">"If we consider merely the subtlety of +disquisition, the force of imagination, the perfect energy and +elegance of expression, which characterize the great works of +Athenian genius, we must pronounce them intrinsically most +valuable; but what shall we say when we reflect that from hence +have sprung, directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations of +the human intellect? That from hence were the vast +accomplishments and the brilliant fancy of Cicero, the withering +fire of Juvenal, the plastic imagination of Dante, the humor of +Cervantes, the comprehension of Bacon, the wit of Butler, the +supreme and universal excellence of Shakspeare? All the triumphs +of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in every country +and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Whatever a +few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud, in +the cause of liberty and reason, there has been her spirit in the +midst of them, inspiring, encouraging, consoling--the lonely lamp +of Erasmus; by the restless bed of Pascal; in the tribune of +Mirabeau; in the cell of Galileo, and on the scaffold of Sidney. +But who shall estimate her influence on private happiness? Who +shall say how many thousands have been made wiser, happier, and +better, by those pursuits in which she has taught mankind to +engage? to how many the studies which took their rise from her +have been wealth in poverty, liberty in bondage, health in +sickness, society in solitude? Her power is indeed manifested at +the bar, in the senate, on the field of battle, in the schools of +philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever literature +consoles sorrow or assuages pain--wherever it brings gladness to +eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark +house and the long sleep--there is exhibited, in its noblest +form, the immortal influence of Athens.</p> + +<p class="just">"The dervis, in the Arabian tale, did not +hesitate to abandon to his comrade the camels with their load of +jewels and gold, while he retained the casket of that mysterious +juice which enabled him to behold at one glance all the hidden +riches of the universe. Surely it is no exaggeration to say that +no external advantage is to be compared with that purification of +the intellectual eye which gives us to contemplate the infinite +wealth of the mental world; all the hoarded treasures of the +primeval dynasties, and all the shapeless ore of its yet +unexplored mines. This is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom +and her power have been annihilated for more than twenty +centuries; her people have degenerated into timid slaves; +[<small>Footnote: But this is not the character of the Athenians +of the present day.</small>] her language into a barbarous +jargon; her temples have been given up to the successive +depredations of Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen; but her +intellectual empire is imperishable. And, when those who have +rivaled her greatness shall have shared her fate; when +civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in +distant continents; when the sceptre shall have passed away from +England; when, perhaps, travelers from distant regions shall in +vain labor to decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of +our proudest chief--shall hear savage hymns chanted to some +misshapen idol over the ruined dome of our proudest temple, and +shall see a single naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of +the ten thousand masts--the influence and glory of Athens will +still survive, fresh in eternal youth, exempt from mutability and +decay, immortal as the intellectual principle from which they +derived their origin, and over which they exercise their +control."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Genius of Greece! thou livest; +though thy domes<br> +Are fallen; here, in this thy loved abode,<br> +Thine Athens, as I breathe the clear pure air<br> +Which thou hast breathed, climb the dark mountain's side<br> +Which thou hast trod, or in the temple's porch<br> +Pause on the sculptured beauties which thine eye<br> +Has often viewed delighted, I confess<br> +Thy nearer influence; I feel thy power<br> +Exalting every wish to virtuous hope;<br> +I hear thy solemn voice amid the crash<br> +Of fanes hurled prostrate by barbarian hands,<br> +Calling me forth to tread with thee the paths<br> +Of wisdom, or to listen to thy harp<br> +Hymning immortal strains.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Greece! though deserted are thy +ports, and all<br> +Thy pomp and thy magnificence are shrunk<br> +Into a narrow circuit; though thy gates<br> +Pour forth no more thy crested sons to war;<br> +Though thy capacious theatres resound<br> +No longer with the replicated shouts<br> +Of multitudes; although Philosophy<br> +Is silent 'mid thy porticos and groves;<br> +Though Commerce heaves no more the pond'rous load,<br> +Or, thund'ring with her thousand cars, imprints<br> +Her footsteps on thy rocks; though near thy fanes<br> +And marble monuments the peasant's hut<br> +Rears its low roof in bitter mockery<br> +Of faded splendor--yet shalt thou survive,<br> +Nor yield till time yields to eternity.<br> + --HAYGARTH.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> + <br> + <br> +<h2><a name="chapterXVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><b>GREECE SUBSEQUENT TO THE ROMAN +CONQUEST.</b></p> + +<h4>I. GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS.</h4> + +<p class="just">The Romans conducted their administration of +Greece with much wisdom and moderation, treating both its +religion and municipal institutions with great respect. As MR. +FINLAY says, "Under these circumstances prudence and local +interests would everywhere favor submission to Rome; national +vanity alone would whisper incitements to venture on a struggle +for independence." [<small>Footnote: "History of Greece from 146 +B.C. to A.D. 1864;" by George Finlay, LL.D.</small>] But the +latter induced the Greeks to attempt to regain their liberties at +the time of the first Mithridatic war, about 87 B.C. Sylla, the +Roman general, marched into Greece at the head of a powerful +army, and laid siege to Athens, which made a desperate defence. +At last, their resources exhausted, the Athenians sent a +deputation of orators to negotiate with the old Roman; and it is +stated that "their spokesman began to remind him of their past +glory, and was proceeding to touch upon Marathon, when the surly +soldier fiercely replied, 'I was sent here to punish rebels, not +to study history.' And he did punish them. Breaking down the +wall, his soldiers poured into the city, and with drawn swords +they swept through the streets." The severe losses sustained by +Greece in this rebellion were never repaired. The same historian +adds that both parties--Greeks and Romans-- "inflicted severe +injuries on Greece, plundered the country, and destroyed property +most wantonly. The foundations of national prosperity were +undermined; and it henceforward became impossible to save from +the annual consumption of the inhabitants, the sums necessary to +replace the accumulated capital of ages which this short war had +annihilated. In some cases the wealth of the communities became +insufficient to keep the existing public works in repair."</p> + +<p class="just">Cilician pirates soon after commenced their +depredations, and ravaged both the main-land and the islands +until expelled by Pompey the Great. The civil wars that overthrew +the Roman republic next added to the desolation of Greece; but on +the establishment of the Roman empire the country entered upon a +career of peace and comparative prosperity. Says a late compiler, +[<small>Footnote: Edward L. Burlingame, Ph.D.</small>] "Augustus +and his successors generally treated Greece with respect, and +some of them distinguished her by splendid imperial favors. +Trajan greatly improved her condition by his wise and liberal +administration. Hadrian and the Antonines venerated her for her +past achievements, and showed their good-will by the care they +extended to her works of art, and their patronage of the +schools." It was at this time, also, that the Christian religion +was gaining great victories 'over the indifference of the people +to their ancient rites,' and was thus essentially changing the +moral and intellectual condition of Greece. Aside from its power +to fill the void in the <i>heart</i> that philosophy, though +strengthening the intellect, could not reach, Christianity bore +certain relations to the ancient principles of government, that +commended it to the acceptance of the Greeks. These relations, +and their effects, are thus explained by DR. FELTON and a writer +that he quotes: [<small>Footnote: "Lecture on "Greece under the +Romans."</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">"Besides the peculiar consolations afforded by +Christianity to the afflicted of all ranks and classes, there +were popular elements in its early forms which could not fail to +commend it to the regards of common men. It borrowed the +designation <i>ecclesia</i> from the old popular assembly, and +<i>liturgy</i> from the services required by law of the richer +citizens in the popular festivities. It taught the equality of +all men in the sight of God; and this doctrine could not fail to +be affectionately welcomed by a conquered people. The Christian +congregations were organized upon democratic principles, at least +in Greece, and presented a semblance of the free assemblies of +former times; and the daily business of communities was, equally +with their spiritual affairs, transacted under these popular +forms. 'From the moment a people,' says a recent writer, 'in the +state of intellectual civilization in which the Greeks were, +could listen to the preachers, it was certain they would adopt +the religion. They might alter, modify, or corrupt it, but it was +impossible they should reject it. The existence of an assembly in +which the dearest interests of all human beings were expounded +and discussed in the language of truth, and with the most earnest +expressions of persuasion, must have lent an irresistible charm +to the investigation of the new doctrine among a people +possessing the institutions and the feelings of the Greeks. +Sincerity, truth, and a desire to persuade others, will soon +create eloquence where numbers are gathered together. +Christianity revived oratory, and with oratory it awakened many +of the characteristics which had slept for ages. The discussions +of Christianity gave also new vigor to the commercial and +municipal institutions, as they improved the intellectual +qualities of the people.'"</p> + +<p class="just">Among the imperial friends of Greece, whose reign +has been characterized by some writers as "the last fortunate +period in the sad annals of that country," was the Emperor +Julian, known as "The Apostate." He ascended the throne in 361 +A.D.; and, although he sought to overthrow Christianity and +re-establish the pagan religion, "he founded charities, aimed at +the suppression of vice and profligacy, and was distinguished for +his devotion to the happiness of the people." Well educated in +early life, he became an accomplished and cultured sovereign, +"and in many ways manifested his passionate attachment to Greece, +her literature, her institutions, and her arts."</p> + +<br> +<h4>II. CHANGES DOWN TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.</h4> + +<p class="just">On the establishment of the Eastern empire of the +Romans, with Byzantium for its capital, the Greeks began to exert +a greater influence in the affairs of government, and, outside of +the metropolis itself, the Roman spirit of the administration was +gradually destroyed. In the third and fourth centuries Greece +suffered from invasions by the Goths and Huns, and all apparent +progress was stopped; but during the long reign of Justinian, +from 527 to 565, many of its cities were embellished and +fortified, and the pagan schools of Athens were closed. No +farther events of importance affecting the condition of Greece +occurred until the immigrations of the Slavonians and other +barbarous races, in the sixth and eighth centuries. The +population of Greece had dwindled rapidly, and its revenues were +so small that the Eastern emperors cared little to defend it. +Hence these northern migratory hordes rapidly acquired possession +of its soil. Finally this great body of settlers broke up into a +number of tribes and disappeared as a people, leaving behind +them, however, still existing evidences of their influence upon +the country and its inhabitants.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE COURTS OF CRUSADING CHIEFTAINS.</h5> + +<p class="just">The next important changes in the affairs of +Greece were wrought by warriors from the West. In 1081 the +Norman, Robert Guiscard, and in 1146 Roger, King of Sicily, +conquered portions of the country, including Corinth, Thebes, and +Athens; and in the time of the fourth Crusade to the Holy Land +(1203), when Constantinople was captured by Latin princes (1204), +Greece became a prize for some of the most powerful crusading +chieftains, under whose rule the courts of Thessaloni'ca, Athens, +and the Peloponnesus attained to considerable celebrity even +throughout Europe. "But their magnificence," says a writer in the +<i>Edinburgh Review</i>, "was entirely modern. It centered wholly +round their own persons and interests; and although the condition +of the people was in no respects worse, in some respects palpably +better, still they did but minister to the glory of the houses of +Neri or Acciajuoli, or De la Roche or Brienne. The beautiful +structures of Athens and the Acropolis were prized, not as +heirlooms of departed greatness, but as the ornaments of a feudal +court, and the rewards of successful valor."</p> + +<p class="just">The Duchy of Athens was the most interesting and +renowned of these Frankish kingdoms; and in one of his lectures +PRESIDENT FELTON [<small>Footnote: Lecture on "Turkish Conquest +of Constantinople."</small>] points out the traces which this +duchy has left here and there in modern literature. "The fame of +the brilliant court of Athens," he says, "resounded through the +west of Europe, and many a chapter of old romance is filled with +gorgeous pictures of its splendors. One of the heroines of +Boccacio's <i>Decameron</i>, in the course of her adventurous +life, is found at Athens, inspiring the duke by her charms. +Dan'te was a contemporary of Guy II. and Walter de Brienne; and +in his <i>Divina Commedia</i> he applies to Theseus, King of +ancient Athens, the title so familiar to him, borne by the +princely rulers in his own day. Chaucer, too--the bright herald +of English poetry--had often heard of the dukes of Athens; and he +too, like Dante, gives the title to Theseus. Finally, in the age +of Elizabeth, when Italian poetry was much studied by scholars +and courtiers, Shakspeare, in the delightful scenes of the +<i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i>, introduces Theseus, Duke of +Athens, as the conqueror and the lover of Hippol'yta, the +warrior-queen of the Amazons."</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> <i>Theseus</i>. Hippolyta, I +wooed thee with my sword,<br> +And won thy love, doing thee injuries;<br> +But I will wed thee in another key,<br> +With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.<br> + --Act I. Scene I.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>THE TURKISH INVASION.</h5> + +<p class="just">Some of these Latin principalities and dukedoms +existed until they were swept away by the Turks, who, after the +fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire in 1453, by +degrees obtained possession of Greece.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Then, Greece, the tempest rose +that burst on thee,<br> + Land of the bard, the warrior, and the sage!<br> + Oh, where were then thy sons, the great, the free,<br> + Whose deeds are guiding stars from age to age?<br> + Though firm thy battlements of crags and snows,<br> + And bright the memory of thy days of pride,<br> + In mountain might though Corinth's fortress rose,<br> + On, unresisted, rolled th' invading tide!<br> + Oh! vain the rock, the rampart, and the tower,<br> +If Freedom guard them not with Mind's unconquered power.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Where were th' avengers then, +whose viewless might<br> + Preserved inviolate their awful fane,<br> + When through the steep defiles to Delphi's height<br> + In martial splendor poured the Persian's train?<br> + Then did those mighty and mysterious Powers,<br> + Armed with the elements, to vengeance wake,<br> + Call the dread storms to darken round their towers,<br> + Hurl down the rocks, and bid the thunders break;<br> + Till far around, with deep and fearful clang,<br> +Sounds of unearthly war through wild Parnassus rang.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Where was the spirit of the +victor-throng,<br> + Whose tombs are glorious by Scamander's tide,<br> + Whose names are bright in everlasting song,<br> + The lords of war, the praised, the deified?<br> + Where he, the hero of a thousand lays,<br> + Who from the dead at Marathon arose<br> + All armed, and, beaming on th' Athenian's gaze,<br> + A battle-meteor, guided to their foes?<br> + Or they whose forms, to Alaric's awe-struck eye,<br> +[<small>Footnote: GIBBON says: "From Thermopylæ to Sparta +the leader<br> +of the Goths (Alaric) pursued his victorious march without<br> +encountering any mortal antagonist; but one of the advocates +of<br> +expiring paganism has confidently asserted that the walls of<br> +Athens were guarded by the goddess Minerva with her +formidable<br> +ægis, and by the angry phantom of Achilles; and that +the<br> +conqueror was dismayed by the presence of the hostile deities<br> +of Greece." But Gibbon characteristically adds, "The +<i>Christian</i><br> +faith which Alaric had devotedly embraced taught him to +despise<br> +the imaginary deities of Rome and Athens."--Milman's +"Gibbon's<br> +Rome," vol. ii., p. 215.</small>]<br> +Hovering o'er Athens, blazed in airy panoply?</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Ye slept, oh heroes! chief ones +of the earth--<br> + High demi-gods of ancient day--ye slept.<br> + There lived no spark of your ascendant worth,<br> + When o'er your land the victor Moslem swept;<br> + No patriot then the sons of freedom led,<br> + In mountain-pass devotedly to die;<br> + The martyr-spirit of resolve was fled,<br> + And the high soul's unconquered buoyancy;<br> + And by your graves, and on your battle-plains,<br> +Warriors, your children knelt, to wear the stranger's chains.<br> + --MRS. HEMANS.</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>III. CONTESTS BETWEEN THE TURKS AND VENETIANS.</h4> + +<p class="just">Greece was long the scene of severe contests +between the Turks and the Venetians. Athens was first captured by +the Turks in 1456, but they were driven from it in 1467 by the +Venetians, who were in turn expelled from the city by the Turks +in 1470. But Venice, as a French historian--COMTE DE +LABOURDE--has observed, "Alone of the states of Europe could +feel, from a merely material point of view, the force of the blow +struck at Europe and her own commerce by the submission of almost +the whole of Greece to Turkish rule;" and this feeling survived +many centuries. In 1670 the Turks conquered Crete from the +Venetians, and in 1684 the latter retaliated by offensive +operations against the Peloponnesus, which was soon reconquered +by the Venetian admiral Morosini. In 1687 Morosini crowned his +successes by the capture of Athens. The Turkish garrison had +retired to the Acropolis, and the victory is principally of +interest on account of the irreparable injury done to the works +of art on that "rock-shrine of Athens." Although he subsequently +sought to evade all responsibility for the desolation that +ensued, it was Morosini who directed his batteries to hurl their +fatal burdens against the Acropolis, and it was he who afterward +robbed it of many of its treasures. Hitherto the alterations made +for military purposes, and the slight injuries inflicted at +various times, had not marred the general beauty and effect of +its buildings; but when the troops of Venice entered Athens, the +Parthenon and others of that gorgeous assemblage of structures +were in ruins, and the glory of the Athenian Acropolis survived +only in the past. Contrasting its past glory and its present +decay, a writer in a recent <i>Review</i> makes these interesting +observations:</p> + +<p class="just">"No other fortress has embraced so much beauty +and splendor within its walls, and none has witnessed a series of +more startling and momentous changes in the fortunes of its +possessors. Wave after wave of war and conquest has beaten +against it. The city which lies at its feet has fallen beneath +the assaults of the Persian, the Spartan, the Macedonian, the +Roman, the Goth, the Crusader, and the Turk. Through all these +and other vicissitudes the Acropolis passed, changing only in the +character of its occupants, unchanged in its loveliness and +splendor. With a few blemishes and losses, whether from the +decaying taste of later times or the occasional robberies of a +foreign conqueror, but unaffected in its general aspect, it +presented to the eyes of the victorious Ottoman the same front of +unparalleled beauty which it had displayed in the days of +Pericles. To him who looks upon it now, however, the scene is +changed indeed--changed not only in the loss of its treasures of +decorative art (for of many of these it had been robbed before), +but with its loveliest fabrics shattered, many reduced to +hopeless ruin, and not a few utterly obliterated. Less than two +centuries sufficed to bring about all this dilapidation: less +than three months sufficed to complete the ruin. If the Venetian, +by his abortive conquest, inflicted not more injury on the fair +heritage of Athenian art than it had undergone from all preceding +spoliations, he left it, not merely from the havoc of war, but by +wanton subsequent mutilation, in that state which rendered the +recovery of its ancient grace and majesty impossible."</p> + +<p class="just">The Venetians evacuated Athens in 1688, and a few +years subsequently the Peloponnesus was their only possession in +Greece. In 1715 a Turkish army of one hundred thousand men under +Al'i Coumour'gi, the Grand Vizier of Ach'met III., invaded the +Peloponnesus, and first attacked Corinth. Historians tell us that +the garrison, weakened by several unsuccessful attacks, opened +negotiations for a surrender; but, while these were in progress, +the accidental firing of a magazine in the Turkish camp so +enraged the infidels that they at once broke off the +negotiations, stormed and captured the city, and put most of the +garrison, with Signor Minotti, the commander, to the sword. Those +taken prisoners were reserved for execution under the walls of +Nauplia, within sight of the Venetians.</p> + +<p class="just">In BYRON'S <i>Siege of Corinth</i>, founded on +the historical narrative; a poetical license is taken, and the +death of Minotti and the remnant of his followers is attributed +to the explosion of a powder-magazine fired by Minotti himself. +From the fine descriptions which this poem contains we extract +the following verses:</p> + +<br> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>The Siege and Fall of Corinth.</i></p> + +<p>On dim Cithæron's ridge appears<br> +The gleam of twice ten thousand spears;<br> +And downward to the Isthmian plain,<br> +From shore to shore of either main,<br> +The tent is pitched, the crescent shines<br> +Along the Moslem's leaguering lines;<br> +And the dusk Spä'hi's bands advance<br> +Beneath each bearded pä'sha's glance;<br> +And far and wide as eye can reach<br> +The turbaned cohorts throng the beach;<br> +And there the Arab's camel kneels,<br> +And there his steed the Tartar wheels;<br> +The Turcoman has left his herd,<br> +The sabre round his loins to gird;<br> +And there the volleying thunders pour,<br> +Till waves grow smoother to the roar.<br> +The trench is dug, the cannon's breath<br> +Wings the far hissing globe of death;<br> +Fast whirl the fragments from the wall,<br> +Which crumbles with the ponderous ball;<br> +And from that wall the foe replies,<br> +O'er dusty plain and smoky skies,<br> +With fires that answer fast and well.<br> +The summons of the Infidel.</p> + +<p>The walls grew weak; and fast and hot<br> +Against them poured the ceaseless shot,<br> +With unabating fury sent<br> +From battery to battlement;<br> +And thunder-like the pealing din<br> +Rose from each heated culverin;<br> +And here and there some crackling dome<br> +Was fired before the exploding bomb;<br> +And as the fabric sank beneath<br> +The shattering shell's volcanic breath,<br> +In red and wreathing columns flashed<br> +The flame, as loud the ruin crashed,<br> +Or into countless meteors driven,<br> +Its earth-stars melted into heaven--<br> +Whose clouds that day grew doubly dun,<br> +Impervious to the hidden sun,<br> +With volumed smoke that slowly grew<br> +To one wide sky of sulphurous hue.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Having made a breach in the walls, as morning +dawns the Turks form in line, and wait for the word to storm the +intrenchments. Coumourgi addresses them--the command is given, +and with the irresistible force of an avalanche the infidels pour +into Corinth.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Tartar, and Spähi, and +Turcoman,<br> +Strike your tents and throng to the van;<br> +Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain,<br> +That the fugitive may flee in vain<br> +When he breaks from the town; and none escape,<br> +Aged or young, in the Christian shape;<br> +While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass,<br> +Bloodstain the breach through which they pass.<br> +The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein;<br> +Curved is each neck, and flowing each mane;<br> +White is the foam of their champ on the bit:<br> +The spears are uplifted, the matches are lit,<br> +The cannon are pointed, and ready to roar,<br> +And crush the wall they have crumbled before:<br> +The khan and the päshas are all at their post;<br> +The vizier himself at the head of the host.<br> +When the culverin's signal is fired, then on;<br> +Leave not in Corinth a living one--<br> +A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls,<br> +A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls.<br> +God and the prophet-Ala Hu!<br> +Up to the skies with that wild halloo!<br> +"There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale;<br> +And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail?<br> +He who first downs with the red cross may crave<br> +His heart's dearest wish; let him ask it, and have!"<br> +Thus uttered Coumourgi, the dauntless vizier;<br> +The reply was the brandish of sabre and spear,<br> +And the shout of fierce thousands in joyous ire;<br> +Silence--hark to the signal--fire! + +<pre> + * * * * * +</pre> + +As the spring-tides, with heavy plash,<br> +From the cliffs invading, dash<br> +Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless flow,<br> +Till white and thundering down they go,<br> +Like the avalanche's snow,<br> +On the Alpine vales below;<br> +Thus at length, outbreathed and worn,<br> +Corinth's sons were downward borne<br> +By the long and oft renewed<br> +Charge of the Moslem multitude.<br> +In firmness they stood, and in masses they fell,<br> +Heaped, by the host of the infidel,<br> +Hand to hand, and foot to foot:<br> +Nothing there, save death, was mute;<br> +Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry<br> +For quarter, or for victory,<br> +Mingle there with the volleying thunder,<br> +Which makes the distant cities wonder<br> +How the sounding battle goes,<br> +If with them or for their foes. + +<p>From the point of encountering blades to the hilt<br> +Sabres and swords with blood were gilt;<br> +But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun,<br> +And all but the after-carnage done.<br> +Shriller shrieks now mingling come<br> +From within the plundered dome:<br> +Hark to the haste of flying feet,<br> +That splash in the blood of the slippery street;<br> +But here and there, where 'vantage ground<br> +Against the foe may still be found,<br> +Desperate groups of twelve or ten<br> +Make a pause, and turn again--<br> +With banded backs against the wall<br> +Fiercely stand, or fighting fall.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Minotti, though an old man, has an "arm full of +might," and he disputes, foot by foot, the successful and deadly +onslaughts of the Turks. He finally retires, with the remnant of +his gallant band, to the fortified church, where lie the last and +richest spoils sought by the infidels, and in the vaults beneath +which, lined with the dead of ages gone, was also "the +Christians' chiefest magazine." To the latter a train had been +laid, and, seizing a blazing torch, his "last and stern +resource,"</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Darkly, sternly, and all alone,<br> +Minotti stands o'er the altar-stone,</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">and awaits the last attack of his foes. It soon +comes.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">So near they came, the nearest +stretched<br> +To grasp the spoil he almost reached,<br> + When old Minotti's hand<br> +Touched with the torch the train--<br> + 'Tis fired!<br> +Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain,<br> +The turbaned victors, the Christian band,<br> +All that of living or dead remain,<br> +Hurled on high with the shivered fane,<br> + In one wild roar expired!<br> +The shattered town, the walls thrown down,<br> +The waves a moment backward bent--<br> +The hills that shake, although unrent,<br> + As if an earthquake passed--<br> +The thousand shapeless things all driven<br> +In cloud and flame athwart the heaven,<br> + By that tremendous blast--<br> +Proclaimed the desperate conflict o'er<br> +On that too long afflicted shore:<br> +Up to the sky like rockets go<br> +All that mingled there below:<br> +Many a tall and goodly man,<br> +Scorched and shrivelled to a span,<br> +When he fell to earth again<br> +Like a cinder strewed the plain:<br> +Down the ashes shower like rain;<br> +Some fell in the gulf, which received the sprinkles<br> +With a thousand circling wrinkles;<br> +Some fell on the shore, but, far away,<br> +Scattered o'er the isthmus lay. + +<pre> + * * * * * +</pre> + +All the living things that heard<br> +That deadly earth-shock disappeared;<br> +The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled,<br> +And howling left the unburied dead;<br> +The camels from their keepers broke,<br> +The distant steer forsook the yoke--<br> +The nearer steed plunged o'er the plain,<br> +And burst his girth, and tore his rein;<br> +The bull-frog's note, from out the marsh,<br> +Deep-mouthed arose, and doubly harsh<br> +The wolves yelled on the caverned hill,<br> +Where echo rolled in thunder still;<br> +The jackal's troop, in gathered cry,<br> +Bayed from afar complainingly,<br> +With a mixed and mournful sound,<br> +Like crying babe, and beaten hound:<br> +With sudden wing and ruffled breast<br> +The eagle left his rocky nest,<br> +And mounted nearer to the sun,<br> +The clouds beneath him seemed so dun;<br> +Their smoke assailed his startled beak,<br> +And made him higher soar and shriek.<br> + Thus was Corinth lost and won!</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h4>IV. FINAL CONQUEST OF GREECE BY TURKEY.</h4> + +<p class="just">The fall of Corinth opened the way to a +successful advance of the Turkish forces through the +Peloponnesus, and the Venetians were soon compelled to abandon +it. By the peace of Passä'rowitz, in 1718, the whole of +Greece was again surrendered to Turkey, and under her rule the +country, divided into military districts called Pasha'lics, sunk +into a deplorable condition which the progress of time did +nothing to ameliorate. The Greeks, being virtually reduced to +bondage, suffered untold miseries from the rapacity and barbarism +of their masters. Says the historian, SIR EMERSON TENNENT, "So +undefined was the system of extortion, and so uncontrolled the +power of those to whose execution it was intrusted, that the evil +spread over the whole system of administration, and insinuated +itself with a polypous fertility into every relation and +ordinance of society, till there were few actions or occupations +of the Greeks that were not burdened with the scrutiny and +interference of their masters, and none that did not suffer, in a +greater or less degree, from their heartless rapine." For four +centuries and over the Greeks suffered under this despotism, +which stamped out industry and education, and tended to the +extinction of every manly trait in the people, while it also +developed the native vices of the Hellenic character.</p> + +<p class="just">In a poem written in 1786 by the afterward +celebrated British statesman, GEORGE CANNING, the writer, after +paying a handsome tribute to the greatness and glory of the +Greece of olden time, draws the following truthful picture of her +degeneracy in his own day:<br> +</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>The Slavery of Greece.</i></p> + +<p> Oh, how changed thy fame,<br> +And all thy glories fading into shame!<br> +What! that thy bold, thy freedom-breathing land<br> +Should crouch beneath a tyrant's stern command!<br> +That servitude should bind in galling chain<br> +Whom Asia's millions once opposed in vain,<br> +Who could have thought? Who sees without a groan<br> +Thy cities mouldering and thy walls o'erthrown;<br> +That where once towered the stately, solemn fane,<br> +Now moss-grown ruins strew the ravaged plain;<br> +And, unobserved but by the traveller's eye,<br> +Proud, vaulted domes in fretted fragments lie;<br> +And the fallen column, on the dusty ground,<br> +Pale ivy throws its sluggish arms around?</p> + +<p>Thy sons (sad change!) in abject bondage sigh;<br> +Unpitied toil, and unlamented die;<br> +Groan at the labors of the galling oar,<br> +Or the dark caverns of the mine explore.<br> +The glittering tyranny of Othman's sons,<br> +The pomp of horror which surrounds their thrones,<br> +Have awed their servile spirits into fear;<br> +Spurned by the foot, they tremble and revere.<br> +The day of labor, night's sad, sleepless hour,<br> +The inflictive scourge of arbitrary power,<br> +The bloody terror of the pointed steel,<br> +The murderous stake, the agonizing wheel,<br> +And (dreadful choice!) the bowstring or the bowl,<br> +Damps their faint vigor and unmans the soul.<br> +Disastrous fate! Still tears will fill the eye,<br> +Still recollection prompt the mournful sigh,<br> +When to the mind recurs thy former fame,<br> +And all the horrors of thy present shame.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In 1810-'11 the poet BYRON spent considerable +time in Greece, visiting its many scenes of historic interest, +and noting the condition of its people. Here he wrote the second +canto of <i>Childe Harold</i>, in which the following fine +apostrophe and appeal to Greece, still under Moslem rule, are +found:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> Fair Greece! sad relic of +departed worth!<br> + Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!<br> + Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth,<br> + And long accustomed bondage uncreate?<br> + Not such thy sons who whilom did await,<br> + The hopeless warriors of a willing doom,<br> + In bleak Thermopylæ's sepulchral strait--<br> + Oh, who that gallant spirit shall resume,<br> +Leap from Euro'ta's banks, and call thee from the tomb? + +<p> Spirit of Freedom! when on Phy'le's brow<br> + Thou sat'st with Thrasybu'lus and his train,<br> + Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now<br> + Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain?<br> + Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain,<br> + But every carle can lord it o'er thy land;<br> + Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain,<br> + Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand,<br> +From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned.</p> + +<p> In all, save form alone, how changed! and who<br> + That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye,<br> + Who but would deem their bosoms burned anew<br> + With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty!<br> + And many dream withal the hour is nigh<br> + That gives them back their father's heritage:<br> + For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh,<br> + Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage,<br> +Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page.</p> + +<p> Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not<br> + Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?<br> + By their right arms the conquest must be wrought?<br> + Will Gaul or Muscovite redress thee? No!<br> + True, they may lay your proud despoilers low,<br> + But not for you will Freedom's altars flame.<br> + Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe!<br> + Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same;<br> +Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame.</p> + +<pre> + * * * * * +</pre> + + When riseth Lacedæmon's hardihood,<br> + When Thebes Epaminondas rears again,<br> + When Athens' children are with hearts endued,<br> + When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men,<br> + Then may'st thou be restored; but not till then.<br> + A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;<br> + An hour may lay it in the dust: and when<br> + Can man, in shattered splendor renovate,<br> +Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate?</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>FIRST STEPS TO SECURE LIBERTY.</h5> + +<p class="just">Although the oppressive domination of the Turks +was tamely submitted to for so many centuries, the Greeks did not +entirely lose their national spirit, nor their devotion to their +religion and their domestic institutions; and long before Byron +wrote, Greece began preparations to break the Turkish yoke. The +preservation of the national spirit was largely due to the +warlike inhabitants of the mountainous regions of the north, who +maintained their independence against the bloody tyranny of the +Turks, and continually harassed their camps and villages. These +mountaineers were known as <i>Klephts</i>; and though they were +literally robbers, ofttimes plundering the Greeks as well as the +Turks, yet, on the decline of the Armato'li--the Christian local +militia which the Turks attempted to crush out--the Klephts +acquired political and social importance as a permanent class in +the Greek nation; and, as DR. FELTON says, "When the Revolution +broke out, the courage, temperance, and hardihood of these bands +were among the most effective agencies in rescuing Greece from +the blighting tyranny of the Turks." This writer characterizes +the ballads of the Klephts as "full of fire, and redolent of the +mountain life, which had an irresistible charm for young and +adventurous spirits chafing under the domination of the Turks in +the lowlands;" and to him we are indebted for a literal version +of one of these ballads, representing the feelings of a young man +who had resolved to leave his mother's home and betake himself to +the mountains, and "illustrating at once the impatient spirit of +rebellion against the Turks, and the sweet flow of natural poetry +which was ever welling up in the hearts of the people." +[<small>Footnote: This ballad is taken from "a collection +published by Zampelios, a Greek gentleman, and a native of +Leucadia."</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">"Mother, I can no longer be a slave to the Turks; +I cannot--my heart fights against it. I will take my gun and go +and become a Klepht; to dwell on the mountains, among the lofty +ridges; to have the woods for my companions, and my converse with +the beasts; to have the snow for my covering, the rocks for my +bed; with sons of the Klephts to have my daily habitation. I will +go, mother, and do not weep, but give me thy prayer. And we will +pray, my dear mother, that I may slaughter many a Turk. Plant the +rose, and plant the dark carnation, and give them sugar and musk +to drink; and as long, O mother mine, as the flowers blossom and +put forth, thy son is not dead, but is warring with the Turks. +But if a day of sorrow come, a day of woe, and the plants fade +away, and the flowers fall, then I too shall have been slain, and +thou must clothe thyself in black.'</p> + +<p class="just">"Twelve years passed, and five months, while the +roses blossomed and the buds bloomed; and one spring morning, the +first of May, when the birds were singing and heaven was smiling, +at once it thundered and lightened, and grew dark. The carnation +sighed, the rose wept, both withered away together, and the +flowers fell; and with them the hapless mother became a lifeless +heap of earth."</p> + +<p class="just">The last half of the eighteenth century +witnessed, in Greece, the first general desire for liberty. +Secret societies were formed to aid in the emancipation of the +country, and "eminent writers, at home and abroad, appealed to +the glorious recollections of Greece in order to excite a +universal enthusiasm for freedom." Among the latter may be +mentioned CONSTANTINOS RHIGAS, a native of Thessaly, born in +1753, a man of fine accomplishments and an ardent patriot, whose +lyric ballads are said to have "rung through Greece like a +trumpet," and who has been styled "the Tyrtæ'us of modern +Greece." One of his war-songs has been thus translated:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Sons of the Greeks, arise!<br> + The glorious hour's gone forth,<br> +And, worthy of such ties,<br> + Display who gave us birth. + +<pre> + * * * * * +</pre> + +Then manfully despising<br> + The Turkish tyrant's yoke,<br> +Let your country see you rising,<br> + And all her chains are broke.<br> +Brave shades of chiefs and sages,<br> + Behold the coming strife!<br> +Hellenes of past ages,<br> + Oh start again to life!<br> +At the sound of my trumpet, breaking<br> + Your sleep, oh join with me!<br> +And the seven-hilled city [<small>Footnote: +Constantinople</small>] seeking,<br> + Fight, conquer, till we're free. + +<p>Sparta, Sparta, why in slumbers<br> + Lethargic dost thou lie?<br> +Awake, and join thy numbers<br> + With Athens, old ally!<br> +Leonidas recalling,<br> + That chief of ancient song,<br> +Who saved ye once from falling--<br> + The terrible! the strong!<br> +Who made that bold diversion<br> + In old Thermopylæ,<br> +And warring with the Persian<br> + To keep his country free;<br> +With his three hundred waging<br> + The battle, long he stood,<br> +And, like a lion raging,<br> +Expired in seas of blood.<br> + --<i>Trans. by</i> BYRON.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Another poet, POLYZOIS, writes in a similar +vein:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">Friends and countrymen, shall +we<br> +Slaves of Moslems ever be,<br> +Of the old barbaric band,<br> +Tyrants o'er Hellenic land?<br> +Draws the hour of vengeance nigh--<br> +Vengeance! be our battle-cry.</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">It may be stated that Rhigas, having visited +Vienna with the hope of rousing the wealthy Greek residents of +that city to immediate action, was barbarously surrendered to the +Turks by the Austrian government. On the way to execution he +broke from his guards and killed two of them, but was overpowered +and immediately beheaded.</p> + +<br> +<h4>V. THE GREEK REVOLUTION.</h4> + +<p class="just">The various efforts made by the Greeks in behalf +of freedom, or, as more comprehensively stated by a recent +writer, "The constancy with which they clung to the Christian +Church during four centuries of misery and political +annihilation; their immovable faithfulness to their nationality +under intolerable oppression; the intellectual superiority they +never failed to exhibit over their tyrants; the love of humane +letters which they never, in all their sorrows, lost; and the +wise preparation they made for the struggle by means of schools, +and by the circulation of editions of their own ancient authors, +and translations of the most instructive works in modern +literature" --these were the influences which finally impelled +the Greeks to seek their restoration in armed insurrection, that +first broke out in the spring of 1821, and that ushered in the +great Greek Revolution. On the 7th of March Alexander Ypsilanti, +a Greek, who had been a major-general in the Russian army, +proclaimed from Moldavia the independence of Greece, and assured +his countrymen of the aid of Russia in the approaching contest. +But the Russian emperor declined intervention; and the Porte took +the most vigorous measures against the Greeks, calling upon all +Mussulmen to arm against the rebels for the protection of +Islamism. The wildest fanaticism raged in Constantinople, where +thousands of resident Greeks were remorselessly murdered; and in +Moldavia the bloody struggle was terminated by the annihilation +of the patriot army, and the flight of Ypsilanti to Trieste, +where the Austrian government seized and imprisoned him.</p> + +<p class="just">In southern Greece, however, no cruelties could +quench the fire of liberty; and sixteen days after the +proclamation of Ypsilanti the revolution of the Morea began at +Suda, a large village in the northern part of Acha'ia, and spread +over Achaia and the islands of the Æge'an. The ancient +names were revived; and on the 6th of April the Messenian senate, +assembled at Kalamä'ta, proclaimed that Greece had shaken +off the Turkish yoke to preserve the Christian faith and restore +the ancient character of the country. A formal address was made +by that body to the people of the United States, and was +forwarded to this country. It declared that, "having deliberately +resolved to live or die for freedom, the Greeks were drawn by an +irresistible impulse to the people of the United States." In that +early stage of the struggle, however, the address failed to +excite that sympathy which, as we shall see farther on, the +progress of events and a better understanding of the situation +finally awakened.</p> + +<p class="just">During the summer months the Turks committed +great depredations among the Greek towns on the coast of Asia +Minor; the inhabitants of the Island of Candia, who had taken no +part in the insurrection, were disarmed, and their archbishop and +other prelates were murdered. The most barbarous atrocities were +also committed at Rhodes and other islands of the Grecian +Archipelago, where the villages were burned and the country +desolated. But in August the Greeks captured the strong Turkish +fortresses of Monembasi'a and Navarï'no, and in October that +of Tripolit'za, and took a terrible revenge upon their enemies. +In Tripolitza alone eight thousand Turks were put to death. The +excesses of the Turks showed to the Greeks that their struggle +was one of life and death; and it is not surprising, therefore, +that they often retaliated when the power was in their hands. In +September of the same year the Greek general Ulysses defeated a +large Turkish army near the Pass of Thermopylæ; but, on the +other hand, the peninsula of Cassandra, the ancient Pelle'ne, was +taken by the Turks, and over three thousand Greeks were put to +the sword. The Athenian Acropolis was seized and garrisoned by +the Turks, and the people of Athens, as in olden time, fled to +Sal'amis for safety; but in general, throughout all southern +Greece, the close of the year saw the Turks driven from the +country districts and shut up in the principal cities.</p> + +<br> +<h5>A PROPHETIC VISION OF THE STRUGGLE.</h5> + +<p class="just">When the revolution of the Greeks broke out the +English poet SHELLEY was residing in Italy. It was during the +first year of the war that Shelley, filled with enthusiasm for +the Greek cause, wrote, from the scanty materials that were then +accessible, his beautiful dramatic poem of <i>Hellas</i>; and +although he could at that time narrate but few events of the +struggle, yet his prophecies of the final result came true in +their general import. Forming his poem on the basis of the +<i>Persians</i> of Æschylus, the scene opens with a chorus +of Greek captive women, who thus sing of the course of Freedom, +from the earliest ages until the light of her glory returns to +rest upon and renovate their benighted land:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">In the great morning of the +world<br> +The Spirit of God with might unfurled<br> +The flag of Freedom over Chaos,<br> + And all its banded anarchs fled,<br> +Like vultures frightened from Ima'us,<br> +[<small>Footnote: A Scythian mountain-range.</small>]<br> + Before an earthquake's tread, + +<p>So from Time's tempestuous dawn<br> + Freedom's splendor burst and shone:<br> +Thermopylæ and Marathon<br> +Caught, like mountains beacon-lighted,<br> + The springing fire, The winged glory<br> +On Philippi half alighted<br> +[<small>Footnote: The republican Romans, under Brutus and +Cassius,<br> +were defeated here by Octavius and Mark Antony, 42 +B.C.</small>]<br> + Like an eagle on a promontory.</p> + +<p>Its unwearied wings could fan<br> +The quenchless ashes of Milan.<br> +[<small>Footnote: <i>Milan</i> was the center of the resistance +of the<br> +Lombard league against the Austrian tyrant Frederic +Barbarossa.<br> +The latter, in 1162, burned the city to the ground; but +liberty<br> +lived in its ashes, and it rose, like an exhalation, from its<br> +ruins.</small>]<br> +From age to age, from man to man<br> + It lived; and lit, from land to land,<br> + Florence, Albion, Switzerland.<br> +[<small>Footnote: <i>Florence</i> freed itself from the power of +the<br> +Ghibelline nobles, and became a free republic in 1250.<br> +<i>Albion</i>--England: Magna Charta wrested from King John:<br> +the Commonwealth. <i>Switzerland</i>: the great victory of<br> +Mogarten, in 1315, led to the compact of the three cantons,<br> +thus forming the nucleus of the Swiss Confederation.</small>]</p> + +<p>Then night fell; and, as from night,<br> +Re-assuring fiery flight<br> + From the West swift Freedom came,<br> +[<small>Footnote: The American Revolution.</small>]<br> + Against the course of heaven and doom,<br> +A second sun, arrayed in flame,<br> + To burn, to kindle, to illume.<br> +From far Atlantis its young beams<br> +[<small>Footnote: The fabled Atlantis of Plato; here used for +America.</small>]<br> +Chased the shadows and the dreams.</p> + +<p>France, with all her sanguine streams,<br> +Hid, but quenched it not; again,<br> +[<small>Footnote: Referring to the French +Revolution.</small>]<br> +Through clouds, its shafts of glory rain<br> +From utmost Germany to Spain.<br> +[<small>Footnote: Referring to the revolutions that broke out +about<br> +the year 1820.</small>]<br> +As an eagle, fed with morning,<br> +Scorns the embattled tempest's warning,<br> +When she seeks her aerie hanging<br> + In the mountain cedar's hair,<br> +And her brood expect the clanging<br> + Of her wings through the wild air,<br> +Sick with famine; Freedom, so,<br> +To what of Greece remaineth, now<br> +Returns; her hoary ruins glow<br> +Like orient mountains lost in day;<br> + Beneath the safety of her wings<br> +Her renovated nurslings play,<br> + And in the naked lightnings<br> +Of truth they purge their dazzled eyes.<br> +Let Freedom leave, where'er she flies,<br> +A desert, or a paradise;<br> + Let the beautiful and the brave<br> + Share her glory or a grave.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In the farther prosecution of his narrative, the +poet represents the Turkish Sultan, Mahmoud, as being strongly +moved by dreams of the threatened overthrow of his power; and he +accordingly sends for Ahasuerus, an aged Jew, to interpret them. +In the mean time the chorus of women sings the final triumph of +the Cross over the crescent, and the fleeing away of the dark +"powers of earth and air" before the advancing light of the "Star +of Bethlehem:"</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">A power from the unknown God,<br> + A Promethean conqueror came;<br> +Like a triumphal path he trod<br> + The thorns of death and shame.<br> + A mortal shape to him<br> + Was like the vapor dim<br> +Which the orient planet animates with light;<br> + Hell, sin, and slavery came,<br> + Like bloodhounds mild and tame,<br> +Nor preyed until their lord had taken flight.<br> + The moon of Ma'homet<br> + Arose, and it shall set;<br> +While, blazoned as on heaven's immortal noon,<br> + The Cross leads generations on. + +<p>Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep,<br> + From one whose dreams are paradise,<br> +Fly, when the fond wretch wakes to weep,<br> + And day peers forth with her black eyes;<br> + So fleet, so faint, so fair,<br> + The powers of earth and air<br> +Fled from the rising Star of Bethlehem.<br> + Apollo, Pan, and Love,<br> + And even Olympian Jove<br> +Grew weak, for killing Truth had glared on them.<br> + Our hills, and seas, and streams,<br> + Dispeopled of their dreams--<br> +Their waters turned to blood, their dew to tears--<br> + Wailed for the golden years.</p> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">In the language of Hassan, an attendant of +Mahmoud, the poet then summarizes the events attending the +opening of the struggle, giving a picture of the course of +European politics--Egypt sending her armies and fleets to aid the +Sultan against the rebel world; England, Queen of Ocean, upon her +island throne, holding herself aloof from the contest; Russia, +indifferent whether Greece or Turkey conquers, but watching to +stoop upon the victor; and Austria, while hating freedom, yet +fearing the success of freedom's enemies. The poet could not +foresee that change in English politics which subsequently +permitted England, aided by France and Russia, to interfere in +behalf of Greece. Hassan says:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"The anarchies of Africa +unleash<br> +Their tempest-winged cities of the sea,<br> +To speak in thunder to the rebel world.<br> +Like sulphurous clouds, half shattered by the storm,<br> +They sweep the pale Ægean, while the Queen<br> +Of Ocean, bound upon her island throne,<br> +Far in the West, sits mourning that her sons,<br> +Who frown on Freedom, spare a smile for thee:<br> +Russia still hovers, as an eagle might<br> +Within a cloud, near which a kite and crane<br> +Hang tangled in inextricable fight,<br> +To stoop upon the victor; for she fears<br> +The name of Freedom, even as she hates thine;<br> +But recreant Austria loves thee as the grave<br> +Loves pestilence; and her slow dogs of war,<br> +Fleshed with the chase, come up from Italy,<br> +And howl upon their limits; for they see<br> +The panther Freedom fled to her old cover<br> +Amid seas and mountains, and a mightier brood<br> +Crouch around."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Although Hassan recounts the numbers of the +Sultan's armies, and the strength of his forts and arsenals, yet +the desponding Mahmoud, watching the declining moon, thus +symbolizes it as the wan emblem of his fading power:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Look, Hassan, on yon crescent +moon, emblazoned<br> +Upon that shattered flag of fiery cloud<br> +Which leads the rear of the departing day,<br> +Wan emblem of an empire fading now!<br> +See how it trembles in the blood-red air,<br> +And, like a mighty lamp whose oil is spent,<br> +Shrinks on the horizon's edge--while, from above,<br> +One star, with insolent and victorious light<br> +Hovers above its fall, and with keen beams,<br> +Like arrows through a fainting antelope,<br> +Strikes its weak form to death."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">As messenger after messenger approaches, and +informs the Sultan of the revolutionary risings in different +parts of his empire, he refuses to hear more, and takes refuge in +that fatalistic philosophy which is an unfailing resource of the +followers of the Prophet in all their reverses:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> "I'll hear no more! +too long<br> +We gaze on danger through the mist of fear,<br> +And multiply upon our shattered hopes<br> +The images of ruin. Come what will!<br> +To-morrow and to-morrow are as lamps<br> +Set in our path to light us to the edge,<br> +Through rough and smooth; nor can we suffer aught<br> +Which He inflicts not, in whose hands we are."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">When the Jew, Ahasuerus, at length arrives, he +speaks in oracular terms, and calls up visions which increase the +Sultan's fears; and when the latter hears shouts of transient +victory over the Greeks, he regards it but as the expiring gleam +which serves to make the coming darkness the more terrible. He +thus soliloquizes:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"Weak lightning before darkness! +poor faint smile<br> +Of dying Islam! Voice which art the response<br> +Of hollow weakness! Do I wake, and live,<br> +Were there such things? or may the unquiet brain,<br> +Vexed by the wise mad talk of the old Jew,<br> +Have shaped itself these shadows of its fear?<br> +It matters not! for naught we see, or dream,<br> +Possess or lose, or grasp at, can be worth<br> +More than it gives or teaches. Come what may,<br> +The future must become the past, and I<br> +As they were, to whom once the present hour,<br> +This gloomy crag of time to which I cling,<br> +Seemed an Elysian isle of peace and joy<br> +Never to be attained."</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">Although the poet predicts series of disasters +and periods of gloom for struggling Greece, yet, at the close of +the poem, a brighter age than any she has known is represented as +gleaming upon her "through the sunset of hope."</p> + +<p class="just">The year 1822 opened with the assembling of the +first Greek congress at Epidau'rus, the proclaiming of a +provisional constitution on the 13th of January, and the issuing, +on the 27th, of a declaration that announced the union of all +Greece, with an independent federative government under the +presidency of Alexander Mavrocordä'to. But the Greeks, +unaccustomed to exercise the rights of freemen, were unable at +once to establish a wise and firm government: they often +quarreled among themselves; and those who had exercised an +independent authority under the government of the Turks were with +difficulty induced to submit to the control of the central +government. The few men of intelligence and liberal views among +them had a difficult task to perform; but the wretchedly +undisciplined state of the Turkish armies aided its successful +accomplishment. The principal military events of the year were +the terrible massacre of the inhabitants of the Island of Scio by +the Turks in April; the defeat of the latter in the Morea, where +more than twenty thousand of them were slain; the successes of +the Greek fire-ships, by which many Turkish vessels were +destroyed; and the surrender to the Greeks of Nap'oli di +Roma'nia, the ancient Nauplia, the port of Argos. By the +destruction of the Island of Scio a paradise was changed into a +scene of desolation, and more than forty thousand persons were +killed or sold into slavery. Soon after, one hundred and fifty +villages in southern Macedonia experienced the fate of Scio; and +the pasha of Saloni'ca boasted that he had destroyed, in one day, +fifteen hundred women and children.</p> + +<p class="just">Goaded to desperation, rather than disheartened +by their reverses and the remorseless cruelties of the Turks, the +Greeks struggled bravely on, and during the year 1823 the results +of the contest were generally in their favor. They often proved +themselves worthy sons of those who fell</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em">"In bleak Thermopylæ's +strait,"</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">or on the plains of Marathon. Their patriotic +determination to be free, or die in the attempt, is happily +reflected in the following lines by the poet CAMPBELL, whose +heart beat in sympathy with their efforts for liberty.<br> +</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Song of the Greeks.</i></p> + +<p>Again to the battle, Achaians!<br> +Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance!<br> +Our land--the first garden of Liberty's tree--<br> +It hath been, and shall yet be, the land of the free;<br> +For the Cross of our faith is replanted,<br> +The pale, dying crescent is daunted,<br> +And we march that the footprints of Mahomet's slaves<br> +May be washed out in blood from our forefathers' graves.<br> +Their spirits are hovering o'er us,<br> +And the sword shall to glory restore us.</p> + +<p>Ah! what though no succor advances,<br> +Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances<br> +Are stretched in our aid? Be the combat our own!<br> +And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone!<br> +For we've sworn by our country's assaulters,<br> +By the virgins they've dragged from our altars,<br> +By our massacred patriots, our children in chains,<br> +By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins,<br> +That, living, we shall be victorious,<br> +Or that, dying, our deaths shall be glorious!</p> + +<p>A breath of submission we breathe not:<br> +The sword that we've drawn we will sheathe not;<br> +Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid,<br> +And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade.<br> +Earth may hide, waves ingulf, fire consume us;<br> +But they shall not to slavery doom us.<br> +If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves:<br> +But we've smote them already with fire on the waves,<br> +And new triumphs on land are before us--<br> +To the charge!--Heaven's banner is o'er us.</p> + +<p>This day shall ye blush for its story,<br> +Or brighten your lives with its glory.<br> +Our women--oh say, shall they shriek in despair,<br> +Or embrace us from conquest, with wreaths in their hair?<br> +Accursed may his memory blacken,<br> +If a coward there be who would slacken<br> +Till we've trampled the turban, and shown ourselves worth<br> +Being sprung from, and named for, the godlike of earth.<br> +Strike home! and the world shall revere us<br> +As heroes descended from heroes.</p> + +<p>Old Greece lightens up with emotion!<br> +Her inlands, her isles of the ocean,<br> +Fanes rebuilt, and fair towns, shall with jubilee ring,<br> +And the Nine shall new hallow their Helicon's spring.<br> +Our hearths shall be kindled in gladness,<br> +That were cold and extinguished in sadness;<br> +While our maidens shall dance, with their white waving arms,<br> +Singing joy to the brave that delivered their charms,<br> +When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens<br> +Shall have crimsoned the beaks of our ravens!</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + <br> +<h5>AMERICAN SYMPATHY WITH GREECE.</h5> + +<p class="just">The progress of events in 1822 and 1823 made +friends for the Greeks wherever free principles were cherished; +and from England and America large contributions of money, +clothing, and provisions, were forwarded to relieve the +sufferings inflicted by the wanton cruelties of the Turks. It was +the United States, however, as the first American Minister to +Greece, MR. TUCKERMAN, says, that first responded, "in the words +of President Monroe, Webster, Clay, Everett, Dwight, and hosts of +other lights," to the appeal of the Greek senate at +Kalamäta, made in 1821. When Congress assembled in December, +1823, President Monroe made the revolution in Greece the subject +of a paragraph in his annual message, in which he expressed the +hope of success to the Greeks and disaster to the Turks; and Mr. +Webster subsequently introduced a resolution in the House of +Representatives providing for the appointment of an agent or +commissioner to Greece. These were the first official expressions +favorable to the struggling country uttered by any government; +and in speaking to his resolution in January, 1824, Mr. Webster +began his remarks as follows:</p> + +<p class="just">"An occasion which calls the attention to a spot +so distinguished, so connected with interesting recollections, as +Greece, may naturally create something of warmth and enthusiasm. +In a grave political discussion, however, it is necessary that +those feelings should be chastened. I shall endeavor properly to +repress them, although it is impossible that they should be +altogether extinguished. We must, indeed, fly beyond the +civilized world; we must pass the dominion of law and the +boundaries of knowledge; we must, more especially, withdraw +ourselves from this place, and the scenes and objects which here +surround us, if we would separate ourselves entirely from the +influence of all those memorials of herself which ancient Greece +has transmitted for the admiration and the benefit of mankind. +This free form of government, this popular assembly--the common +council for the common good--where have we contemplated its +earliest models? This practice of free debate and public +discussion, the contest of mind with mind, and that popular +eloquence which, if it were now here, on a subject like this, +would move the stones of the Capitol--whose was the language in +which all these were first exhibited? Even the edifice in which +we assemble, these proportioned columns, this ornamented +architecture, all remind us that Greece has existed, and that we, +like the rest of mankind, are greatly her debtors.</p> + +<p class="just">"But I have not introduced this motion in the +vain hope of discharging anything of this accumulated debt of +centuries. I have not acted upon the expectation that we who have +inherited this obligation from our ancestors should now attempt +to pay it to those who may seem to have inherited from their +ancestors a right to receive payment. My object is nearer and +more immediate. I wish to take occasion of the struggle of an +interesting and gallant people in the cause of liberty and +Christianity, to draw the attention of the House to the +circumstances which have accompanied that struggle, and to the +principles which appear to have governed the conduct of the great +states of Europe in regard to it, and to the effects and +consequences of these principles upon the independence of +nations, and especially upon the institutions of free +governments. What I have to say of Greece, therefore, concerns +the modern, not the ancient--the living, and not the dead. It +regards her, not as she exists in history, triumphant over time, +and tyranny, and ignorance, but as she now is, contending against +fearful odds for being, and for the common privileges of human +nature."</p> + +<p class="just">In an argument of some length Mr. Webster +forcibly condemns the then existing policy of the European +Powers, who, holding that all changes in legislation and +administration "ought to proceed from kings alone," were +therefore "wholly inexorable to the sufferings of the Greeks, and +entirely hostile to their success." He demands that the protest +of this government shall be made against this policy, both as it +is laid down in principle and as it is applied in practice; and +he closes his address with the following references to the +determination of the Greeks and the sympathy their struggle +should receive:</p> + +<p class="just">"Constantinople and the northern provinces have +sent forth thousands of troops; they have been defeated. Tripoli, +and Algiers, and Egypt have contributed their marine contingents; +they have not kept the ocean. Hordes of Tartars have crossed the +Bosphorus; they have died where the Persians died. The powerful +monarchies in the neighborhood have denounced the Greek cause, +and admonished the Greeks to abandon it and submit to their fate. +They have answered that, although two hundred thousand of their +countrymen have offered up their lives, there yet remain lives to +offer; and that it is the determination of <i>all</i>--'yes, of +ALL'--to persevere until they shall have established their +liberty, or until the power of their oppressors shall have +relieved them from the burden of existence. It may now be asked, +perhaps, whether the expression of our own sympathy, and that of +the country, may do them good? I hope it may. It may give them +courage and spirit; it may assure them of public regard, teach +them that they are not wholly forgotten by the civilized world, +and inspire them with constancy in the pursuit of their great +end. At any rate, it appears to me that the measure which I have +proposed is due to our own character, and called for by our own +duty. When we have discharged that duty we may leave the rest to +the disposition of Providence. I am not of those who would, in +the hour of utmost peril, withhold such encouragement as might be +properly and lawfully given, and, when the crisis should be past, +overwhelm the rescued sufferer with kindness and caresses. The +Greeks address the civilized world with a pathos not easy to be +resisted. They invoke our favor by more moving considerations +than can well belong to the condition of any other people. They +stretch out their arms to the Christian communities of the earth, +beseeching them, by a generous recollection of their ancestors, +by the consideration of their desolated and ruined cities and +villages, by their wives and children sold into an accursed +slavery, by their blood, which they seem willing to pour out like +water, by the common faith and in the name which unites all +Christians, that they would extend to them at least some token of +compassionate regard."</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE SORTIE AT MISSOLONGHI.</h5> + +<p class="just">One of the noted exploits of the Greeks in 1823, +and one that has been commemorated in many ways, occurred at +Missolon'ghi, the capital of Acarnania and Ætolia, while +that town was besieged by a Turkish army; and the name of Marco +Boz-zar'is, the commander of the garrison, has ever since been +classed with that of Leonidas and other heroes of ancient Greece +who fell in the moment of victory. In his <i>Crescent and the +Cross; or, Romance and Realities of Eastern Travel</i>, the +English author WARBURTON thus tells the story of the well-known +deed that saved Missolonghi to the Greeks and hastened the +delivery of their country:</p> + +<p class="just">"When Missolonghi was beleaguered by the Turkish +forces, Marco Bozzaris commanded a garrison of about twelve +hundred men, who had barely fortifications enough to form +breastworks. Intelligence reached him that an Egyptian army was +about to form a junction with the formidable besieging host. A +parade was ordered of the garrison, 'faint and few, but fearless +still.' Bozzaris told them of the destruction that impended over +Missolonghi, proposed a sortie, and announced that it should +consist only of volunteers. Volunteers! The whole garrison +stepped forward as one man, and demanded the post of honor and of +death. 'I will only take the Thermopylæ number,' said their +leader; and he selected the three hundred from his true and +trusty Suliotes. In the dead of night this devoted band marched +out in six divisions, which were placed, in profound silence, +around the Turkish camp. Their orders were simply, 'When you hear +my bugle blow seek me in the pasha's tent.'</p> + +<p class="just">"Marco Bozzaris, disguised as an Albanian bearing +dispatches to the pasha from the Egyptian army, passed +unquestioned through the Turkish camp, and was only arrested by +the sentinels around the pasha's tent, who informed him that he +must wait till morning. Then wildly through the stillness of the +night that bugle blew; faithfully it was echoed from without; and +the war-cry of the avenging Greek broke upon the Moslem's ear. +From every side that terrible storm seemed to break at once; +shrieks of agony and terror swelled the tumult. The Turks fled in +all directions, and the Grecian leader was soon surrounded by his +comrades. Struck to the ground by a musket-ball, he had himself +raised on the shoulders of two Greeks; and, thus supported, he +pressed on the flying enemy. Another bullet pierced his brain in +the hour of his triumph, and he was borne dead from the field of +his glory." But Missolonghi was saved, and under Constantine and +Noto Bozzaris, brothers of the dead hero, it withstood repeated +assaults of the Turks, until, in 1826, after having been besieged +for over a year by a very large naval and military force, it was +finally taken. Those left of the small garrison who were able to +fight, placing the women in the center, sallied forth at midnight +of the 22d of April, and cut their way through the Turkish camp; +while those who were too feeble to attempt an escape assembled in +a large mill that was used as a powder-magazine, and blew +themselves and many of the incoming Turks to atoms.</p> + +<p class="just">Some fifteen years after the death of Marco +Bozzaris, the American traveller and author, Mr. John L. +Stephens, visited Greece, and, at Missolonghi, was presented to +Constantine Bozzaris and the widow and children of his deceased +brother. In the account which the author gives of this interview, +in his <i>Incidents of Travel in Greece</i>, he describes +Constantine Bozzaris, then a colonel in the service of King Otho, +as a man of about fifty years of age, of middle height and spare +build, who, immediately after the formal introduction, expressed +his gratitude as a Greek for the services rendered his country by +America; and added, "with sparkling eye and flushed cheek, that +when the Greek revolutionary flag sailed into the port of Napoli +di Romania, among hundreds of vessels of all nations, an American +captain was the first to recognize and salute it." Mr. Stephens +thus describes the widow of the Greek hero: "She was under forty, +tall and stately in person, and habited in deep black. She looked +the widow of a hero; as one worthy of those Grecian mothers who +gave their hair for bow-strings and their girdles for +sword-belts, and, while their heartstrings were cracking, sent +their husbands to fight and perish for their country. Perhaps it +was she who led Marco Bozzaris from the wild guerilla warfare in +which he had passed his early life, and fired him with the high +and holy ambition of freeing his country. I am certain that no +man could look her in the face without finding his wavering +purposes fixed, and without treading more firmly in the path of +high and honorable ambition."</p> + +<p class="just">Mr. Stephens closes the account of his interview +with the widow and family as follows: "At parting I told them +that the name of Marco Bozzaris was as familiar in America as +that of a hero of our own Revolution, and that it had been +hallowed by the inspiration of an American poet. I added that, if +it would not be unacceptable, on my return to my native country I +would send the tribute referred to, as an evidence of the feeling +existing in America toward the memory of Marco Bozzaris." The +promised tribute was the following Beautiful and stirring poem by +FITZ-GREENE HALLECK:</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>Marco Bozzaris.</i></p> + +<p>At midnight, in his guarded tent,<br> + The Turk was dreaming of the hour<br> +When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,<br> + Should tremble at his power:<br> +In dreams, through camp and court, he bore<br> +The trophies of a conqueror;<br> + In dreams his song of triumph heard;<br> +Then wore his monarch's signet-ring;<br> +Then pressed that monarch's throne--a king;<br> +As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,<br> + As Eden's garden-bird.</p> + +<p>At midnight, in the forest shades,<br> + Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,<br> +True as the steel of their tried blades,<br> + Heroes in heart and hand.<br> +There had the Persian's thousands stood,<br> +There had the glad earth drunk their blood<br> + On old Platæa's day;<br> +And now there breathed that haunted air<br> +The sons of sires who conquered there,<br> +With arm to strike, and soul to dare,<br> + As quick, as far as they.</p> + +<p>An hour passed on--the Turk awoke;<br> + That bright dream was his last;<br> +He woke to hear his sentries shriek<br> +"To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!"<br> +He woke, to die 'mid flame and smoke,<br> +And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke,<br> + And death-shots falling thick and fast<br> +As lightnings from the mountain-cloud,<br> +And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,<br> + Bozzaris cheer his band:<br> +"Strike! till the last armed foe expires;<br> +Strike! for your altars and your fires;<br> +Strike! for the green graves of your sires,<br> + God, and your native land!"</p> + +<p>They fought like brave men, long and well;<br> + They piled that ground with Moslem slain;<br> +They conquered; but Bozzaris fell,<br> + Bleeding at every vein.<br> +His few surviving comrades saw<br> +His smile when rang their proud hurrah,<br> + And the red field was won,<br> +Then saw in death his eyelids close,<br> +Calmly as to a night's repose--<br> + Like flowers at set of sun.</p> + +<p>Come to the bridal chamber, Death!<br> + Come to the mother, when she feels,<br> +For the first time, her first-born's breath;<br> + Come when the blessed seals<br> +That close the pestilence are broke,<br> +And crowded cities wail its stroke;<br> +Come in consumption's ghastly form,<br> +The earthquake shock, the ocean storm;<br> +Come when the heart beats high and warm<br> + With banquet song, and dance, and wine;<br> +And thou art terrible: the tear,<br> +The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,<br> +And all we know, or dream, or fear<br> + Of agony, are thine.</p> + +<p>But to the hero, when his sword<br> + Has won the battle for the free,<br> +Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word,<br> +And in its hollow tones are heard<br> + Thanks of millions yet to be.<br> +Come, when his task of fame is wrought;<br> +Come, with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought;<br> + Come, in her crowning hour--and then<br> +Thy sunken eye's unearthly light<br> +To him is welcome as the sight<br> + Of sky and stars to prisoned men;<br> +Thy grasp is welcome as the hand<br> +Of brother in a foreign land;<br> +Thy summons welcome as the cry<br> +That told the Indian isles were nigh<br> + To the world-seeking Genoese,<br> +When the land-wind, from woods of palm,<br> +And orange-groves, and fields of balm,<br> + Blew o'er the Haytien seas.</p> + +<p>Bozzaris! with the storied brave<br> + Greece nurtured in her glory's time,<br> +Rest thee--there is no prouder grave,<br> + Even in her own proud clime.<br> +She wore no funeral weeds for thee,<br> + Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume,<br> +Like torn branch from death's leafless tree,<br> +In sorrow's pomp and pageantry,<br> + The heartless luxury of the tomb;<br> +But she remembers thee as one<br> +Long loved, and for a season gone:<br> +For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed,<br> +Her marble wrought, her music breathed;<br> +For thee she rings the birthday bells;<br> +Of thee her babes' first lisping tells;<br> +For thine her evening prayer is said<br> +At palace couch and cottage bed;<br> +Her soldier, closing with the foe,<br> +Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow;<br> +His plighted maiden, when she fears<br> +For him, the joy of her young years,<br> +Thinks of thy fate and checks her tears.<br> + And she, the mother of thy boys,<br> +Though in her eye and faded cheek<br> +Is read the grief she will not speak,<br> + The memory of her buried joys,<br> +And even she who gave thee birth,<br> +Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth,<br> +Talk of thy doom without a sigh:<br> +For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's--<br> +One of the few, the immortal names<br> + That were not born to die!</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">About the time of the exploit of Bozzaris, Lord +Byron arrived in Greece, to take an active part in aid of Greek +independence, and proceeded to Missolonghi in January, 1824. No +warmer friend of the Greeks than Byron ever lived; but while he +sympathized with, and was anxious to aid in every way possible, +those who, in his own words, "suffered all the moral and physical +ills that could afflict humanity," it was evidently his honest +belief that the only salvation for Greece lay in her becoming a +British dependency. In his notes to <i>Childe Harold</i>, penned +before the revolution broke out, but while all Greece was ablaze +with the desire for liberty, he wrote as follows: "The Greeks +will never be independent; they will never be sovereigns, as +heretofore, and God forbid they ever should! but they may be +subjects without being slaves. Our colonies are not independent, +but they are free and industrious, and such may Greece be +hereafter." These words show that he considered Greece incapable +of self-government, should she ever regain her liberty; and he +therefore deprecated a return to her ancient sovereignty. That +this was his view, and that he subsequently designed to give it +effect in his own person, we are assured from the well-founded +belief, derived from his own declarations, that when he joined +the Greek cause he had a mind to place himself at its head, +hoping and perhaps believing that he might become King of Hellas, +under the protection of Great Britain. But whatever his plans may +have been, they were cut short by his death, at Missolonghi, on +the 19th of April following his arrival there.</p> + +<br> +<h5>INTERFERENCE OF THE GREAT POWERS.</h5> + +<p class="just">In the campaign of 1824, while the Greeks lost +Candia and the strongly fortified rocky isle of Ip'sara, a +Turkish fleet was repulsed off Samos, and a large Egyptian fleet, +sent to attack the Morea, was frustrated in all its designs. The +campaign of 1825, however, was opened by the landing, in the +Morea, of a large Egyptian army, under Ibrahim Päsha, son of +the Viceroy of Egypt. Navarï'no soon fell into his power; +and at the time of the fall of Missolonghi, in the following +year, be was in possession of most of southern Greece, and many +of the islands of the Archipelago. The foundation of an Egyptian +military and slave-holding state now seemed to be laid in Europe; +and this danger, combined with the noble defence and sufferings +at Missolonghi and elsewhere, attracted the serious attention of +the European governments and people; numerous philanthropic +societies were formed to aid the Greeks, and finally three of the +great European powers were moved to interfere in their behalf. On +the 6th of July, 1827, a treaty was concluded at London between +England, Russia, and France, stipulating that the Greeks should +govern themselves, but that they should pay tribute to the +Porte.</p> + +<p class="just">To enforce this treaty a combined English, +French, and Russian squadron sailed to the Grecian Archipelago; +but the Turkish Sultan haughtily rejected the intervention of the +three powers, and the troops of Ibrahim Pasha continued their +devastations in the Morea. On the 20th of October the allied +squadron, under the command of the English admiral, Edward +Codrington, entered the harbor of Navarino, where the +Turkish-Egyptian fleet lay at anchor; and a sanguinary naval +battle followed, in which the allies nearly destroyed the fleet +of the enemy. Although this action was spoken of by the British +government as an "untoward event," Admiral Codrington was +rewarded both by England and Russia; and the poet CAMPBELL, in +the following lines on the battle, naturally praises him for +planning and striking this decisive blow for Grecian liberty:</p> + +<br> +<div style="margin-left: 2em"> +<table summary="Greece" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding= +"0"> +<tr> +<td> +<p align="center"><i>The Battle of Nava'rino.</i></p> + +<p>Hearts of Oak, that have bravely delivered the brave,<br> +And uplifted old Greece from the brink of the grave!<br> +'Twas the helpless to help, and the hopeless to save,<br> + That your thunderbolts swept o'er the brine;<br> +And as long as yon sun shall look down on the wave<br> + The light of your glory shall shine.</p> + +<p>For the guerdon ye sought with your bloodshed and toil,<br> +Was it slaves, or dominion, or rapine, or spoil?<br> +No! your lofty emprise was to fetter and foil<br> + The uprooter of Greece's domain,<br> +When he tore the last remnant of food from her soil,<br> + Till her famished sank pale as the slain!</p> + +<p>Yet, Navarï'no's heroes! does Christendom breed<br> +The base hearts that will question the fame of your deed?<br> +Are they men?--let ineffable scorn be their meed,<br> + And oblivion shadow their graves!<br> +Are they women?--to Turkish sérails let them speed,<br> + And be mothers of Mussulmen slaves!</p> + +<p>Abettors of massacre! dare ye deplore<br> +That the death-shriek is silenced on Hellas' shore?<br> +That the mother aghast sees her offspring no more<br> + By the hand of Infanticide grasped?<br> +And that stretched on yon billows distained by their gore<br> + Missolonghi's assassins have gasped?</p> + +<p>Prouder scene never hallowed war's pomp to the mind<br> +Than when Christendom's pennons wooed social the wind,<br> +And the flower of her brave for the combat combined--<br> + Their watchword, humanity's vow:<br> +Not a sea-boy that fought in that cause but mankind<br> + Owes a garland to bon or his brow!<br> +No grudge, by our side, that to conquer or fall<br> +Came the hardy, rude Russ, and the high-mettled Gaul:<br> +For whose was the genius that planned, at its call,<br> + When the whirlwind of battle should roll?<br> +All were brave! but the star of success over all<br> + Was the light of our Codrington's soul.</p> + +<p>That star of thy day-spring, regenerate Greek!<br> +Dimmed the Saracen's moon, and struck pallid his cheek:<br> +In its fast flushing morning thy Muses shall speak,<br> + When their love and their lutes they reclaim;<br> +And the first of their songs from Parnassus's peak<br> + Shall be "Glory to Codrington's name!"</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br> +<br> + + +<p class="just">The result of the conflict at Navarino so enraged +the Turks that they stopped all communication with the allied +powers, and prepared for war. In the following year (1828) France +and England sent an army to the Morea: Russia declared war for +violations of treaties, and depredations upon her commerce; and +on the 7th of May a Russian army of one hundred and fifteen +thousand men, under Count Witt'genstein, crossed the Pruth, and +by the 2d of July had taken seven fortresses from the Turks. In +August a convention was concluded with Ibrahim Päsha, who +agreed to evacuate the Morea, and set his Greek prisoners at +liberty. In the mean time the Greeks continued the war, drove the +Turks from the country north of the Corinthian Gulf, and fitted +out numerous privateers to prey upon the commerce of their enemy. +In January, 1829, the Sultan received a protocol from the three +allied powers, declaring that they took the Morea and the +Cyc'lades under their protection, and that the entry of any +military force into Greece would be regarded as an attack upon +themselves. The danger of open war with France and England, as +well as the successes and alarming advances of the Russians, now +commanded by Marshal Die'bitsch, who had meantime taken +Adrianople, within one hundred and thirty miles of the Turkish +capital, induced the Sultan to listen to overtures of peace; and +on the 14th of September "the peace of Adrianople" was signed by +Turkey and Russia, by which the former recognized the +independence of Greece.</p> + +<br> +<h4>VI. GREECE UNDER A CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.</h4> + +<p class="just">Though freed from her Turkish oppressors, Greece +was severely agitated by domestic discontents, jealousies, and +even manifest turbulence. Count Cä'po d'Is'tria, a Greek in +the service of Russia, who had been chosen, in 1828, president of +the provisional government, aroused suspicions that he designed +to establish a despotism in his own person, and he was +assassinated in 1831. A period of anarchy followed. The great +powers had previously determined to erect Greece into a monarchy, +and had first offered the crown to Prince Leopold, afterward King +of Belgium, who, having accepted the offer, soon after declined +it on account of the unwillingness of the Greeks to receive him, +and their dissatisfaction with the territorial boundaries +prescribed for them. Finally, the boundaries of the kingdom +having been more satisfactorily determined by a treaty between +Turkey and the powers in 1832, the crown was conferred on Otho, a +Bavarian prince, who arrived at Nauplia, the then capital of +Greece, in 1833. Athens became the seat of government in 1835. +Says a writer in the <i>British Quarterly</i>, "The Greeks +neither elected their own sovereign nor chose their national +polity. In a spirit of generous confidence they allowed the three +protecting powers to name a king for them, and the powers +rewarded them by making the worst selection they could. They gave +the Greeks a boy of seventeen, with neither a character to form +nor an intellect to develop."</p> + +<p class="just">The treaty by which Otho was placed on the throne +made no provision for a constitution, but one was expected; and, +after ten years of oppressive subjection by the king and his +Bavarian minions, both the people and a revolted soldiery +surrounded the palace, and demanded a constitution. The king +acquiesced, a national assembly was held, and a constitution was +framed which received the king's approval in March, 1844. In this +bloodless revolution we have an instance both of the +determination, and peaceable, orderly, and well-disposed +tendencies of the Greek people. An eye-witness of the scene has +thus described it:</p> + +<p class="just">"I well recollect the uprising of 1843. +Exasperated by the miserable rule of Otho, a plot was hatched to +wrench a constitution from him, and when everything was ripe the +Athenians arose. At midnight the hoofs of horses were heard +clanging on the pavements, and the flash of torches gleamed in +the streets, as the populace and military hurried toward the +palace; and when the amber-colored dawn lighted the Acropolis and +the plain of Athens, the king found himself surrounded by his +happy subjects, and discovered two field-pieces pointing into the +entrance of the royal residence. A constitution was demanded in +firm but respectful terms--it being suggested at the same time +that, if the request were not granted by four o'clock in the +afternoon, fire would be opened on the palace. In the mean while +all Athens was gathered in the open space around the palace, +chatting, cracking jokes, taking snuff, and smoking, as if they +had assembled to witness a show or hear the reading of a will. +Not a shot was fired; no violence was offered or received; and +precisely as the limiting hour arrived, the obstinate king +succumbed to his besiegers, and the multitude quietly dispersed +to their homes." [<small>Footnote: B. G. W. Benjamin, in "The +Turk and the Greek."</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">The Constitution which the Greeks secured +contained no real guarantee for the legislative rights of the +people, and the minor benefits it gave them were ignored by the +government. A continuance of the severe contests between the +national party and foreign intriguers materially interfered with +the prosperity of the country. Other events, also, now occurred +to disturb it. In 1847 a diplomatic difficulty with Turkey, and, +in 1848, a difference with England, that arose from various +claims of English subjects, and that continued for several years, +assumed threatening proportions, and were only terminated by the +submission of Greece to the demands made upon her. When the +Crimean war broke out, Greece took a decided stand in favor of +Russia; but England and France soon compelled her to assume and +maintain a strictly neutral position. In 1859 the residents of +the Ionian Islands, which were under the protectorate of England, +sought annexation to Greece, and manifested their intentions in +great popular demonstrations, and even insurrections; but Greece, +though sympathizing with them, was too feeble to aid them, and no +change was then made in their relations.</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE DEPOSITION OF KING OTHO.</h5> + +<p class="just">While these events were transpiring, the feeling +of hostility toward King Otho and the royal family was taking +deeper root with the Greek people, and open demonstrations of +violence were frequently made. The king promised more liberal +measures of government; but these fell short of the popular +demand, and the Greeks resolved to dethrone the dynasty. In +October, 1862, after several violent demonstrations elsewhere, +matters culminated in a successful revolution at Athens. A +provisional government was established by the leaders of the +popular party, who decreed the deposition of the king. Otho, who +was absent from Athens at the time, on a visit to Napoli, finding +himself without a throne did not return to Athens, but issued a +proclamation taking leave of Greece, and sailed for Germany in an +English frigate. He had occupied the throne just thirty years. +MR. TUCKERMAN thus describes him: "An honest-hearted man, but +without intellectual strength, dressed in the Greek fustinella, +he endeavored to be Greek in spirit; but under his braided jacket +his heart beat to foreign measures, and his ear inclined to +foreign counsels. But for the quicker-witted Amelia, the queen, +his follies would have worn out the patience of the people sooner +than they did." The condition of Greece under his government is +thus described by the writer in the <i>British Quarterly</i>, who +wrote immediately after the <i>coup d'état:</i></p> + +<p class="just">"To outward appearance, the Greece which the +Philhel'lenists of the days of Canning declared to be re-animated +and restored, has presented, during thirty years of settled +government, the aspect of a country corrupt, intriguing, venal, +and poor. The government has kept faith neither with its subjects +nor with its creditors; it has endeavored, by all means in its +power, to crush the constitutional liberties of its subjects; and +by refusing, throughout this period, to pay a single drachma of +its public debt, it has stamped itself either hopelessly bankrupt +or scandalously fraudulent. The people, meanwhile, crushed by the +incubus of a dishonest and extravagant foreign rule, remain in +nearly the situation they held on the first establishment of +their kingdom. In a word, Greece was thirty years ago transferred +from one despotism to another. The Bavarian rule was no +appreciable mitigation of the Turkish rule. If the Christian +monarch hated his Hellenic subjects less than the Mussulman +monarch, he was still more ignorant of the conditions of +prosperous government."</p> + +<br> +<h5>THE ACCESSION OF KING GEORGE.</h5> + +<p class="just">If it has ever had an existence, Greek +independence may be properly dated from the deposition of the +Bavarian dynasty. In December, 1862, a committee appointed by the +provisional government ordered the election of a new king. The +national assembly shortly after met at Athens, and, having first +confirmed the deposition of Otho, of those proposed as candidates +for the vacant throne by the European powers, Prince Alfred of +England was elected by an immense majority on the first ballot. +This choice of a scion of the freest and most stable of the +constitutional monarchies of Europe, was an expression of the +desire and the resolve of the Greek people to secure as full +political and civil liberties as was possible for them under a +monarchical government. But Prince Alfred was held ineligible in +consequence of a clause in the protocol of the protecting powers, +which declared that the government of Greece should not be +confided to a prince chosen from the reigning families of those +states. Thereupon, in March, 1863, Prince George of Denmark, the +present king, was unanimously elected by the assembly, and his +election was confirmed by the great powers in the following July. +There is every reason to suppose that England assumed the honor +of choosing Prince George. On the withdrawal of Prince Alfred she +expressed her willingness to abandon her protectorate of the +Ionian Islands, and cede them to Greece, provided a king were +chosen to whom the English government could not object. The +Ionian Islands were ceded to Greece within two months after the +accession of King George; and Mr. Tuckerman relates that, "when +Prince Christian, King of Denmark, was in London, attending the +marriage of his daughter to the Prince of Wales, Lord John +Russell discovered the second son of Prince Christian in the +uniform of a midshipman, and suggested his name as the successor +of Otho."</p> + +<p class="just">King George took the constitutional oath in +October, 1863. In 1866 the revolution in Crete, or Candia, broke +out, and, owing to Greek sympathy with the insurrectionists, +thousands of whom found an asylum in Greece, grave complications +arose between Greece and Turkey, which were only settled by a +conference of the great powers in 1869. By the treaty with the +Porte in 1832 the boundary line of Greece had been settled in an +arbitrary manner, by running it from the Gulf of Volo along the +chain of the Othrys Mountains to the Gulf of Arta--by which +Greece was deprived of the high fertile plains of Thessaly and +Epirus, the largest and richest of classical Greece. At the close +of the late Russian-Turkish war, however, the boundary line was +changed by the powers so as to include within the kingdom a large +portion of those ancient possessions; but this change occasioned +serious conflicts between the government and the people of the +annexed districts, and difficulties also arose with Turkey in +consequence. But these were finally settled by an amendment to +the treaty, passed in 1881."</p> + +<p class="just">With the exceptions just noted, no important +events have disturbed the peace of Greece since the accession of +King George. In him the country has a ruler of capacity, who is +in great measure his own adviser, and who comprehends the chief +wish of his subjects, "that Greece shall govern Greece." As MR. +TUCKERMAN has said of him, "Unlike his predecessor, he is a Greek +by sympathy of language and ideas. He feels the popular pulse and +tries to keep time with it, not more as a matter of policy than +from national sympathy; and his hands are comparatively free of +the impediment of those foreign ministerial counselors who, each +struggling for supremacy, united only in checking the political +advancement of the kingdom." It was no fault of the Greek people +that, under King Otho, Greece failed to make the internal +advancement that was expected of her on her escape from Moslem +tyranny. It was the fault of the government; for, when a better +government came, there was a corresponding change in the inner +life of the people; and at the present time, with the freest of +constitutional monarchies, and under the guidance of a ruler so +sympathetic, competent, and popular, redeemed Greece is making +rapid strides in intellectual and material progress. Of this +progress we have the following account by a prominent American +divine, a recent visitor to that country:</p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><i>Progress in Modern Greece.</i></p> + +<p>[<small>Footnote: Rev. Joseph Cook, in the New York +<i>Independent</i>, February, 1883.</small>]</p> + +<p class="just">"You lean over the parapet of the Acropolis, on +the side toward the modern city, and look in vain for the print +of that Venetian leprous scandal and that Turkish hoof which for +six hundred years trod Greece into the slime. In the long bondage +to the barbarian, the Hellenic spirit was weakened, but not +broken. The Greek, with his fine texture, loathes the stolid, +opaque temperament of the polygamistic Turk. Intermarriages +between the races are very few. The Greek race is not extinct. In +many rural populations in Greece the modern Hellenic blood is as +pure as the ancient. Only Hellenic blood explains Hellenic +countenances, yet easily found; the Hellenic language, yet +wonderfully incorrupt; and the Hellenic spirit, omnipresent in +liberated Greece. Fifty years ago not a book could be bought at +Athens. To-day one in eighteen of the whole population of Greece +is in school. In 1881 thirteen very tall factory chimney-stacks +could be counted in the Piræ'us, not one of which was there +in 1873. It is pathetic to find Greece at last opening, on the +Acropolis and in the heart of Athens, national museums for the +sacred remnants of her own ancient art, which have been pillaged +hitherto for the enrichment of the museums of all Western Europe. +During sixty years of independence the Hellenic spirit has +doubled the population of Greece, increased her revenues five +hundred per cent., extended telegraphic communication over the +kingdom, enlarged the fleet from four hundred and forty to five +thousand vessels, opened eight ports, founded eleven new cities, +restored forty ruined towns, changed Athens from a hamlet of +hovels to a city of seventy thousand inhabitants, and planted +there a royal palace, a legislative chamber, ten type-foundries, +forty printing establishments, twenty newspapers, an astronomical +observatory, and a university with eighty professors and fifteen +hundred students. After little more than half a century of +independence, the Hellenic spirit devotes a larger percentage of +public revenue to purposes of instruction than France, Italy, +England, Germany, or even the United States. Modern Greece, sixty +years ago a slave and a beggar, to-day, by the confession of the +most merciless statisticians, stands at the head of the list of +self-educated nations."</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="index">INDEX.</a></h2> + +<p align="center"><small>[Names in CAPITALS denote authors to +whom prominent reference is made, or from whom selections are +taken.]</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Aby'dos</b>. Xerxes and his army at.<br> +<b>Acade'mla</b>, or <b>Ac-a-deme'</b>. A public garden or grove, +the resort of the philosophers at Athens.<br> +<b>Acarna'ni-a</b>, description of; aids Athens.<br> +<b>Achæ'ans</b>, the; origin of.<br> +<b>Achæ'an League</b>, the.<br> +<b>Achæ'us</b>, son of Xuthus, and ancestor of the +Achæans.<br> +<b>Acha'ia</b>, description of. Name given to Greece by the +Romans.<br> +<b>Achelo'us</b>, the river, described.<br> +<b>Ach'eron</b>, the river; described.<br> +<b>Acheru'sia</b> (she-a), the lake, described.<br> +<b>Achil'les</b>, accompanies expedition to Troy; contends with +Agamemnon, and withdrawn; refuses to enter the contest, puts his +armor on Patroclus, and the armor is lost; description of his new +armor; he enters the fight; encounters Æneas, who escapes; +kills Hector; delivers the body to Priam; death of.<br> +<b>Acri'si-us</b> (she-us), King of Argos.<br> +<b>Acrop'olis</b>, the Athenian; seizure of, by Cylon; by +Pisistratus; by the Persians; famous structures of; its splendors +in the time of Pericles; injury to, inflicted by the +Venetians.<br> +<b>Actæ'on</b>, the fable of.<br> +<b>Adme'tus</b>, King of Pheræ.<br> +<b>Æge'an Sea</b>.<br> +<b>Ægi'na</b>, island of; war of, with Athens.<br> +<b>Æ'gos-pot'ami</b>. Defeat of Athenians at.<br> +<b>Æmo'nia</b>, same as Hæmonia, an early name of +Thessaly.<br> +<b>Æne'as</b>, a Trojan hero, and subject of Virgil's +Æne'id; wounded, and put to flight by Diomed; fights for +the body of Patroclus; encounters Achilles, and is preserved by +Neptune; account of his escape from Troy.<br> +<b>Æne'id</b>, the.<br> +<b>Æo'lians</b>, the; colonies of.<br> +<b>Æ'olus</b>, progenitor of the Æolians.<br> +ÆS'CHI-NES, the orator; prosecutes Demosthenes; exile of; +oratory of. Extracts from: The Death of Darius; Oration against +Ctesiphon.<br> +ÆS'CHYLUS, poet and tragedian. Life and works of. Extracts +from: Punishment of Prometheus; Retributive justice of the gods; +The taking of an oath; The name "Helen"; Beacon fires from Troy +to Argos; Battle of Salamis; Murder of Agamemnon.<br> +<b>Æscula'pius</b>, god of the healing art. Shrine of.<br> +<b>Æ'son</b>, King of Iolcus.<br> +<b>Æt'na</b>, a city in Sicily, founded by Hiero.<br> +<b>Æto'lia</b>.<br> +<b>Agamem'non</b>, King of Mycenæ; commands the expedition +against Troy; contends with Achilles; demands restoration of +Helen; return to Greece and is murdered.<br> +<i>Agamemnon</i>, the. Extracts from.<br> +<b>Aganip'pe</b>, fountain of.<br> +<b>Ag'athon</b>, a tragedian.<br> +<b>Agesan'dros</b>, a Rhodian sculptor.<br> +<b>Agesila'us</b>, King of Sparta. Defeats the Persians at +Sardis.<br> +<b>A'gis</b>, King of Sparta.<br> +<b>Agrigen'tum</b>, in Sicily.<br> +<b>A'jax</b>. Goes with the Greeks to Troy; fights for the body +of Patroclus; his death.<br> +AKENSIDE, MARK.--Character of Solon; of Pisistratus, and his +usurpation; Alcræs; Anacreon; Melpomene.<br> +ALAMANNI, LUIGI.--Flight of Xerxes.<br> +ALCÆ'US, a lyric poet.--Life and writings of. Extracts +from: The spoils of war; Sappho.<br> +ALCÆ'US, of Messene.--Epigrams of, on Philip V.<br> +<i>Alcestis</i>, the.<br> +<b>Alcibi'ades</b>. Artifices of; retires to Sparta; intrigues +of, against Athens; is condemned to death, but escapes; is +recalled to Athens; is banished; death of.<br> +<b>Alcin'o-us</b>, King. Gardens of.<br> +<b>"Al'ciphron</b>, or the Minute Philosopher".<br> +ALC'MAN, a lyric poet.--Life and writings of.<br> +<b>Alexander the Great</b>. Quells revolt of the Grecian states; +invades Asia; defeats Darius; further conquests of; feast of, at +Persepolis; invades India; dies at Babylon; career, character, +and burial of; wars that followed his death.<br> +<b>Alexandria</b>, in Egypt. Founded by Alexander.<br> +<b>Alex'is</b>, a comic poet.<br> +ALISON, ARCHIBALD.-Earthquake at Sparta, and Spartan heroism.<br> +<b>Alphe'us</b>, river. Legends of.<br> +<b>A'mor</b>, son of Venus, and god of love.<br> +<b>Amphic'tyon</b>, <b>Amphicty'ones</b>, and <b>Amphictyon'ic +Council</b>.<br> +<b>Amphip'olis</b>, in Thrace.<br> +<b>Amphis'sa</b>, town of.<br> +<b>Amy'clæ</b>, town of.<br> +<i>Anab'asis</i>, the.<br> +ANAC'REON, a lyric poet.--Life and writings of.<br> +<b>An'akim</b>, a giant of Palestine.<br> +<b>Anaxag'oras</b>, the philosopher; attacks upon, at Athens; +life, works, and death of.<br> +<b>Anaximan'der</b>, the philosopher.<br> +<b>Anaxim'enes</b>, the philosopher.<br> +<b>Anchi'ses</b>, father of Æne'as.<br> +<b>Androm'a-che</b>, wife of Hector. Lamentation of, over +Hector's body.<br> +<b>An'gelo, Michael</b>.<br> +ANONYMOUS.--Tomb of Leonidas; Queen Archidamia.<br> +<b>Antæ'us</b>, son of Neptune and Terra. Encounter with +Hercules.<br> +<b>Antal'cidas</b>, the peace of.<br> +<b>Anthe'la</b>, village of.<br> +ANTHON, CHARLES, LL.D.--Apelles and Protogenes.<br> +<i>Antig'o-ne</i>, the.<br> +<b>Antig'onus</b>, one of Alexander's generals; conquests and +death of.<br> +<b>Antig'onus II.</b>, a king of Macedon.--War of, with Phyrrus; +becomes master of Greece, and death of.<br> +<b>Antil'ochus</b> (in the <i>Iliad</i>).<br> +<b>Anti'ochus</b>, King of Syria.<br> +ANTIP'ATER, of Sidon.--Extracts from: The birthplace of Homer; +Sappho; Desolation of Corinth; The painting of Venus rising from +the sea.<br> +<b>Antip'ater</b>, one of Alexander's generals. Is given command +of Macedon and Greece; suppresses a Spartan revolt; the Athenian +revolt; is given part of Macedonia and Greece; death of.<br> +<b>Antiph'anes</b>, a comic poet.<br> +<b>An'tiphon</b>, orator and rhetorician.<br> +<b>An'tium</b> (an'she-um); a city of Italy.<br> +<b>An'tonines</b>, the. Treatment of Greece by.<br> +<b>An'ytus</b>, the accuser of Socrates.<br> +<b>Apel'les</b>, an Ionian painter; anecdote of.<br> +<b>Aphrodi'te</b>. (See <b>Venus</b>.)<br> +<b>Apollo</b>, the god of archery, etc.; aids the Trojans; +character of; conflict of, with Python.<br> +<b>Apollo Bel've-dere</b>, statue of.<br> +<b>Apollodo'rus</b>, of Athens, a painter.<br> +<b>Apollo'nia</b>, town in Illyria.<br> +<b>Ap'pius Claudius</b>, the Roman consul.<br> +<b>Arach'ne</b>, tower of.<br> +<b>Arbe'la</b>. Battle of.<br> +<b>Arca'dia</b> and <b>Arcadians</b>. Arcadians assist Messenia; +assist Thebes in war with Sparta.<br> +<b>Archidami'a</b>, Queen of Sparta.<br> +<b>Archela'us</b>, King of Macedon.<br> +<b>Archida'mus</b>, King of Sparta.<br> +<b>Archil'ochus</b>, lyric poet.<br> +<b>Archime'des</b>, the Syracusan; Cicero visits the tomb of.<br> +<b>Architecture.</b>--First period. Second period. Third +period.<br> +<b>Ar'chons.</b> Institution of, in Athens.<br> +<b>Areop'agus</b>, or <b>Hill of Mars</b>. Court of; changes in +power of.<br> +<b>A'res</b> (same as Mars).<br> +<b>Arethu'sa</b>, fountain of.<br> +<b>A're-us</b>, King of Sparta.<br> +<b>Ar'gives</b>, the.<br> +<b>Ar'go</b>, the ship.<br> +<b>Argol'ic Gulf.</b><br> +<b>Ar'golis.</b><br> +<b>Argonau'tic expedition</b>, the.<br> +<b>Ar'gos</b>, city of.<br> +<b>Ari'on</b>, the poet.<br> +<b>Aristi'des</b>, the Athenian general and statesman. At +Marathon; rise of, in Athenian affairs; banishment of, and return +to fight at Salamis; leadership and death of.<br> +<b>Aristi'des</b>, a painter.<br> +<b>Aristoc'rates</b>, King of Arcadia.<br> +<b>Aristode'mus</b>, one of the Heraclidæ.<br> +<b>Aristogi'ton</b>. Conspiracy of, against the +Pisistratidæ, and death of; tribute to.<br> +<b>Aristom'enes</b>, a Messenian leader.<br> +ARISTOPH'ANES, the comic poet. Life and works of. Extracts from: +<i>The Wasps</i>; Cleon the Demagogue; <i>The Clouds</i>; <i>The +Birds</i>.<br> +<b>Aristot'le</b>, the philosopher. Life and works of.<br> +ARNOLD, EDWIN.--The Academia.<br> +<b>Ar'ta, Gulf of.</b><br> +<b>Artaba'nus</b>, uncle of Xerxes.<br> +<b>Artapher'nes</b>, Persian governor of Lydia.<br> +<b>Artaxerx'es Longim'anus.</b><br> +<b>Artaxerxes Mne'mon.</b><br> +<b>Ar'temis.</b> (See <b>Diana.</b>)<br> +<b>Artemis'ia</b> (she-a), Queen of Carin.<br> +<b>Artemis'ium</b>. Naval conflict at.<br> +<b>Arts.</b> (See <b>Literature.</b>)<br> +<b>As'cra.</b> Birthplace of Hesiod.<br> +<b>A'sius</b> (a'she-us). A marshy place near the river +Ca-ys'ter, in Asia Minor.<br> +<b>Aso'pus</b>, the river, in Boeotia.<br> +<b>Aspa'sia</b> (she-a). Attacks upon.<br> +<b>Asty'anax</b>, Hector's son. Fate of.<br> +<b>A'te</b>, goddess of revenge.<br> +<b>Athe'na</b>. (See <b>Minerva</b>.)<br> +<b>Athenodo'rus</b>, a Rhodian sculptor.<br> +<b>Athens</b>, and the <b>Athenians</b>; founding of the city; +early history of; legislation of Draco and Solon; usurpation of +Pisistratus; birth of democracy at; battle of Marathon; affairs +of, under Aristides and Themistocles; war of, with Ægina, +and settlement of; abandonment of city; successes of, at +Artemisium and Salamis; at Platæa; empire of Athens; Athens +rebuilt; affairs of, under Cimon; at battle of Eurymedon; +jealousy of Sparta against; affairs of, under Pericles; changes +in Constitution of; war of, with Sparta; reverses of, in Egypt, +decline of, and thirty years' truce of, with Sparta; the "Age of +Pericles"; war of, with Sparta; the plague at; violates the Peace +of Nicias; Sicilian expedition of; war of, with Sparta, and +revolt of allies; reverses and humiliation of; fall of Athens; +the rule of the Tyrants; lead of, in intellectual progress; +literature and art of; adornment of; glory of; alliance of, with +Sparta; engages in the Sacred War; leads against Macedon; +censured by Demosthenes; allies of, defeated by Philip; first +open rupture with Macedon; alliance of, with Thebes, and defeat +at Chæronea; revolt of, against Alexander; captured by +Antigonus; late architecture, sculpture, and painting of; +immortal influence of; the Duchy of Athens; captured by Turks and +Venetians; revolution at, against Otho.<br> +<b>A'thos, Mount</b>, in Macedonia.<br> +<b>Atos'sa</b>, mother of Xerxes.<br> +<b>Atri'dæ</b>, the. A term meaning "sons of Atreus," and +applied by Homer to Agamemnon and Menelaus.<br> +<b>Attica.</b><br> +<b>"Attic Wasp,"</b> the.<br> +<b>Augustus</b>, the Roman emperor.<br> +<b>Au'lis</b>, on the Euripus.<br> +<b>Auso'nian</b>, or <b>Au'sones</b>. An ancient race of +Italy.<br> +<b>Aver'nus</b>, lake of.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Babylon.</b><br> +<b>Bacchus</b>, god of vintage or wine; theatre of.<br> +<b>Bel'i-des</b>, a surname given to daughters of Belus.<br> +<b>Beller'ophon</b>, son of Glaucus.<br> +BENJAMIN, S. G. W.--Revolution against Otho.<br> +<b>Bes'sus</b>, satrap of Bactria.<br> +<b>Bias</b>, one of the Seven Sages.<br> +<i>Birds</i>, the.<br> +BLACKIE, J. STUART.--Value of Greek fables. Fancies of the Greek +mind. Legend of Pandora. Prometheus. Story of Tantalus. The +founding of Athens. Pythagoras. Legends of Marathon. Xerxes and +the battle of Salamis.<br> +<b>Boeo'tla.</b><br> +<b>Boz-zar'ls, Marco</b>.--Bravery and death of. Constantine +Bozzaris, and Noto Bozzaris.<br> +<b>Bras'idas</b>, the Spartan.<br> +<b>Brazen Age</b>, the.<br> +<i>British Quarterly Review</i>.--The choice of Otho; and Greece +under his rule.<br> +<b>Bria're-us</b> (or Bri'a-reus).<br> +BROUGHAM, LORD.--Demosthenes' Oration on the Crown. The style of +Demosthenes. The doctrine of Plato.<br> +BROWNE, R. W.--Thucydides and Herodotus. Aristotle.<br> +BULWER, EDW. LYTTON.--Merits of a "Tyranny." The battle of +Platæa, and importance of. Xerxes at Sardis. Earthquake, +and revolt of Helots at Sparta. Changes in Athenian Constitution, +Oratory of Pericles. The Drama. Adornment of Athens.<br> +BURLINGAME, EDW. L.--Roman treatment of Greece.<br> +BYRON, LORD.--Dodona. Parnassus. Allusions to Attica. The +Corinthian rock. The Isles of Greece. The dead at +Thermopylæ. Xerxes at Salamis. Deathless renown of Greek +heroes. The Athenian prisoners at Syracuse. The revenge of +Orestes. Alexander's career. Siege and fall of Corinth. Greece +under Moslem rule. Views of Greek independence.<br> +<b>Byzan'tium</b> (she-um).</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Cadmus</b>, founder of Cadme'a.<br> +<b>Cadmea</b>, citadel of Thebes.<br> +<b>Cal'amis</b>, the sculptor.<br> +<b>Calaure'a</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Callic'ra-tes</b>, a Spartan soldier.<br> +<b>Callicrates</b>, an architect.<br> +<b>Callicrat'i-das</b>, a Spartan officer.<br> +<b>Callim'achus</b>, the Pol'emarch.<br> +CALLI'NUS, a lyric poet.--Writings of.<br> +<b>Calli'o-pe</b>, the goddess of epic poetry.<br> +CALLIS'TRATUS.--Tribute to Harmodius.<br> +<b>Calyp'so</b>, the nymph, island of.<br> +<b>Cambunian mountains.</b><br> +CAMPBELL, THOMAS.--Music of the Spartans. Song of the Greeks. +Battle of Navari'no.<br> +<b>Can'dla</b>, island of (Crete).<br> +<b>Can'næ</b>, in Apulia. Battle at.<br> +CANNING, GEORGE.--The Slavery of Greece.<br> +CANTON, WILLIAM.--Death of Anaxagoras.<br> +<b>Capo d'Istria, Count</b>.<br> +<b>Capys</b>, a Trojan.<br> +<b>Carthaginians</b>, the.<br> +<b>Caspian Gates</b>, the.<br> +<b>Cassan'der</b>, son of Antipater.--Master of Greece and +Macedon; death of.<br> +<b>Cassan'dra</b>, daughter of Priam.<br> +<b>Castalian Fount</b>, the.<br> +<b>Cat'ana</b>, in Sicily.<br> +<b>Cau'casus, Mount</b>.<br> +<b>Ca-ys'ter</b>, the river, in Asia Minor.<br> +<b>Ce'crops.</b><br> +<b>Cecro'plan hill</b> (Acropolis).<br> +<b>Celts</b>, the.<br> +<b>Cephalo'nia</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Cephis'sus</b>, the river.<br> +<b>Ceraunian mountains</b>.<br> +<b>Ce'res</b>, goddess of grain, etc.<br> +<b>Chærone'a</b>, in Boeotia; battle of.<br> +<b>Chal'cis</b>, in Euboea.<br> +<b>Cha'os</b>.<br> +<b>Cha'res</b>, a Rhodian sculptor.<br> +<b>Cher'siphron</b>, a Cretan architect. Story of.<br> +<b>Chersone'sus</b>. the Thracian.<br> +<b>Chi'lo</b>, one of the Seven Sages.<br> +<b>Chion'i-des</b>, a comic poet.<br> +<b>Chi'os</b>, island of.<br> +<i>Choëph'oroe</i>, the.<br> +<b>Christianity in Greece</b>.<br> +<b>Chro'nos</b>, or <b>Saturn</b>.<br> +<b>Cicero</b>, the Roman orator. Visits tomb of Archime'des.<br> +<b>Cili'cia</b> (she-a).<br> +<b>Ci'mon</b> (meaning Milti'a-des).<br> +<b>Cimon</b>, son of Miltiades, and an Athenian general and +statesman; successes and rise of, at Athens; wins battle of +Eurym'edon; aids Sparta; the fall and banishment of; recall of, +expedition to Cyprus, and death of.<br> +<b>Cithæ'ron, Mount</b>.<br> +<b>Ci'tium</b> (she-um), in Cyprus.<br> +<b>Clazom'enæ</b>, on an island off the Dorian coast.<br> +CLE-AN'THES.--Hymn to Jupiter.<br> +<b>Cle-ar'chus</b>, a Spartan general.<br> +<b>Cleo-bu'lus</b>, one of the Seven Sages.<br> +<b>Cle'on</b>, the Athenian.--Causes the Mityleneans to be put to +death; conduct and character of, and attacks upon, by +Aristoph'anes.<br> +<b>Cle'on of Lampsacus</b>.<br> +<b>Cleon'ymus of Sparta</b>.<br> +<i>Clouds</i>, the.<br> +<b>Clis'thenes</b> (eze), last despot of Si'çyon.<br> +<b>Clisthenes</b>, founder of democracy at Athens; reforms +of.<br> +<b>Clytemnes'tra</b>, wife of Agamemnon.<br> +<b>Cocy'tus</b>, the river.<br> +<b>Codrington, Admiral</b>.<br> +<b>Co'drus</b>, early King of Athens.<br> +<b>Col'chis</b>.<br> +COLERIDGE, HENRY N.--The poems of Homer.<br> +COLERIDGE, SAMUEL T.--Pythagore'an influences.<br> +COLLINS, MORTIMER.--Fable of Hercules and Antæ'us.<br> +<b>Colonies</b>, the Greek. In Asia Minor; history of, in Magna +Groeca, etc.; in Sicily, Italy, Africa, etc.<br> +<b>Col'ophon</b>, in Ionia.<br> +<b>Comedy</b>. The Old; the New.<br> +COOK, REV. JOSEPH.--Progress in Modern Greece.<br> +<b>Corcy'ra</b>, or <b>Corfu</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Corinna</b>, a Boeotian poetess.<br> +<b>Corinth, and the Corinthians</b>; conquest of; despotisms of; +war of, with Corcyra; aids Syracuse; destruction of; capture of, +by the Turks.<br> +<b>Corinthian Architecture</b>.<br> +<b>Corinthian Gulf</b>, the.<br> +<b>Corone'a</b>, plains of. Athenian defeat at.<br> +<b>Coumour'gi, Äl'i</b>, the Turkish Grand Vizier. Successes +of.<br> +<b>Councils, the National</b>.<br> +CRANCH, CHRISTOPHER P.--Temples at Pæstum.<br> +<b>Cran'non</b>, battle of.<br> +<b>Crat'erus</b>, one of Alexander's generals.<br> +<b>Crati'nus</b>, a comic poet.<br> +<b>Creation</b>, the. Account of.<br> +<b>Cre'on</b>.<br> +<b>Cresphon'tes</b>, of the Heraclidæ.<br> +<b>Crete</b>, island of; conquered by the Turks; revolution +in.<br> +<b>Cris'sa</b>, town of.<br> +<b>Crissæ'an</b> plain.<br> +<b>Cri'ti-as</b> (cri'she-as), chief of the Thirty Tyrants.<br> +<b>Croe'sus</b>, King of Lydia.<br> +CROLY, GEORGE.--Pericles. Death of Pericles.<br> +<b>Croto'na</b>, in Italy.<br> +<b>Crusaders</b>, the. Courts of, in Greece.<br> +<b>Ctes'iphon</b>, who proposed a crown for Demosthenes.<br> +<b>Cu'mæ</b>, in Italy.<br> +<b>Cumæ'an Sibyl</b>, the. Myth of.<br> +CURTIUS, ERNST.--The Oration of Pericles. Retreat of the Ten +Thousand. Pelopidas and Epaminondas.<br> +<b>Cyc'la-des</b>, the (islands).<br> +<b>Cyc'lic poets</b>, the.<br> +<b>Cy'clops</b>, or <b>Cyclo'pes</b>, the.<br> +<b>Cy'lon</b>, the Athenian.<br> +<b>Cynoceph'alæ</b>, In Thessaly. Battle of.<br> +<b>Cyprian queen</b> (Venus).<br> +<b>Cyprus</b>, Island of.<br> +<b>Cyrena'ica</b>, colony of.<br> +<b>Cy-re'ne</b>, colony of.<br> +<i>Cyropoedi'a</i>, the.<br> +<b>Cyrus the Elder</b>. Conquers Lydia.<br> +<b>Cyrus the Younger</b>.<br> +<b>Cys'icus</b>, Island of. Victory of Alcibiades at.<br> +<b>Cyth'era</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Cytheræ'a</b>, name given to Venus.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Damon and Pythias</b>.<br> +<i>Dan'a-ë, Lamentation of</i>.<br> +<b>Dan'a-i</b>, the.<br> +<b>Dan'a-us</b>, founder of Argos.<br> +<b>Dar'danus</b>, son of Jupiter and Electra.<br> +<b>Dari'us I</b>. (Hystas'pes), King of Persia; dominion of; he +suppresses the Ionic revolt; invades Greece; death of.<br> +<b>Darius III</b>., King of Persia. Defeated at Issus, and at +Arbe'la; Flight and death of.<br> +<b>De-iph'obus</b>, a Trojan hero.<br> +<b>De'lium</b>, in Boeotia. Battle of.<br> +<b>Del'phi</b>, or <b>Delphos</b>. City, temple, and oracle +of.<br> +<b>De'los</b>, island of; Confederacy of States at.<br> +<b>Deme'ter</b>. (See <b>Ceres</b>.)<br> +<b>Deme'trius</b>, son of Antigonus. Seizes the throne of +Macedon.<br> +<b>Demos'the-nes</b>, the Athenian general. Captures Pylus; +defeat and death of, at Syracuse.<br> +DEMOS'THE'NES, the orator; pious fraud of; measures against, at +Athens, and attack upon, by Æschines; death of; oratory +of.--Extracts from: The First Philippic. Oration on the +Crown.<br> +<b>Deuca'lion</b>, son of Prometheus. Deluge of.<br> +<b>Diana</b>, or <b>Ar'temis</b>, temple to, at Ephesus.<br> +<b>Die'bitsch</b>, Marshal.<br> +<b>Di'o-cles</b>, of Syracuse.<br> +<b>Diodo'rus</b>, the historian.<br> +<b>Diog'enes</b>, the Cretan.<br> +DIOG'ENES LAER'TIUS.--Xenophon.<br> +<b>Di'omed</b>, a Greek hero in the Trojan war; valor of; fate +of.<br> +<b>Di'on</b>, of Syracuse.<br> +<b>Dionysian Festivals</b>, the.<br> +<b>Dionysius of Col'ophon</b>, a painter.<br> +<b>Dionysius the Elder</b>, of Syracuse.<br> +<b>Dionysius the Younger</b>, of Syracuse.<br> +<b>Dionysius</b>, the Roman historian.<br> +<b>Diopi'thes</b>, the general.<br> +<b>Dipoe'nus</b>, the sculptor.<br> +<b>Dis</b>, a name given to Pluto.<br> +<b>Dodo'na</b>, city and temple of.<br> +<b>Do'rians</b>, the, migrations and colonies of.<br> +<b>Dor'ic architecture</b>.<br> +<b>Do'ris</b>.<br> +<b>Do'rus</b>, progenitor of the Dorians.<br> +<b>Dra'co</b>, the Athenian legislator.<br> +<b>Drama</b>, the. Before Peloponnesian wars; characterization +of; influence of; the drama after Peloponnesian war.<br> +<b>Dry'ads</b>, or <b>Dry'a-des</b>, the. Wood-nymph.<br> +DRYDEN, JOHN.--Alexander's feast at Persep'olis.</small></p> + +<p><small><i>Edinburgh Review</i>. Courts of Crusaders.<br> +<b>Eges'ta</b>, in Sicily.<br> +<b>E'lea</b>, in Lucania. Eleatic philosophy.<br> +<i>Elec'tra</i>, the.<br> +<b>Eleu'sis</b>, and the <b>Eleusinian Mysteries</b>.<br> +<b>Eleu'therre</b>, in Attica.<br> +<b>E'lis</b> and <b>E'leans</b>.<br> +<b>Elo'ra</b>, temple of. Elora is a town in south-western +Hindostan, noted for its splendid cave-temples, cut from a hill +of red granite, black basalt, and quartz rock. Of these, that +called "Paradise," to which reference is here made, is 100 feet +high, 401 feet deep, and 185 feet in greatest breadth. It is "a +perfect pantheon of the gods of India."<br> +<b>Elysium</b>, the.<br> +<b>Ema'thia</b>, or <b>Macedon</b>.<br> +<b>En'nius</b>. The Fate of Ajax.<br> +<b>Eny'o</b>, a war-goddess.<br> +<b>E'os</b>, The same as Aurora, a term applied to the eastern +parts of the world.<br> +<b>Epaminon'das</b>, the Theban. Character of, and his successes +against Sparta.<br> +<b>Eph'esus.</b><br> +<b>Ephi-al'tes.</b><br> +<b>Epichar'mus.</b><br> +<b>Epicu'rus</b>, Life and works of.<br> +<b>Epidau'rus</b>, in Argolis.<br> +<b>Epime'theus</b> (thuse).<br> +<b>Epi'rus</b>.<br> +<b>Er-ech'the-um</b>, the.<br> +<b>Erech'theus</b> (thuse).<br> +<b>Ere'tria</b>.<br> +<b>Erin'nys</b>. (See <b>Furies</b>.)<br> +<b>Euboe'a</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Euboe'an Sea</b>.<br> +<b>Eu'menes</b>, Alexander's general.<br> +<i>Eumen'i-des</i>, the.<br> +<b>Euphra'nor</b>, a sculptor.<br> +<b>Eu'polis</b>, a comic poet.<br> +<b>Eupom'pus</b>, a Siçyonian painter.<br> +EURIP'IDES. Life and works of. Extracts from: The Greek Armament. +Alcestis preparing for death.<br> +<b>Euri'pus</b>, or <b>Euboean Sea</b>.<br> +<b>Euro'tas</b>.<br> +<b>Eurybi'ades</b>, a Spartan general.<br> +<b>Euryd'i-ce</b>.<br> +<b>Eurym'edon</b>, in Pamphylia.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Farnese Bull</b>, the. Sculpture of.<br> +<b>Fates</b>, the.<br> +FELTON, C. C., D.D.--Ionian language and culture, Unity of the +<i>Iliad</i>. Works of Hesiod. Christianity in Greece. The Duchy +of Athens. The Klephts.<br> +<b>Festivals</b>, the Grecian.<br> +FINLAY, GEORGE, LL.D.--The Revolt against Rome.<br> +<b>Flamin'ius, Titus</b>, Roman consul.<br> +<i>Frogs</i>, the.<br> +<b>Furies</b>, the.<br> +<b>Future State</b>, the. Greek views of.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Gan-y-me'de</b>, Jove's cup-bearer.<br> +<b>Gedro'sia</b> (she-a), in Persia.<br> +<b>Ge'la</b>, in Sicily.<br> +<b>Ge'lon</b>, despot of Gela. Becomes despot of Syracuse; +dynasty of, extinguished.<br> +GEM'INUS, TULLIUS.--Themistocles.<br> +<b>George, Prince of Denmark</b>. Is chosen King of Greece; +progress of Greece under.<br> +<b>Giants</b>, the; battle with Jupiter.<br> +GILLIES, JOHN, LL.D.--Memorial to Miltiades. Aristophanes and +Cleon. The works of Phidias.<br> +<b>Gladiator, the Dying</b>.<br> +GLADSTONE, WM. EWART.--The humanity of the gods.<br> +<b>Glau'cus</b>, a Trojan hero.<br> +<b>Glaucus</b>, a sculptor.<br> +<b>Gods</b>, the. Personifications and deifications of; moral +characteristics of; deceptions of.<br> +<b>Golden Age</b>, the.<br> +<b>Gor'gias</b>, the Sophist.<br> +<b>Gorgo'pis</b>, lake, near Corinth.<br> +<b>Goths</b>, the. Overrun Greece.<br> +<b>Government</b>, forms of, and changes in.<br> +<b>Graces</b>, the.<br> +<b>Grani'cus</b>, the river. Battle at.<br> +GRAY, THOMAS.--Pindar.<br> +GROTE, GEORGE.--The Trojan war. The Cumæan Sibyl. Increase +of power among Sicilian Greeks. The Seven Sages. Lesson from the +fate of Miltiades. Transitions of tragedy. Aristophanes. The +Sophists and Socrates. Demosthenes' first Philippic. The +Influence of Phocion. Conquests of Alexander. The Oration on the +Crown.<br> +<b>Guiscard</b> (ges-kar'), <b>Robert</b>. Conquests of.<br> +<b>Gy'ges</b>, the.<br> +<b>Gylip'pus</b>, a Spartan general.<br> +<b>Gyth'e-um</b> (or Gy-the'-nm), port of Sparta.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Ha'des</b>.<br> +<b>Ha'drian</b>, the Roman emperor.<br> +<b>Hæ'mus</b>, mountain chain of.<br> +<b>Halicarnas'sus</b>, in Caria.<br> +HALLECK, FITZ-GREENE.--Marco Bozzaris.<br> +<b>Hamil'car</b>, a Carthaginian general.<br> +<b>Hannibal</b>, a Carthaginian general.<br> +<b>Harmo'dius</b>, an Athenian.<br> +<b>Harpies</b>, the. Winged monsters with female faces and the +bodies, claws, and wings of birds.<br> +HAYGARTH, WILLIAM.--Acheron and Acherusia. Ancient Corinth. +Sparta's invincibility. Battle of Thermopylæ. Athens in +time of peace. Temple of Theseus. The Academia. Immortality of +Grecian genius.<br> +<b>He'be</b>, goddess of youth.<br> +<b>Hecatæ'us</b>, the historian.<br> +<b>Hec'tor</b>, eldest son of Priam, King of Troy; parting of, +with Androma-che; exploits of; encounters Achilles, is slain, and +his body given up to Priam; lamentation over, by Andromache and +Helen.<br> +HEE'REN (ha'ren).--Authority of Homer. Freedom in colonies. +Character of a "tyranny".<br> +<b>He-ge'sias</b> (she-as), the sculptor.<br> +<b>Helen of Troy</b>. Abduction of; the name of; laments Hectors +death; supposed career of, after the Trojan war.<br> +<b>Hel'icon, Mount</b>, in Boeotia.<br> +<b>Hel'las</b>, or <b>Greece</b>; survival.<br> +<i>Hellas</i>, the.<br> +<b>Helle'nes</b>, and <b>Hellen'ic</b> (Hellen). Spirit of, in +modern Greece.<br> +<i>Hellen'ica</i>, the.<br> +<i>Hellen'ics</i>, the.<br> +<b>Hel'lespont</b>, the.<br> +<b>He'lots</b>, the. The revolt of.<br> +HEMANS, FELICIA.--Mount Olympus, 2. Vale of Tempe, 3. City and +temple of Delphi, T. Mycenæ. Spartan march to battle. +Legend of Marathon. The Parthenon. The Turkish invasion.<br> +<b>Hephæs'tus</b>, or Vulcan, M.<br> +<b>He'ra</b>. (See <b>Juno</b>.)<br> +<b>Her-a-cli'dæ</b>, the return of the.<br> +<b>Heracli'tus</b>, the philosopher.<br> +<b>Hercules</b>, frees Prometheus; twelve labors, &c., of; +fable of; encounter of, with Antæ'ns; sails with Argonautic +expedition; legends of, at Marathon; statue of.<br> +<b>Hermes</b>. (See <b>Mercury</b>.)<br> +<b>Hermi'o-ne</b>.<br> +HEROD'OTUS, the historian. Life and writings of; compared with +Thucydides.--Extracts from: Xerxes at Abydos. Introduction to +history.<br> +<b>Heroic Age</b>, the. Some events of; arts and civilization +in.<br> +<b>Heros'tratus</b>.<br> +<b>Hertha</b>, goddess of the earth.<br> +HE'SI-OD. Life and works of.--Extracts from: Battle of the +Giants. Origin of Evil, etc. The justice of the gods. Winter.<br> +<b>Hi'ero I</b>. Despot of Gela; becomes despot of Syracuse.<br> +<b>Hiero II</b>. Despot of Syracuse.<br> +<b>Him'era</b>, in Sicily.<br> +<b>Hippar'chus</b>.<br> +<b>Hip'pias</b>, son and successor of Pisistratus. Is driven from +Athens; leads the Persians against Greece.<br> +<b>Hippocre'ne</b> (or crene' in poetry), fountain of.<br> +<b>Hippopla'çia</b> (also Hypopla'kia). Same as The'be, in +Mysia, and so called because supposed to lie at the foot of or +under Mount Plakos.<br> +<b>History</b>. To close of Peloponnesian wars; subsequent period +of.<br> +HOLLAND. J. G.--The La-oc'o-on.<br> +HOMER. Life and works of.--Extracts from: The gardens of +Alcin'o-us, Prayer to the gods. The taking of an oath. The Future +State. The descent of Orpheus. The Elysium. Punishment of Ate. +Ulysses and Thersites. Parting of Hector and Andromache. Death of +Patroclus. The shield of Achilles. Death of Hector. Priam begging +for Hector's body. Lamentation of Andromache; of Helen. Artifice +of Ulysses. The Raft of Ulysses. Similes of Homer. Jupiter grants +the request of Thetis.<br> +HORACE.--Description of Pindar. Greece the conqueror of Rome.<br> +<b>Horolo'gium</b>, the, at Athens.<br> +HOUGHTON, LORD.--The Cyclopean walls.<br> +HUME, DAVID.--The style of Demosthenes.<br> +<b>Huns</b>, the. Overrun Greece.<br> +<b>Hy'las</b>, legend of.<br> +<b>Hymet'tus</b>, Mount.<br> +<b>Hype'ria's Spring</b>, in Thessaly.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Ib'rahim Pä'sha</b> (or pa-shä').<br> +<b>Ica'ria</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Ictinus</b>, the architect.<br> +<b>I'da, Mount</b>.<br> +<b>Idalian queen</b> (same as Venus).<br> +<i>Il'iad.</i><br> +<b>Il'i-um</b>, or <b>Troy</b>. Grecian expedition against; the +fate of; fall of, announced to the Greeks; discoveries on site +of.<br> +<b>Illyr'ia</b>.<br> +<b>Im'bros</b>, island of.<br> +<b>In'achus</b>, son of Oceanus.<br> +<b>In'arus</b>, a Libyan prince.<br> +<b>Iol'cus</b>, in Thessaly.<br> +<b>I'on</b>, son of Xuthus.<br> +ION, of Chios. The power or Sparta.<br> +<b>Io'nia</b>, and <b>Ionians</b>; language and culture of. +Colonies of.<br> +<b>Ionian Sea</b>.<br> +<b>Ion'ic Architecture</b>.<br> +<b>Ionic Revolt</b>, the.<br> +<b>I'os</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Ip'sara</b>, isle of.<br> +<b>I'ra</b>, fortress of, in Messenia.<br> +<b>I'ris</b>, the rainbow goddess.<br> +<b>Isag'oras</b>, the Athenian.<br> +<b>Isles of Greece</b>, the.<br> +<b>Isoc'ra-tes</b>, an Athenian orator.<br> +<b>Is'sus</b>, in Cilicia. Battle of.<br> +<b>Isthmian Games</b>, the.<br> +<b>Italy</b>, Greek colonies in.<br> +<b>Ithaca</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Itho'me</b>, fortress of.<br> +<b>Ixi'on</b>. The punishment of.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Jason</b>.<br> +<b>Jove</b>. (See <b>Jupiter</b>.)<br> +<b>Julian</b>, the Roman emperor.<br> +<b>Juno</b>, or <b>Hera</b>, temple of, at Samos; temple of, near +Platæa.<br> +<b>Jupiter, Jove</b>, or <b>Zeus</b>. Court of; temple of, and +games sacred to; hymn to; divides dominion of the universe; +statue of, at Tarentum.<br> +<b>Justin</b>, the Latin historian.<br> +JUVENAL.--Stories about Xerxes. Flight of Xerxes from Salamis. +Alexander's tomb.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Kalamä'ta</b>.<br> +KENDRICK, A. C., LL.D.--Plato and his writings.<br> +<b>Klephts</b>, the.<br> +<i>Knights</i>, the.<br> +<b>Kot'tos</b>.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Laç-e-dæ'mon</b>, or <b>Sparta</b>.<br> +<b>Laco'nia</b>.<br> +<b>Lævi'nus, M. Valerius</b>.<br> +<b>Lam'achus</b>, an Athenian general.<br> +<b>Lamp'sacus</b>, on the Hellespont.<br> +LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE.--Reconciliation of Helen and Menelaus.<br> +LANG, A.--Venus visits Helen of Troy. Reconciliation of Helen and +Menelaus.<br> +<b>La-oc'o-on</b>, a priest of Apollo. Statuary group of the +Laocoon.<br> +<b>Lap'ithæ</b>, a people of Thessaly.<br> +LAWRENCE, EUGENE.--The murder of Agamemnon. Herodotus. Menander. +Aristotle.<br> +<b>Lebade'a</b>, temple and oracle of.<br> +LEGARÉ (le-gre'), HUGH S.--Character of a Greek democracy. +The eloquence of Æschines. The eloquence of +Demosthenes.<br> +<b>Lem'nian</b> (relating to Vulcan).<br> +<b>Lem'nos</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Leon'idas</b>, a Spartan king. Bravery and death of, at +Thermopylæ; the tomb of.<br> +<b>Leotych'i-des</b>.<br> +<b>Lepan'to</b>.<br> +<b>Lernæ'an Lake</b>.<br> +<b>Les'bos</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Le'the</b>.<br> +<b>Leu'cas</b>, or <b>Leucadia</b>.<br> +<b>Leu'ce</b>, in the Euxine Sea.<br> +<b>Leuc'tra</b>, in Boeotia. Battle of.<br> +LIDDELL, HENRY G., D.D.--Legends of the Greeks.<br> +<b>Literature and the Arts</b>. In the Ionian colonies; the poems +of Homer. <b>1</b>. Progress of, before the Persian wars; poems +of Hesiod; lyric poetry; philosophy; early architecture; early +sculpture. <b>2</b>. Progress of, from the Persian to close of +Peloponnesian wars; lyric poetry; the Drama-tragedy; old comedy; +early history; philosophy; sculpture and painting; architecture. +<b>3</b>. Progress of, after Peloponnesian wars; the drama; +oratory; philosophy; history; architecture and sculpture; +painting.<br> +<b>Livy</b>, the Roman historian.<br> +<b>Lo'cris</b>, and <b>Locrians</b>.<br> +LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL.--A Pythagorean fantasy.<br> +LÜB'KE, WILHELM.--Art at Athene. Phidias and his work. The +Dying Gladiator.<br> +LU'CAN.--The Delphic oracle. Alexander's career and +character.<br> +LUCRE'TIUS (she-us).--The plague at Athens. Epicurus.<br> +<b>Lyce'um</b>, the, at Athens.<br> +<b>Lycur'gus</b>, the Spartan law-giver; legislation of.<br> +<b>Lyric Poetry</b>. Before the Persian wars; from Persian to +close of Peloponnesian wars.<br> +<b>Lysan'der</b>, a Spartan general. Acts of.<br> +<b>Ly'si-as</b> (she-as), an Athenian orator.<br> +<b>Lysic'rates</b>, monument to.<br> +<b>Lysim'achus</b>, Alexander's general.<br> +<b>Lysip'pus</b>, of Sicyon. Works of.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Maca'ria</b>, plain of.<br> +MACAULAY, LORD.--Herodotus. Literature of Athens, and her +immortal influence.<br> +<b>Maç'edon</b>, or <b>Maçedo'nia</b>. Invasion of, +by the Persians; by Xerxes; Athenian colonies in; supremacy of; +sketch of; interference of, in affairs of Greece; war of, with +Greece; with Persia; revolt of Sparta against; invasion of, by +Celts, and war with Pyrrhus; conquest of, by Rome.<br> +<b>Macis'tus, Mount</b>, in Euboea, near Eretria.<br> +<b>Mæ-o'tis</b>, same as Sea of Azof.<br> +MAHAFFY, J. P.--The society of Olympus. Political life of the +Greeks. Domestic life in the Heroic Age. Hesiod's description of +the Styx. Archilochus. Stesich'orus. Barbarities in the +Peloponnesian wars. Simonides. Æschylus. The "Alcestis" of +Euripides. Thucydides. The Sophists. Socrates. Late Greek +tragedy. Aristotle.<br> +<b>Magne'sia</b> (she-a).<br> +<b>Mah'moud</b>, the Sultan.<br> +<b>Mantine'a</b>, in Arcadia.<br> +<b>Mar'athon</b>, the plains of; battle of, and legends connected +with.<br> +<b>Mardo'nius</b>, Persian general. First invasion of Greece; his +second Invasion and defeat at Marathon; defeated at Platæa, +and is slain.<br> +<b>Mars</b>.<br> +<b>Mavrocordä'to, Alexander</b>.<br> +<b>Mede'a</b>.<br> +<i>Medea</i>, the.<br> +<b>Meg'ara</b>.<br> +<b>Me'lian nymphs</b>. They watched over gardens and flocks of +sheep.<br> +<b>Me'los</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Melpom'e-ne</b>, inventress of tragedy.<br> +<b>Memno'nian Palace</b>. So called because said to have been +founded by the father of Memnon.<br> +<i>Memorabil'ia</i>, the.<br> +MENAN'DER, the comic poet. Life and works of. Fragment from.<br> +<b>Men-e-la'us</b>.<br> +<b>Men'tor</b>, a friend of Ulysses.<br> +<b>Mercury</b>, or <b>Her'mes</b>.<br> +<b>Messa'na</b>, in Sicily.<br> +<b>Messa'pion, Mount</b>, in Boeotia.<br> +<b>Messe'nia</b>, and <b>Messe'nians</b>, wars of, with +Sparta.<br> +<b>Messenian Gulf</b>.<br> +<b>Messenian wars</b>, the.<br> +<b>Metamorphoses</b>, the.<br> +<b>Mi'con</b>, a painter.<br> +<b>Mile'tus</b>, in Ionia.<br> +<b>Milti'a-des</b>, the Athenian general, etc. Commands at +Marathon; disgrace and death of; lesson of.<br> +MILTON, JOHN.--Cocytus and Acheron. Heroic times foretold. Xerxes +crosses the Hellespont. Reference to Alcestis. Socrates. +Oratory.<br> +<b>Mi'mas</b>, a mountain-range of Ionia.<br> +<b>Minerva</b>, temple of; statue of, at Athens.<br> +<b>Mi'nos</b>, Cretan law-giver.<br> +<b>Minot'ti</b>. Story of.<br> +<b>Missolon'ghi</b>. The sortie at.<br> +MITCHELL, THOMAS.--The Old Comedy. Style of Plato. Xenophon.<br> +MITFORD, WILLIAM.--Æschylus's account of Salamis. Character +of Pericles.<br> +<b>Mityle'ne</b>.<br> +<b>Mnemos'y-ne</b>, mother of the Nine Muses.<br> +<b>Mnes'icles</b>, a sculptor.<br> +<b>Mnes'theus</b>.--A great-grandson of Erechtheus, who deprived +Theseus of the throne of Athens, and led the Athenians in the +Trojan war.<br> +<b>Molda'via</b>.<br> +<b>Monembasï'a</b>. On the south-east coast of Laconia.<br> +<b>More'a</b>.<br> +<b>Morosi'ni</b>, a Venetian admiral.<br> +<b>Mum'mius</b>, a Roman consul.<br> +MURE, WILLIAM.--The "Works and Days" of Hesiod. Alcman.<br> +<b>Muses, the Nine</b>.<br> +<b>Mye'a-le</b>. Defeat of Persians at.<br> +<b>Myce'næ</b>.<br> +<b>My'ron</b>, a painter.<br> +<b>Myr'tis</b>, a poetess.<br> +<b>Mys'ia</b> (she-a).<br> +<b>Mythology, Grecian</b>.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Na-i'a-des</b>, or <b>Nai'ads</b>, the.<br> +<b>Nap'oli di Roma'nia</b>.<br> +<b>Naupac'tus</b>.<br> +<b>Nau'pli-a</b>.<br> +<b>Navarï'no</b>; battle of.<br> +<b>Nax'os</b>, in Sicily.<br> +<b>Ne-ap'olis</b>, in Italy.<br> +<b>Ne'mea</b>, city of.<br> +<b>Ne'mean games</b>.<br> +<b>Ne'mean lion</b>.<br> +<b>Nem'esis</b>, a female avenging deity.<br> +<b>Neptune</b>, or <b>Posei'don</b>; temple of.<br> +<b>Ner-e'i-des</b>, or <b>Ner'e-ids</b>.<br> +<b>Nestor</b>, a Greek hero and sage.<br> +<b>Niçi-as</b> (she-as), <b>the Peace of</b>.<br> +<b>Niçi-as</b>, the Athenian general.<br> +<b>Niçi-as</b>, a painter.<br> +<b>Ni'o-be</b>, and her children.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Oaths</b>, of the gods, etc.<br> +<b>O-ce-an'i-des</b>, the.--Ocean-nymphs and sisters of the +rivers; supposed personifications of the various qualities and +appearances of water.<br> +<b>O-ce'anus</b>, god of the ocean.<br> +<b>O-de'um</b>, the.<br> +<i>Ody'ssey</i>, the.<br> +<i>OEd'ipus Tyran'nus</i>, the.<br> +<b>OE'ta, Mount</b>.<br> +<b>Olym'pia</b>, in E'lis; statue of Jupiter at.<br> +<b>Olym'piad</b>.<br> +<b>Olym'pian Jove</b>. Temple of; statue of.<br> +<b>Olym'pus, Mount</b>; society of.<br> +<b>Olyn'thus</b>, in Macedonia.<br> +<b>Oratory</b>.<br> +<b>O're-ads</b>, the.<br> +<b>Ores'tes</b>, son of Agamemnon.<br> +<b>Or'pheus</b> (pheus), the musician.<br> +<b>Orthag'oras of Sicyon</b>.<br> +<b>Ortyg'ia</b>, in Sicily.<br> +<b>Os'sa, Mount</b>.<br> +<b>Otho</b>, King of Greece; revolution against and deposition +of.<br> +<b>O'thrys Mountains</b>.<br> +OV'ID.--Apollo. The Creation. Deluge of Deucalion. The Descent of +Orpheus. Apollo's Conflict with Python.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Pæs'tum</b>. Ruins of temples at.<br> +<b>Pagasæ</b>, Gulf of.<br> +<b>Painting</b>.<br> +<b>Palame'des</b>, a Greek hero.<br> +<b>Pal'las</b> (same as Minerva).<br> +<b>Pami'sus</b>, the river.<br> +<b>Pam'philus</b>, a painter.<br> +<b>Pan</b>; legend of.--The god of shepherds, in form both man +and beast, having a horned head and the thighs, legs, and feet of +a goat.<br> +<b>Pan'darus</b>, a Trojan hero.<br> +<b>Pando'ra</b>, legend of.<br> +<i>Paradise Lost</i>, the.<br> +<b>Par'çæ</b>, or Fates.<br> +<b>Paris</b>, of Troy. Abducts Helen; combat of, with Menelaus; +kills Achilles.<br> +<b>Parmen'ides</b>.<br> +<b>Parnas'sus, Mount</b>.<br> +<b>Par'nes</b>, mountains of.<br> +<b>Par'non</b>, mountains of.<br> +<b>Pa'ros</b>, an island of the Cyclades group.<br> +<b>Parrha'sius</b> (she-us). Anecdotes of.<br> +<b>Par'thenon</b>, the; glories of; destruction of.<br> +<b>Passä'rowitz</b>, in Servia. The peace of. Concluded +between Austria and Venice on the one side, and Turkey on the +other.<br> +<b>Pa'træ</b>.<br> +<b>Patro'cius</b>, a Greek hero.<br> +<b>Pausa'nias</b>, a Spartan general. At Platæa; treason, +punishment, and death of.<br> +<b>Pax'os</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Pegasus</b>, the winged horse.<br> +<b>Pelas'gians</b>, the.<br> +<b>Pe'leus</b>.<br> +<b>Pe'li-as</b>.<br> +<b>Pe'li-on, Mount</b>.<br> +<b>Pelle'ne</b>, or <b>Cassandra</b>, in Achaia.<br> +<b>Pelop'idas</b>, the Theban.<br> +<b>Peloponne'sus</b>, the.<br> +<b>Peloponnesian wars</b>, the; the first war; the second +war.<br> +<b>Pe'lops</b>.<br> +<b>Penel'o-pe</b>, wife of Odysseus.<br> +<b>Pene'us</b>, the river.<br> +<b>Pentel'icus</b>, or <b>Mende'li, Mount</b>.<br> +<b>Pen'theus</b>, King of Thebes.<br> +<b>Perdic'cas</b>, Alexander's general.<br> +<b>Perian'der</b>, despot of Corinth; one of the Seven Sages.<br> +<b>Per'icles</b>, the Athenian general, etc. Accedes to power in +place of Cimon; constitutional changes made by, at Athens; +measures of, for war with Sparta; defeat of, at Tanagra; recalls +Cimon; progress under his rule; attacks upon, at Athens; declares +war against Sparta; oration of; death and character of.<br> +<b>Persep'olis</b>. Alexander's feast at.<br> +<b>Per'seus</b> (or se'us).<br> +<b>Per'seus</b>, King of Macedon.<br> +<i>Persians</i>, the.<br> +<b>Persian wars</b>, the. Account of.<br> +<i>Phoe'do</i>, the.<br> +<b>Phale'rum</b>, bay of.<br> +<b>Phe'ræ</b>, in Thessaly.<br> +<b>Phid'ias</b>, the sculptor; the work and masterpieces of.<br> +PHILE'MON, the comic poet. Life and works or.<br> +<b>Philip of Macedon</b>; interference of, in Grecian affairs; +invades Thessaly; attacks of Demosthenes against; captures +Olynthus; reveals his designs against Greece, and defeats Athens +and Thebes at Chæronea; is invested with supreme command, +and declares war against Persia; death of.<br> +<b>Philip V. of Macedon</b>; defeat of, at Apollonia and +Cynocephalæ.<br> +<i>Philippics</i>, the.<br> +<b>Phil'ocles</b>, bravery of.<br> +<b>Philopoe'men</b>.<br> +<b>Philosophy</b>. Before the Persian wars; to close of +Peloponnesian wars; subsequent to Peloponnesian wars.<br> +<b>Phleg'ethon</b>, or <b>Pyr-iphleg'ethon</b>.<br> +<b>Pho'cion</b> (she-on), Athenian statesman. Opposes the policy +of Demosthenes.<br> +<b>Pho'cis</b> and <b>Phocians</b>, sacrilege of, and war +with.<br> +<b>Phoe'bus</b>, the sun-god (Apollo).<br> +<b>Phoe'nix</b>, warrior and sage.<br> +PHRYN'ICHUS. Tribute to Sophocles.<br> +<b>Phy'le</b>. A fortress in a pass of Mount Parnes, north-west +from Athens. This was the point seized by Thrasybulus in the +revolt against the Thirty Tyrants.<br> +<b>Pi-e'ri-an fount</b>.<br> +<b>Pi-er'i-des</b>, name given to the Muses.<br> +<b>Pi'e-rus</b>, or <b>Pl-e'ri-a, Mount</b>.<br> +<b>Pi'e-rus</b>, King of Emathia.<br> +PIN'DAR. Life and writings of. Extracts from: The Greek Elysium; +Christening of the Argo; Spartan music and poetry; Tribute to +Theron; Athenians at Artemisium; Threnos; Founding of Ætna; +Hiero's victory at Cumæ; Admonitions to Hiero.<br> +<b>Pin'dus</b>, mountains of.<br> +<b>Piræ'us</b>, the.<br> +<b>Pi'sa</b> and <b>Pisa'tans</b>.<br> +<b>Pisis'tratus</b> and the <b>Pisistrat'idæ</b>; +usurpation of Pisistratus; death and character of; family of, +driven from Athens.<br> +<b>Pit'tacus</b>, one of the Seven Sages.<br> +<b>Plague</b>, the, at Athens.<br> +<b>Platæ'a</b> and the <b>Platæ'ans</b>; battle of +Platæa; results of; attack on, by Thebans.<br> +PLATO, the philosopher. Life and works of.<br> +PLATO, the comic poet.--Tomb of Themistocles; Aristophanes.<br> +PLINY.--Story of Parrhasius and Zeuxis.<br> +PLUMPTRE, E. H., D.D.--Personal temperament of +Æschylus.<br> +PLUTARCH.--Songs of the Spartans; Solon's efforts to recover +Salamis; Incident of Aristides's banishment; Artemisium; Lysander +and Phil'ocles.<br> +<b>Pluto</b>.<br> +<b>Pnyx</b>, the.<br> +<b>Polyb'ius</b>. Life and works of.<br> +<b>Pol'ybus</b>, King of Corinth.<br> +<b>Polycle'tus</b>, a sculptor.<br> +<b>Polyc'ra-tes</b>, despot of Samoa.<br> +<b>Polydec'tes</b>, a Spartan king.<br> +<b>Polydec'tes</b>, King of Seri'phus.<br> +<b>Polydo'rus</b>, a Rhodian sculptor.<br> +<b>Polygno'tus</b>, of Thasos.<br> +POLYZO'IS.--war song.<br> +POPE, ALEXANDER.--The Pierian Spring; Tribute to Homer; +Description of Pindar; Aristotle.<br> +<b>Posei'don</b>, (See <b>Neptune</b>.)<br> +<b>Potidæ'a</b>, revolt of.<br> +<b>Praxit'eles</b>, an Athenian sculptor.<br> +<b>Priam</b>, King of Troy.<br> +<b>Prie'ne</b>, in Carla.<br> +PRIOR, MATTHEW.--Description of Pindar.<br> +<b>Prod'icus</b>, the Sophist.<br> +<b>Prome'theus</b>. Legend of; Hesiod's tale of.<br> +<b>Prome'theus Bound</b>, the.<br> +<b>Propon'tic Sea</b>.<br> +<b>Propylæ'a</b>, at Athens.<br> +<b>Pros'erpine</b>, daughter of Ceres.<br> +<b>Protag'oras</b>, the Sophist.<br> +<b>Pro'teus</b> (or te-us), a sea-deity.<br> +<b>Protog'enes</b>, a Rhodian painter.<br> +<b>Ptol'emy Cerau'nus</b>, of Macedon.<br> +<b>Ptol'emy Philadelphus</b>, King of Egypt.<br> +<b>Ptol'emy So'ter</b>, Alexander's general.<br> +<b>Pyd'na</b>, in Macedonia. Battle of.<br> +<b>Py'lus</b>, in Messenia.<br> +<b>Pyr'rha</b>, wife of Deucalion.<br> +<b>Pyr'rhus</b>, a son of Achilles.<br> +<b>Pyr'rhus</b>, King of Epirus; war of, with Macedon; with +Sparta; death of.<br> +<b>Pythag'oras</b>, the philosopher; doctrines of, etc..<br> +<b>Pythag'oras</b>, a painter.<br> +<b>Pyth'ia</b>, priestess of Apollo.<br> +<b>Pythian games</b>.<br> +<b>Py'thon</b>; Apollo's conflict with.<br> +<b>Py'thon</b>, an orator of Macedon.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Quintil'ian</b>, the historian.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Rhadaman'thus</b>, son of Jupiter and Europa.<br> +<b>Rhapsodists</b>, the.<br> +<b>Rhe'a</b>, daughter of Coelus and Terra (Heaven and +Earth).<br> +<b>Rhe'gium</b>, in <i>Magna Groecia</i>.<br> +RHI'GAS, CONSTANTINE. War song.<br> +<b>Rhodes</b>, island of; sculptures of.<br> +<b>Rhoe'cus</b>, a sculptor.<br> +<b>Roger</b>, King of Sicily.<br> +<b>Rome</b> and the <b>Romans</b>; called into Sicily, and become +masters of the island; defeat of, at Cannæ, and victory of, +at Cynocephalæ; become masters of Greece and Macedon; their +administration of Greece.<br> +RUSKIN, JOHN.--The "Clouds" of Aristophanes.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Sacred War</b>, the.<br> +<b>Sages, the Seven</b>.<br> +<b>Sal'amis</b>, island of; naval battle at.<br> +<b>Saler'no</b>, bay of, in Italy.<br> +<b>Saloni'ca</b>, once <b>Thessaloni'ca</b>.<br> +<b>Sa'mos</b>, island of.<br> +SAP'PHO (saf'fo), a poetess. Lire, writing, and characterization +of.<br> +<b>Sar'dis</b>, in Asia Minor.<br> +<b>Saron'ic Gulf</b> (Thermaic).<br> +<b>Sarpe'don</b>, a Trojan hero.<br> +<b>Sat'urn</b>. (See <b>Chro'nos</b>.)<br> +<b>Sa'tyrs</b>, the.<br> +<b>Scæ'an Gates</b>, the, of Troy.<br> +<b>Scaman'der</b>, river in Asia Minor.<br> +<b>Scaptes'y-le</b>, in Thrace.<br> +SCHILLER.--The building of Thebes; the poet's lament; wailing of +the Trojan women; Damon and Pythias--The Hostage; a visit to +Archimedes.<br> +SCHLEGEL, A. W., von.--Character of the Agamemnon.<br> +<b>Sçil'lus</b>, In E'lis.<br> +<b>Sçl'o</b>, island of.--Massacre at.<br> +<b>Sco'pas</b>, the sculptor.<br> +<b>Sculpture</b>.--Before the Persian wars; from Persian to close +of Peloponnesian wars; subsequent to Peloponnesian wars.<br> +<b>Sçyl'lis</b>, a sculptor.<br> +<b>Sçy'ros</b>, Island of.<br> +<b>Seleu'cus</b>, Alexander's general; the Seleucidæ.<br> +<b>Seli'nus</b>.--Ruins of temples at.<br> +<b>Seneca</b>, Roman philosopher.<br> +<b>Seri'phus</b>, island of.<br> +<i>Seven Chiefs against Thebes</i>, the.<br> +SEWELL, WILLIAM.--Anecdote of Chrys'ostom.<br> +SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE.--The sufferings of Prometheus; an image of +Athens; a prophetic vision of the Greek Revolution.<br> +<i>Shield of Hercules</i>, the.<br> +<b>Sicilian Expedition</b>, the.<br> +<b>Sicily</b>, Island of.--Colonies in; invasion of, by +Carthaginians; by the Athenians; affairs in the colonies under +Hiero, Dionysius, etc.; the Roman conquer.<br> +<b>Si'çy-on</b> and <b>Siçy-o'nians</b> +(sish'i-on); sculpture of; painting of.<br> +<b>Slle'nus</b>, a demi-god. The nurse, preceptor, and attendant +of Bacchus, to whom Socrates was wont to compare himself.<br> +SIM'MIAS.--Tribute to Sophocles.<br> +<b>Sim'o-is</b>, a river of Troas.<br> +<b>Simon'ides of Amorgos</b>.<br> +SIMON'IDES OF CEOS.--Life and writings of. Extracts from: +Epitaphs on the fallen at Thermopylæ; battle of Eurym'edon; +Lamentation of Dan'ae.<br> +<b>Slavonians</b>, the.--Influences of.<br> +SMITH, WILLIAM, LL.D.--Socrates. Aristotle.<br> +SOCRATES; attack upon, by Aristophanes. Life and works of. +Extracts from: His Defence. Views of a Future State.<br> +<b>Solon</b>, the Athenian law-giver.--Life and legislation of; +capture of Salamis by; his integrity; protests against acts of +Pisistratus; voluntary exile and death of; classed as one of the +Seven Sages. Extracts from: Ridicule to which his integrity +exposed him. Estimate of his own character and services.<br> +<b>Sophists</b>, the.<br> +SOPH'OCLES. Life and works of. Extracts from: The taking of +an<br> +oath. Chariot-race of Orestes. <i>The OEdipus Tyrannus</i>.<br> +SOUTHEY, ROBERT.--The battle of Platoon.<br> +<b>Sparta and the Spartans</b>; Sparta is assigned to sons of +Aristodemus; early history of; education and patriotism of; their +poetry and music; conquests by; colonize Tarentum; reject the +demands of Darius, but refuse to help Athens at Marathon; efforts +of, to unite states against Persia; in battle of +Thermopylæ; monuments and epitaphs to; in battle of +Salamis; or Platæa; on coasts of Asia Minor; loses command +in war against Persia; earthquake at Sparta, and revolt of the +Helots; accepts aid from Athens; alliance of, with Athens, +renounced, and war begun; defeats Athens at Tanagra, and is +defeated; truce of, with Athens; begins Peloponnesian war; +concludes the peace of Nicias; war of, with Argives, and victory +at Mantinea; aids Syracuse against Athens; successes of, against +Athens; occupies Athens, and withdraws from Attica; supremacy of +Sparta; her defeat and humiliation by Thebes; engages in the +Sacred War; revolt of, against Macedon; war with Pyrrhus; with +Antigonus.<br> +<b>Spor'a-des</b>, the (islands).<br> +<b>Sta-gi'ra</b>, in Macedonia.<br> +<b>Stati'ra</b>, daughter of Darius,<br> +STEPHENS, JOHN L--A visit to Missolonghi.<br> +<b>Stesich'orus</b>, the poet.<br> +STORY, WILLIAM W.--Chersiphron, and the Temple of Diana.<br> +<b>Stroph'a-des</b>, the (islands).<br> +<b>Stry'mon</b>, the river.<br> +<b>Styx</b>. A celebrated torrent in Arcadia--now called "Black +water" from the dark color of the rocks over which it flows--from +which the fabulous river of the same name probably +originated.<br> +<b>Su'da</b>, in Achaia.<br> +<b>Su'sa</b>, capital of Persia.<br> +<b>Susa'rion</b>, a comic poet.<br> +<b>Syb'aris</b>, in Italy; destroyed by Crotona.<br> +<b>Sylla</b>, a Roman general.<br> +SYMONDS, JOHN ADDINGTON.--The "Theogony" of Hesiod; Archilochus; +the ladies of Lesbos; Sappho and her poems; the era of Athenian +greatness; Pindar; Euripides; Menander.<br> +<b>Syracuse, in Sicily</b>.--Founded by Corinthians; progress of, +under Gilon, and war with Carthage; destroys the Athenian +expedition; affairs of, under Hiero and succeeding rulers.<br> +<b>Syrts</b>, two gulfs in Africa.</small></p> + +<p><small>TALFOURD, THOMAS NOON.--Unity of the Iliad; Sophocles; +the glory of Athens.<br> +<b>Tan'agora</b>, in Boeotia, battle of.<br> +<b>Tan'talus</b>, the story of.<br> +<b>Taren'turn</b>, in Italy.<br> +<b>Tar'tarus</b>, the place of punishment.<br> +<b>Ta-yg'etus</b>, mountain-range of.<br> +TAYLOR, BAYARD.--Legend of Hylas.<br> +<b>Te'gea</b>, in Arcadia.<br> +<b>Teg'y-ra</b>, battle at.<br> +<b>Tem'enus</b>, of the Heraclidæ.<br> +<b>Tem'pe</b>, Vale of.<br> +<b>Ten'edos</b>, island of.<br> +TENNENT, EMERSON.--Turkish oppression in Greece.<br> +<b>Ten Thousand Greeks</b>, retreat of.<br> +<b>Te'os</b>, in Ionia.<br> +TERPAN'DER, the poet; Spartan valor and music.<br> +<b>Te'thys</b>, wife of Ocean.<br> +<b>Tha'is</b>, an Athenian beauty.<br> +<b>Tha'les</b>, one of the Seven Sages; philosophy of.<br> +<b>Theag'enes</b>, despot of Megara.<br> +<b>The'be</b>, a city of Mysia.<br> +<b>Thebes</b>, city of; Thebans at Thermopylæ; attack of +Thebans on Platæa; sympathy of, with Athens; seizure of, by +the Spartans; rise and fall of Thebes; defeat of, at +Charonea.<br> +<b>The'mis</b>, goddess of justice, or law.<br> +<b>Themis'to-cles</b>, Athenian general and statesman; at +Marathon; rise of, in Athenian affairs; character and acts of; at +Artemisium, and at Salamis; banishment, disgrace, and death of; +monuments and tributes to.<br> +THEOC'RITUS.--Ptolemy Philadelphus.<br> +<b>Theodo'rus</b>, the sculptor.<br> +THEOG'NIS, poet of Megara.--The Revolutions in Megara.<br> +<i>Theog'ony</i>, the.<br> +<b>The'ra</b>, island of.<br> +<b>Therma'ic Gulf</b> (Saronic).<br> +<b>Thermop'ylæ</b>, pass of; battle at.<br> +<b>The'ron</b>, ruler of Agrigentum.<br> +<b>Thersi'tes</b>; a Greek warrior.<br> +<b>The'seus</b> (or se-us), first king of Athens; temple to, at +Athens; legends of; temple of.<br> +<b>Thes'piæ</b> and the <b>Thespians</b>.<br> +<b>Thes'pis</b>.<br> +<b>Thes'salus</b>, son of Pisistratus.<br> +<b>Thes'saly</b> and the <b>Thessa'lians</b>.<br> +<b>The'tis</b>, a sea-deity; "Thetis' son" (Achilles).<br> +THIRLWALL, CONNOP, D.D.--The Trojan war. Want of political union +among the Greeks. Character of an ochlocracy. Effects of the fall +of oligarchy. Writings of Theognis. The rule of Pisistratus. +Reforms of Clisthenes. The "Theogony" of Hesiod. Progress of +Sculpture. Themistocles. Pericles. Pindar. The Greeks in the +Sacred War. Last struggles of Greece.<br> +THOMSON, JAMES.--The Apollo-Belvedere. Sparta. Tribute to Solon. +Teachings or Pythagoras. Architecture. Aristides. Cimon. +Socrates. Architecture. Retreat of the Ten Thousand. Pelopidas +and Epaminondas. The Dying Gladiator. The La-oc'o-on. The +painting by Protog'enes at Rhodes.<br> +<b>Thrace</b>.<br> +<b>Thrasybu'lus</b>, an Athenian patriot.<br> +<b>Thrasybulus</b>, despot of Syracuse.<br> +THUCYD'IDES, the historian. Life and Works of. Extracts from: +Speech of Pericles for war; Funeral Oration of Pericles; Athenian +defeat at Syracuse.<br> +<b>Thu'rii</b>, in Italy.<br> +<b>Tigra'nes</b>.<br> +<b>Timo'leon</b>, a Corinthian.--Rebuilds Syracuse, and restores +her prosperity.<br> +<b>Timo'theus</b>.<br> +<b>Tire'sias</b> (shi-as), priest and prophet. (See <i>OEdipus +Tyrannus</i>.)<br> +<b>Tir'yns</b>, in Argolis.<br> +<b>Tissapher'nes</b>, Persian satrap.<br> +<b>Ti'tans</b>, the.<br> +<b>Tit'y-us</b>, punishment of.<br> +<b>Tragedy</b>.--At Athens; decline of.<br> +<b>Tra'jan</b>, the Roman emperor.<br> +<b>Tripolit'za</b>, modern capital of Arcadia.<br> +<b>Tri'ton</b>. A sea-deity, half fish in form, the son and +trumpeter of Neptune. He blew through a shell to rouse or to +allay the sea.<br> +<b>Trojan War</b>, the.--Account of; consequences of.<br> +<b>Troy</b>. (See <b>Ilium</b>.)<br> +TUCKERMAN.--American sympathy with Greece. Character of Otho. Of +King George.<br> +<b>Turks</b>, the; invade Greece; contests of, with the +Venetians; Siege and capture of Corinth by; final conquest of +Greece; Greek revolution against; compelled to evacuate +Greece.<br> +<b>Tydl'des</b>, a patronymic of Diomed.<br> +TYLER, PROF. W. S.--The divine mission of Socrates.<br> +TYMNÆ'US.--Spartan patriotic virtue.<br> +<b>Tyn'darus</b>, King of Sparta.<br> +<b>Tyrant</b>, or <b>despot</b>.--Definition of.<br> +<b>Tyrants</b>, the <b>Thirty</b>. The Ten Tyrants.<br> +<b>Tyre</b>, city of.<br> +TYRÆ'US.--Spartan war-song.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Ulys'ses</b>, subject of the <i>Odyssey</i>; goes to +Troy; rebukes Thersites; advises construction of the wooden +horse; wanderings of; character of; raft of, described.<br> +<b>Ulys'ses</b>, a Greek general.<br> +<b>U'ranus</b>, or <b>Heaven</b>.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Venetians</b>, the; contests of, with the Turks; +capture the Peloponnesus and Athens; evacuate Athens; abandon +Greece.<br> +<b>Ve'nus</b>, or <b>Aphrodi'te</b>, goddess of love; appears to +Helen; statue of; painting of, rising from the sea.<br> +<b>Vesta</b>.<br> +VIRGIL.--Landing of Æneas. The taking of an oath. The fate +of Troy. The Cumæan Cave. The Eleusinian Mysteries.<br> +<b>Vo'lo</b>, gulf of.<br> +<b>Vulcan</b>, god of fire.</small></p> + +<p><small>WARBURTON, ELIOT B. G.--The sortie at Missolonghi.<br> +<i>Wasps</i>, the.<br> +WEBSTER, DANIEL.--Appeal of, for sympathy with the Greeks.<br> +WEYMAN, C. S.--Changes in statuary.<br> +WILLIS, N. P.--Parrhasius and his captive.<br> +WINTHROP, ROBERT C.--Visit of Cicero to tomb of Archimedes.<br> +WOOLNER, THOMAS.--Venus risen from the sea.<br> +WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM.--Fancies of the Greek mind. The joy of the +Greeks at the Isthmian games.<br> +<i>Works and Days</i>, the.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Xan'thus</b>, or the river Scamander.<br> +<b>Xenoph'anes</b>, the philosopher.<br> +<b>Xen'ophon</b>, the historian.--Leads the retreat of the Ten +Thousand. Life and works of.<br> +<b>Xerxes</b>, King of Persia; prepares to invade Greece, and +reviews his troops at Abydos; stories of; bridges and crosses the +Hellespont; defeats the Spartans at Thermopylæ: is defeated +at Salamis: his flight; death of.<br> +<b>Xu'thus</b>, son of Helen.</small></p> + +<p><small>YOUNG, EDWARD.--The persuasive Nestor.<br> +<b>Ypsilan'ti, Alexander</b>.--The first to proclaim the liberty +of Greece.</small></p> + +<p><small><b>Zacyn'thus</b>, Island of.<br> +<b>Ze'no</b>, a philosopher of Elea.<br> +<b>Ze'no</b>, the Stoic philosopher, of Citium.--Life and works +of.<br> +<b>Zeux'is</b>, the painter.--Anecdote of.</small></p> + +<small><br> +</small> + +<p align="center"><small>THE END.</small></p> + +<br> +<p align="center"><a href="ancient_greece.gif"><img alt= +"ancient_greece.gif" src="ancient_greece.gif" width="620" height= +"406" border="0"></a></p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<pre> +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mosaics of Grecian History +by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOSAICS OF GRECIAN HISTORY *** + +This file should be named 8mgrh10h.txt or 8mgrh10h.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8mgrh11h.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8mgrh10ha.txt + +Produced by Robert J. 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