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Title: The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, Volume I (of 3)
Author: St. John, James Augustus
Language: English
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AND CUSTOMS OF ANCIENT GREECE, VOLUME I (OF 3) ***
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Transcriber’s Note:
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the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
OF
ANCIENT GREECE.
-------
VOL. I.
--------------
_Price_ 31_s._ 6_d._
--------------
NOTICE.
The Proprietors of CIRCULATING LIBRARIES in all parts of the country are
compelled by the new Copyright Act to discontinue purchasing and lending
out a single copy of a foreign edition of an English work. _The mere
having it in their possession ticketed and marked as a library book_,
exposes them to
A PENALTY OF TEN POUNDS.
---
Several clauses of the new Copyright Act award severe punishments for
introducing and exposing for sale or hire pirated editions of English
works, both in Great Britain and in the Colonies. The Government
absolutely prohibits the introduction of these nefarious reprints
through the Custom-houses on any pretence whatever. The public should be
made fully and perfectly aware that, in consequence of a Treasury Order
to that effect, even single copies of works so pirated, brought in a
traveller’s baggage, which were formerly admissible, are so no longer,
_unless they be cut, the name written in them, and, moreover, so_ WORN
_and used as to render them unfit for sale_; and that if afterwards they
are found in a Circulating Library, the Proprietor is subject to a
severe penalty. Two clauses of the new Customs’ Act, moreover, exclude
them altogether after the commencement of the next financial year. These
measures will, no doubt, be rigorously enforced both at home and in the
Colonies.
[Illustration: TOPOGRAPHY OF SPARTA.]
THE HISTORY
OF THE
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
OF
ANCIENT GREECE.
BY J. A. ST. JOHN.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
=Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.=
1842.
LONDON:
_PRINTED BY S. AND J. BENTLEY, WILSON, AND FLEY,_
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
DEDICATION.
---
TO BAYLE ST. JOHN.
I DEDICATE the following work to you, my dear Son, as a token of my
gratitude for the cheerful patience with which you have aided me in
completing it, despite the calamity that overtook me in the midst of my
labours. Whatever may be the fate of the publication it will always
recall to me some of the happiest hours of my life, rendered so chiefly
by beholding the contented serenity with which you subdued the
irksomeness of studies so little suited to your years. At length,
however, you are delivered from lexicographers and scholiasts. The final
page has been written, the last proof read. I escape from a task
commenced before you were born, and you from a four years’
apprenticeship to the craft and mystery of authorship. All that now
remains is to watch the reception which the fruit of our toil may meet
with in the world. It has been produced and has grown up under very
peculiar circumstances. Whithersoever we have travelled, the wrecks of
Grecian literature have accompanied us, and the studies to which these
pages owe their existence have been pursued under the influence of
almost every climate in Europe. Nay, if I pushed my researches still
further and visited the portion of Africa commonly supposed to have been
the cradle of Hellenic civilisation, it was solely in the hope of
qualifying myself to speak with some degree of confidence on the subject
of those arts which represent to the Modern World so much of the
grandeur and genius of Greece. Here, probably, the action of
pestilential winds, and of the sands and burning glare of the desert
commenced that dimming of the “visual ray,” which, in all likelihood,
will wrap me gradually in complete darkness, and veil for ever from my
sight those forms of the beautiful which have been incarnated, if I may
so speak, in marble. This is a language which neither you nor your
sister can read to me. All that sweet Olympian brood which used to smile
upon me with kindly recognition when I was a solitary wayfarer in lands
not my own, will, as far as I am concerned, be annihilated. Those twelve
mystical transformations of Aphroditè into stone, which may be beheld
all together at Naples, and appeared to me more lovely than its vaunted
bay, or even the sky that hangs enamoured over it, will, I conjecture,
be seen of me no more, or seen obscurely as through a mist. Homer,
however, and Æschylus, with Plato and Thucydides and Demosthenes, will
be able still through the voices of my children—voices more cheerful and
willing than ministered to the old age and blindness of Milton—to
project their beauty into my soul. I will not, therefore, repine; but,
imitating the example of wiser and better men, submit unmurmuringly to
the will of God. Had things been otherwise ordered, I might have
continued these researches. As it is, I take leave of them here. Our
friend, Mr. Keightley, who has visited Italy for the purpose, will
perform for the Romans what I have endeavoured to accomplish for the
Greeks; and his extensive and varied learning, the excellence of his
method, and the pleasing vivacity of his style, will, probably, ensure
for his work a still greater degree of popularity even than that which
his very successful productions already enjoy.
Believe me, my dear son,
Ever affectionately yours,
J. A. ST. JOHN.
London,
October 13th, 1842.
INTRODUCTION.
Many moral phenomena appear to baffle the sagacity of statesmen,
because, confiding too implicitly in experience, they omit to widen the
range of their contemplation so as to embrace the whole circle of the
people’s existence whose fortunes and character they desire to
comprehend. To be successful in such an inquiry it is requisite to lay
open, as far as possible, the influence on that people of climate and
geographical position, to break through the husk and shell of customs,
manners, laws, religions, that we may come to the kernel of its moral
nature, to that inner organization, intellectual and physical, of which
the external circumstances of its civil and political life are but so
many fluctuating symbols.
To accomplish this, however, even in the case of a contemporary nation,
among whom we may behold in full activity all the material movements of
society, is no easy task. But the difficulty must be very much
augmented, when, in addition to the obstacles which necessarily under
the most favourable circumstances beset every avenue to a people’s inner
life, those are added arising out of the distance on the track of time
at which the nation we are considering happens to stand, the scantiness
and contradictory nature of the reports that reach us, and more,
perhaps, than all, the atmosphere of prejudice through which we are apt
to view whatever in any degree differs from our own manners and
institutions. But this consideration, though it should bespeak
indulgence for the unavoidable errors even of the most diligent
investigator, can certainly be no reason for abstaining from all further
investigation. For, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which we
labour, it is still possible to extract from the fragments remaining of
ancient literature materials for reconstructing something more than the
skeleton of antiquity. We can invest the bones with sinews and muscles,
clothe them with flesh and skin, spread over the whole colours that
shall resemble life; and if we cannot steal from heaven celestial fire
to kindle this image of surpassing beauty, that, at least, is the only
thing which exceeds our power.
In saying this, I merely state my opinion of what is possible, not by
any means what I conceive myself to have effected in the present work. I
am but too sensible of how far the execution falls short of “the ample
proposition that hope made,” when, many years ago, the idea suggested
itself to me at that ardent and flattering season of life in which we
are apt to imagine all things within our reach. But as
Every action that hath gone before
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias, and thwart; not answering the aim
And that unbodied figure of the thought
That gave ’t surmised shape;
so, no doubt, in my own case, the realisation will be found to be a very
imperfect embodying of the ideal plan.
Few subjects, however, abound more in interest or instruction than the
one I have here ventured to treat. The inquiry turns upon the
institutions and moral condition of a people to whose fortunes history
affords no parallel; of a people that, like the cloud no bigger than a
man’s hand, which the servant of the prophet saw from the top of Carmel,
contained within itself the seeds of mightiest and most momentous
events. The Hellenes can never, in fact, by any but the uninformed be
regarded in the same light as ordinary political communities. Their
power, vast and astonishing for the age in which they flourished, arose
entirely out of their national character and the spirit of their
institutions. It was the power of intellect. They were in reality the
sun and soul of the ancient world, and darted far into the darkness
around them those vivifying rays which, reflected from land to land,
have since lighted up the world.
Athens, the wisest and noblest of Grecian states,
Mother of arts
And eloquence,
was the great preceptress of mankind. The spirit of her laws,
transmitted through those of Rome, still pervades the whole civilized
world. Her wisdom and her arts form, in all polished communities, a
principal object of study; and to comprehend and to enjoy them is to be
a gentleman. Sallust, therefore, notwithstanding his genius and
sagacity, took but a commonplace view of national greatness, when he
considered that of Athens to be chiefly based on the splendour shed
around her achievements by historians. Her triumphs, it is true, were
not effected by vast military masses, such as those which many barbarous
nations in different ages have put in motion for the purpose of spoil or
conquest. Athens built her glory on other foundations. She could not,
indeed, lead countless armies into the field, but she knew how, with a
little band, to defeat those who could. In the days of her freedom no
human force could subdue her. To effect this, every man within the
borders of Attica must have been exterminated; for so long as an
Athenian was left, the indomitable spirit of democracy would have
survived in him and sufficed to kindle up fresh contests.
But the energies of Athens, how great soever, did not, like those of
most other states, develope themselves chiefly in war. It is the
characteristic of barbarians to destroy, but to create nothing. The
delight and glory of the people of Athens consisted, on the contrary, in
the exercise of creative power, in calling into existence new arts,
founding colonies, widening the circle of civilisation, covering the
earth with beautiful structures, sacred and civil; in producing
pictures, statues, vases, and sculptured gems, of conception and
delicacy of workmanship inimitable. Wherever the Athenian set his foot,
the very earth appeared to grow more lovely beneath it. His genius
beautified whatever it touched. His imagination vivified everything. He
spread a rich mythological colouring over land and sea. Gods, at his
bidding, entered the antique oak, sported in the waters of brook and
fountain, scattered themselves in joyous groups over the uplands and
through the umbrageous valleys, and their voices and odoriferous breath
mingled with every breeze that blew.
In the distant colonies whither he betook himself, when poverty had
relaxed the chain that bound him indissolubly to the Attic soil, a few
years saw a new diminutive Athens springing up. The Pnyx, the Odeion,
the Theatre of Bacchos, the Prytaneion, the Virgin’s Fane, rose on a
diminished scale around him, presenting an image, though faint, of his
earlier home, the loveliest, undoubtedly, and, after Jerusalem, the most
hallowed spot ever inhabited by man. Above all things, he was everywhere
careful to enjoy the blessings of his ancestral institutions, and
listened, as in the mother city, to those popular thunders which, thrice
in every month, rolled from the bema over the assembled crowd,
communicating pleasurable emotions to his mind, and rousing continually
the passion for freedom.
It were needless to dwell at any considerable length on the naval and
military achievements of the Athenians. The world is still full of the
victories of Marathon, Salamis, and Platæa, and the soil, drenched in
defence of liberty with Attic blood, is to this day sacred in the eyes
of the most phlegmatic. I appeal in proof of this to every man’s daily
experience: for does not the bare mention of any spot where the great
Demos triumphed or suffered some national calamity, make the blood bound
more rapidly and tingle in our veins? Even the grovelling and
worldly-minded, who affect to consider nothing holy but Mammon, can have
fire struck out of their cold natures by the spell of those glorious
syllables; for virtue, and valour, and that religious link which binds
the soul to the spot where a mother’s dust reposes, are found, and will
ever be found, to kindle warm admiration in every heart. And never since
society began did these great qualities develope themselves more visibly
than among the people of Athens. For this reason, who can visit
Syracuse, or the shores of the Hellespont, or the site of Memphis’s
White Castle, without experiencing as he gazes on the scene an
electrical thrill of mental anguish at the recollection of what Athenian
citizens more than two thousand years ago suffered there? Even
Thermopylæ, glorious as it is, scarcely stirs our nature so deeply as
Marathon; for the coarser and more material genius and institutions of
Sparta, the nurse of those heroes who fell at the Gates of Hellas
inspire less of that fervent admiration which the great actions and
great men of Athens awaken in every cultivated mind.
Of the political institutions which throughout Hellas influenced so
powerfully the developement of the national character, it is not my
design in the present volumes to speak. I confine myself entirely to the
other causes which rendered the ancient Greeks what they were; reserving
the examination of their forms of government for a separate treatise.
The subject here discussed possesses sufficient interest of itself. It
has been my aim to open up as far as possible a prospect into the
domestic economy of a Grecian family, the arts, comforts, conveniences,
regulations affecting the condition of private life, and those customs
and manners which communicated a peculiar character and colour to the
daily intercourse of Greek citizens. For, in all my investigations about
the nature and causes of those ancient institutions which, during so
many ages constituted the glory and the happiness of the most highly
gifted race known to history, I found my attention constantly directed
to the circumstances of their private life, from which, as from a great
fountain, all their public prosperity and grandeur seemed to spring.
Indeed, the great sources of a nation’s happiness and power must always
lie about the domestic hearth. There or nowhere are sown, and for many
years cherished by culture, all those virtues which bloom afterwards in
public, and form the best ornaments of the commonwealth. Men are
everywhere exactly what their mothers make them. If these are slaves,
narrow-minded, ignorant, unhappy, those in their turn will be so also.
The domestic example, small and obscure though it be, will impress its
image on the state; since that which individually is base and little,
can never by congregating with neighbouring littleness, become great, or
lead to those heroic efforts, those noble self-sacrifices, which elevate
human nature to a sphere in which it appears to touch upon and partake
something of the divine.
By minutely studying, as far as practicable, those small obscure
sanctuaries of Greek civilisation—the private dwellings of Attica--I
hoped to discover the secret of that moral alchemy by which were formed
Those dead, but sceptred sovereigns who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.
In these haunts, little familiar to our imagination, lay concealed the
germs of law, good government, philosophy, the arts, and whatever else
has tended to soften and render beautiful the human clay. That this was
the case is certain; why it should have been so, we may perhaps be
unable satisfactorily to explain; but that is what we shall at least
attempt in the present work, and for this purpose, it will at the first
glance be apparent, that the most elaborate delineation of the political
institutions of Athens must prove altogether insufficient. These were
but one among many powerful causes. The principal lay deeper in a
combination of numerous circumstances:—a peculiarly perfect and
beautiful physical organization; a mind fraught with enthusiasm, force,
flexibility, and unrivalled quickness; a buoyancy of temper which no
calamity could long depress; consequent, probably, upon this, a strong
religious feeling ineradicably seated in the heart; an unerring
perception of the beautiful in art and nature; and lastly, the enjoyment
of a genial climate, and an atmosphere pure, brilliant, and full of
sunshine as their minds.
Races of men, though not in precisely the same manner as individuals,
yet exhibit, at particular periods of their history, a freshness, a
vigour, a disinterestedness, like that of youth; and, because this state
of feeling may more than once occur in the course of their career, they
seem to spring, like Æson, out of convulsions and apparent dissolution
to a state of perfect rejuvenescence. Calamity and suffering purify
whole communities as they do individuals. In the boiling and commotion
of revolutions the impurities of the national character bubble upwards
and are skimmed away by the iron hand of misfortune. These political
convulsions are, in fact, so many efforts of nature to expel some
disease lurking in the constitution, and which, though the race be
immortal, might, if suffered to remain in the frame, produce a lethargy
worse than death. This truth we should bear constantly in mind; for
among the characteristics of the Athenian constitution, not the least
remarkable are the many efforts it made to right itself, and adapt its
framework to the changing circumstances of the times.
In the present inquiry we must, as I have already said, discover, if we
can, how much Hellas owed to its climate, to its position on the globe,
and to the physical organization of its inhabitants. It would be absurd
to infer with some writers, that the influence of these circumstances is
imaginary, because Greece seems to remain where it was of old, and the
constitution and temperament of the people to be likewise unchanged. But
this is not the case. Greece no longer occupies in the map of the world
the position it occupied in antiquity. It has been lifted out of the
centre of civilisation, to be cast upon its outskirts, or, which is the
same thing, civilisation has shifted its seat. Nor are the Greeks any
longer what they formerly were, though perhaps by a fortunate
combination of circumstances they might still be rendered so. At present
there is the same difference between them and their ancestors as between
a jar of Falernian, and an empty jar. The clay, indeed, is there,
beautifully moulded, and the purple hue of life is on the cheek; but
tyranny from the battle of Cheronæa,
“That dishonest victory
Fatal to liberty!”
until now has been draining out the soul. In the day when Hellas was
itself its children walked in light, in the first beautiful light of the
morning, which long seemed to shine only upon them; and now, perhaps,
after the revolution of a cycle almost equal to the Great Year, they
may, probably, be approaching another dawn.
Comparing the several states of Greece together, it is customary to
bestow the palm of energy and military valour upon the Spartans, who
made war their sole profession, and passed their lives as it were in the
camp from the cradle to the grave. But, in thus deciding, justice is
scarcely done to the character of Athens; for, if the former excelled in
discipline, to the latter belonged, indisputably, the superiority in
native courage. Trained or not trained they faced whatever enemy
presented himself, and won at least as many laurels from Sparta, on the
ocean, as the Doric State, in all its wars, ever gathered on land. And,
lastly, at Platæa, among which race, among Ionians or Dorians, was most
activity manifested? In whose ranks was found the greatest ardour to
engage? Who bore the first brunt of the Median horse, and broke the
dreaded shock of that vaunted Asiatic chivalry which the Barbarian hoped
would have trampled down with its innumerable hoofs the spirit of
Grecian freedom? This was effected by the Athenians; by those gay and
seemingly effeminate soldiers, who went forth from their beautiful city
curled, perfumed, clad in purple, as to the mimic combats of the
theatre. The spirit of their commonwealth, all splendour without and all
energy within, urged them to the field. Their cry at the approach of the
king was “Freedom or honourable graves!”—such as their countrymen had
ever been wont to repose in.
In fact, the Athenians, under a free government, had learned what it was
to live—had imbibed from their education the feeling, that if deprived
of such a government, if reduced to bow beneath the yoke of despotism,
to die, if the Apostle’s words may without blame be thus applied, would
be gain. It will readily be conceived that the citizens of such a state
felt an impassioned attachment to their country,—an attachment
unintelligible to persons living under any other form of civil polity.
Athens was the cradle of their freedom and their happiness. There was a
religion in the love they bore it; they had, according to mythical
traditions, which they believed, sprung on that spot from the bosom of
the earth. It stood, therefore to them in the dearest of all relations,
being, to sum up everything holy in one word,—their MOTHER; and they
embodied their profound veneration for the sacred spot in every fond,
every endearing, epithet their matchless language could supply. Even the
gods, in their patriotic partiality, were believed to look on Athens as
the most lovely, no less than the most glorious city on the broad
earth,—an idea which they expressed by representing Poseidon and Athena
contending for the honour of becoming their tutelar divinity.
To persons so thinking no calamity short of the entire extinction of
their race could appear so intolerable as beholding that sacred city,
with the tombs of their ancestors, the sanctuaries of their gods, the
venerable but immoveable symbols of their faith and mythological
history, delivered over to be trodden down or obliterated with sword and
fire by barbarian slaves, strong only from their countless numbers. Yet
even to this did the love of freedom reconcile the Athenian people. They
abandoned their holy place, and, embarking on board the fleet with their
wives and children, took refuge in Trœzen and Salamis. History has
described in touching language the circumstances of this event, than
which it has nothing more pathetic to record save, peradventure, the
carrying away of Judea and her children into captivity. I will not
disturb its archaic simplicity. No eloquence could heighten its effect.
It goes at once to the heart and rouses our noblest sympathies. “The
embarkation of the people of Athens was a very affecting scene. What
pity, what admiration of the firmness of those men who, sending their
parents and families to a distant place, unmoved with their cries and
embraces, had the fortitude to leave the city and embark for Salamis!
What greatly heightened the distress was the number of citizens whom, on
account of their extreme old age, they were forced to leave behind. And
some emotions of tenderness were due even to the tame domestic animals
which, running to the shore with lamentable howlings, expressed their
affection and regret for the persons by whom they had been fed. One of
these, a dog belonging to Xanthippos, the father of Pericles, unwilling
to be left, is said to have leaped into the sea and to have swam by the
side of the galley till it reached Salamis, where, quite spent with
toil, it immediately died. And they show, to this day, a place called
Cynossema—‘the dog’s grave’—where they tell us it was buried.”[1]
Footnote 1:
Plutarch, Life of Themistocles, in Langhorne’s plain and vigorous
translation.
The Athenian people, on this and similar occasions, were enabled to
resolve and perform boldly from the generous spirit inspired by their
national system of education. Their institutions, also, were eminently
calculated to bring into play the energies of every individual citizen,
and to diffuse in consequence through the whole community a grandeur of
sentiment and an heroic enthusiasm peculiar to free states. At Athens
whoever possessed the means of serving his country could easily,
whatever might be his rank, make those means known, and bring them into
operation. If he were virtuous his virtue was remarked and placed him on
the road to promotion. If genius constituted his title to distinction,
if nature had gifted him with the power to serve the state, the state,
without inquiry whether he were poor or rich, readily availed itself of
his capacity, rewarded him during his life with political honours and
authority, and, after his death, with imperishable glory. If in war he
performed any act of superior conduct or courage, a general’s name was
his reward; if he received wounds that name, or the hope of it, healed
them; if in the achieving of any heroic deed he perished, his country,
he knew, would honour his ashes, watch over his memory, and, with words
powerfully soothing because embodying a nation’s sympathy, dry up the
tears of his parents and beloved children. He knew that his glory,
heightened by matchless masters of eloquence, would flash like lightning
from the bema; that lovely bosoms would beat high at his name; that
hands, the fairest in Greece, would yearly wreath his tomb with
garlands; and that tears would be shed for ever on the spot by the
brave.
If children remained behind him, the state would become their parent;
every Athenian would share with them his salt; would impart to them
their best inheritance—the feeling of patriotism and an inextinguishable
hatred of tyranny; would repeat to them with unenvious pride the eulogy
of their father, and point daily to the laurels which kept his grave
ever green. The Athenian was taught, from the cradle, to consider death
beautiful when met on the red battle-field in defence of his home. And,
according to the creed of his country, he believed that his spirit would
in such an event be numbered among the objects of public worship. Hence
the sublimity, the thrilling power of that oath in Demosthenes, who, in
swearing by the souls of those that fell at Marathon, accomplished their
apotheosis and placed them among the gods of Athens.
That such were the habitual feelings of this most gallant and
generous-minded people appears even from the admission of their
bitterest enemies. “They,” observe, in Thucydides, the Corinthian
ambassadors, when urging Sparta into the Peloponnesian war,—"they push
victory to the utmost, and are least of all men dejected by defeat;
exposing their bodies for their country as if they had no interest in
them, yet applying their minds in the public service as if that and
their private interest were one. Disappointment of a proposed
acquisition they consider as a loss of what already belonged to them;
success in any pursuit they esteem only as a step towards farther
advantages; and, defeated in any attempt, they turn immediately to some
new project by which to make themselves amends: insomuch, that, through
their celerity in executing whatever they propose, they seem to have the
peculiar faculty of at the same time hoping and possessing. Thus they
continue ever amid labours and dangers, enjoying nothing through
sedulity to acquire; esteeming that only a time of festival in which
they are prosecuting their projects; and holding rest as a greater evil
than the most laborious business. To sum up their character, it may be
truly said, that they were born neither to enjoy quiet themselves, nor
to suffer others to enjoy it."[2]
Footnote 2:
Mitford, History of Greece, iii. 53.
The feeling that what they fought for was their own, which accounts for
the heroism of Hellenic armies, likewise led, particularly at Athens, to
the beautifying and adorning of the city, and the perfection of public
taste. The people saw among them no palaces devoted to the private
luxuries of a despotic court, where persons maintained at the public
expense learn to look with contempt on the honest hands that support
them. There, whatever was magnificent belonged to the people at large,
no private individuals, during the best ages of the commonwealth,
presuming, how great soever might be their talents or their influence,
to arrogate to themselves more than can be due to individuals, or to
enshrine their perishable bodies in buildings suited only to the worship
of God. Yet, in genuine grandeur, no monarch, with the wealth of half a
world at the disposal of his caprice, ever rivalled the Athenian people.
True taste, the genuine sense of the beautiful and the sublime, will,
while the world endures, refuse to be the subject of a tyrant, or to
inhabit the same city with him; because no patronage, pensions, or
lavish expenditure, can create in one state of society what belongs to
another; and pure taste being nothing more than the cultivated popular
feeling spontaneously expanding, can nowhere exist but in a free state.
A prince may, doubtless, know what pleases him; but the people only can
tell what pleases the people, which nothing certainly will unless it be
produced expressly for them, without the slightest reference to any
other person.
Such, in the best periods of Grecian history, were the Athenians. Among
them Nature generally was allowed to make herself heard; from the cradle
upwards it was their guide. A pure religion they had not, or pure
morality. Far from it; they barely caught indistinct glimpses of what in
faith and practice is true and beautiful. Nor could it be otherwise; for
the sun had not then risen, and men but felt their way uncertainly and
timidly amid the obscurities of the dawn. Nevertheless, the light
vouchsafed them they did not spurn. According to the best notions then
prevailing, they were of all men the most pious; and though of this
piety much, nay, the greater part, was superstition, yet, doubtless,
God, according to the saying of the Apostle, accounted it unto them for
righteousness, that, having not the law, they were a law unto
themselves.
The Spartans, on the other hand, were mere monastic soldiers, brave,
indeed, and true as their swords, but ungifted with those loftier and
more exquisite sympathies which properly constitute the beauty of human
character, and are alone the parents of love. Few, perhaps, were all
things within their reach, would choose to be citizens of Sparta; while
no one, for whom the poetry of life has any charms, would hesitate,
after his own country, perhaps, to select Athens for his home. And that
this is no scholastic fancy created by literary preferences is clear
from the practice of antiquity. Every man possessing superior genius,
whether sprung from Ionic or Doric race, betook himself to Athens, as to
the Greece of Greece—the common country of letters, sciences, and arts.
Thither, too, as now to London, fled the oppressed and persecuted of all
lands, and there they found welcome and encouragement. It was the great
asylum, the common city of refuge to all men. Strangers who could be
content with hospitality and generous protection were never driven from
thence. There every man might live as he pleased, think as he pleased,
and utter freely what he thought. The recorded instances of persecution
are barely sufficiently numerous to serve as exceptions to the general
rule; and in Gorgias of Leontium, Polos, Protagoras, Prodicos, Hippias,
“and what the Cynic impudence uttered,” we discover to how great an
extent the spirit of toleration was carried at Athens. It would be
absurd to object the examples of Anaxagoras, Aspasia, and Socrates; for
these were merely instances of the rage of party spirit, from which,
while men continue men, no state will ever be free, and can no more be
imputed to the Athenian people, or to the spirit of their government,
than the execution of Sir Thomas More, or Cranmer, or Fisher, can be
laid to the charge of the English Constitution.
CONTENTS
OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
-------
BOOK I.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Original Inhabitants of Hellas 1
II. Character of the Greeks 29
III. Geographical Outline 51
IV. Capital Cities of Greece—Athens 70
V. Capital Cities of Greece—Sparta 92
BOOK II.
EDUCATION.
I. Theory of Education.—Birth of Children.—Infanticide 107
II. Birth-feast.—Naming the Child.—Nursery.—Nursery 128
Tales.—Spartan Festivals
III. Toys, Sports, and Pastimes 144
IV. Elementary Instruction 164
V. Exercises of Youth 189
VI. Hunting and Fowling 206
VII. Schools of the Philosophers and Sophists 233
VIII. Education of the Spartans, Cretans, Arcadians,&c. 265
IX. Influence of the Fine Arts on Education 289
X. Hellenic Literature 314
XI. Spirit of the Grecian Religion 349
BOOK III.
WOMEN.
I. Women in Heroic Ages 369
II. Women of Doric States 382
III. Condition of unmarried Women.—Love. 401
THE HISTORY
OF THE
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
OF
ANCIENT GREECE.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
ORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF HELLAS.
The country of the Hellenes, which, in imitation of the Romans, we
denominate Greece, was to its own inhabitants known by the name of
Hellas. But the signification of this term was not fixed, being
sometimes confined to Greece Proper, at others, comprehending likewise
the possessions of the Hellenes in Asia; that is, Hellas within and
beyond the Ægæan, as we now say, India within and beyond the Ganges.[3]
The progress of the name seems to have been as follows: it designated,
originally,[4] a city of Thessaly, built by Hellen son of Deucalion;
next, Phthiotis; the whole of Thessaly; all Greece, with the exception
sometimes of Peloponnesos, sometimes of Macedonia, sometimes,—which is
very remarkable,—of Thessaly itself; sometimes of Epeiros; then all
Greece within the Ægæan; afterwards all countries inhabited by Greeks in
whatever part of the world; and, lastly, it would appear to have been
occasionally employed to signify Athens alone.[5] The most ancient name,
Pelasgia, sprang from the race who first, perhaps, peopled that part of
Europe.
Footnote 3:
Paus. v. 21. 10. Palm. Desc. Gr. Ant. p. 32. Exercit. p. 397.
Footnote 4:
Il. β. 190. Strab. ix. 5. 297. Tauchnitz. with the authorities quoted
by Palmerius, Græc. Ant. i. 3.
Footnote 5:
Fisch. ad Theoph. Char. p. 5. L. Bos. Ant. Gr. Zeun. i. 1.
Nearly all writers who treat of Grecian history or antiquities, have
ventured more or less upon inquiries respecting the original inhabitants
of the country, some contending that it was peopled by many independent
races, while others content themselves with supposing one primary stock.
To arrive at certainty in such investigations is scarcely to be hoped
for, since, over the whole field, facts have moved in so close a
conjunction with fables, “that the most which remaineth to be seen, is
the show of dark and obscure steps where some part of the truth hath
gone.”[6] It appears, however, to be a fact established, that the
Hellenes were not the first who occupied Greece. They were preceded by a
number of tribes all apparently of Pelasgian origin. But who and what
the Pelasgians were, how and whence they came into the country, and by
what gradations and influences they were ripened into Hellenes, or were
by these expelled from the land, are questions to which no satisfactory
answers have ever been given, but must still be discussed whatever the
result of the investigation may be.
Footnote 6:
Hooker, Ecc. Pol. i. p. 95.
Even the name of this people has opened up an endless labyrinth of
conjecture, at least among the moderns, for the ancients when such
points were to be cleared up, easily removed the difficulty by inventing
a hero or a demigod, with an appellation exactly suited to their
purpose. Thus from Hellen they derived the name of the Hellenes, from
Heracles that of Heracleidæ, from Ion that of the Ionians, and from
Pelasgos, the son sometimes of Zeus, sometimes of Poseidon, sometimes of
Triops or Inachos or Lycaon or Palachthon or of the earth itself,[7]
that of the Pelasgi. An Attic writer, familiar with this question, and
hinting at a part of the theory which I have adopted, imagines the name
of Pelasgi to have been at first bestowed on the race because they
usually made their appearance on the shores of Hellas like migratory
birds in spring.[8] But though conjecture in such matters may amuse, it
is not likely, at this distance of time, to lead to truth.
Footnote 7:
Paus. viii. 1. 6; ii. 14. 4; 22. 1. Herod, ii. 56. Æsch. Prom. 859.
Supp. 248. Nieb. Hist. of Rome, i. 24. Apollod. ii. 1. Serv. ad Æn. i.
628; ii. 83. Sch. Apol. Rhod. i. 580. Tzetz. ad Lyc. 177. 481. Natal.
Com. p. 96. and conf. Palm. Græc. Ant. p. 41. sqq. Exercit. p. 527.
with Buttm. Lexil. p. 155.
Footnote 8:
Philochor. Siebel. p. 14.
The ancients had evidently formed no theory as to whence the Pelasgi
came, but were satisfied with the notion of their autochthoneïty,[9]
which we cannot adopt. It must be acknowledged, however, that we are
little able to trace them with certainty beyond the limits of Greece,
before their arrival in that country. My own opinion is, that when the
migrations began from that vast and lofty table land of Central Asia,
which formed the primitive abode of mankind, and where the mother
language of the Sanskrit, the Greek, and many other dialects was first
spoken, the illustrious race, afterwards known under the name of
Pelasgi, moved westward by the Caspian, along the Caucasian range,
through Armenia and Kourdistân, until they descended into the plains of
Asia Minor. Here we seem to touch upon the obscurest verge of Grecian
fable, for the tradition which sent Argo to Colchis, at the Eastern
extremity of the Black Sea, evidently contemplated the people of the
land as a kindred race, of similar faith, character, and manners. By
what precise channel the stream of population rolled westward, cannot be
determined: but here and there, on the southern shores of the Euxine, we
discover some obscure footsteps of the parents of the Greeks, as they
continued their journeyings towards the land which they were afterwards
to encircle with glory. Moving through Pontos, Paphlagonia, and
Bithynia, they appear everywhere to have made settlements on the coast,
until they reached the narrow stream of the Bosporos, over which they
threw themselves into Europe.
Footnote 9:
Marsh. Chron. Sec. ix. p. 130.
Up to this point we have little whereon to build our conclusions, save
what is supplied by the general theory of ancient migrations, and what
appear to be facts dimly seen within the extreme orbit of mythology. The
ancients themselves seem to have obtained some uncertain glimpses of
links connecting their ancestors with Asiatic Scythia, for there were
those among them who represented the Caucons of Paphlagonia stretching
along the banks of the Parthenios, and between the Maryandinians and the
sea, as a nation of Scythian origin. Now the Caucons were undoubtedly
Pelasgians, as were the Phrygians, the Carians, and the Leleges, who,
united by the ties of blood, flocked to the defence of Troy.[10] In a
much remoter age, the heroes of the traditional Argo were, it is said,
confounded by night at Cyzicos,[11] in Mysia, with the warlike Pelasgi,
even then masters of the sea, and accustomed with their galleys to vex
the coast and plunder the settled inhabitants. I regard the working of
the gold and silver mines on the southern shores of the Euxine, anterior
to the Trojan war, as another proof of the settlement of the Pelasgi in
that part of Asia Minor;[12] and who but they, at a period beyond the
reach of tradition, could have opened those gold mines on the shores of
Thrace, which on his conquest of the country Philip of Macedon found to
have been long ago worked and abandoned by some unknown people?[13]
Footnote 10:
Strab. viii. 3. p. 127.
Footnote 11:
Apollod. i. 9. 18. The mythology describes the Pelasgi as driven out
of Thessaly by the Æolians, and, under the guidance of Cyzicos, taking
possession of the peninsula of that name previous to the Argonautic
expedition. They fought with the Argonauts, and were afterwards
expelled by the Tyrrhenians, who in their turn were driven out by the
Milesians. Phot. Bib. p. 139. a. 25. Bekk.
Footnote 12:
Il. β 857.
Footnote 13:
Payne Knight, on the Worship of Priapus, p. 147.
Be this as it may, it was over the Bosporos and through Thrace that the
Pelasgi seem to have made their earliest approaches towards Greece. The
Thracians themselves were of Pelasgian origin. Thracians inhabited both
sides of the Bosporos; traces of Pelasgian settlements and Pelasgian
names are likewise found on both sides. The stream of knowledge
unquestionably poured through Thrace into Greece; and it is highly
probable that the stream of population had, at a remoter period, flowed
in the same channel. Once in Macedonia, the adventurers would be tempted
southward by the beauty of the climate and country; so that while some
moved up the valley of the Haliacmon, others, perhaps, took possession
of the ridge of Olympos, Ossa and Pelion, where they were known under
the names of Centaurs and Lapithæ.[14] From these lofty ridges they
looked down upon the great lake which in those ages covered the whole
plain of Thessaly, and, following the ramifications of the mountains,
peopled Pelasgian Argos, Phthiotis, and the roots of Œta, while the
lowlands were still under water: thence, too, they crossed over into
Eubœa, where they assumed the names of Macrones[15] and Curetes. This
latter tribe settling at Chalcis,[16] and having been worsted in a
contest for the Lalantian plain, fled across the Euripos, and traversing
the whole of Bœotia, founded a new settlement about Pleuron in Ætolia,
and gave the name of Curetis to the whole country. Hence, also, in
process of time, they were driven by the Ætolians from Pisa in Elis,
upon which they took refuge in Acarnania.[17]
Footnote 14:
Λέλεγας γάρ φασι πρότερον αὐτοὺς προσαγωρευομένους, διὰ τὸ ἀποκεντῆσαι
τοὺς ἵππους προσαγορευθῆναι Ἱπποκενταύρους. Sch. Pind. Pyth. ii. 78.
Cf. Schœll. Hist. de la Lit. Grecq. i. 4. seq.
Footnote 15:
Sch. Apoll. Rhod. i. 1024. Cf. Winkel. Hist. de l’Art. i. 317.
Footnote 16:
Strab. x. 3. p. 349.
Footnote 17:
Strab. x. 3. p. 349. Sch. Pind. Olymp. iii. 19. Pliny, iv. 2. Eustath.
ad Il. β. 637. Certain ancient writers maintained that the Ætolians
were called Curetes by Homer; and at a still earlier period Hyantes,
and the country Hyantis.—Steph. Byzant. _v._ Αἰτωλ. p. 71. a. Palm. G.
Ant. p. 426.—Acarnania itself was formerly called Curetis.—Demet. ap.
Steph. _v._ Ἀθῆν. p. 45. a. Hard. ad Plin. iv. 2. p. 7.
But the principal tribe, and that which subsequently spread throughout
Greece, after filling with population the valley of the Haliacmon,
traversing the Caulavian range, and descending along the course of the
Aoös, seem on the banks of the Celydnos, to have turned their faces
southward. Following that stream upwards towards its source, they found
themselves in Epeiros, a land abounding with water brooks, with lovely
mountains, and lovelier valleys, and at length settled, and erected
themselves lasting habitations in the sacred neighbourhood of
Dodona,[18] where the first oracle known to the Hellenes flourished
under the protection of the Pelasgian Zeus.[19]
Footnote 18:
Strab. vii. 7. p. 124. seq. Hesiod. Frag. 54. et 124. Gœttl.—A second
Dodona is supposed to have existed in Thessaly.—See Thirl. Hist. of
Greece, i. 36.—Cf. Buttm. Diss. de orac. Dodon. Orat. Att. vii. 133.
sqq.
Footnote 19:
Il. π. 233.
Up to this point we have been treading, with little or no light to guide
us, over a soil shifting, unsure, and treacherous; but here we touch
upon comparatively firm ground, while the light of poetry dawns around,
and enables us to direct our footsteps towards the luminous terra firma
of history.
It must not be denied that much of the foregoing theory is erected on
inference and conjecture. Nevertheless, it rests in part on facts which
an historian ought not to reject. For example, though it be nowhere,
perhaps, distinctly stated that the Thracians were entirely of Pelasgian
origin, we are compelled by various circumstances to believe that such
was the case: first, Samothrace on the coast was undoubtedly peopled by
Pelasgi;[20] secondly, the Macedonians, plainly of the same stock with
the Thracians, are acknowledged to have been Pelasgi;[21] and since the
Illyrians likewise were a kindred people,[22] we have a line of
Pelasgian settlements stretching along the whole northern frontier of
Greece, the Ægæan, the Hellespont, and the Propontis, from the Adriatic
to the Black Sea. The chain of proofs, indeed, is not complete, but
appears and disappears alternately, like the stream of the Alpheios,
though little doubt can be entertained of the existence of the links
which happen to lie out of sight. In nearly every part of Macedonia the
footsteps of the Pelasgi are clearly discernible; at Crestona,[23] on
the Echidoros in Pœonia; in Emathea, and Bottiœa;[24] and looking at the
language of the country, we find it at all times to have been identical
with that of Greece. That the same thing must be predicated of Thrace,
even in the remotest ages, appears indisputably from this, that her
bards, Thamyris and Orpheus traversed the whole of Hellas, and sang
their wisdom to its inhabitants; while Olen coming from Lycia, a
Pelasgian settlement,[25] likewise brought his kindred songs to the same
tolerant and hospitable land.
Footnote 20:
Herod. ii. 51.
Footnote 21:
Justin. vii. 1. Thucyd. ii. 99.
Footnote 22:
Müller, Dor. i. 2.
Footnote 23:
Herod, i. 57.—On the situation of this city see Poppo, Proleg. ad
Thucyd. ii. p. 383.
Footnote 24:
Justin, vii. 1. Æsch. Supp. p. 261. Cf. Thucyd. iv. 109.
Footnote 25:
Diod. v. p. 396. Wesseling.
But to follow the movements of the Pelasgi through Greece itself, where,
though no chronology of events can be attempted, our views rest on a
stable foundation. Much, however, of our reasoning will be confused or
perhaps unintelligible, if it be not borne in mind that the name of the
Pelasgi, like that of the Tartars or Arabs, was a general appellation
applied to the whole race, while the several tribes bore separate
denominations; as the Chaones,[26] the Dryopes, the Leleges, the
Caucons, the Cranaans, with many others,[27] precisely as among the
Arabs, we find the Ababde, the Mahazi, the Beni Sakker, &c. The
Pelasgian tribe which first made its appearance, and became powerful in
Epeiros, a country not to be separated from Greece, was that of the
Chaones, whose chief seat was Cheimera,[28] at the foot of the Ceraunian
mountains. An obscure scholiast, indeed, denominates them
barbarians;[29] but as from the best authority we know them to have been
Pelasgi, this shows the value of the term in the mouth of the later
writers. Another class,—the Levites, perhaps, of those primitive
people,—settled amid the oak forests which surrounded the lovely lake of
Dodona, where under the name of Selli,[30] they founded the most
celebrated oracle of early antiquity. In their habits they remind us of
the Sanyasis, and other religious anchorites of India, living from views
of penance with unwashed feet, and sleeping on the bare ground. Other
tribes renowned of old in Epeiros, and all Pelasgian,[31] were the
Thesprotians, the Molossians, the Perrhæbians, and the Dolopians, the
last rough mountaineers inhabiting both the eastern and western slopes
of Pindos.[32]
Footnote 26:
Steph. Byz. _v._ Χαονία, p. 753. g.
Footnote 27:
Hermann, however, (Polit. Ant. p. 14,) imagines that the Caucons,
Leleges, &c. were independent races, though less civilised and
illustrious than the Pelasgi.
Footnote 28:
Plin. iv. 1.
Footnote 29:
Schol. ad Aristoph. Eq. 78.
Footnote 30:
Aristot. Meteorol. i. 14. p. 39.—Il. π. 234. seq.
Footnote 31:
Steph. Byz. _v._ Ἔφυρα, p. 367. c. Strab. vii. 7 p. 119. See also
Müll. Dor. i. 6. Plut. Pyrrh. 1.—See the authorities collected by
Niebuhr, i. 26.
Footnote 32:
Dolops was the son of Hermes, and dying in the city of Magnesia in
Thessaly, had there a tomb erected by the sea-shore. Sch. Apoll. Rhod.
i. 587. 558.
When Epeiros had been thus thickly sprinkled with settlements, an
earthquake appears to have produced in the range of Pelion the narrow
precipitous gap, afterwards known as Tempe, by which the waters of the
Thessalian lake discharged themselves into the sea. This happened, we
are told, while one Pelasigos[33] reigned over the mountaineers in the
district of Hæmonia. They were celebrating a great feast, when a certain
slave named Peloros, brought them tidings of what had come to pass,
speaking with admiration of the vast plains which were appearing through
the ebbing waters. In gratitude for the news he communicated, they
caused the man to seat himself at table while both the king and his
attendants, in the joy and fulness of their hearts ministered to him.
This, it is said, was the origin of the Pelorian festival, afterwards,
down to a very late period, celebrated with great pomp and magnificence
in Thessaly, where, for the day, masters changed condition with their
slaves, and became their servants.[34] The same festival in the
Pelasgian settlements of Italy was known down to the latest times, under
the name of Saturnalia.
Footnote 33:
Palmer. Exercit. p. 527.—Sch. Apoll. Rhod. i. 500.—Dion. Hal. i. 3. 1.
Footnote 34:
Athen. xiv. 45.
On the interior of Thessaly becoming thus habitable, the Pelasgian
tribes of Epeiros, beginning to be straitened for room, and feeling
still the original wandering impulse, poured over the heights of Pindos
into the valleys of Histiæotis, and moved eastward along the foot of the
Cambunian mountains, settling every where as they advanced. The tribe
which took this direction bore the name of Perrhæbians, and left traces
of their movements in the great Perrhæbian forest, stretching to the
foot of Olympos, and in the name of the whole district extending from
the Peneios to the northern limits of Thessaly. In this rich and fertile
tract they became powerful, spreading their dominion along the banks of
the Peneios, quite down to the sea. But the Lapithæ rising into
consequence and overcoming the Perrhæbians in battle, reduced a portion
of the tribes under their yoke, while the remainder, enamoured of
independence, retreated inland, again crossed the Pindos, and
established themselves in the upper valley of the Acheloös. About the
same time, perhaps, a fragment of this tribe traversing the whole of
Thessaly crossed over into Eubœa, where they subdued and took possession
of Histiæotis. It was possibly the entrance of these adventurers into
the island, pushing fresh waves of population southward, that caused the
contest for the Lalantian plain, and the emigration of the Curetes to
the continent.
Other Pelasgian tribes established themselves, and became illustrious in
Thessaly. The Centaurs, for example, a Lelegian clan inhabiting Mount
Pelion, where they were, perhaps, the first tamers of the horse, whence
the fable of their double form. Other sections of the Leleges were also
found in Thessaly,[35] as were also the Dryopes. In this country,[36]
notwithstanding that it must be regarded upon the whole as only the
second stage of the Pelasgians in their migrations southward, we find
more traces of their power and influence than anywhere else in Northern
Greece. Here were two cities, called Larissa; here was Pelasgian
Argos;[37] here, too, was a great district known by the name of
Pelasgiotis, while that of Pelasgia seems to have preceded Thessaly as
the appellation of the whole province.[38] This people, like most
others, seem to have had a number of names, to which they were
peculiarly attached, which we nearly always find reappearing wherever
they formed a settlement. Generally, too, it may be regarded as certain
that the more northern were the most ancient: thus we find Pelagonia in
the kingdom of Macedon and in Thessaly; Larissa[39] on the Peneios;
Larissa Cremaste near the shore. The Dryopes,[40] again, appear first in
Epeiros, not far from Dodona; next we find them in Thessaly, then in
Doris, finally in Peloponnesos; and Strabo is careful to remark that the
last-mentioned were an off-shoot from those in the north.
Footnote 35:
Serv. ad. Æn. viii. 725.
Footnote 36:
Paus. iv. 36. 1. Sch. Apoll. Rhod. ii. 1239.
Footnote 37:
Pliny, iv. 14.—Even Phthiotis itself, one of the earliest cradles of
the Hellenes, is recorded to have been a Pelasgian settlement. Sch.
Apoll. Rhod. i. 14.—Cf. ad. i. 40. 580.
Footnote 38:
Sch. Apoll. Rhod. iv. 26.; i. 906. 580.
Footnote 39:
Steph. Byzant. _v._ Λάρισσ. p. 511. b, c, d. Sch. Apoll. Rhod. i. 40.
Footnote 40:
That the Dryopes were Pelasgi, appears from this:—they received their
national appellation from Dryops, son of Lycaon, (Sch. Apoll. Rhod. i.
1218,) who was himself the son of Pelasgos.—Suid. _v._ Λυκ. Cf. Etym.
Mag. 154, 7. 288, 32. Paus. viii. 2. 1.
From Thessaly the tide of population rolled southward;[41] different
tribes of Pelasgi, under the name of Leleges, Hyantes, Aones, and
Dryopes taking possession of the mountains and valleys of Doris, Locris,
Phocis, and extending their migrations into the plains of Bœotia. From
thence, across the isthmus, some few straggling hordes appear to have
found their way into Peloponnesos, where, as shepherds, they gradually
diffused themselves over its rich plains. All the Pelasgi in fact appear
like the Arabs and Tartars to have been originally Nomades, different
tribes of whom, as they were tempted by the beauty of particular
regions, quitted their wandering life, as the Arabs have done in Egypt,
Yemen, and elsewhere, and from shepherds became husbandmen. In process
of time, the descendants of the settlers, accustomed to the easy and
luxurious life of cities, learned to look back upon their wandering
ancestors as a wretched and a barbarous race. Indeed, they sometimes
speak of them[42] after their arrival in Peloponnesos as cannibals,
naked, houseless, ignorant of the use of fire, on a level, in short,
with the fiercest and most brutal savages existing in the islands of the
Pacific. But these erroneous ideas evidently arose from the theory of
autochthoneïty which supposes man to have gradually ripened out of a
beast into a man; whereas, the low savages discovered in various parts
of the world, do not represent the original state of mankind, but are
mere instances of extreme degeneracy. In fact, a different set of
traditions also prevailed among the Greeks, which, referring evidently
to the period when their ancestors were Nomades, spoke with rapture and
enthusiasm of their happy and tranquil life, when, following their
flocks from vale to vale and from stream to stream, they fed upon the
spontaneous productions which nature spread before them. On this period
the poets bestowed the name of the Golden Age, and, perhaps, if examined
philosophically, there is no stage in the history of civilisation at
which there is so much to enjoy and so little to suffer, as when the
whole nation are shepherds, and happen to light upon a land where, as
yet too few to inconvenience each other, they can live unmolested by
foreign tribes.
Footnote 41:
Just. xiii. 4.—The Epicnemidian Locrians were anciently called
Leleges, and by them the channel of the Cephissos was opened to the
sea.—Pliny, iv. 12. Solin. vii. p. 55. Bipont. Hesiod. Frag. 25.
Gœttl. Strab. vii. 7. p. 115; ix. 1. p. 248. Scymn. Chius, p.
24.—Phot. Bib. 321. b.
Footnote 42:
Mnaseas of Patræ ap. Sch. Pind. Pyth. iv. 104.—Dion. Hal. (Ant. Rom.
i. 31) is one of those writers who considers the Pelasgi miserable
because they were wanderers. Upon this notion Palmerius remarks
judiciously: “Sed si tales migrationes miseræ sunt, miserrimi olim
Galli majores nostri, qui usque in Asiam, post multas errores, armis
victricibus penetrâsse historiæ omnes testantur, et hoc seculo
miserrimi Tartari et Arabes, qui Nomadice vivunt, et sedes identidem
mutantes, non se miseros existimant, et id genus vitæ Attalicis
conditionibus mutare recusarent.”—Græc. Antiq. p. 60.
It has now been shown how Hellas might have been entirely peopled from
the north; but certain traditions, prevailing from the earliest times,
compel us to admit that some portion, at least, of its population
reached it by a different route; that is, through Asia Minor and the
islands. I have already alluded briefly to the existence of a Pelasgian
tribe in Paphlagonia,[43] that is to say, the Caucons, whose
establishment in this region supplies a link in the chain of proofs by
which we endeavour to connect the Pelasgi with the Scythians of Central
Asia; for the Caucons are admitted to have been of Pelasgian origin, and
an opinion prevailed among the ancients that they were likewise
Scythians.[44] Thus we find that certain Scythians settled in
Paphlagonia, were called Caucons, that the Caucons were Pelasgi, and
that the Pelasgi peopled Greece. The Greeks, therefore, by this account,
traced their origin to Scythia. Circumstances connected with the
geography of Asia Minor and of Hellas, seem to furnish traces of the
route of the Pelasgi westward. It appears to have been among the
primitive articles of their creed, that the deity delighted to abide on
the summits of lofty and even of snowy mountains; and whenever in their
settlements the features of the earth presented any such towering
eminence, they seem to have bestowed on it the name of Olympos, or
Celestial Mansion.[45] Immediately south of the Cauconian settlements,
on the limits of Bithynia and Galacia, we accordingly find a mountain of
this name; again, travelling westward, we have another Mount Olympos, on
the northern confines of Phrygia; a third meets us in the island of
Lesbos;[46] a fourth in Cypros, a fifth in Arcadia,[47] a sixth in Elis,
and a seventh, best known of all, near the cradle of the Hellenes in
Thessaly. In Mysia,[48] the footsteps of the race are numerous;
Pelasgian cities—Placia, Scylace, Cyzicos, Antandros—studded the coast;
inland there was a Larissa;[49] and the lovely-leafed evergreen, which
shaded the slopes and crags of the Trojan Ida, was named the Pelasgian
laurel.[50] Other facts there are connecting the Trojans with the
Pelasgian stock: thus the Caucons, whom we find among their allies in
Homer, are called a Trojan tribe; the language of Troy was evidently a
Pelasgian dialect, closely allied to the Greek,[51] which may likewise
be predicated of the Phrygian, the Lydian, the Carian, the Lycian
extending along the whole western coast of Asia Minor. The gods,
oracles, rites, ceremonies of all these people appear in early times to
have been identical with those of Hellas, and mythology represents the
heroes of both continents as sprung from the same gods. Nay, positive
testimony describes the Pelasgi as a great nation, holding the whole
western coast of Asia Minor, from Mycale to the Hellespont;[52] and
speaks of the Leleges as inhabiting a part of Caria, where their
deserted fortifications, called Lelegia,[53] apparently of Cyclopian
construction, were still found in the time of Strabo,[54] together with
their tombs, probably barrows, resembling those scattered through
Peloponnesos, and called the “Tombs of the Phrygians.”[55] Similar
sepulchral relics of Carian dominion were found and opened by the
Athenians in the purification of Delos.[56] Possibly, too, the tumuli,
existing to this day in Tartary, and occasionally rifled by the
Siberians, mark the original seat of the Pelasgi in Asia; though similar
monuments are found in other parts of the East, as in Nubia, where I
counted a cluster of ten or twelve, and nearly all over Europe. Homer
speaks of one on the plains of Troy, and the Greeks themselves cast up
barrows over their heroes, as Ajax, where
“Far by the solitary shore he sleeps.”
Footnote 43:
According to the reading of Callisthenes, Homer himself fixes their
residence in Paphlagonia.—Cf. Strab. xiii. p. 16. viii. p. 157. Sch.
Hom. Υ. 329.—Unless we adopt this reading we must suppose with the
Scholiast, that they were not separately mentioned in the catalogue,
because Homer confounded them with the Leleges, or because they
arrived late in the war.
Footnote 44:
Οἱ μὲν Σκύθας φασὶν, οἱ δὲ τῶν Μακεδόνων τινὰς, οἱ δὲ τῶν Πελασγῶν.
Strab. xiii. p. 16.—To the same tradition alludes the Scholiast: Ἔθνος
Παφλαγονίας, οἱ δὲ Σκυθίας· οἱ δὲ τοὺς λεγομένους Καυνίους εἴπον. Il.
κ. 429.
Footnote 45:
In the dialect of the Dryopes, this mountain was known by the name of
Βηλὸς, by which word the Chaldæans denoted the highest circle of the
heavens.—Etym. Mag. 196. 19 seq.
Footnote 46:
Plin. v. 39.
Footnote 47:
Paus. viii. 38. 2. Sch. Apoll. Rhod. i. 599. Meurs. Cypr. i. 28. p.
76. Steph. Byzant. _v._ Ὄλυμπ. p. 612. e.—Mention, moreover, is made
of an eighth Olympos in Cilicia. (Sch. Apoll. ut sup.)—A ninth in
Lycia. (Plin. xxi. 7.)
Footnote 48:
Phot. Bib. 139. a. 12. 25. Herod. vii. 42. cf. i. 57. Pomp. Mela. i.
19.
Footnote 49:
Sch. Apoll. Rhod. i. 40.
Footnote 50:
Pliny, xv. 39.
Footnote 51:
Plato, Cratyl. I. iv. p. 58.—See, likewise, Müller (Dor. i. 9–11),
where, however, too much ingenuity by far is displayed. Another proof
of relationship is supplied by Homer (Il. ρ. 288) who represents
Hippothoös, a Pelasgian, insulting the body of Patroclos.—Strab. xiii.
3. p. 142.—Niebuhr (i. 28) conjectures that the Trojans were not a
Phrygian, but a Pelasgian tribe; though, in reality, both Phrygians
and Trojans sprang from the same stock.
Footnote 52:
Strab. xiii. 3. p. 144.
Footnote 53:
Paus. vii. 2. 8.
Footnote 54:
W. f. 7. p. 114.—The Carians themselves are said to have lived
habitually amid inaccessible rocks.—Schol. Arist. Av. 292.
Footnote 55:
Athen. xiv. 21.
Footnote 56:
Thucyd. i. 8.
Not to omit any material facts, on which my view of Pelasgian history is
founded, I shall proceed to mention in order the principal points on the
Asiatic shore where the footsteps of the Pelasgi appear. We find, then,
that they occupied the greater part of Lydia,[57] and at the time of the
Ionian migration held the citadel of Ephesos. They, too, in conjunction
with the Nymphs were the founders of the temple of Hera at Samos,[58]
and crossing the Mæander they re-appear again at Miletos on the coast of
Caria. Indeed this city[59] was originally, from its inhabitants, called
Lelegeis, though it afterwards was known under a variety of names, as
Pituoussa from the surrounding pine woods, Anactoria, and lastly,
Miletos. A little further southward was another Lelegian settlement at
Pedasos on the Satneios.[60] From a passage in Homer it has been
supposed that the Carians and Lelegians were distinct races, but in
reality the Carians were a Lelegian tribe;[61] that is Pelasgi, who like
the Hellenes in Greece, gradually acquired power and dominion, and
eclipsed their brethren. This they were enabled to do by applying
themselves passionately to the use of arms, a circumstance which at a
later period led them to make a traffic of their valour and hire their
swords to the best bidder. In earlier and better times they achieved
conquests for themselves, and rivalling the Phœnicians in maritime
enterprise and success, reduced under their sway the greater number of
the Ægæan islands,[62] and even some portion of the Hellenic continent
itself.[63] Certain clans of this martial race sought an outlet for
their restless daring by joining the Cilicians[64] in their piratical
enterprises, and probably it was in this character that they first
obtained possession of some of the smaller isles. Positive historical
testimony there seems to be none for fixing the Pelasgi in Cypros,[65]
though we cannot doubt that it was included in their dominions, from the
ruins of Cyclopian fortresses still found there, and the Olympian Mount
already mentioned. In Rhodes, however, and Samos antiquity speaks of
their settlements;[66] they, too, were the earliest inhabitants of
Chios,[67] whence they sent forth a colony to Lesbos,[68] which received
from them the name of Pelasgia. They expelled the Minyans from
Lemnos,[69] which afterwards, through fear of Darius, their king ceded
to the Athenians,[70] and held Imbros[71] and Samothrace[72] in the
north; Scyros, too, was originally named Pelasgia.[73] Andros was
peopled by one[74] of their colonies, and Delos, as we have already
seen, held their bones until they were cast forth by the Athenians. But
it is unnecessary to enumerate each separate point, since we know
generally that all the Ægæan isles were anciently in their
possession,[75] and that even the great island of Crete formed, in
remote ages, a portion of their empire. Here under the names of Curetes,
Corybantes, Telchines and Dactyli,[76] they flourished in the mythical
times, and were the reputed preservers and nurses of the infant Zeus, a
god pre-eminently Pelasgian, so that wherever his worship was found I
regard it as a proof that the Pelasgi had settled there.
Footnote 57:
Paus. vii. 2. 8. Steph. Byzant. _v._ Ἀγύλλα, p. 30, d. Ed. Berkel.
Footnote 58:
Athen. xv. 12. Thirl. Hist. of Greece, i. 43. Sch. Apoll. Rhod. i. 14.
Footnote 59:
Pliny, ii. 31. Steph. de Urb. _v._ Μίλετ. p. 559. b. c. Eustath. in
Dion. Perieg. 825. 456. Sch. Apoll. Rhod. i. 186.
Footnote 60:
Il. φ. 86. Cf. Sch. ad κ. 429.
Footnote 61:
A glimpse of this fact is obtained from a tradition preserved by
Hecatæos:—Τοὺς δὲ Λέλεγας τινὲς μὲν τοὺς αὐτοὺς Καρσὶν εἰκὰζουσιν.
Strab. vii. 7. p. 114. From other authorities we learn that the
Carians were regarded as Pelasgians.—Habitator incertæ originis. Alii
indigenas, sunt qui Pelasgos, quidam Cretas existimant. Pomp. Mela, i.
16.—See likewise Barnes ad Eurip. Heracl. 317. But the strongest
testimony is that of Herodotus, i. 171.
Footnote 62:
Strabo, xiv. 2. p. 208. Thucyd. i. 8.
Footnote 63:
Strabo, viii. 6. p. 204.
Footnote 64:
Strab. ap. Palmer. Gr. Ant. i. 10, p. 65. Serv. ad Æn. viii. 725. We
again find these two people united at Troy; but not mentioned in the
catalogue, because their leader had fallen and there were few of them
left to be ranged under Hector. Their leaders were Helicon and his
sons. Their capital city “Thebes with lofty gates” had been sacked by
Achilles. Strab. xiii. 3. p. 141.
Footnote 65:
Travels of Ali Bey.
Footnote 66:
Phot. Bib. 141. a.
Footnote 67:
According, however, to a tradition preserved by Ephoros, the city of
Karides, in this island, was founded by those who escaped with Macar
from the Deluge of Deucalion. Athen. iii. 66.
Footnote 68:
Plin. v. 39.
Footnote 69:
Paus. vii. 22.
Footnote 70:
Suid. _v._ Ἑρμώνιος χάρις. t. i. p. 1044.
Footnote 71:
Herm. Pol. Antiq. p. 13. Herod. vi. 138, 140. v. 26.
Footnote 72:
Herod. ii. 51.
Footnote 73:
Thucyd. i. 98. cum not. Wass.
Footnote 74:
Phot. Bib. 139. a.
Footnote 75:
Phot. Bib. 141. a. Both the island of Lesbos, and its city Himera were
called Pelasgia. Pliny, v. 39.
Footnote 76:
Serv. ad Æn. iii. 131. Strabo, x. 3. Pelasgic remains are still found
in the island. Pashley, Trav. in Crete, i. 152.
Passing thus from island to island in the very infancy of navigation,
the Pelasgi appear by way of the Sporades and Cycladæ, to have migrated
into Peloponnesos, first landing at Argos. Probably on their arrival
they found there some few inhabitants who by the isthmus had entered and
scattered themselves at leisure over the peninsula. But whether this was
so or not, certain it is that the oldest legends of Hellenic mythology
allude to the peopling of Argos by sea, representing Inachos, its first
ruler, as a son of the ocean.[77] From this chief, whether historical or
fabulous, the principal river of Argos received its appellation, and
members of his family bestowed their names on Argolis first, and
afterwards on the whole of Peloponnesos, which from Apis was denominated
Apia;[78] from Pelasgos, Pelasgia;[79] and from another prince so
called, it received the name of Argos.[80] In this division of Hellas,
which the rays of poetry and mythology unite to render luminous, the
Pelasgi[81] seem early to have struck deep root, and made a rapid
progress in civilisation. Here, accordingly, in historical times were
found the most numerous monuments of their power and grandeur; and here,
in the treasury of Atreus and the walls of Tiryns denominated Cyclopian,
we still may contemplate proofs of their opulence and progress in the
arts. Among them would appear to have existed a class or caste named
Cyclops, addicted extremely to handicrafts, particularly building. These
it was who erected the walls and citadel of Argos,[82] on which they
bestowed the name of Larissa, together with certain labyrinths, said to
have existed in the neighbourhood of Nauplia. Mycenæ appears to have
been the most ancient capital of the country, built while the site of
Argos was yet a marsh,[83] or perhaps under water; then came Tiryns, and
lastly Argos. Other early seats of the Pelasgi were at Epidauros and
Hermione.[84]
Footnote 77:
Apollod. ii. 1. Keightley, Mythol. 405.
Footnote 78:
Cf. Athen. xiv. 63.
Footnote 79:
Tzet. ad Lyc. 177. Plin. iv. 5. Sch. Apoll. Rhod. i. 1024. Nic.
Damasc. in Exc. p. 492.
Footnote 80:
Sch. Eurip. Orest. 1245.
Footnote 81:
Æsch. Supp. 642. 919.
Footnote 82:
Strab. viii. 6. p. 202. Müll. Dor. i. 90. Frag. Incert. Pind. p. 660.
Diss.
Footnote 83:
Aristot. Meteorol. i. 14. p. 38.
Footnote 84:
Strab. viii. 6. p. 204.
But the province of Peloponnesos which the Pelasgi most delighted to
consider their home, was the rough, wild, and elevated table land of
Arcadia,[85] resembling on a small scale their original seat in central
Asia; belted round by mountains with many streams and rivers pouring
down their sides: here long shut out from commerce with the rest of
mankind they multiplied in ease and security, and became a great
nation,[86] who, to express the idea of their own extreme antiquity,
professed themselves to be older than the moon.[87] Having lost all
tradition of their arrival in the country, they looked upon themselves
as autochthons, and regarded their mountain-girt land as the great
reservoir of Pelasgian population,[88] whence its colonies like streams,
flowed outwards, and peopled the rest of Hellas; and probably it was
thence that the first emigrants descended into the valley of the
Eurotas, spread themselves through Laconia, and found a mountain on
which they bestowed the holy name of Olympos. In this province one of
the most famous of the Pelasgian tribes, is by some traditions said to
have had its origin; for Lelex,[89] who gave his name to the Leleges,
they fabled to have been an autochthon of Laconia, and down even to the
times of Pausanias an heroum was shown at Sparta erected in honour of
his name. Undoubtedly a mythical legend connected with this hero was
deeply interwoven with the fabulous history of Laconia. His son Eurotas
was the father of Sparta, wife of Lacedæmon, who gave his name to the
country. He had two daughters, Amycla and Eurydice, the latter of whom
became the wife of Acrisios.[90] The Acarnanians, however, had among
them a tradition which made Lelex an autochthon of Leucadia,[91] and the
people of Megara spoke of one Lelex[92] who arrived in their country by
sea from Egypt.
Footnote 85:
Which Strabo (viii. 3, 157,) says was the original seat of the
Caucons.
Footnote 86:
Sch. Apoll. Rhod. iv. 264.
Footnote 87:
Clem. Alex. i. 6.
Footnote 88:
Herod. i. 146. Pliny iv. 10. Nic. Damasc. in Exc. p. 494. Paus. viii.
1. 4.
Footnote 89:
Paus. iii. 12. 5.—i. 1. The country, moreover, obtained the name of
Lelegia, iv. i. 1.
Footnote 90:
Apollod. iii. 10. 3.
Footnote 91:
Strab. vii. 7. p. 115.
Footnote 92:
From whom the people were called Leleges. Paus. i. 39. 6. He was said
to be the son of Poseidon and Libya, and his tomb was shown near the
sea-shore, 44. 3.
To proceed, however, with the traces of the Pelasgi in Peloponnesos. It
has sometimes been supposed that no proof exists of their having held
any part of this peninsula excepting Argos, Achaia and Arcadia;[93] but
erroneously, for we have seen the Leleges, a Pelasgian tribe, in
Laconia; and we find a settlement of the Pelasgi in Messenia. Here also
at Andania flourished the Pelasgian worship of the Dii Kabyri from
Samothrace;[94] colony of Leleges, under Pylos, son of Cleison, settled
at Pylos on the Coryphasian promontory.[95] The Caucons held
Cyparissos;[96] that is both in the interior of Messenia and along the
sea coast we find settlements of the race which peopled the whole
peninsula. Passing northward into Elis, we immediately on crossing the
Neda find Caucons in the Lepreatis,[97] where, probably, in proof that
the tribe originated there, they showed in Strabo’s[98] time the tomb of
Caucon. They had likewise a river Caucon[99] in the north of Elis, and
in short the whole country from the Neda to the Larissos bore anciently
the name of Cauconia.[100] Some, however, maintain that they were found
only at three points on the coast, that is, in the south of
Triphylia,[101] in the north near Dyme, and at Hollow Elis on the
Peneios, which Aristotle considered their chief seat.[102] Nevertheless
Antimachos regarded the Epeians as Caucons,[103] and since these
inhabited the whole western coast from Messenia northward, we must
consider Elis as the principal though not the original seat of this
tribe; for we find them represented as issuing from Arcadia, and we have
already shown that they were settled in Paphlagonia, and were
denominated a Trojan tribe.
Footnote 93:
Thirl. Hist. of Greece, i. 38.
Footnote 94:
Paus. iv. 1. Müll. Dor. i. 116.
Footnote 95:
Paus. iv. 36. i.
Footnote 96:
Strab. viii. 3. 156.
Footnote 97:
Ibid. viii. 3. 152.
Footnote 98:
Ibid. viii. 3. 157.
Footnote 99:
Ibid. viii. 3. 151.
Footnote 100:
Ibid. viii. 3. 157.
Footnote 101:
Ibid. viii. 3. 151. The Caucons, however, mentioned by Athena in the
Odyssey (θ. 366.) were different from those of Triphylia. The
Triphylian Caucons held all the land lying south-east of Pylos on the
way to Lacedæmon. Strab. viii. 3. 157.
Footnote 102:
Strab. viii. 3. 157.
Footnote 103:
Ibid.
Turning our faces eastward from the promontory Araxos, we discover along
the coast a chain of Pelasgian settlements founded by Ionians from
Athens.[104] To complete our list of proofs that there was no spot in
all Hellas not possessed by the Pelasgi, we find a prince of that race,
and named Pelasgos, receiving the goddess Demeter at Corinth in the
remotest periods of the mythology.[105]
Footnote 104:
Herod. vii. 14.
Footnote 105:
Paus. i. 14. 2.
Thus, then, we have traced this illustrious people under various names
through every region of Greece, save Attica; and there also they were
found, but whether they arrived by land or sea, I profess myself wholly
unable to determine. A modern historian[106] who experienced the same
difficulty, observes, that the Ionians appear to have dropped from
heaven into Attica. Unquestionably we do not know whence they came, and
as their own legends represent them as autochthons[107] we can expect no
aid from tradition. The most probable supposition is, that when the
migratory hordes were pushing southward from Thessaly, some clans, more
fortunate than the rest, traversing the heights of Cithæron soon found
themselves in possession of this unfertile but lovely land, covered in
those ages with forests, diversified by hill and dale, and breathing
perfume from every thicket. The succeeding tide of emigration breaking
against the ridge of Cithæron seems to have turned westward and flowed
into the Peloponnesos, leaving Attica unmolested. Some have regarded its
own barrenness as the rampart which protected it from invasion. But why
may we not suppose that the inhabitants finding themselves thriving and
tranquil, resolved early to fight for their possessions, and hedged
themselves from invasion by courage and arms? be this as it may, Attica
was the first part of Hellas that enjoyed permanent exemption from war,
so that the olive, its principal ornament and riches, became in all
after ages the emblem of peace. Once settled in this country the Pelasgi
were never driven thence,[108] nor did they ever receive any
considerable mixture of foreign settlers. Individuals from time to time
were permitted to take up their abode among them; but, in this favoured
spot, unalloyed by foreign mixture, the Pelasgic genius completely
developed itself, and reached the highest pitch of civilisation known to
the ancient world.
Footnote 106:
Müll. Dor. i. 12.
Footnote 107:
Sch. Arist. Acharn. 75.—Nubb. 971.
Footnote 108:
Herod. i. 56. vii. 161. Lesbon. Protrept. ii. 22. f. Conf. Wessel. ad
Herod. p. 26.
The earliest name bestowed on the Pelasgian tribe which held Attica was
that of Cranaans;[109] but whether they were so distinguished before
their migration thither, or, which is more probable, derived their
appellation from the rocky nature[110] of their country, does not
appear. Like most of the ancient nations, however, they frequently
changed their name: at first perhaps simply Pelasgi, next Cranaans, then
Cecropidæ and Ionians; afterwards, under the reign of Erechtheus they
obtained from their patron divinity the name of Athenians, by which they
have been known down to the present day. Among the fables of the
mythology we discover traces of several attempts at disputing with the
Aborigines the sovereignty of Attica. Thus Eumolpos, with a colony of
Thracians, is by one tradition said to have obtained possession of the
whole country,[111] while another and more probable legend represents
him as settling with a small band at Eleusis, where his family during
the whole existence of Paganism exercised the office of priests of
Demeter.[112] The Cretans again under Minos sought to obtain a footing
in the country; but the close of the tradition which speaks of this
invasion shows that though disgraceful to Attica it was without any
permanent result. Afterwards, when the unsettled Pelasgi had degenerated
into pirates and freebooters, a powerful band of them appears to have
found its way thither, and obtained a settlement in the immediate
neighbourhood of the capital,[113] on condition, apparently, of
labouring at the erection of walls round the Acropolis. A portion of the
fortifications is said to have been completed by these marauders, and to
have obtained from them the name of the Pelasgian wall. But even these
strangers were not suffered to remain; quarrels arising either about the
land which the Pelasgi had obtained on the slopes of Hymettos, or on
account of violence offered to certain Athenian maidens descending to
the fountain of Callirrhoë for water. The emigrants were expelled and
took refuge in Lemnos. In revenge for what they regarded as an injury,
they carried away a number of Attic virgins who were celebrating the
festival of Artemis at Brauron, which led in after times to the capture
of Lemnos by Miltiades.
Footnote 109:
Herod. i. 57. viii. 44.
Footnote 110:
Suid. _v._ Κραν. t. i. p. 1518. d.
Footnote 111:
Strab. vii. 7. p. 114.
Footnote 112:
Palmer. Græc. Antiq. p. 62.
Footnote 113:
Paus. ii. 8. 3. Philoch. p. 13. Siebel. Herod. ii. 51. seq.
It seems to result from the above inquiry that every district in Hellas
was originally peopled by the Pelasgi, which the poets in after ages
expressed by saying that a king of that nation reigned over the whole
country as far northward as the Strymon in Thrace.[114]
Footnote 114:
Æschyl. Suppl. 259. sqq.
We have shown that their dominions extended much further, and included
not Thrace only, beyond the limits of Greece, but a great part likewise
of Asia Minor and nearly every island in the Ægæan. But even these
spacious limits were not wide enough to contain the whole Pelasgian
population; for traversing the Adriatic, they penetrated into Etruria,
and there and elsewhere in Italy, under the name of Tyrrhenians, erected
Cyclopian cities, and deposited the germs of its future
civilisation.[115] Hence the great resemblance which historians and
antiquaries have observed between the Etruscans and the Greeks. Both
were offshoots from the great Pelasgic stem; though the simplicity of
the original race in religion and manners maintained longer its ground
in Italy than under the warmer skies of Greece. In these more western
settlements, however, new tribes sprang up, who in glory eclipsed the
mother race, which they learned to regard with contempt, so that they
bestowed the name of Pelasgi on their slaves. A similar circumstance had
previously occurred in Asia Minor, where the Carians reduced to
servitude such of their brethren as in later times retained the name of
Leleges.[116]
Footnote 115:
Gœttl. ad Hes. Theog. 311. 1014. Οἱ Τυρσηνοὶ δὲ, Πελασγοί. Sch. Apoll.
Rhod. 580. The Pelasgi were the founders of Agylla, afterwards Cære in
Etruria. Steph. Byzant. v. Ἀγύλλα, p. 30. d. Plin. iii. 8. Serv. ad
Æn. viii. 479, who also gives another tradition according to which
Agylla was built by Tyrrhenians from Lydia. Cf. Vibius, Sequest. 421,
who says that the Tuscans were Pelasgi. The Poseidoniatæ, a Tuscan
tribe, entirely forgot their original language, the manners of their
country, and all its festivals, save one, in which they assembled to
repeat the ancient names of kings, and recall the remembrance of their
original home. They then separated with groans, cries, and mingling
together their tears.—Athen. xiv. 81. The Bruttii are said to have
been driven out of their country by the Pelasgi (Plin. iii. 8); who
also settled in Lucania and Bruttium (9, 10). Pelasgi came out of
Peloponnesos into Latium, settled on the Sarna, called themselves
Sarrhastes, and built, among others, the town of Nuceria.—Serv. ad Æn.
vii. 738. A different tradition brings them from Attica; another from
Thessaly, because of the many Pelasgian relics found there.—Idem.
viii. 600. Dion. Hal. i. 33.
Footnote 116:
Nieb. i. 22. Steph. Byzant. _v._ Χῖος, p. 758. b. Victor. Var. Lect.
i. 10. Athen. vi. 101.
If now we cast a rapid glance over the sciences and civilisation of the
Pelasgi, we shall probably have acquired as complete an idea of that
ancient people as existing monuments enable us to frame.[117] Tradition
attributed to them the invention of several arts of primary necessity,
as those of building houses and manufacturing clothing, which they did
from the skins of wild boars, the animals first slain by man for food. A
relic of this primitive style of dress remained, we are told, to a very
late age among the rustics of Phocis and Eubœa.[118] Other traditions
will have it that mankind fed on grass and herbs until the Pelasgi
taught them the greater refinement of feeding upon acorns. But leaving
these poetical fancies, we shall find in many genuine monuments and
facts undisputed proofs of the power and knowledge of the Pelasgi. In
the first place, they it was who bequeathed to their Hellenic
descendants some knowledge, though imperfect and obscure, of the true
God.[119] In their minds the recognition of the unity of the Divine
Being formed the basis of theology, and the philosophers of after ages
who reasoned best and thought most correctly rose no higher on these
points than their rude ancestors.
Footnote 117:
See Nieb. i. 24.
Footnote 118:
Paus. viii. 1. 5.
Footnote 119:
Herod. ii. 32. 51. Plato, Tim. t. vii. 22–31. 96. 142.
But the natural tendency of the human mind to error soon disturbed the
simplicity of their faith; for as the tribes separated, each taking a
different direction, they all in turns learned to consider the God as
their patron, so that speedily there were as many gods as tribes, and
polytheism was created. Thus the Pelasgi, who had at first like the
polished nations of modern times no name for _the gods_, because they
believed in but one, degenerated in the course of time, and invented
that system of divinities and heroes which afterwards prevailed in
Greece. They, too, it was, who in the developement of their superstition
made the first steps towards the arts by setting up rude images of the
powers they worshipped, and to them accordingly the introduction of the
Hermæan statues at Athens is attributed.[120] There was likewise in a
temple of Demeter between mount Eboras and Taygetos, a wooden statue of
Orpheus, supposed to be the workmanship of the Pelasgi.[121] Evidently
too, the worship of Demeter, and of all the rural gods grew up
originally among them, as did likewise the adoration of supreme power
and supreme wisdom in Zeus and Athena.[122]
Footnote 120:
Herod. ii. 51.
Footnote 121:
Paus. iii. 20. 5.
Footnote 122:
We find mention, too, of a Pelasgian Hera, Alex. ab. Alex. p. 321.
Sch. Apol. Rhod. i. 14.
Usually the Pelasgi are considered as a much wandering people,[123]
though it would be more correct to represent them, like the Anglo-Saxon
race in modern times, as the prolific parents of many settlements,
spreading widely, but taking root wherever they spread. A proof of this
still exists in the vast structures[124] which they reared, whose ruins
are yet found scattered through Asia, Greece, and Italy. These Cyclopian
buildings, palaces, treasuries, fortresses, barrows, were not the works
of nomadic hordes, but of a people attached to the soil and resolute in
defending it. Navigation, likewise, they cultivated, and were among the
earliest nations who possessed a power at sea,[125] which led
necessarily to the study of astronomy, together with the occult science
of the stars.[126] Of their progress in the more ordinary arts of
utility we have very little knowledge, but we find in the Iliad a
Pelasgian woman staining ivory to be used as ornaments of a
war-horse;[127] the invention of the shepherd’s crook was attributed to
them; so likewise was the religious dance called Hyporchema;[128] their
proficiency in music is spoken of;[129] and their pre-eminence in war
was signified by representing them as inventors of the shield.[130]
Footnote 123:
Strab. xiii. 3. p. 144.
Footnote 124:
Serv. ad Æn. vi. 630. Winkelmann, ii. 557. On the Cyclopian walls of
Crotona. Mus. Cortonen. pl. i. Rom. 1756.
Footnote 125:
Palm. Gr. Ant. p. 60. Herm. Pol. Ant. p. 13.
Footnote 126:
Palm. Gr. Ant. p. 72.
Footnote 127:
δ. 142. Sch. Apol. Rhod. iii. 1323. Natal. Com. 611.
Footnote 128:
Phot. Bib. 320. b.
Footnote 129:
They were the inventors of the trumpet. Πελασγιὰς ἔβρεμε σάλπιγξ,
Nonn. Dion. 47. 568. Cf. Paus. ii. 21. 3. Gœttl. ad Hes. Theog. 311.
Footnote 130:
Serv. ad Æn. ix. 505.
On the language of the Pelasgi various opinions are entertained. Some,
relying on particular passages in ancient writers, have imagined that it
was very different from the Greek,[131] but although in support of such
an opinion much ingenuity may be exhibited there are circumstances which
compel us to reject it. The Athenians and Arcadians, for example, though
of Pelasgian origin, spoke, and that from the remotest times, the same
language with the rest of the Greeks; and though the Æolic dialect,[132]
the most ancient in Arcadia, or indeed in all Greece, was transformed to
Latin in Italy, we are not on that account to infer that Latin bore a
closer resemblance than the Greek to the mother tongue of both. The
Pelasgian language indeed appears to have been the Hellenic in the
earlier stages of its formation, just as the Pelasgi themselves were
Greeks under another name and in a ruder state of civilisation. Whether
they possessed any knowledge of written characters before[133] the
introduction of the Phœnician we have now no means of ascertaining, the
passages usually brought forward in behalf of such an opinion being of
small authority. To them, however, tradition attributes the introduction
of letters into Latium,[134] and there can be no doubt that the use of
written characters was known in Greece before its inhabitants had ceased
to be called Pelasgi.
Footnote 131:
Nieb. i. 23.
Footnote 132:
Palm. Gr. Ant. p. 55.
Footnote 133:
See, however, the question discussed in Palmerius, Gr. Ant. p. 49.
sqq. Conf. Eustath. ad Il. β. 841.
Footnote 134:
Plin. vii. 56. Tacit. Annal. xi. 14. et Rupert ad loc. Hygin. Fab.
277. p. 336.
I have now, I imagine, proved that the Pelasgi whencesoever they came,
occupied, under one name or another, the whole continent of Greece and
most of the islands. The Athenians, and consequently the Ionians, are on
all hands acknowledged to have sprung from the Pelasgian stock. It only
remains to be shown that the Dorians also traced their origin to this
people, and we shall be satisfied that the whole of the illustrious
nation, known to history under the name of Greeks, flowed from one and
the same source. The Hellenes, of whom the Dorians were a tribe,[135]
occupied in later times the south of Thessaly, but at a much earlier
period, along with the Selli,[136] dwelt in the mountainous tracts about
Dodona, where they were known under the name of Greeks or
mountaineers,[137] which was the original signification of the term.
This district of Epeiros, it has been shown, was among the very earliest
of the Pelasgian settlements, from which of itself it might be inferred
that the Hellenes were Pelasgi. We are not left to rely in this matter
on mere inference, since Herodotus states distinctly that they were a
fragment of the Pelasgi.[138]
Footnote 135:
Serv. ad Æn. ii. 4.
Footnote 136:
Aristot. Meteorol. i. 14. p. 39.
Footnote 137:
Palm. Gr. Ant. 5.
Footnote 138:
I. 58.
It will be seen that I have hitherto made no allusion to the received
fables about Egyptian and Phœnician colonies.[139] Nevertheless it is
quite possible that on many occasions certain fugitives, both from
Phœnicia and Egypt, may have taken refuge in Greece, and been permitted,
as in after ages, to settle there. These persons, coming from countries
farther advanced in civilisation, would undoubtedly bring along with
them a superior degree of knowledge in many useful arts, which, in
gratitude for their hospitable reception, they would undoubtedly
communicate to the inhabitants. But the most active agent in the
diffusion of civilisation was probably commerce, which, by bringing
neighbouring nations into close contact, by enlarging the sphere of
their experience, and teaching them the advantages to be derived from
peaceful intercourse, has in all ages softened and refined mankind. When
the use of letters began first to prevail in the East is not known, but
it was probably communicated early to the Pelasgi, along with the
materials for writing; and whatever inventions were made on either side
of the Mediterranean passed rapidly from shore to shore, so that the
civilisation of the Egyptians, Phœnicians, and Greeks, advanced
simultaneously, though the beginnings of improvement were undoubtedly
more ancient on the banks of the Nile and among the maritime Arabs than
in Hellas. The amount, however, of eastern influences I conceive was not
great, and as to colonies, properly so called, with the exception of
those already described from Asia Minor, I believe there never were any.
Footnote 139:
See Mitford (Hist. of Greece, 81. ff.) who is full of these colonies.
Herod. i. 2. Conf. Thirl. i. 185. Keightley, Hist. of Greece, p. 11.
Müll. Dor. i. 16.
CHAPTER II.
CHARACTER OF THE GREEKS.
Having in the foregoing chapter endeavoured to ascertain by what races
Greece was originally peopled, we shall next speak of the character and
physical organization of its inhabitants. In doing this it may be useful
to consider them in three different stages of their progress: first, in
the heroic and poetical times; secondly, in the historical and
flourishing ages of the Hellenic commonwealth; thirdly, in their corrupt
and degenerate state under the dominion of the Macedonians and Romans.
The most distinguishing characteristic of the Hellenes, when poetry
first places them before us, is a profound veneration for the divinity
and every thing connected with the service of religion. By the force of
imagination heaven and earth were brought near each other, not so much,
indeed, by elevating the latter, as by bringing down the former within
the sphere of humanity. Gods and men moved together over the earth,
cooperated in bringing about events, keeping up a constant interchange
of beneficence; the god aiding, the mortal repaying his aid with
gratitude;[140] the god guiding, the mortal submitting to be directed,
until, sometimes, as in the case of Odysseus and Athena, the feeling of
grace and favour on the one side, and of veneration and gratitude on the
other, ripened into something like friendship and affection.
Footnote 140:
Cf. Plut. Pericl. § 13.
No man entered on any important enterprise without first consulting the
gods, and throwing himself upon their protection, by sacrifice,
divination, and prayer.[141] They conceived, according to the best
lights afforded them by their rude creed, that although means existed of
warping the judgment, perverting the affections, and vitiating the
decisions of their divinities, yet upon the whole and in the natural
order of things they were just and beneficent, mercifully caring for the
poor and the stranger, the guardians of friendship and hospitality, and
avenging severely the offences committed against their laws. Habitually,
when not provoked to vengeance by impiety or crimes, the gods they
believed were not only beneficent towards mankind, but given among
themselves to cheerfulness and mirth, loving music, songs, and laughter,
feasting jovially together in a joy serene and almost imperturbable,
save when interrupted by solicitude for some favoured mortal.
Philosophy, in more intellectual times, condemned this rude conception
of divine things; but men’s ideas, like their offerings, belong to the
state of society in which they live, and the Greeks of the heroic ages
unquestionably attributed to their gods the qualities most in esteem
among themselves.
Footnote 141:
See Man. Moschop. ap Arist. Nubb. 982.
Next to religion the most prominent feeling in the mind of the early
Greeks was filial piety.[142] Nowhere among men were parents held in
higher honour. The reverence paid to them partook largely of the
religious sentiment. Regarded as the instruments by which God had
communicated the mysterious and sacred gift of life, they were supposed
by their children to be for ever invested with a high degree of sanctity
as ministers and representatives of the Creator. Hence the anxiety
experienced to obtain a father’s blessing and the indescribable dread of
his curse. A peculiar set of divinities, the terrible Erinnyes, all but
implacable and unsparing, were entrusted with the guardianship of a
parent’s rights, and indescribable were the pangs and anguish supposed
to seize upon transgressors. These were the powers who tracked about the
matricides Orestes and Alcmæon, scaring them with spectral terrors and
filling their palaces with the alarms and agonies of Tartaros. On the
other hand, nothing can be more beautiful than the pictures of filial
piety exhibited by the nobler characters of heroic times. The examples
are innumerable, but none is so striking or complete as that of Achilles
towards his father Peleus. Fierce, vehement, stern in the ordinary
relations of life, towards his aged father he is gentle as a child. His
heart yearns to him with a strength of feeling incomprehensible to a
meaner nature. He submits to his sway and authority not from any
apprehension of his power, not even from the fear of offending him, but
from the fulness of his love, from the natural excellence and purity of
his heart. He would erect his valour and the might of his arm into a
rampart round the old man, to protect him from injury and insult; and
even in the cold region of shadows beyond the grave this feeling is
represented as still alive, so that in death, as in life, the uppermost
anxiety of the hero’s soul is for the happiness of his father. Even in
the government of his impetuous passions during his mortal career, in
the choice of the object of his love, Achilles expresses a desire to
render his feelings subordinate to those of his parent, thus verging on
the utmost limits of self-denial and self-control conceivable in a state
of nature. Homer understood his countrymen well when he gave these
qualities to his hero. Without them, he knew that no degree of courage
or wisdom would have sufficed to render him popular, and, therefore, we
find him not only pre-eminent for his piety towards the gods, but at the
same time the most affectionate and dutiful of sons, the warmest, most
disinterested, and unchangeable of friends.
Footnote 142:
Respect for old age is still a remarkable feature in the Greek
character. Thiersch. Etat Actuel de la Grèce, i. 292. On the same
trait in their ancestors see Mitf. i. 186. Odyss. ω. 254. Plat. Repub.
vi. p. 6. f. Æsch. cont. Tim. § 7.
And this leads us to consider another remarkable feature of the Greek
character,—its peculiar aptitude for friendship. No country’s history
and traditions abound with so many examples of this virtue as those of
Greece. In truth, it was there regarded as the most unequivocal mark of
an heroic and generous nature, being wholly inconsistent with anything
base, sordid, or ignoble, and flourishing only in company with virtues
rarest and most difficult of acquisition. Poetry, no doubt, has clad the
friendship of heroic times with a splendour scarcely belonging to real
life, but the experience of history warrants us in making but slight
deductions. Nature in those ages appeared to delight in producing men in
pairs, each suited to be the ornament and solace of the other,
possessing different qualities, imperfect when apart, but complete,
united. Men thus constituted were a sort of moral twins, an extension,
if we may so speak, of unity, the same yet different, bringing two souls
under the yoke of one will, desiring the same, hating the same,
possessing the same, valuing life and the gifts of life only as they
were shared in common, seeking adventures, facing dangers together,
conforming their thoughts, opinions, feelings, each to the other, having
no distinct interest, no distinct hope, but engrafting two lives on the
chances of one man’s fortune, and both perishing by the same blow.
This feeling has by some been supposed to have owed its strength, in
part at least, to the degraded position of women in society; a subject
on which I shall have more to say hereafter, but may here remark that
such an opinion is wholly incompatible with an impartial interpretation
of the Homeric poems and the older traditions of Greece. Throughout
fabulous times women are the prime movers in all great events; and the
respect which as mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters they received,
though expressed in uncourtly language, was perhaps as great as has ever
been paid them in any age or country. Every distinguished woman in Homer
is the centre of a circle of tender and touching associations. We behold
them beloved by their relatives, honoured by their dependants, enjoying
every decent freedom, every becoming pleasure, with all the influence
and authority appertaining to their sex. Thus Helen, both before and
after her fall, is entire mistress of her house, and treated with all
possible deference and delicacy: so Hecuba, Andromache, Penelope, Arete,
Nausicaa, and Iphigeneia in their respective positions, are held in the
highest esteem, and command as great a share of love from those whose
duty it was to love and honour them, as any other women in history or
fiction. Nor were due respect and tenderness confined to the high and
the noble; for innumerable proofs occur in Homer that even among the
humblest ranks, that delicate self-respect which is shown by respect to
our other self, and may be regarded as the pivot of civilisation, was
already in that age very generally diffused.
But if the Greeks of heroic times possessed the good qualities we have
attributed to them, they were still more, perhaps, distinguished for
others, which often obliterated the footsteps of their virtues, and
appeared to be the guiding principles of their lives. Chief among these
was their passion for war and violence,[143] which engaged them in
everlasting struggles with their neighbours, developed overmuch their
fierce and destructive qualities, and threw into comparative shade such
of their propensities as were gentler and more humane. War by land,
piracy by sea, filled the whole country with incessant alarms. Commerce
was checked and confined within very narrow channels, both travelling
and navigation being exceedingly unsafe, while bands of marauders
traversed land and sea in quest of rapine and plunder. In some states no
other mode was known of arriving at opulence, and the humbler classes of
society were wholly subsisted by it.[144] The laws of war, too, were
proportionably savage. It was customary either to give no quarter, or to
devote all prisoners taken to servitude; and, accordingly, every petty
state was filled with unfortunate captives, many of them of illustrious
birth and qualities, reduced to the humblest conditions, being compelled
to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. In peace, too, and in
their own homes their warlike habits led frequently to the perpetration
of violence; their passions being strong and unbridled they resented
insults on the spot, and numerous homicides were, in consequence, found
flying from the country whose infant institutions their passions had
sought to overthrow.
Footnote 143:
See Thirlwall i. 180. sqq. and Mitford i. 181.—Among the Sauromatæ, in
the time of Hippocrates, even the women mounted on horseback and
fought in battle. They were not allowed to marry until they had slain
three enemies.—De Aër. et. Loc. § 78. A circumstance is related of the
Parthian court, illustrative of the ferocity which prevailed generally
in antiquity. The monarch, it is said, kept a humble friend, whom he
fed like a dog, and whipped till the blood flowed, for the slightest
offence at table, apparently for the amusement of the guests.—Athen.
iv. 38. This trait of barbarism was imitated by the Czar Peter, by
servile historians denominated the Great, who used brutally to
maltreat the princess Galitzin before his whole court.—Mem. of the
Margrav. of Bayreuth, vol. i. p. 34.
Footnote 144:
Thucyd. i. 5.
But in all stages of society it has been ordained by Providence that out
of the wickedness of man some compensating good shall flow: thus, from
the dangers and difficulties surrounding the stranger the virtue of
hospitality[145] sprang up in generous minds. From the distress and
misery of the passionate or accidental slayer of man arose the merciful
rites of expiation, and all the friendly ties which subsisted between
the purifier and the purified. Wanderers driven from their home often
found a better in a foreign land; and thus even the transgressions and
misfortunes of men, by breaking down the narrow enclosures of families
and clans, and connecting persons of distant tribes together by benefits
and gratitude, hastened the progress of refinement and paved the way for
the greatness and glory of succeeding ages.
Footnote 145:
Il. ρ. 212. seq. The word ξένος signified, actively and passively, the
host and the guest. The rights of hospitality were hereditary, the
descendants of men being compelled to entertain the descendants of
those with whom their forefathers had contracted hospitable ties.
Πρόξενοι sometimes signified persons who publicly received
ambassadors, as Antenor among the Trojans. Agamemnon had hospitable
ties with the Phrygians, because he came of Phrygian ancestors. Damm.
_v._ ξένος. Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 347. Cf. Virg. Æn. viii. 165. et Serv.
ad loc. Plat. Soph. t. iv. p. 125, where Socrates alludes to a passage
in Homer, in which Zeus is said to be the companion of the wanderer,
observing jocularly that the Eleatic stranger might probably have been
some deity in disguise. Cf. Tomas. Tess. Hosp. c. 23. ap. Gronov.
Thesaur. ix. 266. sqq. It was a proverb at Athens that the doors of
the Prytaneion would keep out no stranger.—Sch. Aristoph. Ach. 127.
The Lucanians had a law thus expressed: “If a stranger arriving at
sunset ask a lodging of any one, let him who refuses to be his host be
fined for want of hospitality.” The object, I imagine, of the law,
says Ælian (Var. Hist. iv. i.) was at once to avenge the stranger and
Hospitable Zeus.
It will, from what has been said, be seen that among the elements of the
Greek character passion greatly predominated; but, even from the
earliest times, the existence was apparent of other powerful principles,
by the influence of which the nation was led to emerge rapidly from its
period of barbarism. These were an innate love of magnificence, and a
striking inclination towards all social enjoyments; the former leading
to the cultivation of commerce and industry, the latter communicating an
extraordinary impetus to the natural desire common to mankind for
companionship and society. But in developing these principles nature
pursued in Greece a peculiar route. Instead of establishing a common
centre, towards which the energies of the whole nation might tend,
society was broken up into numerous parts, each forming, when considered
separately, a whole, but united with its neighbours by identity of
origin, language, religion, and national character.
Philosophers usually seek in geographical position a key to the fact of
the formation of so many separate states as the Hellenic population was
divided into; but the cause was probably of a different kind. Among
every other people, a difficulty has always been experienced in
discovering men capable of conducting public affairs; and, when any such
have arisen, they have easily subdued to their will their less
intellectual and, consequently, less ambitious neighbours. Among the
Greeks the case was wholly different: every province, every district,
nay, every town and village abounded with men endowed with the ability
and passion for governing. These feelings begot the aversion to submit
to the government of others; this aversion engendered strife; and it was
only the accident of a numerical superiority existing in one division of
the country, or of a statesman of extraordinary genius springing up,
that enabled one village to subdue its neighbours for a few miles
around, and thus establish a small political community.
History rarely penetrates back so far as the period in which this state
of things existed. But we have an example in the annals of Attica, where
the twelve small municipal states, if one may so speak, were, partly by
persuasion, partly by force, brought under the authority of one city,
possessing the advantages of a superior position and wiser and more
enterprising leaders.
These diminutive polities once formed, many causes concurred to preserve
their integrity, of which the most obvious and powerful was the pride of
race, and, next to this, certain religious feelings and peculiarities,
which stationed gods along the frontier line of states, and rendered it
impious for the worshippers of other divinities to invade or dispossess
them of their lands. Communities having at first been thus isolated,
numerous circumstances arose to make eternal the separation. The ready
invention of the people gave to each state its heroes and heroic
traditions, based, perhaps, on the exploits of border warfare, in which
the ancestors of one community had suffered or inflicted injuries on the
ancestors of another. Poets sprang up who celebrated these deeds in
song, and every assembly, every festival, every merry-making resounded
with the commemoration of deeds as galling to one people as they were
glorious to the other. These prejudices, this cantonal patriotism, this
tribual vanity, if I may coin a new word to express a new idea,
constituted a far more impassable barrier between the diminutive states
of Greece, than either mountains or rivers; though, in process of time,
some few cases occurred in which very small communities were immersed
and lost in greater ones. The heroism, however, with which the smallest
commonwealth struggled to preserve its separate existence, the watchful
jealousy, the undying solicitude, the fierce and sanguinary valour by
which it hedged round its independence, the indescribable agonies of
political extinction, may be seen in the examples of Ægina, Megara,
Platæa, and Messenia.
In fact the most remarkable peculiarity in the Greek character was a
certain centrifugal force, or abhorrence of centralisation, which
presented insurmountable obstacles to the union of the whole Hellenic
nation under one head. The inhabitants of ancient Italy exhibited on
this point an entirely dissimilar character. Though differing from each
other widely in manners, customs and laws, they still possessed so much
of affinity as enabled them successively to unite themselves with Rome,
and melt into one great people. The causes lay in their moral and
intellectual character: possessing little genius or imagination, but
much good sense, they experienced less keenly the misery of inferiority,
the anguish of defeat, the tortures of submission, and calculated more
coolly the advantages of protection and tranquillity, and all the other
benefits of living under a strong government. Where the masses are but
slightly impregnated with the fire of genius they are naturally disposed
to amalgamation, and form a vast body necessarily subjected to one head.
But where a nation is everywhere pervaded and quickened by genius, where
imagination is an universal attribute, where to soar is as natural as to
breathe, where the principal enjoyment of life is the exercise of power,
where men hunger and thirst more for renown than for their daily bread,
where life itself without these imaginary delights is insipid and
despicable, no force, while the vigour of the national character
continues unbroken, can erect a central government, or achieve extensive
conquests, that is, subject one part of the nation to the sway of the
other. And perhaps it may be found when we shall farther have perfected
the science of government, that in politics as in physics the largest
bodies are not the most valuable, or the most difficult to be shattered.
The diamond resists when the largest rock yields. The true tendency of
civilisation, therefore, is to reduce unwieldy empires into compact
bodies, which the light of education can penetrate and render luminous.
Vast empires are but opaque masses of ignorance.
From precisely the same causes arose the peculiar notions of the Greeks
on the subject of government; that is, the citizens of each state
applied to one another the principle which regulated the conduct of
communities. Every man experienced an aversion to yield obedience to his
neighbour, every man was ambitious to rule; but, as this was impossible,
it became necessary to invent some means by which public business could
be carried on without offering too much violence to the national
character. Hence the origin of republicanism and the establishment of
commonwealths, in which the sovereignty was acknowledged to reside in
the body of the people, and where such of the citizens as by abilities,
rank, friends, were qualified, might rule in vicarious succession.
But the various families of the Hellenes were not all equally endowed
with the energy and intellect which belonged to their race; some
possessed more of these qualities, others less, and there were besides
in operation numerous peculiar and local causes which modified the forms
of polity adopted by the various states of Greece. The heavier, the
colder, the more inert naturally chose that form of government which
would least tax their mental faculties, and most completely relieve them
from the care of public affairs, in order the more sedulously to attend
to their own; while the fierier, the busier, more active and buoyant
preferred that political constitution which would afford their energetic
natures most employment, and supply a legitimate outlet for the ardour
and impetuosity of their temperament. Thus, in certain communities there
was a leaning towards monarchy, in others towards oligarchy; in a third
class towards aristocracy; while Athens and some few smaller states
preferred the stir, bustle, and incessant animation of democracy.
Again these institutions, springing at first out of national
idiosyncrasies, became in their turn among the most active causes which
impressed the stamp of individuality on the population of each separate
state: for the principle which animates a form of government is not a
barren principle, but impregnates, leavens, and vivifies the community
subjected to its influence, and produces an offspring analogous to the
source from which it sprang. Thus, in monarchies the summits of a nation
are rich with verdure and glorious with light; in aristocracies a broad
table-land is fertilized and rendered beautiful; while in commonwealths,
properly so called, the whole surface of society unrolls itself like a
vast plain to the sun, and receives the light and comfort, and
invigorating influence of its beams:—and all these various modifications
of civil polity were at different times and in different parts of the
country beheld in Greece, where they produced their natural fruits.
Among the principal results of the causes we have enumerated were a high
intellectual cultivation, the profoundest study of philosophy, the most
ardent pursuit of literature, a matchless taste for the beautiful in
nature and in art, an irrepressible enthusiasm in the search after
knowledge of every kind, and, joined with these, as their cause
sometimes, and sometimes as their consequence, an invincible and
limitless craving after fame. And these characteristic qualities of the
people exhibited themselves in various ways. Sometimes, as in Thessaly,
men sought to distinguish themselves by their wealth and the pomp by
which they were surrounded:—sometimes their ruling passion urged them to
pluck, amidst blood and slaughter, the laurels of war, as in Crete and
Sparta, where military discipline was carried to its utmost perfection,
where men lived perpetually encamped around their domestic hearths,
cultivated the habits, preferences, tastes, and feelings of soldiers,
and looked upon dominion as the supreme good:—sometimes religion, with
its rites and pomp and sacrifices, absorbed a whole people, as in Elis,
where the worship of supreme Zeus and the celebration of sacred games
conferred a sanctity upon the land and people which all men of Hellenic
blood respected:—elsewhere mountaineers,[146] of indomitable valour,
hired out their swords to the best bidder, and became, as it were, the
journeymen of war:—elegant pleasures in many cities, and commerce and
magnificence, occupied and depraved the whole community; while
others,[147] of grosser minds and more sordid propensities, passed their
whole lives in indolent gluttony round the festive board, amid crowds of
singers, flute-players, and dancers; or else, like the Delphians, were
ever seen hovering amid the smoke of the altars, whetting their
sacrificial knives or feasting on the savoury victims; and yet the
triumphs of the Thebans proved that even the lowest of the Greeks, when
circumstances led them to cultivate the arts of war, were capable of
planning and executing great designs, and acquiring lasting celebrity.
The arts, however, by which the Greeks rose to greatness,[148] and
became the instructors and everlasting benefactors of mankind,
flourished chiefly at Athens, and in the numerous colonies which she
planted in various parts of Asia and the islands. To men of Ionian race
we owe, in fact, the invention and most successful culture of poetry and
philosophy, and those plastic and mimetic arts which added to the world
of realities another world more beautiful still. If the Greeks borrowed,
as no doubt they did, certain varieties and forms of art and learning
from the barbarians, they immediately so refined and improved them, that
the original inventors would no longer have recognised the works of
their own hands. The glory of giving birth to several of the arts and
sciences belongs to them: they were the inventors of the art of war;
among them alone, in the ancient world, painting and sculpture assumed
their proper dignity; and in politics and statesmanship, and that art of
arts, philosophy, they led the way, and taught mankind the steps by
which to arrive at perfection.
Footnote 146:
According to Hippocrates, the inhabitants of lofty mountains, well
watered, are generally hardy and of tall stature, but fierce and
ferocious. In saying this, the philosopher describes the Arcadians
without naming them. De Aër. et Loc. § 120.
Footnote 147:
Athen. iv. 74.
Footnote 148:
Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 355. l. 12. Wink. Hist. de l’Art, i. 316.
Greece, by the means we have described, was gradually reclaimed from the
state of nature, covered with beautiful cities, harbours, docks,
temples, palaces adorned with infinite variety of works of art, with
sculpture in ivory and gold, with paintings, gems, and vases, which
converted her principal cities into so many museums. Her plains, her
dells, her mountain recesses were studded with sanctuaries and sacred
groves, conferring the external beauty of religion on the whole face of
the country. Public roads, branching from numerous capital cities,
traversed the land in every direction; bridges spanned her rivers,
agriculture covered her hills and plains with harvests, the vine hung in
festoons from tree to tree, the foliage of the olive clothed the
mountain sides, and a belt of beautiful gardens surrounded every city,
town, and village.
The primary cause of all this amazing activity has, by philosophers,
been sought for in various circumstances of the condition of the Greeks,
in the form of their institutions, in the rivalry of so many small
communities, in the fact of their being inventors, and the consequent
freshness of their pursuits. But although all these circumstances and
many others contributed, as we have shown, to expedite the progress of
the Greeks in civilisation, they were none of them the fountain head,
which lies far beyond our ken. It were in fact as easy to tell why one
star differs from another star in glory, as why one nation or one man
rises in intellect above his fellows. But we are supplied with a link in
the chain which connects the above effects with their cause, by the
physical organisation of the Greeks, who possessed the most perfect
forms in which humanity ever appeared. Their frame exhibiting all the
beauty of which the human body is susceptible, uniting strength with
lightness, dignity and elegance with activity, the utmost robustness of
health with extreme delicacy of contour, the muscles developed by
exercise, and developed over the whole structure alike, suggested the
idea of power and indefatigable energy; the stature, generally above the
middle size, the free and unembarrassed gait, the features[149] full of
beauty, the expression replete with intellect, and the eye flashing with
a consciousness of independence:—all these united conferred upon the
form of the Greek an elevation, a grandeur, a majesty which we still
contemplate with admiration in their sculpture, and denominate the
ideal. Above all things, the form of the Grecian head was most
exquisite, with its smooth, expansive, almost perpendicular forehead and
majestic outline, describing a perfect oval. Generally the complexion
was of a clear olive, the hair and eyes black, the temperament inclined
to melancholy, though numerous instances occurred of sanguine fair
persons with light eyes and chesnut or auburn hair, which the youth
wore, as now, in a profusion of ringlets falling to the shoulders.
Instances likewise occurred among the Greeks of individuals, who, like
our own Chatterton, had eyes of different colours. Thus the poet
Thamyris[150] is said to have had one eye grey, the other black. Nay,
this peculiarity was even remarked among the inferior animals, more
particularly the horses.[151]
Footnote 149:
Among the ancient Scythians an extraordinary uniformity of feature was
observable, as also among the Egyptians, (the same is the case at
present,) supposed to proceed, in the one case from the rigour, in the
other from the extreme heat, of the climate. Hippoc. de Aër. et Loc. §
91. But in every country, the climate being alike for all, the same
effect ought to be produced on the whole population. The similitude is
chiefly to be traced to the absence of all mixture with foreign races;
and the equal indevelopement of the mind.
Footnote 150:
Poll. iv. 141.
Footnote 151:
Aristot. de Gen. Anim. v. i.
The characteristic beauty of the nation displayed itself in every stage
of life, only assuming new phases in its progress from the beauty of
infancy to the beauty of old age, inspiring the mingled feelings of love
and admiration; and notwithstanding the effects of time, and
inter-marriage with barbarous races, the same is the case still. For
nowhere in Europe do we meet with infants so lovely, with youths so
soft, so virginal, so beautiful in their incipient manliness, with old
men so grave, stately, and with countenances so magnificent, as among
the living descendants of the Hellenes, whose destiny may yet be, one
day, as enviable as their forms.
To push our enquiry one step further; it may be questioned, whether the
glorious organisation we have been describing was not itself an effect
of air, climate, and soil.[152] Certain at any rate it is, that the
atmosphere of Greece is clearer, purer, more buoyant and elastic, than
that of any other country in our hemisphere. At night, particularly,
there is a transparency in the air, which appears to impart additional
lustre and magnitude to the stars and moon. Its mountain tops, the
intervening space being, as it were, removed, seem to mingle with the
constellations which cluster in brightness on the edge of the horizon.
Footnote 152:
Cf. Hippoc. de Aër. et Loc. § 125, seq. § 23, seq. Casaub. ad Theoph.
Char. p. 94. seq.
A principal cause of this clearness and pellucidness is the great
prevalence of the north wind,[153] which brings with it few or no
vapours, but gathers together the clouds in heaps and rolls them from
the land towards the Mediterranean. The reason why this wind so often
prevails may be discovered in the geographical configuration of the
country, which is not, like Italy, divided from the rest of the
continent by a range of Alps that might have screened it from the colder
blasts, but lies open like an elevated threshing-floor, to be purged and
winnowed on all sides by the winds, which in many parts are so violent
that no tree can attain to any great height, while the stunted woods
throw all their branches in one direction, and the vines and other
climbing shrubs are laid prostrate along the rocks. These winds,
however, prevail not constantly, but the southern and western breezes,
blowing at intervals, bring along with them the warm atmosphere of Syria
or Egypt, or the cooling freshness of the ocean. Another cause, which
greatly tends to promote the purity of the air, is the lightness,
friability, and dryness of the soil, which, distributed for the most
part in thin layers over ledges of rocks, permits no stagnation of
moisture, but enables the rain that falls to trickle through, collect in
rills and brooks, and find its way rapidly to the sea. The plains and
irregular valleys, which form an exception to this rule, are not
numerous enough, or of sufficient magnitude to affect the general
proposition. There appear, moreover, to be many peculiar properties and
virtues in the soil itself, causing all fruits transplanted thither to
attain to speedy ripeness and superior flavour, while odoriferous plants
and flowers, as the jasmine, the wild thyme, and the rose exhale sweeter
and more delicious fragrance. This is more particularly the case in
Attica, which accordingly produced in antiquity, where due care was
bestowed on gardening and agriculture, the finest fruits and sweetest
honey in the world.[154]
Footnote 153:
This wind, wherever it prevails, increases the appetite; and the
Greeks were a hearty-eating people.—Aristot. Probl. xxvi. 45. The wind
Ornithias was often so cold as to strike birds dead on the wing.
Schol. Aristoph. Ach. 842.
Footnote 154:
Aristot. Probl. xx. 20. The black myrtle, which is much larger than
the white, grew wild about the hills. (xx. 36.) The southern breezes
were considered highly salutary to the plants of the Thriasian plain.
(xxvi. 18.)
The same qualities in soil and climate which affect vegetation, likewise
powerfully influence the character and temperament of men and animals.
It is, for example, well known in the Levant, that the Bedouins
inhabiting Arabia Proper and the Eastern Desert degenerate both in
character and physical organisation when transplanted to the Libyan
wastes on the western banks of the Nile. But if particular soil and
situation engender particular diseases; if the air of fens and marshes
blunt the senses and paralyse, to a certain degree, the intellectual
faculties, the converse of the proposition must also hold good; so that
it is conceivable that the light soil and pure air of Greece may have
produced corresponding effects on the bodies and minds of its
inhabitants. The experiment, in fact, is made daily; for strangers
arriving there with the germs of disease in their constitution, are, in
most cases, speedily destroyed by the force of the climate; while the
healthy and vigorous acquire the vivacity, the cheerfulness, the nervous
and impetuous energy of the natives themselves, and, like them, extend
the term of life to its utmost span. Greece, indeed, has always been the
habitation of longevity; its philosophers in antiquity,—its monks,
anchorites, and rural population in modern times, furnishing, perhaps,
more examples of extreme old age than could be found on the same extent
of territory in any other part of the globe.
Now this excess of vitality, this superabundance of the principle of
life, which constitutes what we intend by physical or moral energy,
almost inevitably produces, among an ill-governed, ill-educated people,
a large harvest of crime, and, accordingly, the modern Greeks have often
been distinguished for audacious villany; the intrepid vigour of their
character, controlled neither by religion nor philosophy, easily
breaking through the restraints of tyranny and unjust laws in the chase
after power or excitement. That Frenchman spoke more truly than he
thought, who said the Greeks were still the same “canaille” as in the
days of Themistocles: for, give them the same laws, the same education,
the same incentives to virtue and to heroism, and they will probably be
again as virtuous, as wise, and as heroic as their illustrious
ancestors. I judge in this way partly from my own experience, for I have
seldom become acquainted with a Greek,—and I have known many,—who has
not improved upon acquaintance, won my esteem, and, in most cases, my
affection, and impressed me with the firm belief that there is no nation
in the varied population of Europe which, if ruled with wisdom and
justice, would exhibit loftier or more exalted qualities. In these views
I am happy to be borne out by the testimony of Monsieur Frederic
Thiersch, whose facilities for studying the modern Greek have been far
more ample than mine, and whose opinions are marked by the cautious
acuteness of the statesman with the depth and originality of the
philosopher.
In alluding to the causes which pervert the feelings and misdirect the
energies of the existing race, I have touched also at the great source
of crime among their ancestors,—I mean, defective laws and institutions;
for although the Greek character was, in force and excellence, all that
I have said, and more, it, nevertheless, contained other elements than
those I have described, which it now becomes my duty to speak of. From a
very early period there existed in Greece two political parties,
variously denominated in various states, but upholding,—the one, the
doctrine that the many ought to be subjected to the few; the other, that
the few ought to be subjected to the many: in other words, the
oligarchical and democratical parties. From the struggles of these two
factions the internal history of Greece takes its form and colour, as to
them may be traced most of the fearful atrocities, in the shape of
conspiracies, massacres, revolutions, which, instructing while they
shock us, stain the Greek character with indelible blots.[155] Ambitious
men are nowhere scrupulous. To enjoy the delight imparted by the
exercise of power, individuals have in all ages stifled the dictates of
conscience; and where, as in modern Italy and in ancient Greece,
numerous small states border upon each other, sufficiently powerful to
dream of conquest though too weak to achieve it, the number of the
ambitious is of necessity greatly multiplied. In proportion, however, to
the thirst of power in one class was the love of freedom and
independence in the other, so that the process of encroachment and
resistance, of tyranny and rebellion, of usurpation and punishment, was
carried on perpetually,—the oligarchy now predominating, and cutting off
or sending into exile the popular leaders, while the democratic party,
triumphing in its turn, inflicted similar sufferings on its enemies. By
degrees, moreover, there sprang up two renowned states to represent
these opposite principles, and the contests carried on by them assumed
consequently many characteristics of civil war,—its obstinacy, its
bitterness, its revenge.
Footnote 155:
See the savage anecdote of Stratocles in Plutarch. Demet. § 12.
In these struggles seas of blood were shed, and crimes of the darkest
dye perpetrated. Cities, once illustrious and opulent, were razed to the
ground; whole populations put to the sword or reduced to servitude;
fertile plains rendered barren; men most renowned for capacity and
virtue made a prey to treachery or the basest envy; the morals of great
states corrupted, their glory eclipsed, their power undermined, and a
way paved for the inroads of barbarian conquerors who ultimately put a
period to the grandeur of the Hellenes.
Examples without number might be collected of these horrors. It will be
sufficient to advert briefly to a few, more to remind than to inform the
reader. In the troubles of Corcyra[156] the nobles and the commons
alternately triumphing over each other, carried on with the utmost
ruthlessness the work of extermination with abundant baseness and
perfidy, some portion of which attached to the Athenian generals: the
wrongs and sufferings inflicted by the Spartans on the brave but
unfortunate inhabitants of Messenia, with the annual butchery of the
Helots, the treacherous withdrawal of suppliants from sanctuary, and
their subsequent slaughter,[157] the extermination of the people of
Hysia,[158] the precipitating of neutral merchants into pits,[159] the
betrayal of the cities of Chalcidice and the islands, the massacre in
cold blood of the Platæans, of four thousand Athenians in the
Hellespont,[160] the reduction of innumerable cities to servitude: by
the Athenians, the extermination of the people of Melos,[161] the
slaughter of a thousand Mitylenians, the cruelties at Skione, Ægina, and
Cythera;[162] but beyond these, and beyond all, the fearful excesses of
civil strife at Miletos where the common people called Gergithes having
risen in rebellion against the nobles and defeated them in battle, took
their children and cast them into the cattle stalls where they were
crushed and trampled to death by the infuriated oxen; but the nobles
renewing the contest and obtaining ultimately the victory, seized upon
their enemies,—men, women, children, and covered them with pitch, to
which setting fire they burnt them alive.[163]
Footnote 156:
Thucyd. iii. 70. sqq.
Footnote 157:
Ælian. Var. Hist. vi. 7. Cf. Eurip. Andr. 445. seq.
Footnote 158:
Thucyd. v. 83.
Footnote 159:
Thucyd. ii. 67.
Footnote 160:
Pausan. ix. 32. 9.
Footnote 161:
Thucyd. v. 126; iii. 50.
Footnote 162:
Thucyd. v. 32; iv. 57.
Footnote 163:
Heracl. Pont. ap. Athen. xii. 26.
From these glimpses of guilt and suffering, we may learn to what
extremes the Greek was sometimes hurried by passion and the thirst of
power. But propensities so wolfish were not predominant in his
nature.[164] On the contrary, in private life, even the Spartans and the
Dorians generally put off their cruel and severe habits, and relaxed on
all proper occasions into joviality and mirth. In their social
intercourse, in fact, few nations have been more cheerful or addicted to
jokes and pleasantry than the Greeks, and above all the Athenians, whose
hours of leisure were one continued round of gossip, sport, and
laughter.[165] Never in any city were news-mongers, or even
news-forgers, so numerous. In the mouth of young and old no question was
so frequent as, “What is the news?” These were the sounds that
circulated from rank to rank in the assembly of the people before the
orators began their harangues, that were bandied to and fro in the
Agora, that filled by their incessant repetition the shops of barbers
and perfumers.[166] Akin to this itching ear was the passion for show
and magnificence, every man, from highest to lowest, affecting as far as
possible spacious dwellings, superb furniture and costly apparel. Even
the bravest of the brave, the heroes of Marathon, were _petits-maîtres_
at their toilette, and went forth to the field in purple cloaks, their
hair curled, adorned with golden ornaments, and perfumed with essences.
The study of philosophy itself failed in most cases to subdue this
ostentatious spirit. Plato loved rich carpets and splendid raiment. Even
Aristotle was an exquisite, and Æschines an acknowledged coxcomb.
Footnote 164:
Cf. Wink. Hist. de l’Art, i. 320. Thiersch, Etat. Act. de la Grèce, i.
p. 290. sqq; and for their disinterestedness, Pashley, Trav. in Crete,
i. 221.
Footnote 165:
Loud laughter was nevertheless considered vulgar among the
Greeks.—Plat. Repub. t. vi. 112. The Athenians were addicted to the
language of shrugging and nodding, κ.τ.λ. To nod upwards was to deny,
downwards to confess. Sch. Aristoph. Ach. 112.
Footnote 166:
Aristotle says that the orators of Athens, who governed the people,
passed sometimes the whole of the day seeing mountebanks or jugglers,
or talking with those who had travelled as far as the Phasis or
Borysthenes; and that they never read anything save the Supper of
Philoxenos and that not all.—Athen. i. 10. It was in the opinion of
these persons perhaps, that “a great book was a great evil.”—Id. iii.
1.
From several of these weaknesses the Spartans were free. They cared
little for news, still less for dress, and less still for cleanliness;
so that their beautiful long hair and waving beards swarmed with those
autochthonal beasts, for the expulsion of which there was no law in
Sparta. Though neither a knowing nor cleanly race, however, their wit
was bright and piercing. No people uttered pithier or finer sayings, and
their taste both in music and poetry was cultivated and refined.
Probably, therefore, the dining halls and gymnasia and public walks of
Sparta were enlivened by as much mirth as those of any other Grecian
city, where usually cheerfulness was so prevalent, that “to be as merry
as a Greek,” has become a proverb in all countries.
On the third period of the Greek character it is unnecessary to speak at
any length. Most of their good qualities having departed with their
freedom they degenerated into a dissembling, hypocritical, fawning and
double-dealing race, with little or no respect for truth, without
patriotism, and without genuine valour. The literature, painting, and
sculpture, to which in their period of degradation they gave birth, bore
evident marks of their degeneracy, and tended by the corruption they
diffused to avenge them on their conquerors the Romans; whose minds and
morals they vitiated, and whose career of freedom and glory they cut
short. Through their vices, however, the fame of their more noble and
virtuous ancestors has greatly suffered, for the Romans contemplating
the Greeks they saw before them, and implanting their opinion throughout
the whole civilised world, their false and unjust views have been
bequeathed to posterity; for it is still in a great measure through the
Romans that people study the Greeks.
CHAPTER III.
GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE.
To render still clearer the point we have been insisting on in the
foregoing chapter, it may be useful to take a rapid survey of the
geography of the country, and enter somewhat more at length into its
peculiar configuration and productions.[167] Considered as a whole, the
most remarkable feature in the aspect of Greece consists in the great
variety of forms which its surface assumes in the territories of the
numerous little states into which the country was anciently divided. Of
these no two resemble each other, whether in physical structure, climate
or productions; so that it may be said that in general the atmosphere of
Greece is mild,[168] but not in every part, for within its narrow
boundaries are found nearly all grades of temperature. The inhabitants
of Elis and the valley of the Eurotas are exposed to a degree of heat
little inferior to that of Egypt, while the settlers about Olympos,
Pindos and Dodona, with the rough goat-herds of Parnassos, Doris and the
Arcadian mountains experience the rigours of an almost Scandinavian
winter. In this extraordinary country the palm tree and the myrtle
flourish within sight of the pine, the larch, and the silver fir of the
north. In several of the islands and on parts of the continent certain
tropical birds, as the peacock and the golden pheasant, have long been
naturalised, while in other districts snipes and woodcocks[169] appear
early; storms of sleet and hail are frequent, and the summits of
mountains are capped with eternal snow.[170] A no very elevated range of
hills separates the marsh miasmata and wit-withering fogs of
Bœotia,[171] the home of gluttony and stupidity, from the bland
transparent cheerful atmosphere and sweet wholesome soil of Attica,
where, as a dwelling-place for man, earth has reached her highest
culminating point of excellence, and where, accordingly, her noblest
fruits, wisdom and beauty, have ripened most kindly.
Footnote 167:
Cf. Hermann, Pol. Ant. § 6. Müll. Dor. ii. 425.
Footnote 168:
Varro gave the preference to the soil and climate of Italy, where
everything good was produced in perfection. He thought no barley to be
compared with the Campanian, no wheat with the Apulian, no rye with
the Falernian, no oil with the Venafran. The whole country was so
thickly planted with trees that it seemed to be an orchard. Not even
Phrygia itself abounded more in vineyards; nor was Argos so fertile as
parts of Italy, though it was said to produce from ten to fifteen
pipes the juger. De Re Rustica, i. 2. p. 46. b.
Footnote 169:
“Woodcocks and snipes, I am informed, visited the neighbourhood of
Attica during the winter in considerable quantities. I heard the
curlew and the red shank cry along the marsh to the right of the
Piræus.” Sibth. in Walp. Mem. i. 76.
Footnote 170:
Cramer, Desc. of Greece, i. 8.
Footnote 171:
Βοιωτία ὗς. Pind. Olymp. vi. 151. Cram. ii. 200.—Thick and foggy
atmosphere. Hipp. de Aër. § 55. Plat. De Legg. v. t. vii. p. 410.
seq—Cicero observes:—“Etenim licet videre acutiora ingenia et ad
intelligendum acutiora eorum, qui terras incolant eas, in quibus aër
sit purus ac tenuis, quàm illorum, qui utantur crasso cœlo atque
concreto.” De Nat. Deor. ii. 16. “The purple and the grey heron
frequent the marshes of Bœotia.” Sibth. in Walp. Mem. i. 76.
To proceed, however, with an outline of the country: along the shores,
more especially towards the west, rugged cliffs of great elevation
impend over the deep, and in stormy weather present an appearance highly
desolate and forbidding. But descending the Ionian sea, and doubling
Cape Crio, the south westernmost promontory of Crete, the approach
towards the tropics is felt both in the air and in the landscape. The
nights are beyond description lovely, the stars appear with increased
size and brilliancy,[172] and morning spreads over both land and wave a
beauty but faintly reflected even in poetry. Every rock and headland,
clothed with the double light of mythology and the sun, emerges from the
obscurities of the dawn glittering with dew and fresh as at the
creation. The slopes of the mountains, feathered with hanging woods,
lead the eye upwards to those aspiring peaks, the cradle of many a
Hellenic legend, where snows pale and shining as those of Mont
Blanc,[173] descending on all sides in wavy gradations to meet the
forests, rest for ever, and at the opening and the close of day exhibit
that crimson blush which we observe among the higher Alps. All the
lowlands at their base are meantime covered, perhaps, with heavy mists,
while lighter and more fleecy vapours hang here and there upon the
mountain tops, augmenting their grandeur by allowing the imagination
like a Titan to pile them up as high as it pleases towards heaven. The
coasts of eastern Hellas, including those of Eubœa, along the whole line
of Thessaly to the confines of Macedonia, are bold and rocky, frowning
like the ramparts of freedom upon the slaves of the Asiatic plains.
Footnote 172:
I never saw the Pleiades appear so large as on the coast of Messenia.
See Coray, Disc. Prel. ad Hipp. de Aër. et Loc. § 115.
Footnote 173:
Even the Cheviot hills are sometimes (as in 1838) covered all the
summer with patches of snow, on which occasions the peasants are said
to pay no rent. _Tyne Mercury_, July 1, 1838.
Traversed in almost every direction by mountain chains infinitely
ramified and towering in many places to a vast height, Greece has,
likewise, its elevated table-lands, lakes, bogs, morasses, with
extensive open downs and heaths. Lying between the thirty-sixth and
forty-first degrees of north latitude, and excepting on the Illyrian and
Macedonian frontier everywhere surrounded by the sea, it may in many
respects be said to enjoy the most advantageous position on the globe.
From the barbarian countries of Macedonia and Illyria it is divided by a
series of contiguous mountain ridges, which commencing with Olympos,
(covered all the year round with snow, amid which the poet Orpheus[174]
was interred,) and including the Cambunian range, with the lofty peak of
Lacmos, stretches westward across the continent, and terminates in the
stormy Acroceraunian promontory. The most northern provinces of Hellas,
immediately within this boundary and west of the Pindos range, were
Chaonia and Molossia, and towards the east Thessaly—a circular valley of
exceeding fertility, encompassed by chains of lofty mountains. This
province contains the largest and richest plains in Greece; and many of
the names most hallowed by its religious traditions and most renowned in
poetry, belong to Thessaly. Here, in fact, was the supposed cradle of
the Hellenes. From hence sailed the Argo and incomparably the greatest
of all the heroes who fought at Troy
“—--mixed with auxiliar gods.”
Footnote 174:
Paus. ix. 30. 9. Anthol. Græc. vii. 9. Menag. ad Diog. Laert. Proœm. §
5. Here, too, one of the three Corybantes, when he had been slain by
his brethren, found a grave. Clem. Alex. Protrept. c. xi. t. i. p. 16.
From the blood of this man sprang the herb parsley.
The geography of Thessaly is remarkable. According to a tradition
already mentioned it was once a mountain-girt lake, the waters of which
augmented by unusual rains burst their stupendous barriers and tore
themselves a way through opposing rocks to the sea. Among the tribes of
northern Hindùstân a similar tradition prevails respecting the formation
of the Vale of Kashmèr; and whether in these cases the voice of fame has
preserved or not an historical truth, such events may be regarded as not
improbable in countries abounding with mountain lakes whose beds lie
considerably above the level of the sea. The lofty ridge which skirts
the shores of the Ægæan, and is said to have been rent in remote
antiquity by the waters of the lake, presents a highly varied aspect to
the approaching mariner. First on sailing northward Pelion comes in
sight: a broad ridge rising from the waves like a huge uncrenalated
wall, and covered in Homeric times with fiercely waving woods. To this
succeeds Ossa, with its steep conical peak, clothed with durable snows
and divided by a narrow dusky gap from Olympos. This gap is Tempe,[175]
whose savage beauties poets and sophists have vied with each other in
describing, though the reality is still finer than their pictures. On
entering the defiles of the mountains a narrow glen hemmed in by
precipitous rocks, bare in some places, in others verdant with hanging
oaks, receives the waters of the Peneios, which, like the Rhone at St.
Maurice and the Nile at Silsilis, in some places fill up the whole
breadth of the pass, leaving scarcely room for a straitened road carried
over rocky ledges. Farther on they diffuse themselves over a broad
pebbly bed, and narrow prospects are opened up through woody vistas into
soft pastural recesses, carpeted with emerald turf, and perfumed with
flowers and shrubs of the richest fragrance. Anon the vale contracts
again, gloomy cliffs frown over the stream and sadden its surface with
their shadows, until at length the whole chain is traversed and the
Peneios precipitates its laughing waters into the Ægæan.[176] Crossing
the great range of Pindos we enter Epeiros,[177] a country anciently
divided into many provinces, and partly inhabited by semi-barbarous
tribes, where on the borders of a lake singularly beautiful and
picturesque stood the fane and oracle of Dodonæan Zeus. Homer,
accustomed to the mild skies of Ionia, speaks of its climate as rude and
severe. But Byron, born among the hungry rocks of Caledonia, and
habituated to the savage features of the north, was smitten with its
wild charms, and thus describes one of the scenes in the neighbourhood
near the sources of the Acheron.
Monastic Zitza, from thy shady brow,
Thou small but favoured spot of holy ground,
Where’er we gaze,—around, above, below,
What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found!
Rock, river, forest, mountain,—all abound;
And bluest skies that harmonize the whole.
Beneath, the distant torrent’s rushing sound
Tells where the volumed cataract doth roll
Between those hanging rocks which shock yet please the soul.
Footnote 175:
Æl. Var. Hist. iii. 1. Holland 291–95. Clarke iv. 290–97. Dodwell,
109. sqq. Gell. Itiner. of Greece, 280.
Footnote 176:
Aristotle accounts for what every traveller will have remarked, the
extreme blueness of this sea, which he contrasts with the whitish
waves of the Pontos Euxeinos. In the latter case, he observes, the
air, thick and whitish, is reflected from the surface of the turbid
waters; while, in the Ægæan, the sea, transparent to a great depth,
reflects the bright rich colour of the sky.—Prob. xxiii. 6. He adds
that the sea is more transparent during the prevalence of the north
wind.
Footnote 177:
Though this country be not generally included by geographers within
the limits of Hellas, I have considered it as a part of Greece,
because Homer evidently so thought it. He reckons the Perrhæbi and
Ænianes, and the dwellers about the cold Dodona, among the followers
of Agamemnon, that is classes them among the Greeks.—Il. β. 749–755.
The ancient name of the country is said to have been Æsa.—Etym. Mag.
39. 19. Cf. Steph. Byzant. _v._ Δωδών. p. 319. d. sqq.
Clusters of islands clothed with poetical verdure stretch along the
coast thickly indented by diminutive bays and embouchures of rivers. On
a point of the Acarnanian shore[178] in the mouth of the Ambracian gulf,
the Commonwealth of Rome which had foundered so many rival states
suffered final shipwreck, and the shores of avenged Hellas were strewed
with the wrecks of Roman freedom. Ætolia, Doris, Locris, Phocis, in
which was the mystic navel of Gaia,[179] and the deep valley of Bœotia,
divided from each other by mountains or by considerable rivers, minutely
intersected by streams, and broken up into a perpetual succession of
hill and dale, conduct us southward to the Corinthian Gulf and the
borders of Attica.
Footnote 178:
Where stood a celebrated Temple of Apollo.—Thucyd. i. 29.
Footnote 179:
The “rocky Pytho” afterwards Delphi. Iliad, β. 519.
Reserving this illustrious division of Hellas, and Megaris which
originally formed a part of it, for the close of our rapid outline, we
enter the Peloponnesos,—a country remarkable both for its physical
configuration, and for the races which anciently inhabited it. Connected
with the continent by the narrow isthmus of Corinth it immediately
expands westward and southward into a peninsula of large dimensions, in
form resembling a ragged plantain leaf or outstretched palm.[180] Like
the northern division of Hellas the Peloponnesos is rough with mountain
chains, and belted round with cliffs. Towards the centre it swells into
a lofty plateau, known to antiquity under the name of Arcadia. Foreign
poets, misapprehending the nature of the country, have described this
province as a succession of soft pastoral scenes.[181] But its real
character is very different, consisting chiefly of an extensive
table-land, supported by vast mountain buttresses, which in some places
tower into peaks of extraordinary elevation. It is broken up into
innumerable valleys and deep glens, overhung with wild precipitous
rocks, clothed with gloomy forests, and buried during a great part of
the year in clouds and snow. The inhabitants were rough and unpromising
as the soil, distinguished like the modern Swiss for no quality but
bravery, which, like them too, they sold with a mercenary recklessness
to the best bidder.[182] Achaia is a slip of sea-coast sloping towards
the north. Elis, a succession of beautiful plains with few eminences
intervening, well watered and renowned for their fine breed of mares.
This, the Holy land of the Hellenes, sacred every rood to Zeus, was to
the Greeks a place of pilgrimage, as Mecca to the Arabs and Palestine to
the Christians of the West. In the Homeric age it was confined within
narrow limits, its sea-coast only extending from Buprasion to the
promontory of Hyrminè, scarcely indeed, so far, as Myrsinos is said to
be its last city towards the north, and Buprasion is mentioned rather as
a separate state. It was divided from Achaia by Mount Scollis, which
Homer calls “the rock Olenia,” and Aleision is the boundary to the
south; consequently, neither Mount Pholöe nor Olympia, nor the Alpheios
was then included in Elis, still less Triphylia.
Footnote 180:
Strb. viii. 2. 140. Dion. Perieg. ap. Palm. Gr. Ant. 16.
Footnote 181:
Cf. Palm. Gr. Ant. 61. On the climate of Arcadia see Aristot. Problem.
xxvii. 60. He observes that the winds, blowing in from the sea, were
not colder there than in other parts of Greece; but that during calms
the exhalations from the stagnant waters were particularly chill. See
also Hippoc. de Aër. et Loc. § 120.
Footnote 182:
Cf. Steph. Byzant. _v._ Ἀρκας. p. 166. b. seq.
Argolis, on the opposite side of the peninsula, is traversed by a broad
ridge of hills, which, branching off from Mount Cyllene and Parthenion
in Arcadia, abounds in deep ravines and spacious natural caverns. It
contains, however, several plains of much fertility; but, though marshy
and subject to malaria, the neighbourhood of the capital is deficient in
good water. The fame of Argos[183] rests almost wholly on a fabulous
basis: it was great in the infancy of Greece; it took the lead in the
Trojan war; but, with the irruption of the half-barbarous Dorians into
the Peloponnesos, the glory of the old heroic race
“that fought at Thebes and Ilion,”
waned visibly, and Argos and its twin city, Mycenæ, sank into
comparative insignificance.
Footnote 183:
Il. β. 559. Mases, an Argive city, is mentioned by Homer in
conjunction with Ægina, which island also belonged at that time to
Argos. This place, in later ages, was the harbour of the
Hermioneans.—Pausan. ii. 36, 83. Cf. Müll. Æginet. p. 85.
Laconia consists of a hollow valley, enclosed between two mountain
chains, proceeding from the great Arcadian barrier, Parnon and Kronios,
and stretching southward to the sea. Down the centre of this vale flows
the Eurotas, whose sources lie above Belemina, among the steep recesses
of Taygetos.[184] Though enlarged by several tributary brooks, it
preserves, until some way below Sparta, the character of a mountain
torrent; but after precipitating itself in a romantic sparkling cascade,
appears for some time to be lost in a morass. Escaping, however, from
the swamp, it flows during the remainder of its course over a firm
gravelly bed to the Laconian gulf. Immediately above Sparta the valley
narrows exceedingly; but, at this point, the hills receding suddenly on
both sides, sweep round a small circular plain, and, a short distance
below the city, again approach, and press upon the bed of the
Eurotas.[185] The site of Sparta, therefore, resembles on a small scale
that of the Egyptian Thebes, which is similarly hemmed round by the
Arabian and Libyan mountains. It follows, too, that the condition of the
atmosphere must to a certain extent be alike in both places; for the
ridges of Taygetos and Thornax rising to a great height, not only
intercept the cooler breezes from the west and north, but, bending
amphitheatrically round the plain, concentrate the sun’s rays, which,
being bare and rocky, they reflect with great force. In summer,
therefore, the heat is intense: in winter, on the other hand, their
great elevation suffices morning and evening to exclude the slanting
beams, thus causing a degree of cold little inferior, perhaps, to what
is felt in the highlands of Arcadia.
Footnote 184:
This mountain (which in one place Vibius Sequester converts into a
river, p. 19, Cf. Virg. Georg. ii. 487,) was sacred to Bacchos. Serv.
ad. Virg. ut sup.—Strabo describes it at length, and Pausanias
observes that it was adapted to the chase. On its summit horses were
sacrificed to the sun.—Paus. iii. 20. 2. Cf. Oberlin, ad Vib. Sequest.
p. 375.
Footnote 185:
Coronelli, Mém. Hist. et Géog. du Roy. de la Morée, &c. p. 90. sqq.
Poucqueville, Travels in the Morea, p. 87. Chateaubriand, Itinéraire,
t. i. pp. 102–118. Cf. Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce, i. 287, who
gives the following romantic glimpse of the Laconian valley:—“Oh! que
ce pays était beau, lorsqu’au mois de Mai 1832, nous traversâmes ses
ravissantes vallées au milieu des montagnes de la Laconie, et ses
villages situés au bord de ruisseaux limpides et entourés d’arbres
fruitiers tout en fleurs! Quelle était belle cette terre, lorsque, le
soir, revenant des ruines de Sparte à Mistra, nous étions comme
baignés de ces parfums qu’exhalent les orangers qui remplissent la
plaine, et rafraichis par la brise délicieuse descendue des montagnes
majestueuses du Taygète, dont les cimes, encore couvertes de neige,
semblaient toucher le ciel parsemé d’étoiles! Nôtre sommeil fut
interrompu la nuit par le chant mélodieux d’une troupe de rossignols.”
But though lofty and bleak, the uplands of Laconia are not incapable of
cultivation, and in many places were anciently covered with forests of
plane trees. Their eastern slopes were likewise clothed with vines,
irrigated, as in Switzerland and Burgundy, by small rills, conducted
through artificial channels from springs high up in the mountains.[186]
The summits of Taygetos are waste and wild; rent and shattered by
frequent earthquakes, lashed by rain-storms, and here and there bored
and undermined by gnawing streams, working their way to the valley, it
presents the aspect of a fragment of nature in its decrepitude. South,
however, of Mount Evoras the country opens into a plain of considerable
fertility, extending eastward towards Mount Zarax and the sea. On the
Messenian frontier, also, are many valleys highly productive. This
portion of Lacedæmon obtained in the time of Augustus the name, given
perhaps in mockery, of the land of the Eleuthero Lacones, or “Free
Laconians.”[187]
Footnote 186:
Aleman, ap. Athen. i. 57.
Footnote 187:
Strab. viii. 6. p. 190. Paus. iii. 21. 6.
Protected on the land side by mountains difficult to be traversed, and
presenting towards the sea an inhospitable harbourless coast, Laconia
seems marked out by nature to be the abode of an unsocial people. Like
that of many Swiss cantons, its climate is generally harsh and rude,
vexed by cold winds alternating with burning heats, and appears to
communicate analogous qualities to the minds of its inhabitants, who
have been in all ages remarkable for valour untempered by humanity. In
such a country the nobler arts can never be completely naturalised. The
virus imbibed from nature will find its way into the character, and defy
the influence of culture and of government.
Messenia presents, in every respect, a contrast to Laconia. Along the
sea-coast, indeed, particularly from Pylos to Cape Aeritas, its
barrenness is complete; neither woods nor thickets, nor any vestige of
verdure being visible upon the red cinder-like precipices beetling over
the sea, or sloping off into grey mountains above. But having passed
this Alpine barrier, we find the land sinking down into rich plains,
which on the banks of the broad Pamisos were anciently, for their
luxuriant fertility,[188] denominated “the Happy.” North, and about the
sources of the Balyra, the Amphitos, and the Neda the scenery grows
highly romantic and picturesque, the eye commanding from almost every
elevated point innumerable narrow meandering glens, each with its
bubbling streamlet circling round green eminences, clothed to their
summits with hanging woods. Messenia, which, as soon inhabited, must
have been wealthy, appears to have been a favourite resort of poets in
remote antiquity. Here the Thracian Thamyris, in a contest, as was
fabled, with the Muses, lost his sight, together with the gift of song;
and in a small rocky island on its coast,—the haunt, when I saw it, of
sea-mews and cormorants,—Sparta received from an Athenian general of
mean abilities one of the most galling defeats recorded in her annals.
Footnote 188:
Cf. Sibth. in Walp. Mem. i. 60.
Returning out of the Peloponnesos by way of the Isthmos, and quitting at
the Laconian rocks the territories of Corinth, we enter the
Megaris,[189] originally, as I have before observed, a part of the
Athenian territories. Attica is a triangular promontory, of small
extent, projecting into the Myrtöan sea, between Argolis and Eubœa. A
mountain chain, of no great elevation, forms, under several names, the
boundary between this country and Bœotia; and Mount Kerata, in later
times, divided it from Megaris. On every other side Attica is washed by
the sea, which, together with nearly all the circumjacent islands, was,
in antiquity, regarded as a part of its empire.[190] This minute
division of Greece, fertile in nothing but great men, is seldom viewed
with any eye to the picturesque. Satisfied that Athens stood there, we
commonly ask no more. Genius has breathed over it a perfume sweeter than
the thyme of its own hills,—has painted it with a beauty surpassing that
of earth,—rendered its atmosphere redolent for ever of human greatness
and human glory,—and cast so dazzling an illusion over its very dust and
ruins, that they appear more beautiful than the richest scenes and most
perfect structures of other lands.
Footnote 189:
Strab. ix. i. p. 232.
Footnote 190:
Strab. ix. 1. Philoch. Siebel. p. 28.
Independently, however, of its historical importance, Attica is invested
with numerous charms. Consisting of an endless succession of hill and
dale,[191] with many small plains interspersed; and swelling towards its
northern frontier into considerable mountains, it presents a miniature
of the whole Hellenic land.[192] In antiquity its uplands and ravines
and secluded hollows were clothed with wood,—oaks, white poplars, wild
olive-trees, or melancholy pines. The arbutus, the agnus castus, wild
pear, heath, lentisk, and other flowering shrubs decked its hill-sides
and glens; on the brow of every eminence wild thyme, sweet marjoram,
with many different kinds of odoriferous plants exhaled their fragrance
beneath the foot;[193] while rills of the clearest and sweetest water in
the world, leaped down the rocks, or conducted their sparkling currents
through its romantic and richly cultivated valleys. Southward, among the
mountains of scoriæ of the mining district, springs of silver[194] may
be said to have usurped the place of fountains. The face of the country
is nearly everywhere arid and barren,—the plains are parched,—the
gullies encumbered with loose shingle,—the eminences unpicturesque and
dreary; yet wherever vegetation takes place, the virtue of the Attic
soil displays itself in the production of fragrant flowers, whence the
bee extracts the most delicious honey in the world, superior in quality
to that of Hybla or Hymettos.
Footnote 191:
Mardonius, in fact, found Attica too hilly for the operations of
cavalry:—οὔτε ἱππασίμη ἡ χώρη ἦν ἡ Ἀττική.—Herod. ix. 13.
Footnote 192:
See, in Plato’s Critias, t. vii. p. 153. the eulogium of its beauty
and fertility. At present “the plain of Attica, if we except the
olive-tree, is extremely destitute of wood, and we observed, on our
return, the peasants driving home their asses laden with Passerina
hirsuta for fuel.”—Sibthorp in Mitchell, Knights, p. 155. But the
description by no means applies to the whole country. At the foot of
Cithæron there are still forests four hours in length.—Sibth. in Walp.
Mem. i. 64.
Footnote 193:
This is accounted for by the dryness and purity of the atmosphere;
for, as Pliny remarks, “hortensiorum odoratissima quæ sicca; ut ruta,
mentha, apium, et quæ in siccis nascantur.”—Hist. Nat. xxi. 18. p. 46.
Footnote 194:
Ἀργύρου πηγή τις αὐτοῖς ἐστι, βησαυρὸς χθονός.—Æschyl. Pers. 238. In
all countries the waters of mining cantons are bad.—Hippocr. de Aër.
et Loc. § 35.
Comparative barrenness may, however, upon the whole, be considered as
characteristic of Attica. Indeed, Plato,[195] in a very curious passage,
likens to a body emaciated by sickness the hungry district round the
capital, where the soil has collapsed about the rocks. But from this
innumerable advantages have arisen. The earth being light and porous
permits whatever rain falls immediately to sink and disappear, as in
Provence,[196] which, more than any other part of Europe, resembles
Attica. Hence, except in some few inconsiderable spots,[197] no bogs, no
marshes exist to poison the air with cold effluvia: a ridge of mountains
protects it against the northern blasts: mild breezes from the ocean
prevail in almost all seasons: snow seldom lies above a few hours on the
ground. The atmosphere, accordingly, kept constantly free from terrene
exhalations, is buoyant and sparkling as on the Libyan desert, when, at
noon, every elevated rock appears to be encircled by a luminous
halo.[198] In air so pure the act of breathing is a luxury which
produces a smile of satisfaction on the countenance; the mind performs
its operations with ease and rapidity; and life, everywhere sweet,
appears to have a finer relish than in countries exposed to watery and
unwholesome fogs. It was perfectly philosophical, therefore, in
Plato,[199] to regard Attica as a place designed by nature to bring the
human intellect to the greatest ripeness and perfection, a quality
extended by Aristotle to Greece at large. The same atmospheric
properties were favourable to health and long life, warding off many
disorders common in other parts of the country.
Footnote 195:
Critias, t. vii. p. 154. Words. Athens and Attica, 62.
Footnote 196:
Coray, Notes sur Hippoc. De Aër. et Loc. § 126. t. ii. p. 403.
Footnote 197:
Vide Sch. Aristoph. Lys. 1032.
Footnote 198:
Aristid. i. 187. Jebb. Aristophanes appears to speak of the brilliance
of its atmosphere in the following verse (Ran. 155):
ὅψει τι φῶς κάλλιστον, ὥσπερ ἐνθάδε.
though Spanheim supposes him to mean the light of the world
generally.—Not. in loc.
Footnote 199:
Plat. Tim. t. vii. pp. 12. 15. sqq. Bekk. Aristot. Pol. vii. 6. Cf.
Coray, Disc. Prelim. ad Hippoc. De Aër. et Loc. p. cxxix. sqq.
A learned and ingenious but fanciful writer[200] considers Peloponnesos
to have been the heart of Greece. Following up this idea, we must
unquestionably pronounce Athens to have been the head, the seat of
thought, the place where its arts and its wisdom ripened. But ere we
touch upon the capital, which cannot be slided over with a cursory
remark, it will be necessary to enter into some little detail respecting
the demi or country towns of Attica,[201] of which in the flourishing
times of the republic there existed upwards of one hundred and
seventy-four. Of these small municipal communities, of which too little
is known, several were places of considerable importance, possessing
their temples, their Agoræ, their theatres, filled with walks and
surrounded by impregnable fortifications. The Athenians regarded Athens,
indeed, as the Hebrews did Jerusalem, in the light of their great and
holy city, the sanctuary of their religion and of their freedom. But
this did not prevent their preferring the calm simplicity of a country
life to the noisier pleasures of the town. Many distinguished families,
accordingly, had houses in these demi, or villas in their vicinity.
Here, also, several of the greatest men of Athens were born: Thucydides
was a native of Halimos,[202] Sophocles of Colonos, Epicurus of
Gargettos, Plato of Ægina, Xenophon of Erchia, Tyrtæos, Harmodios, and
Aristogeiton of Aphidnæ, Antiphon of Rhamnos, and Æschylus of Eleusis.
Footnote 200:
Müll. Dor. i. 76.
Footnote 201:
See Col. Leake, Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. i. 114–283.
Footnote 202:
Poppo, Prolegg. in Thucyd. i. 22.
In other points of view, also, the towns and villages of Attica
possessed great interest. They long continued to be the seats of the
primitive worship of the country, where the tutelar deities of
particular districts, of earth-born race, were adored with that
affectionate faith and that fervency of devotion which peculiarly belong
to small religious communities. The gods they worshipped appeared almost
to be their fellow citizens, and to exist only for their protection. In
fact, they were the patron saints of the villages. Fabulous legends and
historical traditions combined with religion to shed celebrity over the
Attic demi. There was hardly in the whole land a single inhabited spot
which did not figure in their poetry or in their annals as the scene of
some memorable exploit. Aphidnæ[203] was renowned, for example, as the
place whence the Dioscuri bore away their sister Helen, after her rape
by Theseus, in revenge for which the youthful heroes devastated the
whole district. “Grey Marathon,”[204] as Byron aptly terms it, was
embalmed for ever in Persian blood, and rendered holy by the vast
barrows raised there by the state over the ashes of its fallen warriors.
Rhamnos on the Attic Dardanelles became famous for its statue of
Nemesis, originally of Aphrodite, the work of Diodotos or Agoracritos of
Paros, not unworthy to be compared for size and beauty with the
productions of Pheidias. The irruption of the Peloponnesians conferred a
melancholy celebrity on Deceleia,[205] and Phylæ obtained a place in
history as the stronghold where Thrasybulos gathered together the small
but gallant band which avenged the cause of freedom upon the thirty. Of
Eleusis,[206] it is enough to say that there the ceremonies of
initiation into the mysteries were performed.
Footnote 203:
Paus. i. 17. 5.
Footnote 204:
Paus. i. 32. 3. sqq. “We observed the long-legged plover near
Marathon; the grey plover and the sand plover on the eastern coast of
Attica.” Sibth. Walp. Mem. i. 76. Chandler, ii. 83.
Footnote 205:
Where Sophocles and his ancestors were buried. Chandler, ii. 95.
Footnote 206:
Clem. Alex. Protrept. § 2. t. i. p. 16. seq. where he relates the
story of Demeter and Baubo.
The capital of Megara, like Athens, stood a short distance from the sea;
but was joined by long walls to its harbour Nisæa, protected from the
weather by the Minoan promontory. In sailing thence to the Peiræeus we
pass several islands, none of which, however, are of any magnitude, save
Salamis, in remote antiquity a separate state governed by its own laws.
The old capital, already deserted in the time of Strabo, stood on the
southern coast over against Ægina; but the principal town of later times
was situated on a bay at the root of a tongue of land projecting toward
that part of Attica[207] where Xerxes sat to behold his imperial armada
annihilated by the republicans of Hellas. Salamis was known of old under
various names,—Skiras, Cychræa and Pituoussa, from the Pitus, or pine
tree, by which its rocks and glens were in many places shaded.
Immediately before the engagement in which his navy was destroyed, the
Persian monarch sought to unite Salamis to the continent by a dam two
stadia in length; his project, had it succeeded, would have ruined the
ferrymen of Amphialè, a class of individuals whose operations Solon
judged of sufficient importance to be regulated by a particular article
in his code. Of the smaller islets that form the outworks of the Attic
coast, little need be said, since they were nearly all barren, and
inhabited only by a few legendary traditions. The tomb of Circe was
shown on the larger of the Pharmacoussæ; and the island of Helena, east
of the Samian promontory obtained the reputation of having been the spot
where the faithless queen of Menelaus consummated her guilt.[208]
Footnote 207:
On one of the projecting roots of Mount Ægaleus, which anciently,
according to Statius, was well-wooded, and clothed like Hymettos with
thyme.—Theb. xii. 631. Suid. _v._ Μᾶσσον. This mountain produced
likewise an abundance of figs (Theoc. Eidyll. i. 147), which were
considered the best in Attica.—Athen. xiv. 66. Meurs. Rel. Att. c. i.
p. 4. seq. Cf. Leake, Topog. 71.
Footnote 208:
Il. γ. 445. where we find its ancient name to have been Kranäe.—Cf.
Eurip. Helen. 1672. Strab. ix. 1. p. 245.—Pausanias (i. 35. 1) has
preserved another tradition representing Helen as landing here on her
return from Troy.—Chandler, ii. 7.
Ægina belonged to Attica only by conquest; but as when subdued its
subjection was complete and lasting, it must not be altogether omitted
in this glance over the home territories of the Great Demos. Like Attica
itself, the island lying in the Saronic Gulf is of a triangular shape.
By proximity it belongs to the Peloponnesos, being within thirty stadia
of the Methanæan Chersonesos, while to Salamis is a voyage of ninety
stadia, and to the Peiræeus one hundred and twenty. But the sea itself
having been considered a part of Attica, whose flag, like that of
England, streamed for ages triumphantly over its billows, the islands
also which it surrounded fell one by one into the hands of the people,
and this small Doric isle among the rest. A number of diminutive islets,
or rather rocks, cluster round the shores of Ægina, some barren and
treeless, others indued with a certain degree of fertility and verdant
with pine woods.
The most remarkable objects in Ægina were placed at the angles of the
island. The city and harbour towards the west, on the east looking
towards Attica the temple of Athena, and, near its southern extremity,
“a magnificent conical mountain, which from its grandeur, its form, and
its historical recollections, is the most remarkable among the natural
features of Ægina.”[209] An eminence so lofty and in shape so beautiful
would naturally be an object of much interest in so small an island. The
local superstitions would necessarily cluster round it, as around Ida in
Crete and Olympos in Thessaly. Accordingly on the summit of this
mountain the fables of Ægina represent King Æacos praying, in the name
of the whole Hellenic nation, to Zeus for rain, as the prophet prayed
for the Israelites, and with equal success. Here, therefore, a recent
traveller has with great judgment fixed the site of the Panhellenion,
near the spot where a chapel, dedicated to the prophet Elias, now
stands. In dimensions Ægina, according to Scylax, ranked twelfth among
the isles of Hellas. Strabo attributes to it a circumference of one
hundred and eighty stadia; but Sir William Gell, in his Argolis,[210]
considers its perimeter, not including the fluctuations of the bays and
creeks, to be not less than two hundred and ten stadia, and its square
contents three thousand one hundred and sixty-four stadia, or forty-one
square miles.[211] The interior is rocky, rough, and perforated with
caverns, in which, according to fabulous legends, the Myrmidons resided,
and Chabrias afterwards lay in ambush for the Spartan Gorgopos and his
Æginetan allies.[212] A light thin soil nourishes but sparing vegetation
on the mountains, but several of the small valleys, filled with earth
washed down by rains from the uplands, are rich and fertile, watered by
springs and rivulets, and beautified with groves of imperishable
verdure.[213]
Footnote 209:
Wordsworth, Athens and Attica, p. 262.
Footnote 210:
Ib. 28. ap. Müll. Æginet. p. 8.
Footnote 211:
Cf. Clint. Fast. Hellen. ii. 335.
Footnote 212:
Xen. Hellen. v. 1. 11.
Footnote 213:
Chandler (ii. 12) speaks of the whole island as covered with trees.
Much has been written on the extent and population of Attica, respecting
which most of the philosophers of the last generation entertained very
erroneous ideas. An examination of their statements might still,
perhaps, be interesting; but it would lead me far beside the scope of my
present work, and occupy space that can be better filled up. According
to the most careful calculation Attica contained seven hundred and
twenty square miles, or taking into account the island of Salamis seven
hundred and forty-eight. The whole of this extremely limited space
swarmed, however, with population; for even so late[214] as 317 B. C.
after all the calamities which the republic had undergone, Attica still
contained five hundred and twenty-seven thousand six hundred and sixty
persons, or nearly seven hundred and seventy-three to the square mile, a
proportion much higher than is found in the most thickly peopled
counties of England.
Footnote 214:
Clint. Fast. Hellen. ii. 386. sqq. Cf. Boeckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens,
i. 44. seq. On the number of the citizens _vide_ Philoch. Siebel, p.
17. 28. Schol. Vesp. Aristoph. 709. Strab. ix. i. t. ii. p. 234.
Hermann. Pol. Ant. § 18. Bochart, Geog. Sac. i. 286.
This, however, taking into account the form of government, the
industrious habits, and extreme frugality of the people, is entirely
within the bounds of probability. But in what is related of the
population of Ægina, the calculations current among learned authors are
so extravagant as to exceed all belief. Müller and Boeckh,[215] who on
other occasions, and sometimes very unseasonably affect scepticism,
unhesitatingly admit the account in Athenæus, which attributes four
hundred and seventy thousand slaves to the Æginetans.[216] To these the
former adds a free population of forty thousand, making the whole amount
to upwards of half a million, or twelve thousand four hundred and
fifty-seven to the square mile. Mr. Clinton,[217] clearly perceiving the
absurdity of this calculation, proposes to read seventy thousand, which
will leave a population in the proportion of two thousand six hundred
and eighty-two to the square mile. The passage in Athenæus is no doubt,
as Bochart suspects,[218] corrupt, and this being the case nothing is
left but to determine from analogy the population of Ægina, which,
supposing it equally dense with that of Attica would have amounted to
something more than thirty thousand souls.
Footnote 215:
Æginet. 128. Econ. of Athens, i. 55, seq.
Footnote 216:
Deipnosoph. vi. 103. Cf. Schol. Pind. Olymp. viii. 30.
Footnote 217:
Fast. Hellen. ii. 423.
Footnote 218:
Geog. Sac. Pars Prior, l. iv. c. 20, p. 286.
CHAPTER IV.
CAPITAL CITIES OF GREECE.—ATHENS.
From these more general considerations, into which it was perhaps
necessary to enter, let us now pass to the picture antiquity has left us
of the principal capitals, confining ourselves chiefly to Athens and
Sparta, which may be regarded as the representatives of all the rest.
The physiognomy of these, like the features of an individual, may in
some respects be considered as a key to the character of the
inhabitants; a remark which, with great truth, may be applied to all
capitals.
In the structure of the one, external and internal,[219] there was
everywhere visible an effort to embody the principle of beauty,
improving the advantages and overcoming the difficulties of position. In
the other little could be discovered indicative of imaginative power, of
the thirst to create, of the yearning of the mind after the ideal, of
the desire of genius to breathe a soul into stone, to live and obtain a
perpetuity of existence in the works of its own hands, to gaze on its
own beauty reflected on all sides from its own creations as from a
concave mirror. At Athens everything public, everything which had
reference to the united efforts of the people wore an air of grandeur.
The Acropolis inhabited only by the gods appeared worthy to be the
dwelling place of immortal beings: all the poetry of architecture was
there; it seemed to have owed its birth to a concentration of the best
religious spirit of the ancient world, aiming at giving earth a
resemblance to heaven; at peopling it with mute deities, speaking only
through their beauty and surrounding these representatives of the
invisible Olympos with everything most excellent, most valuable, most
cherished among men. At Sparta a spirit of calculating economy entered
into the very worship of the gods. They seemed, in the manner they
lodged and entertained them, to have always had an eye to their common
tables and their black broth. Between the temples of Athens and Sparta
there was, in fact, the same contrast that now exists between St.
Peter’s at Rome and a Calvinistic conventicle. Accordingly, several
ancient writers have vied with each other in heaping encomiums upon
Athens, which they regarded as at once the most glorious and the most
beautiful of cities. Athenæus denominates it the “Museum of Greece;”
Pindar, “the stay of Greece;” Thucydides, in his epigram upon Euripides,
“the Greece of Greece;” and the Pythian Apollo, “the home and place of
council of all Greeks.”[220] By others it was termed “the Opulent;”
though the principal part of its riches consisted in the wise and great
men whom it produced, and whose achievements covered it with glory. In
the same spirit the Arabs call Cairo the “Mother of cities;” and all
nations concentrate more or less upon their capital, their affection and
their pride.
Footnote 219:
Dem. Olynth. iii. 9. Palm. Exercit. in Auct. Græc. p. 622. Zander, De
Luxu Athen. c. iii. 5, § 6.
Footnote 220:
Athen. v. 12. Soph. Œdip. Col. 107. seq.
The superior magnificence of Athens appears from this; that it was
always the place to which the Greeks referred when desirous of
magnifying the splendour of their own country, in comparison with what
could be found elsewhere. Thus Dion Chrysostom[221] affirms that Athens
and Corinth in all that constitutes real grandeur surpassed the famous
capitals of Persia, Syria, and Ecbatana, and Babylon, and the metropolis
of Bactriana. Nay, in the opinion of this writer the Kraneion with its
gymnasia, fountains, and shady walks, and the Acropolis with its
Propylæa, antique altars, temples, and population of gods, exceeded in
magnificence the palaces of the Great King, though there was something
exceedingly striking in the site and structure of what may properly be
called the Acropolis of Ecbatana.[222] The city itself was unwalled, but
the citadel, which probably rose in the midst of it, occupied the slopes
of a conical hill, not unlike Mount Tabor, and was girt by seven walls
of different colours and elevation, rising in concentric circles above
each other to the summit. The circumference of the lowest is said to
have equalled that of Athens including the Peiræeus. The colour of this
wall was white; the next being black for the sake of contrast, was
succeeded by one of light purple, which was followed by walls of sky
blue, of scarlet, of silver and of gold.
Footnote 221:
Orat. vi. t. i. p. 199.
Footnote 222:
Herod. i. 98. Bochart, Geog. Sac. Pars Prior, l. iii. c. 14. p. 222.
Aristot. De Mund. ch. 6. Apuleius, p. 19.
In mere magnitude the great capitals of the East far exceeded Athens.
The circuit, for example, of Babylon, is said to have been at least four
hundred stadia, while, according to the orator Dion, that of Athens was
in round numbers two hundred stadia, or twenty-five miles. Aristeides
probably adopted the same calculation when he pronounced it to be a
day’s journey in compass. But there is some exaggeration in these
accounts; for, according to Thucydides, the total extent of the walls
did not exceed one hundred and seventy-eight stadia. The area, however,
of the city was not proportioned to the vast range of its
fortifications, consisting of two distinct systems of buildings, the
Astu, or city proper, and the Peiræeus or harbour, connected together by
three walls more than four miles in length. There were other capitals in
the western world equal in dimensions, as Syracuse, one hundred and
eighty stadia in circumference, and Rome, which in the time of Dionysios
of Halicarnassos did not command a larger circuit, though the space
included within the walls was much greater.
In order, however, to convey a more complete idea of the ancient home of
Democracy and the Arts, we must, as far as possible, open up a view into
the interior of Athens, which, with its harbours, docks, arsenals, its
market-places, bazārs, porticoes, public fountains and gymnasia,
probably formed the noblest spectacle ever presented to the eye by a
cluster of human dwellings. From whatever side approached, whether by
land or by sea, the city appeared to be but one vast group of
magnificence. In sailing up along the shore from the promontory of
Sunium, the polished brazen helmet and shield of the colossal
Athena,[223] standing on the brow of the Acropolis, were beheld from
afar flashing in the sun. On drawing nearer, the Parthenon, the
Propylæa, the temple of Erectheus, with the other marble edifices
crowning the Cecropian rock, glittered above the pinnacles of the lower
city, and the deep green foliage of the encircling plain and olive
groves. Among its principal ornaments in the later ages of the republic
was a remarkable monument in the road to Eleusis,—the tomb of the
hetaira Pythionica, who dying while her beauty still bloomed and her
powers of fascination were unimpaired, the love she had inspired
survived the grave and manifested itself by rearing a costly pile of
marble over her ashes.[224]
Footnote 223:
Paus. i. 28. 2.
Footnote 224:
Athen. xiii. 67.
Upon sailing into the Peiræeus,[225] where generally ships from every
quarter of the ancient world lay at anchor, the stranger was immediately
struck by manifestations of the people’s power and predilection for
stateliness and grandeur. The entrance into the port, barely wide enough
to admit a couple of galleys abreast, with their oars in full sweep, lay
between two round towers, in which terminated on either hand the
maritime fortifications of the city. Across the mouth vast chains were
extended in time of war, rendering the Peiræeus a closed port;[226]
arrived within which, the pleased eye wandered over the spacious quays,
wharfs, and long ranges of warehouses extending round the harbour, with
tombs and sepulchral monuments rising here and there in open spaces
between. Among them was a cenotaph in the form of an altar, raised by
the repentant people in memory of Themistocles,[227] the founder of the
naval power of Athens, whose bones however it has sometimes been
supposed were brought thither from Magnesia. The Peiræeus consisted of
three basins, Zea, Aphrodision, which was by far the largest, and
Cantharos. On the western shore were the vast docks and arsenals of the
commonwealth erected by Philon,[228] in which, during peace, all that
portion of the public navy not engaged in protecting its trade in
distant colonies, was drawn up in dry docks, roofed over and surrounded
by massive walls. Towards the centre of the town stood the
Hippodameia,[229] an agora or market place, which appears to have
resembled Covent Garden, with ranges of stalls in the area and
surrounded by dwelling-houses. This building derived its name from
Hippodamos of Miletos, the architect who erected it, and laid out the
whole maritime city in the regular and beautiful style of which he was
the inventor.[230] Here, also, were several other market-places or
bazārs, among which may be reckoned a place[231] resembling the Laura of
Samos, the Sweet Ancon of Sardis, the Street of the Happy at Alexandria,
and the Tuscan Street at Rome, in which fruit, confectionary, with
delicacies and luxuries of every kind were exposed for sale. In these
agora, as now in the bazārs of Cairo, Damascus, and Constantinople, were
beheld, in close juxtaposition, the wines of Spain and Portugal, amber
from the shores of the ocean, the carpets, shawls, and jewels of the
East, fruit and gold from Thasos, ivory and ostrich feathers from
Africa, and beautiful female slaves from Syria, Dardania, and the
southern shores of the Euxine, the Mingrelians and Georgians of the
modern world.[232] Around these singular groups the young men of Athens,
in an almost oriental pomp of costume, might be seen lounging, some
perhaps purchasing, others merely looking on, half in haste to return to
the gymnasium or to the lectures of Socrates.
Footnote 225:
Cf. Steph. De Urb. v. Πειραιός. p. 633. G. sqq.
Footnote 226:
Leake, Top. of Ath. p. 311. sqq.
Footnote 227:
Paus. i. 1, 2. Plut. Them. § 32. Meurs. Pir. c. 3.
Footnote 228:
Strab. ix. 1. p. 239.
Footnote 229:
Harp. _v._ Ἱπποδ. Xen. Hell. ii. 4. Dem. in Timoth. § 5. Andoc. de
Myst. § 10.
Footnote 230:
Arist. Polit. vi. 8. p. 40. 16. vii. 11. p. 199. 25. Hesych. v. Ἱπποδ.
νέμησις.
Footnote 231:
Athen. xii. 57, 58. Animad. t. 11. p. 468. Sch. Aristoph. Pac. 98.
Footnote 232:
See for the authorities, Book vi. chapters 11 and 12.
Among the public buildings[233] in the harbour were the Deigma[234] or
Exchange, where the merchants met to transact business, bringing along
with them samples of their goods; the Serangion[235] or public baths;
the superb temples of Zeus and Athena adorned with exquisite pictures
and statues, where in an open court seems to have stood the celebrated
altar erected by Demosthenes[236] in commutation of his fine of thirty
talents; the Long Portico which served as an agora to those living near
the shore;[237] the theatre,[238] and the court of Phreattys[239] on the
beach, where the accused pleaded his cause from a galley lying afloat.
Somewhere in the Peiræeus was an altar to “the unknown Gods,”[240]
which, notwithstanding that the plural form is used, may possibly have
been that to which Saint Paul alludes in his speech to the Athenians on
the hill of Areiopagos.
Footnote 233:
Meurs. Pir. c. 4, 5, 6.
Footnote 234:
Harpocrat. in v. p. 74. Maussac. Etymol. Mag. 259. 51. Suid. in v. t.
i. p. 665. Xen. Hellen. v. 1. 21. Aristoph. Eq. 975. et Schol. Dem.
adv. Lacrit. § 7. Lys. cont. Tynd. frag. 120. Polyæn. Strat. vi. 2. 2.
Footnote 235:
Harpocrat. in v. p. 166. Suid. in v. t. ii. 734 a. Isaeus De Philoct.
Hered. § 6.
Footnote 236:
Meurs. Pir. c. 7.
Footnote 237:
Paus. i. 13.
Footnote 238:
Xen. Hellen. ii. 4. 33.
Footnote 239:
Paus. i. 28. 11.
Footnote 240:
Paus. i. 1. 4; v. 14. 8.
Besides the Peiræeus, Athens possessed two other harbours Munychia and
Phaleron, which were enclosed by the same line of fortifications, and in
process of time formed but one city, superior in extent to the Astu
itself. Of these the latter was the most ancient, and from hence
Mnestheus sailed for Troy and Theseus for Crete.[241] The Munychian
promontory,[242] abounding in hollows and artificial excavations, and
connected by a narrow neck of land with the continent, was the strongest
position on the coast, and may be regarded as the key of Athens, since
whoever held possession of it could command the city. In this Demos
stood the Bendideion[243] where shows were exhibited in honour of Bendis
the Thracian Artemis, to behold which Socrates and his friends came down
from the city, when at the house of Cephalos that conversation took
place with Glaucon and Adimantos, out of which arose the Republic of
Plato. This division of the port likewise possessed its theatre,[244]
and here were fought some of those battles with the thirty that
re-established the liberty of the commonwealth.
Footnote 241:
Paus. i. 1, 2.
Footnote 242:
Strab. ix. 1. t. ii. p. 239.
Footnote 243:
Xen. Hellen. ii. 4, 11.
Footnote 244:
Thucyd. viii. 93. Lys. in Agorat. § 7.
Footnote 245:
Of which there were three. Plat. Gorg. t. iii. p. 22. Wordsworth,
Athens and Attica, p. 187. Dr. Cramer, Desc. of Greece, ii. 346, seq.
understands the long walls to have been but two in number.
Proceeding inland towards the Astu or city of Athens proper, the
stranger beheld before him a straight street upwards of five miles in
length, extending from the Peiræeus to the foot of the Acropolis,
between walls[245] of immense elevation and thickness, flanked by square
towers at equal distances. Along the summit of these vast piles of
masonry a terrace was carried, commanding superb views of the Saronic
bay and distant coasts of Peloponnesos; and, on the other hand, of the
city relieved against the green slopes of Lycabettos[246]. The space
between the long walls abounded with remarkable monuments. Here were the
tombs of Diopethes, Menander, and Euripides, the temple of Hera, burned
by the Persians, and left in ruins as a memento to revenge, and numerous
cenotaphs and statues of illustrious men.
Footnote 246:
Marin. vit. Procl. p. 74. ed. Fabric.
Spacious and lofty gates admitted you into the Astu, through a belt of
impregnable fortifications: and the appearance of the interior,[247]
though the streets for military purposes were mostly narrow and winding,
and the houses low, projecting over the pavement or concealed by
elevated front-walls, surpassed in all probability the promise of its
distant aspect. The grandeur which peculiarly belonged to the Athenian
democracy was visible at every step. But it would weary the reader to
lead him in succession through all the public places—the Pnyx, the
Agora, the Cerameicos: let us ascend the Acropolis, from whose ramparts
the plan of the whole city will unfold itself before us like a map.
Footnote 247:
Boeckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 88. seq.
Half the beauty of all civilised countries springs out of their
religion. At Athens nearly everything costly or magnificent belonged to
the Gods; even the Propylæa,[248] apparently a mere secular or military
structure, probably owed its erection in so expensive a style to the
circumstance of its adorning the entrance to the sacred enclosure of
Athena, and the other tutelary divinities of Athens, and spanning the
road by which the pomp of the Panathenaic procession descended and
ascended the mount. Be this as it may, a road[249] which, by running
zigzag up the slope, was rendered practicable for chariots, led from the
lower city to the Acropolis, on the edge of the platform of which stood
the Propylæa, erected by the architect Mnesicles in five years, during
the administration of Pericles. A pile of architecture, similar in name,
is usually found at the entrance of the court of Egyptian temples, and
the Propylæa Luxor and Karnak, with their aspiring obelisks, couchant
sphynxes, and ranges of colossal statues, may be reckoned among the most
chaste and beautiful monuments in the valley of the Nile. The Propylæa
of Athens, richer in design and materials, and executed with a grace and
perfection unknown to the Egyptians, enjoyed in its mere site an immense
advantage over their noblest works which, the pyramids and the great
temple of Koom Ombos excepted, stand on a dead level, while this
occupies the brow of a precipitous rock, visible on every side from
afar. Pillars, architraves, pediments, walls, and roof, were all of
snow-white marble, with mouldings of bright red and blue, and ceilings
of azure bedropped with stars.[250] Externally, on either hand, were
equestrian statues of the sons of Xenophon,[251] placed on lofty square
basements; and, overlooking the whole on the left, stood the colossal
statue of Athena Promachos.[252]
Footnote 248:
Suid. in v. t. ii. p. 611. d. Harpocrat. in v. p. 254. Paus. i. 22. 4.
Leake, Topog. p. 177. Wordsworth, Athens and Attica. p. 112.
Footnote 249:
Up this road goats were never allowed to ascend (Athen. xiii. 51).
Even crows were said never to alight on the top of the sacred rock;
and Chandler (ii. 61) remarks, that although he frequently saw these
birds flying about the Acropolis, he never observed one on the summit.
“The hooded crow, which retires from England during the summer, is a
constant inhabitant of Attica, and is probably that species noticed by
the ancients under the name of κορώνη. It is the word applied at
present to it by the Greek peasants, who are the best commentators on
the old naturalists.” Sibthorp in Walp. Mem. l. 75.
Footnote 250:
Wordsworth, Athens and Attica, p. 114.
Footnote 251:
Paus. i. 22. 4.
Footnote 252:
Müll. De Phid. Vit. p. 18 seq.
On entering through the gates of the Propylæa a scene of unparalleled
grandeur and beauty burst upon the eye. No trace of human dwellings
anywhere appeared, but on all sides temples of more or less elevation,
of Pentelic marble, beautiful in design and exquisitely delicate in
execution, sparkled like piles of alabaster in the sun. On the left
stood the Erectheion or fane of Athena Polias; to the right that
matchless edifice known as the Hecatompedon of old, but to later ages as
the Parthenon. Other buildings, all holy to the eye of an Athenian, lay
grouped around these master structures, and in the open spaces between,
in whatever direction the spectators might look, appeared statues, some
remarkable for their dimensions, others for their beauty, and all for
the legendary sanctity which surrounded them. No city of the ancient or
modern world ever rivalled Athens in the riches of art. Our best filled
museums, though teeming with her spoils, are poor collections of
fragments compared with that assemblage of gods and heroes which peopled
the Acropolis, the genuine Olympos of the arts, where all the divinities
of the pagan heaven appeared grouped in immortal youth and beauty round
the Thunderer and his virgin daughter. Many volumes were written in
antiquity on the pictures, statues, and architectural monuments which
thronged the summit of this rock, and though those works have perished,
a long and curious list might still be given of the objects of this kind
which we know to have existed there.[253] It will, however, be
sufficient to glance over a few of the more striking features of the
scene.
Footnote 253:
Somewhere in a cavern in the rock of the Acropolis was a slab called
the pillar of infamy, on which were engraved the names of traitors and
other public delinquents. Thrasybulos accused Leodamas of having had
his name on this pillar.—Aristot. Rhet. ii. 23.
On one side of the entrance stood a chariot drawn by four horses in
bronze, and directly opposite a chapel of Aphrodite, containing a bronze
lioness, with a statue of the goddess herself by Calamis; a little
further the eye rested on Diitrephes, pierced like St. Sebastian with
arrows; two figures of the goddess Health; a youth in bronze, by Lycios,
bearing the Perirrhanterion, or brush for sprinkling holy water; Myron’s
group of Perseus cutting off the head of Medusa, and the three Graces
draped by Socrates,[254] son of Sophroniscos. Advancing past the chapel
of Artemis Brauronia you beheld, amid numerous groups of less striking
monuments, the Attic conception of the Trojan horse; Athena smiting
Marsyas; Heracles strangling the serpents in his cradle; Phrixos
sacrificing the ram; and Theseus, the national hero, slaughtering the
Minotaur in the Cretan labyrinth.[255] Here, too, was an Athena issuing
from the head of Zeus, together with the figure of a bull presented by
the Senate of Areiopagos; and, a little beyond, an embodiment of a very
pious and a very beautiful thought,—a figure of Earth, the mother of
gods and men, praying to the ruler of Olympos for rain. Of Zeus, the
Cloud-Compeller, there were numerous representations by artists of
celebrity; the figure of Apollo, by Pheidias, standing before the
eastern front of the Parthenon, was lighted up by the first rays of the
morning. But the tutelar gods of Attica, Athena and Poseidon, the genii
of political wisdom and maritime power, exhibited as struggling for the
mastery over the Athenian mind, met the eye in various parts of the
Acropolis,—the piety of the people delighting to reproduce with various
attributes the objects of their affectionate adoration. Among these
divinities, the statues of several poets, orators, and generals were
found; Anacreon, Epicharmos, Phormio, Timotheus, Conon, Pericles, and
Isocrates. On drawing near the Parthenon, its sculptured pediments and
metopes, representing legends in the mythology and religious processions
of Athens, excited admiration, and still excite it, by their original
design and matchless workmanship: and, suspended from its highly painted
friezes, and resting on its white marble architraves, were rows of
highly burnished shields of gold.[256]
Footnote 254:
Paus. i. 22. 8.
Footnote 255:
On the labyrinth at present shown in Crete, see Tournefort, i. 76.
sqq.
Footnote 256:
They were votive offerings, and the impressions they made are still
visible upon the marble.—Words. Athens and Attica, 117. Lachares
afterwards, when Athens was besieged by Demetrius, carried them away
with him into Bœotia.—Paus. i. 25. 7. To facilitate his escape, he is
said to have scattered handfuls of golden Darics on the road, which,
tempting the cavalry in pursuit, prevented his capture.—Polyæn. iii.
7. 1.
Technical descriptions of buildings, whether religious or civil, would
be out of place in the present work; but a compendious account of the
Erectheion and Parthenon, the two great sanctuaries of the Acropolis,
could not with propriety be omitted. To commence with the former, as the
more ancient and sacred:—this edifice, of irregular design though highly
beautiful, contained three chapels, with the same number of porticoes.
The chapel of Erectheus, entered through a portico of six columns, faced
the east, where stood the altar of supreme Zeus, never stained by blood
or libations of wine. The pavement of this portion of the edifice was
raised eight feet above the level of the other chapels. Here the piety
of Athens had erected altars to Erectheus, Poseidon, Butas, and
Hephaistos, and pictures dedicated by the sacred family of the
Eteobutadæ adorned the walls. In a subterraneous chamber beneath the
floor lay the mortal remains of Ericthonios, a man sprung in a
mysterious manner from the gods. The Erectheion being about twenty-four
feet square, some have imagined it must have been hypæthral, unless the
stone blocks of the roof were supported by pillars. But the ancients
employed slabs of much greater dimensions in building and roofing their
temples; for at the Egyptian quarries of Hajjar Silsilis and Essouan we
observed blocks from forty-two to seventy feet in length and of suitable
proportions, while others equally vast had been removed. Volney, too, as
the reader will remember, found masses of no less magnitude in the walls
of Syrian temples: besides, several obelisks, now on their pedestals,
fall little short of a hundred feet in height.
Between the Erectheion and the chapel of Athena Polias there was no door
of communication. Having surveyed the former, therefore, the stranger
again issued into the open air, and turning to the left entered the
stately portico leading from the north into the temple of Pandrosos,
where, constructed of Pentelic marble, stood the altar of frankincense.
Passing this, and traversing the Pandrosion, he entered the ancient
sanctuary of Athena, unwindowed and gloomy, whither not even that “dim
religious light” which contends with obscurity in our gothic cathedrals
could find its way. This is the case in many Egyptian temples where the
adyta are totally dark. But sunshine and the splendour of day would ill
have suited the mystic rites here celebrated; for which reason these
sacred recesses were lighted up with lamps, magnificent in form and
materials, that shed a soft pale ray over the worshippers. The
many-branched[257] golden candelabrum of Athena’s sanctuary was
furnished with asbestos wicks, and, according to the temple-wardens, of
sufficient dimensions to contain oil for a whole year. Once lighted,
therefore, it burned with perennial flame, and the smoke was received
and conducted to the roof by a hollow bronze palm tree reversed.
Footnote 257:
A conjecture of Müller, Minerv. Pol. v. 25.
This inextinguishable lamp was kindled and kept burning, through
reverence for that antique image of Athena in wood of olive which
constituted one of the palladia of Attica. In honour, moreover, of this
primitive statue the Panathenaic procession is said to have been
instituted, during which, like the velabrum of the temple of Mekka, the
peplos,[258] whatever this may have been, was dedicated with vast pomp
and ceremony to the service of the goddess.
Footnote 258:
Antiquarians have formed many ingenious conjectures; but to me it
appears evidently to have been a female veil, such as Helenos in the
Iliad (σ. 734) commands to be offered to the same goddess of citadels,
by his mother and the other matrons of Troy.
The principal argument, however, against supposing the peplos to have
been designed for the gold and ivory statue of the Parthenon,—that it
was not needed, is of very little weight. None of the ceremonies
attending its presentation were necessary. The offering was a work of
devotion; and however costly in itself and elaborately adorned, may have
been simply designed to protect the image from dust and the action of
the air. That Pheidias represented the goddess without her peplos, is no
argument that his statue needed none, but the contrary. He may have
omitted it expressly that it might be supplied by the piety of the
state. Besides, the sculptured metopes of the Parthenon, representing
the Panathenaic procession, are themselves a strong argument for
connecting the presentation of the peplos and the other ceremonies of
the festival with that more splendid structure and image rather than
with the Erectheion. As the Athenians supposed the Islands of the
blessed and the dwelling-place of their gods to have been somewhere in
the regions of the west, they were accustomed to pray with their faces
turned in that direction;[259] and so also buried they their dead. For
this reason, desiring to behold the countenance of their divinities
during this religious service, the statues of the gods were generally
set up with their faces eastward; and hence, too, the front of the
temples looked in the same direction. This was the case with the
olive-wood image of Athena Polias; and in the reign of Augustus the
Athenians, rendered more superstitious than ever by their misfortunes,
were vehemently terrified on finding that the goddess had turned her
back upon them,[260] as if preparing to seek her ancient home in the
Atlantic Ocean. But her real presence had forsaken the city long before
the battle of Chæroneia.
Footnote 259:
Plut. Sol. § 10. Visconti, Mem. p. 18. Müll. Minerv. Pol. p. 27.
Footnote 260:
Dion. Cass. iv. 7.
But Athena, though the principal, was not the sole inhabitant of her
sanctuary. On one side of the door stood a phallic statue of Hermes,
originally set up by the Pelasgians,[261] and in later ages nearly
concealed by a profusion of myrtle branches. Here, also, in a very
extraordinary inmate were found traces of that animal worship which
extended so widely over the ancient world. In a den constructed for its
use lived a great serpent, considered as the guardian of the temple, and
supposed to be animated by the soul of Ericthonios, who here performed
the part assigned in the fane of Demeter to Cadmos, likewise believed to
have undergone a similar transformation after death. The snake-god of
the Acropolis received its daily sustenance from the priestess of
Athena; and once every month was propitiated with pious offerings of
cakes of the purest honey.[262] Relics of this worship are still found
in Egypt. In a deep chasm, among the wild rocky mountains on the Arabian
side of the Nile, we were shown a fissure in a hermit’s cell, whence a
large reptile of this species is said to issue forth at stated days to
receive the offerings of food brought him by the neighbouring peasants.
This creature, as well as the guardian of the Athenian Temple, is
supposed to possess a human soul, that of the holy Sheikh Haridi.
Footnote 261:
Herod. ii. 51.
Footnote 262:
Herod. viii. 41. Combe, Terra-cottas of the British Museum, pl. 28.
Petit. Radel, Musée Napol. iv. 33.
Like most other Hellenic sanctuaries, the chapel of the goddess was a
kind of museum filled with memorials of Athenian victories and other
remarkable objects. Here were shown curious or beautiful specimens of
arms or armour, taken from the enemy; among which were the breast-plate
and scimitar of Masistios,[263] commander of the Median cavalry at the
battle of Platæa. Close beside these warlike memorials, stood a folding
camp-stool, the invention, it was said, and workmanship of Dædalos; the
archetype of all those portable seats borne after the maidens of Attica
by the daughters of aliens in the grand Panathenaic procession.
Footnote 263:
Paus. i. 27. 1. The Athenians in the age of this traveller confounded,
it seems, Masistios with Mardonios, nothing very extraordinary several
hundred years after the event referred to. Pausanias speaks of it as a
mistake; Mr. Müller, who is less ceremonious, as a falsehood. Minerv.
Pol. 29. The passion for relics, which led to the preservation of
these objects, existed in all its whimsicality among the ancients. But
they were scarcely so ingenious as the Roman Catholics of the
continent, whose sacred treasures include a number of feathers from
the wings of the angel Gabriel, a small bone of one of the cherubim,
and a few rays of the star by which the wise men of the East were led
to Bethlehem. They have also a small phial, containing some of the
darkness that overspread the land of Egypt. (Cf. Fabric. ad Cod.
Pseud. epigr. v. i. p. 93. t. 11. and Christophori Carmen, ap
Boissonade ad Eunap. p. 277. seq.) In the temples of antiquity relics
nearly as curious were preserved: they had an egg of Leda, possibly,
as Lobeck conjectures, an ostrich’s (Aglaoph. i. 52; Paus. iii. 16.
1); the teeth of the Erymanthean boar (Paus. viii. 24. 2), whose
spoils were also shown at Tegea (Lucian adv. Indoct. § 13); the teeth
of the Calydonian boar were preserved at Beneventum (Procop. Bell.
Goth. i. 15. 349. c); they had also the sword of Memnon (Paus. iii. 3.
6); the iron spear of Epeios (Justin. xx. 7), the brazen vessel in
which Pelias was boiled, the arrows of Teucer, the chlamys of
Odysseus, were preserved in the temple of Apollo at Sicyon. (Ampel.
Memor. viii. 68. Beckm. Hist. of Invent. ii. 364. Germ. in Lobeck.) In
the Troad the anvils were shown which Zeus suspended to the heels of
Hera, when he hung her up between heaven and earth (Eustath. p. 15. l.
30); here, too, anyone might see the cithara of Paris. (Plut. Alex. §
15.) Like the Catholics, too, they showed the same thing in two or
three places; for example, the hair of Isis might be seen at Koptos
(Etym. Mag. _v._ κόπτος, 522. 12), and at Memphis. (Luc. adv. Ind. §
13.) The Romans, according to Horace (Carm. ii. 3. 21), possessed the
bronze wash-hand-basin of Sisyphos. A much more extensive list may be
found in Beckmann, Hist. of Inven. ii. 42. seq. _Eng. Tr._
Not the least interesting portion of this extraordinary edifice
dedicated to the worship of so many gods and heroes, was the small
chapel of Pandrosos, where Pandora and Thallo were said to have lived,
and where the ashes of Cecrops reposed. Here dwelt the priestess, shut
up for several months with the Ersephoræ. This cella may, therefore, be
said to have belonged not only to Pandrosos, who was one of the earliest
ministers of these rites, but to all who from her received the office.
The building opened on the south into a portico, adorned with Caryatides
instead of columns, and filled with ceremonial and religious
associations. Here grew the Pancuphos, or sacred olive tree, which,
burned by the Persians, shot up a cubit in a single night, and was
thought to be endued with the power of undying vegetation, for, if the
trunk were cut down, new shoots immediately succeeded. Near the sacred
olive was the salt well, called the sea of Erectheus, which Poseidon is
said to have produced by smiting the rock with his trident. In the
hollow of this fountain, during the prevalence of the south wind, a
sound like the murmuring of the waves was supposed to be heard. This
well has not been discovered in modern times; but in another part of the
citadel there existed a spring of brackish water, known by the name of
the Clepsydra, which, about the rising of the dog-star, while the
Etesian winds were blowing, overflowed; but on their cessation again
subsided.[264]
Footnote 264:
This fountain was likewise called Empedo.—Sch. Arist. Vesp. 857. I may
here mention, by the way, that most ancient cities were supplied with
water by pipes underground, as Syracuse.—Thucyd. vi. 100. Cf. Sch.
Arist. Achar. 1145.
We have perhaps too long lingered among the dusky recesses of this
ancient fane, spell-bound by the charms of a beautiful mythology. We
emerge now into the light of history, and approach that matchless
structure erected by Ictinos where the Athenian people offered up their
daily prayers to heaven.[265] The Parthenon occupies the most elevated
platform of the Acropolis, the pavement of its peristyle being on a
level with the capitals of the columns of the Propylæa. It was
constructed entirely of white Pentelic marble,[266] and consisted of a
cella surrounded by a Doric peristyle having eight columns on either
front, and seventeen on the sides. These pillars, thirty-four feet in
height, sprang from a pavement elevated three steps above the rocky
platform, from whence the total height of the building was about
sixty-five feet. The arrangement of the interior like that of the great
temples of Egypt had reference rather to utility and the convenience of
public worship, than to the effect which long ranges of lofty pillars,
extending through unencumbered space, would have produced upon the mind:
for the cella, sixty-two feet in breadth, was divided into two chambers
of unequal size,—the western about forty-four feet in length, the
eastern nearly one hundred. In both these chambers the ceiling was
supported by columns.
Footnote 265:
It is worthy of remark that from this temple all persons of Doric race
were excluded. King Cleomenes, therefore, when desirous of obtaining
admission, denied his birth-right, and called himself an
Achæan.—Herod. v. 72.
Footnote 266:
The quarries of this mountain, worked to so great an extent by the
ancients, are now filling again with marble which grows
rapidly.—Chandler, ii. 191. Cf. Magius, Var. Lect. t. iv. 182. b.
Gemme Fisica Sotterranea, l. 1. c. ix. § 6. p. 87.—For the manner in
which it is thought to vegetate, see Tournefort, i. pp. 225. 228. sqq.
Colonel Leake, to whose elaborate work I beg to refer the reader
desirous of entering into minute details, concludes his general
description as follows:—"Such was the simple construction of this
magnificent building, which, by its united excellencies of materials,
design, and decoration was the most perfect ever erected. Its dimensions
of two hundred and twenty-eight feet by a hundred and two, with a height
of sixty-eight feet to the top of the pediment, were sufficiently great
to give an impression of grandeur and sublimity, which was not disturbed
by any obtrusive division of parts, such as is found to diminish the
effect of some larger modern buildings. In the Parthenon, whether viewed
at a small or at a great distance, there was nothing to divert the
spectator’s contemplation from the simplicity and majesty of mass and
outline which forms the first and most remarkable object of admiration
in a Greek temple; and it was not until the eye was satiated with the
contemplation of the entire edifice that the spectator was tempted to
examine the decorations with which this building was so profusely
adorned; for the statues of the pediments the only elevation which was
very conspicuous by its magnitude and position, being enclosed within
frames, which formed an essential part of the design of either front,
had no more obtrusive effect than an ornamental capital has to a single
column."[267]
Footnote 267:
Topog. of Athens, pp. 211, 212. See also Chandler, ii. 49. sqq.
That object of art, whatever its dimensions, is sufficiently great,
which fills the mind with high ideas of grandeur and beauty. There is,
moreover, in mere size, a point, beyond which if we proceed, the eye
will fail to grasp the whole at a glance, and create a feeling of want
of unity; but, in proportion as we fall short of that point will be our
sense of the absence of sublimity. In this predicament, perhaps, the
temples of Greece too generally stood. Considerations of expense, which
in the end affected their habits of thinking, cramped the ideas of the
architects, or forced them to direct their studies towards beauty of
form unconnected with that grandeur which springs out of mass and
elevation.
Among the barbarous nations of the East, where the whole resources of
the country lay at the disposal of the monarch or of the priestly caste,
as in Hindùstân, Persia, and Egypt, full scope, on the contrary, was
given to the imagination of the architect, who, if his invention were
equal to it, might give his structures the elevation of a mountain and
the spaciousness of a vast city. Hence, the grandeur arising from
magnitude, is, in most cases, found to belong to the sacred edifices of
Egypt;[268] and in some instances a feeling of symmetry, a sense of the
beautiful, appears to have restrained the artist within due bounds, as
in the great temple of Apollinopolis Magna, which, whatever may be the
imperfections of its architectural details, is invested, as a whole,
with an air of genuine magnificence and sublimity. Proceeding from the
contemplation of these to the religious structures of Greece, there
would be found, I imagine, in most minds a slight feeling of
disappointment, and though afterwards, the delight imparted by the
presence of extreme beauty,—a delight serene, soft, and inexpressibly
soothing, may more than compensate for the want of awe and wondering
admiration, their absence will still be felt.
Footnote 268:
Of these temples Lucian says: ὅμοιαι ... τοῖς Αἰγυπτίοις ἱεροῖς: κᾀκεῖ
γὰρ, αὐτὸς μὲν ὁ νεὼς κάλλιστός τε καὶ μέγιστος, λίθοις τοῖς
πολυτελέσιν ἠσκημένος, καὶ χρυσῷ, καὶ γραφαῖς διηνθισμὲνος. ἔνδον δὲ
ἢν ζητῆς τὸν βεὸν ἢ πιθηκός ἔστιν, ἢ ἴβις, ἢ τράγος, ἢ αἴλουρος.
Imagin. § 11.
But to proceed: in rich and elaborate decorations the Parthenon
resembled the temple of Tentyris. Every part of its exterior, where
ornament was admissible, presented to the eye some creation of Hellenic
taste and fancy, figures in high and low relief, grouped in action or
repose, conceived and executed in a style worthy of the prince of the
mimetic art.[269] Many wrecks of these matchless compositions are now
protected from further defacements in the metropolis of Great Britain,
but withal so mutilated and decayed that none but a practised eye can
discern, through the ravages of age, all the sunshine of beauty and
loveliness which beamed from them when fresh from the Pheidian chisel.
One of the greatest works of this artist filled the interior of the
Parthenon with the emanations of its beauty, the statue of Athena in
ivory and gold,[270] which, representing a form distinguished for all
the softness and roundness belonging to womanhood, and a countenance
radiant with the highest intellect, must in some respects have borne
away the palm from the Olympian Zeus; for in the latter, after all,
nothing beyond masculine energy, dignity, majesty could have existed.
These indeed were so blended, so subdued into a glorious and god-like
serenity, that this creation of human genius, like the august being of
which it was a mute type, possessed in a degree the celestial power of
chasing away sadness and sorrow, and shedding benignity and happiness
over all who beheld it.[271] But for men at least, the Zeus must have
lacked some attributes possessed by the Athena. She was in all her
etherial loveliness, a woman still, but without a woman’s weakness, or a
single taint of earth. The Athenians paid the highest possible
compliment to womanhood when they gave wisdom a female form; and the
delicacy of the thought was enhanced by surrounding this mythological
creation with an atmosphere of purity which no other divinity of the
pagan heaven could lay claim to. Nor in beauty did Athena yield even to
Aphrodite herself. Her charms partook indeed of that noble severity
which belongs to virtue; and to intimate that she was rather of heaven
than of earth, her eyes were of the colour of the firmament. Yet this
spiritual elevation above the reach of the passions, only appears to
have enhanced, in the estimation of the Athenians, the splendour of her
personal beauty, which shed its chastening and ennobling influence among
her worshippers like the droppings of a summer cloud.
Footnote 269:
Vid. Müll. De Parthenon. Fastig. p. 72, sqq.
Footnote 270:
Thucyd. ii. 13. Schol. t. v. p. 375. Bipont. Müll. De Phid. Vit. p.
22.
Footnote 271:
Arrian. Epict. I. 6. p. 27, seq.
According to Philochoros,[272] this colossus was set up during the
archonship of Theodoros, that is, in the third year of the eighty-fifth
Olympiad. The Athenians, it has been ingeniously conjectured, seized for
the dedication of the statue, on the period of the celebration of the
most gorgeous festival in their calendar, the greater Panathenaia, which
like a kind of jubilee occurred but once in an Olympiad.[273] What
length of time Pheidias employed in finishing this statue we possess no
means of determining; but as the Parthenon itself is supposed not to
have been completed in less than ten years, the artist need not have
been hurried in his work.[274]
Footnote 272:
Frag. ed. Siebel. p. 54. Müll. Phid. Vit. § 11. p. 22.
Footnote 273:
Boeckh. Corp. Inscrip. p. 182.
Footnote 274:
Quatremère de Quincy, Jup. Olymp. p. 222.
In the temple of Zeus at Olympia and in every sacred structure we
visited in Egypt and Nubia, there was a staircase conducting to the
roof. No positive testimony remains to prove this to have been the case
in the Parthenon, though antiquarians, with much probability, have
supposed it to have been so.[275] Let us therefore assume the fact, and
ascending to the summit of the edifice survey the surrounding scene and
the superb city encircling the rock at our feet. Few landscapes in the
world are more rich or varied, none more deeply interesting. History has
peopled every spot within the circle of vision with spirit-stirring
associations; or if history has passed over any, there has poetry been
busy, building up her legends from the scattered fragments of tradition.
Carrying our eye along the distant edge of the horizon we behold the
promontory of Sunium, Ægina rising out of the Myrtoan sea, Trœzen, the
birth-place of Theseus the national hero, the mountains of Argolis, the
hostile citadel of Corinth, with Phylæ and Deceleia rendered too famous
by the Peloponnesian war. Nearer the shore is “sea-born” Salamis, and
that low headland where the barbarian took his seat to view the battle
in the straits. Yonder at the extremity of the long walls are the ports
of Munychia, Phaleron and Peiræeus; on our left is Hymettos with its bee
swarms and odoriferous slopes;[276] to the right Colonos, the grove of
the terrible Erinnyes, and the chasm in the rock by which the wretched
Œdipus, having reached the end of his career, descended to the infernal
world.[277] Beyond lies Eleusis and the Sacred Way.[278] Yonder in the
midst of groves is the Academy; here is the Cerameicos[279] filled with
the monuments which the republic erected to its heroes, there the
Cynosarges and the Lyceium. The hill of Areiopagos, contiguous to the
rock of the Acropolis, divides the Pnyx from the Agora planted by Conon
with plane trees. Near at hand, encircled by ordinary dwellings, are the
Leocorion, the temple of Theseus, the Odeion, the Stoa Pœcile, and the
Dionysiac theatre, with various other monuments remarkable for their
beauty or historical importance.[280]
Footnote 275:
Leake, Topog. p. 215.
Footnote 276:
About half a mile from Athens in this direction was a temple of
Artemis (Ἄγρα), on the Ilissos, with an altar to Boreas; where,
according to the fable, the god carried away Orithyia while playing on
the rock with Pharmacia.—Plat. Phæd. i. 7. In consequence of the
alliance thus contracted Boreas always felt a particular friendship
for the Athenians, to whose succour he hastened with his aërial forces
during the Median war.—Herod, vii. 189.
Footnote 277:
Antigone, in Sophocles, (Œdip. Col. 14-18) speaks of the towers of
Athens as seen from Colonos, and describes that village, the
birth-place of the poet, as rendered beautiful by the sacred grove of
the Eumenides, consisting of the laurel, the olive, and the vine, in
which a choir of nightingales showered their music on the ear.
Footnote 278:
Near this road stood the Hiera Suke. Athen. iii. 6.
Footnote 279:
Κεραμεικός, ἀπὸ τοῦ κεραμεύς. Etym. Mag. 504. 16. Cf. Suid. et
Harpocrat. in voce. Paris, in like manner, has given the name of
Tuileries to its principal palaces and gardens, from the tiles
(_tuiles_) which were anciently manufactured on the spot.
Footnote 280:
Strab. ix. 1. 239–241.
CHAPTER V.
CAPITAL CITIES OF GREECE.—SPARTA.
From what has been said, the reader will, perhaps, have acquired a
tolerably correct idea of the city of Athens, its splendour and extent.
But the remaining fragments of Hellenic literature do not enable us to
be equally clear or copious in our account of Sparta.[281] In fact so
imperfect and confused is the information that has come down to us
respecting it, so vague, unsatisfactory, and in many respects
contradictory are the opinions of modern scholars and travellers, that
after diligently and patiently examining their accounts, and comparing
them with the descriptions of Pausanias, the hints of Xenophon, Livy,
Polybius, and Plutarch, with the casual references of the poets, I am
enabled to offer the following picture only as a series of what appear
to me probable conjectures based upon a few indisputable facts.
Footnote 281:
The plan which accompanies the present chapter, based on the
description of Pausanias, agrees in many of the main points with that
given by Mr. Müller in his map of the Peloponnesos. M. Barbie du
Bocage’s Essay on the Topography of Sparta, upon the whole faulty, is,
nevertheless, in my opinion, right with respect to the portion of the
bridge Babyx which Mr. Müller throws over the Tiasa, contrary to all
the reasonable inferences to be derived from history. Colonel Leake’s
plan, given in his travels in the Morea, conveys a different idea of
Spartan topography; but I am unable to reconcile his views with the
account of the city in Pausanias, though I very much regret that the
plan I have adopted should not be recommended by the support of a
writer so learned and so ingenious.
The reader who has endeavoured to discover anything like order in
Pausanias’ topography of Sparta,[282] will fully comprehend the
difficulty of constructing from his information anything like an
intelligible plan of the city. Nevertheless, by setting out from a fixed
point, by laboriously studying the thread of his narration, by divining
the secret order he seems to follow in enumerating and delineating the
various public buildings of which he speaks, and by comparing his
fragmentary disclosures with the present physiognomy of the site, I have
formed a conception of the features of ancient Sparta which may,
perhaps, be found to bear some resemblance to the original.
Footnote 282:
III. 11–20. Cf. Polyb. v. 22. Liv. xxxiv. 26. seq.
We will suppose ourselves to have passed the Eurotas, and to be standing
on the summit of the loftiest building of the Acropolis, the Alpion for
example, or the temple of Athena Chalciœcos,[283] from which we can
command a view of the whole site of Sparta from the Eurotas, where it
flows between banks shaded with reeds and lofty rose laurels[284] on the
east, to the brisk sparkling stream of the Tiasa, and the roots of the
Taygetos on the west. North and south the eye ranges up and down the
valley,[285] discovering in the latter direction the ancient cities of
Therapne[286] and Amyclæ,[287] celebrated for their poetical and heroic
associations. Beyond the Eurotas eastward, occupying the green and
well-wooded acclivities upwards, from the banks of the stream towards
the barren and red-tinted heights of the Menelaion,[288] lay scattered
the villas of the noble Spartans, filled with costly furniture and every
other token of wealth,[289] while here and there, on all sides,
embosomed in groves or thickets, arose the temples and chapels of the
gods surrounded by a halo of sanctity and communicating peculiar beauty
to the landscape.
Footnote 283:
In the precincts of this temple, evidently the strongest place in the
city, the Ætolian mercenaries took refuge after the assassination of
Nabis.—Liv. xxxv. 36.
Footnote 284:
Plut. Instit. Lacon. § 10. Chateaubriand, Itin. xi. 110.
Poucqueville’s description of the stream is striking and picturesque:
“The banks,” he says, “are bordered with never-fading laurels, which,
inclining towards each other, form an arch over its waters, and seem
still consecrated to the deities of whom its purity is a just emblem;
while swans, even of a more dazzling whiteness than the snows that
cover the mountain-tops above, are constantly sailing up and down the
stream.”—Travels, p. 84. The Viscount Chateaubriand, however, sought
in vain for these poetical birds, and, therefore, evidently considers
them fabulous.
Footnote 285:
Strabo’s brief description of the site deserves to be mentioned: ἔστι
μὲν οὖν ἐν κοιλοτέρῳ χωρίῳ τὸ τῆς πόλεως ἔδαφος, καίπερ ἀπολαμβάνον
ὄρη μεταξύ. viii. 5. t. ii. p. 185.
Footnote 286:
Xen. Hellen. v. 5. 2.
Footnote 287:
At this ancient city Castor and Polydeukes were worshipped not as
heroes but as divinities. Isoc. Encom. Helen. § 27. Cf. Pind. Pyth.
xi. 60, sqq. Nem. x. 56. Dissen supposes these tombs to have been
vaults under ground in the Phœbaion.—Comm. p. 508.
Footnote 288:
Steph. de Urb. v. Μενέλαος, p. 551, a. Berkel.—Polyb. v. 22.
Footnote 289:
Xen. Hellen. vi. 5. 27.
Contracting now our circle of vision, and contemplating the distinct
villages or groups of buildings of which the capital of Laconia
anciently consisted,[290] we behold the encampments as it were of the
five tribes, extending in a circle about the Acropolis.[291] The quarter
of the Pitanatæ,[292] commencing about the Issorion and the bridge over
the Tiasa on the west, extended eastward beyond the Hyacinthine
road[293] to the cliffs overhanging the valley of the Eurotas above the
confluence of that river with the Tiasa. Immediately contiguous to the
dwellings of this tribe in the north eastern division of the city,
opposite that cloven island in the Eurotas, which contained the temple
of Artemis, Orthia, and the Goddess of Birth, dwelt the Limnatæ,[294]
who possessed among them the temple erected by the Spartans to Lycurgus.
North again of these, and clustering around that sharp eminence which
constituted as it were a second Acropolis, were the habitations of the
Cynosuræ,[295] whose quarter appears to have extended from the old
bridge over the Eurotas to the temple of Dictynna, and the tombs of the
Euripontid kings on the west. From this point to the Dromos, lying
directly opposite the southern extremity of the Isle of Plane Trees,
formed by the diverging and confluent waters of the Tiasa, lay the
village of the Messoatæ,[296] where were situated the tomb of Alcman,
the fountain Dorcea, and a very beautiful portico overlooking the
Platanistas. The road extending from the Dromos to the Issorion formed
the western limits of the tribe of the Ægidæ,[297] whose quarter
extending inward to the heart of the city, appears to have comprehended
the Acropolis, the Lesche Pœcile, the theatre, with all the other
buildings grouped about the foot of the ancient city.
Footnote 290:
Thucyd. i. 10.
Footnote 291:
See Müller, Dor. ii. 48.
Footnote 292:
Paus. Olymp. vi. 27. Diss. ἡ Πιτάνη φυλή. Hesych. Cf. Herod. iii. 55.
ix. 53. Eurip. Troad. 1101. Thucyd. I. 20. et schol. Plut. de Exil. §
6. Apophth. Lacon. Miscell. 48. Plin. H. N. iv. 8. Athen. i. 57. Near
this κώμη were the villages of Œnos, Onoglæ and Stathmæ, celebrated
for their wines.
Footnote 293:
Athen. iv. 74.
Footnote 294:
Strab. viii. 4. p. 184. 5. p. 187. The marshes existing in this
quarter anciently had been drained by the age of Strabo:—ἀλλ᾽ οὐδέν γε
μέρος αὐτοῦ λιμνάζει· τὸ δὲ παλαιὸν ἐλίμαζε τὸ προάστειον, καὶ ἐκάλουν
αὐτὸ Λίμνας· καὶ τὸ τοῦ Διονύσου ἱερὸν ἐν Λίμναις ἐφ᾽ ὑγροῦ βεβήκος
ἐτύγχανε· νῦν δ᾽ ἐπὶ ξηροῦ τὴν ἵδρυσιν ἔχει. 5. p. 185. seq.
Footnote 295:
Hesych. in v. Berkel. ad Steph. Byzant. p. 490. Schol. ad Callim. in
Dian. 94. Spanh. Observ. in loc. p. 196.
Footnote 296:
Steph de Urb. in v. p. 554. b. who refers to Strabo (viii. 6. p. 187).
The words of the geographer are Μεσόαν δ᾽ οὐ τὴς χώρας εἶναι μέρος,
τῆς Σπάρτης δὲ καθάπερ καὶ τὸ Λιμναῖον. Paus. vii. 20. 8.
Footnote 297:
Herod. iv. 149.
The prospect presented by all these villages, nearly touching each
other, and comprehended within a circle of six Roman miles, was once, no
doubt, in the days of Spartan glory, singularly animated and
picturesque. The face of the ground was broken and diversified, rising
into six hills of unequal elevation, and constituting altogether a small
table-land, in some places terminating in perpendicular cliffs;[298] in
others, shelving away in gentle slopes to meet the meadows on the banks
of the surrounding streams. Over all was diffused the brilliant
light[299] which fills the atmosphere of the south, and paints, as
travellers uniformly confess, even the barren crag and crumbling ruin
with beauty.
Footnote 298:
Leake, Trav. in Morea, v. i. p. 154.
Footnote 299:
Cf. Chateaub. Itin. i. 112. Similar, also, is the testimony of Mr.
Douglas. “The mixture of the romantic with the rich, which still
diversifies its aspect, and the singularly picturesque form of all its
mountains, do not allow us to wonder that even Virgil should generally
desert his native Italy for the landscape of Greece; whoever has
viewed it in the tints of a Mediterranean spring, will agree with me
in attributing much of the Grecian genius to the influence of scenery
and climate.” Essay, &c. p. 52.
The structures that occupied the summit of the Acropolis appear to have
been neither numerous nor magnificent. The central pile, around which
all the others were grouped, was the temple of Athena Chalciœcos,[300]
flanked on the north and south by the fanes of Zeus Cosmetas and the
Muses. Behind it rose the temple of Aphrodite Areia, with that of
Artemis Cnagia, and in front various other edifices and statues,
dedicated to Euryleonis, Pausanias, Athena Ophthalmitis, and Ammon.
Somewhere in the neighbourhood of the temenos of Athena stood two
edifices, one called Skenoma and the other Alpion. The relative position
of all these it is now extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
determine. Let us therefore descend into the agora, and having briefly
described the objects which there offered themselves to the eye of the
stranger, endeavour to thread our way through the various streets of
Sparta, pointing out as we go along the most remarkable monuments it
contained.
Footnote 300:
Plut. Apophtheg. Lacon. Archid. 6. Lycurg. 7.
In all Greek cities the point of greatest importance, next to the
citadel, was the market-place, where the body of the citizens assembled
not only to buy and sell, but to transact public business, and perform
many ceremonies of their religion. Thus, in the agora of Sparta, in the
centre of which probably stood an altar, surrounded by the statues of
Apollo, Artemis, Leto, and the soothsayer Hagias who foretold the
victory of Lysander at Ægospotamos, sacred chorusses and processions
were exhibited during the Gymnopædia in honour of Phœbos Apollo, in
consequence of which, a part at least of the place obtained the name of
Choros: here, likewise, was a colossal statue, erected in honour of the
Spartan Demos, with a group representing Hermes bearing the infant
Dionysos in his arms, and a statue of King Polydoros, doubtless set up
in the neighbourhood of his house, Boonetos, lying between the street
Aphetæ and the steep road leading up to the citadel. The edifices by
which the agora was encircled, though in most cases, perhaps, far from
magnificent, when separately considered, presented a grand _coup-d’œil_.
This will be made evident if, placing ourselves near the central altar,
we enumerate and briefly describe them in the order in which they
followed each other in the great circle of the agora. First, beginning
on the right-hand corner of the street Aphetæ we behold the palace of
the Bidiæi, the five magistrates who watched over the education of the
youth; next succeeds that of the Nomophylaces, or guardians of the laws;
then that of the Ephori; and, lastly, the senate-house, standing at the
corner of the street leading to Therapne. Crossing over to the
south-eastern side of the Agora we behold a spacious and stately portico
called the Persian, because erected from the spoils of the Persians. Its
columns of white marble were adorned with bassi relievi representing
Persian warriors, among others Mardonios and Artemisia daughter of
Lygdamis queen of Halicarnassos, who fought in person at the battle of
Salamis. Beyond the road to Amyclæ, we meet with a range of temples to
Gaia, Zeus Agoræos, Athena, Poseidon the Preserver, Apollo, and Hera;
and traversing the western street opening into the Theomelida, and
affording us a glimpse in passing of the tombs of the Agid kings we
arrive at the ancient halls of the Ephori, containing the monuments of
Epimenides and Aphareus. To this edifice succeed the statues of Zeus
Xenios and Athena Xenia. Next follows the temple of the Fates, near
which was the tomb of Orestes lying on the left hand of the road leading
to the sanctuary of Athena Chalciœcos. On the other side stands the
house of King Polydoros, which obtained in after ages the name of
Boonetos because purchased of his widowed queen with a certain number of
oxen. With this terminates the list of the buildings by which the Agora
was encompassed.
Quitting, now, this central point, we proceed northward through the
street called Aphetæ, and observe on the right hand at a short distance
from each other three temples of Athena Keleuthia, together with the
heroa of Iops, Lelex, and Amphiaraos. On the opposite side apparently,
stood the temenos of Tænarian Poseidon, with a statue of Athena, erected
by the Dorian colonists of Italy. We next arrive at a place called the
Hellenion, probably nothing more than a large open space or square in
which the deputies or ambassadors of foreign states assembled on
extraordinary occasions. Close to this was erected the monument of
Talthybios. A little further on were the altar of Apollo Acreitas, the
Gasepton, a temple of earth, and another altar sacred to Apollo
Maleates. At the end of the street, near the walls of the late city, was
a temple of Dictynna, with the tombs of the kings called Eurypontidæ.
Returning to the Hellenion, and proceeding eastward up the great public
road leading to the bridge Babyx, you saw the temple of Arsinoë,
daughter of Leucippos, and sister to the wives of Castor and Polydeukes.
Further on, near the Phrouria or Barriers, stood a temple of Artemis;
and advancing a little you came to the monument of the Eleian
soothsayers called Iamidæ, and the temple of Maron and Alpheios, who
were among the bravest of those who fell with Leonidas at Thermopylæ.
Beyond this stood the fane of Zeus Tropæos erected after the reduction
of Amyclæ, when all the ancient inhabitants of Laconia had been brought
under the yoke of the Dorians. Next followed the temple of the Great
Mother and the heroic monuments of Hippolytos and Aulon. On a spot
commanding the bridge stood the temple of Athena Alea.
Setting out once more from the Agora, and advancing up the street
leading towards the east the first building on the left-hand was called
Skias[301] contiguous to the senate-house: it was of a circular form
with a roof like an umbrella, and erected about seven hundred and sixty
years before Christ, by Theodoros of Samos, inventor of the art of
casting statues in iron. Here the Spartan people held their assemblies
even so late as the age of Pausanias, who relates that the lyre of
Timotheus[302] the Milesian, confiscated as a punishment for his having
added four strings to the seven already in use, was suspended in this
building as a warning to all innovators. Near the Skias was another
circular building erected by Epimenides, containing statues of Olympian
Zeus and Aphrodite. On the other side apparently of the street, in front
of the Skias, were the tombs of Idas and Lynceus, the temple of Kora
Soteira, said to have been built by Orpheus, or Abaris the Hyperboræan,
the tomb of Cynortas and the temple of Castor. Near these were the
statues of Apollo Carneios, and Aphetæos, the latter of which marked the
point whence the suitors of Penelope started in their race for a wife,
running up the street Aphetæ, whence the name. Immediately beyond this
was a square surrounded with porticoes, where all kinds of cheap wares
were anciently sold. Further on stood altars of Zeus, Athena, and the
Dioscuri, all surnamed Amboulioi; opposite which was the hill called
Colona whereon was erected a temple of Dionysos, and close at hand a
temenos sacred to the hero who conducted the god to Sparta. Not far from
the Dionysion was a temple of Zeus Euanemos, giver of gentle breezes;
and immediately to the right the heroon of Pleuron. On the summit of a
hill at a little distance stood a temple of the Argive Hera, together
with the fane erected in honour of Hera Hypercheiria, built by order of
the oracle after the subsiding of an inundation of the Eurotas. In this
edifice was a very ancient wooden statue of Aphrodite Hera. Close to the
road which passed to the right of the hill was a statue of Etymocles
many times victor in the Olympic games. In descending towards the
Eurotas you beheld a wooden statue of Athena Alea, and a little above
the banks a temple of Zeus Plousios. On the further side of the river
were temples of Ares and Asclepios.
Footnote 301:
Σκιὰς, τὸ ᾠδεῖον ἐκαλεῖτο τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων κατὰ τὴν ἀρχαίαν φωνήν. κ.
τ. λ.—Etym. Mag. 717. 36. seq.
Footnote 302:
Cf. Plut. Agis, § 10.
Once more retracing our steps to the Agora, and quitting it by a street
leading towards the west, the first remarkable object that struck the
eye was the cenotaph of Brasidas, and a little beyond it a spacious and
beautiful theatre of white marble.[303] Directly opposite were the tombs
of Leonidas and Pausanias, and near these a cippus, on which were
engraved the names of the heroes who fell at Thermopylæ, together with
those of their fathers. At this spot games were annually celebrated, in
which none but Spartans were allowed to contend for the prizes.
Discourses were likewise here pronounced in honour of the dead. The
multitudes at these games required a large clear space in which to
congregate, and this I suppose to have been the place called Theomelida,
opening on both sides of the road, and extending as far as the tombs of
the Agid Kings, and the Lesche of the Crotoniatæ. Near this edifice
stood the temple of Asclepios, the tomb of Tænaros, and temples of
Poseidon Hippocourios, and Artemis Ægeinea. Turning back towards the
Lesche, probably round the foot of the Hill of the Issorion,[304] you
observed on the slope of the eminence towards the Tiasa the temple of
Artemis Limnæa the Britomartis of the Cretans, somewhere in the vicinity
of which were temples of Thetis, Chthonian Demeter, and Olympian Zeus.
Footnote 303:
This theatre, as Mr. Douglas has observed, is the only remaining
fragment of ancient Sparta, the other ruins still visible on its site,
belonging all to Roman times.—Essay on certain Points of Resemblance
between the Ancient and Modern Greeks, p. 23.
Footnote 304:
Ἰσσώριον, ὄρος τῆς Λακωνικῆς ἀφ’ οὗ ἡ Ἄρτεμις Ἰσσωρία.—Steph. Byz. in
v. 426. d. with the note of Berkel. Cf. Hesych. in v. Polyæn. Strat.
ii. 1. 14. Plut. Agesil. § 32.
Starting from the crossroad at the north-west foot of the Issorion, on
the way to the Dromos, the first edifice which presented itself on the
left was the monument of Eumedes, one of the sons of Hippocoon. A little
further on was a statue of Heracles, and close at hand, near the
entrance to the Dromos, stood the ancient palace of Menelaos, inhabited
in Pausanias’ time by a private individual. Within the Dromos itself
were two gymnasia. This was the most remarkable building in the western
part of the city, from whence branched off many streets, while numerous
public structures clustered round it; to the north, for example, the
temples of the Dioscuri, of the Graces, of Eileithyia, of Apollo
Carneios, and Artemis Hegemona: on the east the temple of Asclepios
Agnitas, and a trophy erected by Polydeukes after his victory over
Lynceus. On the west towards the Platanistas were statues of the
Dioscuri Apheterii, and a little further was the heroon of Alcon, near
which stood the temple of Poseidon Domatites, near the bridge leading
over to the island covered with plane trees. On the other hand
apparently of the road a statue was erected to Cynisca, daughter of
Archidamos, the first lady who ran horses at Olympia.
Along the banks of the Tiasa from the Dromos to a line extending
westward from the temple of Dictynna to the upper bridge leading to the
Platanistas, lay a road adorned with numerous public buildings, among
others a portico, behind which were two remarkable monuments, the heroa
of Alcimos and Enaræphoros. Immediately beyond were the heroa of Dorceus
and Sebros, and the fountain Dorcea flowing between them. The whole of
this little quarter obtained from the latter hero the name of Sebrion.
To the right of the last mentioned heroon was the monument of the poet
Alcman;[305] beyond which lay the temple of Helen, and near it that of
Heracles close to the modern wall.
Footnote 305:
Ἀλκμάν, Λάκων ἀπὸ Μεσσόας.—He was an erotic poet said to have been
descended from servile parents.—Suid. i. p. 178. ed. Port.
Hard by a narrow pathway, striking into the fields from the road leading
eastward from the Dromos, was the temple of Athena Axiopænos, said to
have been erected by Heracles.
Leaving the Dromos by another road running in a south-easterly direction
through the midst of the quarter of the Ægidæ, we behold, on one hand,
the temples of Athena and Hipposthenes, and directly opposite the
latter, a statue of Ares in chains. At a short distance beyond these was
the Lesche Pœcile, and in front of it, the heroon of Cadmos son of
Agenor, those of two of his descendants, Œolycos and his son Ægeus, and
that of Amphilocos. Farther on lay the temples of Hera Ægophagos, so
called because she-goats were sacrificed to her, and at the foot of the
Acropolis, near the theatre, the temples of Poseidon Genethlios, on
either side of which probably stood an heroon, the one sacred to
Cleodæos son of Hyllos, and the other to Œbalos.
We must now return to the Lesche Pœcile, and following a road skirting
round the hill of the Acropolis, towards the east-south-east, pass by
the monument of Teleclos, and the most celebrated of all the temples of
Asclepios at Sparta, situated close to the Boonetos. Traversing the
street Aphetæ and proceeding along the road leading to the Limnæ, the
first temple on the left was that of Aphrodite, on a hill, celebrated by
Pausanias for having two stories. The statue of the goddess was here
seated, veiled and fettered. A little beyond was the temple of Hilaeira
and Phœbe wherein were statues of the two goddesses, the countenance of
one of which was painted and adorned by one of the priestesses according
to the later rules of art, but warned by a dream she suffered the other
to remain in its archaic simplicity. Here was preserved an egg adorned
with fillets and suspended from the roof, said to have been brought
forth by Leda. In a building near at hand, certain women wove annually a
tunic for the Apollo of Amyclæ, from which circumstance the edifice
itself obtained the name of Chiton. Next followed the house of the
Tyndaridæ, the heroa of Chilon and Athenæus, and the temple of Lycurgus,
with the tomb of Eucosmos behind it. Near them was the altar of Lathria
and Anaxandra, and directly opposite the monuments of Theopompos and
Eurybiades and Astrabacos. In an island in the marshes were the temple
and altar of Artemis Orthia, and the fane of Eileithyia.
On the road leading from the Agora to Amyclæ[306] there were few
remarkable monuments. One only, the temple of the Graces, is mentioned
north of the Tiasa, and beyond it the Hippodrome; towards the west the
temple of the Tyndaridæ near the road, and that of Poseidon Gaiouchos
towards the river.[307]
Footnote 306:
Οὗ τὸ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος ἱερόν. Strab. viii. 5. t. ii. p. 185.
Footnote 307:
Xen. Hellen. vi. 5. 30.
Let us now consider the proofs on which the above description is based.
Pausanias informs us that the citadel was the highest of the hills of
Sparta. Colonel Leake observes that the eminence found in the quarter
which I have assigned to the Cynosuræ is equal in height to that
immediately behind the theatre; but the former is pointed and appears to
have retained its natural shape, while the summit of the latter has been
levelled for building. Now if its height be still equal, it must have
been considerably greater before the levelling process took place.
Therefore the hill behind the theatre was the Acropolis. Admitting this,
the spacious flat or hollow immediately at its foot on the south-east
side must have been the Agora,[308] for that the Agora was close to the
citadel is clear from history, which represents Lycurgus and king
Charilaos escaping thither from the market-place.[309] Again we know
from Pausanias that it lay a little to the east of the theatre, having
nothing between them but the cenotaph of Brasidas. The position of the
Agora being thus fixed beyond dispute, we arrive with certainty at the
direction of the four great streets that diverge from it; for, first, we
know that the road to the Issorion lay towards the west; the road to
Amyclæ towards the south. The street called Skias terminated at the
extremity of the city between two small hills. These two hills are still
there on the brink of the high ground overlooking the valley of the
Eurotas on the east. This therefore was the direction of the Skias. As
an additional proof, it may be mentioned that the temple of Hera
Hypercheiria was erected in commemoration of the subsiding of an
inundation of the Eurotas, which shows it must have been somewhere
nearly within reach of the waters of that stream. For the street Aphetæ
no direction is left but that towards the north-west or the north-east;
but the latter led to the temple of Artemis Orthia in the Limnæ, the
former to the temple of Dictynna. The street Aphetæ led therefore to the
north-west, no other road being mentioned but that leading from Mount
Thornax over the bridge Babyx, which was not the street called Aphetæ.
Thus we have the direction of every one of the great streets of Sparta
incontrovertibly determined. Proceed we now to establish the position,
with respect to the citadel, of each of the five tribes who occupied as
many quarters of the city. First we learn from Pausanias that the
Pitanatæ inhabited the quarter round the Issorion:[310] from Pindar[311]
and his scholiast that they dwelt likewise near the banks of the
Eurotas. They possessed therefore the whole southern quarter of the
city.[312] As the Limnatæ obtained their name from the marshes near
which they lived, the position of the Limnæ determined by the chain of
reasoning given above, proves them to have occupied the eastern quarter
of the city directly opposite the temple of Artemis Orthia. That the
tribe of the Ægidæ inhabited all that part extending in one direction
from the Issorion to the Dromos, and in the other from the banks of the
Tiasa to the Boonetos, may almost with certainty be inferred from the
circumstance that the tomb of Ægeus, their founder, was situated in this
quarter, close to the Lesche Pœcile. The quarter of the Mesoatæ lay in
the north-west, between the Dromos and the temple of Dictynna; for here
was found the tomb of Alcman who belonged to that tribe. All the rest of
the site being thus occupied, there remains only for the tribe of the
Cynosuræ that part lying between the road to Thornax and the temple of
Dictynna, where accordingly we must suppose them to have lived.
Footnote 308:
Plut. Lycurg. § 11. Lacon. Apoph. Lycurg. 7.
Footnote 309:
Plut. Lycurg. § 5.
Footnote 310:
Polyæn. Stratag. ii. 1. 14. with the notes of Casaub. and Maasvic.
Footnote 311:
Olymp. vi. 28. Cf. Spanheim, ad Callim. in Dian. 172.
Footnote 312:
Cf. Athen. i. 57.
With respect to the bridge Babyx, if bridge it really was, it appears
very difficult[313] to believe that it spanned the Tiasa, though we
still find massive ruins of arches in the channel of that stream. There
seems to be much stronger reason for supposing it to have been thrown
over the Eurotas, where the road from the Isthmus traversed it.[314] We
should then understand by the oracle which commanded Lycurgus to
assemble his people between Babyx and Cnacion,[315] that he was to
gather them together anywhere within the precincts of the city.
Accordingly we find in the time of Lycurgus, that the Agora in the
centre of Sparta was the place were the Apellæ[316] were held. This,
too, is evident, by the sense in which the matter was understood by
Plutarch, who, speaking of the victory of the Bœotians over the Spartans
at Tegyra, observes, that by this event it was made manifest that not
the Eurotas, or the space between Babyx and Cnacion alone produced brave
and warlike men.[317] Now it appears to me, that a few meadows without
the city on which assemblies of the people were occasionally convened
could never be said to produce these people. I have therefore supposed
that Babyx was the bridge by which travellers coming from the Isthmus
entered Sparta.
Footnote 313:
This, however, is the opinion of Mr. Müller, Dor. ii. 456.
Footnote 314:
See the passage in which Xenophon (v. 5. 27), describes the advance of
the Thebans upon Sparta.
Footnote 315:
Plut. Lycurg. § 6.
Footnote 316:
Gœttl. ad Aristot. Pol. Excurs. i. p. 464.
Footnote 317:
Pelop. § 17.
BOOK II.
EDUCATION.
CHAPTER I.
THEORY OF EDUCATION.—BIRTH OF CHILDREN.—INFANTICIDE.
Whether on education the Greeks thought more wisely than we do or
not,[318] they certainly contemplated the subject from a more elevated
point of view. They regarded it as the matrix in which future
generations are fashioned, and receive that peculiar temperament and
character belonging to the institutions that presided at their birth.
Their theories were so large as to comprehend the whole developement of
individual existence, from the moment when the human germ is quickened
into life until the grave closes the scene, and in many cases looked
still further; for the rites of initiation and a great part of their
ethics had reference to another world. On this account we find their
legislators possessed by extreme solicitude respecting the character of
those teachers into whose hands the souls of the people were to be
placed, to receive the first principles of good or evil, to be
invigorated, raised, and purified by the former, or by the latter to be
perverted, or precipitated down the slopes of vice and effeminacy, by
which nations sink from freedom to servitude. Among them, moreover, it
was never matter of doubt, whether the light of knowledge should be
allowed to stream upon the summits of society only, or be suffered to
descend into its lower depths and visit the cottages of the poor.
Whatever education had to impart was, in most states, imparted to all
the citizens, as far as their leisure or their capacity would permit
them to receive it. The whole object, indeed, of education among the
Greeks was to create good citizens, from which it has by some been
inferred that they confined their views to the delivering of secular
instruction. But this is to take a narrow and ignorant view of the
subject, since religion was not only an element of education but
regarded as of more importance than all its other elements taken
together. For it had not escaped the Hellenic legislators, that in many
circumstances of life man is placed beyond the reach and scrutiny of
laws and public opinion, where he must be free to act according to the
dictates of conscience, which, if not rightly trained, purified, and
rendered clearsighted by religion, will often dictate amiss. It is of
the utmost moment, therefore, that in these retired situations man
should not consider himself placed beyond the range of every eye, and so
be tempted to lay the foundation of habits which, begun in secrecy, may
soon acquire boldness to endure the light and set the laws themselves at
defiance. Accordingly over those retired moments in which man at first
sight appears to commune with himself alone, religion was called in to
teach that there were invisible inspectors, who registered, not only the
evil deeds and evil words they witnessed, but even the evil thoughts and
emotions of the heart, the first impulses to crime in the lowest abysses
of the mind. Consistently with this view of the subject, we discover
everywhere in Greek history and literature traces of an almost
puritanical scrupulousness in whatever appeared to belong to religion,
so that in addressing the Athenians St. Paul himself was induced to
reproach them with the excesses of their devotional spirit, which
degenerated too frequently into superstition. But the original design
with which this spirit was cultivated was wise and good, its intention
being to rescue men from the sway of their inferior passions,—from envy,
from avarice, from selfishness, and to inspire them with faith in their
own natural dignity by representing their actions as of sufficient
importance to excite the notice, provoke the anger, or conciliate the
favour of the immortal gods. This religion, which base and sordid minds
regard as humiliating to humanity, was by Grecian lawgivers and founders
of states contemplated as a kind of holy leaven designed by God himself,
to pervade, quicken, and expand society to its utmost dimensions.
Footnote 318:
Dion Chrysostom tells a curious story respecting a blunder of the
Athenians on this subject. Apollo once commanding them, if they
desired to become good citizens, to put whatever was most beautiful in
the ears of their sons, they bored one of the lobes, and inserted a
gold earring, not comprehending the meaning of the God. But this
ornament would better have suited their daughters or the sons of
Lydians or Phrygians; but for the offspring of Greeks, nothing could
have been intended by the God but education and reason, the possessors
of which would probably become good men, and the preservers of their
country.—Orat. xxxii. t. i. p. 653. sqq.—The popular maxim that
knowledge is power may be traced to Plato.—De Rep. v. t. vi. p. 268.
The question which commands so much attention in modern states, viz.
whether education should be national and uniform, likewise much occupied
the thoughts of ancient statesmen, and it is known that in most cases
they decided in the affirmative. It may however be laid down as an
axiom, that among a phlegmatic and passive-minded people, where the
government has not yet acquired its proper form and developement, the
establishment of a national system of education, complete in all its
parts and extending to the whole body of the citizens, must be
infallibly pernicious. For such as the government is at the commencement
such very nearly will it continue, as was proved by the example of Crete
and Sparta. For the Cretan legislators, arresting the progress of
society at a certain point by the establishment of an iron system of
education, before the popular mind had acquired its full growth and
expansion, dwarfed the Cretan people completely, and by preventing their
keeping pace with their countrymen rendered them in historical times
inferior to all their neighbours. In Sparta, again, the form of polity
given to the state by Lycurgus, wonderful for the age in which it was
framed, obtained perpetuity solely by the operation of his pædonomical
institutions. The imperfection, however, of the system arose from this
circumstance, that the Spartan government was framed too early in the
career of civilisation. Had its lawgiver lived a century or two later,
he would have established his institutions on a broader and more
elevated basis, so that they would have remained longer nearly on a
level with the progressive institutions of neighbouring states. But he
fixed the form of the Spartan commonwealth when the general mind of
Greece had scarcely emerged from barbarism; and as the rigid and
unyielding nature of his laws forbade any great improvement, Sparta
continued to bear about her in the most refined ages of Greece
innumerable marks of the rude period in which she had risen. From this
circumstance flowed many of her crimes and misfortunes. Forbidden to
keep pace with her neighbours in knowledge and refinement, which by
rendering them inventive, enterprising, and experienced, elevated them
to power, she was compelled, in order to maintain her ground, to have
recourse to astuteness, stratagem, and often to perfidy.
The Spartan system, it is well known, made at first, and for some ages,
little or no use of books. But this, at certain stages of society, was
scarcely an evil;[319] for knowledge can be imparted, virtues implanted
and cherished, and great minds ripened to maturity without their aid.
The teacher, in this case, rendered wise by meditation and experience,
takes the place of a book, and by oral communication, by precept, and by
example, instructs, and disciplines, and moulds his pupil into what he
would have him be. By this process both are benefited. The preceptor’s
mind, kept in constant activity, acquires daily new force and expansion;
and the pupil’s in like manner. In a state, therefore, like that of
Sparta, in the age of Lycurgus, it was possible to acquire all necessary
knowledge without books, of which indeed very few existed. But
afterwards, when the Ionian republics began to be refined and elevated
by philosophy and literature, Sparta, unable to accompany them, fell
into the background: still preserving, however, her warlike habits she
was enabled on many occasions to overawe and subdue them.
Footnote 319:
Montagne relates, in his Travels (t. iii. p. 51), an instance of how
the mind may be cultivated, particularly in poetry, by persons
ignorant of the art of reading and writing. His Lucchese
improvisatrice may be regarded as a match for the ancient rhapsodists.
Among the Athenians,[320] though knowledge was universally diffused,
there existed, properly speaking, no system of national education. The
people, like their state, were in perpetual progress, aiming at
perfection, and sometimes approaching it; but precipitated by the excess
of their intellectual and physical energies into numerous and constantly
recurring errors. While Sparta, as we have seen, remained content with
the wisdom indigenous to her soil, scanty and imperfect as it was,
Athens converted herself into one vast mart, whither every man who had
anything new to communicate hastened eagerly, and found the sure reward
of his ingenuity. Philosophers, sophists, geometricians, astronomers,
artists, musicians, actors, from all parts of Greece and her most
distant colonies, flocked to Athens to obtain from its quick-sighted,
versatile, impartial, and most generous people that approbation which in
the ancient world constituted fame. Therefore, although the laws
regulated the material circumstances of the schools and gymnasia,
prescribed the hours at which they should be opened and closed, and
watched earnestly over the morals both of preceptors and pupils, there
was a constant indraught of fresh science, a perpetually increasing
experience and knowledge of the world, and, consequent thereupon, a
deep-rooted conviction of their superiority over their neighbours, an
impatience of antiquated forms, and an audacious reliance on their own
powers and resources which betrayed them into the most hazardous schemes
of ambition.
Footnote 320:
Cf. Plat. De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 1.
But, by pushing too far their literary and philosophical studies, the
Athenians were induced at length to neglect the cultivation of the arts
of war, which they appeared to regard as a low and servile drudgery. And
this capital error, in spite of all their acquirements and achievements
in eloquence and philosophy,—in spite of their lofty speculation and
“style of gods,” brought their state to a premature dissolution; while
Sparta, with inferior institutions, and ignorance which even the
children at Athens would have laughed at, was enabled much longer to
preserve its existence, from its impassioned application to the use of
arms, aided, perhaps, by a stronger and more secluded position. From
this it appears that of all sciences that of war is the chiefest, since,
where this is cultivated, a nation may maintain its independence without
the aid of any other; whereas the most knowing, refined, and cultivated
men, if they neglect the use of arms, will not be able to stand their
ground against a handful even of barbarians. They mistake, too, who look
upon literature and the sciences as a kind of palladium against
barbarism,[321] for a whole nation may read and write, like the
inhabitants of the Birman empire, without being either civilised or
wise; and may possess the best books and the power to read them, without
being able to profit by the lessons of wisdom they contain, as is proved
by the example of the Greeks and Romans, who perished rather from a
surfeit of knowledge than from any lack of instruction. But it is time,
perhaps, to quit these general speculations, and proceed to develope, as
far as existing monuments will enable us, the several systems of
education which prevailed in the different parts of Greece.
Footnote 321:
Notwithstanding that Plato regards knowledge as the medicine of the
soul.—Crit. t. vii. p. 145.—Cf. t. viii. p. 2. seq.—Aristot. Ethic.
vi. 13.
Among Hellenic legislators the care of children commenced before their
birth. Their mothers were subject while pregnant to the operation of
certain rules; their food and exercises were regulated, and in most
cases the laws, or at least the manners, required them to lead a
sedentary, inactive, and above all a tranquil life.[322] Physicians,
guided by experience, prescribed a somewhat abstemious diet; and wine
was prohibited, or only permitted to be taken with water, which, where
reason is consulted, we find to be the practice at the present day. But
Lycurgus, in the article of exercise, gave birth to, or, at least,
sanctioned, customs wholly different.[323] Even while _enceinte_ his
women were required to be abroad, engaged in their usual athletic
recreations, eating as before and drinking as before.
Footnote 322:
Plat. de Legg. l. vii. t. viii. pp. 4. et 11.—During the pregnancy of
women great care was taken not to bring into the house the wood of the
ostrya or carpinus ostrys, the appearance of which was ominous of
difficult births, or even of sudden death. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii.
10. 3.
Footnote 323:
Xenoph. de Rep. Laced. i. 3. Perizon. ad Ælian. Var. Hist. x. 13.
On this occasion, too, as on all others, the deep-rooted piety of the
nation displayed itself. Prayers and sacrifices were habitually offered
up by all married persons for children, as afterwards by Christian
ladies to the saints;[324] and these of course were not discontinued,
when it appeared by unequivocal signs that their desires had begun to
receive their fulfilment. What the divinities were whom on these
occasions the Athenian matrons invoked under the name of _Tritopatores_,
it seems difficult to determine. Demon in Suidas[325] supposes them to
be the winds; but Philochoros, the most learned of ancient writers on
the antiquities of Attica, imagined them to be the first three sons of
Helios and Gaia. According to some they were called Cottos or Coros,
Gyges or Gyes, and Briareus; according to others Amalcides, Protocles,
and Protocleon, the watchers and guardians of the wind. There are
authors, moreover, by whom they have been confounded with the Dii Kabyri
of Samothrace.
Footnote 324:
Theodoret. iv. 921.
Footnote 325:
_v._ Τριτοπ. t. ii. p. 947. b. seq. Cf. Siebel. ad Frag. Philoch. p.
11. Meurs. Græc. Fer. p. 264. Lect. Att. iii. 1. Vales. in Harpoc. p.
223. seq.
During the period of their confinement women were supposed to be under
the protection of Eileithyia. This goddess, who by Olen the Lycian was
considered older than Kronos,[326] had the honour as certain mythical
legends relate, of being the mother of love,[327] though several ancient
authors appear to have confounded her with Pepromene or Fate, others
with Hera, and others again with Artemis or the moon. The traditions of
the mythology respecting this divinity were various. Her worship seems
to have made its first appearance among the Greeks in the island of
Delos, whither she is said to have come from the country of the
Hyperboreans, to lend her aid to Leto, when beneath the palm tree, which
Zeus caused to spring up over her,[328] she gave birth to the gods of
night and day. From that time forward she was held in veneration by the
Delians, who in her honour offered up sacrifices, chaunting the hymns of
Olen, whence we may infer she was a Pelasgian deity.
Footnote 326:
Paus. viii. 21. 3.
Footnote 327:
Paus. ix. 27. 2. Cf. Cic. de Nat. Deor. iii. 23.
Footnote 328:
Callim. ii. 4.
From thence her name and worship were diffused through the other islands
and states of Hellas; though the Cretans pretended that she was born at
Amnisos in the Knossian territory, and was a daughter of Hera. The
Athenians, who erected a temple to Eileithyia appeared to favour both
traditions, since of the two statues which were found in her fane the
more ancient was said to have been brought from Delos by Erisicthon,
while the second, dedicated by Phædra, came from Crete. Among the
Athenians, alone, as an indication of the national modesty, the wooden
images of this mysterious divinity were significantly veiled to the
toes.[329]
Footnote 329:
Paus. i. 18. 5. Cf. Keightley, Mythol. p. 193. In Arcadia, also, this
goddess was so closely draped that nothing was visible but the
countenance, fingers, and toes.—Paus. vii. 23. 5.
The simple delicacy of remoter ages required women to be attended, while
becoming mothers, by individuals of their own sex. But the contrary
practice, now general among civilised nations, prevailed early at
Athens, where the study of medicine, in which the accoucheur’s[330] art
is included, was prohibited to women and slaves. The consequences bear
stronger testimony to the refined taste and truly feminine feelings of
the Athenian ladies than a thousand panegyrics. Numbers, rather than
submit to the immodest injunctions of fashion, declined all aid, and
perished in their harems: observing which, and moved strongly by the
desire to preserve the lives of her noble-minded countrywomen, a female
citizen named Agnodice, disguised as a man, acquired a competent
knowledge of the theory and practice of physic in the medical school of
Herophilos; she then confided her secret to the women who universally
determined to avail themselves of her services, and in consequence her
practice became so extensive that the jealousy of the other
practitioners was violently excited. In revenge, therefore, as she still
maintained her disguise, they preferred an accusation against her in the
court of Areiopagos as a general seducer. To clear herself Agnodice made
known her sex, upon which the envious Æsculapians prosecuted her under
the provisions of the old law. In behalf of their benefactress the
principal gentlewomen appeared in court, and mingling the highest
testimony in favour of Agnodice with many bitter reproaches, they not
only obtained her acquittal, but the repeal of the obnoxious law, and
permission for any free woman to become an accoucheuse.[331]
Footnote 330:
The duties of an accoucheuse are briefly enumerated by Max. Tyr.
Dissert. xxviii. p. 333. Cf. Pignor. de Serv. 184.
Footnote 331:
Hygin. Fab. 274.
Mention is made by ancient writers of several rude and hardy tribes,
whose women, like those of Hindùstân at the present day, stood in very
little need of the midwife’s aid. Thus Varro,[332] speaking of the rough
shepherdesses of Italy, observes that among the countrywomen of Illyria,
bringing forth children was regarded as a slight matter; for that,
stepping aside from their work in the fields, they would return
presently with an infant in their arms, having first bathed it in some
fountain or running stream, appearing rather to have found, than given
birth to, a child. Nor are the manners of these uncultivated people at
all altered in modern times, as appears from an anecdote related to
Pietro Vittore,[333] by Francesco Sardonati, professor of Latin at
Ragusa, who said that he saw a woman go out empty-handed to a forest for
wood, and return shortly afterwards with a bundle on her head and a
new-born infant in her arms. At Athens, however, where the women were
peculiarly tender and delicate, the young mother remained within doors
full six weeks,[334] when the festival of the fortieth day was
celebrated, after which she went forth, as our ladies do to be churched,
to offer up sacrifices and return thanks in the temple of Artemis or
some other divinity.
Footnote 332:
De Re Rust. ii. 10.
Footnote 333:
Var. Lect. xxxiv. 2.
Footnote 334:
Meurs. Græc. Fer. p. 260. sqq. Censor. de Die Natali. c. 11.
New-born infants, when designed to be reared, were at Athens and in the
rest of Greece bathed in cold water: at Sparta in wine, with the view of
producing convulsions and death should the child be feeble, whereas,
were its constitution strong and vigorous, it would thus they imagined,
“acquire a greater degree of firmness, and get a temper in proportion,
as Potter[335] expresses it, like steel in the quenching.”
Swaddling-bands[336] also, in use throughout the rest of Greece, were
banished from Sparta, which led the way therefore to that improved
system of infant management advocated by Rousseau, Lacépède and
others,[337] and now generally adopted in this country, though but
partially in France. The ceremonies and customs of the Greeks were a
kind of symbolical language, many times containing important meaning,
and always perhaps indicative of the character and familiar feelings of
the race. Much stress was laid on the thing wherein the infant was
placed upon its entrance into the world. This, among the Athenians,
consisted of a wrapper adorned with an embroidered figure of the
Gorgon’s head, the device represented on the shield of Athena, tutelar
divinity of the state. From the beginning every citizen seemed thus to
be placed under the immediate shelter of that goddess’s ægis which
should be extended over him in peace and in war. In other parts of
Greece the child’s first bed, and too frequently his last, was a
shield.[338] In accordance with this custom we find Alcmena cradling her
twin boys Heracles and Iphicles in Amphytrion’s buckler; and the same
practice prevailed, as might have been expected, at Sparta, where war
constituted to men the sole object of life.[339] Elsewhere other symbols
spoke to the future sense rather than the present of the new citizen. In
agricultural countries the military symbol was replaced by a winnowing
van, not unfrequently of gold or other costly materials;[340] though it
may be doubted whether the word so rendered meant not rather a cradle in
the form of that rustic implement.
Footnote 335:
Antiq. ii. 320.
Footnote 336:
Coray, ad Hippoc. de Aër. et Loc. ii. 309.
Footnote 337:
Even so early as the age of Montaigne the necessity of some change was
felt. “Les liaisons et emmaillottements des enfans ne sont non plus
necessaires.” He then alludes to the practice of the Spartan
nurses.—Essais, ii. 12. However, in certain habits of body, swaddling
is not merely useful, but necessary: as Hippocrates remarks in his
account of the Scythians (de Aër. et Loc. § 101), and as his able
commentator, Coray, confirms by example. _ubi sup._
Footnote 338:
Theoc. Eidyll. xxiv. 4. ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τὰς. Plut. Lacæn. Apophtheg. t.
ii. p. 187.
Footnote 339:
Nonn. Dionys. xli. 168. seq. Sch. Thucyd. ii. 39.
Footnote 340:
Callim. Hymn. in Jov. 48.
In another custom, long on these occasions observed, we discern traces
of that serpent-worship which at different epochs diffused itself so
widely over the world. Among opulent and noble families at Athens
new-born children were laid on golden amulets in the form of dragons by
which they were supposed to commemorate Athena’s delivery of
Erichthonios to the care of two guardians of that description.[341]
Footnote 341:
Eurip. Ion. 15. sqq.—There were certain amulets, too, called περίαπτα
which superstitious mothers hung about the necks of their children to
defend them from fascination and the evil eye. Pollux, iv. 182. Vict.
in Arist. Ethic. Nicom. p. 42.
But under certain circumstances, instead of the joy and gladness by
which the noble and the great are greeted on their entrance into the
world, the birth of a child was, as in Thrace,[342] an event fraught
with sorrow and misery. It announced in fact the approach of an enemy,
of one who, if he survived, must snatch from them a portion of what
already would scarcely sustain life. Together with the announcement of
his birth, therefore, came the awful consciousness that war must be made
on him—that he must in short be cast forth, a scape-goat for the sins of
society, not for his own—that his parents who should have cherished him,
whose best solace he should have been, must steel their hearts and close
fast their ears against the voice of nature, and become his
executioners. The poor-laws of Greece, or rather their substitutes for
poor-laws, were exceedingly imperfect, and foundling hospitals had not
been introduced. They got rid of their surplus population, as many
nations still do, by murder; for infanticide, under various forms, has
more or less prevailed in all civilised countries, if the term civilised
can properly be applied to nations among whom crimes so demoralising are
habitually perpetrated. No doubt the sullen reluctance of a father to
imbrue his hands in the blood of his child produced daily many a
heart-rending scene; no doubt the sting of want must have been keenly
felt before the habit of slaughter was confirmed;—but the fashion once
set, children were thrown into an earthen pot and exposed in mountainous
and desert places to perish of cold, or fall a prey to carnivorous
birds[343] or wolves, as coolly as they are murdered by their young and
frail mothers in our own Christian land.
Footnote 342:
Sext. Empir. p. 186.
Footnote 343:
Vict. (Var. Lect. ii. 3) has an useful chapter on the exposing of
infants, in which he has collected several valuable testimonies.
Under all circumstances, however, the parents thus criminal are objects
of pity. Misery is blind, and crime is blind. But what shall we say to
those priests of humanity, those sacred and reverend interpreters of
nature,—the philosophers who come forward to sanction and justify the
practice? It would be criminal to disguise the fact, that both Plato and
Aristotle, the great representatives of the wisdom of the Pagan
world,[344] conceived infanticide, under certain circumstances, to be
allowable. Near, therefore, as the former stood to the truths of
Christianity, there was still a cloud between him and them. What he saw,
he saw through a glass darkly. Christ had not then stamped the seal of
divinity upon human nature, had not shed abroad that light by which
alone we discover the true features of crime, no less than the true
features of holiness. Philosophy is beautiful; but with the beauty of
one involuntarily polluted. Religion alone, breathing of heaven, radiant
with light, reflected on its whole form from the face of God, is lovely
altogether without spot or blemish. The Greeks wanting this guide went
astray. They looked at the question of population as coarse
utilitarians,—all but the gross, unintellectual Thebans, who, relying on
the vast fertility of their soil, or led by some better instinct, on
this point soared high above their cultivated neighbours, an example of
how the foolish things of this world, even in the unregenerate state of
nature, may sometimes confound the wise. Among the Tyrrhenians,[345]
likewise, a people of Pelasgian origin, infanticide was unknown,
probably because among them it was accounted no disgrace to be the
parents of illegitimate offspring; indeed the sense of shame could not,
in any case, be very keen among a people whose female slaves served
naked at table, and where even the ladies appeared at public
entertainments in the same state, drinking bumpers and joining freely in
the conversation of the men.
Footnote 344:
Plato, de Rep. v. § 9. p. 359. Stallb. Aristot. Pol. vii. 16. Cf.
Lips. Epist. ad Belg. Cent. 1. c. 85. with the work of Gerard Noodt,
entitled “Julius Paulus,” in opp. Lugd. Bat. 1726. pp. 567, seq. 591.
seq. Elmenhorst. ad Minuc. Felic. Octav. 289. ed. Ouzel.
Footnote 345:
Athen. xii. 14.
In the modern world to take the life of an infant is a capital offence,
yet we see with how little fear or ceremony the law is set at nought. It
will, therefore, readily be supposed that in those countries of
antiquity where neither law nor public opinion opposed the practice, but
in some cases winked at, in others enjoined it, the number of
child-murders must have been enormous. Sparta very naturally took the
lead in this guilty course.[346] Here it was not permitted to private
individuals to make away with their offspring stealthily, and with those
marks of shame and compunction inseparable from individual guilt. The
state monopolized the right to Herodise, and by sharing the criminality
among great numbers appeared to silence the objections of conscience.
Fathers were compelled by law to bring their new-born infants to certain
officers, old, grave men,[347] who held their sittings in the Lesche of
their tribe, and after due deliberation determined on the claim of each
child to live or die. By what rules they decided, rude and ignorant of
physiology as they were, it would now be impossible positively to
affirm. Little skill no doubt had they in detecting the latent seeds of
robustness and physical energy, still less those of splendid mental
endowments lurking in the crimson countenance of helpless infancy. They
who might have proved the wise and good of their generation no doubt
often went instead of the mere animal. However, giving orders that the
strong and apparently healthy should be nursed, the weakly and delicate,
often the noblest men, and the bravest soldiers, as witness Lucius
Sulla, were condemned to be cast like so many puppy dogs into the
Apothetæ, a deep cavern at the foot of Mount Taygetos. This den of death
relieved the Spartans from the necessity of erecting workhouses or
enacting poor-laws. The surplus population went into that pit.
Footnote 346:
Compare the coolness of Hase. p. 190. Müller. ii. 313. with Lamb. Bos.
p. 212. seq. and the humane remarks of Ubbo Emmius iii. 83. Potter,
too (ii. 326. sqq.), seems to disapprove of the practice.
Footnote 347:
Plut. Lycurg. 16.
To a certain extent, and in a mitigated form, the same practice
prevailed at Athens. Here, however, it was more a matter of custom than
of law, and in this respect differed materially[348] from the practice
of Sparta, that it was left entirely to the father to determine the fate
of his children. Accordingly, the more cold-blooded had recourse to
murder, while the less atrocious exposed them in jars in desert places
to perish, or in the thronged and crowded quarters of the city in the
hope that they might excite in others that compassion, which he, their
father, denied them.[349] And humane individuals were often found who,
like our Squire Allworthy, would sympathise with these deserted
creatures.[350] Numerous examples occur in the comic poets. In these
cases poverty was no doubt the motive, particularly when boys were
exposed; but even wealthy persons, reasoning like the Rajpoots of
northern India, would prefer exposing their daughters, to the care and
expense of educating them to an uncertain destiny. On these occasions
the child was dressed and swaddled more or less carefully, placed in a
large earthen vessel called a chytra,[351]—the same in which soup was
made, and which ought, therefore, to have awakened humane
associations,—and laid at the mouth of some cave without the walls, or
in such situations as I have above described. To this custom allusion is
made in the anecdote of a foundling, who amusing himself by rolling a
chytra before him with his foot, “What! exclaimed some one desirous of
reminding him of his origin, have you the impiety to kick your mother in
the belly?”[352]
Footnote 348:
Petit is of the contrary opinion, but his authorities by no means bear
him out.—Legg. Att. lib. ii. tit. 4. p. 144.
Footnote 349:
Paulus, ap. Petit. ubi sup.
Footnote 350:
On the ceremony of adoption, see Potter ii. 335. Compare Lady
Montague’s Works, iii. 12.
Footnote 351:
Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 289, or sometimes ὄστρακον, Ran. 1221.
Footnote 352:
Sch. Aristoph. Thesmoph. 509.
Sometimes when the object was rather to escape shame than to shun the
expense of education, rings, jewels, or other valuable tokens were
suspended about the child, or put along with it into the chytra.[353]
And in the comic writers these usually assist in bringing about a
discovery. If they fell into the hands of the poor the costly marks of
noble birth, always held in honour by the ignorant and needy, would
perhaps tempt them to preserve and cherish the off-cast, as in the case
of Shakespeare’s Perdita, or in the event of death, would defray the
expenses of their funerals. Sometimes superstition operated on their
minds, urging them into a mock show of sharing their possessions with
the little wretches they abandoned.[354] Thus Sostrata, wife of Chremes,
in the Self-tormentor delivered along with her little daughter to the
person who was to expose it, a ring from her own finger to be left with
the child, that should it die it might not be wholly deprived of all
share of their property. Such also is the behaviour of Creusa in
Euripides; for Hermes, whom the poet introduces unfolding the argument
of the drama, relates that when the young princess laid her new-born son
to perish in the cavern, where he had been conceived, she took off her
costly ornaments and with them decked her devoted boy.[355]
Footnote 353:
Vict. Var. Lect. ii. 3. Aristot. Poet. xvi.
Footnote 354:
Terent. Heautontim. iv. i. 36 seq. Victor. Var. Lect. ii. 3. Cf. Ter.
Hecyr. iii. 3. 31. sqq.
Footnote 355:
Eurip. Ion, 26. seq. Cf. 15. sqq.
From another part of the same play it may be inferred that children were
often exposed on the steps of Apollo’s temple at Delphi, and nurtured by
the Pythoness.[356] Indeed the priestess, on discovering Ion, who had
been brought thither by Hermes from Attica, concludes at once that some
unfortunate Delphian girl[357] is his mother, and adopts him under that
impression. From the sequel it would appear that such children were the
slaves of the temple, and under the immediate protection of the
god.[358]
Footnote 356:
Conf. Hypoth. Ion.
Footnote 357:
Δελφίδων τλαίη κόρη. κ. τ. λ. Ion, 44. sqq.
Footnote 358:
Ion, 53. sqq.
In the plain of Eleutheræ, near the temple of Dionysos, is a cavern, and
close beside it a fountain. Here, according to the poets, Antiope
brought forth Zethos and Amphion, twin sons of Zeus, whom, to conceal
her shame, she abandoned where they were born. The infants were
immediately afterwards discovered by a shepherd, who, having bathed them
in the neighbouring spring, took them to his cot, where they were
brought up as his own children.[359] The catastrophe of many an ancient
play was brought about by a discovery of the real characters of persons
who had been exposed in infancy. Thus Œdipus, whose story is too well
known to need repetition, was abandoned on Mount Cithæron. The daughters
of Phineus,[360] of whom nothing else has come down to us, had been cast
forth in infancy and preserved, and were afterwards brought to be put to
death on the same spot; by alluding to which their lives were saved. The
sons,[361] likewise, of Tyro, Peleus and Neleus, were deserted by their
mother, who placed them in a little bark or chest on the banks of the
Enipeus, a circumstance which served afterwards to reveal the parentage
of the twins. The story of Romulus and Remus, who were thus abandoned by
their vestal mother, is familiar to every reader; and from the example
of Moses recorded in the sacred volume, we may infer that the exposing
of children was common in remoter ages in Egypt. Pindar,[362] in
relating the birth of the prophet Iamos, presents us with a poetical
picture of one of these unhappy transactions. Evadne, daughter of
Poseidon by the river-nymph Pitana, dwelling at the court of Æpytos a
king of Arcadia, going forth, like the daughters of the Patriarchs, to
draw water from a fountain, is overtaken by her birth-pangs.
“Her crimsoned girdle down was flung,
The silver ewer beside her laid,
Amid a tangled thicket, hung
With canopy of brownest shade;
When forth the glorious babe she brought,
His soul instinct with heavenly thought.
Sent by the golden-tressed god,
Near her the Fates indulgent stood,
With Eileithyia mild.
One short sweet pang released the child,
And Iamos sprang forth to light.
A wail she uttered; left him then,
Where on the ground he lay;
When straight two dragons came,
With eyes of azure flame,
By will divine awaked out of their den;
And with the bees’ unharmful venom they
Fed him, and nursled through the night and day.
The king meanwhile had come
From stony Pytho driving, and at home
Did of them all after the boy inquire
Born of Evadne; for, he said, the sire
Was Phœbos, and that he
Should of earth’s prophets wisest be,
And that his generation should not fail.
Not to have seen or heard him they avouched,
Now five days born. But he, on rushes couched,
Was covered up in that wide brambly maze;
His delicate body met
With yellow and empurpled rays
From many a violet:
And hence his mother bade him claim
For ever this undying name.”
Footnote 359:
Paus. ii. 6. 4.—Cf. Casaub. Diatrib. in Dion. Chrysost. ii. 469.
Footnote 360:
Aristot. Poet. xvi. 8. cum not. Herm. p. 156.
Footnote 361:
Arist. Poet. xvi. 3.
Footnote 362:
Olymp. vi. 39. sqq. Diss. I give the passage as it is elegantly
translated by Mr. Cary.
Generally, it would appear, illegitimate children were exposed in the
neighbourhood of the Gymnasium, in the Cynosarges, because, as suggested
by Suidas, Heracles, who was himself a bastard, had a temple there.
On the subject of infanticide the Thebans,[363] as I have said,
entertained juster sentiments than the rest of their countrymen. By
their institutions it was made a capital crime; but because severe laws
would not furnish the indigent with the means of supporting the children
they were forbidden to kill, they by another enactment provided for
their maintenance. If a poor man found himself unable to support an
addition to his family, he was commanded to bear his children
immediately from the birth, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, to the
magistrates, who disposed of them for a small sum to wealthy people in
want of children or servants: for, according to the Theban laws, they
who undertook the charge of foundlings, if they may be so called, were
entitled to their services in return for their nursing and education.
Footnote 363:
Ælian, Var. Hist. ii. 7.—Cf. Phil. Jud. de Legg. Special. p. 543.
Connected with infanticide is another subject equally important, but of
very difficult treatment; that is practices to destroy the infant before
the birth.[364] In modern nations all such offences are theoretically
visited with very severe punishment by the law, and public opinion so
strongly condemns them that no one solicitous of upholding a respectable
character in society will dare to be their apologist. It was otherwise
in antiquity. The greatest dread of a superabundant population was in
many states felt, and led to customs and acts of a very nefarious
nature; for some classes of which, if not for all, writers of highest
eminence are found to plead. Thus Pliny,[365] commonly a great declaimer
in behalf of virtue, admits that some artificial limit should be put to
female productiveness; and Aristotle, despite his far nobler and more
generous ethics, had on this point no loftier views. The regulations
also of the Cretan Minos—but let them remain in the obscurity which
encompasses his entire code.
Footnote 364:
See in Pollux, ii. 7. and iv. 208. a whole vocabulary of terms
connected with this practice. In his note on the former passage, p.
297. Iungermann refers to the Commentaries of Camerarius, c. 32. Cf.
Comm. in Poll. p. 507. seq. p. 541. et 891. seq. Tim. Lex. Plat. v.
ἐξαμβλοῦν. cum. not. Ruhnken. p. 62. ed. Lond. Plat. Theæt. t. iii. p.
190. Max. Tyr. xvi. p. 179. Jacob Gensius (Victimæ Humanæ, pt. ii. p.
247. seq.), enters fully into the question of abortion, which at Rome,
according to Justin, was procured to preserve the shape. The same
practice prevails in Formosa.—Richteren, Voyage de la Compagnie des
Indes, v. p. 70. Compare Lactant. v. p. 278. Phocyl. v. 172. seq.
Footnote 365:
Hist. Nat. xxxix. 27. t. viii. p. 404. Franz. Impie satis, as Kühn
observes in his note on Ælian, Var. Hist. ii. 7. Arist. Pol. vii. 15.
253. Gœttl. Cf. Foës. Œcon. Hippoc. vv. Ἀμβλῶσαι and ἀποφθορά.
Among the Romans several modern writers appear to suppose the existence
of more humane feelings, for which it would certainly have been
difficult to account. An ancient law attributed to Romulus has misled
them. By this it was enacted that no male child should be exposed; and
that of daughters the first should be permitted to live, while the
others having been brought up till they were three years old, might then
if judged expedient be destroyed.[366] The legislator, it is argued,
knew human nature too well to fear that parents who had preserved their
children three years would after that take away their lives. But infants
exceedingly mutilated or deformed might be killed at once, having first
been shown to five neighbours, and these neighbours, like the overseers
of murder at Lacedæmon, were probably lax in interpreting the law,
which, acknowledging the principle, would easily tolerate variations in
the practice.[367] Be this, however, as it may, child-murder and child
dropping were in imperial times of ordinary occurrence at Rome. There
was in the Herb-market a pillar called the “Milky column,”[368] whither
foundlings were brought to be suckled by public nurses, or to be fed
with milk—for the passage in Festus may be both ways interpreted, and
their numbers would seem to have been considerable. The Christian
writers constantly object the practice of infanticide to the Romans.
“You cast forth your sons,” says Tertullian,[369] “to be picked up and
nourished by the first woman that passes.” And the poor, as Ambrose
remarks, would desert and expose their little ones, and if caught deny
them to be theirs.[370] Others adopted more decisive measures, and
instead of exposing strangled them.[371] Probably, moreover, it was the
atrocious device of legislators to get rid of their superabundant
population that gave rise to the rite of child-sacrificing known to have
prevailed among the Phœnicians, who passed their children through fire
to Moloch; and among their descendants the Carthaginians,[372] who
offered up infants to their gods, as at the present day our own
idolatrous subjects in the East cast forth their first-born infants on
islands at the mouth of the Ganges, to be devoured by the alligators. In
China Christianity has performed for infancy the same humane duty as in
ancient Rome, as many of the converts made by the Jesuits consisted of
foundlings whom they had picked up when cast forth by their parents to
perish in the streets.
Footnote 366:
Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. i. 81; ii. 15.
Footnote 367:
Seneca, de Irâ, l. i. Apuleius Metam. x. where a husband gives command
for the destruction of his daughter immediately on her birth.—Ap.
Lips. Epist. ad Belgas, Cent. i. p. 818. seq.
Footnote 368:
Fest. v. Lactaria Columna.
Footnote 369:
Apolog. c. 9.
Footnote 370:
Hexæm. l. v. c. 18.
Footnote 371:
Arnob. cont. Gent. viii. Lactant. Instit. vi. 20. ap. Lips. Epist. ad
Belg. 819.
Footnote 372:
Vid. Festus, v. Puelli.—In Syria children were sacrificed to the
goddess, in like manner with other victims, by being tied up in a sack
and then flung down from the lofty propylæa of her temple, their
parents, in the mean while, overwhelming them with contumely, and
protesting they were not children, but oxen.—Lucian. De Syriâ Deâ, §
58.
CHAPTER II.
BIRTH-FEAST—NAMING THE CHILD.—NURSERY—NURSERY
TALES—SPARTAN FESTIVAL.
To quit, however, this melancholy topic: while the poor, as we have
seen, were driven by despair to imbrue their hands in the blood of their
offspring, their more wealthy neighbours celebrated the birth of a
child[373] with a succession of banquets and rejoicings. Of these, the
first was held on the fifth day from the birth, when took place the
ceremony called Amphidromia, confounded by some ancient authors with the
festival of the tenth day.[374] On this occasion the accoucheuse or the
nurse, to whose care the child was now definitively consigned,[375]
having purified her hands with water,[376] ran naked[377] with the
infant in her arms, and accompanied by all the other females of the
family, in the same state, round the hearth,[378] which was regarded as
the altar of Hestia, the Vesta of the Romans. By this ceremony the child
was initiated in the rites of religion and placed under the protection
of the fire goddess, probably with the same view that infants are
baptized among us.
Footnote 373:
More particularly that of a son.—Casaub. ad Theophr. Char. p. 307.
Footnote 374:
Sch. Aristoph. Lysist. 757.
Footnote 375:
Etym. Mag. 89. 54.
Footnote 376:
Suid. in v. t. i. p. 214. d.
Footnote 377:
Hesych. in. v. δρομιάφιον. Meurs. Græc. Fer. p. 20. Brunck, in
Aristoph. Av. 922.
Footnote 378:
Harpocrat. in v. Cf. not. Gronov. p. 26.
Meanwhile the passer-by was informed that a fifth-day feast was
celebrating within, by symbols suspended on the street-door, which, in
case of a boy, consisted in an olive crown; and of a lock of wool,
alluding to her future occupations, when it was a girl.[379] Athenæus,
apropos of cabbage, which was eaten on this occasion, as well as by
ladies “in the straw,”[380] as conducing to create milk, quotes a comic
description of the Amphidromia from a drama of Ephippos, which proves
they were well acquainted with the arts of joviality.
“How is it
No wreathed garland decks the festive door,
No savoury odour creeps into the nostrils
Since ’tis a birth-feast? Custom, sooth, requires
Slices of rich cheese from the Chersonese,
Toasted and hissing; cabbage too in oil,
Fried brown and crisp, with smothered breast of lamb.
Chaffinches, turtle-doves, and good fat thrushes
Should now be feathered; rows of merry guests
Pick clean the bones of cuttle-fish together,
Gnaw the delicious feet of polypi,
And drink large draughts of scarcely mingled wine.[381]”
Footnote 379:
Hesych. ap. Meurs. Græc. Fer. p. 20.
Footnote 380:
Potter, ii. 322.
Footnote 381:
Athen. ix. 10. Cf. Ludovic. Nonn. De Pisc. Esu. c. 7. p. 28.
A sacrifice[382] was likewise this day offered up for the life of the
child, probably to the god Amphidromos, first mentioned, and therefore
supposed to have been invented by Æschylus.[383] It has moreover been
imagined that the name was now imposed, and gifts were presented by the
friends and household slaves.[384]
Footnote 382:
Cf. Aristoph. Lys. 700. cum not. et schol.—Plaut. Truc. ii. 4. 69.
Footnote 383:
Semel. fr. 203. Well.
Footnote 384:
Meurs. Gr. Fer. p. 21.
But it was on the seventh day that the child generally received its
name,[385] amid the festivities of another banquet; though sometimes
this was deferred till the tenth.[386] The reason is supplied by
Aristotle.[387] They delayed the naming thus long, he says, because most
children that perish in extreme infancy die before the seventh day,
which being passed they considered their lives more secure. The eighth
day was chosen by other persons for bestowing the name, and, this
considered the natal day, was solemnized annually as the anniversary of
its birth, on which occasion it was customary for the friends of the
family to assemble together, and present gifts to the child, consisting
sometimes of the polypi and cuttle-fish[388] to be eaten at the feast.
However the tenth day[389] appears to have been very commonly observed.
Thus Euripides:[390]
“Say, who delighting in a mother’s claim
Mid tenth-day feasts bestowed the ancestral name?”
Footnote 385:
Alex. ab Alex. 99. a.
Footnote 386:
Harpocrat. _v._ Ἑβδομ. p. 92. Cf. Lomeier, De Lustrat. Vet. Gentil. c.
27. p. 327. sqq.
Footnote 387:
Hist. Anim. vii. 12. Bekk.
Footnote 388:
Suid. v. Ἀμφιδ. t. i. p. 214. d.
Footnote 389:
Isæus, Pyrrh. Hæred. § 5. Dem. Adv. Bœot. §§ 6, 7. Lys. in Harpocrat.
v. Ἀμφιδρομ. p. 19.
Footnote 390:
Ægei. Frag. i.
Aristophanes, too, on the occasion of naming his Bird-city, which a
hungry poet pretends to have long ago celebrated, introduces
Peisthetæros saying,
“What! have I not but now the sacrifice
Of the tenth day completed and bestowed
A name as on a child?”[391]
Footnote 391:
Aves, 922. seq.
Connected with this custom, there is a very good anecdote in Polyænos,
from which Meursius[392] infers that there existed among the Greeks
something like the office of sponsor. Jason, tyrant of Pheræ, most of
whose stratagems were played off against members of his own family, had
a brother named Meriones, extremely opulent, but to the last degree
close-fisted, particularly towards him. When at length a son was born to
Jason, he invited to the Nominalia many principal nobles of Thessaly,
and among others his brother Meriones, who was to preside over the
ceremonies. In these he was probably occupied the whole day, during
which, under pretence, apparently, of providing some choice game for his
guests, the tyrant went out for a few hours with his dogs and usual
followers. His real object, however, soon appeared. Making direct for
Pagasæ, where his brother’s castle stood, he stormed the place, and
seizing on Meriones’ treasures, to the amount of twenty talents,
returned in all speed to the banquet. Here, by way of showing his
fraternal consideration, he delegated to his brother the honour of
pouring forth the libations, and bestowing the name, which was the
father’s prerogative. But Meriones receiving from one of the tyrant’s
attendants a hint of what had taken place, called the boy “Porthaon,” or
the “Plunderer.”[393] At Athens the feast and sacrifice took place at
night, with much pomp, and all the glee which such an occasion was
calculated to inspire.[394]
Footnote 392:
Græc. Feriat. p. 22.
Footnote 393:
Polyæn. Strat. vi. i. 6.
Footnote 394:
Suid. v. Δεκάτην ἑστιάσαν, t. i. p. 654. c. d.
On the bestowing of the name Potter’s information is particularly full.
He is probably right, too, in his conjecture, that in most countries the
principal object of calling together so great a number of friends to
witness this ceremony was to prevent such controversies as might arise
when the child came out into the business of the world. But at Athens
the Act of Registration[395] rendered such witnesses scarcely necessary.
The right of imposing the name belonged, as hinted above, to the father,
who likewise appears to have possessed the power afterwards to alter it
if he thought proper. They were compelled to follow no exact precedent;
but the general rule resembled one apparently observed by nature, which,
neglecting the likeness in the first generation, sometimes reproduces it
with extraordinary fidelity in the second. Thus, the grandson inheriting
often the features, inherited also very generally the name of his
grandfather,[396] and precisely the same rule applied to women; the
granddaughter nearly always receiving her grandmother’s name.[397] Thus,
Andocides, son of Leagoras, bore the name of his grandfather; the father
and son of Miltiades were named Cimon; the father and son of Hipponicos,
Cleinias.[398] The orator Lysias formed an exception to this rule, his
grandfather’s name having been Lysanias.[399] In short, though there
existed no law upon the subject, yet ancient and nearly invariable
custom operated with the force of law.[400]
Footnote 395:
Harpocrat. v. Μεῖον, Poll. iii. 53. Schol. ad Aristoph. Ran. 810.
Etym. Mag. 533. 37. Meurs. Lect. Att. iii. 1.
Footnote 396:
Palmer, Exercit. p. 754. Sluiter. Lect. Andocid. c. i.
Footnote 397:
Isæus de Pyrrh. Hæred. § 5.
Footnote 398:
Aristoph. Av. 284.
Footnote 399:
Plat. Rep. l. i. t. vi. p. 9.
Footnote 400:
Dem. c. Macart. § 17. Taylor, Lect. Lysiac. c. 5.
The names of children were often in remote antiquity derived from some
circumstance attending their birth, or in the history of their parents.
Sometimes, too, their own deeds, as in the case of modern titles,
procured them a name; or perhaps some misfortune which befell them.
Thus, Marpissa, in Homer, being borne away[401] by Apollo, obtained the
name of Halcyone, because her mother, like the Halcyon, was inconsolable
for the loss of her offspring.[402] Scamandrios, son of Hector, was
denominated Astyanax, because his father was τοῦ ἄστεος ἄναξ, “the
defender of the city;”[403] and Odysseus, metamorphosed by the Romans
into Ulysses, is supposed to have been so called τοῦ ἄστεος ἄναξ διὰ τὸ
ὀδυσσέσθαι τοῦ Αὐτολυκου, from the anger of Autolychos.[404] Again, the
son of Achilles, at first called Pyrrhos, as our second William, Rufus,
from the colour of his hair, afterwards obtained the name of
Neoptolemos, “the youthful warrior,” from his engaging at a very early
age in the siege of Troy. It came, in aftertimes, to be considered
indecorous for persons of humble condition to assume the names of heroic
families. Thus, the low flatterer Callicrates, at the court of Ptolemy
the Third, was thought to be audacious because he bestowed upon his son
and daughter the names of Telegonos and Anticleia, and wore the effigy
of Odysseus in his ring, which appeared to be claiming kindred with that
illustrious chief. In fact, to prevent the profanation of revered names,
the law itself forbade them to be adopted by slaves or females of bad
character,[405] though, in defiance of its enactments, we find there
were hetairæ, who derived their appellation from the sacred games of
Greece, Nemeas, Isthmias, and Pythionica.[406]
Footnote 401:
See in Winkel. iii. p. 248, an account of a picture representing this
transaction.
Footnote 402:
Il. i. 552. seq.
Footnote 403:
Potter, ii. 225.
Footnote 404:
Odyss. τ. 406. sqq.
Footnote 405:
Athen. xiii. 51.
Footnote 406:
Anim. ad Athen. t. xii. p. 170.
But of this enough: we now proceed to the management and education of
children, beginning with their earliest infancy. In old times the women
of Greece always suckled their own offspring, and for the performance of
this office they were excellently adapted by nature,[407] since they had
no sooner become mothers than their breasts filled so copiously with
milk than it not only flowed through the nipple, but likewise transpired
through the whole bosom. On the little derangements of the system
peculiar to nurses the Greeks entertained many superstitious opinions;
for instance, they conceived those thread-like indurations which
sometimes appear in the breasts to be caused by swallowing hairs, which
afterwards come forth with the milk, on which account the disorder was
called Trichiasis.[408] The nourishment supplied by mothers so robust
and lactiferous was often so rich and abundant as, like over-feeding, to
cause spasms and convulsions, supposed to be most violent when they
happened during the full moon, and began in the back. The usual remedy
among nurses would appear to have been wine, since Aristotle,[409] in
speaking of the disorder, observes that white, particularly if diluted
with water, is less injurious than red, though even from the former he
thought it better to abstain. The administering of aperient medicines
and the absence from everything that could cause flatulence, he
considered the only safe treatment. Nurses, however, sometimes placed
much reliance on the brains of a rabbit.[410]
Footnote 407:
When the case happened to be otherwise the remedies recommended by
physicians were numerous, among which was the halimos, a prickly shrub
found growing along the northern shores of Crete.—Dioscor. i. 120.
Tournefort. i. 44.
Footnote 408:
Arist. Hist. An. vii. 10. Foës. Œconom. Hippoc. v. Τριχίασις.
Footnote 409:
Hist. An. vii. 11.
Footnote 410:
Dioscor. ii. 21.
In Plato’s Republic the nurses were to live apart in a distinct quarter
of the city, and suckle indiscriminately all the children that were to
be preserved; no mother being permitted to know her own child.[411]
Footnote 411:
Plat. Rep. v. t. vi. p. 236.—The desire of the philosopher was, that
the people, or the state, should be regarded as the father of the
child. Among our ancestors illegitimate children were denominated
“sons of the people,” which was then thought equivalent to being the
sons of nobody. Hence the following distich:—
Cui pater est populus, pater est sibi nullus et omnis,
Cui pater est populus, non habet ipse patrem.
Fortescue, Laud. Legg.
Angl. c. 40.
Every one must have observed, as well as Plato,[412] that children are
no sooner born than they exhibit unequivocal signs of passion and
anger, in the moderating and directing of which consists the chiefest
difficulty of education. Most men, through the defect of nature or
early discipline, live long before they acquire this mastery, which
many never attain at all. Generally, however, where it is possessed,
much may certainly be attributed to that training which begins at the
birth, so that of all the instruments employed in the[413] forming of
character, the nurse is probably the most important. Of this the
ancients generally appear to have been convinced, and most of all the
Spartans and Athenians. The Lacedæmonian nurses, on whom the force of
discipline had been tried, enjoyed a high reputation throughout
Greece, and were particularly esteemed at Athens.[414] They no doubt
deserved it. To them may be traced the first attempt to dispense with
those swathes and bandages which in other countries confined the
limbs, and impeded the movements of infants, and by their skilful and
enlightened treatment, combined with watchfulness and tender
solicitude, they are said to have preserved their little charges from
those distortions so common among children. But their cares extended
beyond the person. They aimed at forming the manners, regulating the
temper, laying the foundation of virtuous habits, at sowing in short
the seeds, which in after life, might ripen into a manly, frank, and
generous character. In the matter of food, in the regulating of which,
as Locke confesses, there is much difficulty, the Spartan nurses acted
up to the suggestions of the sternest philosophy, accustoming the
children under their charge, to be content with whatever was put
before them, and to endure occasional privations without murmuring.
Over the fear of ghosts too they triumphed. Empusa and the
Mormolukeion, and all those other hideous spectres which childhood
associates with the idea of darkness, yielded to the discipline of the
Spartan nurse.[415] Her charge would remain alone or in the dark,
without terror, and the same stern system, which overcame the first
offspring of superstition, likewise subdued the moral defects of
peevishness, frowardness, and the habit of whining and mewling, which
when indulged in render children a nuisance to all around them. No
wonder therefore, these Doric disciplinarians were everywhere in
request. At Athens it became fashionable among the opulent to employ
them, and Cleinias, as is well known, placed under the care of one of
these she-pædagogues that Alcibiades, whose ambitious character, to be
curbed by no restraints of discipline or philosophy, proved the ruin
of his country and the scourge of Greece.[416]
Footnote 412:
Repub. i. 315. Stallb.—On the harshness and severity of nurses,
Teles remarks in that curious picture of human life, which he has
drawn quite in the spirit of the melancholy Jaques. Stob. Floril.
Tit. 98. 72.
Footnote 413:
Cf. Cramer de Educ. Puer. ap. Athen. 9. Odyss. β. 361. seq.
Terpstra, Antiq. Homer. 122. seq.
Footnote 414:
Plut. Alcib. § 1.
Footnote 415:
Or if not, the Spartan legislator had recourse to other expedients
for extirpating these superstitious terrors in after years. It being
customary among the Laconians to drink moderately in the syssitia,
says Plutarch, they went home without a torch, it not being lawful
to make use of a light on these or any other occasions, in order
that they might be accustomed to walk by night and in darkness
boldly, and without fear. Instit. Lacon. § 3.
Footnote 416:
Plut. Lycurg. § 16.
Plato, however, while framing at will an imaginary system, and though
inclined upon the whole to laconise, adheres, in some respects, to the
customs of his country, and ordains that infants be confined by
swaddling bands till two years old. From the mention of this age, it
may be inferred that children commonly did not walk much earlier at
Athens, which is the case in the East, as we may learn from the story
of Ala-ed-deen Abushamet. Plato would also have nurses to be vigorous
and robust women, much inclined to frequent the temples, in order,
probably, to introduce into the minds of their charges early
impressions of religion, and to stroll about the fields and public
gardens until the children could run alone; and even then, and until
they were three years old, he urged the necessity of their being
frequently carried, to prevent crooked legs and malformed ankles. But
because all this might press hard on one nurse, several were employed,
as among ourselves,[417] and a kind of Nursery Governess overlooked
the whole. The Gerula or under-nurse was, in later times, the person
upon whom fell the principal labour of bearing the infant about; but
in remoter ages the Greeks, more particularly their royal and noble
families, employed in this capacity a Baioulos[418] or nurse-father,
who, as in the case of Phœnix, was sometimes himself of illustrious
birth. Cheiron, too, the Pelasgian mountain prince, performed this
sacred office for the son of his friend Peleus.
Footnote 417:
Plat. de Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 5. Pignor. de Serv. p. 185.
Footnote 418:
Pignor. de Serv. p. 186. seq.
Our readers, we trust, will not be reluctant to enter a Greek
nursery,[419] where the mother, whatever might be the number of her
assistants, generally suckled her own children. Their cradles were of
various forms, some of which like our own required rocking,[420] while
others were suspended like sailors’ hammocks from the ceiling, and
swung gently to and fro when they desired to pacify the child or lull
it to sleep:[421] as Tithonos is represented in the mythology to have
been suspended in his old age.[422] Other cradles there were in the
shape of little portable baskets wherein they were carried from one
part of the harem to another.[423] It is probable, too, that as in the
East the children of the opulent were rocked in their cradles wrapped
in coverlets of Milesian wool.
Footnote 419:
See in Winkelmann, vignette to l. iv. ch. 3. a view of an ancient
nursery, where the mother, the pædagogue, the nurse, &c. are engaged
in the work of education, t. i. p. 414. Cf. Max. Tyr. Diss. iv. p.
49. Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 713.
Footnote 420:
Pignor. de. Serv. p. 186.
Footnote 421:
Schweigh. Animadv. in Athen. vi. 74.
Footnote 422:
Eudoc. ap. Villois. Anecdot. Græc. t. i. p. 396. Tzetz. ad Lyc. v.
16.
Footnote 423:
Mus. Real. Borbon. t. i. pl. 3.
Occasionally in Hellas,[424] as everywhere else, the nurse’s milk
would fail, or be scanty, when they had recourse to a very original
contrivance to still the infant’s cries; they dipped a piece of sponge
in honey which was given it to suck.[425] It was probably under
similar circumstances that children were indulged in figs; the Greeks
entertaining an opinion that this fruit greatly contributed to render
them plump and healthy. They had further a superstition that by
rubbing fresh figs upon the eyes of children they would be preserved
from ophthalmia.[426]
Footnote 424:
It was even then remarked that sucking children teethe much better
than such as are dry nursed.—Aristot. de Gen. Anim. v. 8. Hist.
Anim. vii. 10.
Footnote 425:
Sch. Arist. Acharn. 439.
Footnote 426:
Athen. iii. 15.
The Persians attributed the same preventive power to the petals of the
new-blown rose.[427] When a child was wholly or partly dry-nursed, the
girl who had charge of it would under pretence of cooling its pap,
commonly made of fine flour of spelt,[428] put the spoon into her own
mouth, swallow the best part of the nourishment, and give the refuse
to the infant, a practice attributed by Aristophanes to Cleon, who
swallowed, he says, the best of the good things of the state himself,
and left the residue to the people.[429]
Footnote 427:
Geopon. xi. 18.
Footnote 428:
Dioscor. ii. 114.
Footnote 429:
Equit. 712. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 326.
All the world over the singing of the nurse has been proverbial. Music
breathes its sweetest notes around our cradles. The voice of woman
soothes our infancy and our age, and in Greece, where every class of
the community had its song, the nurse naturally vindicated one to
herself.[430] This sweetest of all melodies—
“Redolent of joy and youth”
was technically denominated Katabaukalesis, of which scraps and
fragments only, like those of the village song which lingered in the
memory of Rousseau, have come down to us. The first verse of a Roman
nursery air, which still, Pignorius[431] tells us, was sung in his
time by the mothers of Italy, ran thus:—
“Lalla, Lalla; dorme aut lacte.
Lalla, Lalla; sleep or suck.”
Footnote 430:
Ilgen. de Scol. Poes. p. xxvi. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 204. seq.
Footnote 431:
De Serv. p. 186. seq. Cf. Athen. xiv. 10.
The Sicilian poet, whose pictures of the ancient world are still
so fresh and fragrant, has bequeathed to us a Katabaukalesis of
extreme beauty and brevity which I have here paraphrastically
translated:[432]—
“Sleep ye, that in my breast have lain,
The slumber sweet and light,
And wake, my glorious twins, again
To glad your mother’s sight.
O happy, happy be your dreams,
And blest your waking be,
When morning’s gold and ruddy beams
Restore your smiles to me.”[433]
Footnote 432:
A nurse’s lay prevalent among our own ancestors may not inaptly find
a place here:
“Now suck, child, and sleep, child, thy mother’s own joy,
Her only sweet comfort to drown all annoy;
For beauty, surpassing the azurèd sky,
I love thee, my darling, as ball of mine eye.”
D’Israeli, Amenities of
Literature ii. 287.
Footnote 433:
Theoc. Eidyll. 24. 7. sqq.
The philosopher Chrysippos[434] considered it of importance to
regulate the songs of nurses, and Quintilian,[435] with a quaint but
pardonable enthusiasm, would have the boy who is designed to be an
orator placed under the care of a nurse of polished language and
superior mind. He observes,[436] too, that children suckled and
brought up by dumb nurses, will remain themselves dumb, which would
necessarily happen had they no other person with whom to converse.
When the infant was extremely wakeful the soothing influence of the
song was heightened by the aid of little timbrels and rattles hung
with bells.
Footnote 434:
Quintil. i. 10.
Footnote 435:
Instit. Orat. i. 1.
Footnote 436:
Quintil. Inst. Orat. l. x. c. i. Herod. ii. 2.
A very characteristic anecdote is told of Anacreon apropos of
nurses.[437] A good-humoured wench with a child in her arms happening
one day to be sauntering _more nutricum_, through the Panionion, or
Grand Agora of Ionia, encountered the Teïan poet, who returning from
the Bacchic Olympos, found the streets much too narrow for him, and
went reeling hither and thither as if determined to make the most of
his walk. The nurse, it is to be presumed, felt no inclination to
dispute the passage with him; but Anacreon attracted, perhaps, by her
pretty face, making a timely lurch, sent both her and her charge
spinning off the pavement, at the same time muttering something
disrespectful against “the brat.” Now, for her own part, the girl felt
no resentment against him, for she could see which of the divinities
was to blame; but loving, as a nurse should, her boy, she prayed that
the poet might one day utter many words in praise of him whom he had
so rudely vituperated; which came to pass accordingly, for the infant
was the celebrated Cleobulos, whose beauty the Teïan afterwards
celebrated in many an ode.[438]
Footnote 437:
See in the Mus. Cortonens. pl. 35. the figure of a nurse bearing the
infant Bacchos.
Footnote 438:
Max. Tyr. Diss. xi. p. 132.
Traces of the remotest antiquity still linger in the nursery. The word
baby, which we bestow familiarly on an infant, was with little
variation, in use many thousand years ago among the Syrians, in whose
nursery dialect _babia_[439] had the same signification. _Tatta_, too,
_pappa_ and _mamma_[440] were the first words lisped by the children
of Hellas. And from various hints dropped by ancient authors, it seems
clear that the same wild stories and superstitions that still flourish
there haunted the nursery of old. The child was taught to dread Empusa
or Onoskelis or Onoskolon,[441] the monster with one human foot and
one of brass, which dwelt among the shades of night and glided through
dusky chambers and dismal passages to devour “naughty children.” The
fables which filled up this obscure part of Hellenic mythology, were
scarcely less wild than those the Arabs tell about their Marids, their
Efreets, and their Jinn; for Empusa, the phantom minister of
Hecate,[442] could assume every various form of God’s creatures,
appearing sometimes as a bull, or a tree, or an ass, or a stone, or a
fly, or a beautiful woman.[443] Shakspeare, having caught, perhaps,
some glimpse of this superstition, or inventing in a kindred spirit,
attributes a similar power of transformation to his mischievous elf in
the Midsummer Night’s Dream, located on Empusa’s native soil.
“I’ll follow you, I’ll lead you about, around,
Through bog, through bush, through brake, through briar.
Sometimes a horse I’ll be, sometime a hound,
A hog, a headless bear, sometimes a fire,
And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire at every turn.”
Footnote 439:
Phot. Biblioth. 31. l. 11. Menage shrewdly supposes Baby, Babble,
&c. to have been derived from Babel.—D’Israeli, Amenities of
Literature, i. 5.
Footnote 440:
Pignor. de Serv. p. 187. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 1365.—Pac. 119.
Footnote 441:
Lil. Gyrald. Synt. xii. Hist. Deor. 361 seq. Cf. Lucian. Ver. Hist.
lib. 2 § 46. This spectre was said to glide before the sight of
persons celebrating the rites of initiation, and therefore the
mother of Æschines who performed a part in the rites, and also
appeared to the initiated was, with much bad taste, called Empusa by
Demosthenes.—De Coronâ, § § 41. 79. Adam Littleton in his Cambridge
Dictionary supposes this to have been her real name, which, however,
was Glaucis or Glaucothea. Stock. and Wunderl. ad loc. Cf. Harpoc.
in. v. Sch. Aristoph. Concion. 1056. Ran. 293, 294. ὁρᾲς τὸν
Αἰσχινην ὅς τυμπανιστρίας υἱὸς ἠν. Lucian. Somn. § 12.
Footnote 442:
This goddess was also known by the name of Artemis Phosphoros.
Aristoph. Concion. 444 et schol.
Footnote 443:
Aristoph. Ran. 293. Epicharm. ap. Nat. Com. p. 854. See also Sch.
Apol. Rhod. iii. 478. iv. 247.
It was this spectral being that was said to appear to those who
performed the sacrifices to the dead, to men overwhelmed with
misfortune,[444] and travellers in remote and dismal roads; as
happened to the companions of Apollonios of Tyana who, in journeying
on a bright moonlight night, were startled by the appearance of
Empusa, which having stood twice or thrice in their way, suddenly
vanished.[445] To protect themselves against this demon the
superstitious were accustomed to wear about them a piece of jasper,
either set in a ring, or suspended from the neck.[446]
Footnote 444:
Meurs. Lect. Att. iii. 17.
Footnote 445:
Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. l. ii. c. 2.
Footnote 446:
Cf. De Boot, De Lap. p. 251. sqq. on the properties and virtues of
this stone.
The Lamia, too, fierce and beautiful, the ancestress of our “White
ladies,” and of the Katakhanas or Vampire of the modern Greeks, roamed
through solitary places to terrify, delude, or destroy good folks, big
or little, who might lose their way amid moonlit crags or shores made
white with bones and sea-shells. They loved to relate “around the fire
o’ nights,” how Lamia had once been a beautiful woman caressed and
made the mother of a fair son by Zeus; how Hera through jealousy had
destroyed the boy; and how, thereupon Lamia took to the bush and
devoted her wretched immortality to the destroying of other women’s
children.[447] According to another form of the tradition there were
many Lamiæ, so called from having capacious jaws, inhabiting the
Libyan coast,[448] somewhere about the Great Syrtis, in the midst of
sand hills, rocks, and wastes of irreclaimable aridity. Formed above
like women of surpassing beauty, they terminated below in serpents.
Their voice was like the hissing of an adder, and whatever approached
them they devoured.[449]
Footnote 447:
Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 1035. Philost. Vit. Apoll. Tyan. iv. 25.
Footnote 448:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 1035.
Footnote 449:
Lil. Gyrald. Hist. Deor. Synt. xv. 447. seq.
Another race of wild and grotesque spirits were the Kobaloi,[450]
companions of Dionysos, who doubtless subsist still in our woods and
forests under the name of goblins and hobgoblins. Our Elves and Trolls
and Fairies appear likewise to belong to the same brood, though in
these northern latitudes, they have become less mischievous and more
romantic, delighting the eyes of the wayfarers by their frolics and
gambols, instead of devouring him.
“Fairy elves,
Whose midnight revels, by a forest side,
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth
Wheels her pale course; they on their mirth and dance
Intent, with jocund music charm his ear,
At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.”
Footnote 450:
Schol. Aristoph. Plut. 279.
Though, as we have seen, weak children were unscrupulously sacrificed
at Sparta, they still made offerings to the gods in favour of the
strong. The ceremony took place annually during certain festivals,
denominated Tithenidia,[451] when, in a moment of hospitality, they
not only made merry themselves, but overlooked their xenelasia, and
entertained generously all such strangers as happened to be present.
The banquet given on this occasion was called Kopis, and, in
preparation for it, tents were pitched on the banks of the Tiasa near
the temple of Artemis Corythalis. Within these, beds formed of heaps
of herbs were piled up and covered with carpets. On the day of the
festival the nurses proceeded thither with the male children in their
arms, and, presenting them to the goddess, offered up as victims a
number of sucking pigs. In the feast which ensued loaves baked in an
oven, in lieu of the extemporary cake, were served up to the guests.
Choruses of Corythalistriæ or dancing girls, likewise performed in
honour of the goddess; and in some places persons, called Kyrittoi, in
wooden masks, made sport for the guests.[452] Probably it may have
been on occasions such as this that the nurses, like her in Romeo and
Juliet, gave free vent to their libertine tongues, and indulged in
those appellations which the tolerant literature of antiquity has
preserved.[453]
Footnote 451:
Athen. iv. 16.
Footnote 452:
Meurs. Græc. Fer. 261. seq.
Footnote 453:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. 161.
When children were to be weaned, they spread, as the moderns do,
something bitter over the nipple,[454] that the young republican might
learn early how—
“Full in the fount of joy’s delicious springs
Some bitter o’er the flower its bubbling venom flings.”
Footnote 454:
Athen. vi. 51.
CHAPTER III.
TOYS, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES.
Having described, as far as possible, the management of infants and
young children, it may not be uninteresting to notice briefly their
toys, sports, and pastimes; for, though children have been
substantially the same in all ages and countries, the forms of their
amusements have been infinitely varied, and where they have resembled
each other it is not the less instructive to note that resemblance.
The ancients[455] have, however, bequeathed us but little information
respecting the fragile implements wherewith the happiness of the
nursery was in great part erected. Even respecting the recreations
which succeeded and amused the leisure of boys our materials for
working out a picture are scanty, so that we must content ourselves
with little more than an outline. Nevertheless, though the accounts
they have transmitted to posterity are meagre, they attached much
importance to the subject itself; so that the greatest legislators and
philosophers condescended to make regulations respecting it. Thus
Plato, with a view of generating a profound reverence for ancient
national institutions, forbade even the recreations of boys to be
varied with reckless fickleness; for the habit of innovation once
introduced into the character would ever after continue to influence
it, so that they who in boyhood altered their sports without reason,
would without scruple in manhood extend their daring hands to the laws
and institutions of their country.[456]
Footnote 455:
Plato had the utmost faith in the power of education over both mind
and body; but his system embraced much more than is usually
comprehended under the term, even taking charge of the infant before
its birth, and immediately afterwards, in the hope of wisely
regulating its physical developement. As the child grows most during
the first five years, its size in the following twenty being seldom
doubled, most care, he thought, should then be taken that the great
impulses of nature be not counteracted. Much food is then consumed,
with very little exercise; hence the multitude of deaths in infancy
and diseases in after-life, of which the seeds are then sown. For
this reason he would encourage the violent romping and sports of
children, that the excess of nourishment may be got rid of. De Legg.
vii. t. viii. p. 2. seq.
Footnote 456:
Plat, de Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 21. seq.
Amongst the Hellenes the earliest toy consisted, as in most other
countries, of the rattle, said to be the invention of the philosopher
Archytas.[457] To this succeeded balls of many colours,[458] with
little chariots, sometimes purchased at Athens in the fair held during
the feast of Zeus.[459] The common price of a plaything of this kind
would appear to have been an obolos. The children themselves, as
without any authority might with certainty be inferred, employed their
time in erecting walls with sand,[460] in constructing little
houses,[461] in building and carving ships, in cutting carts or
chariots out of leather, in fashioning pomegranate rinds into the
shape of frogs,[462] and in forming with wax a thousand diminutive
images, which pursued afterwards during school hours subjected them
occasionally to severe chastisement.[463]
Footnote 457:
Aristot. Polit. viii. 6. 1.
Footnote 458:
Dion. Chrysost. Nat. viii. p. 281.
Footnote 459:
Aristoph. Nub. 862. sqq. et Schol. Rav. in loc. Cf. Suid. v. Ἁμαξὶς,
t. i. p. 194. b. Pollux, x. 168.
Footnote 460:
Damm. v. Ἄθυρμα.
Footnote 461:
Lucian. Hermot. § 33.
Footnote 462:
Aristoph. Nub. 877. sqq. et Schol.
Footnote 463:
Lucian. de Somn. § 2.
Another amusement which the children of Hellas shared with their
elders was that afforded by puppets,[464] which were probably an
invention of the remotest antiquity. Numerous women appear to have
earned their livelihood by carrying round from village to village
these ludicrous and frolicsome images, which were usually about a
cubit in height, and may be regarded as the legitimate ancestors of
Punch and Judy. By touching a single string, concealed from the
spectators, the operator could put her mute performers in action,
cause them to move every limb in succession, spread forth the hands,
shrug the shoulders, turn round the neck, roll the eyes, and appear to
look at the audience.[465] After this, by other contrivances within
the images, they could be made to go through many humorous evolutions
resembling the movements of the dance. These exhibitors, frequently of
the male sex, were known by the name of Neurospastæ. This art passed,
together with other Grecian inventions, into Italy, where it was
already familiar to the public in the days of Horace, who, in speaking
of princes governed by favourites, compares them to puppets in the
hands of the showman.
“Tu, mihi qui imperitas, aliis servis miser; atque
Duceris, ut nervis alienis mobile lignum.”[466]
Footnote 464:
Buleng. de Theat. l. i. c. 36. sqq. Muret. ad Plat. Rep. p. 645.
Eustath. in Odyss. δ. p. 176. Mount. Not. ad Dem. Olynth. ii. § 5.
Perizon. ad Æl. Var. Hist. viii. 7. See also the article Marionnette
in the Encyclopédie Française; and Caylus, Rec. d’Antiq. t. vi. p.
287. t. iv. pl. 80. no. i.
Footnote 465:
Aristot. de Mund. c. 6. translated by Apuleius, p. 20. Herod. ii.
48. See Comment. ad Poll. vii. 189. Duport. ad Theophr. Char. p.
308. This juggler having, for his ill behaviour, been driven from
Athens, flew to Philip, with whom such persons were always in
favour. Dem. Olynth. i. § 7.
Footnote 466:
Sat. ii. 7. 81. seq. Plerumque simulacra de ligno facta nervis
moventur.—Vet. Schol.
A very extraordinary puppet, in the form of a silver skeleton, was,
according to Petronius Arbiter,[467] exhibited at the court of Nero;
for, like the Egyptians, this imperial profligate appears to have been
excited to sensual indulgences by the remembrance of the grave: “Let
us eat and drink,” cried he, “for tomorrow we die.” The skeleton being
placed upon the table, in the midst of the tyrant’s orgies, threw its
limbs strangely about, and bent its form into various attitudes with
wonderful flexibility, which having performed once and again, and then
suddenly ceasing to move, the master of the feast exclaimed, “Alas,
alas! what a mere nothing is man! Like unto this must we all be when
Orcus shall have borne us hence. Therefore let us live while enjoyment
is in our power.” But to return to the children of Hellas. Among the
earliest sports of the Greek boy was whipping the bembyx or top,[468]
which would appear to have been usually practised in those open spaces
occurring at the junction of several roads:—
“Where three ways meet there boys with tops are found,
That ply the lash and urge them round and round.”[469]
Sometimes also, as with us, they spun their tops with cord. The
amusement is thus described by Tibullus:[470]
“Namque agor, ut per plana citus tota verbere turben,
Quem celer assuetâ versitat arte puer.”
Footnote 467:
Satyric. p. 80. Helenop. 1610. Wouwer. Anim. p. 418. Erhard. Symbol.
p. 611. Plut. Conv. Sept. Sap. ch. 2.—A story is told of an Ionian
juggler who proceeded to Babylon to perform what he deemed a
wonderful feat before the Great King, and the feat was this: fixing
a long point of steel on a wall, and retiring to a considerable
distance, he threw at it a number of soft round pellets of dough,
with so nice an aim that every one of them was penetrated, the last
pellet driving back the others. Max. Tyr. Diss. xix. p. 225. Anim.
ad Poll. vii. 189. p. 532.
The hoop, too, so familiar to our own schoolboys, formed one of the
playthings of Hellenic children. It was sometimes made of bronze,
about three feet in diameter,[471] and adorned with little spherical
bells and movable rings, which jingled as it rolled. The instrument
employed to urge
“the rolling circle’s speed,”
as Gray expresses it, in his reminiscences of the Eton play-ground,
was crooked at the point, and called a plectron: its exact
representation may any day, in the proper season, be seen in the
streets of London impelling forward the iron hoop of our own children.
The passages of ancient authors, in which mention of the trochos
occurs, appear to have been imperfectly understood before the
discovery of a basso-rilievo, in marble, on the road from Rome to
Tivoli, afterwards removed to the vineyard of the Cardinal Alexander
Albani. On certain engraved gems also, in the cabinet of Stosch, are
several representations of boys playing at hoop, where the trochos in
some cases reaches to the waist, in others to the breast, and where
the child is very small up to the chin. It has been conjectured by
Winkelmann,[472] that a circle represented in one of the paintings of
Herculaneum was no other than an ancient trochos. Rolling the hoop
formed a part of the exercises of the palæstra, which were performed
even by very young children. Thus we find the nurse describing the
sons of Medeia returning from playing at hoop the very day that they
were slain by their mother.[473] This amusement has been described
briefly by the Roman poets. Thus Martial:[474]—
“Garrulus in laxo cur annulus orbe vagatur
Cedat, et argutis obvia turba trochis.”
Footnote 468:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 1517. Diog. Laert. i. 4. 8. Cf. Hyde
Nerdilud. p. 259.
Footnote 469:
Callim. Ep. i. 9. seq. p. 180.
Footnote 470:
I. 5. 3.
Footnote 471:
Cf. Caylus, Rec. D’Antiq. t. vi. 318. seq.
Footnote 472:
Descr. des Pierres Grav. du Cab. de Stosch. 452. seq.
Footnote 473:
Eurip. Mod. 45. et Sch.
Footnote 474:
L. xiv. Ep. 169.
Propertius[475] notices the crooked form of the plectron, or clavis:—
“Increpat et versi clavis adunca trochi.”
Horace[476] likewise alludes to the game:—
“Indoctusque pilæ discive trochive quiescit.”
This poet clearly informs us that the Romans received the game from
the Greeks:[477]—
“Ludere doctior,
Seu Græco jubeas trocho,
Seu malis vetita legibus alea.”
Another less innocent amusement was[478] spinning goldchafers, which
appears to have afforded the Greek urchins the same delight as
tormenting cockchafers does their successors of the north. This
species of beetle making its appearance when the apple-trees were in
bloom, was therefore called _Melolanthe_, or apple-blossom. Having
caught it, and tied a linen thread about its feet, it was let loose,
and the fun was to see it move in spiral lines through the air as it
was twisted by the thread.[479]
Footnote 475:
iii. 12.
Footnote 476:
Ars Poet. 380. where the ancient scholiast seems doubtful whether
the trochus was a hoop or a top:—“Trochus dicitur turben, qui
flagello percutitur, et in vertiginem rotatur, aut rota quam
currendo pueri scuticâ vel virgâ regunt.”
Footnote 477:
Carm. iii. 24. 56. sqq.
Footnote 478:
On the games at present practised in Greece, see Dodwell, ii. 37.
sqq.; and Douglas, Essay on certain points of resemblance between
the Anc. and Mod. Greeks, p. 127. sqq.
Footnote 479:
Poll. ix. 124.
It was the practice among the children of Greece, when the sun
happened to be obscured by a cloud, to exclaim, “Ἔξεχ᾽ ὦ φίλ᾽
ἥλιε!”—“Come forth, beloved sun!” Strattis makes allusion to this
custom in a fragment of his Phœnissæ:—
“Then the god listened to the shouting boys,
When they exclaimed, ‘Come forth, beloved sun!’”[480]
It is fortunate that our English boys have no such passion for
sunshine; otherwise, as Phœbos Apollo hides his face for months
together in this blessed climate, we should be in a worse plight than
Dionysos among the frogs of Acheron, when his passion for Euripides
led him to pay a visit to Persephone. In some parts of the country,
however, the children have a rude distich which they frequently bawl
in chorus, when in summer-time their sports are interrupted by a
long-continued shower:—
“Rain, rain, go to Spain;
Fair weather, come again.”
Footnote 480:
Poll. ix. 123.
The Muïnda was our “Blindman’s-buff,” “Blind Hob,” “Hobble ’em-blind,”
and “Hood-man-blind,” in which, as with us, a boy moved about with his
eyes bandaged, spreading forth his hands, and crying “Beware!” If he
caught any of those who were skipping around him, the captive was
compelled to enact the blind-man in his stead. Another form of the
game was for the seers to hide, and the blind man to grope round till
he found them; the whole probably being a rude representation of
Polyphemos in his cave searching for the Greeks who had blinded him. A
third form was, for the bystanders to strike or touch the blindfolded
boy until he could declare who had touched him, when the person
indicated took his place. To this the Roman soldiers alluded when they
blindfolded our Saviour and smote him, and cried, “Prophesy who struck
thee.”[481] In the Kollabismos,[482] the Capifolèt of the French, one
person covered his eyes with his own hands, the other then gave him a
gentle blow, and the point was, for the blindfolded man to guess with
which hand he had been stricken. The Χαλκὴ Μυῖα,[483] or Brazen Fly,
was a variety of Blindman’s-buff, in which a boy, having his eyes
bound with a fillet, went groping round, calling out, “I am seeking
the Brazen Fly.” His companions replied, “You may seek, but you will
not find it”—at the same time striking him with cords made of the
inner bark of the papyros; and thus they proceeded till one of them
was taken. Apodidraskinda (“hide and seek,” or “whoop and holloa!”)
was played much as it is now. One boy shut his eyes, or they were kept
closed for him by one of his suspicious companions, while the others
went to hide. He then sallied forth in search of the party who lay
concealed, while each of them endeavoured to gain the post of the
seeker; and the first who did this turned him out and took his place.
Footnote 481:
This has been observed by Hemsterhuis, ad Poll. t. vi. p. 1173,
where his commentary alone can render the text intelligible.—Cf.
Matthew, xxvi. 68. Mark, xiv. 64. Luke, xxii. 65.
Footnote 482:
“Jeu de la main chaude.” Steph. Thes. Ling. Græc. v. Κολλαβισμός.
Footnote 483:
Hyde, Hist. Nerdilud. p. 266.
Another game was the Ephedrismos, in which a stone called the Dioros
was set up at a certain distance, and aimed at with bowls or stones.
The one who missed took the successful player upon his back, and was
compelled to carry him about blindfolded, until he went straight from
the standing-point to the Dioros. This latter part of the game has
been described by several ancient authors, under the appellation of
Encotyle, though they are rightly, by Hesychius,[484] considered as
different parts of the same sport. The variety called Encotyle,—the
“Pick-back” or “Pick-a-back,” of English boys, consisted in one lad’s
placing his hands behind his back, and receiving therein the knees of
his conqueror, who, putting his fingers over the bearer’s eyes, drove
him about at his pleasure. This game was also called the Kubesinda and
Hippas,[485] though, according to the conjecture of Dr. Hyde, the
latter name signified rather our game of “Leap-frog,”—the “mazidha” of
the Persians, in which a number of boys stooped down with the hands
resting on the knees, in a row, the last going over the backs of all
the others, and then standing first.
Footnote 484:
In v. Ἐφεδρίζειν.
Footnote 485:
Hyde, Hist. Nerdilud. p. 241.
In the game called Chytrinda, in English[486] “Hot-cockles,” “Selling
of pears,” or “How many plumbs for a penny,” one boy sat on the
ground, and was called the chytra or pot, while his companions,
forming themselves into a ring, ran round, plucking, pinching, or
striking him as they went. If he who enacted the chytra succeeded in
seizing upon one of the buffeters the captive took his place. Possibly
it was during this play that a mischievous foundling, contrary to
rule, poking, as he ran round, the boy in the centre with his foot,
provoked from the latter the sarcastic inquiry, “What! dost thou kick
thy mother in the belly?” alluding to the circumstance of the former
having been exposed in a chytra.[487] Another form of the Chytrinda
required the lad in the centre to move about with a pot on his head,
where he held it with his left hand, while the others struck him, and
cried out, “Who has the pot?” To which he replied, “I Midas,”
endeavouring all the while to reach some one with his foot,—the first
whom he thus touched being compelled to carry round the pot in his
stead.[488]
Footnote 486:
Hyde, Hist. Nerdilud. p. 263.
Footnote 487:
Sch. Aristoph. Thesm. 509. But see above, p. 122.
Footnote 488:
Poll. ix. 114.
Another game, peculiar to girls, was the Cheli Chelone, or “the
tortoise,” of which I remember no representative among English
pastimes. It somewhat resembled the Chytrinda of the boys. For one
girl sat on the ground and was called the tortoise, while her
companions, running round, inquired “Tor-tortoise what art thou doing
there in the middle?” “Spinning wool,” replied she, “the thread of the
Milesian woof;” “And how, continued they, was thy son engaged when he
perished?” “He sprang from his white steeds into the sea.”[489] If
this was, as the language would intimate, a Dorian play, I should
consider it a practical satire on the habits of the other Hellenic
women, who remained like tortoises at home, carding and spinning,
while their sons engaged in the exercises of the palæstra or the
stadium. Possibly, also, originally the name may have had some
connection with καλλιχέλωνος “beautiful tortoise,” the figure of this
animal having been impressed on the money of the Peloponnesians; in
fact, in a fragment of the Helots of Eupolis, we find the obolos
distinguished by the epithet of καλλιχέλωνος.[490]
Footnote 489:
Poll. ix. 125.
Footnote 490:
Id. ix. 74. Cf. Suid. v. Καλλικολώνη t. i. p. 1359. c. Meurs. De
Lud. Græc. p. 41.
The Kynitinda was so called from the verb κυνέω to kiss, as appears
from Crates in his “Games,” a play in which the poet contrived to
introduce an account of this and nearly all the other juvenile
pastimes. The form of the sport being little known, the learned have
sometimes confounded it with a kind of salute called the chytra in
antiquity, and the “Florentine Kiss” in modern Italy, in which the
person kissing took the other by the ears. Giraldi[491] says he
remembers, when a boy, that his father and other friends, when kissing
him, used sometimes to take hold of both his ears, which they called
giving a “Florentine kiss.” He afterwards was surprised to find that
this was a most ancient practice, commemorated both by the Greek and
Latin authors. It obtained its name, as he conjectures, from the
earthen vessel called chytra, which had two handles usually laid hold
of by persons drinking out of it, as is still the practice with
similar utensils in Spain. This writer mentions a present sent from
the peninsula to Leo X, consisting of a great number of chytræ of red
pottery, if we may so call them, of which he himself obtained one.
Crates, as Hemsterhuis[492] ingeniously supposes, introduced a wanton
woman playing at this game among the youths in order that she might
enjoy the kisses of the handsome.
Footnote 491:
Opp. ii. p. 880. Theocrit. v. 133. Wart.—Poll. x. 100.
Footnote 492:
Comment. ad Poll. t. vi. p. 1180.
The Epostrakismos[493] was what English boys call “Ducks and Drakes,”
and sometimes, among our ancestors at least, “A duck and a drake and a
white penny cake,” and was played with oyster-shells. Standing on the
shore of the sea at the Peiræeus, for example, they flung the shells
edgeways over the water so that they should strike it and bound
upwards again and again from its surface. The boy whose shell made
most leaps before sinking, won the game. Minucius Felix gives a very
pretty description of this juvenile sport. “Behold, he says, boys
playing in frolicsome rivalry with shells on the sea-shore. The game
consists in picking up from the beach a shell rendered light by the
constant action of the waves, and standing on an even place, and
inclining the body, holding the shell flat between the fingers, and
throwing it with the greatest possible force, so that it may rase the
surface of the sea or skim along while it moves with gentle flow, or
glances over the tops of the waves as they leap up in its track. That
boy is esteemed the victor whose shell performs the longest journey or
makes most leaps before sinking.”[494]
Footnote 493:
Poll. ix. 119.
Footnote 494:
Seber ad Poll. t. vi. p. 1188.
The Akinetinda was a contention between boys, in which some one of
them endeavoured to maintain his position unmoved. Good sport must
have been produced by the next game called Schœnophilinda, or “Hiding
the Rope.” In this a number of boys sat down in a circle, one of whom
had a rope concealed about his person, which he endeavoured to drop
secretly beside one of his companions. If he succeeded, the unlucky
wight was started like a hare round the circle, his enemy following
and laying about his shoulders. But on the other hand, if he against
whom the plot was laid detected it, he obtained possession of the rope
and enjoyed the satisfaction of flogging the plotter over the same
course.
The Basilinda[495] was a game in which one obtained by lot the rank of
king, and the vanquished, whether one or many, became subject to him,
to do whatever he should order. It passed down to the Christians, and
was more especially practised during the feast of the Epiphany. It is
commonly known under the name of Forfeits, and was formerly called
“One penny,” “One penny come after me,” “Questions and commands,” “The
choosing of king and queen on Twelfth night.” In the last-mentioned
sense it is still prevalent in France, where it is customary for
bakers to make a present to the families they serve, of a large cake
in the form of a ring in which a small kidney bean has been concealed.
The cake is cut up, the pieces are distributed to the company, and the
person who gets the bean is king of the feast. This game entered in
Greece likewise into the amusements of grown people, both men and
women, as well as of children, and an anecdote, connected with it, is
told of Phryne, who happened one day to be at a mixed party where it
was played. By chance it fell to her lot to play the queen; upon
which, observing that her female companions were rouged and lilied to
the eyes, she maliciously ordered a basin and towel to be brought in,
and that every woman should wash her face. Conscious of her own native
beauty, she began the operation, and only appeared the fresher and
more lovely. But alas for the others! When the anchusa, psimmuthion,
and phukos had been removed by the water, their freckled and coarse
skins exposed them to general laughter.[496]
Footnote 495:
Poll. ix. 110.
Footnote 496:
Galen. Protrept. § 10. Kühn. Compare the admirable note of
Hemsterhuis ad Poll. t. vi. p. 1066. seq.
The Ostrakinda was a game purely juvenile. A knot of boys having drawn
a line on the ground, separated into two parties. A small earthenware
disk or ostrakon, one side black with pitch, the other white, was then
produced, and each party chose a side, white or black. The disk was
then pitched along the line, and the party whose side came up was
accounted victorious, and prepared to pursue while the others turned
round and fled. The boy first caught obtained the name of the ass, and
was compelled to sit down, the game apparently proceeding till all
were thus caught and placed hors de combat. He who threw the ostrakon
cried, “night or day,” the black side being termed _night_, and the
opposite _day_. It was called the “Twirling of the ostrakon.” Plato
alludes to it in the Phædros.[497]
Footnote 497:
Poll. ix. 111. seq. Plat. Phæd. t. i. p. 29. seq. Bekk.
The Dielkustinda, “French and English,” was played chiefly in the
palæstra, and occasionally elsewhere. It consisted simply in two
parties of boys laying hold of each other by the hand, and pulling
till one by one the stronger had drawn over the weaker to their side
of the ground.
The Phryginda was a game in which, holding a number of smooth and
delicate fragments of pottery between the fingers of the left hand,
they struck them in succession with the right so as apparently to
produce a kind of music.[498]
Footnote 498:
Turneb. Advers. xxvii. 33. Poll. ix. 114. Comment. t. vi. p. 1178.
There was another game called Kyndalismos, played with short batons,
and requiring considerable strength and quickness of eye. A stick
having been fixed up-right in a loose moist soil, the business was to
dislodge it by throwing at it other batons from a distance; whence the
proverb, “Nail is driven out by nail, and baton by baton.”[499] A
person who played at this game was called by some of the Doric poets
Kyndalopactes.[500] A similar game is played in England, in which the
prize is placed upon the top of the upright stick. The player wins
when the prize falls without the hole whence the upright has been
dislodged.
Footnote 499:
Vid. Vatic. Append. Proverb. Cent. ii. prov. 12. et Ib. not. And.
Schotto. Kühn ad Poll. t. vi. p. 1190.
Footnote 500:
Meursius, Græc. Lud. p. 26. and after him Pfeiffer, Ant. Græc. iv.
p. 120. read κινδαλοπαίκτης, which Hemsterhuis observes is contrary
to the authority of the MSS.
The game of Ascoliasmos[501] branched off into several varieties, and
afforded the Athenian rustics no small degree of sport. The first and
most simple form consisted in hopping on one foot, sometimes in pairs,
to see which in this way could go furthest. On other occasions the
hopper undertook to overtake certain of his companions who were
allowed the use of both legs. If he could touch one of them he came
off conqueror. This variety of the game appears to have been the
Empusæ ludus of the Romans. “Scotch hoppers,” or “Fox to thy hole,” in
which boys, hopping on one leg, beat one another with gloves or pieces
of leather tied at the end of strings, or knotted handkerchiefs, as in
the _diable boîteux_ of the French. At other times victory depended on
the number of hops, all hopping together and counting their
springs,—the highest of course winning. But the most amusing variety
of the game was that practised during the Dionysiac festival of the
Askolia. Skins filled with wine or inflated with air, and extremely
well oiled, were placed upon the ground, and on these the shoeless
rustics leaped with one leg and endeavoured to maintain a footing,
which they seldom could on account of their slipperiness. However, he
who succeeded carried off the skin of wine as his prize.
Footnote 501:
Phurnutus, De Nat. Deorum, c. 30. p. 217. seq. Gale.—Poll. ix. 121.
Sch. Aristoph. Plut. 1130. Kust.—Meurs. Græc. Fer. p. 52; Græc.
Ludibunda, p. 6.
A game, evidently also of rustics, was the Trygodiphesis, Tantali
ludus, “Bobbing for cherries,” “Bob cherry,” in which something very
nice was thrown into a bowl of wine lees, which the performer, with
his hands behind his back, was to fish up with his lips. The fun was
to see the ludicrous figure he cut with his face daubed and
discoloured by the lees.
Phitta Maliades, Phitta Meliai, Phitta Rhoiai, “Hasten, nymphs!” may
be regarded as exclamations of encouragement uttered by Dorian girls,
when engaged in a race.[502]
Footnote 502:
Poll. ix. 127. with the note of Hemsterhuis.
Playing at ball was common, and received various names. Episkyros,
Phæninda, Aporraxis and Ourania. The first of these games was also
known by the names of the Ephebike and the Epikoinos. It was played
thus: a number of young men assembling together in a place covered
with sand or dust, drew across it a straight line, which they called
Skyros, and at equal distances, on either side, another line. Then
placing the ball on the Skyros, they divided into two equal parties,
and retreated each to their lines, from which they immediately
afterwards rushed forward to seize the ball. The person who picked it
up, then cast it towards the extreme line of the opposite party, whose
business it was to intercept and throw it back, and they won who by
force or cunning compelled their opponents to overstep the boundary
line.
Daniel Souter[503] contends that this was the English game of
football, into which perhaps it may, in course of time, have been
converted. This rough and, it must be confessed, somewhat dangerous
sport, originally, in all probability, introduced into this country by
the Romans, may still on Shrove Tuesday be witnessed in certain towns
of South Wales. The balls consist of bulls’ bladders protected by a
thick covering of leather, and blown tight. Six or eight are made
ready for the occasion, every window in the town is shut by break of
day, at which time all the youths of the neighbourhood assemble in the
streets. The ball is then thrown up in front of the town-hall, and the
multitude, dividing into two parts, strive with incredible eagerness
and enthusiasm to overcome their antagonists, each endeavouring to
kick the foot-ball to the other extremity of the town. In the struggle
severe kicks and wounds are given, and many fierce battles take place.
The ball sometimes mounts thirty or forty feet above the tops of the
highest houses and falls far beyond, or goes right over into the
gardens, whither it is immediately followed by a crowd of young men.
The sport is kept up all day, the hungry combatants recruiting their
strength from time to time by copious horns of ale, and an abundant
supply of the nice pancakes which the women sell in baskets at the
corner of every street. To view this sport, thousands of persons
assemble from all the country round, so that to the secluded
population of those districts it is in some sort what the battle in
the Platanistas was to the Spartans, or even what the Isthmian and
Nemean games were to the whole of Greece.
Footnote 503:
Palamedes, iii. 4. p. 207. Alex. ab Alex. iii. 21.
The Phæninda[504] is supposed to have received its name either from
its inventor, Phænides (called Phænestios in Athenæus[505] and the
Etymologicon Magnum), or from the verb Φενακίζειν[506] “to deceive,”
because, making as though they would throw at one person, they
immediately sent it at another, thus deluding the expectation of the
former. It appears at first to have been played with the small ball
called Harpaston, though the game with the large soft one may
afterwards perhaps have also been called Phæninda. The variety named
Aporraxis consisted in throwing the ball with some force against the
ground and repelling it constantly as it rebounded; he who did this
most frequently, winning. In the game called Ourania, the player,
bending back his body, flung up the ball with all his might into the
air; on which there arose a contention among his companions who should
first catch it in its descent, as Homer appears to intimate in his
description of the Phæacian sport. They likewise played at ball in the
modern fashion against a wall, in which the person who kept it up
longest, won, and was called king; the one who lost, obtained the name
of ass, and was constrained by the laws of the game to perform any
task set him by the king.[507]
Footnote 504:
Cf. Souter. Palam. iii. 3. p. 201.
Footnote 505:
Deipnosoph. i. 26.
Footnote 506:
Cf. Schweigh. ad Athen. t. vi. p. 248. seq.
Footnote 507:
Poll. ix. 106.
A game generally played in the gymnasia was the Skaperda. In this a
post was set up with a hole near the top and a rope passed through it.
Two young men then seized each one end of the rope, and turning their
back to the post exerted their utmost strength to draw their
antagonist up the beam. He who raised his opponent highest won.
Sometimes they tried their strength by binding themselves together,
back to back, and pulling different ways.
The Himanteligmos, “pricking the garter,” in Ireland “pricking the
loop,” was really an ingenious amusement. It consisted in doubling a
thong, and twisting it into numerous labyrinthine folds, which done,
the other party put the end of a peg into the midst in search of the
point of duplication. If he missed the mark the thong unwound without
entangling the peg; but if he dropped it into the right ring his peg
was caught and the game won. Hemsterhuis[508] supposes the Gordian
knot to have been nothing but a variety of the Himanteligmos. He
conjectures that the boys of Abdera were fond of this game, on which
account the sophisms of Democritus were called ἱμαντελικτεαὶ, and
hence probably a sophist, as one who twists words together, to _lash_
others, was called Himantelicteus.
Footnote 508:
Ad Poll. t. vi. p. 1186. sqq. Cf. Plut. Symp. i. 1.
Another game, not entirely confined to children, was the Chalkismos,
which consisted in twisting round rapidly on a board or table a piece
of money, and placing the point of the finger so dexterously on its
upper edge as to put a stop to its motion without permitting it to
fall. This was a favourite amusement of Phryne the hetaira, as
building houses of cards was of La Belle Stuart.[509] Some of these
sports were peculiar to the female sex,[510] as the Pentalitha, which
is still played by girls in some remote provinces of our island, where
it is called “Dandies.” The whole apparatus of the game consisted in
five astragals—knuckle bones—pebbles, or little balls, which, gathered
up rapidly, were thrown into the air and attempted to be caught in
falling on the back of the hand or between the slightly spread
fingers. If any fell it was allowable to pick them up, provided this
were done with the fingers of the same hand on which the other
astragals rested.[511] The girls of France, according to Bulenger,
still amuse themselves with the Pentalitha, there played with five
little glass balls, which are flung in the air and caught so
dexterously as seldom to fall either on the table or on the ground. I
have never, however, seen it played myself in that country.
Footnote 509:
Poll. ix. 118.
Footnote 510:
The game of astragals, properly so called, was common to both sexes
(Paus. vi. 24. 7), who saw in Elis one of the Graces, represented
with an astragal in her hand, while her two companions held the one
a rose, the other a branch of myrtle, symbolical of their
relationship to Aphrodite. The poets sometimes transfer these sports
of earth to the Olympian halls, where we find Eros and Ganymede
playing with golden astragals—Cf. Apollon. Rhod. iii. 117. seq. Cf.
Odyss. α. 107. Il. χ. 87. seq.
Footnote 511:
Poll. ix. 126.
The Astragalismos,[512] which by the Romans was denominated talorum or
taxillorum ludus, (by Hyde through the Greek πάσσαλος, derived from
the Hebræo-Punic Assila,) by the Arabs Ka’b or Shezn, by the Persians
Shesh-buzhûl bâzi, by the Turks Depshelìm, (played in their country
both by girls and boys,) by the French Garignon or Osselets, in
English “Cockall.”[513] In the game of astragals the Persians, as is
implied in the name given above, often use six bones while the Greeks
employed only four, which were thrown either on a table or on the
floor. According to Lucian,[514] the huckle bones were sometimes those
of the African gazelle.
Footnote 512:
Children, according to Lysander, were to be deceived with astragals,
and men with oaths.—Plut. Lysan. § 8.
Footnote 513:
Hyde, Hist. Talor. § 2. t. ii. p. 314.
Footnote 514:
Amor. § 16. Theoph. Char. c. 5. See Nixon. Acc. of Antiq. at Hercul.
Phil. Trans. vol. 50. pt. i. p. 88. Hyde. Hist. Talor. p. 137.
The several sides of the astragal or huckle bone had their character
expressed by numbers, and obtained separate names, which determined
the value of the throw.[515] Thus, the side showing the Monas was
called the Dog, the opposite side Chias, and the throw Chios. In
cockall as in dice there are neither twos nor fives. The highest
number, six, was called the Coan (συνορικὸς or ἑξίτης); the Dog or one
was called the Chian or dog-chance; to which the old proverb alluded
Κῶος πρὸς χῖον, six to one. To have the Dog turn up was to lose,
hence, perhaps, the phrase, “going to the dogs,” that is, playing a
losing game. The throw of eight was denominated Stesichoros, because
the poet’s tomb at Himera consisted of a perfect octagon. Among the
forty who succeeded to the thirty at Athens Euripides was one, and
hence, if the throw of the astragals amounted to forty points, they
bestowed upon it the name of Euripides. All animals in which the
astragal is found have it in the hough or pastern of the hind legs.
The τὸ πρανὲς, the gibbous side or blank, because it counts for
nothing; the τὸ κοῖλον, the hollow side or “put in;” the χῶα, the
tortuous side, "cockall," or “take all,” so called because it wins the
stake; the smooth side τα χῖα, “take half,” because of the money put
in, it wins half. Among the Greeks and Romans the _put in_ was called
trias, the blank tetras, the half-monas, and the cockall hexas.[516]
By the Arabs they are denominated the thief, the lamb, the wezeer, and
the sultan; by the Turks the robber, the ploughman, the kihaya, or the
dog, and the bey; by the Persians the robber, the rustic, the wezeer,
and the schah; by the Armenians the thief, the ploughman, the steward,
and the lord. The number of casts among the Greeks, according to
Eustathius, amounted to thirty-five.[517] Pliny[518] speaks of a work
of Polycletos representing naked boys playing at this game, and the
reader will probably remember the mutilated group in the British
Museum, in which a boy having evidently been beaten at astragals, is
biting in revenge the leg of his conqueror.
Footnote 515:
Hyde. Hist. Talor. p. 141. sqq. Poll. ix. 100.
Footnote 516:
Arist. Hist. Anim. ii. 2. p. 30. Bekk.
Footnote 517:
Meurs. Græc. Lud. p. 7.
Footnote 518:
xxxiv. 19. Vid. Calcagnin, Dissert. de Talis. J. Cammer. Comment. de
Utriusque Ling. c. 846.
To play at Odd or Even[519] was common; so that we find Plato
describing a knot of boys engaged in this game in a corner of the
undressing room of the gymnasium. There was a kind of divination by
astragals, the bones being hidden under the hand, and the one party
guessing whether they were odd or even. The same game was occasionally
played with beans, walnuts, or almonds, or even with money, if we may
credit Aristophanes, who describes certain serving-men playing at Odd
or Even with golden staters.[520] There was a game called Eis
Omillan,[521] in which they drew a circle on the ground, and, standing
at a little distance, pitched the astragals at it; to win consisting
in making them remain within the ring. Another form of the Eis Omillan
was to place a trained quail within a circle, on a table for example,
out of which the point was to drive it by tapping it with the middle
finger. If it reared at the blow, and retreated beyond the line, its
master lost his wager. The play called Tropa[522] was also generally
performed with astragals, which were pitched into a small hole, formed
to receive such things when skilfully thrown. The common acorn, and
fruit of the holm oak, were often substituted for astragals in this
game. The Ephentinda seems to have consisted in pitching an ostrakon
into a circle, so as to cause it to remain there. The Skeptinda
consisted in placing an ostrakon, or a piece of money, on the ground,
and pitching another at it so as to make it turn.[523]
Footnote 519:
Hyde, Hist. Nerdilud. p. 261.
Footnote 520:
Plut. 817. sqq. Cf. Sch. in loc.
Footnote 521:
Suid. et Hesych. in v. Poll. ix. 102. Cf. Meurs. Græc. Ludib. p. 69.
Footnote 522:
Cf. Meurs. de Lud. Græc. p. 61. Hesych. v. Τρόπα.
Footnote 523:
Poll. ix. 117.
CHAPTER IV.
ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION.
In Greece, as everywhere else, education[524] commenced in the
nursery; and though time has very much obscured all remaining traces
of the instruction which the children there received, we are not left
on this point wholly without information. From the very day of his
birth man begins to be acted on by those causes that furnish his mind
with ideas. As his intelligence acquires strength, the five sluices
which let in all that flood of knowledge which afterwards overflows
his mind, appear to be enlarged, and education at first, and for some
time, consists in watching over the nature and quality of the ideas
conveyed inward by those channels. It is difficult to say when actual
instruction commenced: but among the earliest formal attempts at
impressing traditionary knowledge on the infant mind was the
repetition by mothers and nurses of fables and stories, not always, if
Plato may be credited, constructed with a religious or ethical
purpose.[525] They, in fact, introduced into the minds of their
children the legends of the mythology, under the forms of which truths
of the greatest importance, such as Bacon has developed in his “Wisdom
of the Ancients,” lay sometimes concealed, though more frequently,
perhaps, they inculcated no useful lesson, but were the mere sportive
creations of fancy, or if they contained any moral kernel the shell in
which it was cased was too hard for the teeth of the vulgar. Such, for
example, as the legend of Zeus in Hesiod mutilating his father Kronos,
which, in Plato’s opinion, was not to be delivered to the empty-headed
multitude or to untaught children; but, having sacrificed, not a hog,
but the most precious victim, in mysterious secrecy to a few.
Footnote 524:
Among the ancient writers on education, of which the greater number
have perished, was Clearchos of Soli, on whom see Voss. de Hist.
Græc. i. Athen. xv. 54. Men. in Diog. Laert. p. 4. b.
Footnote 525:
Rep. ii. t. vi. p. 94.—Cf. Adolph. Cramer, 8, 9.
Wholly different from these, however, were the fables[526] properly so
called, which, invented apparently by Hesiod,[527] (at least his Hawk
and Nightingale is the oldest example extant in Hellenic literature,)
were afterwards sprinkled by the greatest poets, through their
writings, or spontaneously uttered in pressing emergencies to warn
their countrymen against the approaches of tyranny. Archilochos’ Eagle
and Fox[528] was famous throughout antiquity, as was likewise the
Horse and the Stag, related by Stesichoros[529] to the people of
Himera, to put them on their guard against the Machiavellian policy of
Gelon. But the most complete, perhaps, of these ancient compositions
is the fable of the lion, delivered by Eumenes to the Macedonian
generals under his order, when they had been tampered with by
Antigonos, who would have persuaded them to disband.[530]
Footnote 526:
Cf. Suid. v. Καὶ τὸ τοῦ λύκου. i. 1427.
Footnote 527:
Opp. et. Dies, 202–212. Quintil. v. 2.
Footnote 528:
Plat. Rep. l. ii. cap. 8. c. p. 117. Schol. Aristoph. Av. 652.
Philostrat. Imag. i. 3.
Footnote 529:
Phot. Bib. 139. b. 8. Hor. Epist. i. 10. Gyraldi, de Poet. Histor.
p. 462. a. sqq. Aristot. Rhet. ii. 20.
Footnote 530:
Diod. Sic. l. xix. c. 25.
“It is said,” observed the Prince, “that once upon a time a lion
falling in love with a young maiden came to make proposals of marriage
to her father. The old man replied that he was quite ready to bestow
on him his daughter upon one condition, namely, that he should pluck
out his teeth and his claws, for that he feared his majesty might upon
the wedding night forget himself and unwittingly destroy the bride. To
these terms the lion consented, and allowed his teeth and claws to be
pulled out, upon which the father seeing he had lost the only things
which rendered him terrible fell upon him with a club and beat him to
death.” The Æsopic fables[531] which Socrates a few days before his
death amused himself by turning into verse,[532] are known to us
solely by comparatively modern imitations, and of those which were
denominated Sybaritic we know nothing[533] beyond the name; for though
one scholiast informs us that the Sybaritic fables brought men upon
the scene, as the Æsopic did animals, another states the direct
contrary. In the earlier and ruder ages of Greece, however, these
compositions were in great repute, as they are still among the people
of the East. To the infancy of nations as of individuals the wisdom
they contain is, in fact, always palatable; for which reason they were
highly esteemed by Martin Luther as particularly adapted to the spirit
of his times.
Footnote 531:
Aristoph. Pac. 128. Vesp. 1392, sqq. et Scholia.
Footnote 532:
Diog. Laert. ii. 5. 22.
Doubtless we know too little of how the foundation of the republican
character was laid in the ancient commonwealths; but it was laid by
woman, and for centuries cannot have been laid amiss, as the glorious
superstructure of virtue and patriotism erected upon it fully
demonstrates. On this point we must reject the testimony of Plato’s
academic dream. The historic fields of Marathon, Platæa, Thermopylæ,
and a thousand others confute his fanciful theorising, proving
incontestably that the love of glory and independence could, in the
very polities which lie least esteemed, achieve triumphs unknown to
the subjects of other governments.
Footnote 533:
Sch. Aristoph. Av. 471. Sch. Vesp. 1251.
At seven years[534] old boys were removed from the harem and sent
under the care of a governor to a public school, which, from the story
of Bedreddin Hassan, we find to have been formerly the practice among
the Arabs, even for the sons of distinguished men and Wezeers. “When
seven years had passed over him his grandfather, (Shemseddeen, Wezeer
of the Sultan of Egypt,) committed him to a schoolmaster, whom he
charged to educate him with great care.”[535]
Footnote 534:
Aristot. Polit. vii. 15.
Footnote 535:
Arabian Nights, i. 286. Lane’s Translation.
Mischievous no doubt the boys of Hellas were, as boys will everywhere
be, and many pranks would they play in spite of the crabbed old slaves
set over them by their parents; on which account, probably, it is that
Plato considers boys, of all wild beasts the most audacious, plotting,
fierce and intractable.[536] But the urchins now found that it was one
thing to nestle under mamma’s wing at home, and another to delve under
the direction of a didaskalos, and at school-hours, after the bitter
roots of knowledge. For the school-boys of Greece tasted very little
of the sweets of bed after dawn. “They rose with the light,” says
Lucian, “and with pure water washed away the remains of sleep, which
still lingered on their eyelids.”[537] Having breakfasted on bread and
fruit, to which through the allurements of their pædagogues they
sometimes added wine,[538] they sallied forth to the didaskaleion, or
schoolmaster’s lair as the comic poets jocularly termed it,[539]
summer and winter, whether the morning smelt of balm, or was deformed
by sleet or snow, drifting like meal from a sieve down the rocks of
the Acropolis.
Footnote 536:
De Legg. vi. t. viii. p. 41. Creuzer. de Civ. Athen. p. 556.
Footnote 537:
Amor. § 44.
Footnote 538:
Athen. xiii. 61. sqq.
Footnote 539:
Poll. iv. 19.
Aristophanes has left us a picture, dashed off with his usual
grotesque vigour, of a troop of Attic lads marching on a winter’s
morning to school.[540]
“Now will I sketch the ancient plan of training,
When justice was in vogue and wisdom flourished.
First, modesty restrained the youthful voice
So that no brawl was heard. In order ranged,
The boys from all the neighbourhood appeared,
Marching to school, naked, though down the sky
Tumbled the flaky snow like flour from sieve.
Arrived, and seated wide apart, the master
First taught them how to chaunt Athena’s praise,
‘Pallas unconquered, stormer of cities!’ or
‘Shout far resounding’ in the self-same notes
Their fathers learned. And if through mere conceit
Some innovation-hunter strained his throat
With scurril lays mincing and quavering,
Like any Siphnian or Chian fop—
As is too much the fashion since that Phrynis[541]
Brought o’er Ionian airs—quickly the scourge
Rained on his shoulders blows like hail as one
Plotting the Muses’ downfal. In the Palæstra
Custom required them decently to sit,
Decent to rise, smoothing the sandy floor
Lest any traces of their form should linger
Unsightly on the dust. When in the bath
Grave was their manner, their behaviour chaste.
At table, too, no stimulating dishes,
Snatched from their elders, such as fish or anis,
Parsley or radishes or thrushes, roused
The slumbering passions.”[542]
Footnote 540:
Cf. Plato, de Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 41. seq.
Footnote 541:
For an account of this musician, see Pollux iv. 66. with the notes
of Kühn and Iungermann, t. iv. p. 709. sqq.
Footnote 542:
Aristoph. Nub. 961. sqq. Cf. Plaut. Bacchid. iii. 3.
The object of sending boys to school was twofold: first to cultivate
and harmonise their minds by arts and literature; secondly, so to
occupy them that no time could be allowed for evil thoughts and
habits. On this account, Aristotle enumerating Archytas’ rattle among
the principal toys of children, denominates education the rattle of
boys.[543] In order, too, that its effect might be the more sure and
permanent, no holidays[544], or vacations appear to have been allowed,
while irregularity or lateness of attendance was severely
punished.[545] The theories broached by Montagne, Locke, and others,
that boys are to be kept in order by reason and persuasion were not
anticipated by the Athenians.[546] They believed that to reduce the
stubborn will to obedience, and enforce the wholesome laws of
discipline, masters must be armed with the power of correction, and
accordingly their teachers and gymnasiarchs checked with stripes[547]
the slightest exhibition of stubbornness or indocility.[548]
Footnote 543:
Polit. viii. 6. 268. Gœttl.
Footnote 544:
Casaub. ap. Theoph. Char. p. 273.
Footnote 545:
Plaut. Bacchid. iii. 3. 22.
Footnote 546:
Plato, indeed, at one time entertained a similar fancy.—De Rep. t.
vi. p. 385. (Cf. Muret. in Aristot. Ethic. 71.) But, afterwards, in
his old age, adopted the general conviction of mankind, that he who
spares the rod spoils the child.—De Legg. t. viii. p. 12. seq.
Varro, however, who wrote much on education, observes, that
“remotissimum ad discendum formido, ac nimius timor, et omnis
perturbatio animi. Contra delectatio pro telo ad discendum.” Victor.
Var. Lect. l. xv. c. 2. Theodoric, the Gothic king of Italy, had
another reason for sparing the rod in education. The child, he said,
who had trembled at a rod would never dare to look upon a
sword.—Gibbon vii. 19. This Gothic prince was not, therefore,
acquainted with the Spartan system of education.
Footnote 547:
Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 959.
Footnote 548:
Cf. Cressoll. Theat. Rhet. v. 6. p. 471. seq.
Nor did their pædagogues[549] or governors behave towards them with
less strictness. These were persons,—slaves for the most part,—who at
Athens as in the rest of Greece, Sparta not excepted, were from the
earliest ages intrusted with the care of boys, and whose ministry
could on no account be dispensed with. By Plato[550] even these
precautions were deemed insufficient. In his ideal state he would have
the pædagogues themselves, as at Sparta, under the strictest
inspection, making it the duty of every citizen to have an eye upon
them, and arming him with the power to correct their delinquencies as
well as those of the boys under their charge. There was to be,
moreover, a general inspector intrusted with authority to punish
neglect, by whichsoever of the parties committed. Upon these points
the views of the Athenians were unquestionably judicious, for since
boys did not amongst them pass at once from the hands of their mothers
and domestic guardianship into those of the state as at Sparta, such
governors were necessary to preserve their manners from defilement and
contamination.[551] Their principal duty consisted in leading the lad
to and from school, in attending him to the theatre, to the public
games, to the forum, and wherever else it was thought fit he should
go.[552] It has been by some conjectured that while the boys continued
under the care of the schoolmaster the governors remained in the
house, or in a building adjoining denominated the pædagogeion, to
await their return; but the inference, drawn chiefly from the name of
the edifice, is erroneous; pædagogeion was employed to signify the
school itself,[553] and we have the testimony of Plato to prove that
the pædagogue having delivered the boy to the didaskalos, usually
returned to his master’s house.
Footnote 549:
On these and the other persons engaged in the education of youth,
see Bergmann, ad Isoc. Areop. § 14.
Footnote 550:
De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 42. See p. 11 of Cramer’s excellent little
pamphlet, which I have frequently found extremely useful.
Footnote 551:
Xenoph. de Rep. Laced. ii. 1. 2.
Footnote 552:
Plat. Lysis. t. i. p. 118. De Legg. iv. t. viii. p. 325. De Rep.
iii. t. vi. p. 128.
Footnote 553:
Poll. iv. 19. Ulp. ad Demosth. de Cor. § 78. Orat. Att. t. x. p.
113. Plat. Lysis. t. i. p. 145.
On the character of these governors[554] antiquity appears to have
transmitted us more satire than information. If we may credit some
writers, it was not merely slaves who were intrusted with the care of
boys, but often the meanest and vilest of slaves,—base in mind,
depraved in manners,—whose guardianship, when they chanced to be
crabbed and morose, could be no other than disgusting to their
charges; and, when inclined to indulgence, most pernicious. Nay, were
they themselves corrupt, what could be of more evil tendency than
their own example? They who take this view of the matter appear to me
illogical and inconsistent.[555] Though aware that these men were
chosen by the parents to preserve their children from bad example,
from the infection of corrupt manners, from the allurements of vicious
companions, these writers persuade themselves that they voluntarily
gave them as companions and guardians men worse than whom could not be
found. It is more reasonable to conclude that when these pædagogues
proved unworthy of the trust reposed in them they were sufficient
masters of hypocrisy to conceal their vices at home, and only revealed
themselves to their young masters gradually as their lessons produced
their evil fruits. Thus, it is clear, that the father whom the comic
writer Plato, in his Fellow Deceiver,[556] introduced reproaching the
pædagogue who had corrupted his son, knew nothing of his evil ways
when he delivered the lad to his keeping.
“The youth, O wretch, whom I intrusted to thee
Thou hast perverted, teaching him vile habits
Once stranger to his mind; for now he drinks
Even in the morning, which was not his wont.”
Footnote 554:
Plut. de Lib. Educ. § 7. The Athenians sought to create a high idea
of this class of persons by annually offering sacrifice to Connidas,
the reputed pædagogue of Theseus.—Plut. Thes. § 4.
Footnote 555:
Cram. de Educ. Puer. ap. Athen. p. 12.
With the greatest reason we may suppose, that of all the domestics in
the family the most staid and sober, the most attached, the most
faithful, were chosen to fulfil this important duty, such as Plautus
describes an honest pædagogue,—
Eademque erat hæc disciplina olim, cum tu adolescens eras?
Nego tibi hoc annis viginti fuisse primis copiæ,
Digitum longe a pædagogo pedem ut efferres ædibus,
Ante solem exorientem nisi in palæstram veneras,
Gymnasii præfecto haud mediocres pœnas penderes.
Idque ubi obtigerat, hoc etiam ad malum arcessabatur malum
Et discipulus et magister perhibebantur improbi.
Ubi cursu, luctando, hasta, disco, pugillatu, pila,
Saliendo sese exercebant magis, quam, scorto aut saviis:
Ibi suam ætatem extendebant, non in latebrosis locis.
Inde de hippodromo et palæstra ubi revenisses domum,
Cincticulo præcinctus in sella apud magistrum assideres:
Cum librum legeres. Si unam peccavisses syllabam,
Fieret corium tam maculosum quam est nutricis pallium
* * * * * Id equidem ego certo scio.
Nam olim populi prius honorem capiebat suffragio,
Quam magistri desinebat esse dicto obediens.[557]
Footnote 556:
Athen. xiii. 61. 63.
Footnote 557:
Plaut. Bacchid. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Lucian, too, speaking of the attendants of youths in the better times
of the republic, describes them as an honourable company who followed
their young masters to the schools, not with combs and looking-glasses
like the attendants of ladies, but with the venerable instruments of
wisdom in their hands, many-leaved tablets or books recording the
glorious deeds of their ancestors, or if proceeding to the music
master bearing, instead of these, the melodious lyre.[558]
Footnote 558:
Amor. §. 44.
In fact the fortunes of war often in those days reduced men of virtue
and ability to the condition of slaves, when they would naturally be
chosen as the governors of youth. Thus we find Diogenes the Cynic
purchased by a rich Corinthian, who intrusted to him the education of
his sons. The account which antiquity has left us of his sale,
reception by his master, and manner of teaching, being extremely
brief, we shall here give it entire. Hermippos[559] who wrote a small
treatise called the Sale of Diogenes, observes that when the
philosopher was exposed in the slave-market and interrogated
respecting his qualifications, he replied that “He could command men;”
and then addressing himself to the herald, bade him inquire whether
there was any one present who wanted a master. Being forbidden to sit
down, he said “This matters nothing, for fish are bought in whatever
way they may lie.” He remarked also, that he wondered that when people
were buying a pot or a dish they examined it on all sides, whereas
when they purchased a man they were contented with simply looking at
him. Afterwards, when he had become the slave of Xeniades, he informed
his owner that he expected the same obedience to be paid to him as men
yield to a pilot or a physician.
Footnote 559:
Diog. Laert. Vit. Diog. vi. ii. 4. sqq. with the observation of
Menage, t. ii. p. 138.
It is further related by Eubulos, who likewise wrote a treatise on
this incident, that Diogenes conducted with the utmost care the
education of the children under his charge. In addition to the
ordinary studies, he taught them to ride, to draw the bow, to use the
sling, and to throw the javelin. In the palæstra, moreover, where,
contrary to the Athenian practice he remained to watch over the boys,
Diogenes would not permit the master of the Gymnasium to exercise them
after the manner of the athletæ; but in those parts only of
gymnastics, which had a tendency to animate them and strengthen their
constitutions. They learned also by heart,[560] under his direction,
numerous sentences from the poets and historians, as well as from his
own writings. It was his practice likewise very greatly to abridge his
explanations in order that they might the more easily be committed to
memory. At home he habituated them to wait on themselves, to be
content with frugal fare, and drink water, from which it may be
inferred that others drank wine. He accustomed them to cut their hair
close, not to be fastidious in dress, and to walk abroad with him
barefoot and without a chiton, silent and with downcast eyes.[561] He
also went out with them to hunt. On their part they took great care of
him, and pleaded his cause with their parents. He therefore grew old
in the family, and they performed for him the rites of sepulture.
Footnote 560:
I may say with Herault de Sechelle “Apprendre _par cœur_; ce mot me
plait. Il n’y a guère en effet que le cœur, qui retienne bien, et
qui retienne vîte.”—Voyage à Montbar, &c. p. 77.
Footnote 561:
Cf. Luc. Amor. § 44. Καὶ χλανίδα ταῖς ἐπωμίαις περόναις συῤῥάψας ἀπὸ
τῆς πατρῴας ἑστίας ἐξέρχεται κάτω κεκυφὼς, καὶ μηδένα τῶν ἀπαντών
τῶν ἐξ ἐναντίου προσβλέπων. In his exhortation to Demonicos,
Isocrates has thrown together numerous precepts which almost
constitute a code of morals and politeness. They are far superior to
Lord Chesterfield’s even where the Graces only are recommended; and
have the advantage of almost always subjoining the reason to the
rule.
Now what Diogenes was in the house of Xeniades numerous pædagogues
were doubtless found to be in other parts of Greece. But the majority
it is thought were open to blame; and so they are everywhere, and so
they would be, though taken from the best classes of mankind. That is,
they were men with many failings, far from what could be wished; but
that their character upon the whole was respectable seems to me
demonstrated by the powers delegated to them by the parents. For not
only could they use upon occasion, as we have said, menace and harsh
language,—they were even permitted to have recourse to blows, in order
to preserve their pupils from vices which none would have sooner
taught than they, had their characters been such as is commonly
believed. For example, would they have made a drunkard the guardian of
a boy’s sobriety? a thief the guardian of his honesty? a libertine of
his chastity? a coarse and ribald jester the inculcator of modesty and
purity of language?[562]
Footnote 562:
Cf. Dion. Chrysost. ii. p. 261; i. 299.
At home, of course, the influence and example of the parents surpassed
all other influences, of the mother more especially, who up to their
manhood retained over her sons the greatest authority. Of this a
playful illustration occurs in the Lysis of Plato.[563] Socrates,
interrogating the youth respecting the course of his studies, inquires
archly whether when in the harem he was not as a matter of course
permitted to play with his mother’s wool basket, and loom, and spathe,
and shuttle?
Footnote 563:
Opp. t. i. p. 118. The influence of imitation over the gesture,
voice, and thoughts of youth is forcibly pointed out in the
Republic.—t. vi. p. 124.
“If I touched them,” replied Lysis, laughing, “I should soon feel the
weight of the shuttle upon my fingers.”
“But,” proceeds the philosopher, “if your mother or father require
anything to be read or written for them, they, probably, prefer your
services to those of any other person?”
“No doubt.”
“And in this case, as you have been instructed in reading and
spelling, they allow you to proceed according to your own knowledge.
So likewise, when you play to them on the lyre, they suffer you, as
you please, to relax or tighten the chords, to touch them with the
fingers, or strike them with the plectron,—do they not?”
“Certainly.”
From this it would appear that the authority of the parents was equal;
though generally at Athens, as Plato[564] elsewhere complains, greater
reverence was paid to the commands of the mother even than to those of
the father. Indeed to be wanting in respect to her was there deemed
the _ne plus ultra_ of depravity.[565] The father, however, of
necessity took a considerable share in the instruction and moral
training of his son,[566] who at home profited by his conversation,
and, arrived at the proper age, accompanied him abroad.[567] When
reduced to the state of orphanhood the republic took children under
its own protection, not considering it safe to intrust them to the
sole guidance of masters or pædagogues.
Footnote 564:
Repub. viii. 5. t. ii. p. 182. Stallb.
Footnote 565:
Aristoph. Nub. 1443. Δυοῖν δ᾽ ὀνομάτοιν σεβασμίοιν πᾶσαι τιμαι
μένουσιν, ἐξίσου παρτὶ μητέρα προσκυνούντων.—Luc. Amor. § 19.
Footnote 566:
On the force of example and imitation see Plato, de Rep. t. vi. p.
124.
Footnote 567:
Plat. Lach. t. i. p. 269.—Among the public places to which a father
might take his sons the courts of law were not included, though we
find Demosthenes, when a boy, contriving to introduce himself, where
unseen of the judges he might listen to the eloquence of
Callistratos.—Victor. Var. Lect. l. xxx. c. 20.
Care, too, was taken lest those public schools, established for the
advancement of virtue and morals, should themselves be converted into
nurseries of vice. They were by law[568] forbidden to be opened before
sunrise, and were closed at sunset; nor during the day could any other
men be introduced besides the teachers,[569] though it appears from
some of Plato’s dialogues that this enactment was not very strictly
observed.[570] To prevent habits of brawling, boys were forbidden to
assemble in crowds in the streets on their way to school. Nor were
these laws deemed sufficient; but still further to protect their
morals ten annual magistrates called Sophronistæ, one from each tribe,
were elected by show of hands,[571] whose sole business it was to
watch over the manners of youth. This magistracy, dated as far back as
the age of Solon,[572] and continued in force to the latest time. The
Gymnasiarch, another magistrate,[573] was intrusted with the
superintendence of the Gymnasia, which, like the public games and
festivals, appeared to require peculiar care; and, if we can receive
the testimony of Plautus[574] for the classical ages of the
commonwealth, transgressors received severe chastisement.
Footnote 568:
Æsch. cont. Timarch. § 5, 6.
Footnote 569:
See Theoph. Char. c. 5. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 180.
Footnote 570:
Lysis. t. i. p. 145. Theætet. t. iii. p. 179.
Footnote 571:
Etym. Mag. 742. 38.
Footnote 572:
Cramer de Educ. Puer. ap. Athen. p. 13.
Footnote 573:
Vandale Dissert. pp. 584–727.
Footnote 574:
Bacchid. iii. 3.
It has sometimes been imagined that in Greece separate edifices were
not erected as with us expressly for school-houses, but that both the
didaskalos and the philosopher taught their pupils in fields, gardens
or shady groves.[575] But this was not the common practice, though
many schoolmasters appear to have had no other place wherein to
assemble their pupils than the portico of a temple[576] or some
sheltered corner in the street, where in spite of the din of business
and the throng of passengers the worship of learning was publicly
performed. Here, too, the music-masters frequently gave their lessons,
whether in singing or on the lyre, which practice explains the
anecdote of the musician, who, hearing the crowd applaud one of his
scholars, gave him a box on the ear, observing, “Had you played well
these blockheads would not have praised you.” A custom very similar
prevails in the East, where, in recesses open to the street, we often
see the turbaned schoolmaster with a crowd of little Moslems about
him, tracing letters on their large wooden tablets or engaged in
recitations of the Koran.
Footnote 575:
See Coray, Disc. Prelim. sur Hippoc. de Aër. et Loc. § 41. t. i. p.
46. seq.
Footnote 576:
In the Antichita di Ercolano (t. iii. p. 213.) we find a
representation of one of these schools during the infliction of
corporal chastisement. Numerous boys are seated on forms reading,
while a delinquent is horsed on the back of another in the true
Etonian style. One of the carnifices holds his legs, while another
applies the birch to his naked back. Occasionally in Greece we find
that free boys were flogged with a leek in lieu of a birch. Sch.
Aristoph. Ran. 622. Schneid. ad Theoph. Hist. Plant. vii. 4. 10. p.
574.
But these were the schools of the humbler classes. For the children of
the noble and the opulent spacious structures were raised, and
furnished with tables, desks,—for that peculiar species of
grammateion[577] which resembled the plate cupboard, can have been
nothing but a desk,—forms, and whatsoever else their studies required.
Mention is made of a school at Chios[578] which contained one hundred
and twenty boys, all of whom save one were killed by the falling in of
the roof. From another tragical story we learn that in Astypalæa,[579]
one of the Cyclades, there was a school which contained sixty boys.
The incidents connected with their death are narrated in the romantic
style of the ancients. Cleomedes, a native of this island, having in
boxing slain Iccos the Epidaurian, was accused of unfairness and
refused the prize, upon which he became mad and returned to his own
country. There, entering into the public school, he approached the
pillar that supported the roof, and like another Sampson seized it in
an access of frenzy, and wresting it from its basis brought down the
whole building upon the children. He himself however escaped, but,
being pursued with stones by the inhabitants, took sanctuary in the
temple of Athena, where he concealed himself in the sacred chest. The
people paying no respect to the holy place still pursued him and
attempted to force open the lid, which he held down with gigantic
strength. At length when the coffer was broken in pieces Cleomedes was
nowhere to be found, dead or alive. Terrified at this prodigy they
sent to consult the oracle of Delphi, by which they were commanded to
pay divine honours to the athlete as the last of the heroes.[580]
Footnote 577:
Poll. iv. 18, 19. x. 57. seq.
Footnote 578:
Herod. vi. 27.
Footnote 579:
Called the Table of the Gods, from its beauty and amenity.—Steph. de
Urb. in v. p. 189. b.
Footnote 580:
Paus. vi. 9. 6. seq. Plut. Rom. § 28.
In the interior of the school there was commonly an oratory[581]
adorned with statues of the Muses, where, probably in a kind of font,
was kept a supply of pure water for the boys. Pretending often, when
they were not, to be thirsty, they would steal in knots to this
oratory, and there amuse themselves by splashing the water over each
other; on which account the legislator ordained that strict watch
should be kept over it. Every morning the forms were spunged,[582] the
schoolroom was cleanly swept, the ink ground ready for use, and all
things were put in order for the business of the day.
Footnote 581:
Sch. Æsch. cont. Tim. in Orator. Att. t. xii. p. 376 a.
Footnote 582:
Dem. de Cor. § 78. seq.
The apparatus[583] of an ancient school was somewhat complicated:
there were mathematical instruments, globes, maps, and charts of the
heavens, together with boards whereon to trace geometrical figures,
tablets, large and small, of box-wood, fir, or ivory[584] triangular
in form, some folding with two, and others with many leaves; books too
and paper, skins of parchment, wax for covering the tablets, which, if
we may believe Aristophanes,[585] people sometimes ate when they were
hungry.[586]
Footnote 583:
Pollux, iv. 19. Cf. Herod. vii. 239. ii. 21. Sch. Aristoph. Vesp.
529.
Footnote 584:
Poll. i. 234. Lucian. Ner. § 9. Amor. § 44. Antich. di Ercol. t. ii.
p. 55. t. iii. p. 237.
Footnote 585:
Poll. x. 58, 59.
Footnote 586:
On this subject Isidorus Hispal. vi. 9. has a curious passage: “Ceræ
literarum materies, parvulorum nutrices. Ipsæ dant ingenium pueris
primordia sensus, quarum studium primi Græci tradidisse produntur.
Græci enim et Thusci primum ferro in ceris scripserunt. Postea
Romani jusserunt, ne graphium ferreum quis haberet. Undè et apud
scribas dicebatur, Ceram ferro ne lædito. Postea institutum est, ut
in cerâ ossibus scriberent, sicut indicat Alsa in Satyrâ dicens:
Vertamus vomerem in ceram, mucroneque aremus osseo.” Cf. Pfeiffer,
Antiq. Græc. p. 413.
To the above were added rulers, reed-pens,[587] pen-cases, pen-knives,
pencils, and last, though not least, the rod which kept them to the
steady use of all these things.
Footnote 587:
It was as the instrument of literature that the reed subdued half
the world, though Pliny only celebrates its conquest as an arrow.
“Ac si quis Æthiopas, Ægyptum, Arabas, Indos, Scythas, Bactros,
Sarmatarum tot gentes et Orientis, omniaque Parthorum regna
diligentiùs computet, æqua fermè pars hominum in toto mundo calamis
superata degit.”—Hist. Nat. xvi. 65.
At Athens these schools were not provided by the state. They were
private speculations, and each master was regulated in his charges by
the reputation he had acquired and the fortunes of his pupils. Some
appear to have been extremely moderate in their demands.[588]
Footnote 588:
Which was the case even among the sophists, as we find Proclos
granting a perpetual admission to his lectures for a hundred
drachmæ.—Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 21. § 3. This he was the better
enabled to do from his carrying on the business of a merchant.—§ 2.
Professors’ charges appear to have been often disputed, as we find
mention, in many authors, of law-suits between them and their
pupils.—Lucian. Icaromenip. § 16. “The wages of industry are just
and honourable, yet Isocrates shed tears at the first receipt of a
stipend.”—Gibbon, vii. 146.
There was for example a school-master named Hippomachos, upon entering
whose establishment boys were required to pay down a mina, after which
they might remain as long and benefit by his instructions as much as
they pleased. Didaskaloi were not however held in sufficient respect,
though as their scholars were sometimes very numerous,[589] as many
for example as a hundred and twenty, it must often have happened that
they became wealthy. From the life of Homer, attributed to
Herodotus,[590] we glean some few particulars respecting the condition
of a schoolmaster in remoter ages.
Footnote 589:
Athen. xiii. 47.
Footnote 590:
Vit. Hom. §§ 5. seq. 25. seq.
Phemios it is there related kept a school at Smyrna, where he taught
boys their letters and all those other parts of education then
comprehended under the term music. His slave Chritheis, the mother of
the poet, spun and wove the wool which Phemios received in payment
from his scholars. She likewise introduced into his house great
elegance and frugality, which so pleased the school-master that it
induced him to marry her. Under this man, according to the tradition
received in Greece, Homer studied, and made so great a proficiency in
knowledge that he was soon enabled to commence instructor himself. He
therefore proceeded to Chios,[591] and opened a school where he
initiated the youth in the beauties of epic poetry, and, performing
his duties with great wisdom, obtained many admirers among the Chians,
became wealthy, and took a wife, by whom he had two sons.
Footnote 591:
Speaking of the antiquities of this island Chandler remarks: “The
most curious remain is that which has been named, without reason,
_The School of Homer_. It is on the coast at some distance from the
city, northward, and appears to have been an open temple of Cybele,
formed on the top of a rock. The shape is oval, and in the centre is
the image of the goddess, the head and an arm wanting. She is
represented, as usual, sitting. The chair has a lion carved on each
side, and on the back. The area is bounded by a low rim or seat, and
about five yards over. The whole is hewn out of the mountain, is
rude, indistinct, and probably of the most remote antiquity.” i. 61.
The earliest task to be performed at school was to gain a knowledge of
the Greek characters, large and small, to spell next, next to read.
Herodes the Sophist experienced much vexation from the stupidity
exhibited in achieving this enterprise by his son Atticus, whose
memory was so sluggish that he could not even recollect the
Christ-cross-row. To overcome this extraordinary dulness he educated
along with him twenty-four little slaves of his own age, upon whom he
bestowed the names of the letters, so that young Atticus might be
compelled to learn his alphabet as he played with his companions, now
calling out for Omicron now for Psi.[592] In teaching the art of
writing their practice nearly resembled our own; the master traced
with what we must call a pencil (γραφὶς), a number of characters on a
tablet, and the pupil following with the pen the guidance of the faint
lines[593] before him, accustomed his fingers to perform the requisite
movements with adroitness.[594] These things were necessarily the
first step in the first class of studies, which were denominated
_music_,[595] and comprehended everything connected with the
developement of the mind; and they were carried to a certain extent
before the second division called gymnastics was commenced. They
reversed the plan commonly adopted among ourselves, for with them
poetry[596] preceded prose, a practice which coöperating with their
susceptible temperament, impressed upon the national mind that
imaginative character for which it was preëminently distinguished. And
the poets in whose works they were first initiated were of all the
most poetical, the authors of lyrical and dithyrambic pieces,
selections from whose verses they committed to memory, thus acquiring
early a rich store of sentences and imagery ready to be adduced in
argument or illustration, to furnish familiar allusions or to be woven
into the texture of their style.[597]
Footnote 592:
Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 10.
Footnote 593:
Quint. i. 1. Poll. vii. 128. Aristoph. Thesm. 778.
Footnote 594:
Plat. Protag. t. i. p. 181.
Footnote 595:
See Plat. de Rep. ii. t. vi. p. 93. seq. Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 188.
seq.
Footnote 596:
In the Homeric age men, we are told, received their mental
instruction from the bards, and their physical at the
gymnasium.—Athen. i. 16.
Footnote 597:
Cf. Plat. de Rep. t. i. p. 149. Stallb.
Considerable difference however existed in the practice of different
teachers. Some imagining that by the variety of their acquirements
they would be rendered eloquent, recommended the indiscriminate study
of the poets,[598] whether they wrote in hexameter, in trimeter, or
any other kind of verse, on ludicrous or on serious subjects. Certain
poets there were who like Fenelon and the pretended Ossian, wrote
their works in prose,[599] respecting the use of whose compositions
Plato was in some doubt.
Footnote 598:
Cf. Plato de Legg. t. viii. p. 44. sqq. On the style of declamation
used in the Greek and Roman schools, see Schömann, de Comit. p. 187.
Footnote 599:
There were likewise poems written in the language of the common
people.—Athen. xiv. 43.
By other philosophers wandering unrestrained over the vast fields of
literature was condemned. They desired to separate the gold from the
dross, contending that persons accustomed from their infancy to the
loftier and purer inspirations of the muse will regard with contempt
every thing mean or illiberal, whereas they who have learned to
delight in low and vulgar compositions will consider all other
literature tame and insipid. For so great is the force of imitation,
that habits commenced from the earliest years pass into the manners
and character of a man, affecting even his voice and corporeal
developement, nay, modifying the very nature of the thoughts
themselves.
Among the other branches of knowledge[600] most necessary to be
studied, and to which they applied themselves nearly from the outset,
was arithmetic, without some inkling of which, a man, in Plato’s
opinion, could scarcely be a citizen at all. For, as he observes,
there is no art or science which does not stand in some need of it,
especially the art of war, where many combinations depend entirely on
numbers. And yet Agamemnon in some of the old tragic poets was
represented by Palamedes as wholly ignorant of calculation, so that
possibly, as Socrates jocularly observes, he could not reckon his own
feet.[601] The importance attached to this branch of education,
nowhere more apparent than in the dialogues of Plato, furnishes one
proof that the Athenians were preëminently men of business, who in all
their admiration for the good and beautiful never lost sight of those
things which promote the comfort of life, and enable a man effectually
to perform his ordinary duties. With the same views were geometry and
astronomy pursued. For, in the Republic, Glaucon,[602] who may be
supposed to represent the popular opinion, confesses at once, upon the
mention of geometry, that as it is applicable to the business of war
it would be most useful. He could discover the superiority of the
geometrician[603] over the ignorant man in pitching a camp, in the
taking of places, in contracting or expanding the ranks of an army,
and all those other military movements practised in battles, marches
or sieges. To Plato however this was its least recommendation. He
conceived that in the search after goodness and truth the study of
this science was especially beneficial to the mind, both because it
deals in positive verities, and thus begets a love of them, and
likewise superinduces the habit of seeking them through lengthened
investigation and of being satisfied with nothing less.
Footnote 600:
Cf. Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 62. where he describes the Egyptian
method of teaching arithmetic by rewards and allurements. Locke,
however, condemned the practice. “He that will give to his son
apples or sugar-plums, or what else of this kind he is most
delighted with, to make him learn his book, does but authorise his
love of pleasure, and cocker up that dangerous propensity, which he
ought by all means to subdue and stifle in him.” Education § 52.
Vid. Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 340. seq. Muret. Orat. iv. 43. Sir
Josiah Child has some good remarks on the value of arithmetic as a
branch of education: “It hath been observed in the nature of
arithmetic, that, like other parts of the mathematics, it doth not
only improve the natural faculties, but it inclines those that are
expert in it to thriftiness and good husbandry, and prevents both
husbands and wives in some measure from running out of their
estates, when they have it always ready in their heads what their
expenses do amount to, and how soon by that course their ruin must
overtake them.”—Discourse of Trade, p. 5.
Footnote 601:
Plat. de Rep. vii. t. vi. p. 340. sqq.
Footnote 602:
Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 349. seq. De Legg. t. viii. p. 371. Sch.
Aristoph. Nub. 180. Cf. Cicero de Orat. iii. 32. t. ii. 319. ed.
Lallemand.
Footnote 603:
See in Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 181. an anecdote of Thales cutting a new
channel for the river Halys.
In the study of astronomy[604] itself a coarse and obvious utility was
almost of necessity the first thing aimed at, and even in the age of
Socrates, when philosophical wants were keenly felt in addition to
those of the animal and civil life, there were evidently teachers who
considered it necessary to justify such pursuits, by showing their
bearing on the system of loss and profit. For when Socrates comes in
his ideal scheme of education to touch on this science, Glaucon, the
practical man, at once recognises its usefulness, not only in
husbandry and navigation, but in affairs military. Nor are such fruits
of it to be despised. But philosophy proposes a higher aim, insisting,
in opposition to popular belief, that by means of such pursuits the
soul may be purified, and its powers of discovering truth, overlaid
and nearly extinguished by other studies, rekindled and fanned into
activity like a flame.
Footnote 604:
Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 357. seq.; de Legg. t. viii. p. 370. Sch.
Aristoph. Nub. 860. 208.
The importance of music,[605] in the education of the Greeks, is
generally understood. It was employed to effect several purposes.
First, to soothe and mollify the fierceness of the national character,
and prepare the way for the lessons of the poets, which, delivered
amid the sounding of melodious strings, when the soul was rapt and
elevated by harmony, by the excitement of numbers, by the magic of the
sweetest associations, took a firm hold upon the mind, and generally
retained it during life. Secondly, it enabled the citizens gracefully
to perform their part in the amusements of social life, every person
being in his turn called upon at entertainments to sing or play upon
the lyre. Thirdly, it was necessary to enable them to join in the
sacred choruses, rendered frequent by the piety of the state, and for
the due performance in old age of many offices of religion, the
sacerdotal character belonging more or less to all the citizens of
Athens. Fourthly, as much of the learning of a Greek was martial and
designed to fit him for defending his country, he required some
knowledge of music that on the field of battle his voice might
harmoniously mingle with those of his countrymen, in chaunting those
stirring, impetuous, and terrible melodies, called pæans, which
preceded the first shock of fight.
Footnote 605:
Vid. Ilgen. de Scol. Poes. xiv.—“Post Persica demum bella musicæ
assidue operatos Græcos dicit. Et præmia diebus festis nonnullis
constituta iis pueris adolescentibusque, qui lyrica carmina Solonis
aliorumque optime cecinissent.”—Creuzer. de Civ. Athen. Omn. Hum.
Par. p. 55. seq.
For some, or all of these reasons, the science of music began to be
cultivated among the Hellenes, at a period almost beyond the reach
even of tradition. The Bards, whom we behold wandering on the remotest
edge of the fabulous horizon, have invariably harps or lyres in their
hands; and the greatest of the heroes of poetry, the very acme of Epic
excellence, is represented delighting in the performance of music, and
chaunting on the shores of the Hellespont the deeds of former
warriors. In those ages the music of the whole nation possessed
evidently a grave and lofty character; but as that of the Ionians
became afterwards modified by the influence of a softer climate and
imitation of the Asiatic, while the Dorian measure remained nearly
unchanged, the latter is supposed to have possessed originally the
superiority over the former, which in reality it did not. In process
of time, however, the existence of three distinct measures was
recognised, the Dorian, the Æolian, and the Ionian: the first was
grave, masculine, full of energy, and though somewhat monotonous
peculiarly adapted to inspire martial ardour; the last distinguished
by a totally different character, rich, varied, flexible, breathing
softness and pleasure, adorning the hour of peace and murmuring
plaintively through the groves and temples of Aphrodite, Apollo, and
the Muses; while the second, which was fiery, with a mixture of
gaiety, formed the intermediate step between the two measures,
partaking something of the character of each. The Hypermixolydian and
Hyperphrygian, at one time cultivated among the Ionians, were
comparatively recent inventions.[606]
Footnote 606:
Athen. xiv. 20. sqq. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 984. Clem. Alex. i. 3.
5.
The Phrygian measure distinguished for its exciting and enthusiastic
character,[607] was much employed upon the stage, on which account
Agias the poet used to say that the styrax burned on the altar in the
orchestra had a Phrygian smell, because its odours recalled the wild
Phrygian measures there heard. The national instrument of the
Phrygians was the flute, and it is worthy of remark that up to a very
late period flute-players at Athens were usually distinguished by
Phrygian names. Olympos the greatest musician known to the Greeks, was
probably himself a native of Phrygia, since he is said to have been a
pupil of Marsyas. In fact the barbarians of antiquity appear, though
in a somewhat different way, to have made as much use of music as the
Greeks themselves. They chaunted the songs of their bards in going to
battle, sang funeral dirges at tombs, and even caused their
ambassadors when proceeding on a mission to foreign states to be
accompanied by music.[608] No people, however, appear to have carried
their love for music to so preposterous a length as the Tyrrhenians,
who caused their slaves to be flogged to the sound of the flute.
Footnote 607:
Luc. Nigrin. § 37.
Footnote 608:
Athen. xiv. 24.
The music of the flute[609] was supposed to be peculiarly delightful
to the gods, so that those who died while its sounds were on their
ears were permitted to taste of the gifts of Aphrodite in Hades, as
Philetæros expresses it in his Flute-lover:
“O Zeus! how glorious ’tis to die while piercing flutes are near
Pouring their stirring melodies into the faltering ear;
On these alone doth Eros smile within those realms of night,
Where vulgar ghosts in shivering bands, all strangers to delight,
In leaky tub from Styx’s flood the icy waters bear,
Condemned, for woman’s lovely voice, its moaning sounds to hear.”
Footnote 609:
On the effect of music on the mind, see Magius, Var. Lect. p. 204 b.
The teachers of music were divided into two classes: the Citharistæ,
who simply played on the instrument, and the Citharœdi who accompanied
themselves on the cithara with a song.[610] Of these the humble and
poorer taught, as we have already observed, in the corners of the
streets, while the abler and more fortunate opened schools of music or
gave their lessons in the private dwellings of the great. The Cithara,
however, was not anciently in use at Athens, if we may credit the
tradition which attributes to Phrynis its introduction from
Ionia.[611]
Footnote 610:
Kühn ad Poll. iv. p. 711. Cf. Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 49.
Footnote 611:
Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 958; Vesp. 574.
Damon the great Athenian musician[612] used to observe, that wherever
the mind is susceptible of powerful emotions there will be the song
and the dance, and that wherever men are free and honourable their
amusements will be liberal and decorous, where men are otherwise the
contrary. A very judicious remark was likewise made by Caphesias the
flute-player. Observing one of his pupils striving to produce loud
sounds, he stamped on the ground and said,—"Boy, that is not always
good which is great; but that is great which is good."[613]
Footnote 612:
Cf. Plat. Repub. t. vi. p. 133.
Footnote 613:
Athen. xiv. 26.
The power of music in assuaging passion and anger is well illustrated
by an anecdote of Cleinias the Pythagorean philosopher, a man
distinguished for his virtue and gentleness. If at any time he felt
himself moved to wrath, taking up his lyre he would touch the chords
and chaunt thereto some ode, and if any questioned why he did so, he
would reply, “I am in search of serenity.”[614]
Footnote 614:
Πραΰνομοι. Cham. Pont. ap. Athen. xiv. 18.
Like the Hebrews, also, the people of Hellas attributed to music still
more marvellous virtues,[615] conceiving it to be able to cure
diseases both of the mind and body. Thus the sounds of the flute were
supposed to remove epilepsy, and sciatica, and faintness, and fear,
and paroxysms of long-established madness,[616] which will probably
remind the reader of David playing before Saul, when his mind was
troubled.
Footnote 615:
Thus demons were expelled by the sound of brass bells.—Magius, Var.
Lect. p. 205. b.
Footnote 616:
Athen. xiv. 18. Apollon. ap. Schweigh. Animad. xii. p. 399. on the
story, and bronze votive offerings on the Tænarian promontory of the
musician Arion.—Herod. i. 23. seq. Dion. Chrysost. Orat. xxxvii. p.
455. Pausan. i. 24. Ælian. de Nat. Animal. xii. 45.
In the later ages of the commonwealth drawing likewise, and the
elements of art entered into the list of studies pursued by youths,
partly with the view of diffusing a correct taste, and the ability to
appreciate and enjoy the noble productions of the pencil and chisel,
and partly, perhaps, from the mere love of novelty, and the desire
which man always feels to enlarge the circle of his acquirements.
Aristotle,[617] indeed, suggests a much humbler motive, observing that
a knowledge of drawing would enable men to appreciate more accurately
the productions of the useful arts; but this perhaps was said more in
deference to that spirit of utilitarianism then beginning to show
itself than from any conviction of its soundness.
Footnote 617:
Polit. viii. 3.
CHAPTER V.
EXERCISES OF YOUTH.
Simultaneously with the above studies,[618] that highly intricate and
artificial system of exercises denominated gymnastics occupied a
considerable portion of the time of youth. Among northern nations the
influence of education is requisite to soften the manners and check
ferocity; but in the south hardihood must in general be the fruit of
discipline, and flourishes only while assiduously cultivated. Thus we
find that the Persians,[619] by acting on the advice of Crœsos, and
teaching the Lydians to become musicians and shopkeepers, uprooted
entirely their martial spirit. In Greece, however, during the
flourishing period of her history there was more danger that the
passion for war should drown all others, than that its influence
should be too feeble. Among the Athenians particularly, that restless
energy of character, so marvellous and so distasteful to the Dorians,
sought vent in dangerous and distant wars and stupendous schemes of
ambition. This characteristic trait is adduced by Plato for the
purpose of suggesting a contrast with the rival race. He had been
dwelling, to his Cretan and Spartan companions, on the exercises
necessary for pregnant women,[620] and observing their astonishment,
he could understand, he said, how it might appear extraordinary to
them, but at Athens his recommendation would be perfectly
intelligible; for there, people were rather too active than otherwise.
The difficulty always was to find becoming employment. Accordingly,
for lack of something better, not merely boys but grown-up men,
comprehending nothing of the _dolce far niente_, employed themselves
in breeding cocks, quails, and other birds for fighting, and the care
of these imposed on them the necessity of much exercise. To be sure,
these cock-fighters, during their professional perambulations,
presented a spectacle infinitely ludicrous. All regard to appearances
was abandoned. With a couple of small cocks[621] in their hands, and
an old one under either arm, they sallied forth, like vagabonds who
had been robbing a henroost, to give their favourite animals air and
gentle exercise, and thus laden often strolled several miles into the
country.
Footnote 618:
Cf. Plato, de Rep. t. vi. p. 139, seq.
Footnote 619:
Herod. i. 155. Cf. Polyæn. vii. 6. 4. Justin, i. 6.
Footnote 620:
De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 3. cf. p. 11.
Footnote 621:
Plato, de Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 3. seq.—On the practice of
quail-fighting, see Poll. vii. 16. Comm. p. 237. Büd. Com. Ling.
Græc. p. 615. Paris. Iungermann ad Poll. vii. 136. p. 427, observes
that it was customary to exhibit public quail-fights at Athens. But
Lucian who states this (Anach. § 37), confounds the quail with the
cock-fighting.—Ælian. V. H. ii. 28. Cf. Ludovic. Nonn. de Re Cib.
ii. 22. p. 228. Poliarchos, an Athenian, buried his dogs and cocks
magnificently.—viii. 4. In the same spirit, a French lady erected a
mausoleum to her cat with this epitaph:
“Ci-gît une chatte jolie,
Sa maîtresse qui n’aima rien
L’aima jusques à la folie.
Pourquoi le dire? On le voit bien.”
The dog who detected the robber of Asclepios’s temple, received
while he lived the marks of public gratitude, and was maintained
like a hero at the people’s expense.—Ælian. V. H. vii. 14.
To such a people the gymnasium opened up a source of peculiar delight,
and in the end became a passion prejudicial to the cultivation of the
understanding. But within the bounds of moderation it was prescribed
by philosophers in lieu of physic, and as an antidote against those
pale faces and emaciated frames, too common where intellectual studies
are ardently pursued.[622] It was a law of Solon, that every
Athenian[623] should be able to read and to swim; and the whole spirit
of Attic legislation, leaving the poor to the exercise of industrious
and hardy occupations, tended to create among the opulent and the
noble a taste for field-sports, horsemanship, and every martial and
manly exercise.[624] The difficulty, of course, was to render them
subordinate to mental cultivation, and to blend both so cunningly
together as to produce a beautiful and harmonious system of
discipline, well fitted to ripen and bring to greatest perfection
every power and faculty of body and mind.
Footnote 622:
Aristoph. Nub. 185. Plat. Repub. t. vi. p. 146.
Footnote 623:
Petit. de Legg. Att. l. ii. tit. iv. p. 162. Æsch. cont. Tim. § 2–4.
Footnote 624:
Plat. de Legg. vii. t. viii. 17. seq.
The practises of the gymnasium may be traced backward to the remotest
antiquity, and probably commenced among the warriors of the heroic
ages,[625] in the peaceful intervals occurring between expeditions,
from the desire to amuse their leisure by mimic representations of
more serious contests. At first, no doubt, the exercises, frequently
performed in honour of the gods,[626] were few and rude; but by the
age of Homer they had assumed an artificial and regular form, and
comprehended nearly all such divisions of the art as prevailed in
later times. Other views than those with which they were instituted,
caused them to be kept up. When reflection awoke, it was perceived
that in these amicable contests men acquired not only force and
agility, a martial bearing, the confidence of strength, beauty, and
lightness of form; but, along with them, that easy cheerfulness into
which robust health naturally blossoms.[627] In fact, so far were the
legislators of Greece from designing by gymnastics to create, as
Montesquieu[628] supposes, a nation of mere athletes and combatants,
that they expressly repudiate the idea, affirming that lightness,
agility, a compactly knit frame, health, but chiefly a well-poised and
vigorous mind, were the object of this part of education. In order the
better to attain this point, Plato in his republic ordains that boys
be completed in their intellectual studies, which in his ideal state
they were to be at the age of sixteen, before they entered the
gymnasium, the exercises of which were to be the companions of simple
music. From converting their citizens into athletes they were
prevented by experience; for it was quickly discovered that those men
who made a profession of gymnastics acquired, indeed, by their diet
and peculiar discipline a huge stature and enormous strength, but were
altogether useless in war, being sleepy, lethargic, prodigious eaters,
incapable of enduring thirst or hunger, and liable to the attacks of
sudden and fatal diseases if they departed in the least degree from
their usual habits and regimen.[629]
Footnote 625:
Cf. Athen. i. 16.
Footnote 626:
Hom. Hymn. Apoll. 149.
Footnote 627:
Plat. Gorg. t. iii. p. 14.
Footnote 628:
Esprit des Loix, l. iv. c. 8.
Footnote 629:
Cf. Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 151.—To express the sweat gained by
exercise or labour, the Greeks used to say ξηρὸς ἱδρὼς, or ‘dry
sweat.’—Phæd. t. i. p. 26. Runners, it was observed, had large legs;
wrestlers small.—Xenoph. Conv. ii. 17.
Already in the Homeric age, gymnastics, though not as yet so
named, constituted the principal object of education, and many
branches of the art had even then been carried to a high degree of
perfection.[630] The passion for it descended unimpaired to the
Spartans, whose polity, framed solely for the preservation of
national independence and the acquisition of glory in war,
inspired little fondness for mental pursuits, but left the youth
chiefly to the influence of the gymnasia, which gradually created
in them a temper of mind compounded of insensibility and
ferocity,[631] not unlike that of the North American Indians.
This, however, they above all things prized, though as has been
justly observed their exercises could in no sense be considered
among the aids to intellectual cultivation.[632]
Footnote 630:
Feith, Antiq. Homer. iv. 6. 304. Cramer. p. 35.
Footnote 631:
Plat. de Rep. t. vi. 154.
Footnote 632:
Hermann. Polit. Antiq. § 26. n. 2.
At Athens they came later into vogue, though common in the age of
Solon. When, however, this ardent and enthusiastic people commenced
the study of gymnastics, admiring as they did strength and vigour of
frame, when united with manly beauty, their plastic genius soon
converted it into an art worthy to be enumerated among the studies of
youth. In very early ages they imitated the Spartan custom of
admitting even boys into the gymnasia. But this was soon abandoned, it
being found more profitable first to instruct them in several of the
branches of study above described, and a class of men[633] called
pædotribæ or gymnasts arose, who taught the gymnastic art privately,
in subordination to their other studies, and were regarded as
indispensable in the progress of education.[634] These masters gave
their instructions in the palæstræ,[635] which generally formed a part
of the gymnasia, though not always joined with those edifices, and to
be carefully distinguished from them. It is not known with certainty
at what age boys commenced their gymnastic exercises, though it
appears probable that it was not until their grammatical and musical
studies were completed, that is somewhere perhaps, as Plato counsels,
about the age of sixteen. For it was not judged advisable to engage
them in too many studies at once, since in bodies not yet endowed with
all their strength over-exertion was considered injurious.
Footnote 633:
Cf. Æsch. cont. Tim. § 37. Casaub. ad Theophr. Char. p. 200.
Footnote 634:
Cramer, p. 36.
Footnote 635:
Poll. iii. 149.
Before we enumerate and explain the several exercises it may be proper
to introduce a description of the gymnasia themselves. Of these
establishments there were many at Athens;[636] though three only,
those of the Academy, Lyceum, and Cynosarges have acquired celebrity.
The site of the first of these gymnasia being low and marshy was in
ancient times infested with malaria, but having been drained by Cimon
and planted with trees it became a favourite promenade and place of
exercise.[637] Here, in walks shaded by the sacred olive, might be
seen young men,[638] with crowns of rushes in flower upon their heads,
enjoying the sweet odour of the smilax and the white poplar, while the
platanos and the elm mingled their murmurs in the breeze of spring.
The meadows of the Academy, according to Aristophanes the grammarian,
were planted with the Apragmosune,[639] a sort of flower so called as
though it smelt of all kind of fragrance and safety like our
Heart’s-ease or flower of the Trinity. This place is supposed to have
derived its name from Ecadamos, a public-spirited man who bequeathed
his property for the purpose of keeping it in order. Around it were
groves of the moriæ sacred to Athena, whence the olive crowns used in
the Panathenaia were taken. The reason why the olive trees as well as
those in the Acropolis were denominated moriæ must be sought for among
the legends of the mythology, where it is related that Halirrothios
son of Poseidon formed the design of felling them because the
patronship of the city had been adjudged to Athena, for the discovery
of this tree. Raising his axe, however, and aiming a blow at the trunk
the implement glanced, and he thus inflicted upon himself a wound
whereof he died.[640]
Footnote 636:
There was a gymnasium sacred to Hermes, near the Peiraic
gate.—Leake, Topog. of Attica, p. 124.
Footnote 637:
Cf. Xenoph. de Off. Mag. Equit. iii. 14.
Footnote 638:
Aristoph. Nub. 1001.
Footnote 639:
Sch. ad Aristoph. Nub. 1003.
Footnote 640:
Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 992.
The name of the Lyceum[641] sometimes derived from Lycus, son of
Pandion[642] probably owed its origin to the temenos of Lycian Apollo
there situated. It lay near the banks of the Ilissos, and was adorned
with stately edifices, fountains and groves. Here stood a celebrated
statue of Apollo, in a graceful attitude, as if reposing after toil,
with his bow in the left hand, and the right bent negligently over his
head. The walls, too, were decorated with paintings. In this place
anciently the Polemarch held his court[643] and the forces of the
republic were exercised before they went forth to war.[644]
Footnote 641:
Pausan. i. 19. 3. Harpocrat. v. Λύκειον, p. 190.
Footnote 642:
Here Aristotle taught (Cic. Acad. Quæst. i. 4.) as he had previously
done at Stagira, where the stone seats and covered walls of his
school remained in the age of Plutarch.—Alexand. § 7.
Footnote 643:
Suid. v. Ἄρχων. i. p. 452. c.
Footnote 644:
Aristoph. Pac. 355. seq. Suid. v. Λύκειον, t. ii. p. 66. b. Xenoph.
de Off. Magist. Equit. iii. 6.
Appended to the name of the Cynosarges, or third gymnasium surrounded
with groves[645] was a legend which related that when Diomos was
sacrificing to Hestia, a white dog snatched away a part of the victim
from the altar, and running straightway out of the city deposited it
on the spot where this gymnasium was afterwards erected.[646] Here
were several magnificent and celebrated temples to Alcmena, to Hebe,
to Heracles, and to his companion Iolaos. Its principal patron,
however, was Heracles,[647] who, lying himself under the suspicion of
illegitimacy, came very naturally to be regarded as the protector of
bastards, half citizens, and in general all persons of spurious birth,
who accordingly in remoter ages resorted thither to perform their
exercises.
Footnote 645:
Liv. xxxi. 24.
Footnote 646:
Suid. v. Κυνόσαργ. t. i. p. 1550. e.
Footnote 647:
In the gymnasia, the statue of Eros was generally placed beside
those of this divinity and Hermes.—Athen. xiii. 12.
Themistocles afterwards, by prevailing upon several of the young
nobility to accompany him to the Cynosarges, obliterated its reproach,
and placed it on the same level with the other gymnasia.[648] Here
anciently stood a court in which causes respecting illegitimacy, false
registry, &c. were tried. But to proceed to the general description.
“The gymnasia were spacious edifices, surrounded by gardens and a
sacred grove. The first entrance was by a square court, two stadia in
circumference, encompassed with porticoes and buildings. On three of
its sides were large halls, provided with seats, in which
philosophers, rhetoricians, and sophists assembled their disciples. On
the fourth were rooms for bathing and other practices of the
gymnasium. The portico facing the south was double, to prevent the
winter rains, driven by the wind, from penetrating into the interior.
From this court you passed into an enclosure, likewise square, shaded
in the middle by plane-trees. A range of colonnades extended round
three of the sides. That which fronted the north had a double row of
columns, to shelter those who walked there in summer from the sun. The
opposite piazza was called Xystos, in the middle of which, and through
its whole length, they contrived a sort of pathway, about twelve feet
wide and nearly two deep, where, sheltered from the weather, and
separated from the spectators ranged along the sides, the young
scholars exercised themselves in wrestling. Beyond the Xystos was a
stadium for foot-races.”[649]
Footnote 648:
Plut. Them. § 1.
Footnote 649:
Barthel. Trav. of Anach. ii. p. 133. sqq.
The principal parts of the gymnasium were,—first, the porticoes,
furnished with seats and side-buildings where the youths met to
converse. 2. The Ephebeion,[650] that part of the edifice where the
youth alone exercised. 3. The Apodyterion, or undressing-room.[651] 4.
The Konisterion, or small court in which was kept the haphe, or yellow
kind of sand sprinkled by the wrestlers over their bodies[652] after
being anointed with the ceroma, or oil tempered with wax. An important
part of the baggage of Alexander in his Indian expedition consisted of
this fine sand for the gymnasium. 5. The Palæstra, when considered as
part of the gymnasium,[653] was simply the place set apart for
wrestling: the whole of its area was covered with a deep stratum of
mud. 6. The Sphæristerion,[654]—that part of the gymnasium in which
they played at ball. 7. Aleipterion or Elaiothesion,[655] that part of
the palæstra where the wrestlers anointed themselves with oil. 8. The
area: the great court, and certain spaces in the porticoes, were used
for running, leaping, or pitching the quoit. 9. The Xystoi have been
described above. 10. The Xysta[656] were open walks in which, during
fine weather, the youths exercised themselves in running or any other
suitable recreation. 11. The Balaneia or baths, where in numerous
basins was water of various degrees of temperature, in which the young
men bathed before anointing themselves, or after their exercises. 12.
Behind the Xystos, and running parallel with it, lay the stadium,[657]
which, as its name implies, was usually the eighth part of a mile in
length. It resembled the section of a cylinder, rounded at the ends.
From the area below, where the runners performed their exercises, the
sides, whether of green turf or marble, sloped upwards to a
considerable height, and were covered with seats, rising behind each
other to the top for the accommodation of spectators.
Footnote 650:
Vitruv. v. 11.
Footnote 651:
Plin. xxv. 13.—Even old men performed their exercises naked.—Plat.
de Rep. t. vi. p. 221.
Footnote 652:
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 172.
Footnote 653:
Poll. iii. 149.
Footnote 654:
Suet. Vesp. c. 20. with the note of Torrentius, p. 375.
Footnote 655:
In the Gymnasium of Asclepios at Smyrna, Heracleides the sophist
erected an anointing-room, containing a fountain or well of oil, and
adorned with a gilded roof.—Philostr. de Vit. Sophist. ii. 26. p.
613.
Footnote 656:
Vitruv. v. 11. Cf. on the Xystoi, Xenoph. Œconom. xi. 15.—Cicero,
Acad. iv. 3; ad Att. l. 8. Of this covered walk Aristeas makes
mention in a fragment of his Orpheus:—
Ἦν μοὶ παλαίστρα καὶ δρόμος
ξυστὸς πέλας.
Poll. ix. 43.
Footnote 657:
Potter, Book i. chap. 8.
Such were the buildings which Athens appropriated to the exercises of
its youth; and if we consider the conveniences which they contained,
the large spaces they enclosed, and the taste and magnificence which
they exhibited, we shall probably conclude that no country in the
world ever bestowed on the physical training of its citizens so much
enlightened care.
The first step in gymnastics was to accustom the youth to endure,
naked, the fiercest rays of the sun and the cold of winter, to which
they were exposed during their initiatory exercises.[658] This is
illustrated in a very lively manner by Lucian, where he introduces the
Scythian Anacharsis anxious to escape from the scorching rays of noon
to the shade of the plane-trees; while Solon, who had been educated
according to the Hellenic system, stands without inconvenience
bareheaded in the sun. The step next in order was wrestling, always
regarded as the principal among gymnastic contests, both from its
superior utility and the great art and skill which the proper practice
of it required. To the acquisition of excellence in this exercise the
palæstra and the instructions of the pædotribæ were almost entirely
devoted; while nearly every other branch of gymnastics was performed
in the gymnasium. These, according to Lucian, were divided into two
classes, one of which required for their performance a soft or muddy
area, the other one of sand, or an arena properly so called.[659] In
all these exercises the youth were naked, and had their bodies
anointed with oil.
Footnote 658:
Lucian, Amor. § 45. seq.
Footnote 659:
Lucian, Anach. § § 1–3. 28.
To render, however our account of the exercises more complete, it may
be proper to give a separate though brief description of each. The
first or most simple was the Dromos or Course,[660] performed, as has
been above observed, in the area of the stadium, which, in order to
present the greater difficulty to the racers, was deeply covered with
soft and yielding sand. Still further to enhance the labour, the youth
sometimes ran in armour, which admirably prepared them for the
vicissitudes of war, for pursuit after victory, or the rapid movements
of retreat. The high value which the Greeks set upon swiftness may be
learned from the poems of Homer, where likewise are found the most
graphic and brilliant descriptions of the several exercises. Some of
these we shall here introduce from Pope’s version, which in this part
is peculiarly sustained and nervous. Speaking of the race between
Oilean Ajax, Odysseus, and Antilochos, he says:—[661]
“Ranged in a line the ready racers stand,
Pelides points the barrier with his hand.
All start at once, Oileus led the race;
The next Ulysses, measuring pace with pace,
Behind him diligently close he sped,
As closely following as the mazy thread
The spindle follows, and displays the charms
Of the fair spinster’s breast and moving arms.
Graceful in motion, thus his foe he plies,
And treads each footstep ere the dust can rise;
The glowing breath upon his shoulder plays,
Th’ admiring Greeks loud acclamations raise,
To him they give their wishes, heart, and eyes,
And send their souls before him as he flies.
Now three times turned, in prospect of the goal,
The panting chief to Pallas lifts his soul;
Assist, O Goddess, (thus in thought he prayed,)
And present at his thought descends the maid;
Buoyed by her heavenly force he seems to swim,
And feels a pinion lifting every limb.”
Footnote 660:
Accumenes, the friend of Socrates, advised persons to walk on the
high-road in preference to the places of exercise, as being less
fatiguing and more beneficial.—Plat. Phæd. t. i. p. 3. On the
rapidity of public runners see Herod. vi. 106. Cf. on the Pentathlon
West, Dissert. on the Olympic Games, p. 77. They appear to have
acquired so equable and steady a pace that time was measured by
their movements, as distance is by that of caravans in the East.
Thus Dioscorides, ii. 96. gives direction that gall should be boiled
while a person could run three stadia.
Footnote 661:
Il. ψ. 754. sqq. Cf. Odyss. η. 119.—As an illustration of the
necessity there was of going through all the various exercises, it
is mentioned by Xenophon that runners had large legs, wrestlers
small ones.—Conviv. ii. 17.
Next in the natural order, proceeding from the simplest to the most
artificial exercises, was leaping, in which the youth among the Greeks
delighted to excel. In the performance of this exercise they usually
sprang from an artificial elevation (βατὴρ), and descended upon the
soft mould, which, when ploughed up with their heels, was termed
ἐσκαμμένα.[662] The better to poise their bodies and enable them to
bound to a greater distance, they carried in their hands metallic
weights, denominated _halteres_,[663] in the form of a semi disk,
having on their inner faces handles like the thong of a shield,
through which the fingers were passed. Extraordinary feats are related
of these ancient leapers. Chionis the Spartan and Phaÿllos the
Crotonian, being related to have cleared at one bound the space of
fifty-two, or according to others, of fifty-five feet.
Footnote 662:
Poll. iii. 151.
Footnote 663:
Paus. v. 26. 3; 27. 12.
With the latter account agrees the inscription on the Crotonian’s
statue:
“Phaÿllos leaped full five and fifty feet,
The discus flung one hundred wanting five.”[664]
Footnote 664:
Eustath. ad Odyss. θ. 128. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 210.
Homer briefly describes leaping among the sports of the Phæacians:
“Amphialos sprang forward with a bound,
Superior in the leap a length of ground.”[665]
Footnote 665:
Odyss. θ. 128.
To this succeeded pitching the quoit, which in the Homeric age would
appear to have been practised with large stones or rude masses of
iron. On ordinary occasions it has been conjectured that one discus
only was used. But Odysseus, desirous of exhibiting his strength to
the Phæacians, converts into a quoit the first block of stone within
his reach.[666]
“Then striding forward with a furious bound
He wrenched a rocky fragment from the ground,
By far more ponderous and more large by far
Than what Phæacia’s sons discharged in air;
Fierce from his arm the enormous load he flings,
Sonorous through the shaded air it sings;
Couched to the earth, tempestuous as it flies,
The crowd gaze upwards while it cleaves the skies.
Beyond all marks, with many a giddy round,
Down rushing it upturns a hill of ground.”
Footnote 666:
Odyss. θ. 186. sqq. Cf. Il. ψ. 836. seq.
The disk[667] in later times varied greatly both in shape, size, and
materials. Generally it would seem to have been a cycloid, swelling in
the middle and growing thin towards the edges. Sometimes it was
perforated in the centre and hurled forward by a thong, and on other
occasions would appear to have approached the spherical form, when it
was denominated solos.[668]
Footnote 667:
Schol. Hom. Il. β. 774.
Footnote 668:
Schol. Hom. Il. β. 774.
Other of these exercises were shooting with the bow at wisps of straw
stuck upon a pole,[669] and darting the javelin, sometimes with the
naked hand and sometimes with a thong wound about the centre of the
weapon. In the stadium at Olympia, the area within which the pentathli
leaped, pitched the quoit, and hurled the javelin, appears to have
been marked out by two parallel trenches: but if these existed
likewise in the gymnasia, they must have been extremely shallow, as we
find in Antiphon[670] a boy meeting with his death by inconsiderately
running across the area while the youths were engaged in this
exercise. Instead of throwing for the furthest, they would seem, from
the expressions of the orator, to have aimed at a mark.
Footnote 669:
Lucian. Hermot. § 33.
Footnote 670:
Tetral. ii. 1. Cf. Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 51. sqq. 142.
Wrestling[671] consisted of two kinds, the first, called Orthopale,
was that style, still commonly in use, in which the antagonists,
throwing their arms about each other’s body, endeavoured to bring him
to the ground. In the other, called Anaclinopale, the wrestler who
distrusted his own strength but had confidence in his courage and
powers of endurance, voluntarily flung himself upon the ground,
bringing his adversary along with him, and then by pinching,
scratching, biting, and every other species of annoyance, sought to
compel him to yield.
Footnote 671:
Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 569.
An example of wrestling in both its forms occurs in Homer, where Ajax
Telamon and Odysseus contend in the funeral games for the prize.[672]
“Amid the ring each nervous rival stands,
Embracing rigid, with implicit hands;
Close locked above, their heads and arms are mixt;
Below their planted feet at distance fixt.
Like two strong rafters which the builder forms
Proof to the wintry winds and howling storms;
Their tops connected, but at wider space
Fixed on the centre stands their solid base.
Now to the grasp each manly body bends,
The humid sweat from every pore descends,
Their bones resound with blows, sides, shoulders, thighs
Swell to each gripe, and bloody tumours rise.
Nor could Ulysses, for his art renowned,
O’erturn the strength of Ajax on the ground;
Nor could the strength of Ajax overthrow
The watchful caution of his artful foe.
While the long strife even tires the lookers-on,
Thus to Ulysses spoke great Telamon:
Or let me lift thee, Chief, or lift thou me,
Prove we our strength and Jove the rest decree.
He said; and straining heaved him off the ground
With matchless strength; that time Ulysses found
The strength t’ evade, and where the nerves combine
His ankle struck: the giant fell supine.
Ulysses following on his bosom lies,
Shouts of applause run rattling through the skies.
Ajax to lift Ulysses next essays;
He barely stirred him but he could not raise.
His knee locked fast the foe’s attempt defied,
And grappling close they tumbled side by side,
Defiled with honourable dust they roll,
Still breathing strife and unsubdued of soul.”
Footnote 672:
Il. ψ. 708, sqq. et Heyne ad loc.
Boxing, which has very properly been called a rough exercise, though
condemned by physicians and philosophers, was still practised in the
gymnasium, sometimes with the naked fist but more frequently with the
cestus, which consisted of a series of thongs, bound round the hand
and arm up to the elbow, or even higher.[673] This exercise, however,
seems to have been little practised, except by those who designed to
become athletæ by profession. Homer has described the combat with the
cestus in its most terrible form.[674]
“Amid the circle now each champion stands,
And poises high in air his iron hands:
With clashing gauntlets now they firmly close,
Their crackling jaws re-echo to the blows,
And painful sweat from all their members flows.
At length Epeus dealt a weighty blow
Full on the cheek of his unwary foe.
Beneath that ponderous arm’s resistless sway
Down dropped he powerless, and extended lay.
As a large fish, when winds and waters roar,
By some huge billow dashed against the shore,
Lies panting, not less battered with his wound,
The bleeding hero pants upon the ground.
To rear his fallen foe the victor lends
Scornful his hand, and gives him to his friends,
Whose arms support him reeling through the throng,
And dragging his disabled legs along.
Nodding, his head hangs down his shoulders o’er,
His mouth and nostrils pour the clotted gore.
Wrapped round in mist he lies, and lost to thought,
His friends receive the bowl too dearly bought.”
Footnote 673:
Theoc. Eidyll. xxii. 3. et 80. Mercurial. de Art. Gymnast. ii. 9.
Virg. Æn. v. 401. sqq. Paus. viii. 40. 3. Poll. ii. 150. Scalig.
Poet. i. 22. p. 92.
Footnote 674:
Il. ψ. 684. sqq.
Among the exercises of the gymnasium which Hippocrates advises to be
practised during winter[675] and bad weather, when it is necessary to
remain under cover, is walking on the tight rope. This feat seems to
have been so great a favourite among the youths of antiquity, that
they applied themselves to it with constant assiduity, and arrived at
length at a degree of skill little inferior to that of our
mountebanks. It seems, in fact, to have been a common practice in the
gymnasium to run upon the tight rope. The Romans, seeking in something
to outdo the Greeks, taught an elephant to perform a similar exploit.
Footnote 675:
But Galen cautions youth against useless acquisitions, which he says
are not arts at all: such as πεττευριπτεῖν, throwing the
tali,—walking over a small tight rope,—whirling round without being
giddy, like Myrmecides the Athenian and Callicrates the
Spartan.—Protrept. § 9. p. 20. Kühn.—He then speaks very slightingly
of gymnastic exercises. The studies he recommends are: medicine,
rhetoric, music, geometry, arithmetic, dialectics, astronomy,
grammar, and jurisprudence, to which may be added, modelling and
painting.—§ 14. Cf. Foës. Œcon. Hip. p. 366.
Another branch of gymnastics consisted in the various forms of the
dance, to be ignorant of which was at Athens esteemed a mark of an
illiberal education. To excel in this accomplishment was nearly by all
the Greeks[676] considered absolutely necessary, either as a
preparation for the due performance of the movements and evolutions of
war, sustaining a proper part in the religious choruses, or regulating
the carriage with the requisite grace and decorum in the various
relations of private life. Thus the Cretans, the Spartans, the
Thessalians, and the Bœotians, held this division of gymnastics in
especial honour, chiefly with a view to war, while the Athenians, and
Ionians generally, contemplated it more as a means of developing the
beauty of the form, and conferring ease and elegance on the gait and
gesture. But because in treating of the theatre I design fully to
describe the several varieties of scenic dances, I think it proper to
throw together in that place whatever I may have to say on this
subject.[677]
Footnote 676:
Vid. Aristot. de Poet. i. 6. Herm.
Footnote 677:
See Book iv. Chapter 8.
To all these branches of gymnastics the Grecian youth[678] applied
themselves with peculiar eagerness, and on quitting the schools
devoted to them a considerable portion of their time, since they were
regarded both as a preparation for victory in the Olympic and other
games, and as the best possible means for promoting health and
ripening the physical powers. Nor could anything be easily conceived
better suited to the genius of their republics. In the first place, as
I have already observed, the wild and headstrong period of youth was
withdrawn by these agreeable exercises from the desire and thoughts of
evil, while a wholesome feeling of equality was cultivated, and
something like brotherhood engendered in men destined to live and act
together. Besides what could more admirably prepare them for
fulfilling their duties as citizens and more especially for defending
their country, than a system of physical training, which at the same
time brought to perfection their strength, their vigour, and their
manly beauty, and fitted them for the acquisition of that peculiar
species of glory which success in the sacred games conferred? The
acquisition, moreover, of robust health and that vigour of mind which
accompanies it, was a consideration second to none. And it will
readily be conceived that a judicious system of exercises, such as we
have described, would necessarily render men patient of labour,
inaccessible to fear, and be productive at once of graceful habits and
lofty and honourable sentiments.
Footnote 678:
Cf. Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 97.—The gymnasia in the later ages of
Greece were so little frequented, that their area was sown with
corn. Dion. Chrysos. i. 223.
CHAPTER VI.
HUNTING AND FOWLING.
Among the sports and pastimes of the Greeks, which may be considered
as a kind of supplement to gymnastics, we must class first the chase,
which Xenophon vainly hoped might be made to operate as a check on the
luxurious and effeminate habits of his contemporaries.[679] But each
age having its own distinctive characteristic, it profits very little
to aim at engrafting the customs of one period of civilisation upon
another. The world will go its own gait. Chuckfarthing and Pricking
the Loop might as well be recommended to young gentlemen and ladies
dying for love, as hunting to the population of a vain and foppish
city, to whom wild boars and wolves must seem certain death. However,
the country gentlemen, and the agricultural population generally, long
in their own defence continued the practice of the chase, though in
Attica the absence of wild animals, consequent upon a high and careful
cultivation, had reduced it at a very early period to a matter of mere
amusement.
Footnote 679:
In the early ages of the world, hunting we are assured led to the
establishment of monarchy by accustoming youth whose brains were in
their sinews to pay implicit obedience to their leaders in the
chase.—Bochart, Geog. Sac. t. i. p. 258.
But in remoter times, and in those parts of the country where game
always continued to abound, there were never wanting persons who
delighted in the excitement of the chase. Herdsmen, particularly, and
shepherds, considered it part of their occupation.[680] Thus we find
Anchises a young Trojan chief, who inhabited the hill country, making
his lair of bears and lion-skins, the spoils of his own lance.[681]
Sport, of course, it would furnish to bold and reckless young men, as
lion and tiger hunting still does to our countrymen in Northern India;
but from this recreation proceeded in some measure their safety, since
where wild beasts are numerous they not only devastate the
country,[682] trampling down the corn-fields and devouring herds and
flocks, but occasionally, if they chance to find them unarmed, dine
also upon their hunters. Thus the chase of the Calydonian boar, the
tally-ho’s and view-halloes of which still sound fresh in song, was
undertaken by the Ætolians and Curetes, for the purpose of delivering
the rustic population from a pest;[683] and precisely the same motive
urged Alcmena’s boy into the famous conflict with the Nemean
lion,[684] which he brought down with his invincible bow and finished
with his wild olive club. In like manner Theseus, his rival in glory,
slew the Marathonian bull; and delivered the Cretans from another
monster of the same kind.[685] He engaged, too, with a sow of great
size at Crommyon on the confines of Corinthia, and slaughtered the
pig, an achievement of much utility and no little glory.
Footnote 680:
Iliad, λ. 547.
Footnote 681:
Hom. Hymn in Vener. 160. seq.
Footnote 682:
Paus. i. 27. 9.
Footnote 683:
Iliad, ι. 547. sqq.
Footnote 684:
Theocrit. xxv. 211. sqq.
Footnote 685:
Paus. i. 27. 9. sqq.
The arms and accoutrements of these primitive sportsmen corresponded
with the rough service in which they were engaged. Sometimes, to the
attack of the wild bull or the boar, they went forth with formidable
battle-axes.[686] But when their game was fleet and innocuous a
handful of light javelins and the bow sufficed, as when Odysseus and
his companions beat the country in search of wild goats.[687] In the
Æneid, too, we find the hero doing great execution among a herd of
deer with his bow. Boar-spears also were in use ere the period of the
Trojan war, as Odysseus, who appears to have been excessively addicted
to the chase, is represented going thus armed to the field with the
sons of Autolycos when he was wounded by the hog.[688] With the same
weapon we find Adrastos engaged in the same sport, killing the son of
Crœsos.[689] The chase of the lion, which in Xenophon’s time could
no longer be enjoyed in Greece Proper, required the most daring
courage and the most formidable weapons, spears, javelins, clubs, and
burning torches, with which at last they repelled him at night from
the cattle stalls. Homer, as usual, represents the contest to the
life:[690]
“He turned to go, as slow retreats the lion from the stalls,
Whom men and dogs assault while round a shower of javelins falls.
They all night watch about their herds, lest he intent on prey
Should bear the flower of all their fields, the fattest bull away.
Onward impetuously he bounds—the hissing javelins fly
From daring hands, while torches send their blaze far up the sky.
He dreads, though fierce, the dazzling flames thick flashing on his
sight,
And hungry still and breathing rage, retires with morning’s light.”
Footnote 686:
Iliad, ρ. 520. seq. Feith. Antiq. Hom. iv. c. 2. § 2.
Footnote 687:
Odyss. ι. 155. seq.
Footnote 688:
Odyss. ι. 465. seq.
Footnote 689:
Herod. i. 43.
Footnote 690:
Il. ρ. 657. Cf. Aristot. Hist. Anim. ix. 31. Oppian Cyneget. iv.
131. sqq.
The existence of wild beasts in a country has by some been enumerated
among the causes of civilisation, and it may, under certain
circumstances, deserve to be so considered, though generally such
modes of accounting for things are exceedingly unphilosophical.
Mitford, who advances it,[691] needed but to cast a glance across the
Mediterranean to dissipate his whole theory, since nowhere are there
more wild beasts or men less civilised than in Africa. Egypt, Chaldæa,
Assyria, the earliest peopled countries, enjoyed few of these helps to
refinement. The reasons of Greek civilisation lay neither in their
country or in the accidents of it, but in the race itself, which, as
one family in a nation is distinguished from its neighbours by
superior genius, was thus distinguished from other races of men.
However, the lion, as we have seen, formerly existed among them,
though never probably in great numbers, and even in the age of
Herodotus was still found in a wild tract of country extending from
the Acheloös in Acarnania to the Nestos in Thrace,[692] where in
fabulous times Olynthos, son of Strymon,[693] is said to have been
slain in a lion hunt. In the age of Dion Chrysostom, however, this
fierce animal was no longer known in Europe.[694]
Footnote 691:
Hist. of Greece, i. 16.
Footnote 692:
Herod. vii. 125. seq.
Footnote 693:
Conon, Dieg. iv. ap. Phot. 131. Rüdig. Prolegg. ad Dem. Olynth. p.
3.
Footnote 694:
Orat. 21. t. i. p. 501. Reiske.
Dogs, all the world over and from the remotest times, have been man’s
companions in the chase, and Homer, the noblest painter of the ancient
world, has bequeathed us many sketches of the antique hunting breed.
It has above been seen that in company with man they feared not to
attack even the lion. Odysseus’ famous dog Argos was a hound that
“Never missed in deepest woods the swift game to pursue
If once it glanced before his sight, for every track he knew.[695]”
Footnote 695:
Odyss. ρ. 316. seq.
And again when the same sagacious Nimrod makes his rounds in quest of
“belly timber,” a brace of dogs runs before him “examining the
traces,” while with boar-spear in hand he follows close at their
heels.[696] But already, even in those days, the habit of keeping more
cats than catch mice had got into fashion—that is among the
great—since we find grandees with their κύνες τραπεζῆες or “table
dogs,”[697] valued simply for their beauty. Patroclus maintained nine
of these handsome animals, and Achilles understanding his tastes, cast
two of them into the flames of his funeral pile, that their shades
might sit at his board in the realms below.[698]
Footnote 696:
Id. τ. 436. seq.
Footnote 697:
Id. ρ. 310.
Footnote 698:
Iliad ψ. 173. seq.
Footnote 699:
Deipnosoph. i. 22. et 24.
Fowling too, if we may depend upon Athenæus,[699] entered into the
list of heroic amusements. It is clear, however, that the sportsmen of
those days were arrant poachers, for, not content with attacking their
prey in open fight, they condescended to spread nets for them and set
gins for their feet. But being accomplished bowmen, however, they
could occasionally, when pressed for provisions, fetch down a thrush,
a pigeon, or a dove with an arrow, dexterously as that Jew in
Eusebius[700] who exhibited his marksmanship to demonstrate the
fallacy of augury. For in the funeral games of Patroclus, we find one
of the heroes hitting from a considerable distance a dove which had
been tied by a small cord to the summit of a mast.[701]
Footnote 700:
Præp. Evang. l. ix. c. 4. p. 408. d.
Footnote 701:
Iliad, ψ. 853. sqq.
They were given moreover not only to fishing with nets—a practice in
nowise unbecoming a hero when in want of a dinner—but even to angling
with “crooked O’Shaughnessies,”[702] as Homer expresses it; though the
passage in the Iliad, indeed, where a net is mentioned, cannot well be
adduced in corroboration, since it may refer to fowling as well as to
fishing.[703] Certain verses in the Odyssey, however, prove beyond a
doubt that the Greeks had already begun to derive a great part of
their sustenance from the sea;[704] and the Homeric heroes even
understood the value of oysters, which, as appears from the Iliad,
were procured by diving.[705]
Footnote 702:
Γναμπτοῖς ἀγκιστροίσιν. Odyss. μ. 331. seq. Ludovic. Nonn. de Re
Cibar. iii. 4. p. 294. Plut. de Solert. Anim. § 24. Cf. Antich. di
Ercol. t. i. tav. 36. p. 191. From an expression of Augustus, if we
can regard it as anything more than a figure of speech, it may be
inferred that to increase the luxury of the sport by converting it
into a species of gambling, people sometimes fished with golden
hooks.—Polyæn. Strat. viii. 24. 6.
Footnote 703:
Iliad, γ. 487. seq. Eustath. ad Odyss. χ. 386.
Footnote 704:
Odyss. χ. 386.
Footnote 705:
Iliad, π. 747. sqq.
Nevertheless these ancient heroes, though by no means averse as we
have seen to pigeons or oysters, delighted chiefly in the chase of the
larger animals, in which article of taste they agreed with Plato, who
considered all other kinds as unworthy of men. He appears to have
entertained an especial aversion for the Isaac Waltons of the ancient
world, and in his advice to youth earnestly exhorts them to eschew
hooks and fish-traps, which he slily classes with piracy and
house-breaking: and so he does fowling. Nor would his generous
philosophy countenance poaching with nets and gins and snares. His
sportsmen, modelled after the old Homeric type, were to mount their
chargers,[706] and accompanied by their dogs come to close quarters
with their wild foes in open daylight, and subdue them by dint of
personal courage.[707] Precisely similar views prevailed in the heroic
age, when the chiefs and principal men were exercised from boyhood in
the chase, as appears from the examples of Achilles and Odysseus;[708]
of whom the former, according to Pindar, tried his hand at a lion at
the age of six years, ἐξέτης τοπρῶτον. Being swift of foot as those
Arabs of Northern Africa, who, as Leo[709] says, are a match for any
horse, he used without the aid of dogs to overtake and bring down deer
with his javelin, and whatever prey he took he carried to his old
master Cheiron. This passage Mr. Cary has translated in the following
vigorous and elegant manner:—
“In Philyra’s house a flaxen boy
Achilles oft in rapturous joy
His feats of strength essayed.
Aloof like wind his little javelin flew,
The lion and the brinded boar he slew;
Then homeward to old Cheiron drew
Their panting carcases.
This when six years had fled;
And all the after time
Of his rejoicing prime
It was to Dian and the blue-eyed Maid
A wonder how he brought to ground
The stag without or toils or hound.
So fleet of foot was he.”
Footnote 706:
Cf. Poll. Onom. v. 17.
Footnote 707:
De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 71. seq.—In his Republic boys were to be
permitted when they could do so with safety to proceed to the field
of battle, and there to approach sufficiently near the scene as to
be able like young hounds to taste, so to speak, of blood.—t. vi. p.
367.
Footnote 708:
Pind. Nem. iii. 43. seq. Diss. Odyss. τ. 429. seq.
Footnote 709:
Descrip. Afric.
Similar manners, if we may confide in Virgil,[710] prevailed among the
old inhabitants of Latium, and Xenophon[711] in his monarchical Utopia
trains the youth in the same habits.
Footnote 710:
Æneid, ix. 605.
Footnote 711:
Cyneg. ii. 1.
On hunting,[712] as practised in the civilised ages of Greece, we
possess more ample details, and it is chiefly by the minuter touches
that a picture of this kind can be invested with interest and utility.
Xenophon, an aristocratic country gentleman, who living in a corrupt
age was, as I have said, wisely partial to the nobler manners of the
past, considers the chase as a branch of education.[713] He does not,
however, entertain upon this subject the heroic views of Plato, but,
looking solely to utility, not only describes the physical conditions
and mental qualities of the hunter, but the nets, poles, arms, and
every implement made use of by the ancients in the chase.
Footnote 712:
To form a proper idea of the sporting vocabulary of the Greeks, the
reader should consult Julius Pollux, Onomasticon, v. 9.-94.
Footnote 713:
Cyneg. ii. 1.
Not to interfere with the discipline of the schools and the gymnasia,
the youths were exhorted to betake themselves to field-sports about
the age of twenty. Their notions of a sportsman’s costume differed
materially from our own, for instead of decking themselves like our
fox-hunters in scarlet, they selected the soberest and least brilliant
colours both for their cloaks and chitons. The latter were in general
extremely short, reaching merely to the hams, as Artemis is usually
represented in works of art. But the chlamys was long and ample, that
it might be twisted round the left arm in close contest with the
larger animals. Their hunting boots reached to the knee, and were
bound tight round the leg with thongs. Probably also, as in
travelling, they covered their heads with a broad-brimmed hat.
The apparatus of a Greek sportsman would appear somewhat cumbersome,
and perhaps a little ludicrous to a modern Nimrod. But understanding
their own object they went their own way to work; their arms and
implements, varying with the chase in which they were engaged,
consisted of short swords, hunting knives[714] for the purpose of
cutting down brushwood to stop up openings in the forest, axes for
felling trees, darts furnished with thongs for drawing them back when
they had missed their aim, bows, boar-spears, weapons peculiarly
formidable, nets small and large, some for setting up in the plains,
some for traversing glades or narrow alleys in the woods, and others
shaped like a female head-net, to be placed in small dusky openings,
where being unperceived the game sprang into them as into a sack,
which closed about it by means of a running cord, net-poles, forked
stakes, snares, gins, nooses, and leashes for the dogs.[715] The darts
used on these occasions had ashen or beechen handles, and the nets
were usually manufactured with flax imported from Colchis on the
Phasis, Egypt, Carthage, and Sardinia.[716] Generally, too, they took
along with them the Lagobalon, a short, crooked stick with a knob at
one end, with which they sometimes brought down the hare in its
flight.[717] This practice, common enough among poachers in our
country, is by them denominated _squailing_.
Footnote 714:
Poll. v. 19.
Footnote 715:
Cf. Grat. Falisc. Cyneg. p. 14. Wase.
Footnote 716:
Xen. Cyneg. ii. 3. Grat. Falisc. Cyneg. p. 6. Wase. Pollux, v. 26.
Footnote 717:
Spanh. Obs. in Callim. Hymn. in Dian. ii. p. 122. Poll. v. 20.—Hares
are hunted with sticks in South Guinea by the blacks.—Barbot. iii.
14.
Without the aid of dogs, however, hunting is a poor sport. The
ancients, therefore, much addicted to this branch of education, paid
great attention to the breed of these animals, of which some were
sought to be rendered celebrated by heroic and fabulous associations.
Thus the Castorides, it was said, sprang[718] from a breed to which
the twin god of Sparta was partial; the Alopecidæ were a cross between
a dog and a she-fox; and a third kind[719] arose from the mingling of
these two races. Among modern sportsmen, there are also good
authorities who prefer harriers with a quarter of the fox-strain.[720]
Other kinds of hounds, as the Menelaides and Harmodian derived their
appellation from the persons who reared them.[721]
Footnote 718:
Poll. v. 39. Xen. Cyneg. iii. 1.
Footnote 719:
Arist. Hist. Anim. viii. 28. Poll. v. 39.
Footnote 720:
Letters on Hunting, p. 60.
Footnote 721:
Poll. v. 40.
But the whole breeds of certain countries[722] were famous, as the
Argive, the Locrian, the Arcadian, the Spanish, the Carian, the
Eretrian; the Celtic or greyhound (not known[723] in more ancient
times); the Psyllian, so called from a city of Achaia; the dog of
Elymæa, a country lying between Bactria and Hyrcania; the Hyrcanian,
which was a cross with the lion; the Laconian, of which the bitch was
more generous,[724] sometimes crossed with the Cretan, which was
itself renowned for its nose, strength and courage,[725] those which
kept watch in the temple of Artemis Dictynna having been reckoned a
match even for bears; the Molossian, less valued for the chase than as
a shepherd’s dog, on account of its great fierceness and power to
contend with wild beasts;[726] the Cyrenaic, a cross with the wolf,
and lastly the Indian, on which the chief reliance was placed in the
chase of the wild boar. This breed, according to Aristotle, was
produced by crossing with the tiger, probably the Cheeta.[727] The
first and second removes were considered too fierce and unmanageable,
and it was not until the third generation that these tiger-mules could
be broken in to the use of the sportsman. Some sought in mythology the
origin of this noble animal; for, according to Nicander, the hounds of
Actæon, recovering their senses after the destruction of their master,
fled across the Euphrates and wandered as far as India. Strange
stories are related of this breed, of which some it is said would
contend with no animal but the lion. Alexander’s dog, which he
purchased in India for a hundred minæ, had twice overcome and slain
the monarch of the forest.[728]
Footnote 722:
Arist. de Gen. Anim. v. 2. p. 344. Virg. Georg. iii. 405. See the
enumeration by Gratius, Cyneg. p. 20. seq.
Footnote 723:
Arrian, de Venat. c. 2.
Footnote 724:
Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. 1. Soph. Ajax, 8. Virg. Georg. iii. 405.
Λάκαιναι σκύλακες, Plat. Parmen. t. ii. p. 7. had long noses. Arist.
de Gen. Anim. v. 2. 344.
Footnote 725:
Æl. De Nat. Anim. iii. 2. Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 33. Hughes,
Travels, &c. i. 489, 501.
Footnote 726:
Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. i.
Footnote 727:
Arist. Hist. Anim. viii. 28, with the observations of Camus, t. ii.
p. 215. Cf. Scalig. de Subtilitat. x. p. 383. Æl. de Nat. Anim.
viii. i.
Footnote 728:
Æl. De Nat. Anim. viii. 1. Poll. Onom. v. 42. seq.
Let us, therefore, now imagine the hounds exactly what they ought to
be, and observe under what circumstances they were led afield. As in
England, their principal sport was the hare. In winter,[729] it was
observed that puss, from the length of the nights, took a wider
circuit, and therefore afforded the dogs a better chance of detecting
her traces.[730] But when in the morning the ground was covered with
ice or white with hoar-frost, the dogs lost their scent, as also
amidst abundant dews or after heavy rains. The sportsman accordingly
waited till the sun was some way up the sky, and had begun to quicken
the subtile odours communicated to the earth.[731] The west wind,[732]
which covers the heavens with vast clouds and fills the air with
moisture, and the south blowing warm and humid, weaken the scent; but
the north wind fixes and preserves it.[733] By moonlight, too, as the
old sportsmen remark, and the warmth it emits, the scent is affected;
besides that when the moon shines brightly, in their frolicsome and
sportive mood the hares, in the secluded glades of the forest, take
long leaps and bounds over the green sward, leaving wide intervals
between their traces.[734]
Footnote 729:
See on the subject of scent, Sport. Mag. Jan. 1840, and compare
Essay on Hunting, p. 1. et seq.
Footnote 730:
Cf. Poll. v. 11. Σύμβολα ἐν τετυπωμένα τῇ γῇ.
Footnote 731:
The phrase in Pollux is ἀποφέρεται ἀπ᾽ αὔτων (τῶν ἰχνῶν) τὸ πνεῦμα.
v. 12. The author of the Essay on Hunting (p. 15.) enumerating the
several kinds of scent, speaks of them as stronger, sweeter, or more
distinguishable at one time than another; and Pollux makes use of
much the same language: ἄνοσμα, δύσοσμα, εὔοσμα, κ. τ. λ. l. c.
Footnote 732:
Arist. Prob. xxvi. 23—Falling stars were regarded as a prognostic of
high winds, 24. Letters on Hunting, p. 106.
Footnote 733:
Cf. Xen. Cyneg. viii. 1.
Footnote 734:
Xen. Cyneg. v. 4. Poll. v. 67.
From a remark of Xenophon it appears that at least on one point the
sportsmen of antiquity were less humane than the modern, since they
pursued the chase even in breeding time.[735] They, however, spared
the young in honour of Artemis;[736] the spirit even of false
religion, on this, as on many other occasions, strengthening the
impulses of humanity.
Footnote 735:
See also Spanh. Obs. in Callim. t. ii. p. 123.
Footnote 736:
Xen. Cyneg. v. 14. Klaus. Com. in Agam. p. 114.—Leverets, properly
λαγίδια, were often in common with the young of all other wild
animals denominated ὀμβρίαι and ὀμβρίκια by the poets.—Poll. v. 15.
Several causes coöperated to render hares unplentiful on the Hellenic
continent,—the number of sportsmen, of foxes which devoured both them
and their young, and of eagles that delighted in its lofty and almost
inaccessible mountains, and shared its game with the huntsman and the
fox. Homer, in a few picturesque words, describes the war carried on
against puss by this destructive bird.[737] On the islands, whether
inhabited or not, few of these obstacles to their increase existed.
Sportsmen rarely passed over to them, and in such as were sacred to
any of the gods the introduction of dogs was not permitted, so that,
like the pigeons and turtle-doves of Mekka, they multiplied in those
holy haunts prodigiously.
Footnote 737:
Il. χ. 308. sqq.
It was prohibited by the laws of Attica[738] to commit the slightest
trespass during the chase. The sportsman was not allowed to traverse
any ground under cultivation, to disturb the course of running water,
or to invade the sanctity of fountains. The scene of action
accordingly lay among the woods and mountains, the common property of
the republic, or, if not, abandoned by general consent to the use of
the sportsman. Such were, for example, the woodland districts of
Parnes and Cithæron on the borders of Bœotia. Towards these the
huntsman, well shod, plainly and lightly dressed,[739] and with a
stick in his hand, set out about sunrise in winter, in summer before
day.[740] On the road strict silence was observed[741] lest the hare
should take the alarm and to her heels. Having reached the cover, the
dogs were tied separately that they might be let slip the more easily,
the nets were spread in the proper places, the net-guards set, and the
huntsman with his dogs proceeded to start the game, first piously
making a votive offering of the primitiæ to Apollo and Artemis,[742]
divinities of the chase.[743]
Footnote 738:
Xen. Cyneg. v. 34.
Footnote 739:
Poll. v. 17.
Footnote 740:
The pleasure experienced on these occasions is thus enthusiastically
described by Christopher Wase:—"What innocent and natural delights
are they, when he seeth the day breaking forth, those blushes and
roses which poets and writers of romances only paint, but the
huntsman truly courts! When he heareth the chirping of small birds
perched upon their dewy boughs, when he draws in that fragrancy of
the pastures and coolness of the air! How jolly is his spirit when
he suffers it to be imported with the noise of bugle-horns and the
baying of hounds which leap up and play around him!"—Pref. to Tr. of
Gratius, p. 3.
Footnote 741:
See, in the Cyropædia, i. 6. 40, an extremely interesting passage on
the chase of the hare.—Cf. Oppian. de Venat. iv. 422.
Footnote 742:
Hence the goddess obtained many of the epithets bestowed on her by
the poets, as: ἀγροτέρα, καὶ κυνηγέτις, καὶ φιλόθηρος, καὶ ὀρεία,
ἀπὸ τῶν ὀρῶν· καὶ Ἰδαία, ἀπὸ τῆς Ἴδης, καὶ δίκτυνα, ἀπὸ τῶν δικτύων·
καὶ ἑκηβόλος, ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑκὰς τὰ θνρία βάλλειν· καὶ πολλὰ ἄλλα ὀνόματα
ἀπὸ θήρας.—Poll. v. 13.
Footnote 743:
Xen. Cyneg. vi. 1. seq. Poll. v. 13.—It was customary, moreover, to
nail the head or a foot of the game to some tree in honour of
Artemis.—Sch. Aristoph. Ran. 143.
And now, exclaims the leader of the Ten Thousand, I behold the hounds,
joyous and full of fire, spring forward in the track of their game.
Eagerly and ardently do they pursue it—they traverse—they run about in
a circle—they advance now in a straight line, now bounding away
obliquely—they plunge into the thickets, across the glades, through
the paths, known or unknown, hurrying one before the other, shaking
their tails, their ears hanging low,[744] their eyes flashing with
fire. Drawing near the game they indicate the fact to their master by
their movements, kindling up into a warlike humour, bounding emulously
forward, scorning all thought of fatigue,—now in a body, now
singly,—till reaching the hiding-place[745] of the hare they spring
towards it all at once. In the midst of shouts and barking the swift
animal glances from her form with the hounds at her heels. The
huntsman, his left hand wrapped in his chlamys, follows staff in hand,
animating his dogs, but avoiding, even if in his power, to head the
game.[746]
Footnote 744:
C. Poll. v. 61.
Footnote 745:
Οἱ θάμνοι, the technical term for covert. Poll. v. 15.
Footnote 746:
Xen. Cyneg. vi. 14–17.
A singular species of chase, now common in our own rabbit-warrens,
appears to have passed over from Africa to the Balearic Isles, in an
ancient account of which the first mention of it occurs. Those
islands, it is said, were almost entirely exempted from vermin, but,
on the other hand, contained prodigious numbers of rabbits, which
almost destroyed every herb and plant by biting their roots. At
length, however, they discovered a remedy for this evil. They imported
ferrets from Africa, which, having first muzzled them, they let loose
in the rabbit-warrens. Creeping into the holes they scared forth the
inmates, which were caught by the sportsman. Strabo, who relates the
circumstance, calls the ferret a “wild cat.” Pliny, having likewise
described the devastations of the rabbits, speaks of it under the name
of _viverra_, and says it was held in great estimation for its utility
in this chase, which in the seventeenth century was practised in the
island of Procida, where they procured the animal from Sicily, and
denominated it Foretta, whence the English name. The common Italian
appellation was donnola.[747]
Footnote 747:
Vict. Var. Lect. xxxi. 20. p. 883. seq. Cf. Plin. Hist. Nat. viii.
8, cum notis. Strab. iii. 2. p. 231.
It is clear, however, that in classic times the ferret was unknown in
Greece, otherwise we should never have heard of the proverb of the
Carpathian and his Hare[748] applied to persons who brought evil upon
themselves. Originally, we are told, the Island of Carpathos[749] was,
like Ithaca, entirely destitute of hares; but a pair having been at
length introduced, multiplied so prodigiously that they almost
depopulated the island by devouring the fruits of the earth. A similar
fact is related of the island Porto Santo, near Madeira, for Prince
Henry of Portugal, immediately after its discovery, “sent Bartholomew
Perestrello with seeds to sow and cattle to stock the place; but one
couple of rabbits put in among the rest increased so prodigiously that
all corn and plants being destroyed by them it was found necessary to
unpeople the place.”[750]
Footnote 748:
Suid. v. Λαγώς. t. ii. p. 3.
Footnote 749:
This island now abounds in cattle and game, particularly quails and
partridges.—Dapper, Descrip. des Iles de l’Archip. p. 173.
Footnote 750:
Hist. of Navig. prefixed to Church. Coll. of Voy. and Trav. vol. i.
p. xx.
A peculiar kind of hare is commemorated by the ancients as found in
Elymœa. It is said to have been little inferior in size to the fox, to
have been elongated and slender in shape, and blackish in colour, with
a long white tip at the end of the tail. It is remarked by the same
writer that the scent left by leverets on the ground is stronger and
more pungent than that of the grown hare, so that the dogs become
furious on getting wind of it.[751]
Footnote 751:
Poll. v. 74.
From the chase of the hare and rabbit we pass on to that of the fawn
and the stag, in which they made use of Indian dogs,[752] animals of
great strength, size, speed, and courage. Fawns[753] were hunted in
spring, the season of their birth. The first step was for the
sportsman to beat up the woods to discover where the deer were
numerous; and having found a proper place he returned thither before
day, armed with javelins, and accompanied by a game-keeper with a pack
of hounds. The dogs were kept in leash afar off, lest they should give
tongue at the sight of the deer. He himself took his station on the
look-out. At break of day[754] the does, with their yellowish and
richly-speckled skins, were seen issuing from the thickets, followed
by their still more delicately-spotted fawns, which they led to the
places[755] where they usually suckled them, while the stags stationed
themselves at a distance, as an advanced guard, to defend them from
all intruders. The graceful creatures then lay down to perform their
matronly office, looking round watchfully the while to observe whether
they were discovered. This pleasing task completed, they, like the
stags, posted themselves in a circle about their fawns to protect
them. Sportsmen have no sentiment. At the very moment when this most
beautiful exhibition of mute affection would have warmed with sympathy
the heart of the philosopher or the poet, the dogs were let loose,
while their master and his companions, armed with javelins, closed
upon the game. The fawn itself, unless chilled and drenched by the
dew—in which case it frisked about—would remain still in its place and
be taken. But on hearing its cries the doe rushed forward to deliver
it, and was smitten down by the javelins or torn to pieces by the
dogs. The chase of the female elephant in Africa exhibits the same
traits of affection in the brute and ferocity in man. In this case the
young will fight for his mother, or the mother for her young till
death.
Footnote 752:
Xen. Cyneg. ix. 1.
Footnote 753:
The terms by which, in our old hunting vocabulary, the stag was
known at the different periods of his life are as follow:—1. a fawn;
2. a pricket; 3. a sourell; 4. a soure; 5. a buck of the first head;
6. a buck. Wase. Pref. to Gratius, p. 12.
Footnote 754:
Xen. Cyneg. ix. 3.
Footnote 755:
That is on the ὀργάδες or lawns, which, according to Pollux they
chiefly frequented, v. 15. Cf. Schneid. ad Xen. Cyneg. ix. § 1.
When the fawn had attained any considerable size, and begun to feed
among the herd, the chase of it became more arduous. The fidelity of
instinctive love, opposed to human sagacity, exhibited all its force.
Closing round their young and drawing up in front of them, the stags,
emboldened by affection, trampled the dogs under their feet,
frequently to death, unless the huntsman, dashing into the midst of
them, could succeed in detaching a single animal from the herd. But,
supposing this done, the hounds at first remained far behind the fawn,
which, terrified at finding itself alone, bounded along with
incredible velocity, though, its strength soon failing, it in the end
fell a prey to the hunter.
The object of the ancients, however, in the chase not being simple
sport, but to obtain possession by the shortest method possible of the
game, they set snares in the narrows of the mountains, around the
meadows, near the streams and freshes, and in the thickets—wherever,
in short, stags could be taken. Pitfalls, too, were dug, as in Africa
for the lion,[756] and most of those stratagems resorted to which the
Nubians and Egyptian Arabs put in practice against the gazelle. It was
in fact common to erect, with rough stones or wood, a sort of skreen,
perhaps semicircular, like those behind which the hunters of the
desert hide, to conceal themselves when lying in wait for the
game.[757]
Footnote 756:
Xen. Cyneg. ix. 14. sqq.—Ælian describes another method of taking
these animals not much practised by modern sportsmen; that is to say
by the charms of music, as the Egyptian Psylli captured serpents.—De
Nat. Anim. xii. 46.
Footnote 757:
Poll. v. 36.
For the chase of the wild boar,[758] at once a manly and a useful
sport, somewhat complicated preparations were necessary. In this the
dogs of India, of Crete, of Locris, of Sparta, hunted side by side,
and the sportsman took the field armed with strong nets, javelins,
hunting poles, and snares. The boar-spears of the ancients[759] were
most carefully fashioned, with a broad sharp head and handle of tough
wood. So likewise were their hunting-poles armed with long iron
points, fixed in brazen sockets, with a shaft of service wood.
Footsnares of great strength were set at intervals. This was not the
sport of a solitary hunter. They went out in considerable numbers, and
kept close together, finding still, for lack of fire-arms, no small
difficulty in coping with the foe. On reaching the spot where they
supposed the hog to be ensconced, the dogs were all led carefully in
leash with the exception of one Spartan hound, which was let loose and
accompanied in all his movements. When he appeared to have found the
track, they followed him, and he thus took the lead in the chase.
Numerous signs also directed the movements of the hunter; in soft
places the track, broken branches in thickets, and in forests the
wounds on the bark of trees, given by the boar in sharpening his tusks
as he passed.[760]
Footnote 758:
Cf. Aristoph. Vesp. i. 202. seq. Xen. Cyrop. i. 6. 28.
Footnote 759:
Xen. Cyneg. x. 3.
Footnote 760:
The huntsmen give judgment of the wild boar by the print of his
foot, by his rooting; a wild swine roots deeper than our ordinary
hogs, because its snout is longer, and when he comes into a
corn-field, as the Calydonian boar in Ovid, turns up one continued
furrow, &c.—Wase, Illustrations, V. p. 64.
Generally the traces were found leading to some sheltered nook, warm
in winter, in summer cool, where the boar made his lair. On
discovering him the dog gave tongue, but the animal in general refused
to rise. The hound was then withdrawn and put in leash with the
others, and every opening, save one, leading to the place, closed with
nets, the upper ends of which were passed over the forks of trees. The
nets were hung so as to belly outwards, and carefully disposed so that
they could be seen through. Bushes cut hastily supported them on
either side, and closed every aperture through which the game could
attempt to force a way. This done the hounds were all slipped, and the
hunters, armed with pikes and spears, entered the netted enclosure.
One of the boldest and most experienced led the dogs; the others
followed at intervals, leaving an ample space between them for the
boar, which if closely hemmed in might have inflicted on his opponents
the fate of Adonis. Presently the hounds sprang all at once upon the
game, which rising in sudden alarm tossed the first it encountered
into the air, and breaking through the pack made away towards the
nets, followed by men and dogs in full cry. On finding the
unaccustomed opposition, he would, if running down hill, plunge right
forward to force his way through; if in a plain he would stand still,
glaring fiercely around.
The dogs, however, soon closed upon his track, while the hunters
galled him with javelins and stones, approaching closer and closer
till he was driven by his own impetuosity into the nets. Upon this the
most daring of his pursuers drew near, pike in hand, and sought to put
an end to the contest by piercing him in the head. Sometimes,
notwithstanding all they could do, instead of plunging into the toils
he would turn upon them; in which case some dexterous sportsman, armed
with spear or pike, usually presented himself to receive his charge
with one foot advanced, impelling the weapon with the right hand,
directing it with the left. Instead, however, of rushing on at once
the hog would perhaps pause a moment to reconnoitre, when it behoved
his antagonist carefully to mark every movement of his head or glance
of his eye.[761] For in the very moment that a blow was aimed at him,
he would sometimes dash the spear aside with tusk or snout, and the
next moment be upon his enemy, whose only chance of safety now
consisted in throwing himself instantaneously on his face, and holding
fast by whatever he could grasp, since, the tusks of the boar curving
upwards, he found it difficult to gore his enemy thus lying, and
failing to turn him over would in his fury trample on him. A second
hunter now rushed forward to deliver his companion, and usually drew
off the hog by dexterous attacks in flank. The fallen sportsman,
recovering at the same time his feet and his spear, must by the laws
of the chase return to the combat, and could only secure his
reputation by immolating his foe. By this time, indeed, the task had
generally become easier; for, rendered reckless by fury, he would
throw himself impetuously on their pikes, which, but for the
protecting guards at the head, would have gone through him handle and
all. His whole frame now appeared to be kindled with rage, his blood
boiling, his eyes flashing, and his tusks so nearly on fire that if
brought in contact with hair at the moment of death, they would
frizzle it like a red-hot iron.[762]
Footnote 761:
Cf. Poll. v. 23. sqq.
Footnote 762:
Οὕτω δὲ πολλὴ ἡ δυναμίς ἐστιν αὐτοῦ, ὥστε καὶ, ἃ οὐκ ἂν οἴοιτό τις,
πρόσεστιν αὐτῷ· τεθνεῶτος γὰρ εὐθὺς ἐάν τις ἐπὶ τὸν ὀδόντα ἐπιθῇ
τρίχας, συντρέχουσιν· οὑτως εἰσὶ θερμοὶ· ζῶντι δὲ διάπυροι, ὅταν
ἐρεθίζηται· οὐ γὰρ ἂν τῶν κυνῶν, ἁμαρτάνων τῇ πληγῄ τοῦ σώματος,
ἄκρα τὰ τριχώματα περιεπίμπρα.—Xen. Cyneg. x. 17. Cf. Poll. v. 80.
Oppian. Venat. iii. 379. seq. Scalig. Poët. v. 14. p. 698.
Of the hunting of the bear[763] the ancients have left us no exact
description. As this animal abounded, however, in most parts of
Greece, where it was extremely troublesome and destructive,
particularly to the fruit-trees, various expedients were hit upon for
taking and destroying it. Sometimes it was pursued as game and brought
down by the bow; but the common method appears to have been to make
use of traps and snares. They dug, for example, a deep trench round
one of those trees in the fruit of which the bear particularly
delighted, and covering it with reeds or brittle branches, they
sprinkled thereon a thin layer of earth, and concealed the whole
apparatus with fresh grass. The bear, proceeding as usual towards the
tree on his thievish errand, broke in the roof of the pit with his
weight, and was caught. Even in the most civilised times this animal
had not been wholly extirpated from Attica,[764] but, as well as the
boar, was found on Mount Parnes. In Laconia also, through the whole
range of Taygetos, it abounded, together with hogs, deer, and wild
goats. Bruin was sacrificed in Achaia to Artemis Laphria. In Thrace
the white bear was found.[765]
Footnote 763:
Pausanias mentions the bear as an inhabitant of Pendeli. “About
three years since one was shot in the mountains of Parnassos, and
brought to Aracooa. The lynx, the wild cat, the wild boar, the wild
goat, the stag, the roebuck, the badger, the martin, and squirrel
inhabit the steeper rocks of Parnassos, and the thick pine forests
above Callidia. The rough mountains about Marathon are frequented by
moles, foxes, and jackals; weasels are sometimes taken in the
villages and out-houses; hares are too numerous to be
particularised.” Sibthorp in Walp. Mem. i. 73.
Footnote 764:
Paus. i. 32. 1.
Footnote 765:
Paus. iii. 20. 4. vii. 18. 13. viii. 17. 3.
Respecting the habits of the Grecian bear the ancients have left us
some few facts which may be worth repeating. When it comes forth from
the den,[766] where it has passed the winter, it is said to chew bits
of wood, and to feed on snake-weed, wake-robin, or cuckoo-pint (arum
maculatum[767]), which has a purgative power. These operations
performed, its ravenous appetites immediately awake, and it commences
its devastations in the farm-yard, the orchard and the apiary.
Delighting greatly in honey it attacks and overthrows the hives which
it tears to pieces in order to devour the combs, though Pliny[768]
adduces another reason for this fact, exceedingly characteristic of
that writer. He says that the bear, after his winter sleep, finding
his eyes dim and his head heavy, applies to the bees as to skilful
oculists, that in revenge for robbing them of their honey, sting him
angrily about the face, which by letting much blood relieves him at
once from his ophthalmia and his headache. The bear, it is well known,
is omnivorous like man. He accordingly plunders the bean-fields, and
feeds on every kind of pulse. In robbing orchards,[769] too, his
courage and ability are great, being as I have said as complete an
adept as a school-boy in climbing trees, out of which when he has
satisfied himself he descends, like the aforesaid mischievous beast,
feet foremost. When none of the delicacies above enumerated was within
his reach, the bear would feed on ants, crabs, or any kind of vermin,
but preferred of course the flesh of the larger animals, such as the
stag, the wild boar, and the bull. His mode of taking his prey was
curious. Upon the boar and stag he probably dropped from his hiding
place in the trees, but the stratagem by which he usually got the bull
into his power was this.[770] Throwing himself on the ground directly
in his way he provoked the lord of the herd to gore him, upon which,
seizing his horns, and fastening ravenously upon his shoulder, he
brought him to the ground, where he fed upon his carcass at leisure.
When flying from the more terrible face of man, the female usually
drove her young before her, or taking them up in her mouth or on her
back, she would endeavour to escape with them into the trees.[771]
Footnote 766:
Aristot. Hist. Anim. ix. 6. viii. 17. vi. 30. Ælian de Nat. Anim.
vi. 3. Cf. Buffon, Hist. Nat. t. viii. p. 27.
Footnote 767:
This now we find is the food of swine. “Leaving Pyrgo (in Bœotia),
we advanced along the plain to Eremo Castro; in our road we observed
droves of pigs tearing up the ground for the roots of the
cuckow-pint (arum maculatum) which was called by the swineherds
δρακοντίο.”—Sibth. in Walp. i. 65.
Footnote 768:
Nat. Hist. viii. 54.
Footnote 769:
Aristot. Hist. Anim. viii. 5.
Footnote 770:
Ælian. de Nat. Anim. vi. 6. Aristot. ut sup.
Footnote 771:
Aristot. Hist. Anim. ix. 6. Ælian. de Nat. Anim. vi. 6.
As the lion was not found in Greece in the civilised periods of its
history, the chase of it cannot be said to have formed an Hellenic
amusement.[772] They might, however, by proceeding a little beyond the
borders in their colonies of Thrace and Asia Minor, on Mount Pangæos,
on the Mysian Olympos, and in Syria, enjoy this dangerous pastime if
they desired it. In all those countries, however, both the lion,[773]
the panther, the pard, the lynx, and other animals of this destructive
class had been confined to the mountains, where, as an acute and
experienced observer has remarked, they lose much of their force and
ferocity. The expression made use of by Xenophon proves in fact that
the dread of man had driven them almost into inaccessible fastnesses,
whither they could not be pursued by the hunter, so that they were
chiefly taken in their descent to the lowlands by poisoning, with
aconite,[774] the waters or the baits which they set for them:
sometimes, indeed, when want compelled them into the plains, parties
of hunters on horseback, and armed to the teeth, would assault and
destroy them, not without imminent peril. Pitfalls, too, of ingenious
construction were dug for them, having an earthen pillar in the centre
on which a goat was tied.[775] The encircling moat, like that above
described, destined for the bear, was concealed by a covering of
slender bushes which, breaking under them, they were precipitated to
the bottom and there killed. The wolf, though a sacred animal[776] in
Attica, had by the laws a price set upon his head, at which
Menage[777] wonders, though the Egyptians also slaughtered their
sacred crocodiles, when they exceeded a certain size.
Footnote 772:
Xen. Cyneg. xi. 1.
Footnote 773:
Pollux (v. 14.) observes that in his time lions were chiefly found
in mountainous tracts as wild boars were in marshes and pardales in
the depths of the woods.
Footnote 774:
Xen. Cyneg. xi. 2. Poll. v. 82. Plin. viii. 27. Dioscor. iv. 77.
Foxes were supposed to be killed by baits steeped in the juice of
bitter almonds (Id. i. 176); wolves, panthers, dogs, &c. by
dog’s-bane.—Id. iv. 81.
Footnote 775:
Oppian. de Venat. iv. 85. sqq.
Footnote 776:
Cf. Hesych. v. Λυκαβ.
Footnote 777:
Ad D. Laert. p. 20. b. c. Meurs. Solon, c. 19.
In the chase of the wild goat the bow, among the mountains of Crete,
was made use of, and so skilful as marksmen were the Cretans[778] that
from the depths of the valleys they would bring down their game from
the pinnacles of the loftiest cliffs.[779] They were fabled to have
been taught the art of hunting by the Curetes, and, practising it
constantly in steep and difficult places, they acquired great
suppleness and agility of body, and were exceedingly swift of
foot.[780]
Footnote 778:
The very name of the Cretans has by some been derived from the use
of the bow. Κρῆτες, παρὰ τὸ ἐπὶ κέρασι βιοτεύειν· κυνηγετικοὶ γάρ.
Etym. Mag. 537. 54. See in Homer a description of the bow of
Pandaros where we are told it was made from the horns of a wild
goat.—Il. δ. 105. sqq.
Footnote 779:
Ælian. Var. Hist. i. 10. On the cothurnos which these hunters wore,
see Spanheim ad Callim. in Dian. 16. p. 142. sqq. Bœttig. Les
Furies, p. 37. The high half-boot worn by Artemis in the chase is
represented in Mus. Chiaramon. pl. 18.
Footnote 780:
Athen. xii. 28. Meurs. Cret. p. 177.
The Macedonians, too, were both practised and enthusiastic sportsmen,
and delighted in the amusement even whilst engaged in their most
toilsome expeditions. Thus during the campaigns of Alexander in Asia,
we find the generals Leonatos and Menelaos or Philotas[781] carrying
about among their baggage, linen skreens, ten or twelve miles in
length, which during their halts they caused to be stretched round a
given district, where they hunted as in a park. An anecdote is related
strikingly illustrating the high estimation in which the chase was
held at the court and among the nobles of Macedonia, where it was
customary for the son to sit upright on a chair at his father’s table
and not to recline among the guests until he had slain a wild boar out
of the toils. Cassander, son of Antipater, continued, it is said,[782]
up to his thirty-fifth year bolt upright at the regal board, because,
though a brave man and a skilful hunter, fortune had constantly denied
him the pleasure of despatching the hog after the prescribed fashion.
Footnote 781:
Athen. xii. 55. Plut. Alex. § 40. See in Wase’s Illustrations, p.
68. an account of the Polish royal hunts in which, on a smaller
scale, the same practice prevailed.
Footnote 782:
Athen. i. 31.
There is one department of the chase, and that perhaps the most
curious and interesting, which was not practised by the Greeks of
classical times, though it cannot be said to have been unknown to
them; I mean falconry, described by several ancient writers as it was
pursued in India and in Thrace. If I give a short description of it,
therefore, it must be regarded as a digression introduced for the
purpose of completing, as far as possible, the circle of ancient
amusements. Ctesias,[783] who was contemporary with Socrates, and
published his Indian history four hundred years before Christ, seems
to be the oldest writer by whom falconry is mentioned. He tells us
that among the Hindùs hares and foxes were hunted with kites, ravens,
and eagles, and minutely describes the way in which the birds were
broken in. Having been caught while young, they were first taught to
fly at tame hares and foxes in the following manner. The animals with
pieces of flesh tied to them were started in sight of the falcons,
which were immediately let loose and sent in pursuit. When they caught
and brought back the game the flesh was given them as their reward,
and by this bait and allurement they were encouraged to persevere.
When sufficiently trained, they were taken to the mountains and flown
against wild hares and foxes. The passion for falconry is still kept
alive in the East, particularly in Persia, where the shâh-baz, or
royal falcon, is flown against hares and antelopes, occasionally
invested with leathers, which protect him from being torn
asunder.[784] But the most daring and dangerous service in which
falcons have ever been employed is the chase of the wild horse by the
Turcomâns of Khiva on the eastern shores of the Caspian.[785] A more
detailed description of ancient falconry than that given by Ctesias is
found in a work attributed to Aristotle.[786] It is said, observes
this writer, that the youth of Thrace, who were addicted to hunting,
pursued their game by the assistance of hawks. On arriving upon the
ground, the falcon, which had evidently been trained for the purpose,
obeyed the calls of the sportsmen and chased the birds into the
thickets, where they were knocked down with hunting-poles and taken.
Even when the falcons themselves captured the game, they brought it to
the hunters, who as in modern times gave them, as a reward, some
portion of the animal.
Footnote 783:
Ap. Ælian. de Nat. Anim. iv. 26.
Footnote 784:
Sir John Malcolm’s Sketches of Persia.
Footnote 785:
Anthony Jenkinson in Hackluyt, v. i. p. 368.
Footnote 786:
De Mirab. Auscult. 128. Beckm. Hist. of Discov. and Inven. i. p.
321.
In their fowling they made use of great cruelty:—Pigeons and
turtle-doves were commonly blinded, to be used as decoys, and in this
condition would sometimes live eight years.[787] Partridges were
employed for the same purpose in a different manner. The male bird
having been tamed was put out in the neighbourhood of a covey, upon
which the boldest of the wild birds came forward to fight him, and was
secured with the net. The challenge was usually accepted by every male
bird in the covey until one after another they were all taken. When
the female was employed she drew them successively to the nets by her
call.[788] The first that is deluded is generally the principal cock
in the covey, which the others collecting together seek to drive away.
To elude their pursuit the leader sometimes drew near the decoy in
silence, that he might not have to contend with the other males. Not
unfrequently they would descend and allow themselves at such times to
be caught on the roofs of the houses.[789]
Footnote 787:
Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. 8. Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 6. 39. has introduced
many particulars respecting fowling.
Footnote 788:
Cf. Xen. Memorab. ii. 1. 4. Their nets were denominated νεφέλαι,
Schol. Aristoph. Av. 194. Cf. Schol. Pac. 1144. The man who watched
the nets bore the name of λινόπτης.—Aristot. ap. id. ibid.
Footnote 789:
Athen. ix. 42.
The Greeks established at Alexandria had, according to Athenæus, who
was a native of Egypt, a kind of chase peculiar to themselves, viz.
that of the horned owl. The sophist of Naucratis has indeed been
suspected of confounding the ὠτὸς with the ὠτὶς, that is, the owl with
the bustard;[790] but it having been in his power to examine what he
relates, I shall lay his account before the reader, who will judge for
himself. This bird, it is said, is found in great numbers in the
desert near Alexandria, (though I myself saw none there,) and is as
much given to mimicry as a monkey. Above all things he is ambitious of
imitating man, and, as far as possible, will do whatever he sees done
by the fowler. Aware of his propensity in this way, these gentlemen,
when desirous of taking an owl, carried along with them into the
desert a thick tenacious glue, with which on coming within eyeshot of
the Otos they affected to anoint their eyes. Then laying down the
glue-pot on the sand they retreated to some hollow for concealment.
Upon this the owl having watchfully observed their movements,
approached, and covering his eyes with the treacherous ointment was
blinded and taken.
Footnote 790:
Alexand. Myndius calls it the λαγωδίας in which case it may probably
mean the _Ptarmigan_.
Another mode of catching this bird also prevailed. It having been
discovered that he was as partial as the Bedouin Arab to the company
of a horse, the fowlers covered themselves with horses’ skins, and in
this disguise approaching the flock were enabled to catch as many as
they pleased. A third method of taking the Otos was one which exposed
the unfortunate bird to the ridicule of the comic poets. The fowlers
setting out upon the chase in pairs, separated at coming in sight of
the game. One of the two then stepped out in front of the game and
commenced a jig, upon which the thoughtless mimic immediately did the
same, beating exact time with his feet, and keeping his eye fixed upon
his wily teacher. While the merry victim was thus engaged, capering,
springing, and pirouetting like a feathered Taglioni, the other
bird-catcher approached from behind and seized him by the neck.
The same story is related by other writers of the Scops or
mocking-owl, in imitation of whose movements, the ancients had a
celebrated dance.[791]
Footnote 791:
Athen. ix. 44. seq. Arist. Hist. Anim. viii. 12 ad fin.
Quails in certain seasons of the year frequent Greece in vast numbers,
as they do Egypt and Southern Italy.[792] It has been supposed that
the island of Delos received the name of Ortygia from the quails
(ὄρτυγες), which alighted on it in great numbers during their
migration towards the north. They were likewise plentiful in
Phœnicia,[793] where they sacrificed them to Heracles. Numerous
contrivances were resorted to for catching this bird. During pairing
time it was taken as follows: mirrors were set up in the fields with
snares in front of them, and the quail running towards the imaginary
bird was there entrapped. Clearchos of Soli describes a curious mode
of capturing jackdaws. In places frequented by those birds they used,
he says, to lay broad vessels filled to the brim with oil. Presently
the jackdaws, curious and prying in their temper, would alight on the
edges, and, being vastly pleased with the reflection of their own
beauty, would chuckle over it and clap their wings, till becoming
saturated with oil the feathers stuck together and they could no
longer fly.
Footnote 792:
They are taken in so great numbers in the island of Capri that they
constitute the chief source of revenue to the bishop of that island.
Footnote 793:
Phanodem. l. iii. ap. Ath. ix. 47.
CHAPTER VII.
SCHOOLS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS AND SOPHISTS.
Having thus drawn as complete a picture as the plan of our work would
permit, of the physical training of the Greeks in all its branches,
comprehending Gymnastics properly so called, together with those other
exercises which under the name of field-sports were enjoyed rather
than studied under the lead of no master but experience, we now return
to that mental discipline, which for the most part exerted its
influence in the developement of the intellectual faculties at the
same time that the foregoing bodily discipline brought forth all the
energies of the frame. We shall thus have traversed the whole circle
of Hellenic education, when we shall have exhibited the youth passing
through the schools of the philosophers and sophists into the
world.[794]
Footnote 794:
Cf. M. Ant. Muret. Orat. vii. p. 70. sqq.
Their mode of teaching differed very materially from ours. It scarcely
seemed an object with them to devour large quantities of learning, but
going leisurely again and again over the same ground they appeared to
give the lessons they received time to sink like gentle rain into
their minds. Some advantage, too, arose from their method of teaching,
as far as possible, orally. The master was to them instead of a
library. A book has but one set of phrases for all. But the living
teacher, if he found his pupils could not rise to his language, could
lower it to meet them half-way, could be brief or expansive, or
general or minute, as the necessities of the moment required. There
was a familiarity, too, in the relation, scarcely compatible with our
manners. The youth forgot he was learning, and rather supposed himself
to be searching in the company of a friend for truths equally unknown
to both. This appears to have been more particularly the case in their
moral studies,[795] at least in the Socratic schools, where all the
pomp of wisdom was laid aside that it might be the more popular.
Footnote 795:
Vid. Ant. Muret. Orat. iv. 43. sqq.
It has been already remarked that the first lessons in morals were
learned from the poets, whom, in my opinion, Plato wrongs most
egregiously when he arraigns their fables as so many sources of
immorality.[796] He appears, in fact, wilfully to confound them with
those impostors, the purificators and diviners, who furnished the
Popes with the original hint of penitences and indulgencies, and
expiating crimes by proxy. But this is unjust. It is visiting the sins
of low and sensual versifiers upon the divine heads of bards whom
heaven itself had inspired. However this may be, upon the Greeks young
and old no teachers exercised so powerful an influence as the poets,
who, from Homer down to Callistratos,[797] whether in epic or
after-dinner song, wielded the empire of their feelings despotically,
prompting them to actions pregnant with renown. And the avidity with
which their lessons were imbibed, is compared to that of a swarm of
bees alighting (ἐπιπτομένοι)[798] on a bed of spring flowers. In fact,
what Jason of Pheræ said of himself,—that he was devoured by the love
of empire[799]—appears to have been true of the Athenian youth, in
their irrepressible thirst after knowledge. Such of them, at least, as
were εὐφυεῖς καὶ ἱκανοὶ, are said to have hungered fiercely after
philosophy, and that not for any particular part but for the whole.
And Socrates declares that he who while young is fastidious in his
studies, rejecting this, disliking that, before mature reason has
taught him which is useful and which is not, may consider himself what
he pleases, but can never be great in learning or philosophy. To excel
in these it is necessary insatiably to covet every kind of
instruction, and joyfully to enter on the acquisition of it. He says,
indeed, that they resemble sight-seers, greedy of every spectacle; or
musical people, who are led by the ear wherever fiddling and singing
are going forward; except that, with the latter pleasure is the sole
motive, with the former an exalted passion for truth.[800] But what
truths are the object of philosophy? Those which have regard to the
nature and attributes of goodness, from which, as from a fountain,
flow all the usefulness and advantages of virtue. Philosophy in Greece
comprehended religion, and to be religious was to act justly,
benevolently, mercifully towards men, humbly and piously towards God.
To live thus, that is, to be virtuous, they considered it necessary to
possess a knowledge of the whole theory of ethics, since virtue, in
their opinion, is incompatible with ignorance. But man, besides being
a moral being, accountable to God, is a political being, accountable
to the laws of his country. He has duties also to perform towards that
country. To perform these properly he must comprehend the nature of a
state, and the relations subsisting between the state and the
individuals who compose it; that is, he must be acquainted with the
science of politics. Again in all free states, reasoning and
persuasion, not blind will and brute force, are the instruments of
government. The citizen must, therefore, be versed in logic and
eloquence,[801] that he may think correctly and explain clearly and
forcibly to others the convictions which determine his own judgment.
We have thus a cycle of Greek studies with the reasons on which they
were founded.
Footnote 796:
Plat. de Rep. ii. t. i. p. 112. sqq. Stallb. Cf. Hardion, Dissert.
sur l’Eloquence, iii. Biblioth. Academ. t. iii. p. 194. p. 210. sqq.
Footnote 797:
See Schoel. Hist. de la Lit. Grecq. i. 288. Lowth. Poes. Sacr. Hebr.
p. 12. Leipz.
Footnote 798:
Plat. de Rep. ii. t. i. p. 115. Stallb. On the ardent and noble
temperament of Athenian youth, see the note of Valckennaer, ad
Xenoph. Mem. iii. 3. 13. p. 286. Schneid. Cf. Plat. de Rep. v. t. i.
p. 345.
Footnote 799:
Aristot. Polit. iii. 4.
Footnote 800:
Plat. de Rep. v. t. i. p. 393. seq. Stallb.
Footnote 801:
Plat. Gorg. t. iii. p. 27. De Rep. t. vi. p. 358. sqq. Bekk.
With regard to their religious education, which commenced in the
nursery and was interwoven with every other study, it may be observed
that without it no person at Athens could rise to any eminence, or
command, even in private life, the respect of his fellow-citizens. To
be in favour with them a man must be supposed to stand well with the
gods. They conceived, in fact, that while conscience remained
unstifled, there would be a sense of religion, and that when this
went, probity, for the most part, and honour fled along with it. For
regarding the deity in the light of a parent,—"we are all his
offspring,"—irreligion appeared to them something like a disposition
to parricide, a compound of injustice with the basest and most
atrocious ingratitude. Arrived at this pitch, a man to compass his
ends would scruple at nothing. They, therefore, regarded every symptom
of impiety as a blow aimed at the democracy, of which Zeus was king.
He who tramples on his country’s religion, which is the basis of all
its laws, will infallibly, if it be in his power, trample next on
those laws themselves, and next on his fellow-citizens whom the laws
protect. Hence the terror, the vengeance, and, indeed, the cruelty
arising out of the mutilation of the Hermæ, and the profanation of the
mysteries, and the prosecution which followed, of Alcibiades,
Andocides, and the rest. An attempt had been made to break down that
enclosure of reverential sanctity which surrounded the commonwealth,
and commended it to the protection of heaven. They considered the act
a formal renouncing of the Almighty, and feared,—so imperfect were
their notions,—lest the impiety of the few should redound to the
detriment of the whole.
The remark is common in the mouths[802] of men that the education of
the people should be conformable to the spirit of their institutions.
But this is a mere truism, and means no more than this,—that men
should not be enjoined one thing by their laws and political
constitution, and another by the habits and maxims taught in youth.
The grand difficulty, however, always has been to make them so to
harmonise in practice that they should be but two parts of the same
system.
Footnote 802:
See on this part of the subject Destutt de Tracy. Com. sur l’Esprit
des Loix, p. 25. sqq.
In monarchies[803] a spirit of exclusion, something like that on which
the system of castes is built, must pervade the whole business of
education. The nobility must have schools to themselves, or, if
wealthy plebeians be suffered to mingle with them, superior honour and
consideration must be yielded to the former. The masters must look up
to them and to their families, not to the people for preferment and
advancement; and the plebeians, though superior in number, must be
weak in influence, and be taught to borrow their tone from the
privileged students.
Footnote 803:
In an ill-constituted state, observes Muretus, a good man cannot be
a good citizen, for he will desire to alter the government, which
being bad he cannot respect.—In Aristot. Eth. p. 398.
In an oligarchy, properly so called, there should be no mingling of
the classes at all. Schools must be established expressly for the
governors, and others for the governed. The basis of education should
be the notion that some men were born for rule and others for
subjection; that the happiness of individuals depends on uninquiring
submission to authority; that their rulers are wise and they unwise;
that all they have to do with the laws is to obey them; and all
teachers must be made to feel that their admission among the great
depends on the faithful advocacy of such notions.
In free states, again, the contrary course will best promote the ends
of government; the schools must be strictly public, and not merely
theoretically but practically open to all. There should be no
compulsion to attend them, but ignorance of the things there taught
should involve a forfeiture of civil rights as much as being of
unsound mind; for in truth, an ignorant man is not of sound mind, any
more than one unable to use all his limbs is of sound body. Here the
discipline must be very severe. A spirit rigidly puritanical must
pervade the studies and preside over the amusements. Every tendency
irreligious, immoral, ungentlemanly, as unworthy the dignity of
freedom, should be nipped in the bud. The students must be taught to
despise all other distinctions but those of virtue and genius, in
other words the power to serve the community. They should be taught to
contemplate humanity as in other respects wholly on the same level,
with nothing above it but the laws. The teachers must be dependent on
the people alone, and owe their success to their own abilities and
popular manners. And this last in a great measure was the spirit of
Athenian education.[804]
Footnote 804:
The advantages of which were so much coveted by foreigners, that
they sent their children in crowds to be educated at Athens.—Æsch.
Epist. Orat. Att. xii. 214.
The best proof[805] that could be furnished of the excellence of a
system of education would be its rendering a people almost independent
of government, that is swayed more by their habits than by the laws.
This was preëminently the case with the Athenians. They required to be
very little meddled with by their rulers. Instructed in their duties
and the reason which rendered them duties, accustomed from childhood
to perform them, they lived as moral and educated men live still,
independent of the laws.
Footnote 805:
A commonwealth, says Plato, once well constituted will proceed like
an ever rolling circle. For by persevering in good training and
instruction, the minds and disposition of the people will be
rendered good, and these again in their turn will improve the system
of training and instruction, and even the race of man itself, as the
breed of other animals, is rendered more excellent by care.—De Rep.
t. vi. p. 173. Cf. Isocrates, Areop. § 14. seq.
This was the effect. The causes must be sought in their discipline and
studies. I have observed that among them a principal subject of
investigation was the science of politics, that is the science
according to the principles of which states are framed and preserved.
Nor did they, as some do, conduct their studies in that cold manner in
which men investigate matters of mere curiosity, or things they are
never to do more than converse or write about. They studied it as a
profession, as a means of rising to power, and through power to fame,
that is with all the ardour and earnestness of which enthusiastic
youth is capable. Education by this means exerted an influence unknown
under other forms of government. A consciousness that they were
engaged in a sort of sacred contest, of which all Greece was
spectator, pervaded the youth of every rank, and impelled them
irresistibly into that course of studies which promised the greatest
probability of success. Hence, no doubt much of the enthusiasm with
which philosophy was cultivated. It was often not so much the abstract
love of wisdom as a conviction of the political value of that wisdom
which filled the schools of the great men who taught at Athens,
whether they were physiologists, mathematicians, masters of music, of
strategy, or of eloquence. The example of Pericles applying himself to
natural philosophy under Anaxagoras, and deriving thence those streams
of pure and masculine eloquence which overflowed the Pnyx, operated
forcibly on public opinion. By the same arts and studies men hoped to
mount to equal elevation, forgetting that Anaxagoras only watered the
plant spontaneously produced by nature.
However, the hopes and aspirations I have described filled the schools
first of the philosophers, then of the sophists. And this is the
natural course of things. Few pursue wisdom for its own sake, in order
that it may purify and render holy their own minds. And by this
dispensation of Providence society is a gainer; for, as man is
constituted, no sooner does he possess any mental excellence, any
knowledge or art or experience, which can be rendered available, than
he comes eagerly forward with it to extort praise or reward from the
community by conferring benefits upon it. The examples of reserve in
this matter are few, nor, in fact, are they to be commended who in
this or in any thing else hide their light under a bushel; and
therefore Plato is wrong when he teaches that wise men will as a rule
abstain from intermeddling with state affairs, unless constrained
thereto by fines and menaces. He confesses, indeed, that the worst of
all punishments is to be governed by evil men, and that to avoid this
even philosophers will consent to hold the reins of government.[806]
But where they do not, they are always in free states the masters of
those who do. Their schools were the colleges and universities of the
ancient world, and so long as freedom endured the great object of
their philosophy was to create able citizens and a happy state. On
this account their remains are still instinct with life. Their object
was gradually to ripen human nature into perfection by perfecting its
education and its institutions. They knew how completely a people is
in the power of its teachers for good or for evil, and accordingly,
with some few exceptions, applied themselves to elevate the
conceptions, the moral tone, the feelings of their countrymen, seldom
descending to trifling disquisitions excepting for relaxation in the
intervals of more important inquiries.
Footnote 806:
Repub. i. t. vi. p. 42. seq. Bekk.
The physical sciences,[807] save in the case of their earliest
cultivators, were regarded as simple handmaids to ethics and politics.
Nevertheless, in the study of them much earnestness was exhibited.
For, where knowledge is at all held in honour, men will always be
found sufficiently prone to the palpable and visible. But even these
pursuits assumed a peculiar form in Greece. The genius of the nation,
essentially creative, developed its force and its peculiar energy in
framing systems of physics, explaining the origin of the world, the
birth of the human race, its early fortunes and fabulous history.
Every great philosopher became, like an intellectual sun, the centre
of a system of physics, and his disciples like satellites revolved
around him, receiving and reflecting his light. This, despite of some
inconveniences, was highly favourable to science. It compelled men to
the study of the philosophical art of attack and defence. Each school
became the reviewers and critics of its rivals, sought out their weak
points, studied them profoundly, called up all its acuteness, all its
subtlety, both to assault others and defend itself; and thus, whatever
became of the system, the professors of it carried, as far as might be
towards perfection, their intellectual powers, invested their
reasonings with every grace of which they were susceptible, culled
from the most recondite arts and hidden resources of style and
eloquence.
Footnote 807:
Vid. Athen. ii. 18.—That geography entered but very little into
their studies may be inferred from Thucydides, vii. 1.
But, while this golden currency was circulating through Greece,
enriching its mind and augmenting its chances of independence and
happiness, a race of men sprang up, who brought into use a number of
ingenious and beautiful counters,—I mean the sophists.[808] The
influence of these men in the education of the Greeks has seldom been
correctly appreciated. It has been more common to vituperate than to
study them. They corrupted, we are told, the mind and manners of
youth. But how? No one, as far as I know, has observed that to them is
to be traced the extinction of the republican spirit and the opening
of a way for despotism.[809] That they created the yearning after
innovation I will not affirm; but their epoch constituted a period of
transition from republican to monarchical institutions, and the only
way in which they can be said to have corrupted the youth was by
undermining that love of liberty and of country, the feeling of
disinterestedness on which chiefly a commonwealth must be founded, and
inculcating in lieu thereof a system of ethics more in conformity with
the modifications of civil polity prevalent in modern times. In this
way only did they corrupt and undermine the morals of their country.
But in so far they effected it, and that the more easily, in that
circumstances conspired, about the time they arose, to fling the whole
business of teaching into their hands, insomuch that to be a sophist,
and to teach youth, grew to be synonymous terms.[810]
Footnote 808:
Vid. Herod. i. 29. And Cf. Schœll. Hist. de la Lit. Grecq. ii. 134.
Isoc. de Perm. § 26. Muret. in Arist. Ethic. p. 477. Menag. ad Diog.
Laert. p. 5. a. b. &c.
Footnote 809:
Hobbes, the great representative of this class of men in modern
times, living under the despotism of the Stuarts, sought to turn the
tables upon the philosophers, and accused them of corrupting the
minds of youth. “As to rebellion, in particular against monarchy,
one of the most frequent causes of it is the reading of the books of
policy and histories of the ancient Greeks and Romans; from which
young men, and all others that are unprovided of the antidote of
solid reason, receiving a strong and delightful impression of the
great exploits of war, achieved by the conductors of their armies,
receive withal a pleasing idea of all they have done besides; and
imagine their great prosperity not to have proceeded from the
emulation of particular men, but from the virtue of their popular
form of government.”—Leviathan, pt. ii. c. 29. vol. iii. p.
315.—Edition of Sir William Molesworth.
Footnote 810:
Poll. iv. 17.
They were themselves, however, but a corruption of what in its origin
was good, and always continued in the opinion of the undiscerning to
be confounded with the men they aped.[811] Whether we have sophists
among us at the present day, I will not determine; but this is the way
they arose in Greece. It was soon discovered by shrewd and calculating
men, that since philosophy excited much admiration and rendered its
teachers objects of mark and reverence, it might by a little ingenuity
be converted into a source of profit.[812] But by what means?—The
philosophers at the outset were in possession of the popular ear, more
through the sanctity of their lives, of which all could judge, than
through their doctrines, necessarily comprehended in their fullest
extent by few. They despaired, therefore, of the people. There
existed, however, in Greece, and will ever exist in free states, young
men of immeasurable ambition, who, impatient of the restraint of laws,
would gladly cast them off, seize the reins of government, and become
the tyrants of their country. The mere conception of such a design
implies the possession of wealth and powerful friends. Eager for any
help they enthusiastically welcomed all who seemed capable of
promoting their views, and when the sophists appeared, enriched with a
variety of knowledge, specious, eloquent, unscrupulous, they eagerly
threw themselves into their arms, became their pupils, and in
conjunction with them framed the subjugation of Greece.
Footnote 811:
Plat. de Rep. t. vi. p. 286. seq. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 331.
Footnote 812:
That money was the sole object of the sophists is observed by
Isocrates, Hel. Encom. § 4. Elsewhere, with a stroke of sly humour
not usual with him, he says, they would sell anything short of
immortality for three or four minæ.—Cont. Sophist. § 3, p. 576. See
on the whole subject of the Sophists, Hard. Dissert. v. Bibl. Acad.
t. iii. p. 240. sqq. Muret. in Arist. Ethic. p. 533. Cressol. Theat.
Rhet. v. iii. p. 447.
In tracing this class of men to their origin, we must look back a
great way, and endeavour to detect them, under a variety of forms,
different from that in which they ultimately settled. They arose with
the first philosophers, or the first poet who made self the centre of
his researches, and sought to render the investigation of science a
means of personal aggrandisement. Protagoras describes in Plato the
rise of his own art; where, though a side blow be wrongfully aimed at
poetry itself, the truth of the accusation against a number of poets
cannot be denied. He makes good at the very outset what I have
asserted above. They travelled, he says, over all Greece, alluring the
noblest youths to abandon the company of their friends and
fellow-citizens, to become their pupils, and be guided wholly by their
maxims, the nature of which I shall presently unfold. The feelings
they thus excited, he denominates envy and malevolence, though in
truth it was nothing more than that patriotic and parental jealousy
and hatred experienced by the good when they behold those they love
led astray. The better to escape this hostility, the ancient sophists
adopted various disguises, sometimes enveloping their art in the folds
of poetry as Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides, on other occasions
affecting to be the interpreters of foreign rites and oracles, as
Orpheus and Musæus; while a third class concealed the features of
their art under the less suspected mask of gymnastics, such as Iccos
of Tarentum, and that Herodicos of Silymbria a man of Megarean origin
who in the art of sophistry was second to none of his age.
Occasionally they made their entrance into cities as professors of
music. In this capacity Damon conversed with Pericles, and Agathocles,
an Athenian by birth, diffused through the state the seeds of
sophistry; Pythocleides, too, the Coan, pursued the same course; and
thus a youth, while ostensibly engaged in gaining a proficiency on the
lyre or cithara, was initiated in the mysteries of tyranny, irreligion
and injustice.[813]
Footnote 813:
Plat. Protag. t. i. p. 163. seq. Bekk.
By degrees, however, it was discovered that all disguise might be very
safely laid aside.[814] In fact the object at first aimed at,—to
escape the notice of men in power,—was found impracticable; and as to
the people, against whom all these shafts were directed, it was easy
to delude them, since what their leaders recommended they praised.
Protagoras, accordingly, boldly professed himself a sophist, trusting
for safety to his eloquence, and that growing laxity of manners which
was rapidly undermining the old republican constitution and preparing
the way for a new order of things. His candour was praiseworthy, but
lamentable were the circumstances which rendered it safe.
Footnote 814:
At a late period, by a decree of Sophocles, the sophists were driven
out of Attica.—Athen. xiii. 92. Cf. Cressol. Theat. Rhet. i. 12. p.
87.
I would not, however, be understood to share the opinions of those,
who can discern nothing but evil in the doctrines of the sophists. On
many points their notions harmonised altogether with those of the
wisest philosophers. Accordingly it was not precisely what they
inculcated, but the principles which regulated their teaching, that
rendered them sophists. They taught with a view to enrich themselves,
which is wholly incompatible with a strict allegiance to truth; since,
with such views, men will always be found to prophesy agreeably in
order that they may effect their purpose.
This circumstance has not been sufficiently considered by the writers
who undertake their apology. They compare them with the literary men
of modern times, and imagine this comparison a defence. But does it
not rather substantiate the accusation? It is true that, like modern
literary men, they haunted the houses of the great, whom they regarded
as their patrons; that to them, rather than to the people, they looked
for support; that, like them, they worshipped wealth and abhorred
poverty; that their studies, their discourses, their writings,
diffused far and wide through society a taste for arts and elegance;
that they furnished the public in their declamations, satires, novels,
of which they were the inventors, with inexhaustible sources of
amusement:—but what virtue did they inculcate? On whom did they urge
the necessity of sacrificing private to public good? On what occasion
did they dare to stem the torrent of immorality, of impiety, of
unpatriotic maxims, which the base and the selfish were pouring forth
against the old bulwarks of freedom? That among them there were men of
a very high order of genius, it is impossible to deny. Gorgias of
Leontium, from whose name we have borrowed an epithet to express
whatever is most glorious in nature or dazzling and elaborate in art,
Protagoras, Prodicos, Hippias of Elis, Polos of Agrigentum,
Thrasymachos of Chalcedon, have left behind them an imperishable
memory;[815] but so have Busiris and Phalaris and Catiline. They are
remembered for the good they might have done, and the evil they did.
Footnote 815:
Muretus considers the word sophist to be synonymous with a teacher
of eloquence: “Sophista, id est, dicendi magister;” and, speaking of
this same Thrasymachos, cites a passage from Cicero which attributes
to him the invention of the rhetorical style. Orat. § 12. Suidas
regards Thrasymachos as the first who made use of the period and the
colon; and supposes him to have been pupil to Plato and Isocrates,
whereas he preceded both.—Muret. Comm. p. 631. seq.
Since, however, the sophists acted so important a part in the
education of the Greeks, the space I devote to them is clearly their
due: it is necessary to the thorough comprehension of the subject.
Almost from the moment they arose they aimed at a monopoly of the art
of teaching, and the father of the art, properly so called, was
Gorgias. Few names of antiquity, as Geel[816] has well observed, are
better known or more celebrated than that of this distinguished
sophist, among the causes of whose amazing popularity must be reckoned
the number of great men whom he instructed in eloquence, and the
splendid vices of style which his example and precept brought into
vogue. The exact date of his birth is not known:[817] he is, however,
supposed to have been born at Leontium in Sicily, about the
seventy-third Olympiad. His father’s name was Charmantes.[818] Nearly
all the particulars of his early life are unknown, the ancients having
been as much too negligent as we are too lavish of biographical
details. Under whom he studied, with whom he conversed, how much he
owed to others, and how much to his own genius and industry, are
points not easy to be determined, though we cannot adopt the opinion
of Ælian,[819] who sends him to school to Philolaos; or of Diogenes
Laertius, who will have Empedocles to have been his teacher, since the
latter was very little older than himself, and the former much
younger. Empedocles is indeed said to have invented the art of
rhetoric, in which case we might suppose Gorgias to have been his
scholar. But how invented? He may have been the first who sought to
reduce it into an art, or who so called it; but as Aristotle observes,
every man who reasons persuasively is a rhetorician, whether his
eloquence be based on the formal study of the art or not. In
philosophy, indeed, he would seem[820] to have been the disciple of
Empedocles; but in rhetoric they both very probably derived
instruction from Corax and Tisias, who flourished and taught rhetoric
in Sicily about the period of their youth.[821]
Footnote 816:
Hist. Sophist. p. 13.
Footnote 817:
Clinton, Fast. Hellen. ii. 28. 65. 67. Geel (Hist. Sophist. p. 14)
assumes the seventieth Olympiad as the date of his birth; but as it
seems to result from the text of Pausanias that he was still living
in 380. B.C. this would extend the duration of his life beyond that
assigned to it by any ancient writer.
Footnote 818:
Of whom, as Muretus (Comm. p. 631. seq.) observes, no mention occurs
save in Plato de Repub. i. § 2. t. i. p. 8. Stallb.
Footnote 819:
Var. Hist. i. 23. Diog. Laert. viii. 58.—Mr. Clinton, however,
adopts the opinion of Diogenes (Fast. Hell. ii. 365); and, to render
it probable, supposes Empedocles to have been a few years older than
his pupil.
Footnote 820:
Plat. Men. p. 14. g.
Footnote 821:
Cic. Brut. § 12. Geel, Hist. Sophist. p. 15. seq. Sext. Empir. p.
306. seq.
These, however, are mere conjectures. He would probably have died in
obscurity, and been forgotten with the kings who reigned _ante
Agamemnona_, had not the misfortunes of his country brought him, in
old age, to the great workshop of Fame. The immediate occasion was
this; the people of Leontium having engaged and been worsted in war by
the Syracusans, sent ambassadors to demand succour of the Athenian
people, and among these the principal speaker was Gorgias. Practised
in a style of oratory new at Athens, indulging in a profusion of
metaphors and other figures bordering on the licences of poetry, he
immediately hurried away captive his hearers, fulfilled the desires of
his fellow citizens, and established for himself a reputation[822]
where all men most desired to possess one. To augment his glory it has
not been unusual to enumerate Pericles and Thucydides among those who
became his scholars. But this embassy took place in the fifth year of
the Peloponnesian war when Pericles had been dead two years. That
Thucydides heard him, however, is not at all improbable, since his
exile did not take place[823] till the eighth year of the war. Among
his admirers are mentioned two other men, whose principles and history
afford the best illustration of what fruit the teaching of the
sophists was likely to produce,—Critias and Alcibiades, whose ability,
courage, and profligacy rendered them the scourges of their country.
It has been with great probability supposed that, having on his return
to Leontium rendered an account of his mission, he quitted Sicily for
ever, for the purpose of becoming a professor of eloquence in Greece.
This is Diodorus’s account, but the Scholiast on Hermogenes supposes
him to have remained at Athens. Whether this was the case or not, he
soon considered one city, however great or celebrated, too confined a
theatre for the display of his merit. He, therefore, adopted the
profession of an itinerant lecturer, with the double view of
gratifying his vanity and filling his purse. And he thoroughly
understood the art of dazzling mankind, for, not supposing it enough
to unfold before his auditors his magazines of tropes and figures,
stored up, like theatrical thunder and lightning, to be introduced at
the proper moment, he had recourse to other dramatic arts for
producing effect, appearing in magnificent attire, flowing purple
robes, embroidered sandals, his fingers sparkling with gold and gems.
But though the oldest of the sophists, he was not the first who
adopted this course. Protagoras, and perhaps others, had previously
commenced their peregrinations, and begun to practise on the credulity
and weakness of the multitude. Among the Athenians they were paid
chiefly with praise; “the solid pudding” was to be sought elsewhere.
And accordingly we find, as Plato sarcastically expresses it, that
upon the advent of the sophists, the Thessalians, usually celebrated
for their full purses and fine horses,[824] grew all at once
remarkable for their love of wisdom, that is, paid the sophists
handsomely, in the hope of thus enticing knowledge to remain among
them. In fact they supposed that wisdom is like a candle and lantern,
by which you may have light,—or a saint’s shirt, by wearing which you
infallibly become holy,—or the lamp of Epictetus, which a rich man
bought at three thousand drachmas, in the hope that it would light him
into the very adyta of philosophy. However this may be, it is very
certain that the Thessalians became the patrons of the sophists, who
disposed in that country of more wisdom and eloquence than in any
other part of Greece, and the principal purchasers of it were of the
rich family of the Aleuadæ, the earliest Mæcenases, I believe, on
record.
Footnote 822:
Diod. Sicul. xii. 53.
Footnote 823:
I cannot, therefore, see the reason of Geel’s doubt.—Hist. Sophist.
p. 18. Cf. Clint. Fast. Hellen. ii. p. 68.
Footnote 824:
Plat. Hip. Maj. t. v. p. 416.
But the sophists, to their credit be it acknowledged, were no misers.
What they easily gained they spent freely; and not merely so, but in
many instances converted the effects of their personal vanity into
public ornaments of the whole country. Thus Gorgias, enriched by the
spoils of Thessaly, erected at Delphi a golden statue[825] of himself,
which argued a more generous spirit than he would have shown by
setting it afloat in the channels of trade or husbandry or usury, in
the hope of rendering himself a great capitalist.
Footnote 825:
Cressol. Theat. Rhet. i. 8.
Gorgias was long absent from Athens, and visited during his travels
the most considerable cities of Greece. Among other places he came to
Delphi, where from the steps of the altar, probably during the games,
he delivered that oration called the Pythian, in celebration of which
he erected the above-mentioned statue.[826] From thence perhaps,—for
the chronology of his journey is not exactly known,—he proceeded to
Olympia, where he also assisted at the games for the purpose of
exhibiting his oratorical talents in the presence of all Greece, and
reaping as it were in an hour a harvest of glory. This declamation,
delivered during the Peloponnesian war, had at least the
recommendation of being patriotic. Standing in front of the temple of
Zeus, the god of concord and of peace, he earnestly recommended union
and harmony.[827] If war they must have, there were the
barbarians,—let their arms be turned against them. With what success
he spoke, history has informed us; but the satirists of antiquity,
ever naturally addicted to scandal, are careful to remark that this
great advocate of concord and unanimity kept up a civil war in his own
house, where the charms of some beautiful-cheeked θεραπαινίδιον[828]
excited the jealousy of Madame. At the same time the old gentleman, to
adopt the most moderate computation, must have been hard upon
three-score and ten, though some would make him eighty.
Footnote 826:
Geel, Hist. Sophist. p. 23.
Footnote 827:
They sometimes selected more humble subjects for their panegyric,
for example, the bumble-bee, or salt.—Isocrat. Hel. Encom. § 4. p.
461. Plutarch, too, speaks of a learned work on salt, which he
considered very edifying.—Sympos. § 5. A French author of the same
class devoted twenty years of his life to a treatise on the
nightingale. Another member of this confraternity is celebrated by
Rousseau:—“On dit qu’un allemand a fait un livre sur un zeste de
citron; j’en aurais fait un sur chaque gramen des prés, sur chaque
mousse des bois, sur chaque lichen qui tapisse les rochers; enfin,
je ne voulais pas laisser un poil d’herbe, pas un atome végétal qui
ne fût amplement décrit.”—Réveries, t. iii. p. 106. On the verbal
trifling of the sophists see Muret. in Aristot. Ethic. p. 79. By Le
Conte, in his Commentary on the Anabasis, Gorgias is transformed
into “a prudent and experienced officer,” because Proxenos is said
to have studied under him.—t. i. p. 246.
Footnote 828:
Plut. Conj. Præcept. § 43. whom Geel follows.—Hist. Sophist. p. 25.
But Isocrates, who had been himself a hearer of Gorgias in Thessaly
(Cic. Orat. § 22), relates that he was never married, and had no
children.—De Permut. § 26. 10. Another tradition however speaks of
his son Philip as having been condemned by the Heliasts.—Schol.
Aristoph. Av. 1700.
Over the latter days of Gorgias[829] hovers the same darkness which
conceals from view the commencement. It is known with no degree of
certainty where he spent the close of his long life or where he died,
though as no account exists of his return to Sicily, it probably was
in Greece.
Footnote 829:
See Athen. xii. 71.
Next to Gorgias in reputation was Protagoras, whose history is still
less known. In the opinion of some writers he was the oldest of the
sophists. Though the date of his birth be later than that of Gorgias,
he preceded him in the profession of the art. He was certainly, I
think, born much earlier than is supposed either by Clinton or by
Geel, who take him to have been almost exactly of Socrates’ age, that
is to have come into the world about 479 B. C. But in this opinion I
cannot concur. It is in direct contradiction with a passage in
Plato[830] who, however careless in matters of chronology, would, I am
persuaded, never push his negligence so far as to make one man say to
another, born in the same year with himself, that he was old enough to
be his father. To me, therefore it appears necessary that we throw
back ten or twelve years the date of his birth. He was ten years, it
is admitted, older than Democritos. The latter, who had made
considerable progress in philosophy when he saw Protagoras in the
capacity of a wood-carrier and undertook to initiate him in his
system, could hardly have been less than seven or eight and twenty, so
that the former was little short of forty. He exercised the profession
of sophist during forty years, and died about 406 B. C. He must
therefore have been born about 484–485 B. C.[831]
Footnote 830:
Addressing Socrates, among many others, he says in one place, ἀλλὰ
πότερον ὑμῖν, ὡς πρεσβύτερος νεωτέροις, μῦθον λέγων ἐπιδείξω. κ. τ.
λ.—Protag. i. 170. But this is nothing to what he elsewhere says:
οὐδενὸς ὅτου οὐ πάντων ἂν ὑμῶν καθ᾽ ἡλικίαν πατὴρ εἴην.—Id. p.
165.—which without extreme absurdity a man could not say to a person
exactly of his own age. Meiners. (Hist. des Arts et des Sciences,
iii. 258), evidently refers to this passage; as does also Hardion.
Dissert. vii. Bib. Acad. iii. 295. Yet it must have wholly escaped
Geel, who (Hist. Sophist. p. 71) says: “Deinde _nescimus_ quomodo
efficiatur e Platonis Protagorâ, sophistam ejusdem nominis _multo_
majorem fuisse Socrate.”
Footnote 831:
Diog. Laert. ix. 55. observes that, according to some writers, he
died, at the age of 90, during a journey.—Geel, p. 81. It is
sufficiently remarkable that most of the Sophists attained to a very
great old age, and the same thing may be said generally of the
philosophers of antiquity. Lord Bacon undertakes to account for the
fact. Having given the palm of long life to hermits and anchorites,
he says: “Next unto this is a life led in good letters, such as was
that of Philosophers, Rhetoricians, Grammarians. This life is also
led in leisure, and in those thoughts which, seeing they are severed
from the affairs of the world, bite not, but rather delight through
their vanity and impertinency: they live also at their pleasure,
spending their time in such things as like them best, and for the
most part in the company of young men, which is ever the most
cheerful.”—History of Life and Death, p. 24.
But I cannot here pursue the history of the sophists, which no further
belongs to my work than as it is connected with the subject of
education. On their writings, however, and manner of teaching it is
necessary that I should be more explicit. Whether Gorgias first
published or Protagoras is of little moment; both evidently wrote with
the same aim, which was to confound truth and error, right and wrong,
not perhaps through any enmity to truth or to virtue, but from the
sheer vanity of being thought capable of any thing, and the desire of
converting their talents to account. One distinguishing quality of the
class was fertility. They piqued themselves on being able to pour
forth volume after volume, treatise after treatise, speech after
speech. This, indeed, it was that constituted their principal claim to
superiority over the philosophers, a pains-taking race, among whom the
period of intellectual gestation was longer than that of the elephant;
whereas your true sophist, without meditation, study or experience,
astonished his admirers by the copiousness of his invention, by
imagery, gorgeous and glittering, generally stolen from the poets, and
by a piquant air of profoundness and originality, which the art of
seeming to doubt all that other men believe never fails to confer.
Besides, comprehending enough of human nature to know that whoever
amuses is listened to, whatever atrocities he may utter, they were
careful to invest their doctrine with a light and graceful exterior.
No man ever excelled them at a joke. They in fact managed matters so
that in their hands every thing became a joke, and to overthrow an
antagonist demanded nothing more than to be able to raise a laugh at
his expense; for, all the world over, in the opinion of the vulgar,
whoever is ridiculous is wrong. From calculation, they eschewed the
uphill task of correcting error, or advancing truth, or reforming
manners. To upbraid men for their faults and counsel amendment, is to
incur their enmity. Reformers, prophets, apostles of truth have always
been persecuted, often put to death. The sophists felt no ambition to
be martyrs. Poverty, too, and obscurity, spare diet, a coarse mantle,
and the solitude in which the poor great man walks the world, they
could not away with. To their happiness crowds of admirers, opulence,
costly robes[832] and all the refinements of luxury formed a _sine quâ
non_; and accordingly in the choice of their doctrines they were
guided by one consideration only, viz. how they might amuse mankind,
and reap all the advantages of popularity.
Footnote 832:
Herault de Sechelles, who, had he lived, would have excelled Boswell
in biography, describes with singular felicity the passion of that
arch-sophist, Buffon, for the splendours of dress. Even among the
peasants of Montbar, a race of primitive simplicity, the French
Hippias would never appear but in an embroidered suit, curled and
decorated as if at court. He had nicely calculated the effect of
external appearances on the mind; and we must forgive him, since he
shared the weakness with Lord Bacon and Aristotle.—See Voyage à
Montbar, p. 42, seq.
The eloquence which statesmen employed to recommend their measures,
the sophists applied to fictitious uses, imagining themselves in
impossible circumstances, reversing times, confounding manners, and
attacking or defending men long since dead. In all such cases the
interest would chiefly depend on the novelty or ingenuity of the
thoughts and the subtle artifices of style. Hence the extravagance,
the coldness, the perversion of imagery, the distortion and monkey
tricks of language, for which their manner of compositions became
remarkable. The false position they took up led, in philosophy, to
results equally disastrous. To aim at truth, would have been to throw
themselves into the wake of the philosophers, to share, without
worldly compensation, their dangers, labours, and comparative
insignificance. They struck out, therefore, a new course for
themselves. Taking philosophy as it was, they undertook to dispute on
all and every part of it; to show that for a skilful dialectician
there was no proposition that might not with nearly equal facility be
attacked or defended; that by means of syllogisms or enthymemes,
artfully arranged, darkness may be proved to be light, and light
darkness; that between lying and speaking the truth there is no
difference; that in fact both veracity and falsehood are nonentities,
all our notions being mere arbitrary fictions; and that to beat your
dog and to beat your father is the same thing.
Of this novel and ingenious style of argumentation,[833] in which
Hudibras was an adept, we are furnished with abundant examples by
Plato, more especially in the Euthydemus, where two old fellows, with
arguments longer than their beards, luxuriate in the felicitous
inventions by which, like another Circe, they are enabled to transform
their hearers into hogs and bulldogs. In humorous extravagance the
dialogue scarcely falls short of an Aristophanic comedy or a Christmas
pantomime. Socrates[834] plays the Clown, Ctesippos the Harlequin, and
the blows dealt upon the magicians in the course of the piece, are
such as, were they fully comprehended, would set all Drury Lane or
Covent Garden in a roar. But the length of the scenes prevents their
transplantation into my pages, and the abridgment of a joke is a very
dull thing. Let us, however, hear by what logic they proved Socrates
to have been a second “man without a navel.”
Footnote 833:
Another example may be found in Athen. iii. 54.
Footnote 834:
Socrates has been confounded with the Sophists, because he
frequented their company to refute them; but there was between them
the same difference, as between a thief-taker and a thief.
“Answer me,” cried Dionysidoros.
“Well then,” replied Socrates, “I answer that Iolaus was the nephew of
Heracles, and, as far as I can see, no nephew of mine. For my brother
Patrocles was not his father, but quite another guess sort of person,
Iphicles the brother of Heracles.”
“And Patrocles was your brother?”
“By the mother, not by the father.”
“Then he was your brother, and not your brother?”
“By the father’s side he was not,” answered Socrates, “since he was
the son of Charidemos, and I of Sophroniscos.”
“But Sophroniscos, no less than Charidemos, was a father.”
“Exactly; the former was my father, the latter Patrocles’.”
“Then was Charidemos other than a father?”
“He was other than mine.”
“Then he was a father, and not a father? But, come, are you the same
thing as a stone?”
“I fear,” replied Socrates, “I shall appear to be no better in your
hands, though I do not discover the identity.”
“Well, being other than a stone, you are not a stone; being other than
gold, you are not gold. And must not the same thing happen to
Charidemos? Being something else than a father, he is not a father.”
“So it seems,” replied the philosopher.
“And what is true of Charidemos,” replied the younger sophist, “must
be true of Sophroniscos. Being other than a father, he is not a
father: from which, my good friend, it follows that you never had any
father at all![835]”
Footnote 835:
Plat. Opp. iii. 444, seq.
Socrates being thus placed on a level with the first man, his friend
Ctesippos took up the ball, and sent it with so much force into the
face of the sophists, that it somewhat startled them.
“Come, then,” said he, “is not your own father in precisely the same
circumstances? Is he not different from my father?”
“Not at all,” answered Euthydemos.
“What, then, he is the same?”
“Exactly.”
“I should be sorry to think so. However, is he my father only, or is
he everybody else’s father?”
“Everybody’s, of course; for can you imagine him to be a father, and
not a father?”
“I should have thought so,” answered Ctesippos.
“What! that gold is not gold, and that a man is not a man?”
“Not so, friend Euthydemos; but you do not, as the saying is, mingle
flax with flax; and your assertion, that your father is the father of
all men, seems very extraordinary.”
“But he is, though.”
“Very good; but is he not only the father of men but of horses and
every other animal?”
“Of everything!”
“And your mother, in like manner, is the mother of all things?”
“Certainly.”
“Then she is the mother of the sea-hedgehog.”
“And so is yours!”
“And you are the full brother of gudgeons, cubs, and sucking-pigs.”
“So are you!”
“And your father is a dog.”
“And yours, too!”
It was now evident they were in anger, and accordingly Dionysidoros
interposed, and observed jocularly,—
“Provided you will answer me, Ctesippos, I undertake to make you
confess that your father is just what my brother has said. So, tell
me, have you a dog?”
“I have, and a snappish cur he is, too.”
“And has he young ones?”
“Ay, and they are more snappish than himself.”
“Well, now, is not the dog their father?”
“No doubt.”
“And the dog is yours?”
“Certainly.”
“It follows then, if he be a father and yours, that he must be your
father; so that his cubs are your brothers.”
Before the young man could reply to this compliment the sophist
proceeded:
“Answer me, Ctesippos, a little longer. Do you ever beat that dog?”
“That I do,” replied Ctesippos laughing; “and I wish I could
administer the same discipline to you in your turn.”
“Then you beat your own father!”
“The beating,” answered the young man, “would be more justly inflicted
on yours, for having knowingly let loose two such sages upon
mankind!”[836]
Footnote 836:
Plat. Opp. t. iii. p. 245.—The amusing manner of teaching introduced
by these sophists was sometimes imitated by the philosophers. Thus
Theophrastus, who, before proceeding to his school, used to anoint
himself with oil and perform his exercises, had recourse to
extraordinary drollery for the purpose of charming his pupils,
adapting all his gestures and movements to his discourses; so that
when describing the manners and character of a glutton, he used,
like a comic actor, to thrust out his tongue and lick his
lips.—Athen. i. 38.
But these, after all, were but laughing sophists, who, though they had
succeeded in confounding and obliterating from their own minds every
trace of difference between right and wrong, fell short of that superb
degree of wickedness at which Polos, Callicles, and Thrasymachos
arrived, at least in speculation. The former were mere babblers, who
corrupted a pupil or two whom bad luck threw in their way.
Thrasymachos flew at higher game. His sophistry was political,[837]
and his aim the destruction of freedom, by extinguishing that sense of
justice on which it must ever be based. The genius of the man was
considerable. He had deep thoughts, and investigated boldly; but his
sympathies having somehow been early perverted, he grew sombre,
fierce, and unsociable, and without the slightest disguise advocated,
like our Hobbes,[838] tyrannical maxims and morals. Money, like the
rest, he of course worshipped. Nay, in the conversation at the house
of Cephalos he even ventures to sneer rudely at Socrates’ poverty;
upon which Glaucon[839] observes:—"Don’t fear to go unpaid for the
instruction you may give him, for we will enter into a subscription on
his behalf."[840] Thrasymachos, however, was still more vain than
avaricious. He thirsted to exhibit his notions in order to enjoy the
satisfaction arising from shocking those who heard him. He maintained
that justice is nothing more than what in any state the rulers think
proper to establish; and that, consequently, the ordinances of a
tyrant are as binding and as just as the laws of a free state, since
by nature all actions are indifferent.
Footnote 837:
Cf. Dem. Lacrit. § 10. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 113.
Footnote 838:
The modern Thrasymachos is as frank in his hatred of philosophers as
the ancient. He compares their enthusiasm in favour of freedom to
the virus imparted by the bite of a mad dog, imagining that nothing
is so sedulously to be guarded against as liberty. He would, if
possible, have the study of ancient statesmen and historians
prohibited, or at least that care should be taken to counteract
their maxims by the teaching of discreet sophists. “I cannot
imagine,” he says, “how anything can be more prejudicial to a
monarchy than the allowing of such books to be publicly read,
without present applying such correctives of discreet masters, as
are fit to take away their venom; which venom I will not doubt to
compare to the biting of a mad dog, which is a disease the
physicians call _hydrophobia_, or _fear of water_. For, as he that
is so bitten has a continual torment of thirst, and yet abhorreth
water, and is in such an estate, as if the poison endeavoured to
convert him into a dog; so, when a monarchy is once bitten to the
quick, by those democratical writers, that continually snarl at that
estate, it wanteth nothing more than a strong monarch, which,
nevertheless, out of a certain _tyrannophobia_ or fear of being
strongly governed, when they have him, they abhor.”—Leviathan, Pt.
ii. c. 29. iii. 315. Count Capo D’Istrias, if he was ignorant of the
language of ancient Greece, appears at least to have understood
something of the spirit of ancient philosophy, for, designing to
establish a tyranny, he prohibited the reading of Plato in the
public schools. He may possibly have learned his maxims of
government from Hobbes, as well as that the master of the academy
deserved his hatred.—Thiersch. Etat. Act. de la Grèce, ii. 121.
Footnote 839:
Plat. Rep. i. § 11. t. i. p. 41. Stallb.
Footnote 840:
Ἔρανος. Cf. Sympos. t. iv. p. 379. Bekk.
It was, in fact, a part of the sophistical doctrine, to maintain in
politics, what Hobbes afterwards advocated, the right of the
stronger:—
—--"The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can."
But because there is in every man’s heart a rooted prejudice in favour
of justice, they were fain to argue that all governors, in as far as
they deserved the name, would ordain what was best for themselves, and
that, whatever it might be, was just:[841] a very satisfactory
doctrine, which has never grown wholly out of fashion. They laughed to
scorn, as persons who required nurses to look after them and wipe
their noses,[842] whomsoever they found entertaining the notion that
governments were instituted for the good of the governed.
Footnote 841:
Upon this point Father Paul observes:—"We must reduce under the
title of justice everything that may contribute to the service of
the state; for the prince has no greater justice than to preserve to
himself the quality of prince, and, in order to this, to keep his
subjects in a dutiful subjection to his authority."—Max. of the Gov.
of Venice, chap. i. § 1.
Footnote 842:
Plat. Rep. t. vi. p. 34.
Their staple comparison was always a flock or a herd. What shepherd,
they inquired, ever looked after his flock for their benefit, and not
for his own use? In like manner magistrates, who, as is proper, hold
the chief place in cities, look on the public exactly as if they are
so many sheep or oxen, and think of nothing, night or day, but how
they may derive most advantage from them. Justice, therefore, is what
promotes the interests of the governors, though it may be loss to the
governed. The man, esteemed just and pious and holy by the
philosopher, was merely, in their opinion, a fool. Whenever anything
is to be gained he gets less than any man, and when anything is to be
done for the community he does more. He is always ready with his purse
whenever anything is to be paid; always out of the way when gain is
afloat. The unjust man, on the contrary, knows what he is about. He
pays and does as little as possible for the public, and takes from it
all he can. The former renders himself disagreeable to his friends and
domestics, by refusing to commit any unjust action on their behalf.
The latter, on the other hand, unscrupulous in acquisition, is able to
oblige many by his wealth if he happens to require their services.
Thus even in private life and small matters injustice is to be
preferred; but when it operates on a grand scale, plunders whole
cities, and usurps over them supreme authority, it reaches the acme of
felicity, is saluted by the name of prince, and becomes an object of
envy to all mankind.
Nor did they pause even here. It was not enough to show the happiness
of vice as vice; they undertook to prove that vice is virtue and
virtue vice, which may be considered as their magnum opus. They went
to work boldly, but, like the fox of Archilochos,[843] always kept
something of their figure concealed, that, if any necessity arose,
they might be able to retreat by treating their whole chain of
argumentation as a mere rhetorical exercise. “You appear to be in
earnest,” observed Socrates on one occasion. “What does it signify to
you whether I am in earnest or not,” replied the sophist, “if you
cannot refute what I advance?” With this prudent reserve, they taught
that injustice is a powerful and beautiful principle, reckoning it
among the virtues, and attributing to it all the characteristics
usually attributed to justice.[844] Pascal, in developing the morals
of the Jesuits, describes their principles exactly. They patronised
even cutting purses, providing the operator had the ingenuity to
conceal his performance. No doubt, in thus arguing, they did violence
to their secret convictions, and might, by an able dialectician, be
made to feel, though never to acknowledge, the deformity of their
doctrines, as Thrasymachos, driven up in a corner by the logic of
Socrates, blushes and is chap-fallen;[845] but as sophistry was their
occupation, the misery and degradation was, that, convinced or not
convinced, they must still sing the old song. It is evident, in fact,
that, like many sophists of other days, they were bold with the lips
while the heart within trembled. The light of conscience could not be
wholly quenched. They conceived the gods to be armed with power and
disposed to exert it, not only against evil doers but against evil
speakers also. Pressed upon this point, whether the bad be not
obnoxious and the good agreeable to the deities, Thrasymachos would
not deny it. And why? Lest he should render himself hateful to them,
ἴνα μὴ τοῖς δὲ ἀπέχθωμαι. So that in the worst times of paganism,
religion, how corrupt soever, failed not to preserve some influence
over men’s minds, to save them from the bestial recklessness into
which they seemed desirous to plunge.[846]
Footnote 843:
Plat. Rep. t. vi. p. 72. Bekk.
Footnote 844:
Id. i. t. vi. p. 44. seq.
Footnote 845:
Plat. de Rep. vi. 49. i. 76. Stallb. Cf. Vict. Var. Lect. iii. v.
Footnote 846:
Plat. Rep. t. vi. p. 52.
Nevertheless, the sophists on many points did but methodise, condense
and embody in florid language the maxims and modes of thinking current
in corrupt ages among the vulgar. Their doctrines were but an echo of
what was heard in the ecclesiæ, in the law courts, in the theatres,
and in the camps. It would have been to little purpose, therefore, to
have silenced them, unless, at the same time, the above schools could
have been purified, wherein young and old, men and women, imbibed the
opinions, maxims, prejudices, which constituted the system of the
sophists.[847] And Plato, who observes this, supplies us, in doing so,
with a fresh proof that women frequented the theatre. In one of these
four places, he says, they were corrupted: but they were not soldiers,
and, therefore, not in the camp; they were not dicasts, and,
therefore, not in the law courts; they were neither orators nor
voters, and, therefore, not in the ecclesiæ. The evil doctrines they
imbibed, therefore, must have been imbibed at the theatre.[848] Here,
too, the youth, disciplined and principled in better things by his
philosophical teachers, received a new education which overthrew the
former. Deeds and words, condemned by his teachers, he often found to
be greeted here with rapturous applause, re-echoed by rocks and walls;
while hisses, sneers, or vociferous vituperation would, perhaps, be
showered on things he had been taught most to revere. In his feelings,
therefore, and internal convictions a revolution was soon effected. He
grew ashamed of the notions implanted in him at school. Every
lingering sentiment of honour seemed to him an unfortunate prejudice
despised by men of the world, and he hastened to shift his notions as
a clown does his dress to prepare for admittance into fashionable
company.
Footnote 847:
Id. vi. 290.
Footnote 848:
Plat. Rep. vi. t. vi. p. 289. Cf. Athen. ii. 54.
The sophists, skilled in the study of mankind, soon discovered, that
to please and ultimately to rule the ignorant, it was necessary to
humour their failings, and, in appearance at least, to adopt their
opinions. In a commonwealth, governed by wholesome principles, great
men obtain influence, not by resembling the majority but by
differing from them. They are popular by the authority of their
virtues. They are reverenced with the reverence due to a father from
his child, who confides in him from long experience in his love and
implicit faith in his honour, and will submit to be rebuked and
chastised, and determined by him in his actions from the conviction
that his superior wisdom and probity and affection entitle him to
rule. But the sophists, and their political disciples, despaired of
thus governing the people. In their manners there was none of the
dignity, in their minds none of the wisdom, in their resolutions
none of that inflexible firmness arising from consciousness of
right, which neither threats nor clamour can subdue. They regarded
the populace as a huge beast, whose ways and temper they must study,
whose passions and desires they must know how to raise and how to
satisfy; by what arts they might safely enter his den, stroke his
terrible paws, or mount, if they thought proper, on his back and
direct his irresistible might against their enemies. And this they
esteemed as wisdom, and upon those who excelled in it they bestowed
the name of statesmen and philosophers.[849] Among the arts by which
this influence was acquired were flattery and boasting; by the
former they disposed people to listen, by the latter they sought to
justify them for listening, by dwelling on the wonders they could
perform. If they might be believed, they could convert fools into
wise men, which philosophers regarded in the light of a miracle.
This disposition τὸ θρασὺ καὶ τὸ ἰταμὸν,[850] as Basilius expresses
it, is admirably painted by Plato in the character of Thrasymachos.
And the contrast afforded by Socrates makes good, as Muretus
observes, the wise remark of Thucydides ὅτι ἀμαθία μὲν θάρσος,
φρόνησις δ᾽ ὄκνον φέρει.
Footnote 849:
Plat. de Rep. vi. 293.
Footnote 850:
Plat. de Rep. vi. 333. Cf. Muret. Adnot. in Repub. p. 667, seq. 677,
seq.
Such, however, as they were, the reputation of the sophists spread far
and wide. Even among the barbarians of Asia a desire was felt to have
the ear tickled by their eloquence, as we may gather from the letter
of Amytocrates, an Indian king, to Antiochos, requesting him to ship
off for India as soon as possible, some boiled wine, dried figs, and a
sophist, observing that he would very willingly pay the price of him.
But Antiochos, either loth to part with so useful a servant of the
monarchy, or out of pity for the Indians, whom he suspected to be
already sufficiently tormented, replied, that as for boiled wine and
figs he might be supplied to his heart’s content, but that with
respect to sophists the law prohibited their exportation.[851] He had
all the while, however, without knowing it, abundant specimens of the
race in his own realms, where the Brahmins have, time out of mind,
cultivated and thriven by the same arts, and maintained the same
opinions, as conferred celebrity on the followers of Gorgias and
Protagoras. Their practices, indeed, as well as those of the Yoghis,
are in India modified by the state of society and public opinion. The
wonder which among the Greeks was excited by the advocacy of monstrous
doctrines, on the banks of the Ganges, arises out of physical pranks.
The Greek sophist tortured his mind, the Indian tortures his body for
the edification of the public, but the result is the same; the
practitioners thus contrive to subsist in idleness on the earnings of
the industrious and credulous.
Footnote 851:
Athen. xiv. 67.
CHAPTER VIII.
EDUCATION OF THE SPARTANS, CRETANS,
ARCADIANS, ETC.
A different picture is presented to us by the education of the
Spartans,[852] which, almost perfect in its kind, aimed chiefly at
unfolding the powers of the body. Mental acquirements in the states of
Doric origin were few, and the object even of these seems to have been
rather connected with the developement of the animal than the
spiritual nature of man, though they were not utterly destitute of all
those arts and accomplishments which embellish a life of peace. Little
stress, however, can be laid on the elaborate divisions of youth into
numerous classes, the intention of which is not stated. There can,
nevertheless, be no doubt that much art, reflection and wisdom was
exhibited in the forming of the system whose object was the creation
of a military character, and through this the enjoyment of the
hegemonia or lead in the public affairs of Greece, an honour which
Sparta attained to and held during many years.[853]
Footnote 852:
See Müll. Dor. ii. 313, sqq. Cf. Pfeiff. Ant. ii. 57. p. 370.
Footnote 853:
To destroy the power of Sparta the Achæans could imagine no better
means than to change their system of education.—Plut. Vit. Philop. §
16. Paus. vii. 8. 5. The Mityleneans, too, desirous of breaking the
military spirit of certain of their allies, forbade them to give the
least instruction to their children.—Ælian, V. H. vii. 15. With the
same view the Emperor Julian closed the public schools against the
Christians.—Gibbon, iv. 111. Among our ancestors, too, when a blow
was meditated against Dissenters, no measure more severe could be
devised than to deprive them of education.—Lord John Russell, Hist.
of Eur. i. 273.
A modern writer has correctly remarked that by permitting the state to
decide on the lives of infants, the institutions of Lycurgus
recognised the authority of the community to regulate, how it pleased,
the education they were to receive. The authority of parents over
their children was thus all but annihilated, for, although the
recognition and feeling of relationship continued after the state had
undertaken the training of youth, their influence was exceedingly
weakened, a circumstance to which may be attributed the seeming
heroism of the Spartan women, who could stoically bear the death of
their sons because they had been in a great measure estranged from
them.
As, however, the institutions of Lycurgus differed in all things else
from those of other Grecian legislators, it is not surprising they
should also differ on the subject of education. But it may greatly be
doubted whether we altogether comprehend his system. The accounts
transmitted to us are in many points contradictory, and it may in
general be remarked that on no subject whatever do modern ideas differ
so much from those prevalent in antiquity, as on the subject of
education. Plutarch and Xenophon, or rather the sophist who assumed
his name, two of the authors on whom in this discussion most reliance
is usually placed, were prejudiced and credulous, and often, to speak
frankly, extremely ignorant. Both were unwilling, even if they
possessed the power, to criticise the system, and yet by modern
writers their opinions have generally without scruple been adopted.
Xenophon himself, as well as the sophist who here apes him, was in
predilections a Spartan, and as strongly disposed to satirise and
underrate the institutions of his own country as to exaggerate the
merits of the Laconian. Even were the trifling essay on the
Lacedæmonian republic proved to be his, we should yet lay little
stress upon its testimony, unless when corroborated by the evidence of
other and better writers.
Elsewhere in Greece,—observes the author of this tract,[854] whoever
he was,—persons, the most solicitous respecting the education of their
children, placed over them at the first dawn of intellectual
developement, pædagogues, who at the outset undertook their
instruction, and afterwards conducted them to the schools where
letters, music, and gymnastics were taught. In this respect, however,
as a modern writer has shown, the institutions of Sparta were in no
degree superior, since Helots were there the instructors of young
children; and, on this account, he rejects the story of Plutarch,[855]
that they were compelled to intoxicate themselves, to exhibit to the
youths a practical proof of the deformity of drunkenness.[856] It was
contrary, he says, to common sense. But as common sense had very
little to do with any part of the system, this is a poor argument, and
will not weigh against positive testimony.
Footnote 854:
Rep. Lac. ii. 1. Cf. Pfeiff. Ant. p. 370.
Footnote 855:
Lycurg. 28. Müll. Dor. ii. 39. Commonly, also, the nurses of the
kings were Helots.—Plut. Ages. § 3.
Footnote 856:
Plut. Inst. Lac. § 29.
Another evil which the Pseudo-Xenophon discovers in the common
Hellenic plan of training,[857] was that lads were indulged with the
use of shoes, and rendered effeminate by frequent changes of clean
linen, while their appetite, generally keen in boyhood,[858] was
suffered to be the measure of what they ate. Lycurgus, he remarks,
managed all these things differently. Instead of remaining under the
superintendence of their parents, and frequenting what schools and
masters they might judge proper, boys at Sparta passed under a sort of
camp discipline regulated by the laws and intrusted to the
guardianship of a particular magistrate, whom they denominated a
Pædonomos. This part of the system Xenophon[859] prefers to the
Athenian practice of intrusting youth to the care of servile
pædagogues. The Pædonomos, however, resembled in many respects the
Athenian Gymnasiarch, and, so far as I can perceive, possessed no
superiority over him, except that his authority extended beyond school
hours. He was, indeed, a kind of despot, vested with the power to call
the boys together when he pleased, and inflict chastisement, at his
own discretion, on any whom he detected exhibiting the least symptom
of effeminacy. To enable him to carry his resolutions instantly into
effect he marched about the town like an executioner, attended by men
having whips, who at his nod seized the boy delinquent and subjected
him at once to the torture. Thus possessing the power of enforcing
obedience, a great show at least of reverence attended him.
Footnote 857:
De Rep. Laced. ii. 5. Cf. Plut. Lycurg. § 17.
Footnote 858:
And keen it must needs have been before they could have relished
their black broth, with a dose of which Dionysios once made an
experiment upon his stomach. Having put a spoonful of the compound
into his mouth, he instantly spat it out again, declaring that he
could not swallow it, for it was the filthiest stuff he had ever
tasted; upon which his Spartan cook remarked, “You should have first
bathed in the Eurotas.”—Plut. Inst. Lac. § 2.
Footnote 859:
De Rep. Lac. ii. 2. Lycurg. § 17. Cf. Hesych. v. Παιδονόμος.
The privilege of sharing the paternal cares of the Pædonomos was not
rigidly confined to the sons of Spartans (πολιτικοὶ παῖδες);[860] the
Mothaces also, Spartans of half blood, and even strangers might share
it. Who the Mothaces were it is extremely difficult to determine. Some
contend that they were slaves brought up in the family.[861] But
Athenæus, and Phylarchos whom he quotes, state most distinctly that
they were free, ἐλεύθεροι μέν εἰσί. In order to remove the
unfavourable impression made on mankind by the accounts transmitted to
us of Spartan slavery, it has been pretended that they, as well as the
Neodamodes, were Helots. Of the Neodamodes, however, the very author
on whom reliance is placed asserts the contrary. They were originally
slaves indeed, he says, but different from the Helots, ἑτέρους ὄντας
τῶν εἱλώτων. With respect to the Mothaces,[862] notwithstanding the
testimony of Hesychius and other grammarians, it seems clear that they
were the sons of free though poor Laconians, who, desirous of
obtaining for them the rights of Spartans, sent them to be the
companions of such youthful citizens as would consent to receive them.
It is moreover added that the youth, according to their means, chose
one, two, or more of these companions; which shows that although the
right of controlling the studies of its children was vested in the
state, the expenses, in whole or in part, devolved upon the parents.
Footnote 860:
Athen. vi. 102.
Footnote 861:
Müll. ii. 314.
Footnote 862:
Harpocrat. v. Μόθωνες.
The Mothaces, or Mothones as they are sometimes called, were identical
with the σύντροφοι:[863] but the τρόφιμοι were such youthful
strangers—for example, the sons of Xenophon[864] and Phocion—as, by
submitting to the severities of Spartan discipline, acquired the
freedom of the city, the privilege of aspiring to political
distinction, and, according to some writers, even a share of the land.
This, if true, would render credible the statement of the philosopher
Teles,[865] who affirms that even Helots, by the means above
described, could rise to the rank of Spartans; while they who in this
point disobeyed the laws, were they even the children of kings, sank
to the condition of Helots, and of course forfeited their estates,
otherwise there would have been no land to bestow on the military
neophytes. Three of the most remarkable men in Spartan story,
Lysander, Gylippos, and Callicratidas were Mothaces, whose fathers
were obscure.[866] It will be seen that we have here the original of
that system of education sketched by Xenophon in his Persian Utopia,
and designed to recommend monarchy to his countrymen, as that of Sir
Thomas More was framed for the contrary purpose.
Footnote 863:
De Rep. Lac. iii. 3. 3. Schneid.
Footnote 864:
Diog. Laert. ii. c. vi. § 10. Xen. Hellen. v. 3. 9. Plut. Ages. § 6.
Footnote 865:
Ap. Stob. Florileg. 40. 8. Gaisf. Cf. Plut. Inst. Lac. § 21, 22.
Athen. vi. 103. Müll. Dor. ii. 315. note p.—In Xenophon’s Persian
Utopia such citizens as were too poor to maintain their children at
school lost the benefits of public training; but, according to law,
the advantages of the Spartan system were open to all.—Arist. Polit.
iv. 9.
Footnote 866:
Ælian, Var. Hist. xii. 43.
According to the laws of Lycurgus the heir-apparent to the throne was
exempted from the necessity of mixing with his fellow-citizens in the
public schools, though the younger members of the royal family
occupied the same level with other boys.[867] That this was an unwise
regulation, however, will be at once evident, since no man stands so
much in need of severe discipline as a prince, who in spite of
correction is too apt to be guided by his unbridled passions. Fact,
too, bears out this view, for two of the noblest sovereigns of Sparta,
Leonidas and Agesilaos, had been subjected, while boys,[868] to the
correction of their teachers.
It has been already remarked that the spirit of Spartan education was
severe. It was, in fact, precisely the same as that which, in the last
generation, pervaded the discipline of the Seneka and Mohawk Indians,
and produced those numerous examples of patience, fortitude, and
magnanimity, together with that force, agility and suppleness of body
so greatly admired and, perhaps, envied by civilised nations. It was
this stern and martial system that constituted the secret model,
according to which Locke fashioned his plan of youthful training,
designed rather to produce a sound mind in a sound body than to
shatter and enervate the latter by the piling up in the brain of
miscellaneous and often useless knowledge. But in his attempts at
hardening the frame and rendering it invulnerable to the stings of
suffering, our countryman did not dare to go the lengths of the
Spartan legislator, who in this, at least, exhibited superior wisdom,
that he did not consider the chastisement of stripes to have any
tendency towards creating a base and servile habit of mind.[869]
Footnote 867:
Plut. Ages. § i.
Footnote 868:
Müll. Dor. ii. 315.
Footnote 869:
On the democratic tendency of Spartan discipline see Bœckh. in Plat.
Min. 181. sqq. Isocrat. Areop. § 14–16.
Consistently with the general aim of his institutions, Lycurgus,
instead of ordaining, like Locke, that his alumni should wear leaky
shoes, dispensed with the incumbrance altogether. And, certainly, in a
soldier, the habit of trampling with the naked foot on ice and snow
and the sharpest rocks, is worthy of acquisition.
Institutions are generally based on the actual circumstances of
society. Lycurgus legislated for a people to whom it was important to
be able easily to climb steeps, or descend them with a sure foot, to
spring forward also, to run, to bend, and perform innumerable acts of
personal dexterity. He, therefore, commenced with boyhood the
inculcating of those habits and exercises which their manhood would
imperatively require of them.
It has been seen that for change of linen an especial aversion was
entertained at Sparta. Children were, therefore, taught to be content
with one clean shirt per annum, at the termination of which period it
was probably as well peopled as the Emperor Julian’s beard,
particularly as, during all that time, it was considered low and
unfashionable to bathe or make use of the ordinary ointments, an
indulgence permitted to them but for a few days in the course of the
year. All this time, however, they might more properly, perhaps, be
said to be shirtless, since the himation only was left them, the
chiton being taken away.[870] They were compelled also, as incipient
soldiers, to lie hard on pallet beds, made with the tops of reeds
collected, perfunctorily, without the help of the knife or dagger,
from the banks of the Eurotas. To this, as an especial indulgence,
they were in winter permitted to add a quantity of thistle-down, which
material was supposed to contain much warmth.[871]
Footnote 870:
Plut. Lycurg. § 17. Inst. Lac. § 5. Xen. de Rep. Lac. ii. 4.
Footnote 871:
Plut. Inst. Lac. § 10.
The initiation into these accomplishments commenced at the age of
twelve. At the same time, acting upon the Galenian maxim, that “a fat
stomach makes a lean wit,” the boys were reduced to short commons, the
Bouagor, or leader of the juvenile troop, being instructed to pinch
them as closely as possible on that score, in order that when the
chances of war should reduce them to the necessity of subsisting on
famine rations, they might be prepared without murmuring to submit to
it. Persons so educated, moreover, would be little delicate in the
choice of provisions. Anything, from a sea hedgehog to a snail, would
suit their stomachs; and it would be hard indeed if war could ever
place them in circumstances where such food as they were accustomed to
might not be found. Health, too, and light spirits, as Lycurgus well
understood, are the offspring of an abstemious diet. The spare
warrior, clean-limbed and agile, would leap round the man puffed out
and bloated with overfeeding, and, therefore, to be fat was at Sparta
an offence punishable at law.[872] However, not to be too hard on the
young gentlemen, it was always permitted, when hunger grew
troublesome, to have recourse to what, for want of a fitter name, we
must call stealing.[873]
Footnote 872:
Ælian. V. H. xiv. 7. Plut. Inst. Lac. § 13. Athen. xii. 74.—Apropos
of this subject, the ancients have left us a very curious anecdote.
Dionysios, son of Clearchos, the first tyrant of Heraclea, having
succeeded to the government of his country, became insensibly so
corpulent by his daily excess and extreme niceness in the choice of
his viands, that he was nearly suffocated by the enormous mass of
his fat. Every time he fell into a deep slumber it was feared he
would never wake again; and, to rouse him from his lethargy, the
physicians were often compelled to thrust long, sharp needles into
his body until they reached the quick, upon which he would again
exhibit signs of animation. Of this prodigious obesity his majesty
was so much ashamed, however, that, when transacting business or
giving audience to strangers, he would ensconce himself behind a
large trunk, so that no part of him was visible but his face. Yet,
in spite of this infirmity, he lived fifty-five years and reigned
thirty-three; and, to the honour of corpulence be it remarked, that
no tyrant ever before exhibited so much mildness and moderation.—Id.
xii. 72.
Footnote 873:
Xen. Rep. Lac. ii. 6.—This writer observes, that what might be
filched was determined by law.—Anab. iv. 6. 14. And Plutarch
explains, that they might take as much food as they could.—Inst.
Lac. § 12.
In modern times it would be thought a poor compliment to any system of
education to represent it as an admirable method for rendering a man
an accomplished thief. But the Spartan sophists, whose wisdom Plato,
in a jocular mood, so greatly extols, held a different theory. They
did not undertake the teaching of morals, but such habits as became a
soldier, among which thieving always maintains a distinguished place.
Xenophon, however, is careful to guard us against the supposition that
this habit of appropriation arose from want. The object of the
legislator was, without the incurring of moral guilt, to nourish all
the useful habits commonly found in a thief,—as, the power to watch by
night, to wear the mask of honesty by day, craftily to lay snares, and
even to set spies upon the individual to be plundered. To men designed
to spend their lives in war such qualities are, doubtless, of the
highest importance, since they enable them to procure provisions and
overreach the enemy.[874] To this practice Xenophon alludes in the
Anabasis, where the army is placed in circumstances of much
difficulty. “I understand,” he says to Cheirisophos, “that among you
Lacedæmonians the habit of stealing is carefully cultivated from
childhood; and that, so far from being disgraceful, it is considered a
necessary accomplishment, so long as you keep within the bounds
prescribed by law. When detected, however, it is equally lawful to be
scourged.”[875]
Footnote 874:
Xen. de Rep. Lac. ii. 7.
Footnote 875:
Anab. iv. vi. 14.
Were they scourged, then, for stealing? Not at all, but simply for
being caught; and Xenophon is right in remarking, that, in all human
arts, they who unskilfully perform what they undertake are punished,
and so should a bungling thief.[876] The passage immediately following
is mutilated or inextricably corrupt,[877] but, from an attentive
examination, it would appear that the boys detected on these occasions
were selected to be flogged[878] during the festival of Artemis
Orthia, or Orthosia, whose altar was thus annually smeared with human
blood. This impartial superstition extended its empire over all ranks
and conditions of men, servile or free, from the beggar to the prince;
for here, we are told, Helots had sometimes the honour to be scourged
in company perhaps with a scion of the Eurypontid or Agid kings. At
Alea, in Arcadia, women, by the command of an oracle, were subjected
to the same discipline. “Here,” says Pausanias,[879] “during the
festival of Dionysos women, by command of an oracle, were flogged like
the youth of Sparta at the altar of Artemis Orthia.”
Footnote 876:
De Rep. Lac. ii. 8.
Footnote 877:
Schneid. in Xen. de Rep. Lac. ii. 9.
Footnote 878:
Sometimes to death.—Plut. Inst. Lac. § 39. Vit. Aristid. § 17.
Pausan. iii. 16. 6. Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. iii. 24. p. 153. c.
Spanheim ad Callim. in Dian. 174. The Scholiast on Pindar derives
this name of Artemis from Mount Orthion or Orthosion in
Arcadia.—Olymp. iii. 54. Cf. Lycoph. 1330. with the Schol. of
Tzetzes. Schol. Plat. de Legg. p. 224. Ruhnk.
Footnote 879:
Arcad. viii. 23. 1. Meurs. (Græc. Fer. p. 256,) understands _sese
flagellabant_.
The above ordinance of Lycurgus led in the next instance to the
hybernation of the youth upon the mountains:[880] to inure them still
further to hardships, and, practically to teach them the art of
providing for themselves, they were sent forth with a roving
commission to prowl about the highlands and less frequented parts of
Laconia, armed for self-protection, and that they might be able to
bring down their game. At first, perhaps, they confined themselves
within the limits prescribed by law. But almost of necessity they
would become involved in quarrels with the Helots, by plundering whose
farms and villages they chiefly subsisted. The Helots would sometimes
resist and sometimes resent their incursions. Ill blood would be
engendered. Hot and fiery youths, abandoned to their own guidance,
would easily discover excuses for cruelty and revenge. From quarrels
they would proceed to blows—from blows to assassination; and beaten,
perhaps, by day, they would fall suddenly on the defenceless peasants
in the dead of night, and butcher whole hamlets to avenge an affront
offered to them perhaps by an individual. Thus, out of a custom
blameless enough in its origin, grew the terrible institution of the
Crypteia,[881] or annual massacre of the Helots, denied by some modern
writers, but too well authenticated, and too much in keeping with the
Spartan character and general policy, to allow of our indulging in any
scepticism on the point.
Footnote 880:
The Platonic Scholiast confounds this practice with the Crypteia, so
called, he says, because the youth were compelled to conceal
themselves while they subsisted on plunder. Ἀπολύοντες γὰρ ἕκαστον
γυμνὸν, προσέταττον ἐνιαυτὸν ὅλον ἔξω ἐν τοῖς ὄρεσι πλανᾶσθαι, καὶ
τρέφειν ἑαυτὸν διὰ κλοπῆς, καὶ τῶν τοιούτων, οὕτω δὲ ὥστε μηδενὶ
κατάδηλον γενέσθαι· διὸ καὶ κρύπτεια ὠνόμασται· ἐκολάζοντο γὰρ οἱ
ὅπου δήποτε ὀφθέντες.—Ad Legg. p. 225. Ruhnk.
Footnote 881:
For a fuller account of this institution see Book V. Chapter VIII.
But, in addition to the above, there were other branches of education
taught at Sparta,—that is gymnastics and music. Writers, desirous of
enhancing the mental acquisitions of the Dorians, adhere somewhat too
strictly to the meaning often affixed by the Greeks to the word
_music_, which they employed to signify literature. But Xenophon, in
his treatise on the Lacedæmonian Commonwealth, appears invariably to
use it in its limited and modern signification.
To gymnastics the Dorians, upon the whole an unintellectual people,
were naturally much addicted,—far too much according to ancient
writers; but here again their modern historian steps in to their
defence. He will have it, that it was in later times that they became
philogymnasts, and quotes Dion Chrysostom as if he was the principal
witness. Plato, to be sure, is referred to as a parasitical authority,
and so is Aristotle;[882] but then the latter only says, that their
constant violent exercises rendered them brutal, in which the
historian appears to discover no harm. “This want of moderation,
however, though it occurred in later times, is never perceivable in
the maxims and ideas of the Dorians, who in this, as in several other
cases, know how to set bounds to youthful ardour, and check its
pernicious effects.”[883] This, it appears to me, is the language of
an apologist. If they had such knowledge, how culpable must they have
been not to check it in the matter of the Crypteia?
Footnote 882:
Polit. viii. 3. 3.—To this may be added the testimony of Plato, who
evidently, without naming them, means to describe the Spartans,
where he speaks of a people wholly given up to the study of bodily
exercises, and by that means becoming brutal and ferocious.—De Rep.
t. vi. p. 154.
Footnote 883:
Dorians, ii. 319. seq.
It may be observed, however, that though they devoted to gymnastics
too much of their leisure, the fault lay in them, not in the system of
exercises, which was in itself one of extreme beauty and simplicity.
Its object,—which it was excellently calculated to attain,—was not to
create athletæ but soldiers, not gigantic strength, but an elastic,
agile, beautiful frame, adapted for all the movements of war. Boxing,
accordingly, and the pancration[884] were banished from their
gymnasia, a regulation evincing at the same time their wisdom and
their taste; the former being the most barbarous and useless, the
latter the most unseemly portion of gymnastics, often exhibiting the
antagonists rolling and struggling, like savages or animals devoid of
reason, on the ground.
Footnote 884:
Ταῦτα μόνα μὴ κωλύσαντος ἀγωνίζεσθαι τοὺς πολίτας, ἐν οἷς χεὶρ οὺκ
ἀνατείνεται.—Plut. Lycurg. § 19. The exercises, in which the
admission of being vanquished was made by holding up the hand, are
elsewhere named:—Πυγμὴν δὲ καὶ παγκράτιον ἀγωνίζεσθαι ἐκώλυσεν, ἵνα
μηδὲ παίζοντες ἀπαυδᾷν ἐθίζωνται.—Reg. Apophtheg. Lycurg. 4.
Apophtheg. Lacon. Lycurg. 23.
As the ancient idea of education included every thing employed to
develope the powers of body or mind, we must regard in this light the
military games peculiar to the Spartans and Cretans.[885] Among the
former the youth, having sacrificed to Ares in a temple at Therapne,
passed over into an island dyked round and called Platanistas, where,
dividing off into separate parties, they engaged in a contest which
wanted nothing but arms to render it a genuine battle. A learned
historian, seldom sparing of words, avoids describing this interesting
scene; and wherefore?—Because a faithful description of it must convey
a striking idea of Spartan ferocity. “They exerted” says he, “every
means in their power to obtain the victory.”—Exactly; but what were
those means? “Adolescentium greges Lacedæmone vidimus ipsi indibili
contentione certantes, pugnis, calcibus, unguibus, morsu denique; quum
exanimarentur priusquam se victos faterentur.[886]” Yet were these
battles carried on under the eyes of magistrates, the five Bidiæi[887]
appointed to superintend these exercises as well as those performed
elsewhere. The little island where they fought was a spot of great
natural beauty, encircled by a sheet of clear water, and approached on
all sides through thick and lofty groves of platane trees. A bridge
thrown over the canal led to the island on both sides, and on the one
stood a statue of Heracles, on the other of Lycurgus. This battle was
reckoned among the institutions of the latter, and under the
protection probably of the former. The preliminaries to the fight were
as follow. They first sacrificed in the Phœbaion which stands without
the city, not far from Therapne. Here each of the two divisions of the
youth offered up a dog’s whelp to Ares, the bravest of domestic
animals, sacred in their opinion to the bravest of the Gods. No other
Grecian people sacrificed the dog excepting the Colophonians, who
offered up a black bitch to Hecate. In both cities the sacrifice was
performed by night. After the ceremony two tame boars were brought
forward, one by each party, which they compelled to fight; and they
whose brute champion proved superior, thence augured that victory
awaited them in the Platanistas. On the following day, a little before
noon, they entered by the bridges into the island, one party by one
bridge, the other by the other. But the choice was not left to them,
having been determined on the preceding night by lot. Being arrived,
they faced each other, and commenced the battle, striking with the
fist, kicking, leaping on each other, tearing one another with their
teeth, and gouging after the most approved Kentucky fashion. Thus they
struggled, man to man, urging forward together and thrusting each
other into the water.[888] From these words, as well as from the
testimony of Cicero cited above, it is clear the combat was conducted
with no other arms than those furnished by nature, though Lucian,
misemploying the verb ὁπλομάχειν,[889] would lead us to a different
conclusion. But this kind of battle is always enumerated among the
gymnastic exercises or contests; and what necessity would there have
been to have recourse to fists, feet, teeth, and nails, had they been
permitted the use of arms? Fatigued with this violent exertion they
betook themselves for a short time to repose, refreshed by which they
resumed their exercises, dancing in most intricate measures to the
sound of the pipe.[890] Akin in spirit to the contests in the
Platanistas were the ever-recurring battles fought by the young men
with the three hundred followers of the Hippagretæ; three inferior
magistrates appointed by the Ephori, who selected each one hundred
followers from among the healthiest and bravest of the youthful
population. Against this chosen band all the other young men of the
city were bound by custom to make war; and, but that they could be
parted by any citizen who might happen to be passing by, it is
probable that these fierce boxing matches would often have terminated
fatally.
Footnote 885:
Müll. ii. 26.
Footnote 886:
Cic. Tusc. Disput. v. 27.
Footnote 887:
Paus. iii. 11. 2.
Footnote 888:
Paus. iii. 14. 8. sqq.
Footnote 889:
Anachars. § 38.
Footnote 890:
Cf. Ubb. Emm. Antiq. Græc. iii. 89. sqq.
Similar customs prevailed in Crete, where, as in most other parts of
Greece, the business of education appears to have commenced at the age
of seven years, when the cake called Promachos was given to the boys,
because, as it has been conjectured, they were thenceforward to be
trained for fighting. Up to the age of seventeen they were denominated
Apageli, since they were not until then admitted into those Agelæ[891]
or bands, in which they thenceforward performed their exercises. Here,
as in Sparta, the greatest possible care was taken to extirpate from
the character every germ of effeminacy. They ate whatever food was
given them squatting on the ground, not being permitted to join their
elders at the board, and went abroad in all weathers clad in a single
garment, like the boys of Sparta during their hibernation. However,
the youth of the several Agelæ, armed with stones, and iron weapons,
marching to the sound of flutes, and assailing each other, converted
their exercises into something very like real warfare. Our
cudgel-playing, single-stick, &c. are pastimes of the same
description; and boxing now nearly exploded, can plead classical
precedent. They were habituated, says Ephoros, to labours and arms,
and taught to despise both heat and cold, rough roads and cliffs, and
the blows they received in the gymnasium and their mock battles. The
use of the bow formed part of their education, as well as the armed
dance, at first taught by the Curetes, and afterwards named the
Pyrrhic; so that a warlike spirit breathed through the whole system of
their education.[892]
Footnote 891:
Ἀγέλη for the boys, συσσίτιον for the men.—Strab. x. 4. p. 379.
Müll. (Dor. ii. 326.) uses both indiscriminately.
Footnote 892:
Strab. x. 4. p. 380. seq.—This agrees with what Plato relates of the
Cretan polity.—De Legg. t. vii. p. 260. t. viii. p. 86.
With all these facts before him, though many of them he has
suppressed, the historian of the Doric race, in direct contradiction
to Plato and Aristotle, contends naïvely that it would be erroneous to
conclude that the aim of bodily exercise among the Dorians was war, or
that in their result they rendered the youth either brutal or
ferocious. Their object, in his opinion, was to obtain something like
ideal beauty of form, strength, and health, which, he says, they
accordingly attained, being, about B. C. 540, the healthiest of the
Greeks and most renowned for beautiful men and women. But Xenophon
whom, on the subject of health he quotes, does not authorise his
superlative:—"It would not be easy," are his words, “to find healthier
or more active men.”[893] Again, the language of Herodotus by no means
bears him out. He, indeed, affirms that Callicrates, a Spartan, was
the handsomest man in the army at Platæa, but says nothing of the
Spartans being handsomer than the other Greeks; but rather the
contrary. He was not merely the handsomest man among his countrymen,
but, which he evidently considered more remarkable, among all the
other Greeks.[894]
Footnote 893:
De Rep. Lac. v. 9.—At a later period the reputation of being the
handsomest men in Greece was enjoyed by certain young men of
Athens.—Æschin. cont. Tim. § 31.
Footnote 894:
Herod. ix. 72.
Not, however, to insist on such points as these, let us proceed to
examine the intellectual cultivation of the Dorians.[895] That the art
of writing never flourished very generally at Sparta appears to be on
all hands admitted, though we can by no means doubt that among them
numerous individuals possessing this accomplishment might always be
found. Thus, in the old story of the combat of the three hundred
Spartans and Argives, it is related that Othryades, the sole survivor
of the Laconian band, having remained last on the field of battle,
erected a trophy and wrote upon it with his blood Λακεδαιμόνιοι κατ᾽
Ἀργείων, immediately after which he died of his wounds.[896]
Generally, however, no great stress was laid on a knowledge of the art
of writing, which, in the opinion of some authors, was of
comparatively little value where the people were taught to chant their
laws as well as their songs. Similar customs and regulations prevailed
on this head in Crete, where, nevertheless, letters appear to have
been viewed with a more favourable eye.[897] In addition to their body
of legal poetry, which was probably less voluminous than a metrical
version of the statutes at large, the youth were taught to sing hymns
in honour of the gods and the praises of illustrious men.[898] In
music, too, they were permitted to make some proficiency, though
generally, we are told, it was their ambition to excel rather in the
regularity of their manners than in the extent of their acquirements.
Footnote 895:
Cf. Ælian. Var. Hist. xii. 50.
Footnote 896:
Stob. Florileg. vii. 67.
Footnote 897:
Plut. Inst. Lac. § 14. seq.—The Spartans sacrificed to the muses
before going to battle in order that they might perform something
worthy of notice by them.—Id. § 16. It is remarked of king Cleomenes
that he studied philosophy under Sphæros the Borysthenite who was
likewise permitted to impart his system to the other youth.—Id.
Cleom. § 2.—Cf. Diog. Laert. vii. 6.
Footnote 898:
In later times learning grew to be more highly valued. Thus it was
ordained by law that the youth should assemble annually in the Hall
of the Ephori to hear the work of Dicæarchos on the constitution of
their country read to them.—Suid. v. Δικαίαρχ. t. i. p. 730. d.
With respect to the Spartans it is probable, though the testimony of
ancient writers be sufficiently contradictory, that no great stress
was laid even on the ability to read; for, while Plutarch[899]
conceives this art to have been among their ordinary acquirements,
Isocrates, a grave and more competent authority, is decidedly of the
opposite opinion.[900]
Footnote 899:
Inst. Lac. § 4. Lycurg. § 16.
Footnote 900:
Panathen. § 83. Τοσοῦτον ἀπολελειμμένοι τῆς κοινῆς παιδείας καὶ
φιλοσοφίας εἰσιν ὥστ᾽ οὐδὲ γράμματα μανθάνουσιν.
Ælian,[901] too, coming in the rear of Plutarch, observes that the
Lacedæmonians were ignorant of mental culture (μουσικῆς) meaning
evidently as Perizonius has already observed, not “music” as Kühn
would translate it, (for in this they were learned,) but a knowledge
of poetry and eloquence.[902]
Footnote 901:
Var. Hist. xii. 50.
Footnote 902:
So again in Ælian. Var. Hist. iv. 15. Gelo, king of Syracuse, an
illiterate person is termed ἄμουσος.
That the Spartans were noted for their indifference to literature, is
well known. Even Xenophon, their apologist, instituting a comparison
between their system of education and that prevailing among the other
Greeks, observes that the latter sent their boys to school that they
might learn their letters, music, and the exercises of the palæstra,
while the former placed them under the care of a grave man who might
punish them if slothful and inactive, and inculcate great modesty and
obedience in lieu of the usual accomplishments. Plato also, in the
Greater Hippias,[903] having observed that their laws were averse from
the reception of foreign learning, adds immediately after that the
majority of them were even ignorant of arithmetic. In another
place,[904] indeed, the philosopher appears to hold a different
language, and is literally understood by Perizonius. But the reader
who examines the passage attentively, will probably agree with me in
considering it nothing more than one of those profoundly ironical
strokes in which, above all writers, he abounds. He in fact remarks,
what in another sense may have been very true, that no countries were
more fertile in sophists than Crete and Lacedæmon, but that they
dissembled their wisdom and feigned ignorance, lest they should appear
to excel all their countrymen in sapience, of which in reality there
was very little danger. He observes, however, no less ironically, that
those rude and unrhetorical nations were of all men most philosophical
and eloquent, and that it had long been understood by a great many
that to _laconise_, or act the Spartan, was rather to be a philosopher
than a diligent student of gymnastics. Perizonius,[905] indeed,
conceives that all this is to be understood of natural sound sense,
applied to morals and those brief and pithy sayings or λογοὶ, which
constituted the science of laconics.
Footnote 903:
T. v. p. 418.
Footnote 904:
Protag. t. i. p. 209.
Footnote 905:
Not. ad Ælian. xii. 50.—From an ironical passage of Plato we
may likewise infer that they were able genealogists and
story-tellers.—Hipp. Maj. t. v. p. 419.
But, after all, there never was, as Cicero observes, a single orator
among the Spartans; nor could it be otherwise, since all the arts
which beget and foster eloquence, and, more important still, every
political institution which favours it, were unknown in their state.
Nay, so far did they push their aversion for the oratorical art, that
if any citizen of Sparta acquired, in his experience abroad, the skill
artificially to wield a syllogism or a trope, he was subjected to
punishment,[906] while rhetoricians were expelled the city.[907]
Ignorance, therefore, of whatever learned nations prize, was their
chief boast. To them the sublime speculations of the Academy, and the
logic, sharp and irresistible, of the Lyceum, were equally strangers;
yet their discipline, and the habits of youth, imparted to them what
in modern jargon is termed a kind of practical “philosophy.” They
understood the great art, at least among them, how to command their
passions; as Maximus Tyrius[908] relates of Agesilaos who, though
educated in no school of philosophy, was nevertheless not a slave to
love, which therefore the sophist infers could not be a matter of
great difficulty. However there were limitations to their aversions
for learning. They opened in their state an asylum for those antique
teachers of mankind, the poets,[909] proscribed by Plato, and were in
this respect so superior in good taste to that philosopher, that they
at length, in imitation of the Great Preceptors of Greece, instituted
public recitations of Homer. And this, Maximus Tyrius adduces as a
proof that many well-constituted states had existed in which Homer was
not publicly studied, for he could not mean that he was once entirely
unknown at Sparta.[910]
Footnote 906:
The laws of Sparta were in this respect, as in many others, merely
imitations of those of Crete.—Sext. Empir. adv. Mathemat. l. ii. p.
68. Plutarch having remarked that they did learn to read, adds—τῶν
δὲ ἄλλων παιδευμάτων ξενηλασίαν ἐποιοῦτο, οὐ μᾶλλον ἀνθρώπων ἢ
λόγων.—Instit. Lac. § 4.
Footnote 907:
Cressol. Theat. Rhet. i. 12. p. 88.
Footnote 908:
Dissert. ix. p. 118.
Footnote 909:
Cf. Athen. xiv. 33.
Footnote 910:
Dissert. vii. p. 91.
Into the character of the Greeks, generally, there entered an element
but faintly discernible in the moral composition of modern nations, I
mean a most exquisite and exalted sensibility, which rendered them to
the last degree susceptible, and liable to be swayed irresistibly for
good or for evil by poetry and music. And this characteristic
distinguished in some degree the Doric as well as the Ionic race. They
could be excited, past belief, by the agency of sound. Music,
therefore, with us at least a mere source of enjoyment, among them was
invested with a moral character, and employed in education as a
powerful means of harmonising, purifying, ennobling the principles and
the affections of the heart. For this reason the government, which in
Greece was in reality a Committee of Public Safety,[911] watched over
the music no less sedulously than over the morals of the people, which
it powerfully influenced. It must, nevertheless, be confessed that
many ancient authors are little philosophical in relating or reasoning
upon the effects of music. They often confound consequences with
causes. Thus, in the example which certain authors undoubtingly adduce
of the Sicilian Dorians,[912] whose morals we are told were corrupted
by their fiddlesticks, they omit to inquire whether it was not rather
the natural and necessary degeneracy of a wealthy people, which
corrupted the music. This is my interpretation. For, in the history of
the ancient Sicilians, I can discover causes enough of lax and
imperfect morals, without calling in the aid of lyre or cithara. But
some writers on this point have an easy faith. They suppose that the
strict domestic discipline of Sparta “would hardly have been
preserved”[913] without the old-fashioned music.
Footnote 911:
Plut. Inst. Lac. § 17.
Footnote 912:
Max. Tyr. iv. p. 54. Cic. de Legg. ii. 15.—Cicero, though apt in
most cases to defer to the opinion of Plato, hangs back here. He
does not, indeed, consider it a matter of indifference what songs
are sung, or what airs prevail in a state; but neither does he
credit the inferences drawn too subtilely by the great philosopher
from his musical theory.
Footnote 913:
Dorians. ii. 340.
In whatever way we decide on the metaphysics of the matter, certain it
is that in old times music was an universal accomplishment in most
parts of Greece; but this was when it was little more than the
chanting of savages, in which, however ignorant, any one may join.
Exactly in proportion as it rose into an art its cultivators
diminished in number, until, when a high degree of perfection had been
attained, it was abandoned almost wholly to professional musicians.
The Athenians had been commanded by the Pythian oracle to chant
chorically in the streets, a divine service in honour of Bacchos.[914]
At Sparta similar performances took place during the gymnopædia, when
choruses of naked men and boys, with crowns of palm leaves on their
heads, proceeded through the streets singing the songs of Thaletas and
Alcman and the pæans of Dionysidotos.[915] Mr. Müller, who loves to
complete or round off the accounts he finds in ancient authors, says
that, _doubtless_, a large portion of the inhabitants of the city took
part in these exhibitions. Perhaps they did, but we have no authority
for such a supposition. The place in the agora which contained statues
of Apollo, Artemis and Leto, was called _Choros_,[916] because there
the Ephebi danced in choruses in honour of Apollo. On these occasions
unwarlike persons were sometimes thrust into the least honourable
places,[917] while bachelors were excluded; so that, as Schneider has
well remarked, cowardice was less dishonourable than celibacy. But it
does not at all appear that the Spartans themselves were ever good
musicians, though they were not incapable of relishing good
music;[918] and hence the foreign musicians who flocked thither found
a welcome reception. The developement of the warlike constitution of
the state threw the favourable side of their discipline into the
shade.[919]
Footnote 914:
Demosth. in Mid. § 15.
Footnote 915:
Athen. xv. 22.
Footnote 916:
Paus. iii. 11. 9.—Müller, ii. 341., supposes the whole agora may
have been thus denominated.
Footnote 917:
Xen. de Rep. Lac. ix. 5. Plut. Lycurg. § 15.
Footnote 918:
Aristot. Pol. viii. 5.
Footnote 919:
Cf. Müll. Dor. ii. 342.
The Arcadians, likewise, made great use of music in their system of
education, and, though otherwise a rude race, continued to practise it
up to the age of thirty. Among them alone, in fact, were children
accustomed from infancy to sing, in certain measures, hymns and poems,
in which they celebrated the praises of the gods and heroes of their
country. After this, observes Polybius,[920] they learned the _nomoi_
of Timotheus and Philoxenos, and every year during the Dionysia formed
choruses in the theatre, where they danced to the sound of the flute.
Here boys contended with antagonists of their own age, and the young
men with those more advanced towards their prime. During the whole of
their lives they frequented these public assemblies, where they
instructed each other by their songs, and not by means of foreign
actors. With respect to other branches of education they considered it
no disgrace to profess themselves ignorant; but not to know how to
sing would, in Arcadia, have been a mark of extreme vulgarity. They
habituated themselves to walk with gravity to the sound of the flute,
and, having been thus instructed at the expense of the state,
proceeded once a year in public procession to the theatre. Their
ancestors introduced these customs, not with any view to pleasure, or
that they might grow rich by the exercise of their talents, but in
order to soften the austerity of character which their cold and murky
atmosphere would otherwise have engendered. For the character of
nations is invariably analogous to the air they breathe, and it is the
geographical position of races which determines alone their temper of
mind and the colour and configuration of their bodies.
Footnote 920:
iv. 20. 7. Athen. xiv. 21. seq.
Besides what has already been said of the Arcadians, it may be added,
that it was customary among them for the men and women to unite in
chanting certain odes, and to offer up sacrifices in common. There
were also dances in which the youth of both sexes joined, and their
object was to create and diffuse humane and gentle manners.
But the same habits were not prevalent throughout the whole country.
The Kynæthes made no progress in these humanising arts, and as they
dwelt in the rudest districts of Arcadia, and breathed the crudest
air, their ferocity became proverbial; they addicted themselves to
strife and contention, and degenerated into the fiercest and most
untameable savages in Greece. In fact, obtaining possession of several
cities, they shed so much blood that the whole nation was roused, and
at length united in expelling them the land. Even after their
departure the Mantinæans thought it necessary to purify the soil by
sacrifices, expiations, and the leading of victims round the whole
boundary line.
Dancing very naturally constituted a separate branch of education at
Sparta as in Crete. In both places the execution of the Pyrrhic
appears to have been regarded as a necessary accomplishment, the
youths, from the age of fifteen or earlier, having been taught to
perform it in arms.[921] It was or is—for the Pyrrhic still lingers in
Greece,
“Ye have the Pyrrhic dance as yet—”
an exhibition purely military. The dancers, accoutred with spear and
shield, went gracefully and vigorously through a number of movements,
wheeling, advancing, giving blows or shunning them, as in real
action.[922] In other parts of Greece, however, the Pyrrhic quickly
degenerated in character, becoming little better than a wild dance of
Bacchanals.[923] It has been rightly observed that at Sparta “the
chief object of the Gymnopædia was to represent gymnastic exercises
and dancing in intimate union, and, indeed, the latter only as the
accomplishment and end of the former.”[924] One of the dances,
resembling the Anapale, partook of a Bacchanalian character.”[925] The
youth, also, when skilled in these exercises, danced in rows behind
each other to the music of flutes, both military and choral dances, at
the same time, repeating an invitation in verse to Aphrodite and Eros
to join them, and an exhortation to each other.[926]
Footnote 921:
Athen. xiv. 29.—The armed dance was in particular favour with
Plato.—De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 17. Boys danced in armour during
the Panathenaia at Athens.—Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 935.
Footnote 922:
Plat. de Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 54.
Footnote 923:
Athen. xiv. 29.
Footnote 924:
Müll. Dor. ii. 351.
Footnote 925:
Creuz. Com. Herod. i. 230.
Footnote 926:
Lucian de Saltat. § 10. seq.
It will be seen from the above details that the object of education at
Sparta was rather the formation of habits and the disciplining of the
mind to act in exact conformity with the laws, than to develope to
their fullest extent the intellectual powers of individuals. They
desired to amalgamate the whole energies of the people into one mass,
upon the supposition that being thus impelled in any particular
direction they would prove irresistible. No account was made of
private happiness. Everything seems to have been devised for the
effecting of national purposes, though from the known laws of the
human mind even the restraint and tyrannical interference of such a
system would with time be reconciled to the feelings and contribute to
individual content. But very much of what renders life sweet, was
sacrificed. Letters and arts, that subordinate creation, that world
within a world which the beneficence of Providence has permitted man
to call into existence, were at Sparta unknown. They enjoyed little or
nothing of that refined delight which arises from multiplying the
almost conscious fruits of the soul, from sending winged thoughts
abroad to move, enchant, electrify millions, from deifying truth and
confounding error, from ascending to the greatest heights of
mortality, and diffusing from thence a light and a glory to warm and
illuminate and gladden the human race for ever. This greater felicity
was reserved for the education of Athens, which must, therefore, in
all enlightened times, bear away the palm of excellence and utility.
CHAPTER IX.
INFLUENCE OF THE FINE ARTS ON EDUCATION.
It behoves us now to quit the circle of studies, which, taken
together, are commonly supposed to constitute the whole of education,
and consider the influence exercised by other elements on the minds of
the Hellenic youth. Even in these days we speak intelligibly and
correctly of that experience which young men gain on their first
entrance into life, from travel and fashionable society, as of a
particular stage in their education, it being during that period that
they learn to estimate the value of their school acquirements, how
advantageously to conceal or display them according to circumstances,
and to bend the neck, perchance, of their lofty theories and sublime
speculations to the yoke of the world. But in Greece this was more
palpably the case; for, though escaped from the formal rule of
preceptors and pædagogues, the youth had still to master several
departments of study, either by their own independent exertions or
under the guidance of judicious friends: I mean those infinitely
varied creations of art and literature, which, as they are in harmony
with them or otherwise, confirm or subvert the principles and
discipline of the schools.
Thoroughly to comprehend, therefore, the nature and extent of that
sway which the state and its institutions directly or indirectly
exerted over the minds of the citizens, it is necessary briefly to
inquire into the character of the plastic and mimetic arts which found
encouragement in the Grecian commonwealths, and afterwards to examine
for a moment the stores of thought and sentiment and passion, and
piety and virtue, which the literature and religion of Greece laid
open to the contemplation of those who were entering upon the career
of life. We shall begin with the arts, as they were the inculcators of
the principle of the beautiful, advance next to literature, the
teacher of wisdom and patriotism, concluding with religion, which
opened up to their view a prospect, though dim, of heaven, and
directed their footsteps thitherward.
It is certain that, to the generality, the vast superiority of the
Greeks in the arts, which like an universal language need no
translation, is more palpable and apparent than their superiority in
literature; though Demosthenes be in reality as much above any orator,
Thucydides above any historian, Plato above any philosopher, Homer
above any epic poet, Milton perhaps excepted, who has since written,
as Pheidias, or Polycletos, or Praxiteles rose above any sculptor of
the north. Nor can we account for this any more than we can explain
why Shakespeare was superior to Ford or Massinger. Nature infused more
genius into their souls. They loved or rather worshiped the beautiful.
It breathed within and around them: their minds were pregnant with it,
and, when they brought forth, beauty was their offspring. Thus
Aristophanes[927] insinuates, that even the gods borrowed much of
their majesty and splendour from the human mind, when he says, that
heaven-born peace derived her loveliness from some relationship to
Pheidias.
Footnote 927:
Pac. 614. seq.
Religion, in one sense, may be called the parent of the fine arts; but
it would perhaps be more philosophical to consider religion and the
arts as twin sisters, both sprung from that yearning after the ideal
which constituted the most marked feature in the Hellenic mind. We
must carry back our investigations very far, if we would discover them
radiant with loveliness in their cradle; but when they issued thence
it was to shed light over the earth, a light derived from the skies.
For man does not originate his ideas of the beautiful, which fall like
images from heaven on the speculum of his mind; he gives back but what
he receives. The conception of beauty is an inspiration, a thing which
does not come when called upon; or rather, shining on all, it is lost
on the dull and opaque fancy, and is reflected only from the luminous
and bright.
Man needs companionship always, and the creative and imaginative make
to themselves companions of their own ideas, and clothe them in
material forms to render the illusion more complete. There is an
impassioned intercourse between the soul and its offspring. We love
nothing like that which has sprung from ourselves, and in this we are
truly the image of God, who saw all things that he had made, and,
behold, they were very good. And he loved his creation; and from him
we inherit, as his children, the love we bear to our creations. Hence
the enthusiasm for art, hence the power and the inspiration of poetry.
They are not things of earth. They are the seeds of immortality
ripening prematurely here below; and therefore we should love them.
They are the warrant, the proof that we are of God; that we are born
to exercise an irresistible sway over the elements; that our thrones
are building elsewhere; that in the passion for whatever is spiritual
we exhibit instinctively indubitable tokens that spirits we are, and
in a spiritual world only can find our home.
It does not belong to this work to attempt a history of Grecian art,
which in a certain sense has been already written. My object, if I can
accomplish it, is to describe the spirit by which that art was created
and sustained, and this I should do triumphantly if love were
synonymous with power; for never, since the fabled artist hung
enamoured over the marble he had fashioned, did any man’s imagination
cleave more earnestly to the spirit that presided over Grecian art,
not the plastic merely but every form of it, from the epic in poetry
and sculpture down to the signet ring and the drinking song. But the
thing is an ample apology for the enthusiasm. There, if anywhere, we
discover the culminating point of human intellect and human
genius;—there
“The vision and the faculty divine”
meet us at every step. Even the fragments of her literature and her
art are gathered up and treasured in all civilised countries, as if
the fate of our race were mystically bound up in them. And so it is:
for when we cease to love the beautiful, of which they are the most
perfect realisation we know, our own race of glory and greatness will
have been run: we shall be close on the verge, nay, within the pale of
barbarism.
Socrates used to say, that whatever we know we can explain; but not so
always with what we feel. There is in the ideal of beauty, which
formed the vivifying principle of Greek art, a certain subtile and
fugitive delicacy, a certain nameless grace, a certain volatile and
fleeting essence, which defy definition, and, rejecting the aid of
language, persist in presenting themselves naked to the mind. And by
the mind only, and only, moreover, by the inspired mind, can they be
discerned.
It was in the attempt, however, to chain this spirit, and to imprison
it in durable forms, that all the poetry and arts of Greece consisted.
They beheld within them a world of loveliness, of living forms which
knocked at the golden door of fancy, and demanded their dismissal from
the spiritual to the material universe. All their studies were but how
to dress these celestial habitants in fitting habiliments to go abroad
in; and their lives were often spent in the throes of creatures big
with immortal beauty. It is a privilege to the world to converse with
minds of such a nature. It is ennobling to approach them. Their
energy, their vivifying power continues ever active, ever operating,
and if high art be ever to flourish and command, not admiration, but
love in England, it can only be by kindling here the lamp removed from
Greece, but essentially Greek, that is, essentially beautiful.
The proof that religion issued with art from the same womb in Greece,
and was not its parent, is supplied by every other country. There is
religion elsewhere, while nowhere is there art like that of the
Greeks. But religion had nevertheless much to do with the forms in
which the creative faculty there developed itself, as it invariably
has with whatever is great or beautiful among men. The persuasion
arose in them that the inhabitants of Olympos could be represented by
material forms, and as they found their own reverence for the divine
being represented, augment in proportion to the beauty or grandeur of
its image, the conclusion was natural that the deity himself would be
pleased by the same rule, so that their piety was their first and most
powerful incentive to excellence. They hoped to recommend themselves
to the gods, as they did to their countrymen, by the greatness of
their workmanship; and veneration from without, and piety from within,
united in urging them forward. And this, with the poet equally as with
the artist, inflamed the desire to excel.
There are, as has already been observed,[928] three periods in the
history of art: 1st. that, in which the necessary is sought; 2ndly,
that in which the study of the beautiful is pursued; and 3dly, the
period of superfluity and extravagance. But in some countries men
appear to pass from the first to the third, without traversing the
second. Thus, in Egypt, Persia, Etruria, in Germany, Holland, France,
England[929] the wild, the grotesque, the terrible have been aimed at,
seldom the beautiful. Even in Italy, where in modern times art has
taken firmest root and most luxuriantly flourished, the object sought
to be attained has lain on a lower level. Among the northern nations
the grotesque variously disguised or modified is the spirit of art;
among the Italians it is voluptuousness, among the Greeks the
beautiful. Hence no Greek statue of the flourishing period of art is
indecent.[930] Naked it may be, but like the nakedness of infancy, it
is chaste as a mother’s love. Our thoughts are instantly carried away
by it to the regions of poetry; the soft influence of the ideal
descends like dew upon our fancy; we are elevated above the region of
the passions to heights where all is sunny and calm and pure. The
beautiful is chaste as an icicle, yet warm as love. It breathes in
Raffaelle’s virgins which we regard as some “bright particular star,”
things to inspire a holy affection, a love not akin to earth. Yet this
beauty is not distanced from us by its severity: no! but by its
intense innocence, by its unsullied purity, by its inexpressible
concentration and mingling up of maternity and girlhood. It was this
beauty that Milton sought in his Comus to express, when he represents
chastity as its own guard. And this is preëminently the spirit
breathing through Grecian art. In the Artemis, in the Athena, nay,
even in Aphrodite or Leda, or an orgiastic Bacchante, the overruling
sense of beauty, after the first flutter of sensation, hurries the
imagination far beyond all considerations of sex or passion. The root
of all the pleasures we feel, seems to be hidden under the load of
three thousand years, not because the things are old, but because they
are the material representatives of a period when the foot of the
beautiful rested on the earth.
Footnote 928:
By Winkelmann, Hist. de l’Art, i. 2.
Footnote 929:
It is remarked by Winkelmann that Rubens painted the figures of
Flemings after many years’ residence in Italy.—i. 60. The Greek grew
up from infancy in the presence of the beauty he afterwards
represented: his mother, his sisters, his father, and all around
him. What he saw constituted the basis of what he painted or
sculptured. In most modern nations the school models of our youth
are Greek; but their home models, and which are to them models from
the cradle, are of a different style. Hence they are under two sets
of influences, the one neutralising the other, and producing that
coldness which the mock classical exhibits. This may, perhaps, be
one cause of the slow progress of art among us.
Footnote 930:
Plato, jocularly perhaps, bestows the same praise on Egyptian art,
and Muretus seriously adopts his notions: “Meritoque Ægyptios
commendat Plato, apud quos et pictorum et musicorum licentia legibus
coërcebatur, quod permagni interesse judicarent, ut adolescentes à
teneris annis honestis picturis, et honestis cantibus
assuefierent.”—In Aristot. Ethic. p. 249. But perhaps Plato had not
looked very narrowly into the sacred sculptures of Egypt which in
reality abound with images offensive to decency.
No doubt we come prepared to regard them with eyes coloured, and a
fancy haunted by the beauties of Grecian literature. Possibly, it is
under the spell of Homeric verse that our eyes grow humid with delight
at the aspect of Aphrodite, that we behold divinity in Zeus or Phœbos
Apollo; but this only proves that the fragments of Hellenic
civilisation throw a light upon each other, and are parts of one great
whole. Perhaps, too, no man ever enjoyed the sculpture of Greece as he
should, unless conversant with her poetry—the right hand of her art.
In this we find the first seeds and increments of those ideas, which
were afterwards transplanted and bore fruit in another field. We
discover, therefore, but half the subject when we see only the
sculpture. It is unknown to us whether the artist has fulfilled the
conditions into which he entered, by undertaking to clothe in marble,
thoughts already invested with the forms of language. Hence the little
sympathy between Hellenic art and the people generally of modern
nations. The figures they behold are dumb to them. To a Greek, on the
contrary, or to a man with a Greek’s soul, a thousand sweet
reminiscences, a thousand legends, a thousand dim but cherished
associations appear clustering round them. Every time they flash upon
him, he lives his youth over again. The briery nook, the dewy lanes,
the dim religious forests, the pebbly or wave-fretted shore, where the
poetry of Greece first opened its eyes upon him in boyhood, sweep in
procession over his fancy. He starts to see the hamadryad or the faun
or the mountain nymph, before him but one remove from life; to him art
speaks not merely in an intelligible, but in an impassioned tongue. He
comprehends all the mysteries she has to reveal, and loves her because
in a land as it were of foreigners they can converse with each other,
and speak of the past and the future.
It is scarcely philosophical to regard poetry, sculpture, and
painting, as the offspring of pleasure, though pleasure in some sense
be as necessary to man as food. Man possesses creative and imitative
faculties, and must, at certain stages of society, employ them. The
moment his merely animal wants are provided for, he begins to feel
that he has others which demand no less imperiously their
gratification. First, he desires to clothe with material forms the
things he worships, and hence the first-born of art are gods. At the
outset, indeed, (and this is a strong argument against their having
borrowed their arts from the East,)[931] the Greeks were content with
setting up rude stones, as symbols rather than representations of
their divinities; then followed the head upon a rude pillar; then, the
indications of the sex; next, the round thighs began to swell out of
the stone; to these succeeded legs and feet; and, lastly, arms and
hands completed the figure. Dædalos, a mythological personage, is
supposed to have been the first who carried the art to this point of
improvement. His figures were of wood, and already executed with
considerable skill, though they would have been despised in the days
of Socrates.[932]
Footnote 931:
See Winkel. t. i. p. 7.—Pollux gives a list of the names under which
the representations of the gods were classed.—i. 7.
Footnote 932:
Plat. de Repub. t. vi. p. 354. Cf. Hipp. Maj. t. v. p.
410.—Winkelmann slightly misinterprets the sense of Plato.—Hist. de
l’Art, t. i. p. 12.
For some ages, perhaps, a stiff, unanimated manner, not unlike the
Egyptian, prevailed; but the impulse, once given, went on increasing
in strength. One improvement imperceptibly followed another. Artists,
together with their experience, acquired professional learning, the
results of which soon became visible in their productions. Movement
and variety of position succeeded. But though knowledge of art was
enlarged and strict rules laid down, there still remained a hard,
square massiveness in the style, resembling what we find in modern
sculpture as improved by Michael Angelo. And this manner became the
type of the Æginetan school, which expressed the character of the
Doric mind, powerful but rude, harmonious but heavy, wanting in grace,
wanting in elegance, and aiming rather at effect than beauty.[933]
Footnote 933:
Cf. Winkelmann, t. i. p. 22.
Numerous causes, however, concurred in ripening the principle of art
in Greece,—the climate, the form of government, the happy taste of the
people, and, lastly, the high respect which was there paid to artists.
Nor is it at all paradoxical to affirm, that moral causes concurred
powerfully with physical, in begetting that radiant beauty of
countenance which distinguished the nation. The consciousness of
freedom and independence produces satisfaction in the mind; the
serenity thus originated communicates itself to the features; thence
arise harmony and dignity of aspect and mien; these are so many
elements of beauty, and such feelings long indulged would operate
powerfully on the countenance, and, seconded by the tranquillising
influences of external nature, end by creating symmetry and
proportion, which, joined with intellect, are beauty. Artists in such
a country, besides that they must themselves involuntarily be
impressed with a veneration for it, would soon discover the reverence
paid to beauty and the value set upon accurate representations of it.
Of the high estimation in which beauty was held innumerable proofs
exist in Greek literature. At Ægion in Achaia, the priest of Zeus was
chosen for the splendour of his personal charms, to determine which a
sort of contest was instituted. This office he held till his beard
began to appear, when the honour passed to the youth then judged to
excel[934] in the perfection of his form. So, also, at Tanagra, the
youth selected to bear the lamb round the walls in honour of Hermes
was supposed to be the first for beauty in the city.[935] Of the
involuntary power of beauty history has recorded various instances.
Phrynè, accused of impiety and on the point of being condemned,
obtained her acquittal through the hardihood of her advocate, who
bared her bosom before the judges. Another example is said to have
been afforded by Corinna, sole poetess of Tanagra, who, contending
with Pindar for the prize of verse, obtained the victory more by her
beauty, (she being the loveliest woman of her time,) and the sweetness
of the Æolic dialect in which she wrote, than by the greatness of her
genius.[936]
Footnote 934:
Paus. vii. 24. 4.
Footnote 935:
Id. ix. 22. 1.
Footnote 936:
Id. ix. 22. 3.
In another instance heroic honours were paid to a man after death for
the beauty of his person.[937] This happened at Egestum in Sicily,
where Philippos, a native of Crotona, obtained this distinction, which
Herodotus observes never fell to any other man’s lot before.[938]
Footnote 937:
Euripides, speaking of course as a poet, pronounces beauty to be
worthy of supreme power. But many ancient nations were seriously of
this mind, and chose the finest person among them to be their king:
which was the practice of those Ethiopians called the
Immortals.—Athen. xiii. 20. If by Ethiopians be meant the people now
known under the name of Nubians, I am sure they had very good reason
to encourage beauty, than which there is, at this day, nothing more
rare in their country.
Footnote 938:
V. 47.
It was to its artists that Greece delegated, at least in some
instances, the privilege of deciding on the rival pretensions of the
fair and beautiful. They were permitted to select from the loveliest
women of the land models for their female divinities, and at other
times made their mistresses the representatives of goddesses. Pains
were taken, by filling their apartments with beautiful statues, to
impress upon the imagination of pregnant women the perfect forms of
gods and heroes, as of Nireus, Narcissos, Hyacinthos, Castor and
Polydeukes, Bacchos and Apollo.[939] This was at Sparta. In other
parts of the Peloponnesos a species of Olympic contest for the prize
of beauty took place, instituted, it is said, by Cypselos, an ancient
king of Arcadia. Having founded a city in the plain on the banks of
the Alpheios, in which he fixed a colony of Parrhasians, he dedicated
a temple and altar, and instituted a festival in honour of Eleusinian
Demeter, during which the women of the neighbourhood disputed with
each other the prize, and received from some circumstance connected
with the contest the name of Chrysophoræ. The first woman who won was
Herodice, wife of the founder Cypselos. This institution flourished
upwards of fourteen hundred years, having been established in the time
of the Heracleidæ, and still existing in the age of Athenæus.[940]
Footnote 939:
Opian. Cyneg. i. 357. sqq.
Footnote 940:
Deipnosoph. xiii. 90. Eustath. ad Il. τ. 282. relates briefly the
same facts, concluding with the very words made use of by Athenæus.
Palmerius, who, in his remarks on Diogenes Laertius quotes them,
immediately adds: “quæ non dubito Eustathiun ab aliquo auctore
antiquo accepisse.”—Exercit. in Auct. Græc. p. 448. In which
conjecture he was right; and that ancient author was Nicias in his
history of Arcadia.
A similar practice prevailed in the islands of Tenedos and Lesbos,
where likewise the ebullitions of vanity were concealed beneath the
veil of religion. The exhibition took place in the temple of Hera, to
whom, as the goddess of marriage, beauty should be dear. Priapos,
however, was in some places supposed to be the deity who awarded the
prize of loveliness in the Callisteia, on which account Niconoë, a
Bacchante perhaps, dedicated to him her fawn-skin and golden
ewer.[941] But the ladies were not singular in these displays. For
among the Eleians, who had as favourable an opinion of themselves as
Oliver Goldsmith, a similar show took place, and the pretensions of
the male candidates were as carefully sifted as if they had been to
take academical honours on their figures. And honours in fact they did
take. They were presented with a complete suit of armour, which the
winner consecrated with extraordinary pomp and rejoicing in the temple
of Athena, whither he was led garlanded with fillets by his triumphant
friends. According to Myrsilos, he was likewise decorated with a
myrtle crown.[942]
Footnote 941:
Schol. ad Il. ι. 129. Cf. Meurs. Gr. Fer. p. 177. Hedyl. in Anth.
Gr. vi. 292. Athen. xiii. 90.
Footnote 942:
Athen. xiii. 90.
In some places, not named by historians, a contest was instituted
which, though unconnected with the arts, we will intreat the reader’s
permission to introduce here, for its extraordinary nature. This was a
contest in prudence and good housewifery, in which certain barbarian
nations followed the example. And, to show that character and mental
qualifications were properly esteemed by the Greeks, it is added by
Theophrastos[943] that it is these that render beauty beautiful, and
that without them it is apt to degenerate into wantonness. Winkelmann,
who has noticed several of these facts, is betrayed into some errors.
He speaks of an Apollo of Philesia[944] at whose festival a prize was
bestowed on the youth who excelled in kissing. The contest took place
under the inspection of a judge, he supposes, at Megara. Meursius,
though under the name of Diocleia he notices the Megarean festival,
overlooks the writer who gives the fullest account of it;—I mean the
scholiast on Theocritus, who observes that Diocles was an Athenian
exile who took refuge at Megara. In a battle in which he was engaged,
he fought side by side with a friend, whose life he saved at the
expense of his own. He was interred by the Megareans, who instituted
an annual festival in his honour, where the youth who excelled his
companions was crowned and led in triumph to the arms of his
mother.[945]
Footnote 943:
Ap. Athen. xiii. 90.
Footnote 944:
Lutat. ad Stat. Theb. viii. 178. Cf. Barth. iii. 828. Hist. de
l’Art, i. 319. Carlo Fea with a simplicity rare in an Italian,
remarks upon this: “Il est question ici de baise-mains!” The Apollo
intended is Apollo Philesias, whose statue was sculptured in
Æginetic marble by Canachos.—Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 19. 14.
Footnote 945:
Sch. in Theocrit. xii. 28.
The exercises, discipline, and moral notions of the Greeks had
doubtless much effect on their form; for in the decline of their
states, when despotism had succeeded to freedom, and vice to virtue,
beauty became exceedingly rare. Cotta, in the De Naturâ Deorum,
observes that he found few handsome youths at Athens, where in the age
of Demosthenes the most beautiful in Greece flourished;[946] and Dion
Chrysostom observes that in his time there were scarcely any that
could be so considered.[947]
Footnote 946:
Æschin. cont. Tim. § 31.
Footnote 947:
Orat. 21. t. 1. p. 500. sqq. Reiske.
If we come now to the other causes which account for the progress of
the arts in Greece, we shall find the principal of these to have been
the high consideration and esteem[948] in which artists were held.
Riches, no doubt, obtained credit there as elsewhere, but not to the
exclusion of other recommendations as in modern Europe, or at least in
England. Winkelmann scarcely comprehends the irony of Socrates,
however, when he supposes him seriously to mean that artists alone
were wise; though, since the sage had himself been a sculptor, he had
some reason to think well of them. It is, nevertheless, perfectly true
that men of this profession might become legislators or generals, or
even behold a statue erected to them beside those of Miltiades and
Themistocles, or among the gods themselves.[949] The historian of art
observes with pride that Xenophilos and Straton were permitted at
Argos to place their own statues, even in a sitting posture, near
those of Asclepios and Hygeia.[950] Cheirisophos, who sculptured the
Apollo at Tegea, dedicated in the same fane a statue of himself in
marble, which was erected close to his great work.[951] The figure of
Alcamenes occupied a place among the bassi-rilievi on the temple of
Demeter at Eleusis. Parrhasios and Silanion shared the reverence paid
to their picture of Theseus; and Pheidias affixed his name to his
Olympian Zeus, the nearest approach perhaps which the arts have ever
made to perfection.[952]
Footnote 948:
At the same time the earnings of inferior sculptors were small.—Luc.
Somm. § 9.
Footnote 949:
Cf. Plut. Thes. § 4.
Footnote 950:
Pausan. ii. 23. 4.
Footnote 951:
Pausan. viii. 53. 8.
Footnote 952:
Id. v. 10. Wink. iv. 1. § 12. p. 332.
If the satisfaction of beholding a whole nation, I might say a whole
world, smitten with delight and wonder at his performance, would repay
an artist for years of toil and study, Pheidias had his reward. And
not to the narrow circle of his life was this admiration confined; for
six hundred years after his death pilgrims from all parts of the
civilised world flocked to Olympia[953] to behold his matchless
performance; for to die without having partaken of this enjoyment was
considered a misfortune. But neither praise, nor encouragement, nor
honour, nor gain will suffice to bring the arts to perfection. To
ensure this, the nation to which the arts address themselves must
comprehend their language. For, if the people be incapable of deciding
when an artist has succeeded and when he has failed, it is very
certain that he will seldom succeed at all. Men soon find the
uselessness of producing what no one around them can appreciate. Even
in the matter of virtue and vice, few will soar very high in countries
where a low standard of morals prevails generally; and, in the arts,
no one will devote himself to the creation of forms which he knows
will be dumb to the public eye.
Footnote 953:
Εἰς Ὀλυμπίαν μὲν ἀποδημεῖτε ἵν᾽ εἰδῆτε τὸ ἔργον τοῦ Φειδίου·
καὶ ἀτύχημα ἕκαστος ὕμων οἴεται, τὸ ἀνιστόρητον τούτον
ἀποθανεῖν.—Arrian. Com. in Epict. l. i. p. 27.
In Greece every condition required to ripen the genius of an artist
existed. He knew that his reputation and fortune would depend on the
caprice of no particular individual or class of individuals. He
perceived among his countrymen at large the knowledge, the taste, and
the enthusiasm which just decisions in art demand, and laboured
fearlessly for them, not doubting that he should obtain the reward his
genius merited. There were public exhibitions, as among us, both at
Corinth and at Delphi;[954] but, instead of converting them into a
sordid traffic, the whole world was invited to behold their
performances, and judges were appointed to decide upon the merits of
the exhibitors. Instances no doubt there were of artists showing their
performances for money: at least the memory of one example has come
down to us. Zeuxis of Heraclea, having finished his picture of Helen,
opened an exhibition and fixed a certain admission price, by which he
cleared a large sum of money; but to mark their disapprobation of such
conduct, his contemporaries bestowed on his picture the name of the
courtesan.[955]
Footnote 954:
Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxv. 35.
Footnote 955:
Ælian, Var. Hist. iv. 12. Cf. Meurs. ad Lycoph. Cassand. 131. p.
1189. and Val. Max. iii. 7.
In the public exhibitions they appear to have looked solely to merit,
and not to have allowed themselves to be dazzled by great names; for
when Panænos, brother of Pheidias, entered the lists, neither his own
reputation, nor that of the illustrious sculptor, could obtain for him
the preference over Timagoras, who was allowed to have excelled. A
like spirit prevailed among the judges of Olympia, whither artists
sometimes brought their pictures during the games to delight assembled
nations, and reap a harvest of joy and glory in a day. Thus when Ætion
appeared with his “Marriage of Alexander and Roxana,” before the
Hellanodicos Proxenides,[956] he not only obtained the credit due to
his genius, but that magistrate, more emphatically to express his
admiration, bestowed on him the hand of his daughter. And Lucian, who
had seen the picture in Italy, has left a description of it which
justifies the enthusiasm of Proxenides.
Footnote 956:
Lucian. Herod. § 4.
I have already in a former chapter accounted in some measure for the
diffusion of a correct taste among the great body of the people. It
formed with them an indispensable branch of study. The arts of design
were cultivated by the philosopher, the politician, in short, by every
one who claimed to be considered a gentleman.[957] Nay, gentlewomen
also enjoyed these advantages, and instances are recorded of their
arriving at professional excellence and celebrity; for example,
Timarete,[958] daughter of the younger Micon, an Athenian, and Helen
an Alexandrian Greek, who painted the “Battle of the Issos,”
afterwards consecrated in the temple of Peace.[959] It was in the
nature of things, that artists moving in such a moral atmosphere
should partake largely of the national grandeur of sentiment, and look
rather to the perpetuation of their name than to any sordid
considerations of gain, above which they were elevated by the form
which the national gratitude assumed. For we may be sure that what is
related of the great historian of Halicarnassos was, to a certain
extent, true of great artists. Men pointed at him, we are told, as he
moved through the public assemblies, exclaiming, “That is he! That is
the man who has celebrated our victories over the Barbarians!”
Footnote 957:
Diog. Laert. iii. 5.—Aristot. Pol. viii. 3.
Footnote 958:
Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxv. 35.
Footnote 959:
Phot. Bib. p. 149.
Winkelmann, who understood human nature no less than the arts,
enumerates similar facts among the causes why art flourished in
Greece;[960] and though sometimes mistaken, as in so large a work was
to be expected, his reasoning generally, and his illustrations,
deserve that every lover of art should be familiar with his writings.
Footnote 960:
Hist. de l’Art, l. iv. c. 1. § 13.
This distinguished historian, however, is not sufficiently guarded in
his expressions, when he contends that the productions of art were
consecrated solely to the deity or to public utility; for, though they
were principally directed to these ends, many individuals possessed
collections in their houses,[961] which were by no means the humble
dwellings he supposes. However the public constituted the great patron
of art, and uniting in itself natural aptitude, acquired knowledge,
and an inherent leaning towards grandeur, communicated to those who
laboured to gratify it corresponding taste and elevation. In many
cases the whole population of a city identified its own glory with
that of some celebrated picture or statue within its walls. Olympia,
though peopled by works of art of surpassing excellence, still looked
upon the Pheidian Zeus[962] as the apex of its glory; and even Athens,
where probably more objects of art were crowded together than in any
other city of the world, the colossal statue of Athena stood
preëminently the ornament of the Acropolis. In one respect we have
begun to imitate the Greeks, who often erected by general subscription
the statue of a divinity, or of some Athletæ victorious in the sacred
games. Some minor cities are solely remembered for the works of art
they contained: for example, that of Aliphera which owed its celebrity
entirely to its statue of Athena in bronze, the work of Hecatodoros
and Sostratos.[963]
Footnote 961:
Galen, Protrept. § 8. t. i. p. 19.
Footnote 962:
On the interior of this statue inhabited by rats and mice. See Luc.
Som. seu. Gall. § 24.
Footnote 963:
Polyb. iv. 340. d. Winkel. iv. 1. 15. The Eros of Thespiæ, also, and
the Aphrodite of Cnidos, were famous. Luc. Amor. § 11. seq.
Winkelmann supposes that both sculpture and painting arrived earlier
at a certain degree of perfection than architecture, and, assuming the
fact, proceeds philosophically to account for it. But his theory
itself, on this point, appears to be erroneous. In Egypt, at least,
where the mind would necessarily be guided by the same laws as in
Greece, it is certain that while sculpture and painting never escaped
from the swaddling bands of infancy, architecture advanced to a very
high degree of perfection. The force of necessity, which leads to the
creation of architecture, communicates a far more lasting impulse than
the instinct of imitation. Men must everywhere build to protect
themselves from the fury of the elements; and the first step thus
made, and leisure supervening, that sense of proportion and symmetry
and arrangement, which is almost an instinct, would soon lead to the
contemplation of the ideal and the creation of architecture as an art.
Sculpture sprang later into existence, and still later painting; but
like the children of one family,—of whom some are older, others
younger,—all the arts flourish nearly together, and nearly together
decay. Nevertheless we may subdivide this period into minuter cycles,
when we shall find that architecture and sculpture reached almost like
twins their acme together, while, like a younger sister, painting
attained its greatest beauty when the former two had fallen something
from their perfection. Thus, the Zeus of Pheidias and the Hera of
Polycletos, two of the most celebrated statues of antiquity, already
existed, while Hellenic painting exhibited no knowledge of
chiaro-scuro and was wholly destitute of harmony.
Apollodoros and after him Zeuxis, master and disciple,[964] who
flourished about the ninetieth Olympiad, were the first who rendered
themselves remarkable for a knowledge of light and shade.[965] But,
arrived at this pitch, the beauty of the art began to be felt, picture
galleries were commenced in various temples,[966] and, a new world of
forms and colours disclosing itself to the imagination, the versatile
Greeks transferred to it a large share of the admiration hitherto
monopolised by sculpture. Painting, in fact, speaks a more popular
language. It tells a story, while sculpture can but embody a thought
or fix an incident. Its accessories realise events more completely.
The Apollo, in sculpture, has bent his bow and discharged his
arrow—the remainder of the action the imagination must shape for
itself. Painting gives us the whole scene teeming with life,—the
writhing dragon, the rocks, the woods, the mountain, the sky, with all
the illusions spread before the eye by many-coloured light. Sculpture
furnishes the nucleus of glorious associations, but ’tis we that must
group them into sublime beauty. It asks more knowledge, more fancy,
more in short of every element of genius in its admirers than does
painting. Hence the latter will always number, and justly, more
partisans. In most persons a preference for sculpture would be mere
affectation. It cannot equally please the many.
Footnote 964:
Winkel. iv. 1. 16.
Footnote 965:
Quintil. xii. 10. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxv. 36.
Footnote 966:
In the Stoa of Dionysos, at Rhodes, there was a picture gallery
filled with historical and mythic pieces.—Luc. Amor. § 8. Similar
exhibitions appear to have existed at Cnidos, in the portico of
Sostratos.—§ 11. Works of art, sacred to the gods, were likewise
treasured up at home.—§ 16. In some temples, we learn, even
pictures of immoral tendency, by Parrhasios and others, were
admitted.—Lobeck, Aglaopham. p. 606. Aristotle takes from this
circumstance occasion to sneer at the religion of paganism which
patronised such excesses.—Polit. vii. 15. p. 255. Gœttl.
However, in proportion as the public became more enlightened, and, to
justify its admiration and enthusiasm, imposed harder conditions on
artists, the latter enlarged the circle of their studies, which
gradually expanded until it embraced a certain portion of metaphysics,
the science of form and colours, with that art of grouping and
arrangement which constitutes a species of narrative in painting. A
complete exposition of their studies would be the best manual which
could be put into the hands of contemporary artists, and at the same
time would furnish the best explanation of their seemingly
inexplicable superiority. But such an exposition would be out of place
here. My object is simply to hint at what may be done, not to attempt
it myself; and to show, that if the Greek nation afforded
encouragement to its artists, it was because those artists met their
countrymen more than half way, and laboured to deserve encouragement.
There existed in Greece a philosophy of art, that is, a perfect theory
of what its object is, and of all the means by which that object may
be accomplished. Now the object of art is delight, a delight which
aggrandises and ennobles the mind, and such delight is only to be
obtained through the contemplation of the beautiful. This conviction
established, the studies of the Greek artist were directed to the
discovery of the elements of the beautiful, not such as it exists in
the original types of the intellectual world (which he abandoned to
the philosopher), but such as we find it in material developements of
the ideal, and chiefly in the forms of our own species.
Their researches, conducted in a philosophical spirit, by degrees
taught them that perfect beauty, like perfect happiness, consists in
absolute serenity and repose. Thus, the heavens are beautiful when in
the noon of a summer’s day their blue depths are unstained by a cloud,
and not a breath is heard among the trees. Thus, the ocean is
beautiful when the most perfect calm broods upon it, and has smoothed
down every ripple and converted it into a mirror for reflecting the
cerulean purity of the sky. And this is what the poets signify when
they represent Aphrodite, the very soul of beauty and of love,
springing up from the level and glittering surface of such a sea. In
the same state the human countenance is most beautiful, when every
feature in the most perfect equilibrium breathes of calm, joy, and
serenity, and by the force of sympathy converts all who approach it
into so many mirrors reflecting its absolute bliss. This is the secret
of that beauty which exists in Grecian sculpture.
It was a maxim of Greek philosophy, that the magnanimous man is
seldom, under any circumstances, disturbed. In action, therefore, he
would exhibit the same tranquil countenance as when at rest. Thus,
Socrates at Potidæa, at Delion, in the Prison of the Eleven about to
quaff the hemlock, would in looks be much the same. And this
self-command, observable in one great man, art attributed generally to
the gods and heroes, who, in whatever actions they might be engaged,
would still retain a self-possessed and serene aspect. Hence, even the
battle-pieces of the Greeks are beautiful. Men fight and die, but
under the guidance of duty. We behold none of those demoniacal
passions, nothing of that animal ferocity, or of that succumbing to
pain which convert so many modern pictures into slaughter-house
representations. We feel that the actors contemplated death only as
the distributor of imperishable glory,—that imagination had coloured
everything around them with its rainbow tints,—that by anticipation
they enjoyed the panegyric which would be pronounced over them in the
hearing of all they loved,—the monument which would be raised over
their ashes,—the deathless reward which would be bestowed on their
patriotism and valour in the historic page. To men, so feeling and so
thinking, where was the sting of death? They could compress eternity
into a moment, and grasp all future time, and live through it by the
irresistible force of imagination.
To be able to represent such forms and features, it was necessary to
study simultaneously the conceptions of the poets, and the progressive
developement of the human figure from infancy to age. From this study
resulted a body of experience, the fruit of innumerable comparisons,
out of which sprang that gradually corrected and improved and elevated
conception of the human figure which is denominated _the ideal_.
Instances, isolated from the great body of artistic study, have crept
into ordinary books, and been thereby invested with an air of
vulgarity. But this will not hinder the philosopher or the artist from
including them in his scheme of study and converting them into germs
of utility. In this part of their progress religion stepped in to the
aid of the artist. The several goddesses represented each a style of
women of whom they might be considered the original type. Aphrodite,
for example, represented the impassioned and tender,[967] naturally
parasites of man and too often frail; Hera, the chaste matron,
dignified, authoritative, energetic, but inclined to violence and
self-will; Artemis, reserved, modest, retiring, like a nun, was the
prototype of unspotted maidenhood, revered for its own purity; Athena,
perfect in intellect as in form, uniting the loveliness of Aphrodite,
the majesty of Hera, the delicacy and chastity of Artemis with the
wisdom of Zeus, constituted properly the ideal of womanhood, loftier
than Eve before the fall and such as it can exist only in the
imagination.
Footnote 967:
An ancient author has the following expression: οὐκοῦν τὸ θῆλυ, κᾄν
λίθινον ᾖ, φιλεῖται· τί δ᾽ εἴ τις ἔμψυχον εἶδε τοιοῦτον κάλλος;—Luc.
Amor. § 17.
Something very like which is found in Byron:
“There, too, the Goddess _loves in stone_, and fills
The air around with beauty.”
In search, however, of female forms to represent these ideal originals
artists travelled through the whole of Greece, gathering up as they
went those fragments of beauty which, when united, were to approach
perfection. They resembled Isis in search of the limbs of Osiris.
Sometimes, as at Crotona and Agrigentum, parents did not scruple to
expose their daughters naked to their eyes, that from them they might
fashion that loveliness which was to represent to their senses the
divine being they worshiped. But this excess of superstition was rare.
In general the Hetairæ, their mistresses and companions, served for
the models after which the soft divinities of Greece were moulded:
“If Queensberry to strip there’s no compelling,
’Tis from a handmaid we must take a Helen.”
Thus Phryne, idealised by art, became Aphrodite, Anadyomene in the
hands of Apelles, or Aphrodite of Cnidos in those of Praxiteles.
Childhood obtained its representative in Eros the god of love. Thus,
from infancy upwards, even to old age, the human form in all its
phases became the object of study to the Greek artist, not to be
servilely copied, but to be idealised, to be clothed with poetry, to
be divested of everything mean, gross, unspiritual, and embalmed in
eternal beauty. And their success is proved by this, that, even with
their works before them, modern artists have never been able
satisfactorily to imitate their excellences. Of this Winkelmann[968]
mentions some examples which have not come under my own notice.
“Although the best modern artists,” he says, “have striven to imitate
exactly the celebrated Medusa of the Strozzi cabinet at Rome, which,
nevertheless, is not a countenance of the highest beauty, an
experienced antiquary will always be able to distinguish the original
from the copy.” The same thing is true, he says, with respect to the
Pallas of Aspasios, engraved by Natter and others. But this is
perfectly intelligible. The original artist, working after his own
ideas and comprehending thoroughly his own object, would impart to his
creations a flexibility, a grace, a freedom, not to be reached by one
whose type existed out of his own mind. For even in literature it is
thus—language, malleable, expansive, obedient to control in the hands
of the original writer, who breathes into it his own ideas and
requires it only to drape them, becomes a stiff unmanageable mass with
the imitator like a corpse put in motion by galvanism.
Footnote 968:
Hist. de l’Art, iv. 2. 23.
To be conversant with the arts of Greece, is to move among a race of
gods endued with eternal youth. In the goddesses the small neck, the
undeveloped bosom convey the idea of virgin innocence. The nipple
shrinking inward retreats from the eye. Over the visage a radiance
indescribable appears to play; the form, whether draped or undraped,
suggests the idea of divine unfleeting existence—of the poetry of life
and love—such as youth dreams of in its purest aspirations. For the
gods our feelings are in a slight degree different. Zeus, invested
with the majesty of Olympos, in the fulness of manhood, powerful,
beautiful, sublime, awakens in us a mingling of reverence and love, as
towards a father. Apollo towers like an elder brother above our heads.
Hades, Poseidon, Ares are powers whom we do not love. Mighty they
were, but strangers whom our sympathies do not cling to. But Dionysos,
with his vine garland and beautiful face of friendship, with Eros and
Heracles and the heroic twins and Hephæstos and Seilenos, and the
Fauns, with every haunter of grove, or spring, or mountain seem
familiar all and formed to inspire and repay affection. They are
spirits of joy every one of them. They have lived from boyhood in our
dreams, they have constituted one principal link in binding us to the
past, one principal argument in favour of Grecian genius: and who can
do otherwise than love them? Nay, in some measure, when we consider
their manifold escapes from time and barbarism, they appear to us as
Othello to Desdemona—we “love _them_ for the dangers they have
passed,”—and it asks no faith in miracles to persuade us that they
“love _us_ that we do pity them.”
Winkelmann, who on so many questions connected with art has put
forward opinions highly just and philosophical, appears to have fallen
short of his wonted acumen in the theory he had formed of the beauty
of the goddesses. His language in fact descends to puerility where he
says:—"Since on the subject of female beauty there are few
observations to be made, it may be concluded that the study of it is
less complicated and far easier for the artist. Nature itself appears
to experience less difficulty in the formation of women than of men,
_if it be true_ that there are born fewer boys than girls."[969] Since
the direct contrary is true, this imaginary difficulty of Nature (not
to hazard a more sacred word) may be dismissed with contempt; but the
remark by which it is ushered in requires to be confuted. Artists are
well aware, and Winkelmann himself admits, that the beau ideal of
heroic beauty (that for example of Achilles or of Theseus) is merely
the blending of feminine loveliness with masculine power, so as to
leave it undetermined, from the countenance, to which sex it belongs.
And still the beauty of the Grecian youth, where they are beautiful,
consists in a near approach to that of the female, so near indeed that
they might be easily mistaken for women. If, therefore, the beauty of
men when highest and most perfect, consists chiefly in what it borrows
from that of woman, the latter necessarily constitutes the apex of
human beauty; and the artist whom this conviction guides in his
creations, will be the first to rival the great masters of antiquity.
Another observation which it is strange to find in the Historian of
Art, is that artists draped their female figures because of the little
difficulty there is in imitating the naked form. But was it the
extreme facility of representing paternal grief that led Timanthes to
veil the face of his Agamemnon? In draping their goddesses and
heroines, artists were guided by other reasons, of which the principal
was their desire to conform to the ideas of the poets and to popular
belief.
Footnote 969:
Hist. de l’Art, iv. 2. 67.
CHAPTER X.
HELLENIC LITERATURE.
From the arts the transition is natural to the literature[970] of
Greece, which in the historical period necessarily constituted the
principal agent in ripening and stamping their peculiar character upon
the fruits of education among the people. Literature is in fact the
school-mistress of nations. In it so long as it remains entire, we may
contemplate the whole character, intellectual and moral, of the race
out of whose passions, yearnings, tastes, and energies it may be said
to be fashioned. And this, true of all literature, is especially
applicable to that of Greece, which more than any other bears the
impress of nationality. Every idea, every image, every maxim, every
reflection seems to emanate from one source. Nothing is foreign.
Neither the inspiration, nor the spirit which regulated it and moulded
it into beauty, borrowed a single impulse from anything existing
beyond the circle of Hellenic thought. Greece supplied at once the
matrix and the materials, the active power and that delicate sense of
beauty and perfection which presided over its organisation and
rendered it the delight of mankind.
Footnote 970:
Speaking of the influence of literature on education Plato remarks,
that persons accustomed from their infancy to the loftier and purer
inspirations of the muse will regard with contempt everything mean
or illiberal; whereas they who have always been familiar with low
and vulgar compositions will look upon all other literature as tame
and insipid.—De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 30.
In characterising this literature many singular notions have been
broached. We have been told that its spirit is exclusively masculine,
which means, of course, that while it abounds with strength and
energy, with sublimity of speculation and impassioned and impetuous
impulses, it is wanting in that sweetness, delicacy, grace, and
tenderness which confer on the intellectual offspring of some modern
nations a feminine aspect. Grecian literature, however, is neither
masculine nor feminine, but androgynous like the son of Aphrodite and
Hermes. There is no excellence of thought or language, of which, even
in its present fragmentary state, it does not offer us some example.
There is a predominance, doubtless, of stern grandeur and colossal
elevation of thought; but, beside these, we discover frequently
modifications of light and airy beauty, infantine purity of sentiment,
ease, grace, felicitous negligence, and a dreamy luxury of speculation
not to be outdone by the most subtile and fanciful literature
existing. If there be a deficiency of any thing, it is of
spirituality. The imagination of the Greeks confined itself too
rigidly perhaps to this “bank and shoal of time.” Not being able to
lift the veil which curtains the realms beyond the grave, it busied
itself too little about those things with which the disembodied soul
must converse for ever. In most Greek writers there is a visible
reluctance to walk amid the forms of Hades. Their fancy will not be
conducted beyond the limits of the visible universe, but shudders,
rears and reverts its eyes towards the light where alone it finds firm
footing for speculation. But on the other hand if it refuse to quit
this earthly scene of existence, how glorious is the flood of sunshine
and splendour which it pours over it! It is in these walks of
literature that we discover truly the freshness and the loveliness of
morning. The very clouds that hover over the landscape only add to its
majesty, by diversifying the prospect and introducing those shadows
and contrasts which the mind delights everywhere to discover.
Poets,[971] it is constantly repeated, commence in every country the
mental movement which evolves civilisation out of the chaos of
barbarism; but it remains a mystery how and by what they themselves
are moved. There may possibly be something more than a figure of
speech in the old affirmation that they were inspired of heaven. Their
imagination towered to so great a height that it was kindled by the
lamps of the firmament, and may be regarded as that fabled Prometheus
who applied the flame of science to the human clay. I do not therefore
see what objection can be urged against our maintaining the old
doctrine that poets partook and partake still, when their minds are
pure, of a divine impulse—that to the infant nations of the earth they
were teachers commissioned from on high.
Footnote 971:
Cf. Lil. Gyrald. Opp. t. ii. p. 2. “Nihil traditum videbis in
religionibus et mysteriis, nihil in theologiâ et philosophiâ
aliisque bonis artibus à principio fuisse sine poeticâ, ita ut hoc
verè me tibi dicturum existimem, ex omnibus disciplinis unam hanc
divinam extitisse, quasi totius vitæ magistram.”
The condition of the mind in those early ages when poets were the only
oracles, it is difficult for men surfeited with the luxuries of a
prolific literature to comprehend. Among the Arabs of the desert we
may still perhaps discover something similar. Deprived of books, but
enjoying much leisure, they eagerly treasure up in their memories the
moral distich, the apologue, the tale which instructs while it
delights, and thus mentally furnished with a few weapons they are
often wiser in deliberation, more persuasive in discourse, more ready
in action than persons of education in civilised countries, whose
intellectual armoury is so full that in the moment of danger they know
not what weapon to choose. Poets, among such a race and under such
circumstances, feel that they have a high mission to fulfil; their
endeavours are not by polished rhythmical trifles to amuse a few rich
and noble persons, but to clothe in befitting language and marry to
immortal verse those great central truths, upon which the whole system
of the future world of civilisation must revolve. We find them always
curiously adapting their revelations to the times. First, the great
fundamental truths of religion, the basis of the social structure, are
infused into the public mind. Next the rudiments of politics and
legislation, the precepts of agriculture, the leading rules of the
useful arts, the observances of civil life, and the first faint
whispers of the passions and affections are treasured up in their
lays. Then, growing bolder by degrees, they aim at subduing the whole
empire of knowledge, and impetuously, with numerous charms and
allurements, hurry mankind forward in a sort of orgiastic rapture to
the very threshold of philosophy.
Among the earliest names in the literary traditions of Hellas are
those of Olen, Pamphos, Musæos and Orpheus,[972] who, for their
wisdom, are said to be sprung from the gods. They were sacred bards,
whose genius obtained for them an ascendency over the minds of their
countrymen. Yet all they attempted, perhaps, was to teach the doctrine
of prayer, thanksgiving, sacrifice, which, being afterwards
misunderstood, caused them to be confounded with those impostors and
incantation-mongers, who, in more recent times, granted absolutions
and sold indulgences both to individuals and states, with a hardihood
worthy of Giovanni di Medici. Musæos, older probably than Orpheus,
though sometimes regarded as his disciple, is said by certain
traditions to have been a teacher of ethics, who delivered a body of
moral precepts in four thousand verses. His country is unknown,—for he
is now represented as an Athenian, now as a Thracian,—but his name and
the name of Orpheus and Eumolpos are associated with the expiations,
orgies, mysteries, celebrated during many ages in honour of Demeter
and Dionysos.[973] We must rest content, however, with very imperfect
notions of what they were, for, in looking back at these great men,
whom we behold on the edge of the horizon, enlarged like the sun at
its setting by misty exhalations, but by the same means rendered dim
and obscure, we can form no just idea of their character.
Footnote 972:
Plato de Repub. t. ii. p. 113. seq. Stallb.—De Legg. t. vii. p. 243.
Bek. Athen. i. 24. Paus. ix. 27. 2. Diog. Laert. Proœm. iv. 5.
Footnote 973:
Muret. in Plat. Rep. p. 699. seq. Cf. Lil. Gyrald. ii. 5. Wolf.
Proleg. in Homer. p. 51.
These, however, and such as these, were the men who fabricated the
first link in that chain of thought and beauty, which, stretching over
the gulf of time and fastened to the skies, still holds up the nations
of the earth from sinking into barbarism. Literature is degraded when
contemplated as an art or as an amusement. It is a paradise, into
which the best fruits of the soul, when arrived at their greatest
maturity and beauty, are transplanted to bloom in immortal freshness
and fragrance. It is the garner wherein the seeds of religion, virtue,
morals, national greatness and individual happiness are preserved for
the use of humanity. It is a gallery, where the likenesses of all the
great and noble souls who have shed light and glory on the earth, are
treasured up as the heirloom and palladium of the human race. It is
impossible, therefore, for any but the most sordid minds to look back
towards the venerable fathers of literature without a deep thrill of
filial reverence and love, conjoined with the generous impulse and
yearning desire to enlarge and add fresh brightness to the halo which
encircles their names. They were not, what since too many have been,
the instruments and panders to the pleasures of worldlings. Conscious
of the holy mission wherewith, according to their creed, the father of
gods and men had intrusted them, they stood forward as the apostles of
truth, encircled by the majesty which a sense of divine inspiration
must impart. They felt a harmony within their souls which, in
manifesting itself, sought the aid of harmonious language; and hence
the precepts of wisdom, distilling from their lips like honey from the
honeycomb, moulded themselves naturally into verse, at whose sound the
fountains of the great deep of knowledge were broken up, and the
windows of heaven opened, and a deluge of philosophy and science and
intellectual delight poured forth upon the amazed world.
In what age or province of Greece arose the first minister of this
poetical revelation, it is not now possible to decide. The art of
writing, however, which the Egyptian king regarded as the enemy of
memory, had not passed the Ægæan. The songs men heard were wafted on
the wings of music from tongue to tongue, and, by degrees, the
professors of this marvellous art, by which the wisdom and the glory
of the past were embalmed in the sweets of verse, embodied themselves
into a distinct order called Aoidoi or Singers.[974] The life of these
men in the remote ages of antiquity is little known to us. Wanderers,
however, for the most part they were, in some respects not unlike the
Jongleurs and Troubadours of the middle ages, though occupying a
higher station and guided by a higher aim. Their first and ostensible
object was, doubtless, to delight; but it is of great importance to
inspire men with a delight in lofty and ennobling conceptions,—to
withdraw them for a moment from pursuits sordid or brutalising or
unmanly, to the contemplation of heroic acts,—of honour, of
patriotism, of friendship,—of the great and solid advantages accruing
from peace and commerce, and the experience of travel and adversity.
Footnote 974:
Cf. Wolf. Proleg. in Hom. p. 73. 93. sqq.
What were the rewards they obtained it is easy to conjecture. They
consisted, principally, in the rays of joy reflected back upon them by
a thousand happy countenances at once. Gain they neither would nor
could regard. He who renders multitudes wise and happy must be happy
and wise himself; and wisdom scorns to measure its gifts against gold.
The truly wise and great man, therefore, if fortune have originally
befriended him, will shower his benefactions, as God his rain,
liberally and without distinction upon all; and if necessity compel
him to receive some return, his moderation will content itself with
the least possible amount. Embraced within the circle of refinement
which they themselves had created, however, they gradually became
secularised, though we must be careful to distinguish them from their
successors of a later age. The prodigious admiration which they and
their songs excited may be learned from those passages in Homer where
Phemios and Demodocos are introduced, and from that animated dialogue
of Plato, in which the rhapsodist Ion describes his office and his
audience. It has been justly remarked, that if this man, a mere actor,
could hurry into whatever channel he pleased the affections of a whole
theatre, melt them into tears, fire them with indignation, or clothe
their countenances with the smiles of joy, much more would the poets
themselves work upon their passions by an art far nearer nature.
Care must, no doubt, be taken not to confound the Rhapsodists with the
Aoidoi who preceded them, though it be certain that the manners and
condition of the later race may serve to throw considerable light on
those of the earlier. Both have recently much occupied the attention
of the learned; and Wolff in particular deserves credit for his
defence of the Rhapsodists, into which, however, he was chiefly led by
the requirements of his celebrated theory. They were certainly, at
first, a remarkable order of men, whom it would be injurious to
confound with their frivolous representatives in the age of Plato and
Xenophon. Nevertheless, the above distinguished scholar is perhaps
inclined to exaggerate their merits, since to them, in his opinion, we
owe it that the great Homeric poems have come down to us. But this is
taking for granted the matter in dispute between him and his
opponents, who maintain that the author of the Iliad and Odyssey
possessed both the knowledge and the materials for writing. He, with
reason however, assumes that both theatrical and oratorical action
found a way opened for them by the rhapsodic art, though its
professors were neither actors nor orators, but men exercising an
office connected with a peculiar state of society, and no longer
existing in modern times.
It has often been supposed, grounding the opinion on a false
interpretation of the word _rhapsodist_, that the members of this
fraternity were mere compilers or patchers up of poems from fragments
pilfered out of various authors. And, to augment the absurdity, the
practice of a recent age has been attributed to remote antiquity,
when, as some imagine, the great rhapsodists like a modern lecturer,
carried about with them pictures of the subject they were upon, and
pointed out to the audience with a stick[975] the various characters
or incidents they might be describing. Another error much insisted on
by Wolff, is the supposition that the Homeric poems alone were chanted
by the older Rhapsodists, which no doubt is contrary to the testimony
of antiquity and to common sense. For, as might naturally be
concluded, not only the songs of Hesiod[976] and the whole epic race
were thus publicly sung, but those likewise of the lyric and iambic
poets, and the very laws of the state when the legislator happened to
have composed them in verse. It must nevertheless be remarked, (though
of this Wolff takes no notice,) that so much did recitations of
Homer’s works predominate over all others, that Rhapsodists and
Homerists were often regarded as synonymous terms;[977] and even in
later ages, when at any rate the art of writing was not unknown,
Demetrius Phalereus introduced upon the stage a class of reciters,
who, down to the days of Athenæus, enjoyed the name of Homerists.
Still, as I have observed above, the works of other good poets were at
times recited, as Hesiod, Archilochos, Mimnermos, and Phocylides. Nay,
the Rhapsodist Mnasion, as Lysanias relates, used to recite the
Iambics of Simonides; Cleomenes, the Purifications of Empedocles, and
Hegesius the comedian, the Histories of Herodotus; that is, some
portions of them I presume. Certain authors delivered their own
productions in this way,[978] as Xenophanes, who composed both epics,
elegies and iambics.[979]
Footnote 975:
Anim. ad Athen. xii. p. 371. Cf. Suid. v. Ῥαψῳδοί. t. ii. p. 678.
Etym. Mag. 703. 32. Aristoph. Concionat. 674.
Footnote 976:
Ῥαψῳδὸν δὲ, καλῶς Ἰλίαδα καὶ Ὀδυσσεῖαν ἢ τι τῶν Ἡσωδείων διατιθέντα,
τάχ᾽ ἂν ἡμεῖς οἱ γέροντες ἥδιστα ἀκούσαντες νικᾷν ἂν φαῖμεν
πάμπολο.—Plat. de Legg. ii. t. vii. p. 243. Bekk. Again: Ἅμα δὲ
ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι ἔν τε ἄλλοις ποιηταῖς διατρίβειν πολλοῖς κᾀγαθοῖς
καὶ δὴ καὶ μάλιστα ἐν Ὁμήρῳ, κ. τ. λ. Ion. Plat. Opp. t. ii. p. 172.
Footnote 977:
Ὅτι δ᾽ ἐκαλοῦντο οἱ ῥαψῳδοὶ καὶ Ὁμηρισταὶ Ἀριστοκλῆς εἴρηκε, κ. τ.
λ.—Athen. xiv. 12.
Footnote 978:
Athen. xiv. 12.
Footnote 979:
Diog. Laert. ix. 18.
It has with reason been observed that although the name of the
rhapsodic art would seem to have been invented posterior to Homer, the
thing itself existed long before, and was held in greater honour than
at any subsequent period. In fact, the poets of those times were
themselves Rhapsodists, and for many ages the only ones, if it be true
that Hesiod[980] was the first who reduced the chanting of other men’s
poems into an art. Afterwards, from the age of Terpander the Lesbian
(Olymp. 34) down to Cynæthos of Chios (Olymp. 69) supposed to have
been the author of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, and a man of
distinguished genius, the Rhapsodists sometimes chanted the poems of
others, sometimes their own, and occasionally perhaps interpolated new
verses into the golden relics of the past, as our modern actors often
foist their one-legged jokes into the stage text of Shakespeare. There
appears, however, to be no foundation for the notion, that nearly
every one of these chanters was likewise a clever poet, which no
ancient writer, I believe, asserts, and which the assertions of fifty
would not render credible, though the probability is, that of those
numerous rhapsodists some were themselves poets, and others desirous,
without the genius, of being thought such; so that it is quite as
likely that their vanity frequently laid claim to the works of others,
where detection could be escaped, as that others were suffered to rob
them of their just fame.
Footnote 980:
Ῥαψωδῆσαι φησὶ πρῶτον τὸν Ἡσιοδὸν Νικοκλῆς.—Schol. Pind. Nem. ii. 1.
Cf. Dissen. ad loc. Wolf. Proleg. p. 96. sqq.
They who contend for the flourishing of the system of castes in
Greece, would probably maintain that the Rhapsodists constituted from
the first _a clan_, as the Homeridæ are said to have been in
Chios.[981] Among the few arts which commanded the undivided time and
study of numerous professors in those ages, that of the Aoidos or
Poet, was certainly one, and that, too, the most honoured and revered.
Doubtless their characters were pure and noble, to overcome the envy
which superior abilities usually inspire. For whether at home or
abroad, in their native cities no less than in the public assemblies,
and at the festive boards of kings, they were regarded as dear to gods
and venerable to men. The Rhapsodists likewise enjoyed the same
estimation and led the same kind of life until other studies and other
manners, with that most debasing of all passions, the love of gain,
brought contempt on their profession and pursuits.[982]
Footnote 981:
Schol. Pind. Nem. ii. 1. Etym. Mag. 623. 50.
Footnote 982:
Payne Knight, Proleg. in Hom. § 13. 28.
In the Homeric poems themselves we discover abundant proofs of the
high honour in which the professors of the poetical art were held by
their countrymen. They fulfilled in Greece[983] the office performed
among the Hebrews by the Schools of the Prophets,[984] or the solitary
possessors of the vaticinatory power who revealed to their countrymen
the will of heaven, and taught by what practices it might be
propitiated. Some institution of this kind probably existed, as I have
already observed, from the very dawn of civilisation which it
principally created. Most princes, like Agamemnon, Alcinoüs and
Odysseus, retained in their palaces a man at once their chaplain and
their laureate, who, when guests foreign or domestic assembled at
their board, might administer instruction and delight, by chanting the
praises of the gods, the exploits or greatness of their ancestors, or
even by delivering precepts in morals or the useful arts. To a poet,
also, as to the holiest of guardians, kings entrusted the care of
their wives and families,[985] when departing on distant expeditions;
and so great was the veneration paid to their character, that we find
Clytemnæstra banishing the poet before she dares to become the
paramour of Ægisthos.
Footnote 983:
Athen. i. 16.
Footnote 984:
Cf. Sigon. de Rep. Hebræorum v. 9. Godwin, Moses et Aaron, i. 6.
Footnote 985:
But the δόμων προφῆται in Æschylus (Agam. 377 Klausen,) were
household prophets, who not only disclosed the secrets of the future
and interpreted dreams, but acted also the part of counsellors in
present emergencies, and treasured up the records of the past.
Apollo is called the Prophet of Zeus, because he receives oracles
from him.—Eum. 19. 618. So Amphiaraos is denominated a great
prophet.—Sept. c. Theb. 611.
See the comment of Klausen, Agam. p. 143. seq.-Notice of the
household interpreters of dreams δόμων ὀνειρόμαντες and again κριταὶ
τῶν ὀνειράτων (Choep. 36. 39), is found in several parts of
Æschylus, who loved to furnish traits of these old superstitions. In
the Persians we find Atossa speaking of the τῶν ἐνυπνίων κριτὴς
(226) as a person of supernatural powers.
But those men of great original genius whose fame spread rapidly,
and who probably found superior enjoyment in the independence of a
wandering life, not content with the patronage of a single prince,
or the admiration of a single people, moved perpetually from land to
land, enhancing at once their glory and experience. We in fact
discover in Homer, Pindar, and other original poets proofs that the
flowers from which they collected the honey of their melodies grew
not all on one spot. Odysseus was a type of the bard who sang his
adventures, and looking still further back we find the Thracian
Thamyris, whom the Muses were said to have punished for his vanity,
penetrating into the obscurest parts of Peloponnesos, protected by
the sanctity of his character and the reverence due to his
profession.[986]
With respect to Homer, both ancient tradition and the form and spirit
of his poems, require us to consider him in this light, though there
is no ground for supposing him with Payne Knight to have celebrated
the different heroes of Greece for the purpose of ingratiating himself
with their descendants.
Footnote 986:
Iliad β. 590. sqq. Payne Knight, Proleg. § 74.
Those writers who imagine the works of Homer to have been composed
fortuitously by a club of poets, all actuated by a blind instinct to
produce a number of parts which, when completed, should fit as well
together as the several members of a statue, are necessarily desirous
to establish two points: first, that the Aoidoi recited their works
from memory, and that because, secondly, the art of writing was
unknown. By far too much ingenuity has already been expended on this
question to allow it to be any longer tempting from its novelty. Wolff
and Heyne have obtained all the credit they sought by their visionary
hypothesis, and the echoes of their scepticism are not yet silenced in
the academies and universities. The argument, derived from the
practice of the Rhapsodists, of repeating from memory, is attended by
two inconveniences: first, it cannot be shown that the order arose
before the art of writing was common; second, these recitations were
equally made from memory, not only in the age of Pericles, but down to
the latest period of their flourishing. It may, therefore, without the
slightest risk to the argument, be granted the academic sceptics that
the Rhapsodists recited from memory, even when we know with certainty
that they learned the poems from written copies.
To render more credible the notion that the art of writing in the age
of Homer was not yet known, great stress is laid on the powers of
memory in certain individuals, though from these nothing can in
reality be inferred, except, that when necessary, men can certainly
remember a great deal. It matters little, however, for my present
purpose, whether the Iliad and Odyssey were written by one man or by a
hundred; the grandeur of the poetry remains, and to it as a great
fountain-head may be traced several principal streams of Hellenic
civilisation.
Plato, indeed, who laboured so assiduously in enlarging the empire and
corroborating the powers of the human understanding, at times
maintained the fancy that little benefit had been conferred on Greece
by her bard. He observes, but in a manner so ironical that it is
difficult to determine his meaning, that if Homer and Hesiod had
possessed the gift of improving their contemporaries in virtue they
would never have been suffered to wander about chanting their poems.
People, he thinks, would have constrained them by benefits to remain
with them, or, not succeeding in this, would have quitted their homes
to attend their footsteps, as in his age many did in the case of the
sophists.[987]
Footnote 987:
De Rep. x. 4. t. ii. 318. Stallb.
At the same time he admits the general opinion to have been that Homer
was the great preceptor of Hellas, who taught the sciences of politics
and ethics, together with the whole discipline and economy of human
life.[988] Perhaps, notwithstanding his great wisdom and his genius,
he looked upon the question from a wrong point of view, regarding
poetry as the rival rather than the precursor of philosophy. The
mission of the former had, however, in his time been in a great
measure accomplished, as far, I mean, as concerned positive teaching;
and he did not consider that as civilisation advances and materialises
nations the curb of poetry is the more required to check their
downward tendencies, and direct their head towards the skies. The
object of poetry is to keep alive in the human breast the love of
whatever is noble and beautiful, to dazzle the worldling from the
worship of gold by showing him something more glorious than anything
that gold can purchase, to accomplish the apotheosis of pure
affection, of virtue, of disinterestedness, of great passions, of
patriotism,—and in Homer all this is effected with a spontaneous
energy, which like the ocean appears equal to bear the whole weight of
humanity clothed with all its attributes upon its breast.
Footnote 988:
De Rep. x. 7. t. ii. 336.
Greece has no poet worthy to be compared with our Shakespeare and our
Milton but Homer, who possesses some advantages over them both.
Shakespeare, buoyant and full of life as was his spirit, felt
evidently the waves of his imagination lapse at times from about him
and leave his mind stranded and bare on the shores of the immeasurable
universe. Melancholy creeps over him, like a black vapour, concealing
the Titanian head wont to tower above the region of the clouds. Even
over Milton’s soul, serene in its fiery brightness as it usually is, I
think I discover something which at times obscures his faith in
himself and human nature, and produces a flagging of the fancy. But in
Homer this never appears. Cheerfully and joyously he pursues his
course with eternal sunshine on his brow, and a heart beating full and
true, as if the life of all the world were within him. There is no end
of his vitality. He seems as if he could never grow old. His strength
is inexhaustible. Equal to whatever may happen, he nowhere seems to be
hurried by his subject, or compelled to strain a nerve to accomplish
what he desires. In himself he appears happy as a god, and only to
sympathise in human suffering from the boundlessness of his charity.
He comes forth as the sun in the morning, full of brightness, showing
all the tears that sprinkle the earth and drying them too, but
shedding none. We call him old, though in reality he is all
youthfulness and love. Every function of life goes on harmoniously in
his frame. He enjoys whatever nature brings within the circle of his
experience. He drinks in with rapture the freshness of dawn,—basks
smilingly in the blaze of noon,—welcomes the stillness of evening—the
solemn grandeur of night. Sleep, too, has for him inexpressible
charms, and on the pleasures we taste among its bowers he has bestowed
every grateful, every endearing epithet. Milton is far more spiritual,
and careers in a course nearer the stars. Shakespeare, in his
metaphysical subtlety and yearning to pierce beyond the grave,
suggests stranger thoughts, and calls up a wilder world of fancies.
But Homer, as if admitted behind the veil, never doubts for a moment.
Habitually, too, his thoughts are of action, of man as he is, of the
virtue of the citizen, of the soldier, of the husband, of the father,
of the son, of the wife. He loved the world and all that it contains.
His eye could detect beauty where the atrabilious sceptic beholds
nothing but deformity.
Hence the universal fame and admiration of his writings. For, wherever
a well-spring of delight exists, the world will discover it and have
recourse to it for ever. The tragic poets who took up his mantle
differed widely from him both in temper and character. The experiment
of civilisation had been tried, and been the cause of less happiness
than at the outset it seemed to promise. A spirit of dissatisfaction
had consequently grown up in society, which, shaken by convulsions
within and assaulted from without by storms, appeared to be fast
resolving into its original elements. Upon the minds of the tragic
poets there accordingly fell a gloomy shadow. They looked backwards
and around them, and were saddened by the view of terrible pictures
which the dark pencil of Fate was constantly filling up. The
inexplicable influence of events upon the inner organisation of man
had caused them too, and their contemporaries equally, to delight in
gloom, in slaughter, in revenge, in exhibitions of suffering,
analogous in many cases to what they beheld their countrymen inflict
upon each other.
Observe the creations of Æschylus:[989] in them, pregnant all with
Miltonic haughtiness, energy, grandeur, we already discover symptoms
of profound discontent with the character of actual existence and an
invincible yearning towards the past. He seemed desirous to haunt the
imaginations of his contemporaries with gigantic phantoms, quarried
out of the wrecks of a vanished ethical system, in which such
greatness found congeniality and sympathy. His ideas seemed to clothe
themselves spontaneously in language of massive structure, like a
Cyclopean wall, such as before or since no man ever used. He projected
himself by the force of meditation into the heroic spheres, conversed
there with mighty shades, acquired among them stern principles of
action, of thought, of belief, of composition; and with these he
sought to inspire the men of his own time. His object seems less to
delight than to overawe, to persuade than to command. His ideas move
along the highest arch of imagination which spans the universe from
pole to pole, or rise out of a sea of darkness which they illuminate
for a moment like lightning flashes in their passage.
Footnote 989:
The plays of this poet, like those of Shakespeare, were, in
succeeding ages, altered for the stage—Quint. Instit. Orat. x. 1.
The orator, Lycurgus, procured a decree, ordering the tragedies of
the three poets to be copied, and statues to be erected in their
honour.—Plut. Vit. x. Orat.
All Æschylus’s more marked characters come before us invested with
marvellous attributes, and their voices awake a thrilling mysterious
echo in the depths of the soul. Prometheus, for example,—who or what
in poetry is like him? Some features of resemblance he may have to the
Satan of “Paradise Lost,” but only in his indomitable energy, in his
unconquerable will; in all other respects he stands differenced from
that “archangel ruined” by qualities the most remarkable. Towards
mankind he appears in the relation of supreme love. For their sake
alone he braves the anger of Zeus, who, in the tempest of vengeance
which he pours upon the naked form of this beneficent god, is
presented to the mind as a tyrannical oppressor. Again, in the
Erinnyes, what mysterious phantoms does he conjure up! The whole
scene, where black and blood-dripping they rise before the fancy in
the shrine of Delphi, is, beyond imagination, awe-inspiring and
sublime. Like Orestes himself, the fancy is haunted, as we read, by an
uneasy consciousness of their presence. They appear like the summits
of the infernal world, thrust up visibly into the world of reality.
They are frightful dreams endued with form and vitality, and walking
abroad to scare us even while waking. Never did faith in visionary
beings equal in strength the faith which he constrains us to have in
these his creations. The scent of blood fills the nostrils as we read.
We pant,—we shudder,—we expect to hear their footsteps on the carpet
behind us. Nevertheless the effect of Æschylus’ poetry is not, like
Byron’s, to humiliate or depress. On the contrary, it imparts to us
its energy as we read. It fills,—it expands,—it aggrandises,—it
elevates the mind.
Sophocles presents us with a wholly different type of genius. His
conceptions, without being gigantic, are still great, and have a
richness and roundness something like the form of woman. To him, as to
Raffaelle, the world appeared pregnant on all sides with beauty. Yet,
there was a vein of pensiveness in his fancy which, running through
all his works, imparts to them a witchery independent of the amount of
intellect displayed. He never, like Æschylus, transports us into the
dim twilight of mythology amidst the nodding ruins of systems and
creeds. However antique may be the subject which he treats, his
invention gives it completeness, and he brings it out fresh, glossy,
distinct, and beautiful as the creations of to-day. Æschylus carries
us back to the past, Sophocles brings the past forward to us. By a
vigorous exertion of genius he breathes life into things dead; melts
away from about them by his warm touch the hoar of antiquity; fills up
the outline; freshens the colours; converts them into contemporary
existencies. All his sympathies, healthy and true, cling to the things
around him: the religion, the form of polity, the climate, the soil of
Attica, invested with the beauty which they assumed in his plastic
vision, satisfied his desires. What he found not in realities he
bestowed upon them. He idealised his contemporaries. His poetry is
sunny as the Ægæan in spring, and a breeze as healthful and refreshing
breathes over it. Like the nightingale, whose music he loved, it comes
to us full of forgotten harmonies, re-awakening all the associations,
all the delights, all the hopes and aspirations of youth. Sweet and
musical, and replete with tenderness, are his marvellous chorusses.
They burst upon the heart like the first note of the cuckoo[990] in
the depths of a forest, curling round the mossy trunks of the
meditative old trees upon the ear.
Footnote 990:
In Greece heard early in the spring.—Sibthorp, in Walp. Mem. i. 75.
And then his female characters, in which above all things he excels.
Not Imogen herself, whose breath like violets perfumes the page of
Shakespeare, rises before us a more exquisite vision than Antigone, in
her maiden purity, her unfathomable tenderness, her holy affection,
filial and fraternal. Even Œdipos, supported and led into the light by
such a daughter, appears glorious as a god, his involuntary stains
worked off by years of suffering, his reverend old age garlanded by
calamity, wreathed with the tendrils and snowy blossoms of a
daughter’s love. And Tecmessa, does she not seem to be Desdemona
ripened into a mother? There is no poet who has pourtrayed a wife of
more unmingled gentleness, or who has better sounded the depths of a
mother’s heart. Her affection expands like an atmosphere round the boy
Eurysaces, menaced at once by treacherous enemies and by his father’s
madness, and casts a pure and bright ray over the sea of blood and
stormy passion and guilt that floats around her. His Dejanira,
likewise, is a character of great beauty; but in the Clytemnæstra and
Electra, in the Chrysothemis and Ismene, he has been less successful.
Among his male characters Œdipos is the masterpiece. Compounded of
ungovernable passion, a powerful will, a resolution invincible by
suffering, extreme in love or hate, he stands before us in heroic
grandeur, and like the sun’s orb dilates as he descends beneath the
horizon. Next to him in originality and beauty are Neoptolemos and
Teucer, youths of the greatest nobleness of soul, who contrast
strikingly with his fox-like Odysseus and the mean-souled imperial
brothers.
To Sophocles succeeds Euripides,[991] whose genius inspired Milton
with the deepest admiration, as it had before inspired Aristotle.
Resembling Sophocles as little as the latter resembles Æschylus, he is
more deeply imbued than either with the tragic spirit, interprets more
unerringly the language of passion and the heart, and unlocks more
surely the hidden springs of pity. In him, however, poetry is less an
instinct than an art. His intellect, lofty, powerful, penetrating,
ranged through the most untrodden paths of nature and philosophy,
grasped at all learning, at all experience, enriched itself with
prodigious stores of reflections, observations, imagery, over which it
possessed the most perfect mastery, to render them subservient to the
purposes of the drama. Other poets learned in effects, may exhibit
action with no less truth and skill; Euripides dares to unveil causes,
to give the wherefore and the why of actions, to descend into the
abysses of the mind and lay bare the curious mechanism, and, so to
say, central fires which produce and ripen our resolutions and our
demeanour.
Footnote 991:
This writer, like most of his poetical contemporaries, used
constantly to wear a tablet and stylus suspended to his
dress.—Athen. xiii. 45. The use in fact of memorandum books was
common.—Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 529.
Without the stern grandeur or the rich physical imagery of his
predecessors, he could more surely touch the feelings and create an
intense interest in the story of his tragedies. No man, moreover, has
given birth to nobler sentiments. A moral beauty broods over his
scenes; he elevates,—he enlarges,—he purifies the affections. Truths
of greatest importance make themselves wings of melody in his verse,
and fly across the gulf of two thousand years from him to us. Above
all things, he may almost be said to have discovered the inexhaustible
mine of love, whence he drew the gold that fashioned the divine image
of Alcestis, the noblest mixture of earth’s mould that ever bore the
name of woman. It is true this image is but dimly beheld. Perhaps no
genius, not even Shakespeare’s, could have filled up the outline of
unearthly beauty which Euripides dared to draw. It embodies all the
imagination ever conceived of love. Pure as the celestial Artemis,
impassioned to perfect disinterestedness, all devotion as a wife, all
tenderness as a mother,—content to die, yet jealous of posthumous
love,—sacrificing everything for her husband’s life, yet haunted by
the fear that death might snap the golden links of affection, she
issues forth like a celestial vision to take her farewell of the sun.
Euripides might well be proud of this creation. Not Andromache, not
Nausicaa, not even the far-famed consort of Odysseus can exceed in
truth and beauty his conception of Alcestis. Yet this is the poet whom
Aristophanes had the bad taste to overwhelm with unceasing ridicule,
and whom numerous critics, borrowing their canons from him, have
rashly pronounced languid and insipid.
Moving on a level below this is the character of Electra in the
Orestes. In the Alcestis we have rather the results than the
developement of inexpressible love, which
“raised a mortal to the skies.”
But Electra’s affection unfolds itself before us. There she watches
beside her brother’s bed, contending with the inexpiable guilt of
matricide, sharing his remorse but comforting him, herself oppressed,
yet courageously bearing up for his sake against the worst
“ills that flesh is heir to.”
With the most supreme delicacy is Polyxena conceived; and generally,
whatever may be said of Euripides’ aversion for the sex, it may be
affirmed that no poet has more ably or more nobly painted the female
character.
Passing next to comedy, of which Aristophanes must be regarded as the
representative, we have a department of literature peculiar to Greece,
for its comedy resembles that of no other country. It has never,
perhaps, been fairly characterised. They who take part with the poet
against the philosopher exaggerate his merits: the admirers of
Socrates, in revenge for the unjust death of that great man, generally
undervalue them. Let us endeavour to be just. Aristophanes was a poet
of vast genius, quick to perceive, and powerful to paint the
imperfections, vices, follies, weaknesses, miseries of man in society.
He was greedy, too, of reputation, in the acquisition of which he
spared neither men nor institutions. The youthful, the gay, the
thoughtless, reckoning laughter and amusement among the real wants of
life, (as to the weak and frivolous perhaps they are,) he undertook to
build his fame on easing the human character of those moral excrements
which pass off in grinning and mirth. There is, in fact, a load of
small malignity and mischief in most mental constitutions, which, if
not expelled, might obstruct the healthful play of the faculties.
Mirth is the form it assumes in its exit, and comedy is one of the
means provided by Nature for promoting its discharge.
Aristophanes, who comprehended at least this part of philosophy, found
an abundant harvest of follies in his fellow-citizens. He saw, too,
that of all men they possessed the most inexhaustible good-nature,—to
forgive if they could not profit by the satire which was directed
against themselves. No one could complain of them on this score. Their
risible muscles were at every man’s service who could coin a joke, or
make faces, or draw a caricature or enact one. Athens was, in fact,
the home of laughter: it was the weak side of the national character;
and never, since merry-making was invented, did a more skilful
manufacturer of this autochthonal production exist than Aristophanes.
He could make round things square, or straight crooked; he could
invest the noblest and most sacred things with burlesque and ridicule;
he could convert patriotism into a laughable weakness, genius into
puerility, virtue into a farce. He knew how to make the brave man (as
Lamachos) seem a mere gasconader; the man of genius (as Euripides) a
dealer in rhythmical jingles; the possessor of highest wisdom and most
unsullied integrity a babbling impostor and a thief. Such were his
prodigious powers. Another excellence he had, not unakin to the
former; he could, when it suited his purpose, place the most nefarious
vices on the same level with very harmless foibles, so that both
should appear equally laughable or equally odious.
But the Athenians must have been a base people had these been the
qualities which rendered him popular. They were not: on the contrary,
they formed the great drawback on his reputation. His attack on
Socrates caused the first cast of the Clouds to be hooted off the
stage. But great and crying as were his delinquencies against morals
and philosophy, his genius triumphed, and he became popular in spite
of them; and in spite of them he has continued to be a favourite among
scholars down to the present day. No mean amount of creative power
could have achieved a triumph like this. He possessed, in fact, the
quality, whatever it be, which confers vitality on the offspring of
the mind. Each of his plays, however extravagant its conceptions,
however improbable the plot or wild the scene or fantastic the
characters, still developes a distinct cycle of existences into which
the breath of everlasting life has been breathed. To every individual
whom he brings upon the stage has been assigned a distinct type of
character, a marked individuality, a moral and intellectual
physiognomy as peculiar to himself as his mask. No man exhibits
greater variety in a small compass. When he is working out a character
every word tells, and his ease is infinite. Nothing appears to have
proceeded from him in a hurry. Like the wind, which now rises in
gusts, now sinks to a whisper, but never suggests the idea of
weakness, Aristophanes may trifle, but always because he desires to
trifle.
Moreover, however barren the subject may be, however rugged, bleak,
intractable, he pours over it the dews of poetry, and clothes it
magically with flowers and verdure. Look at the comedies of the Frogs
and the Birds. By whom but Aristophanes could they have been rendered
tolerable? And yet what marvellous effects grow out of them in his
hands! How completely is the imagination detached from the common
everyday world, and sent drifting down the dreamy intoxicating streams
of poetry! Not in the island of Prospero or Philoctetes, not in the
savage-encircled nest of Robinson Crusoe, not in the most visionary
vale that opens before us its serene bosom in the Arabian Nights, do
we breathe more at large, or more fresh and wholesome air, than among
the fogs and fens of Acheron, or the eternal forests of the Hoopoo
king.
With an art, in which Shakespeare was no mean proficient, he opens up
a more culpable source of interest in the frequent satire of vices,
condemned as commonly as they are practised. He unveils the mysteries
of iniquity with a fearless and by no means an unreluctant hand. No
abyss of wickedness was too dark for his daring muse. He ventured
fearlessly upon themes which few since or before have touched on,
despising contemporary envy and vindictiveness and the stern
condemnation of posterity. To be plain, he evidently shared in the
worst corruptions of his age, and, like many other satirists, availed
himself joyfully of the mask of satire as an apology for entertaining
his own imagination with the description of them. No one with the
least clearsightedness or candour can fail to perceive and acknowledge
the depraved moral character of this comic writer. Only less filthy
than Rabelais, his fancy runs riot among the moral jakes and common
sewers of the world, over which, by consummate art and the matchless
magic of his style, he contrives unhappily to cast a kind of delusive
halo, and to breathe a fragrance which should never be found but where
virtue is.
Upon the subject of his attack on Socrates his defenders must grant
one of two things—that he libelled him ignorantly, or that he
exhibited a degree of wickedness capable, under other circumstances,
of rising to the enormity of Judas Iscariot. Socrates, both for genius
and for virtue, stands at the head of the pagan world. He whom Plato
admired must have stood on a higher level than Plato,—that is, have
occupied the apex of mere humanity: and in that position we find him
in the Gorgias, the Republic, the Euthyphron, and the Phædon. Many
charlatans, since the days of Aristophanes, have endeavoured to puff
upward at him the smoke of their ignorance or their envy; and from
those who tread the mire with them have for a moment hidden the all
but divine serenity that smiles on humankind from that lofty and
immovable basis where the homage of a world has placed him; but the
next breeze has cleared away the stinking vapours, and left both him
and them where they were,—the one on the highest, the others on the
lowest step of the ladder which connects human nature with the skies.
Upon the dramatic poets whose fragments only remain, it is in this
place unnecessary to dwell. I therefore pass to the historians and
orators, who, no less vividly than her poets, reflect the genius of
Greece. The first age of prose composition, there as elsewhere,
exhibited the natural characteristics of dawning art—indecisiveness
and timidity. Herodotus, properly speaking, was her earliest
historian, and even he still walks within the gigantic shadow of epic
fable which stretched far over the civilised and cultivated ages of
Greece, as doth that of Memnon at dawn over the Theban plains. His
character as a writer is very remarkable. He narrates like a prophet.
His language everywhere bears the impress and image of the
supernatural world wrought into its very substance. He had formed to
himself a poetical standard of human character and human action, which
accordingly in his work develope themselves in poetical forms. Long
and profound meditation had spread out the past before him like a map,
on which he could trace every fluctuation in the stream of events with
something like the skill of a diviner. Men, past or present, may be
interpreted by meditation, if we comprehend the science of human
nature. Herodotus understood much of this science. Indeed his chief
greatness lies in his wisdom.
Ordinary readers, who are always wiser than their dead instructors,
discovering him to be frankly superstitious, to have faith in oracles,
in dreams, in prodigies, to chronicle many trivial actions, many
trivial remarks, feel or affect for him a species of contempt. But
they know very little of what is contained in that vast treasury of
epic events. Little do they suspect with how many great statesmen,
generals and heroic kings the eloquent Halicarnassian could render
them familiar. In his pages alone, perhaps, do we view in his true
proportions that man of men, Themistocles, who overtops by a head and
shoulders all the other statesmen of the ancient world. There, too,
may we best discover the character of his contemporaries, those
extraordinary personages who connect the heroic with the historical
period, and constitute the steps by which we descend from the heights
of mythos and fable to the stern level of realities. Such an epoch
required an historian of peculiar character. In him were to be united
the power to comprehend poetical motives to action, and the solemn
eloquence fittingly to describe deeds springing from such a source.
Both were found in Herodotus. He beheld Providence leading man as it
were into the light from the wilderness of mythological times, still
invested with many of his heroic habits and his forehead beaming with
visionary splendours, but prepared to doff them one by one, and in
their stead to substitute the iron theory and practice of
civilisation.
Thucydides, a few years only younger than Herodotus, found himself
placed in the midst of events the most extraordinary, produced by a
system of civilisation prematurely decaying. Greece had not been
suffered to grow wise and great according to the laws which usually
regulate the ripening of states. She had been scorched into
fruit-bearing by the fiery conflicts of the Median war; and her
strength thus brought into play, and found to be great beyond
calculation, was immediately by ambitious statesmen seized upon,
parcelled out into lots which were directed against each other, and
thus exhausted in petty struggles. In Greece we have an example of a
state whose energies, turned inwards, corroded themselves by
concentration; affording a contrast with Rome whose energies, worked
outward and were gradually weakened and lost by expansion. The genius
of the people begot corresponding historians. Rome, had its
perspicuous ornate, diffuse, haughty and sublime Livy; Athens her
Thucydides full of poetry indeed, and haughtier and more sublime, but
condensed as an oracle, and as an oracle obscure.
Few have measured the greatness of this man. Ordinary critics missing
the ostentatious display of what is termed philosophy, appear to
imagine that Thucydides is not a philosophical historian, reserving
this praise for Gibbon, Hume, or Voltaire. But each of these great
writers would have contemned the praise of such persons. Thucydides in
historical writing stands above rivalry or comparison. The political
atmosphere in which he lived, dusky with thunderclouds and continual
storms, his eye could penetrate through, and discover all the very
extraordinary figures that moved beneath it. Calmly, from heights of
speculation never trodden before, he contemplated the various groups
of generals and statesmen dispersed over his horizon, pierced through
every disguise into their characters, detected their motives,
unravelled their plots, gave their secret maxims a tongue, weighed and
described their actions with an impartial sagacity which among
historians belongs to him alone. In this consists his philosophy. The
society, whose developement he studied, was torn by two antagonist
principles—aristocracy and democracy, whose struggles, undying in free
states, were then more fierce than at any other period in the history
of the world. To enable his countrymen and posterity to comprehend the
whole chain of events, he opened up a long vista into the past, to the
point at which those adversaries appeared upon the scene, and threw a
broad light upon all their movements down to the time when Providence
removed him from his post. His conception of an historian’s duty,
somewhat different from that now entertained, was adopted by all
antiquity, in which every succeeding writer bore testimony to his
superiority by imitating him. He thought it not enough to narrate and
describe, but, throwing open the council chamber and stilling the
tumultuous agora, he brings the living statesman or demagogue upon the
stage, developing in our hearing his views, his conceptions of
surrounding circumstances and characters, his projects, his means for
accomplishing them. That the speeches found in his history were
actually in that form delivered, I will by no means affirm. He
probably obtained but the substance from report, and himself clothed
it in those vivid expressions which two thousand years have not
stripped of their freshness. Nevertheless, the more trifling the
amount of what he owed to the relations of others, the greater must
appear his genius, his unerring sense of fitness, his dramatic power
of projecting himself successively into a whole gallery of characters,
and truly interpreting the opinions, maxims, feelings of each; for no
one pretends that he has ever misrepresented a single individual. And
if those speeches be examined on the score of eloquence, whether of
thought or language, it will I think be found, that in almost every
excellence they may rank with those of Demosthenes. In each a peculiar
economy is observed in the management of the arguments, in the
sentiments, in the opinions, in the logical tone, in the
manifestations of individuality which diffuse themselves over the
whole and give a colour to it.
The defects—for such there are—resolve themselves into a certain
magisterial air, indicating a consciousness of superiority, sure, more
or less, to offend in all cases, and a certain imperspicuity of style
arising principally from the loose manner in which the drapery of
language is flung over his ideas, which is chiefly observable in the
orations, his narrative for the most part being free from this
imperfection. Besides, whatever be the series of facts he relates,
their importance appears to be enhanced by his manner of handling
them. He casts aside, as unworthy both of himself and the reader,
whatever is of inferior moment. These, in fact, the mere chaff of
human affairs, only cling round the grain of action to conceal it, and
must be blown aside by the reader if the historian neglect to do it.
The circumstances of the times conferred upon his subject all the
interest and the gloom of tragedy. But it thus suited him the better.
His genius delighted in terrible pictures: battles, plagues,
earthquakes, general massacres, the storming of cities, the
annihilation of great armies. His fancy vividly realised all,—the
plague-tumbril rumbling, choked with dead, towards the sepulchral
suburbs,—the streets of Corcyra streaming alternately with democratic
and aristocratic blood,—the expected slaughter of Mitylene,—the
reality at Melos,—two thousand Helots cut off by the perfidy of
Sparta,—the butchery at Platæa,—at Skione,—in Sicily! Through all
these scenes we are precipitated forward, shuddering, compassionating,
detesting by turns. But we are neither overwhelmed nor inspired with
disgust for human nature. Our sympathies cling closer and closer to
the historian, who spares no villany, gratifies no malice, tramples on
no noble principle, succumbs to no temptation of partiality. Faithful
to his trust he deals forth truth to all, to none the slightest
flattery. Not even for his country will he lie. It was she, in fact,
with her heroic ethics and grandeur of sentiment, that had taught him
his high principles, and he repaid her by recording all her errors,
all her wrongs, all her imperfections: in which he acted like a great
and a wise man. He would have sacrificed for her his life,—he would
not sacrifice his conscience.
To him succeeds Xenophon, a writer whom it is difficult to
characterise. There was in the temper of his mind something
parasitical, which led him to lean on others for support,—on Socrates,
on Cyrus, on Agesilaos. Incapable of acting in a republic the part of
a good citizen, he would have been that rare thing—a virtuous
courtier. From this the tone of his writings may be conjectured.
Almost everywhere we discover a degree of gentleness, sweetness,
modesty, which steals imperceptibly into the heart, and creates the
impression that he was a man highly amiable and upright. His piety,
likewise, causes itself to be felt. He never mentions the gods but
with due reverence, exhibits a strong reliance upon Providence, and,
according to his best apprehensions, justifies its ways to men with
earnest solicitude. The style of his composition, necessarily
harmonising with the qualities of his mind, is full of suavity,
polished elegance, gentlemanliness, bonhomie, the very characteristics
of a popular writer. Readers of moderate understanding can everywhere
perceive his drift, can accompany him without feeling out of breath.
He is communicative, sensible, rational, indulges in no cloudy
flights, never dives out of sight in the ocean of speculation.
Xenophon, however, misunderstood himself when he conceived that it was
for him to continue the history of Thucydides. It was as if Andrea del
Sarto had undertaken to complete a picture left in parts unfinished by
Michael Angelo. He had neither the penetrating sagacity necessary to
comprehend the internal plan of the picture, the vivifying energy to
preserve the intense tragedy of the action, nor the colours to
harmonise with what he found painted. Still, considered by himself, he
has great merits. Several scenes in his history, the trial, for
example, of the generals, the death of Theramenes, the battles on the
Hellespont, exhibit a force of conception and a scope and flexibility
of style uncommon in any literature; and the Anabasis, without
comparison his greatest work, reads like a chronicle of the most
chivalrous knight-errantry. The attempt, however flagitious on the
part of Cyrus, had the merit of extreme boldness. It was the model
expedition which disclosed the secret of Asia to Alexander, and showed
with how little danger its vast empires might be shattered to pieces.
Xenophon who, young and adventurous, accompanied the Persian prince
and the heroic mercenaries in his pay, contemplated with delight the
physical aspect of the East, its luxurious population, its roving
tribes, with the triumphs of his disciplined and warlike countrymen
over innumerable barbarian hosts. This we discover from the interest
and animation of his narrative, in which stern realities exceed in
grandeur and wildness the creations of romance. But it is equally
clear that he did not fully comprehend the moral of the scene. For,
otherwise, he could never, with these facts before him, have
endeavoured by his Cyropædia, to recommend to his countrymen those
institutions which rendered Persia, with all its wealth, a constant
prey to the small republics of Greece.
Of the other writings of Xenophon little need be said: they are the
parsley and the rue of Greek literature, bordering and adorning its
entrance, and therefore beheld of all. But most of these have their
beauty. Even in the hunting treatise, amid the breeding of dogs, and
nets, and knives, and boar-spears, and the slaughter of animals, we
catch glimpses of better things,—of glades where the hare frolics by
moonlight, and grassy uplands, dewy and fragrant, where does, poetical
as she of Rylstone, lead forth their fawns at break of day. The
treatises on the states of Athens and Sparta have, I trust, been
falsely attributed to this able and accomplished writer. They are
contemptible productions, conceived in the spirit of a servile
flatterer of the Dorians, and of a satirist, equally servile and
stupid, of the greater and infinitely more intellectual Ionic race.
I pass over the historians known to us only by a few scanty fragments,
that I may at once come to the orators, the peculiar ornament and
pride of Greece, whose greatest statesmen were equally great as
speakers, more especially at Athens, where, as an art, eloquence was
most assiduously cultivated, and achieved its greatest triumphs.
Tradition attributes to Themistocles, to Pericles, to Alcibiades
consummate skill in guiding the currents of human sympathy, and a
sense of their glory lingered on the high places of society like
sunshine on the Alps long after they had quitted the world. But as
they did not augment the stores of their country’s literature, we can
have nothing to speak of them here. The orators whose fragments time
has been unable to destroy are however sufficient, if not to satiate
our thirst of admiration, at least to show, by the grandeur of their
proportions, how great and glorious Attic eloquence, when entire, must
have been. More than any other department of literature it is the
growth of patience and toil. A man may be born with the instincts of
eloquence,—fancy, constitutional fire, vehemence,—but unless these
instincts be broken in and trained by consummate art, nature will in
vain have bestowed her gifts. These truths were early understood at
Athens. It was perceived that without eloquence political distinction
was unattainable, and therefore all who aspired to
“wield at will that fierce democracy,”
subjected themselves to a course of laborious study, to which our more
phlegmatic natures would not submit.
The results we may, in part, still contemplate in that body of
Athenian oratory, which to the author and the statesman is in itself a
library. Every legitimate form of eloquence is there beheld. In
Antiphon and Andocides it appears in rough simplicity, employing
contrivance and art, but employing them awkwardly. Lysias makes
considerable advances beyond them, clothes his style with grace,
constructs his narrative with extraordinary skill, and moves the
passions by considerable pathos. Isocrates it is common with the
moderns, who echo one another, to underrate: their delicate ears,
offended by his too nicely balanced periods, his antitheses, his
monotonous cadences, refuse to relish that stately harmony, and
majestic flow of language, which recommend the thoughts of this “old
man eloquent,” whose greatest panegyric is pronounced by Plato[992] in
the Phædros. In Isæos we have an argumentative, able pleader; in
Deinarchos a vigorous accuser; in Demades the power of splendid
improvisation; in Lycurgus noble sentiments clothed in poetical
language, haughty patriotism, the rough virtues of a stoic; in
Æschines an union of magnificent style, thoughts full of weight,
admirable arrangement, warmth, vivacity, wit. Yet Demosthenes soars
far above Æschines,—far above all. On him nature had bestowed every
quality which constitutes an ingredient of eloquence,—originality,
love of labour, a clear head, a warm heart, a judgment all but
unerring, with an impetuous vehemence perfectly irresistible.
Footnote 992:
Opp. t. i. p. 105. seq.—He is said to have received a thousand
drachmas for each of his pupils.—Dem. cont. Lacrit. § 11.
A very extraordinary impression is created by the study of this
writer. He seems never to put forth all his strength. You see him,
indeed, bear down every thing before him, overwhelming the arguments
and the gold of Philip, crushing his rivals, annihilating his enemies;
but the persuasion rests with you that he could have done more. You
discover amid the waves and foam of his terrible eloquence indications
that that vast ocean had never been stirred to the bottom, that
occasion had never called forth all its latent powers of destruction.
He measures himself with his antagonist, and is secure of victory. He
presents a front bristling with the deadliest points of logic, like
the spears of the Macedonian phalanx, and wherever he moves he is
invincible. Nevertheless he appears to advance nothing for the sake of
effect, to be in search of none of the beauties of style, but rather
to avoid them. He is neither draped, nor painted, nor adorned; but a
naked colossus whose sublimity springs from the perfection and
greatness of its proportions.
Other orators persuade, Demosthenes enforces conviction. They who
listen to him have no choice,—they must believe. Without offending the
reader’s pride, he makes him ashamed to hesitate. He reminds one of
the Nile at the cataracts, where, confined by rocks within too narrow
limits, it pours resistlestly along, swelling, deep, with scattered
whirlpools and foam scarcely visible on its vast surface, seemingly
calm at a short distance, but, to those who look near, agitated,
angry, full of unstemmable currents and boiling motion. He had
profoundly studied human nature, chiefly, of course, as it developes
itself in free states, and, better than any man, knew by what motives
it may, in spite of corruption and degeneracy, be impelled to
strenuous action, though but for a brief space. His language, flashing
through the moral gloom around him, called forth bright reflections
from whatever was brilliant or polished, and kindled the fragments of
patriotic emotions into a flame. If genius could regenerate, could
pour the blood of youth into the veins of age, could substitute
loftiness of sentiment, heroic daring, disinterested love of country,
religious faith, spirituality, for sensual self-indulgence, for sordid
avarice, for a base distrust in Providence, Demosthenes had renewed
the youth of Athens. The spirit of the old democratic constitution
breathes through all his periods. He stands upon the last defence of
the republican world, when all else had been carried, the
representative of a noble but perished race, fighting gallantly,
though in vain, to preserve that fragment sacred from the foot of the
spoiler. The passion and the power of democracy seem concentrated in
him. He unites in his character all the richest gifts of nature under
the guidance of the most consummate art, and, doubtless, Hume was
right when he said that, of all human productions, his works approach
the nearest to perfection.
Beyond this point it is irksome to proceed in our view of Grecian
literature, which, after the battle of Cheronæa, was overshadowed by
despotism and dwindled gradually into insignificance. Not that genius
wholly and suddenly disappeared. The soil of Hellenic intellect was
not entirely exhausted, but the fruit it bore was comparatively
insipid. A courtly stamp was set upon every thing. Men no longer
obeyed their genuine impulses. It was dangerous generally, and always
profitless to be frank and manly. Instead of addressing themselves to
the healthy natural sympathies of the people, writers servilely
laboured by conceit and flattery to wring reluctant patronage from
princes. The spirit of affectation, accordingly, for the first time
made its appearance. Men tortured their ingenuity to invent smart
things. Enthusiasm and passion and earnestness, characteristics all of
popular writers, are never fashionable among courtiers, who consider
sincerity vulgar, and hypocrisy a virtue. In the later Greek writers,
therefore, who all wrote for some court or other, we discover the
usual frigidity and extravagance which invariably deform the
literature of such states. Along with these faults, others also are
found far more pernicious: the inculcation of selfishness, gross
sensuality, base maxims, a depraved taste. Man in the savage state is
a garden in which noxious weeds and the most beautiful flowers and
useful plants grow together; civilised and free, he is the same garden
cleared, as far as possible, of its weeds; but, when verging a second
time into barbarism, the weeds again become luxuriant, and entirely
choke or conceal the flowers. And thus too it is in literature. In the
literatures of Greece, Rome, and modern Italy we can now contemplate
the complete process; in our own, a part only, how great a part—it is
not here my business to inquire.
CHAPTER XI.
SPIRIT OF THE GRECIAN RELIGION.
Whether the Greeks received their earliest system of philosophy from
the East, as is commonly believed, or themselves invented it, as to me
seems most probable, there can I think be little doubt that once
engaged in philosophical speculations they exhibited in the pursuit a
degree of boldness and originality, a patience of research, a power of
combination rarely if ever equalled in succeeding times. For some
ages, it is true, from the days of Thales down to those of Socrates
(B. C. 600 to B. C. 450) physical investigations and researches
chiefly occupied the philosophers of Greece. They conceived it to be
within the power of man to discover the nature of the principal
elements which compose the world, and the law’s that regulated its
formation.[993] The origin likewise of the human race, of which
nothing is yet known but that which has been revealed, naturally
awakened their curiosity and led to many theories wild and fantastic
in the extreme.
Footnote 993:
Cf. Diog. Laert. Pr. iii. 4. Ἀρχαῖος μὲν οὖν τις λόγος καὶ πάτριος
ἐστὶ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις, ὡς ἐκ θεοῦ τὰ πάντα, καὶ διὰ θεοῦ ἡμῖν
συνέστηκεν.—Aristot. de Mund. c. 6. In c. 7. we have a curious list
of the various epithets of Zeus, whose name the Pseudo-Aristotle
conceives to signify the root of all existence: ὡς κᾄν εἰ λέγοιμεν,
δἰ ὅν ζῶμεν. This thought St. Paul expresses by the well-known
words—"in whom we live and move and have our being." The author of
the Treatise De Mundo then quotes from the Orphic fragments a
passage, the doctrine of which strongly resembles the Pantheism of
Pope:
Ζεὺς πρῶτος γένετα, Ζεὺς ὕστατος ἀρχικέραυνος·
Ζεὺς κεφαλὴ, Ζεὺς μέσσα· Διὸς δ᾽ ἐκ πάντα τέτυκται·
Ζεὺς πυθμὴν γαίης τε καὶ οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος·
Ζεὺς ἄρσην γένετο, Ζεὺς ἄμβροτος ἔπλετο, νύμφη·
Ζεὺς πνοιὴ πάντων, Ζεὺς ἀκαμάτου πυρὸς ὁρμή·
Ζεὺς πόντου ῥίζα· Ζεὺς ἥλιος, ἠδὲ σελήνη·
Ζεὺς βασιλεὺς· Ζεὺς ἀρχὸς ἁπάντων ἀρχικέραυνος·
Πάντας γὰρ κρύψας αὖτις φάος ἐς πολυγηθὲς
Ἐξ ἱερῆς κραδίης ἀνενέγκατο μέρμερα ῥέζων.
Cf. Orphic. fragm. 6. p. 138.
Into any consideration of these it is not my design to enter; but the
Greeks had another philosophy, which, resting on the basis of
theology, comprehended religion, morals, and politics, and may be
regarded as the instrument, the soul, and the measure of their
civilisation. It seems to be a truth frequently overlooked, that man
is civilised exactly in proportion as he is religious; at least this
was the case in Greece, where the highest developement of the national
mind concurred in Socrates and Plato with the utmost developement of
the religious instinct, and began immediately to decline in Aristotle
and his successors, arriving at the lowest degradation among the
grovelling sophists of the lower empire. This division of philosophy
occupied among the Greeks the place, which in modern times is assigned
to religion,[994] that is, it was their guide through this life, and
their preparation for a better. It may, indeed, be regarded as the
spiritual part of paganism, teaching man his duties, and explaining
the grounds and motives which should lead to their performance.
Footnote 994:
“Do good to all,” an evangelical precept (Plat. Rep. i. § 9. p. 33.
Stallb.), forming part of that philosophy which taught the Greeks
what was honourable and what base, what just and what unjust, what
was above all things to be desired and what avoided, how they were
to demean themselves towards the gods, towards their parents, their
elders, the laws, strangers, magistrates, friends, wives, children,
slaves: to wit, that they were to reverence the gods, honour their
parents, respect their elders, obey the laws, love their friends, be
affectionate to their wives, solicitous for their children,
compassionate towards their slaves.—Plut. de Educ. Puer. § 10.
There is one article of faith without which no religion can of course
exist—the belief in God. Devoid of this, it may be doubted whether an
individual or a nation ought not rather to be classed among the
inferior animals than among men. It is superfluous, therefore, to say
that the Greeks, preëminently endowed with the highest attributes of
humanity, were a religious people, and held firmly all the doctrines
which entitle a people to such an appellation. From their ancestors,
the Pelasgi,[995] they inherited a pure and lofty theism, which seems
to have always continued to be the religion of the more enlightened;
while among the mass of the people, this central truth of religion was
gradually surrounded by a constantly expanding atmosphere of fable,
which obscured its brightness, and in a great measure concealed its
form. Mr. Mitford, whose acute and philosophical mind clearly
discerned this verity, also seems to have understood the cause. “A
firm belief both in the existence of the Deity, and in the duty of
communication with him, appears to have prevailed universally in the
early ages. But religion was then the common care of all men, a
sacerdotal order was unknown.”[996]
Footnote 995:
Herod. ii. 52.
Footnote 996:
History of Greece, i. 97. Dioscorides in Athenæus observes that no
sacrifice is so acceptable to the gods as that which is offered up
by members of a family living in unison.—i. 15. In the earliest ages
of the world the first-born of every family was esteemed a
prophet.—Godwin, Moses et Aaron, i. 6. 2.
The institution of an order of priests, however effected, almost
necessarily corrupted the simple truths of religion, but it is
unphilosophical in the highest degree to consider those ancient
priests as impostors on this account, or to speak of their propagation
of error as craft. Meditating, in seclusion and solitude, on the few
truths which had come down to them by tradition or been discovered by
reason, they soon bewildered their own wits, and wandered into
superstition.[997] As was too natural, they conceived that the
Divinity must be desirous of giving them signs, marking what was to be
done and what avoided. The mistake of concomitance for causation,
often made in more learned and refined ages, would confirm them in
this view. They would, for example, find that in the order of time the
flight of certain birds over their heads, the appearance of a serpent
in their path, the apparition of certain objects in a dream, was
followed by certain misfortunes; while other apparitions were
succeeded by contrary events. Out of these observations the science of
augury, divination, &c. arose. Yet the inventors were not therefore
impostors, but rather, in their intentions, benefactors of mankind;
and to be respected accordingly.
Footnote 997:
Plato, Crit. t. vii. 146.
The generation of polytheism is to be in like manner explained. It was
an abuse of the inductive method of philosophy. Men perceived, as soon
as they began to observe nature and draw inferences from what they
beheld, that the sun and moon[998] exert extraordinary influence,
beneficial or hurtful, upon mankind and the world they inhabit; and
the supposition was neither unnatural nor absurd that those glorious
bodies, by whose rising and setting, by whose approximation or
retreat, they were in turn affected with gladness or melancholy, with
comfort or discomfort, with good or evil, must be themselves possessed
of intelligence as well as power, or at least be inhabited and
directed by beings on whom they bestowed the name of gods. The air,
too, “which bloweth where it listeth while thou canst not tell whence
it cometh or whither it goeth,” sweeping around them invisibly, and
appearing only in its effects, soon obtained the rank of a deity,[999]
as did the ocean which appears to be alive in all its extent, and the
earth on whose inexhaustible bounty we subsist.
Footnote 998:
Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 182.
Footnote 999:
The air was Zeus.—Lycoph. Cassand. 80. Meurs. Comm. p. 1179. To some
particular state of which the ancients alluded when they spoke of
Kronos seeking to devour his children and swallowing stones instead
of them. For the teeth of time which produce no effect on the air
appear to devour whatever is composed of the element of earth.
Mythologists, however, have generally omitted to remark that the
stones which Kronos mistook for his children were not ordinary
blocks of basalt or granite but rather so many statues of children
endued, _pro tempore_, with life.—Ἔτι δέ, φησὶν, ἐπενόησε θεὸς
Οὐρανὸς βαιτύλια, λίθοις ἐμψύχοις μηχανησάμενος.—Sanchon. ap. Euseb.
Præp. Evang. l. i. c. 10. p. 37.
Out of these elements the sacerdotal families of Greece framed its
religion, which, however, is by no means to be considered a system of
materialism. They conceived every portion of nature to be animated by
its particular soul, just as they believed the whole, as a whole, to
have one universal soul, the source of all the others. Their mythology
was based on unity. At every step backwards we find the number of gods
diminish, till at length we arrive at the Great One, surrounded by the
unfathomable splendours of eternity. This is the θεὸς ὁ θεῶν Ζεὺς, of
whom Plato[1000] and Aristotle constantly speak when they employ the
expression τὸ δαιμόνιον.[1001] Philosophy, indeed, considered it to be
its chiefest task to deliver men from their multitudinous errors
respecting the nature of God, and of our duties towards Him; so that,
in their speculative notions, very little difference from our own can
be detected. Above all men, Plato sought to elevate the sphere of
philosophy. In his works, in truth, it moves frequently within the
confines of theology, and seldom quits them except for the purpose of
infusing spirituality into politics and morals.
Footnote 1000:
Crit. t. vii. p. 173.
Footnote 1001:
Poll. i. 5.
This great man, whose profound veneration for the Deity equalled,
perhaps, that of Newton himself, conceived that human happiness
consists wholly in the knowledge of God, concerning whose character
and attributes he was anxious that no unworthy ideas should be
entertained. His doctrine was, “that we should ever describe God such
as he is.” But, as Muretus has well observed, this was requiring too
much of human nature, for, most assuredly, we should never speak of
God if we waited to discover language befitting His majesty. “For the
mind of man is incapable of comprehending the essence of God; the
nature of God is known to God alone; he alone perfectly understands
himself, and in himself all things. The mind of man waxes dim,
beholding that stupendous light whose brightness excels all other
lights; and, in proportion as it endeavours more daringly to soar, is
it conscious of falling below its great aim.”[1002] The Egyptians
expressed the same conviction in the celebrated epigraph on the base
of the veiled statue of Neith at Saïs: “I am whatever has been, is, or
shall be, and no mortal has drawn aside my veil.” To the same purpose
was the saying of Simonides to Hiero, “that the more he contemplated
the Divine Nature the less he appeared to comprehend it.” And
Socrates, in the Philebos of Plato, observes that he shuddered as
often as the Great Name was to be pronounced lest he should bestow
upon it some unworthy epithet.
Footnote 1002:
Muret. ad Plat. Rep. p. 726.
It would appear, indeed, that the idea which the theologians of Greece
had formed of the Almighty was very nearly the same as our own;
though, in compliance with popular prejudices, they often made use of
the plural for the singular. Goodness, power, and knowledge were his
characteristics, which in substance are the same as the types of the
theologians of modern times—goodness, immutability, truth,—goodness
leading the van in both cases, and the remaining conditions answering
perfectly to each other. For in supreme power and supreme wisdom must
be immutability and truth, since the Almighty can do all he wills and
must ever will what is right.[1003] In accordance with these views,
the spiritual philosophy of Greece maintained that the Deity is the
source of no evil, though traces of a far different theory are here
and there discoverable among the poets. Thus, speaking of the
calamities arising from the anger of Achilles, Homer says
Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή.
And, again—
Ζεὺς δ᾽ ἀρετὴν ἄνδρασιν ὀφέλλει τε, μινύθει τε
Ὅππως κεν ἐθέλησιν.[1004]
Footnote 1003:
Muret. ad Plat. Rep. p. 727.
Footnote 1004:
Iliad, υ. 242. seq.
So, again, the two vases in the palace of Zeus, out of which he
distributed good and evil to mankind.[1005] Hesiod also introduces
Zeus, boasting that instead of fire he will give men a curse:—
Τοῖς δ᾽ ἐγὼ ἀντὶ πυρὸς δώσω κακόν
But in all ages men lay their misfortunes at the door of Providence.
However, though the notions men entertain of God be ever so just,
their conduct will not be thereby influenced, or a religion, properly
speaking, created, unless several other truths be equally believed. It
must be established not only that the maker of the universe still
regards his workmanship, and will punish all those who seek to
disorder the machine, by entailing remorse upon transgression, but
that man is not a fugitive being, who can escape out of the hands of
God by shrinking into annihilation, but a creature who, in accordance
with his will, must run the vast circle of eternity, co-lasting with
God himself.[1006] This is the great keystone of religion: without
this, men will believe that even the Almighty can have no hold upon
them; that they die, and their accountability ceases. The doctrine of
immortality, however, has everywhere opened the skies to man, and set
him upon the discovery of the steps leading thither, and, at the same
time, has checked his daring, and poisoned his guilty pleasures.
Footnote 1005:
Iliad, ω. 527. seq. Cf. Muret. p. 737.
Footnote 1006:
Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 95.
From the remotest ages the immortality of the soul constituted a
leading dogma in the religion of Greece, and was necessarily
accompanied by the persuasion, that to the good that immortality would
bring happiness, and to the evil the contrary.[1007] Homer is full of
this, and the fables, wherein the enemies of God, parricides,
murderers, the perpetrators of impiety and wrong, are, after death,
banished to the depths of Tartarus, while various degrees of glory and
happiness, not altogether unlike what is sublimely shadowed forth by
St. Paul, are attributed to the good. That part, for example, of
Heracles, which is divine, ascends to Heaven: Achilles enjoys the
everlasting serenity of the Islands of the Blessed; and, generally,
every virtuous man who rightly performed his duty ascended to the
mansion prepared for him in the stars, there to live for ever in
happiness.[1008] They taught, moreover, that the spirit of man is of
heavenly birth: without this we had lived as so many animals. But God
bestowed upon us an immortal soul, to watch as a guardian angel over
the body, and placed it in the loftiest part of our frame, to teach us
to look upward, and remember our birth,—that men are not creatures of
clay but children of God and heirs of immortality.[1009]
Footnote 1007:
Among the people of the East we even discover traces of the doctrine
of the resurrection:—Καὶ ἀναβιώσεσθαι, κατὰ τοὺς Μάγους, φησὶ
(Θεόπομποσ) τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, καὶ ἔσεσθαι ἀθανάτους.—Diog. Laert. Pr.
vi. 9.
Footnote 1008:
Plato, Tim. Opp. vii. 45. Cf. p. 97.—Is there not some allusion in
the following passage to the scriptural account of the creation of
man before woman? Ὡς γάρ ποτε ἐξ ἀνδρῶν γυναῖκες καὶ τἄλλα θηρία
γενήσοίντο ἠπίσταντο οἱ ξυνιστάντες ἡμᾶς.—Tim. Opp. t. vii. p. 111.
Footnote 1009:
Plato, Tim. Opp. t. vii. p. 137.
It will not, however, surprise those who comprehend the constitution
of human nature, to find that the Greeks, deprived as they were of
revelation, were not content with the simple dogma of immortality,
rendered happy or otherwise by rewards and punishments, but imagined a
return of the soul to earth, and its passage through a long succession
of bodies, until the stains,[1010] contracted during its first
sojourn, had been obliterated: properly, therefore, their Hell was a
kind of Purgatory, and, no doubt, suggested the original idea of that
intermediate place to the Church of Rome. The religious part of the
pagan world, those especially who went through the ceremonies of
expiation and initiatory rites, firmly believed that bad men met in
the realms of Hades with a just retribution for their crimes, and were
again launched into the career of life, that they might receive from
others that which they had done unto them.[1011] Though even in those
days there were not wanting persons who affected to possess the power
of absolution, nay, of granting for a moderate sum of money
indulgences and licences to sin. These ragged impostors, of course,
patronised only rich sinners, over whose heads vengeance might be
hanging for crimes committed either by themselves or their ancestors,
(since the Greeks also believed that the sins of the parents are
visited upon the children to the third and fourth generations,[1012])
professing to be masters of arts and incantations by which the gods
were compelled to grant their prayers.
Footnote 1010:
Even among the ancient Christians this doctrine was not wholly
exploded. Origen believed it:—Λέγει δὲ καὶ ἄλλα παραλογώτατα· καὶ
δυσσεβείας πλήρη μετεμψυχώσείς τε γὰρ ληρωδεὶ καὶ ἐμψύχους τοὺς
ἀστέρας καὶ ἑτέρα τούτοις παραπλησία.—Phot. Bib. p. 3. seq.
Footnote 1011:
Plato de Legg. ix. Opp. viii. 152. seq. Cf. 172. seq. 191. seq. De
Rep. i. Opp. vi. 9. sqq.
Footnote 1012:
De Rep. ii. 7. t. i. p. 112. sqq. Stallb.—The belief that children
suffered for the crimes of their parents, which widely pervaded the
pagan world, is nowhere more clearly stated than by Plato:—Γὰρ ἐν
Αἵδου δίκην δώσομεν ὧν ἂν ἐνθαδε ἀδικήσωμεν, ἢ αὐτσὶ ἢ παῖδες
παῖδων.—Id. c. 8. p. 119.
But while the vulgar and the superstitious were thus deluded, they who
possessed superior education and superior minds, united, with a belief
in the future, a more cheerful faith in the justice and beneficence of
the Deity. They discovered, even by the light of reason, that human
nature has been perverted from its original perfection,—that an evil
principle has been introduced into our inmost essence,—that in our
sinful state we are at enmity with God and all goodness,—and must by
prayers and sacrifices be purified and reconciled to him ere we can
taste of happiness. On the subject of prayer the wiser Greeks
entertained notions not wholly unbecoming a Christian.[1013] They well
enough understood, that it is not to be considered as an importuning
of God for wealth or fame or wisdom, or, as ignorant persons suppose,
an impious desire that He would for our sakes depart from his eternal
purposes; but merely the nourishing in our minds of a profound
veneration for the Almighty, a trust in his Providence and wisdom, an
habitual disclosure voluntarily made of our inmost thoughts and
desires, which must be known to him whether we will or not. Hence the
great philosopher of antiquity[1014] simply prayed for those things
which it might please God to send, and that if he asked for anything
wrong it might be denied him.
Footnote 1013:
Cf. Mitford, Hist. of Greece, i. 115. 8vo.
Footnote 1014:
Xen. Mem. i. 3. 2. Cf. Plut. Inst. Lac. § 26.
It is no doubt true, as Mr. Mitford[1015] has observed, that the Gods
in Homer are sometimes introduced favouring the perpetrators of
injustice. But this is in contradiction to the general tone of the
Greek religion; according to the tenets of which, every injured person
had his Erinnyes who avenged whatever wrongs or violence he might
suffer. Nay, even animals were comprised within the protecting circle
of this beneficent superstition; and the God Pan was intrusted with
the punishment of excesses perpetrated against them,[1016]
“When vultures that, with grief exceeding measure,
Lament their heart’s lost treasure,
And o’er their empty nest, in torturing woe,
Pass to and fro,
Borne on their oarlike wings,
Missing the task that brings
Joy with it, send their piercing wail on high,
Apollo, Pan, or Zeus hearing the cry,
Charges th’ Erinnyes, though late,
The penalty decreed by Fate
To visit on the spoilers far or nigh.”
Footnote 1015:
Hist. of Greece, i. 108.
Footnote 1016:
Æsch. Agam. 55. sqq. with the commentary of Klausen. p. 104.—There
occurs in the Scriptures a like sentiment, “He who stilleth the
young ravens, when they cry.” So also the Mahomedan tradition, that
in the midst of a battle-field, where two mighty hosts were engaged,
God preserved from the hoofs of the chargers, and from the feet of
men, the lapwing’s nest.
Another doctrine, which we might scarcely expect to discover in
paganism, constituted, nevertheless, a part of the Greek religion,—I
mean the power of penitence. In all cases, indeed, this would not
avail. The laws of nature (πεπρωμένη, fate) would have their course
whatever might be the conduct or disposition of man; but in all other
cases, tears[1017] shed in secret, solemn acts of religion, and deep
contrition were supposed to appease the anger of Heaven. Besides, when
afflictions fell upon men, they were not necessarily regarded as
evils; for by suffering, the soul, they thought, is purified,
chastened, endued with wisdom,—
“Sweet are the uses of adversity;”
and, hence, of those trials which ignorance regards as evils, most, if
not all, are but so many dispensations of mercy, designed to work off
the dross of sin, and restore the spirit to its original
brightness.[1018] By these means, likewise, transgressors were
believed to make some atonement for their crimes. Remembrance haunted
them even in sleep. Their miseries rose up before them, compassed them
round, and urged them by invisible stripes into her track, “whose ways
are ways of pleasantness, and all whose paths are peace.”
Footnote 1017:
Πηγὴ δακρύων—Soph. Trach. 852. Antig. 802. A Scriptural expression,
“O that mine eyes were a _fountain of tears_.” Æsch. Agam. 68. sqq.
Eumen. 900. Suppl. 1040.
Footnote 1018:
Æsch. Agam. 160. sqq.—Klaus. Com. p. 120. Hence the proverb,
παθήματα μαθήματα.—Blomfield.
But over the impenitent wicked vengeance for ever impended; nor could
wealth or rank purchase impunity, as the bare-footed friars and
ass-mounters of the time were fain to persuade the credulous and
weak-minded. Long withheld, the anger of the Gods descended at length
in showers, utterly extirpating the evil-doers.[1019] Thus perished
Paris, the violator of marriage and of hospitable rites; thus
Clytemnæstra and Ægisthos, adulterers and murderers; thus the whole
house of [OE]dipos, involved in an unutterable cycle of misery and
crime. The interval, moreover, between the commission of guilt and its
final punishment, was given up to the Erinnyes,[1020] those dire and
mysterious powers of vengeance, whose breathless chace after crime is
pourtrayed with so much sublimity by Sophocles. These divinities,
starting into instant birth, whenever blood was unlawfully shed,
walked perpetually beside the murderer to his grave,—to him alone
visible, to him alone audible.
Footnote 1019:
Pind. Pyth. iii. 11. Æsch. Agam. 342. sqq. Klausen. Com. p. 140.
Footnote 1020:
Cf. Æsch. Eum. 859. seq.—Schol. ad Æsch. Tim. Orat. Att. t. 12. p.
384.
The gross and carnal-minded contrived, indeed, in the case of lesser
transgressions, to remain blind to this deformity, while youth and
health and prosperity cast their illusions over their path. But age in
this matter sharpened their sight. On drawing near the brink of the
grave, the vices, hitherto so blythe and comely, appeared to grow more
shrivelled and hideous and unlovely than their own impure
countenances, and they would then fain have parted company with them.
But, no! Having been comrades of their own choosing, Zeus chained them
to their side to the last, unless repentance severed the link; and
their fearful howlings, night and day, broke their repose, harrowed up
their feelings, augmented tenfold their terrors, while sweat and
tears, and agonising shrieks burst from them even in their dreams. The
wicked, therefore, in the deepest darkness of paganism, were not left
wholly to the error of their ways. But God reserved himself a witness
in their hearts, and set up a light by which they might rightly, if
they chose, direct their footsteps. It is true that the cardinal
verities of religion were then but very imperfectly perceived, that,
to get at them at all, men had to break through the shells of many
fables, and that, when found, they must be for the most part enjoyed
in secret, far from the din of ambition. Not, indeed, that the people
refused their sympathy to virtue,—public opinion is never so far
corrupted,—but that in the world there has always existed a strong
current bearing men far from the track of duty and holiness.
There was, no doubt, some degree of fanaticism mixed up with all this.
The priesthood, an order of men much calumniated, but without whom
society would be worse by far than it is, found it necessary to allure
men into the bosom of their church by imposing ceremonies, by
sacrifices, and by the mysterious disclosure of certain truths in the
performance of certain rites. It will be seen that I allude to the
mysteries. On the occasion of initiation, as if to intimate that men
cannot be virtuous or religious by proxy, each individual became his
own priest and sacrificed[1021] for himself. But in what initiation
itself consisted, no man knows. Antiquity has revealed nothing, and
nothing can we discover. The hypotheses of scholars are, therefore, so
many dreams, and a mere waste of ingenuity; for, if they should by
chance hit the mark, there exist no means of proving that they have
done so. But of this we are sure, that a persuasion was widely spread
that a blissful immortality awaited the initiated. A greater degree of
holiness was supposed to attach to them,—there was a spell shed around
their persons,—in situations of danger they experienced less of the
fear of death. In storms, for example, at sea, when the ship seemed
about to sink—"Have you been initiated?" was the question men asked
each other. Still, among philosophers, the wisest and best sometimes
neglected this popular consummation of a pious life. Socrates belonged
not to this communion, a circumstance which rendered it more easy to
fasten upon him the charge of impiety, in those days more atrocious
than now, since, to be esteemed inimical to the gods, was the surest
way to make enemies of men. Further than this, it is not necessary
that I enter into the gentile faith, which only incidentally, as it
affected morals, belongs to my subject.
Footnote 1021:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 712.
But there exists in all countries a minor cycle of superstitions,
which, more strongly perhaps than anything paints the peculiarities of
the national character. In the north, as we know, this indigenous
belief has survived all changes in the public creed, and will subsist
to the last, lingering among our woods, our ruins, our moonlit
meadows, our churchyards, by our firesides. Fairies, witches, ghosts,
goblins can by no advances in civilisation be put to flight. They sail
in our steamers on the ocean, ride at quickest speed along the
railroads, go to bed with the first lady in the land, and even nestle
beneath the statesman’s vest.[1022] With us these aërial beings, or
spectres of crime, too commonly assume an aspect grotesque or
devilish, but they nevertheless keep alive in the popular mind the
spirit of romance and poetry, one of the never-failing handmaids of
religion. Mythology rarely penetrates down to these primitive
superstitions, which, however, constitute the basis of the whole
science, and in Greece assumed, in many cases, forms of beauty
analogous to its loftier and more poetic fables.
Footnote 1022:
See, for example, Lord Castlereagh’s vision of the fire-devil in Mr.
Lockhart’s Life of Sir Walter Scott.
The place occupied in our own popular mythology by the
“light-sandalled fays,” was in Greece filled by the Hamadryads and
Nymphs.[1023] No wood or grove or solitary tree, no fountain or rill
in moss-grown cell or rustic cavern, existed without its co-existent
divinity, female generally, and instinct with beauty and beneficence.
These creatures, the Jinn and Jinneh of the Arabs, extended their
dominion over all minor streams, and sported, in the softness and
stillness of night, athwart the billows silvered by the moon; but the
deities of great rivers, as the Acheloös, the Peneios, and others,
were male. Being only a few degrees raised above humanity, they were
often enamoured of mortals, to whom they appeared arrayed in
loveliness, amid the glimmering forests, at dawn or twilight, or when
“overhead the moon
Wheels her pale course.”
Footnote 1023:
The same superstitions, a little modified, are still found in many
parts of Greece. “The religious feelings of the Cretan, in the
nineteenth century, differ very little, if at all, from those
entertained for the Naïads by his heathen ancestors.”—Pashley, Trav.
in Crete, i. 89.
It was not always, however, that the love of a nymph proved a
blessing. There were occasions when, having for a moment revealed
their superhuman charms to some shepherd in his romantic solitude, or
to some poet worshiping the muses alone, beside the inspiring mount or
spring, they again capriciously withdrew, and left him vision-smitten
to pine or, perchance, to die.
Nor were the Greeks wholly devoid of belief in evil spirits, for the
demon Alastor,[1024] which was a deification of the principle that
incites to crime and afterwards brings vengeance, can in no way be
regarded as good. Typhon, too, with the Giants and Titans, had at
least a predominance of evil in their character, but these are treated
of at length by the mythologists. Several superstitions, commonly
supposed to be wholly Oriental, were current in Greece, such as that
men had the power by using certain spells to quit their mortal forms
and roam disembodied through the earth. By magic rings, too, and
helmets they might be rendered invisible, and, thus protected, enter
into the secret chambers of kings, pollute their wives, and rifle
their treasures.[1025] Means, moreover, they had, confounded in those
ages with supernatural power, of charming poisonous serpents, as to
this day is done by the subjects of our Eastern empire, and the
snake-catchers of Egypt; and though it be now known that opium
constitutes no small portion of this charm, the people generally, both
in the East and West, conceive other influences to be employed than
those of legitimate art.
Footnote 1024:
Cf. Poppo, Proleg. in Thucyd. i. 14. Xenarchos observes that the
home perishes when conflicting fortunes attach to the master, and
into which the Alastor creeps:
φθίνει δόμος
ἀσυντάτοισι δεσποτῶν κεχρημένος
τύχαις, ἀλάστωρ τ᾽ εἰσπέπαικε.
Ap. Athen. ii. 64. seq. See also Æsch. Choeph. 119. Eumen. 560. 802.
with Klausen. Æsch. Theolog. i. 9. 56. seq. et ad Agam. p. 119. The
Egyptians had their Babys or Typhon, a god of evil.—Athen. xv. 25.
Footnote 1025:
Plat. Rep. ii. § 3. Stallb.
There was not in later times, perhaps, that boundless faith in spells
and transformations still subsisting in the East. But in the earlier
ages, and in the gloomy mountain recesses of Arcadia, events equally
strange were supposed to have happened. Thus Lycaon having sacrificed
an infant to Zeus Lycæos, and sprinkled the blood upon the altar,
immediately became a wolf;[1026] and it was reported that any one who
performed this dreadful sacrifice, and afterwards by accident tasted
of the human entrails, when mingled with those of other victims,
forthwith underwent the same transformation.[1027] Thus we find the
gloomy legend of the Breton forests existing in the heart of the
Peloponnesos, where there can, I fear, be little doubt, that human
victims were habitually offered up. Another ancient superstition,
which found its way into Italy, was, that a person first seen by a
wolf lost his voice, whereas if the man obtained the prior glimpse of
the animal no evil ensued.[1028]
Footnote 1026:
Paus. viii. 2, 3. Cf. Plat. Rep. viii. 16. Stallb.
Footnote 1027:
Plat. Rep. viii. 16. t. ii. p. 223. Stallb. Cf. Bœckh in Platon.
Minoem. p. 55. seq.
Footnote 1028:
Muret. ad Plat. Rep. i. p. 670. where, with much ingenuity, he
detects an allusion to this superstition in a hasty glance of the
philosopher.—Plin. Hist. Nat. viii. 34. Schol. ad Theocr. xiv. 21.
Virg. Ecl. ix. 53. Donat. in Ter. Adelph. iv. 1. 21. et Stallb. ad
Plat. Rep. i. 37.
The belief in ghosts, coeval no doubt with man, flourished especially
among the Greeks. Hesiod entertained peculiar notions on this subject,
which some suppose to have been borrowed from the East, that is, he
believed that the good men of former times became, at their decease,
guardian spirits, and were entrusted[1029] with the care of future
races. Plato adopts these ghosts, and gives them admission into his
Republic, where they perform an important part and receive peculiar
honours.[1030] When they appeared, as sometimes they would, by day,
their visages were pale and their forms unsubstantial like the
creations of a dream.[1031] But, as among us, they chiefly affected
the night for their gambols, and in Arcadia particularly, would appear
to honest people returning home late in cross-roads, and such places
whence they were not to be dislodged but by being pelted apparently by
pellets made from bread crumb, on which men had wiped their fingers,
carefully preserved for this purpose by the good folks about
Phigaleia.[1032]
Footnote 1029:
Hes. Opp. et Dies, 121. seq. where see Goettling.
Footnote 1030:
De Rep. v. 15. t. i. 377. seq. The Magi, among whom supernatural
sights and powers were most familiar, maintained that the Gods
occasionally appeared to them, and that the atmosphere is filled
with spectral shadows, which, floating about like mists or
exhalations, are visible to the sharpsighted.—Diog. Laert. Pr. vi.
9. A similar belief prevailed among the early anchorites. “It was
their firm persuasion, that the air which they breathed was peopled
with invisible enemies; with innumerable dæmons who watched every
occasion and assumed every form, to terrify, and, above all, to
tempt, their unguarded virtue.”—Gibbon, vi. 263.
Footnote 1031:
Æsch. Agam. 68.—Klaus. Com. p. 108.
Footnote 1032:
Athen. iv. 31.
The most remarkable prank played by any ancient ghosts, however, with
whose history I am acquainted, did not take place in Greece, but in
the Campagna di Roma, where, after a bloody battle between the Romans
and the Huns, in which all but the generals and their staff bit the
dust, two spectral armies, the ghosts of the fallen warriors, appeared
upon the field to enact the contest over again. During three whole
days did these valiant souls of heroes, as the Homeric phrase is,
carry on the struggle; and the historian who relates the fact, is
careful to observe that they did not fall short of living soldiers,
either in fire or courage. People saw them distinctly charge each
other, and heard the clash of their arms. Similar exhibitions were to
be seen in different parts of the ancient world. In the great plain of
Sogda,[1033] for example, spectral armies of mighty courage but
voiceless, were in the constant habit of engaging in mortal combat at
the break of day. Caria likewise possessed a favourite haunt of these
warlike phantoms. But here the apparition was only occasional, and all
its evolutions were performed in the air, which was the case in
England, as we have been assured by very old people, before the
breaking-out of the American war. Another fray of ghosts took place
every summer in Sicily on the plain of the Four Towers, but in this
case the whole business was carried on at noon, to the no small
annoyance of Pan who usually takes his siesta at that hour,—that is,
if they were as noisy in their battles as the Campanian
spectres.[1034]
Footnote 1033:
Which had once been a lake.—Vit. Isidor. ap. Phot. Bib. p. 839.
Footnote 1034:
Phot. Bib. p. 339.
Like the Roman Catholics, the Greeks had great faith in miraculous
images, holy wells, &c. and their descendants still maintain the same
creed. Near the Church of Haghia Parthenoë in Crete, is a most copious
fountain deriving its name from the same holy and miracle-working
virgins to whom the church is dedicated, and who also preside over the
waters. “The worship of the headless body of Molos has also its
parallel in modern times.”[1035] As the Cretan Christians for many
years reverenced the head of Titus, though deprived of its body, so
their heathen ancestors used annually to honour by a religious
festival the body of Molos, the well-known father of Meriones, though
deprived of its head. The legend, told to explain the ancient ceremony
in which the headless statue of a man thus exhibited, was that “after
Molos got possession of a nymph’s person without having first obtained
her consent, his body was found, but his head had disappeared.”[1036]
An image of the Virgin travelled by water from Constantinople to
Greece, where it was shortly after seen standing up in the waves near
Mount Athos. Similar legends obtained of old. Near Biennos in
Crete,[1037] “has been dug up the bones and skulls of giants, many of
whom were eight or ten times the size of common men.”[1038]
Footnote 1035:
Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 88.
Footnote 1036:
Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 177.—Plut. de Orac. Def.
Footnote 1037:
Herod. iv. 33.—Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 192.
Footnote 1038:
Pashley, i. 278.
Of the various modes of penetrating into the future,[1039] prevalent
among the people, I may mention some few. Prophetesses are frequently
spoken of in Scripture, and in the Acts of the Apostles[1040] is given
an account of a young female slave who brought her master large sums
of money by this trade, which was that of a gipsy. Others there were
who, like many among the Orientals, professed to understand the
language of birds. A slave, said to possess this knowledge, is
celebrated, by Porphyry, and was probably from the East.[1041] One
sort of divination was practised by pouring drops of oil into a vessel
and looking on it, when they pretended to behold a representation of
what was to take place. This in Egypt is still practised, merely
substituting ink for oil, and a great many travellers appear to
believe in it. Soldiers going to war were especially liable to fall
into this kind of foolery.[1042]
Footnote 1039:
See Max. Tyr. Diss. iii. p. 31–38.
Footnote 1040:
C. xvi. v. 16. sqq.
Footnote 1041:
De Abstinentiâ, iii. Cf. Cedren. Michael, Compotat. εἰσὶ γὰρ τίνες
οἱ ἐν ἐλαίῳ ὁρίοντες μαντεύονται.—Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 1093.
Footnote 1042:
Οἱ γὰρ ἐπὶ πόλεμον ἐξιόντες ἐπητήρουν τὰς διοσημείας.—Schol.
Aristoph. Acharn. 1106.
The use of holy water on entering temples is of great antiquity. This
custom was called περίῤῥανσις, and the act was performed with the
branch of the fortunate olive.[1043] There stood at the door of the
temple a capacious lustral font, whose contents had been rendered holy
by extinguishing[1044] therein a lighted brand from the altar; thence
water was sprinkled on themselves, by worshipers or by the officiating
priest. A similar apparatus stood at the entrance to the Agora, to
purify the orators, &c. going to the public assembly. It was likewise
placed at the door of private houses, wherein there was a corpse, that
every one might purify himself on going out.[1045] Superstitious
persons usually walked about with a laurel leaf in their mouth, or
occasionally bearing a staff of laurel, there being a preserving power
in that sacred shrub: hence arose the proverb δαφνίκην φορῶ
βακτήριαν,—"I carry a laurel staff," when a man would say, I have no
fear. Persons not thus protected it is to be presumed were terrified
if a weasel or dog crossed their path; and the omen could only be
averted by casting three stones at it, the number three being
exceedingly agreeable to the gods. Certain fruits would not burst on
the tree if three stones were cast into the same hole with the seed
when the tree was planted. Two brothers walking on the way conceived
it ominous of evil if they happened to be parted by a stone. On every
trifling occasion altars and chapels were erected to the gods,
particularly by women; no house or street was free from them. For
example, if a snake crept into the house through the eaves, forthwith
an altar was erected. At places where three roads met, stones were set
up, to be worshiped by travellers, who anointed them with oil. If a
mouse nibbled a hole in a corn-sack, they would fly to the portent
interpreter, and inquire what they should do,—"Get it mended," was
sometimes the honest reply. Horrid dreams[1046] might be expiated, and
their evil effects be averted, by telling them to the rising sun. When
the candles spit, it was a sign of rain.[1047] During thunder and
lightning they made the noise called _Poppysma_,[1048] which it was
hoped might avert the danger. On board ship sailors entertained the
idea, that to carry a corpse would be the cause of shipwreck, as
happened to the vessel which was bearing to Eubœa the bones of
Pelops.[1049] The sailors of the Mediterranean, for this reason, will
refuse to receive mummies on board.
Footnote 1043:
Ramo felicis olivæ.—Virgil. Æn. vi. 230.
Footnote 1044:
Athen. ix. 76.
Footnote 1045:
Casaub. ad Theophr. Char. p. 287. Eurip. Alcest. 99.
Footnote 1046:
Cf. Plut. Alcib. § 39.
Footnote 1047:
Casaub. ad Theophr. Char. p. 300.
Footnote 1048:
Sch. Aristoph. Vesp. 260. 262. 626.
Footnote 1049:
Pausan. v. 13. 4. Palm. Exerc. in Auct. Græc. d. 398.
BOOK III.
WOMEN.
CHAPTER I.
WOMEN IN THE HEROIC AGES.
There is no question connected with Grecian manners more difficult
than that which concerns the character and condition of women.[1050]
On so many points did they differ in this matter from us, that, unless
we can conceive ourselves to be in the wrong, the condemnation of the
whole Hellenic theory of female rights and interests and influence
must, as a matter of course, ensue. I do not say that, after all, this
is not the conclusion we should come to. Reason may possibly be on our
side; but certainly it appears to me, that too little pains has
hitherto been taken to arrive at the truth; and as it is a
consideration by no means unimportant, I have bestowed on it more than
ordinary attention in the hope of letting in additional light, however
little, on this obscure and unheeded department of antiquities.
Footnote 1050:
Describing the approach to the temple of Aphrodite, Lucian says:
εὐθὺς ἡμῖν ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ τεμένους Ἀφροδίσιοι προσέπνευσαν
αὖραι.—Amor. § 12. These gentle airs should breathe into the style
and language of the author who treats of the women of Greece; but,
in my own case, research I fear and the effects of fifty-two degrees
of north latitude will prevent this consummation so devoutly to be
wished.
In form the Greek woman was so perfect as to be still taken as the
type of her sex. Her beauty, from whatever cause, bordered closely
upon the ideal, or rather was that which, because now only found in
works of art, we denominate the ideal. But our conceptions of form
never transcend what is found in Nature. She bounds our ideas by a
circle over which we cannot step. The sculptors of Greece represented
nothing but what they saw,[1051] and even when the cunning of their
hand was most felicitous, even when loveliness and grace and all the
poetry of womanhood appeared to breathe from their marbles, the
inferiority of their imitations to the creations of God, in properties
belonging to form, in mere contour, in the grouping and developement
of features, must have sufficed to impress even upon Pheidias, that
high priest of art, the conviction of how childish it were to dream of
rising above nature. The beauty of Greece was, indeed, a creature of
earth, but suggested aspirations beyond it. Every feature in the
countenance uttered impassioned language, was rife with tenderness,
instinct with love. The pulses of the heart, warm and rapid, seemed to
possess ready interpreters in the eye. But, radiant over all, the
imagination shed its poetic splendour, communicating a dignity, an
elevation, a manifestation of soul, which lent to passion all the
moral purity and enduring force that belong to love, when love is
least tainted with unspiritual and ignoble selfishness.
Footnote 1051:
On the beauty of the modern Greek women I can speak from my own
observation; but most travellers are of the same opinion, and Mr.
Douglas, in particular, gives the following testimony in their
favour: “Though the delicacy of her form is not long able to sustain
the heat of the climate and the immoderate use of the warm bath, I
can scarcely trust myself to describe the beauty of a young Greek
when arriving at the age which the ancients have so gracefully
personified as the Χρυσοστέφανος Ἥβη. Were we to form our ideas of
Grecian women from the wives of Albanian peasants we should be
strangely deceived; but the islands of Andro, Tino, and, above all,
that of Crete, contain forms upon which the chisel of Praxiteles
would not have been misemployed.”—Essay, &c. p. 159.
I despair, however, of representing by words what neither Pheidias nor
Polycletos could represent in marble or ivory. The women of Greece
were neither large nor tall. The whole figure, graceful but not
slender, left the imagination nothing to desire. It was satisfied with
what was before it. Limbs exquisitely moulded,[1052] round, smooth,
tapering, a _torso_ undulating upwards in the richest curves to the
neck, a bosom somewhat inclined to fulness, but in configuration
perfect, features in which the utmost delicacy was blended with
whatever is noblest and most dignified in expression. Both blue eyes
and black[1053] were found in Greece, but the latter most commonly.
Even Aphrodite, spite of her auburn hair, comes before us in the Iliad
with large black eyes, beaming with humid fire. No goddess but the
Attic virgin has the cold blue eye of the North, becoming her maidenly
character, reserved, firm, affectionate, with a dash of shrewishness.
The nose was straight and admirably proportioned, without anything of
that breadth which in the works of inferior sculptors creates an idea
of Amazonian fierceness. Beauty itself had shaped the mouth and chin,
and basked and sported in them. In these, above all, the Grecian woman
excelled the barbarians. Other features they might have resembling
hers, but seldom that Attic mouth, that dimpled, oval, richly-rounded
chin, which imprinted the crowning characteristic of womanhood upon
her face, and stamped her mistress of man and of the world.
Footnote 1052:
Cf. Winkelmann, iv. 4. 44.
Footnote 1053:
Plat. Repub. iv. t. vi. p. 167.—That black eyes were most common
among the Greeks may be inferred from this, that, in describing the
parts of the eye, they called the iris τὸ μέλαν, which is sometimes
of one colour, and sometimes of another.—Arist. Hist. Anim. I. viii.
2. He observes, further on, that some persons had black eyes, others
deep blue, others gray, others of the colour of goats.—§4. Other
animals have eyes of one colour, except the horse, which has
sometimes one blue eye. Eyes moderate in size and neither sunken nor
projecting were esteemed the best.—§. 5. Large eyes, likewise, were
greatly admired. Hence Hera is called βοῶπις by Homer. Aristœnetos,
describing his Laïs, says: ὀφθαλμοὶ μεγάλοι τε καὶ διαυγεῖς καὶ
καθαρῷ φωτὶ διαλάμποντες.—Scheffer ad Æl. Hist. Var. xii. 1. With
respect to the colour of the hair see Winkelmann, iv. 4. 38. It was,
of course, considered a great beauty to have it long, and,
therefore, Helen, in honour of Clytemnæstra, cut off the points
only.—Eurip. Orest. 128. seq.
A creature thus fashioned and gifted with an intellect which, if less
robust and comprehensive, is equally active with that of man and still
more flexible, could scarcely be degraded into a domestic drudge and
slave, and in Greece was not.[1054] Already, in the heroic ages, women
occupied a commanding position in society, somewhat less honourable
than is their due, but, in many respects, higher and more to be envied
than was appropriated to them in the ignorant and corrupt times of
chivalry which the Homeric period has been thought greatly to
resemble. In those days, though fashion required more reserve in the
female character than is consistent with the spirit of modern manners,
persons of different sexes could meet and converse together without
scandal. Gentlewomen of the highest rank went abroad under their own
guidance. On the arrival of a foreign ship upon the shore we find an
Argive princess descending without any male protector to cheapen
articles of dress and trinkets, which however, as the event proved,
was not without danger, for both she herself and a number of her maids
were carried away captives by the perfidious strangers.[1055]
Footnote 1054:
On the respect paid to women, see Demosth. in Ev. et Mnes. § 11.
Footnote 1055:
Herodot. i. 1.
Homer abounds with proofs both of the liberty women enjoyed and the
high estimation in which they were held. They were quite as much as is
consistent with prudence and delicacy the companions of men.[1056] And
in more than one particular, as in the bathing[1057] and perfuming of
distinguished male guests, the manners of those times allowed of or
rather enjoined familiarities greater than the customs of any
civilised modern nations permit. Ladies lived at large with their
husbands and families in the more frequented parts of the house, dined
and drank wine with them, rode or walked out in their company, or,
attended by a female servant, and were, in fact, in the modern sense
of the word, mistresses of the house and everything it contained.
Footnote 1056:
Athen. i. 18.
Footnote 1057:
Describing the beauty of Hippodameia, daughter of Anchises, Homer
says, she excelled all the maidens of her age in beauty, skill in
female accomplishments, and endowments of the mind, for which reason
Alcathoos, the noblest man in Troy, chose her to be his wife.—Iliad,
ε. 480. sqq. He must necessarily, therefore, have enjoyed
opportunities of studying her character. Another illustration of the
freedom of heroic female manners is furnished by the author of the
Little Iliad, who relates that, when Aias and Odysseus were
contending for the armour of Achilles, the Greeks, by the advice of
Nestor, sent certain scouts to listen beneath the battlements of
Troy to the conversation of the virgins who, in the cool of the
evening, it may be presumed, were wont to walk upon the ramparts and
converse frankly of the exploits of their illustrious enemies.—Sch.
Aristoph. Equit. 1051. Cf. Il. ζ. 239.
When the husband happened to be absent it was not, indeed, considered
delicate, if the mansion was filled with youthful and petulant guests,
for the wife to be seen much among them,[1058] though it still appears
to have been incumbent upon married ladies to exercise the rites of
hospitality, which sometimes, as in the case of Helen, opened the way
to intrigue and elopement. A similar event, veiled in mythological
obscurity, shipwrecked the virtue of Alcmena.[1059] Clytemnæstra, too,
and Ægialeia the wife of Diomede, fell before the temptations afforded
by the absence of their lords,[1060] while Penelope surrounded with
youthful suitors, assailed by reports of her husband’s death,
alternately soothed and menaced, remained true to her vows and became
to all ages the pattern of conjugal fidelity.
Footnote 1058:
Hom. Odyss. α. 330. sqq.
Footnote 1059:
Apollod. ii. 4. 8.
Footnote 1060:
Ovid. Ibis. 349. seq. Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 384. 1093.
The examples are many of the facility of their intercourse with
strangers. Sthenobœa wife of Prœtos, king of Argos, must have enjoyed
numerous occasions of being alone with Bellerophon before she could,
like the wife of Potiphar, have tried his honour and forfeited her
own.[1061] Helen after her return to Sparta, banquets and associates
freely with strangers at the table of her husband, where, by her
conversation and remarks, we discover how quick and penetrating the
understanding of women was in those ages supposed to be. Nothing could
be further from the mind of those heroic warriors than the idea of
regarding woman merely as an object of desire, or as a household
drudge.[1062] If she receives praise for her beauty, or industrious
habits, still more is she celebrated for her mental endowments, for
her wisdom, for her maternal love. Where in fiction or in life shall
we find a lady more gentle, more graceful, more accomplished, more
gifted with every charm of womanhood than Helen, who, nevertheless,
falls a prey to seduction! Where more feminine tenderness, or truer
love than in Andromache? Where more matronly sweetness and dignity
than in the Phæacian Arete; more unblameable vivacity, blithe
unreserve, greater sensibility, united with the noblest maiden
modesty, self command and proud consciousness of virtue, than in that
loveliest of poetical creations her daughter Nausicaa.
Footnote 1061:
Apollod. ii. 3. 7. Sch. Aristoph. Ran. 1041.
Footnote 1062:
Hesiod suggests a luxurious picture of female life in the heroic
ages.—Opp. et Dies. 519. seq.
Homer himself felt all the charm of this exquisite creation and
lingered over it with the fondness of a parent. She is the very flower
of the heroic age. In the rapid glimpse afforded us of her life, we
discover what the condition and occupations of a noble virgin were in
those primitive times, a felicitous mixture of splendour and
simplicity, approaching nature in the rough energy of the passions,
with feelings healthy and vigorous and happy in the utter absence of
sickly sentimentality. Though daughter to a king Nausicaa does not
disdain to care for the family wardrobe. Her nuptial day is not far
distant, and, agreeably to the nature of her sex in all ages, she is
desirous that her dress should on that occasion appear to the best
advantage, but to her father modestly feigns to think principally of
her brothers.[1063] Alcinoos aware of the feint, smiles inwardly while
he approves of her solicitude. With his ready permission she piles the
garments on the royal car drawn by mules, and then, mounting the seat
whip in hand, departs for the distant rivulet accompanied by her
maids. Of these girls, the poet says, two, clothed by the graces with
loveliness, used to sleep in the Princess’s chamber one on either side
the door.
On reaching the secluded spot, the umbrageous embouchure of a mountain
brook where they usually performed their lowly task, it was their
first care to unharness the mules, which were turned loose to graze on
the shore. Their labours occupy them but a portion of the morning, and
these concluded, they dine sumptuously enough, in some shady nook
overlooking the stream, on wine and viands brought along with them
from the palace. To remove every idea of sordid toil and fatigue Homer
is careful to represent them full of life and animal spirits, bounding
sportively along the meadows, having first bathed and lubricated their
limbs with fragrant oils. The game which engages them while their
robes and veils are drying on the pebbly beach received in later ages
the name of Phæninda,[1063] and consisted in throwing a ball
unexpectedly from one individual to another of a large party scattered
over a field. As it was uncertain to whom the person in possession of
the ball would cast it, every one was on the watch, and much of the
sport arose from the eagerness of each to catch it.
Footnote 1063:
See Book II. v2-Chapter III.
In this game the princess takes part, laughing and singing with the
rest, and it is a clumsy throw of hers which sends the ball into the
river that excites the loud exclamation from her maids which awakens
Odysseus. Her conversation with the hero thereupon ensuing suggests a
high notion of female education at the period. The maids of honour
terrified at his strange and grotesque appearance, unclothed, and
deformed with ooze and mud, take to flight, but Nausicaa relying on
the respect due to her father maintains her ground. Odysseus
reverencing her youth and beauty prefers his petition from a distance.
She grants far more than he seeks, and with many indications of female
gentleness mingles so much self-possession, forethought, compassion
for misfortune, consideration of what is due to her own character, and
confidence in the generosity and unsuspicious goodness of her parents,
that we are constrained to suppose the existence of much instruction,
mental training, and knowledge of the world. And if such
qualifications had not at that time been found in women, Homer had
much too keen a sense of propriety to have hazarded his reputation and
his bread by supposing their prevalence in his poems.[1064]
Footnote 1064:
Clytemnæstra, again, in Æschylus exhibits considerable knowledge of
geography, which she could only have acquired from conversation with
travellers or from the songs of the poets.—Agamemn. 287. sqq.
How the women of the heroic times received their instruction it is not
difficult to comprehend, though there has come down to us very little
positive information on the subject. The poets, those prophetic
teachers of the infancy of humanity, had already commenced their
revelations of the good and beautiful. Wandering from town to town,
under the immediate direction of Providence, they scattered far and
near the seeds of civilisation. Their songs were in every mouth: both
youths and maidens imbibed the wisdom they contained, and with their
sprightly strains, as in the case of Nausicaa, enlivened their lighter
moments when alone, or delighted the noble and numerous guests at
their fathers’ board. Homer, indeed, nowhere introduces a lady singing
at an entertainment, excepting in Olympos, where the Muses represent
the sex; but Æschylus, a poet profoundly versed in antiquity, speaks
of Iphigenia as performing this sweet office in her father’s
hall.[1065] The daughter of Alcinoos, however, shares in the
amusements and instruction supplied by the bard during the
entertainment described by Homer, and converses freely with their
illustrious guest.[1066]
Footnote 1065:
And Theocritus enumerates among the accomplishments of Helen, that
she could sing and play upon the cithara.—Eidyll. xviii. 35. sqq. et
Kiesling ad Theocrit. Cf. Æneid. vi. 647.
Footnote 1066:
Odyss. θ. 457. sqq.
Footnote 1067:
Apophthegms, Old and New, § 278.
We have above seen that women in those ages were not creatures of mere
luxury or show. Possessing considerable physical power and energy, and
much skill in the elegant and useful arts of life, they were deterred
by no false pride or ignorant prejudices from converting their
capacity to the use of their families. The magnificence of their
attire, their costly ornaments, or the consciousness of the highest
personal beauty, nowise interfered with their thrifty habits; and Lord
Bacon[1067] tells a very good anecdote to show that the same in former
days was the case in England. There was a lady of the West country, he
says, who gave great entertainments at her house to most of the
gallant gentlemen of her neighbourhood, among whom Sir Walter Raleigh
was one. This lady, though otherwise a stately dame, was a notable
good housewife, and in the morning betimes she called to one of her
maids that looked to the swine, and asked, “Is the piggy served?” Sir
Walter’s chamber being near the lady’s, he heard this homely inquiry.
A little before dinner the lady came down in great state to the
drawing-room, which was full of gentlemen, and as soon as Sir Walter
Raleigh saw her, “Madam,” says he, “is the piggy served?” To which the
lady replied, “You know best whether you have had your breakfast.”
An Homeric princess resembled this stately dame of the West, in
thinking nothing beneath her which could contribute to the comfort or
elegant adornment of those she loved. The employments of women in
those ages, however, included some things which, in the present state
of the useful arts, would seldom fall to their share, and among these
were the labours of the loom, to excel in which was evidently
considered one of their chiefest accomplishments and most necessary
duties.[1068] In this occupation they took refuge from anxiety and
sorrow; to this we find Hector with rough tenderness urging his
beloved wife to have recourse, when her affection would withdraw him
from his post;[1069] and Telemachus, in a tone somewhat too
authoritative, recommends, in the Odyssey, the same course to his
mother:[1070] and in the Eastern world the same tastes and habits
continued to prevail down to a very late age. When Sisygambis, the
captive Persian queen, was presented, however, by Alexander with
purple and wool, she sank into an agony of grief and tears: they
reminded her of happier days. But the conqueror, misunderstanding her
feelings, and desirous to remove the notion that he was imposing any
servile task, observed:—"This garment, mother, which you see me wear,
is not merely the gift but the work also of my sisters."[1071] Similar
presents passed between near relations in Persia; for in Herodotus we
find Amestris, the queen of Xerxes, conferring upon her husband, as a
gift of price, a richly variegated and ample pelisse, which the
labours of her own fair hands had rendered valuable.[1072] Augustus,
too, even when all simplicity of manners had expired with the
republic, affected still to bring up the females of his family upon
the antique model, and wore no garments but such as were manufactured
in his own house.[1073]
Footnote 1068:
Alexand. ab Alexand. iv. 8.
Footnote 1069:
Iliad, ζ. 491.
Footnote 1070:
Odyss. α. 357.
Footnote 1071:
Q. Curt. v. 2. 18.
Footnote 1072:
Herod. ix. 188.
Footnote 1073:
Suet. in Vit. § 64. Conf. Feith. Antiq. Homer. iv. 34.
To return: constant practice and the delight which familiar and
voluntary labour inspires, had already in the heroic ages, enabled the
Grecian ladies to throw much splendour and richness of invention into
their fabrics. The desire also, perhaps, of excelling in works of this
kind the ladies of Sidon, communicated an additional impulse to their
industry. At all events, Homer makes it abundantly clear that they
understood how to employ with singular felicity the arts of design,
and to represent in colours brilliant and varied, cities, landscapes,
human figures, and all the complicated movements of war.[1074] We
must, no doubt, allow something for the poet’s own skill in painting;
but, after every reasonable deduction, enough will remain still to
prove that at the period of the Trojan war Greece had made remarkable
progress in every art which tends to ameliorate and embellish human
life.
Footnote 1074:
In northern Greece and Macedonia women could depict such scenes from
the life, since they learned the use of arms, and engaged personally
in war.—Athen. xiii. 10. Tradition relates that Queen Matilda and
her maids wrought the tapestry of Bayeux, representing the conquest
of England by her husband.
Carding, also, and spinning entered into the list of their
occupations. Even Helen though frail as fair, is laborious as a
Penelope, plying her shuttle or her golden distaff, and surrounded
habitually by a troop of she-manufacturers.[1075] Arete, queen of
Phæacia, is likewise depicted sitting at the fire, distaff in hand,
encircled by her maids;[1076] and the wife of Odysseus, famed for her
household virtues, is seen in the Odyssey at her own door spinning the
purple thread.[1077] The work-baskets of the ladies of that period, if
we can rely on a poet’s word, were such as more modern dames might
envy, formed of beaten gold and chased with figures richly wrought,
and grouped with infinite taste and judgment.[1078] In these their
balls of purple were deposited when spun, though probably reed baskets
or osier work contented the ambition of ladies less aspiring than
Europa.
Footnote 1075:
Iliad, ζ. 491.—Odyss. δ. 131.—Theocrit. Eidyll. xviii. 32. sqq.
Footnote 1076:
Odyss. ζ. 491. 38.—Feith by mistake introduces the name of Nausicaa
instead of that of her mother.—Ant. Hom. iv. 3. 2.
Footnote 1077:
Odyss. υ. 97.
Footnote 1078:
Mosch. Eidyll. ii. 37. seq.
Women also, but chiefly slaves, performed in those primitive times all
the operations of the kitchen. They even in the great establishment of
Alcinoos work at the mill, as they do also in the palace of Odysseus,
where guided perhaps by the nature of the climate we find the young
women preferring for this operation the cool of the night.[1079] Even
in later ages, when juster ideas of what is due to the sex prevailed,
this severe toil sometimes devolved upon female slaves, though in
general it was the males, and of these the most worthless, who worked
the mills, regarded at length almost in the light of correctional
establishments.[1080] But the making of bread was very properly
appropriated to women almost throughout the East. The Egyptians,
indeed, an effeminate and servile people, very early, as we learn from
Genesis, confounded the offices of the sex; but among the Lydians,
even in the palace of Crœsos, we meet with a female baker,[1081] and
the Persian armies carried along with them women to bake their bread
in their longest and most dangerous expeditions.[1082] In Greece to
preside over the oven, was up to a very late period the prerogative of
the fair. One hundred and ten women had the honour of being locked up
with the handful of warriors who during three years baffled the whole
force of the Peloponnesos from the glorious walls of Platæa,[1083] and
in the primitive ages of Macedonia the queen herself prepared the
bread distributed among the royal shepherds.[1084]
Footnote 1079:
Odyss. η. 103. seq.—ο. 107.
Footnote 1080:
Theoph. Char. c. v.
Footnote 1081:
Herod. i. 51.
Footnote 1082:
Herod. vii. 187.
Footnote 1083:
Thucyd. ii. 78.
Footnote 1084:
Herod. viii. 139.
The Sacred Scriptures have rendered familiar and reconciled to us the
simplicity of patriarchal manners. To behold the daughter of Bethuel
or of Laban coming forth to draw water for her flock, does not strike
us as at all out of keeping with the opulence or dignity of her
father, or with her own feminine delicacy; and we know that at this
present day the wealthiest Bedouin Sheikh of the desert, though lord
of a thousand camels, discovers nothing in his daughter’s condition
which should relieve her from this healthful employment. Similar
notions prevailed among the Greeks of the Heroic Age. For though in
many cases slave-maidens[1085] are found engaged in drawing water from
the springs, virgins of noble birth, nay the daughters themselves of
kings, descend to the fountain with their urns, mingling there with
female captives and young women of inferior rank. Thus, for example,
the princess of the Lestrygons in Homer goes forth with her
water-jar[1086] to the well, and even among the Athenians, where
refinement of manners first sprang up, and civilisation made most
rapid strides, the daughters of the citizens in early times used to
descend to the fountain of Callirrhoe to draw water.[1087] But the
task was commonly allotted to female captives and other slaves.
Euryclea, Odysseus’ house-keeper, sends a troop of girls on this
errand with orders to be quick in their movements, and Hector, in his
deep fear for Andromache, already in apprehension beholds her toiling
at the fountains of Argos.[1088]
Footnote 1085:
Eurip. Electr. 107. 309. sqq.
Footnote 1086:
Odyss. κ. 105.
Footnote 1087:
Herod. vi. 137—The historian uses the name of Enneacrounos given to
the fountain by the tyrants. A similar practice is noticed by
Arrian.—Anab. Alexand. ii. 3
Footnote 1088:
Odyss. φ. 153. seq.—Iliad. ζ. 59. seq.
CHAPTER II.
WOMEN OF DORIC STATES.
The women of Sparta were even in Greece remarkable for their personal
beauty. Their education and exercises promoting their health and
physical energies, aided, at the same time, the natural developement
of the frame, with all its inherent symmetry and proportion. It is
probable, however, that the charms of Helen may have led on this point
to some misapprehension; but Helen belonged to the old heroic race,
with which the Dorians of Sparta had nothing in common, that is, like
so many other women celebrated by the poets of after times for their
beauty, was an Achæan. Still, lovely they were, well-formed, brilliant
of complexion, with features of much regularity, and eyes into which
exuberant health infused a sparkling brightness irresistibly pleasing.
But it would require to be peculiarly constituted to pronounce them
the most beautiful women in all Greece.[1089] They were what in modern
phrase would be termed fine women, but exceeding considerably what we
deem true feminine proportions, being, in fact, a sort of female
grenadiers, robust, vigorous, bull-stranglers, as Lysistrata[1090]
somewhat ironically expresses it, their beauty was rather that of men,
than of women. Some among the Greeks preferred, it is true, ladies of
this large growth. Thus, we find Xenophon, in the Anabasis, expressing
his apprehension that should his countrymen become acquainted with the
fine tall women of Persia, they would, like the Lotos-eaters, forget
the way to their country and their home.[1091] But this was a taste
which never became general. The beauty which excited most admiration,
where beauty constituted the noblest object of literature and art, was
a kind totally different in character, exquisitely feminine, gentle,
soft, retiring, modest, instinct with grace and delicacy, the parasite
of the moral creation, clinging round man for support, but imparting
more than it receives.
Footnote 1089:
See Müll. Dor. ii. 296.
Footnote 1090:
Ὧ φιλτάτη Λάκαινα, χαῖρε.
οἷον τὸ κάλλος, γλυκυτάτη, σοῦ φαίνεται.
ὡς δ᾽ εὐχροεῖς, ὡς δὲ σφριγᾷ τὸ σῶμά σου,
κἂν ταῦρον ἄγχοις.
Which may be thus translated:
Beloved Laconian, welcome!
How glorious is thy beauty, love! how ruddy
The tint of thy complexion! Vigour and health
So brace thy frame that thou a bull couldst throttle.
Aristoph. Lysist. 78 sqq.
Footnote 1091:
Anab. iii. 2. 25.—Ἀλλὰ γὰρ δέδοικα μὴ, ἂν ἅπαξ μάθωμεν ἀργοὶ ζῇν,
καὶ ἐν ἀφθόνοις βιοτεύειν, καὶ Μήδῶν δὲ καὶ Περσῶν καλαῖς καὶ
μεγάλαις γυναιξὶ καὶ παρθένοις ὁμιλεῖν, μὴ, ὣσπερ οἱ λωτοφάγοι,
ἐπιλαθώμεθα τῆς οἴκαδε ὁδοῦ.—And again, in the Cyropædia, Araspes
praises Panthea for her majestic size. It appears from Homer that
when Athena was desirous of making Penelope appear more lovely than
ordinary, she added to her height.—Odyss. σ. 194.
Such beauty, however, would have been inconsistent with the aim of
Lycurgus. Like a well-known modern despot, this great legislator aimed
solely at creating a nation of grenadiers, and to effect this, both
the education, laws, and manners of Sparta received a military
impress. Everything there breathed of the camp. The girls from their
tenderest years, instead of being instructed as in other communities
to entwine all their feelings round the domestic hearth, and expect
their chiefest happiness at home, were systematically undomesticated,
brought incessantly into contact with men, initiated in immoral
habits, subversive of the female character,[1092] and taught to
consider themselves designed to be the wives of the state rather than
of individuals. Nature, the legislator was aware, has implanted the
principles of love and modesty deep in the female heart; in general
also, to eradicate one, is to root up the other; and both in the sense
in which we contemplate them, being inimical to the purpose which his
constitution was intended to promote, he sought to subvert the power
of love by obliterating from the female mind every trace of maidenly
modesty.
Footnote 1092:
Athen. xiii. 79.—Even Plutarch denominates the system of discipline
observed by the Spartan women ἀναπεπταμένη καὶ ἄθηλυς,—"lax and
unfeminine,"—and confesses that it afforded the poets an
inexhaustible fund for ridicule. Ibycos, for example, called them
φαινομηρίδες: and Euripides ἀνδρομανεῖς. Their education, in fact,
rendered them coarse and domineering, “bold and mannish;”
θρασύτεραι, and ἀνδριοδεῖς, are the words of Plutarch, who observes
that they desired not only to rule by violence at home, but even
audaciously to meddle with public affairs.—Compar. Lycurg. cum Num.
§ 3.
The power of political institutions over the feelings of the heart,
over manners, over habits, over conscience, and opinions, was never so
strikingly exemplified as at Sparta. Whatever the legislator
determined to be good was good.[1093] Example, affection, nature
pleaded in vain. An iron system, strong as fate, encircled the whole
scope of life, repressing every aspiration tending above the point
prescribed, guiding every wish into a given channel, curbing every
passion inconsistent in its full developement with the views of the
legislator. Aristotle, indeed, maintains that while the men of Sparta
conformed to the design of the constitution, the women refused to bend
their neck to the yoke, and persisted in the enjoyment of a freedom
constantly degenerating into licentiousness.[1094] He probably,
however, supposes the existence in Lycurgus of a moral purpose, far
loftier than he really aimed at. The virtues of a camp—and Sparta was
nothing else—are never too rigid, nor must we look among female
camp-followers for much of that delicacy, reserve, self-control, or
keen sense of what is just and upright, of which none judge more
accurately than well educated women. Doubtless the Doric lawgiver
cherished no other design than to promote the happiness of his
countrymen. It would be unjust to suppose otherwise. But how far the
regulations by which he sought to effect this purpose were calculated
to ensure success, is what we have to inquire.
Footnote 1093:
Philosophers, also, were found in antiquity as in modern times, who
theoretically maintained this doctrine. Thus Archelaos contended,
καὶ τὸ δίκαιον εἶναι καὶ τὸ αἰσχρὸν οὐ φύσει, ἀλλὰ νόμῳ.—Diog.
Laert. ii. 4. 3. Here we discover the fundamental maxim upon which
the whole system of Hobbes was constructed.
Footnote 1094:
Polit. ii. 9.
It may at once be observed that Lycurgus’s system of female education
was the furthest possible removed from common place. He contemplated
both the sexes in nearly the same point of view. Their form he saw;
and in many points their character, their affections, their virtues,
their vices, bear a close resemblance; and in his conception,
perfection would be attained, if all such discriminating marks as
nature has set up could be removed, and every quality of what he
considered the superior sex transferred to the inferior. Much
misapprehension appears to exist on this point. Writers pretend that
among the Dorians the female character stood in high estimation, while
the reverse they suppose to have been the case in Ionic States. But
the Dorians betrayed their contempt for women as they came from the
hands of nature, by endeavouring to convert them into men; their
neighbours the reverse, by contenting themselves with their purely
feminine qualities, which among people of Ionic race were cultivated
and improved, perhaps, as far as was consistent with domestic
happiness.
In the harems of the East the whip is of great service in
maintaining order, and the same, it is evident, was the case at
Sparta. Both youths and virgins from their tenderest years were
subjected to a severe discipline; regular floggers, as at our own
great schools, always attended the inspectors of public instruction;
and in this the system was wise, that habits were more regarded than
acquisitions.[1095] But of the habits cherished by the Spartan
system we cannot always approve. Like the boys, the virgins
frequented the gymnasia, where, naked as at their birth, they
exercised themselves in wrestling, running, pitching the quoit, and
throwing the javelin.[1096] To these accomplishments, others,
according to a Roman poet, still less feminine were added. They
contended, he says, in the ring with men, bound the cestus on their
clenched fists, and boxed their future husbands like so many
prize-fighters. No wonder that the partners of such women were
henpecked. Horsemanship, the sword exercise, and the rough sports of
the chase, affected by women of similar character in our own
country, completed the circle of female studies,[1097] and rendered
the Spartan maids something more than a match for their worse
halves, whether after marriage or before.[1098]
Footnote 1095:
Jamblich. vit. Pythag. xi. 5. 6.—Müller. Dor. ii. 317.
Footnote 1096:
Plut. Lycurg. §. 14. Compare the remarks of Ubbo Emmius who adopts,
however, too implicitly the notions of Plutarch.—iii. 22. seq.
Footnote 1097:
Propert. iii. 12. p. 261. iv. 13. p. 88. Jacob.—Cicero, after
quoting certain verses from an old poet, describing the exercises of
the female Spartans, adds in his own words: “ergo his laboriosis
excercitationibus et dolor intercurrit nonnumquam; impelluntur,
ponuntur, abjiciuntur, cadunt: et ipse labor quasi callum quoddam
obducit dolori.” Tuscul. Quæst. ii. 36.—In remoter ages we find
women celebrated for their skill in hunting, and there were those
who in later times sought to recommend this taste to their
countrywomen:—Οὐ μόνον δὲ, ὅσοι ἄνδρες κυνηγεσίων ἡράσθησαν,
ἐγένοντο ἀγαθοὶ ἀλλὰ καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες, αἷς ἔδωκεν ἡ θεὸς ταῦτα
Ἄρτεμις, Ἀταλάντη, καὶ Πρόκρις, καὶ εἴ τις ἄλλη. Xen. de Venat.
xiii. 18. 345. Schneid. Cf. Callim. Hymn. in Dian. 209. 215. Spanh.
Footnote 1098:
Alluding to the political power of women at Sparta, Aristotle
inquires: what signifies it whether women govern or men be governed
by women? Polit. ii. 9.
Some pains have in our own days been taken to pare away the
roughnesses, and obliterate the peculiar features of the Doric
educational institutions, in order to bring them into greater
uniformity with modern notions. There is no probability, we are told,
that either youths or men were permitted to be present at the
extraordinary exhibition of the female gymnasia.[1099] But whence is
this inference derived? From the delicacy of Spartan manners in other
respects? And are we in fact reduced on this curious point to depend
on inferences and probabilities? On the contrary, we are informed by
antiquity that besides the personal advantages of health and vigour,
derived to the women themselves, the legislator contemplated others
little less important, the promotion of marriage and the recreation of
all the useful portion of the citizens. For while the married men and
youths intent on connubial happiness, enjoyed the free entry to these
gymnasia,[1100] those sullen egotists called bachelors were very
properly excluded. The former had some property in the young ladies,
who were their daughters, sisters, or future spouses, but persons
avowedly indifferent to the seductive influence of female charms could
have no business there.
Footnote 1099:
Müll. Dor. ii. 333.
Footnote 1100:
Plut. Lycurg. § 14. 15. Müller, with the amusing partiality of an
apologist, overlooks the passage, and introduces Plutarch affirming
“that they only witnessed the processions and dances of the young
(wo)men.” Note K. Dor. ii. p. 328. Here though _men_ be the printed
word in the English translation women must be clearly meant. Even
so, however, the assertion is unfounded, since we find that even
strangers were admitted:—ἐπαινεῖται δὲ καὶ τῶν Σπαρτιατῶν τὸ ἔθος τὸ
γυμνοῦν τὰς παρθένους τοῖς ξένοις. Athen. xiii. 20. The islanders of
Chios would appear to have imitated this laudable practice, since
the sophist speaks of it as a most pleasant spectacle to behold the
youths and virgins wrestling together in the public place of
exercise. Ibid.
Admitting, therefore, that when the Spartan virgins[1101] performed in
the gymnasia, for we must consider their exercises partly in the light
of scenic exhibitions, the whole city, bachelors excepted, could be
present, it remains to be seen what other accomplishments they could
display for the public entertainment. Singing and dancing it has been
shown were practised publicly by ladies of rank in the heroic ages,
and this feature of ancient manners was preserved at Sparta, where not
youths and maidens only, but even the grave and aged joined, during
several great festivals, in the dance and the song.[1102] But we must
beware how we apply to these performances the ideas suggested by those
of modern times, or the gay and graceful movements of Ionian women. To
dance at Sparta required great physical force.[1103] The maidens,
unencumbered by dress, bounded aloft like an Anatole or a Taglioni,
but instead of twirling round with one foot on earth, and the other
suspended at right angles in air, the supreme merit of her performance
consisted in slapping the back part of the body with her heel for the
greatest possible number of times in succession.[1104] In this feat,
which resembles strongly a Caribbee or Iroquois accomplishment, whole
troops of men and women often united; an exhibition which with the
shouts of laughter arising from the bystanders, the grins of the
girls, and the wilful mistakes of young men who might send their feet
in the wrong direction, must convey a curious idea of Spartan gravity.
Such, however, was the celebrated dance called _Bibasis_,[1105] upon
the frequent execution of which a Laconian girl prided herself no less
than a modern lady on her activity in the indecent waltz.
Footnote 1101:
Cf. Plato. De Legg. t. viii. p. 85.
Footnote 1102:
Plut. Lycurg. §. 21.
Footnote 1103:
As now among the Galaxidiotes. Dodwell. i. 133. seq.
Footnote 1104:
Aristoph. Lysistr. 82.
Footnote 1105:
Pollux. iv. 102.
But the other dances in which the Spartan maidens excelled were
numerous. Among them was the _Dipodia_[1106] of which the nature is
not exactly known, but it was accompanied by music and song and
apparently consisted of a series of orgiastic movements, like those
of the Bacchantes when, inspired by wine, they bounded fawnlike with
dishevelled hair along the mountains.[1107] On other occasions their
movements were designed to express certain passions of the mind,
sometimes, as in the _Calabis_,[1108] highly wanton and licentious,
though the latitudinarian spirit of paganism contrived to admit them
among the religious ceremonies, and that too in honour of Artemis.
Another of these lewd dances performed in the worship of Apollo and
his sister, and accompanied by songs, conceived no doubt in the same
spirit, was the _Bryallicha_[1109], which the historian of the Doric
race finds some difficulty to reconcile with the worship of Apollo,
as if their deity had been himself free from the inherent vices of
the Olympian dynasts. There was another dance called the
_Deicelistic_[1110], a kind of rude pantomime intermingled with
songs supposed to have been performed by unmarried women[1111].
Footnote 1106:
Scaliger’s idea of the dance is peculiar: Erat et διποδία, in quâ
junctis pedibus labore plurimo et conatu picas imitabantur. Poet. i.
18. p. 69.
Footnote 1107:
Aristoph. Lysistr. 1303. sqq.
Footnote 1108:
Athen. xiv. 29.
Footnote 1109:
Poll. iv. 104. Hesych. v. Βρυδαλίχα.
Footnote 1110:
Etym. Mag. 260. 42.
Footnote 1111:
Müll. Dor. ii. 335.
To these dances may be added the _Hyporchematic_, which was executed
by a chorus, while singing, for which reason Bacchylides says, “This
is not the work of slowness or inactivity.” By Pindar it is described
as a dance performed by Spartan girls; but in fact both young men and
women united in the Hyporchema, and as this dance is said to have
resembled or been identical with the Cordax[1112], it will assist us
in forming a notion of female delicacy at Sparta, where young women
could execute publicly in company with the other sex a dance scarcely
less indelicate than the fandango or bolero[1113].
Footnote 1112:
Cf. Nonn. Dionys. xix. 265. sqq. Etym. Mag. 712. 53. 635. 2. Scalig.
Poet. i. 18. Poll. iv. 99.
Footnote 1113:
Athen. xiv. 30.
From such an education and such habits tastes essentially
unfeminine would naturally spring. Accordingly we find Laconian
ladies of the first rank,—Cynisca daughter of king Archidamos, for
example,—attending to the breed of horses, and sending chariots to
contend at the Olympic games. Nor was her masculine ambition
condemned by the Greeks. A statue of the lady herself, together
with her chariot, and charioteer, existed among other Olympian
monuments in the age of Pausanias. Afterwards many other women,
but chiefly among the half barbarous Macedonians, followed the
example of Cynisca and Euryleonis another Spartan dame who had
been honoured with a statue at Olympia for the success of her
chariot at the games.[1114]
Footnote 1114:
Pausan. iii. 15. 1. 17. 6. Cf. Vandal. Dissert. vii. p. 562. seq.
In strict keeping with the rough manners and masculine bearing of
these ladies was the habit of swearing,[1115] to which in common with
most other Greek women they were grievously addicted. At Athens,
however, gentlewomen swore by Demeter, Persephone and Agraulos,[1116]
an oath by divinities of their own sex[1117] being considered more
suitable to female lips; but the viragos of Sparta spiced their
conversation with oaths by Castor and Polydeukes. According, moreover,
to the poet whose testimony is commonly adduced against the Athenian
ladies, the women of Sparta drank[1118] as well as swore, and we know
from authority altogether indisputable, that in the age of Socrates
their licentiousness had already become universally notorious in
Greece.[1119] A scholar, and a diligent inquirer, whose merits are too
often overlooked, observes very justly that it was probably the
austerity, or more properly the pedantry of Lycurgus’s institutions
that gave rise to the notion that chastity was a common virtue at
Sparta.[1120] It was supposed because occasionally subjected to
violent exercise, that they must necessarily be temperate in their
pleasures. But we might _à priori_ have inferred the contrary, and the
uniform testimony of antiquity proves it. Their wantonness and
licentiousness knew no bounds. Even during the ages immediately
succeeding the establishment of their constitution, that is at the
time of the Messenian wars, to preserve for any length of time their
chastity while their husbands were absent in the field was beyond
their power, and substitutes were selected and sent home to become the
husbands of the whole female population.[1121]
Footnote 1115:
Aristoph. Lysistr. 81. sqq.
Footnote 1116:
Sch. Aristoph. Thesmophor. 533.
Footnote 1117:
But men we find likewise swore—Κατὰ ταῖν θεαῖν καὶ τῆς
Πολιάδος..—Lucian. Diall. Hetair. vii. 1.
Footnote 1118:
Aristoph. Lysistr. 198. seq.
Footnote 1119:
Plat. de Legg. i. t. vii. p. 201. Bekk.
Footnote 1120:
Goguet. Orig. des Loix. t. v. p. 429.
Footnote 1121:
Dion. Chrysostom. Orat. i. 278. Justin. iii. 4.
But for this ungovernable sway of temperament the institutions of the
state were chiefly to blame.[1122] We have seen by the whole tenor of
their education, modesty and virtue were sapped and undermined; no
merit, it was visible, attached to them in the eye of the law; and
shrewdly gifted as they were with good sense, they must quickly have
discovered that marriage was a mere unmeaning ceremony, and that
provided they gave good citizens to the state it would be of little
consequence who might be their fathers.[1123] The ceremonies attending
that lax union which for lack of a better term we must call marriage,
resembled closely those which have been found to prevail among other
savages in very distant parts of the world.
Footnote 1122:
Plut. Compar. Lycurg. cum. Num. § 3. Aristot. Polit. ii. 9. who
observes:—ζῶσι ἀκολαστῶς πρὸς ἅπασαν ἀκολασίαν καὶ τρυφερῶς.—Hermann
in his Political Antiquities § 27, reasoning consistently with these
ancient authorities, observes that the system of Lycurgus “gradually
effaced every characteristic of female excellence from the Spartan
women.”
Footnote 1123:
βουλόμενος γὰρ ὁ νομοθέτης ὡς πλείστους εἴναι τοὺς Σπαρτιάτας,
προάγεται τοὺς πολίτας ὄτι πλείστους ποιεῖσθαι παῖδας· ἔστι γὰρ
αὐτοῖς νόμος τὸν μὲν γεννήσαντα τρεῖς υἱοὺς ἄφρουρον εἶναι, τὸν δὲ
τέτταρας ἀτελή πάντων.—Arist. Polit. ii. 9. Cf. Ælian. Var. Hist.
vi. 6, who substitutes the number five for four.
Having gone through the ceremony of betrothment,[1124] in which the
bride’s interest was represented by her father or brother, the lover
chose some fitting occasion to seize and carry her away from amongst
her companions. She was then received into the house of the
bridesmaid, where her hair was cut short and her dress exchanged for
that of a young man, after which custom directed that she should be
left reclining on a pallet bed, in a dark chamber, alone. Thither the
bridegroom repaired by stealth, and, afterwards, with equal secresy,
returned to his companions, among whom he continued for some time to
live as if no change in his condition had taken place. During this
period, therefore, their union must be regarded rather as a
clandestine intercourse than a marriage, since the husband continued,
as at first, to steal secretly into the company of his wife and to
effect his escape with equal care, it being considered disreputable
for them to be seen together. Even the children springing from this
connexion have been supposed to have ranked as bastards; but of this
there is no sufficient proof.
Footnote 1124:
Cf. Xen. de Rep. Lac. i. 6. Plut. Lycurg. § 15.—Ubbo Emmius. Descr.
Reip. Lacon. p. 96. seq.
A different account is given by other authors of the marriage ceremony
at Sparta, but, if properly examined, both relations may very well be
reconciled. The above, in fact, appears to have been the ordinary mode
when young women of property who had dowries[1125] to bestow upon
their husbands, were to be disposed of. But the portionless girls,
excepting, perhaps, the more beautiful, finding some difficulty in
providing themselves with helpmates, a contrivance was hit upon by the
legislator, calculated to give a fair chance to all. The unmarried
damsels of the city, thus circumstanced, were shut up in the dark, in
a spacious edifice,[1126] into which the young unmarried men were
introduced to scramble for wives, the understanding being, that each
was to remain content with the maiden he happened to seize upon. And
it would appear that the awards of chance were, in most cases,
satisfactory, since we read of no one but Lysander who abandoned the
wife he had thus chosen. He, however, having been presented, by
fortune, with a maiden of homely features, immediately deserted her
for one more beautiful. The bad example thus set was not without its
evil consequences, for the men who married his daughters put them away
in like manner after his death.[1127] But, in both cases, fines for
contumacy were exacted by the Ephori. According to the laws of Sparta,
men were likewise fined for leading a life of celibacy,[1128] for
marrying late, or for marrying unsuitably. Thus, king Archidamos was
fined for selecting a little woman to be his queen, as if there was
something regal in loftiness of stature.[1129]
Footnote 1125:
According to Justin, indeed, the Spartan legislator abolished the
usage of dowries: Virgines sine dote nubere jussit, ut uxores
eligerentur, non pecuniæ; severiusque matrimonia sua viri
coërcerent, cum nullis dotis frœnis tenerentur, iii. 3. But
Aristotle, who had deeply studied the polity of Sparta, gives a very
different account:—ἔστι δὲ καὶ τῶν γυναικῶν σχεδὸν τῆς πάσης χώρας
τῶν πέντε μερῶν τὰ δύο, τῶν τ᾽ ἐπικλήρων πολλῶν γινομένων, καὶ διὰ
τὸ προῖκας διδόναι μεγάλας.—Polit. ii. 9.
Footnote 1126:
Athen. xiii. 2.
Footnote 1127:
Plut. Lysand. § 30.
Footnote 1128:
Athen. xiii. 1.
Footnote 1129:
Plut. Agis, § 2. Athen. xiii. 20. It was not without reason,
perhaps, that the Ephori interfered with the marriages of their
kings, since royalty has everywhere been capricious. But these
honest magistrates were sometimes tyrannical in their ordinances and
behaviour. Thus, when Anaxandrides married his niece for love,
because she had no children he was compelled by them to take a
second wife. When the first wife was confined they, fearing
imposition, or feigning incredulity, sat about her bed.—Herod. v.
39–41.
On almost every point connected with Spartan marriages the accounts
transmitted to us are contradictory. Thus, we are by some told, as has
been seen above, that the union of the bride and bridegroom took place
secretly, and remained for some time almost unknown. Nevertheless,
there are not wanting those who speak of public ceremonies which took
place on the occasion, as for example Sosibios,[1130] who informs us,
that the cake, called cribanos, shaped like the female breast, was
eaten at that repast which the Lacedæmonian women gave in honour of a
betrothed maiden when her youthful companions assembled in chorus to
chaunt her praises. At Argos, another Doric state, it was customary
before the bride joined her husband for her to send him, as a present,
the cake called creion, which his friends were invited to partake of
with honey. It was baked upon the coals as cakes are still in the
East.
Footnote 1130:
Athen. xiv. 54.
When at Sparta the state had recognised the marriage, by permitting
cohabitation, no man could call his wife his own. Any person might
legally claim the favour of borrowing her for a certain time, in
order, if he did not choose to be burdened with a wife, to have a
family by her while she remained in the house of her lord. An elderly
man was sure to have his connubial privileges invaded in this way, and
the most able and philosophical advocates of Lycurgus’s institutions
inform us that the Spartan ladies highly approved of all these
arrangements. Yet, famous and learned authors undertake to break a
lance for the chastity of the Spartan dames, and maintain with
infinite complacency that adultery was unknown among them. The truth
is that the Spartan laws recognised no such offence.[1131] It was
legal, common, of every day occurrence, though, from many
circumstances, it would appear, that such Lacedæmonians as travelled
into other parts of Greece, and learned in what light manners and
morals so lax were by them viewed, blushed for their country’s
institutions, and, in defence of them, put in practice those arts of
delusion and hypocrisy which constituted so distinguished a part of
their education.
Footnote 1131:
Xenoph. de Rep. Laced. i. 7. 8. 9.
Much has been said of the stern virtue and patriotism of the Spartan
women, and high praise has been bestowed on the callous indifference
which they sometimes exhibited on learning the death of their
sons;[1132] but English mothers, who have given birth to sons as brave
as ever fought or bled for Sparta, will, I think, agree with me in
rating very low their boasted stoicism, which, if properly analysed,
might prove to be nothing more than a coarse and unnatural apathy. The
reader of the Greek Anthologia will here remember her who meeting her
son a fugitive among the flying from a victorious enemy, inflicted on
him with her own hands the death he sought to shun. Had Nature, which
is but the voice of God indistinctly heard, anything to do with virtue
such as that? Supposing the youth to have been a coward, which the
fact of his flying before the enemy by no means proves, was it for the
hands that had nursed him to become his executioners? A mother,
deserving of the name, would no doubt have sorrowed not to find her
boy numbered among the brave, but her maternal heart would not the
less have yearned towards the unhappy youth; she would have fled with
him into obscurity, and uttered her mild reproaches and shed her tears
there.
Footnote 1132:
Cic. Tusc. Quæst. i. 49.
As often happens, however, these female stoics who were so lavish of
the blood of their children, displayed no readiness to set them the
example of making light of death when the fortunes of war afforded
them an occasion of putting their heroic maxims in practice; for when
the Theban army[1133] burst forth from the depths of the Menelaion,
and swept down the valley of the Eurotas like a torrent, wasting
everything before them with fire and sword, the women of Sparta, who
had never before seen the smoke of an enemy’s camp, lost in a moment
their presence of mind, and, instead of encouraging their sons and
husbands calmly to rely upon their valour, ran to and fro through the
streets, filling the air with their effeminate wailings, and
distracting and impeding the movements of their natural protectors.
Very different from this was the conduct of the female citizens of
Argos. For when Cleomenes and Demaratos, after having defeated the
Argive army, approached the city in the expectation of being able to
take it by storm, the poetess Telesilla armed her countrywomen, who,
hastening to the defence of the walls, repulsed the Lacedæmonian
kings, and preserved the state. In commemoration of this event a
festival was annually celebrated, in which the ladies appeared in male
attire while the men concealed their heads beneath the female
veil.[1134]
Footnote 1133:
Aristot. Polit. ii. 9. Xenoph. Hellen. vi. v. 27. It should be
remarked, however, that on a future occasion, when Sparta was
besieged by King Pyrrhus, the female disciples of Lycurgus behaved
with more fortitude and energy; for when it was debated in the
senate whether they should not convey their wives and children to
Crete, and then, deriving courage from despair, determine to conquer
or perish on the spot, Archidamia, daughter of the king, entered
their assembly sword in hand, opposed their resolution, saying, it
behoved the women of Sparta to live and die with their husbands. The
female population was, in consequence, suffered to remain; and by
digging with the men in the trenches, sharpening the arms, and
attending on the wounded, so strongly excited the courage of the
Spartans, that they at length succeeded in repulsing the Macedonians
from their city. Cf. Plut. Pyrrh. § 27.—Polyæn. Stratagem. vii. 49.
Footnote 1134:
Plut. de Mulier. Virtut. t. ii. p. 195. Polyæn. Stratagem. viii. 33.
Again, when the Thebans broke into Platæa during the night, the women,
instead of delivering themselves up pusillanimously to fear, joined
the men in defence of the city, casting stones and tiles from the
housetops upon the enemy. Yet when defeated and flying for their
lives, it was one of these same women who, with the characteristic
humanity of her sex, supplied them with a hatchet to cut their way
through the gates.[1135]
Footnote 1135:
Thucyd. ii. 4.
But the most remarkable instance of self-devotion furnished by women
in the whole history of Greece was, perhaps, that which is related of
the Phocian ladies,[1136] who, when their countrymen, under the
command of Diophantos, were about to engage with the Thessalians in a
battle which it was felt must finally determine the destiny of Phocis,
strenuously, with the concurrence of their children, exhorted him to
persevere in the design he had formed, of causing them to be consumed
by fire should the battle be lost. Examples of this terrible expedient
for preserving the honour of women occur but too frequently in the
history of India, where it is termed performing _johur_; and the
Romans, in their Spanish wars, witnessed a similar act of
self-sacrifice at Numantia.
Footnote 1136:
Plut. de Mulier. Virtut. t. ii. p. 192.
It should, nevertheless, by no means be concealed that the annals of
Sparta also contain some brilliant examples of female heroism, of
which the most striking, perhaps, is that furnished by the wife of
Panteus and her companions after the death of Cleomenes at Alexandria.
“When the report of his death,” says Plutarch,[1137] “had spread over
the city, Cratesiclea, though a woman of superior fortitude, sank
under the weight of the calamity; she embraced the children of
Cleomenes, and wept over them. The elder of them, disengaging himself
from her arms, got unsuspected to the top of the house, and threw
himself down headlong. He was not killed, however, though much hurt;
and when they took him up he loudly expressed his grief and
indignation that they would not suffer him to destroy himself. Ptolemy
was no sooner informed of these things than he ordered the body of
Cleomenes to be flayed, and nailed to a cross, and his children to be
put to death, together with his mother and the women her companions.
Among these was the wife of Panteus, a woman of great beauty and most
majestic presence. They had been but lately married, and their
misfortune overtook them amid the first transports of love. When her
husband went with Cleomenes from Sparta, she was desirous of
accompanying him, but was prevented by her parents, who kept her in
close custody. Soon afterwards, however, she provided herself with a
horse and a little money, and making her escape by night, rode at full
speed to Tænaros, and there embarked on board a ship bound for Egypt.
She reached her husband safely, and readily and cheerfully shared with
him in all the inconveniences of a foreign residence. When the
soldiers came to take Cratesiclea to the scaffold, she led her by the
hand, assisted in bearing her robe,[1138] and desired her to exert all
her courage, though she was far from being afraid of death, and
desired no other favour than that she might die before her children.
But when they arrived at the place of execution the children suffered
before her eyes; and then Cratesiclea was despatched, uttering in her
extreme distress only these words: ‘Oh! my children! whither are you
gone?’
“The wife of Panteus, who was tall and strong, girt her robe about her
and in a silent and composed manner paid the last offices to each
woman that lay dead, winding up the bodies as well as her present
circumstances would admit. Last of all she prepared herself for the
poniard by letting down her robe about her and adjusting it in such a
manner as to need no assistance after death, then, calling the
executioner to do his office, and permitting no other person to
approach her, she fell like a heroine. In death she retained all the
decorum which she had preserved in life, and the decency which had
been so sacred with this excellent woman still remained about her.
Thus in this bloody tragedy in which the women contended to the last
for the prize of courage with the men, Lacedæmon evinced that it is
impossible for fortune to conquer virtue.”
Footnote 1137:
Cleomen. § 38. I have here made use of the translation of Langhorne,
because it would be no easy matter to furnish a better.
Footnote 1138:
Πέπλος.
Another brief narrative given by the same historian exhibits in the
most touching manner, the tenderness and self-devotion of a Spartan
woman. Cleombrotos, in conjunction with other conspirators, had
dethroned king Leonidas his father-in-law and possessed himself of the
crown. Events afterwards restored the old man to his kingdom, upon
which burning with resentment he hurried to take vengeance on his
son-in-law. "Chelonis, the daughter of Leonidas, had looked upon the
injury done to her father as done to herself, and when Cleombrotos
robbed him of the crown she left him in order to console her father in
his misfortune. As long as he remained in sanctuary she stayed with
him, and when he fled, sympathising with his sorrow, and full of
resentment against Cleombrotos, she attended him in his flight. But
when the fortunes of her father changed she changed too. She joined
her husband as a suppliant, and was found sitting by him with great
marks of tenderness, and her two children one on each side at her
feet. The whole company were much struck at the sight, and could not
refrain from tears when they considered her goodness of heart and
uncommon strength of affection.
"Chelonis, then, pointing to her mourning habit and her dishevelled
hair thus addressed Leonidas. ‘It was not my dear father compassion
for Cleombrotos which put me in this habit and gave me this look of
misery. My sorrows took their date with your misfortune and your
banishment, and have ever since remained my familiar companions. Now
you have conquered your enemies and are again king of Sparta should I
still retain these ensigns of affliction or assume festival and royal
ornaments, while the husband of my youth whom you yourself bestowed
upon me falls a victim to your vengeance? If his own submission, if
the tears of his wife and children cannot propitiate you he must
suffer a severer punishment for his offences than even you require, he
must see his beloved wife die before him. For how can I live and
support the sight of my own sex, after both my husband and my father
have refused to hearken to my supplications, when it appears that both
as a wife and a daughter I am born to be miserable with my family. If
this poor man had any plausible reasons for what he did I invalidated
them all by forsaking him to follow you. But you furnish him with a
sufficient apology for his misbehaviour by showing that a crown is so
bright and desirable an object that a son-in-law must be slain and a
daughter totally disregarded when it is in question.’
“Chelonis, after this supplication, rested her cheek upon her
husband’s head, and with an eye dim and languid through sorrow looked
round on the spectators; Leonidas consulted his friends upon the
point, and then commanded Cleombrotos to rise and go into exile, but
he desired Chelonis to stay and not to forsake so affectionate a
father who had kindly granted her husband’s life. Chelonis, however,
would not be persuaded. When her husband had risen from the ground she
put one child into his arms and took the other herself, and after
having paid due homage at the altar where they had taken sanctuary
went with him into banishment. So that had not Cleombrotos been
corrupted by the love of false glory he must have thought exile with
such a woman a greater happiness than a kingdom without her.”[1139]
Footnote 1139:
Plut. Agis §§ 17. 18. Moore in his Lalla Rookh has expressed the
same idea.
Fly to the desert, fly with me,
Our Arab tents are rude for thee;
But ah! the choice what heart can doubt,
Of tents with love or thrones without?
CHAPTER III.
CONDITION OF UNMARRIED WOMEN.—LOVE.
The condition of an Athenian lady it is far more important and, in
proportion, more difficult to describe. Extremely erroneous
impressions appear to exist on the subject, several writers of
eminence having adopted the theory that they lived in total seclusion,
and were little less ignorant and degraded than Oriental women are
commonly supposed to be. My own opinion is somewhat different. After
very patiently investigating the matter, the conclusions at which I
have arrived are as follow:—
In delineating a picture of this kind, positive testimonies are
unquestionably required; but I appeal to the impartial reader, whether
very great, I had almost said the greatest weight, should not, after
all, be attributed to that conviction which grows up, gradually and
silently, in the mind, during a long and habitual intercourse with the
subject. In this way, new authorities are formed, for to have examined
minutely and attentively what others have written, to have weighed
authorities and scrupulously sifted their several pretensions, may be
allowed to entitle a man, if anything can, to express an opinion of
his own.
The notion appears to prevail extensively, even among writers not
otherwise ill-informed, that women occupied, among the Ionians
generally, and more especially among the Athenians, a very mean
position, were neglected and despised, and, consequently, exerted
little or no influence on manners, morals, literature, or public
affairs. With what design this error has been propagated it is not
difficult to comprehend. But to pervert history for party purposes is,
after all, an useless undertaking, since the facts always remain, and
it is never too late to rescue truth from the fangs of sophistry.
That the women of Athens were in the condition for which nature
designed them, I will not affirm; a little more converse with the
world might have improved their understandings, they might have been
rendered more pleasing companions; but what they gained as social,
they would probably have lost as domestic beings. No woman was ever
rendered better as a wife or as a mother by that indiscriminate
enjoyment of society, which, it is supposed, the gentlewomen of Athens
lost so much by being deprived of.
To form, however, a correct conception of their station, and the
happiness within their reach, we must take into consideration several
circumstances peculiar to ancient society. In those times something
very different was understood by the word education from the meaning
now attached to it. It signified rather the disciplining of the mind
to certain habits than the imparting of different kinds of knowledge.
It was the culture of the intellectual powers, and the sowing of the
seed, rather than the transplanting of notions, half-grown, from one
mind to another. More care was bestowed on the building up, than on
the furnishing, of the mind. There was by far less acquisition, less
accomplishment than in modern times; but the faculties were more
surely impregnated, quickened sooner, and ripened into more vigorous
maturity. Hence, among the ancients, there were few dreamers, either
men or women. Exquisitely alive to all the peculiarities of their
situation, they were, in the best sense of the word, a poetical
people, gifted, indeed, with imagination, but possessing, too, the
power to rein it in, to shape its course, and, on most occasions, to
render it subservient to the dictates of judgment.
Of the management of infancy I have already spoken. At the age of
seven the sexes were separated, the girls still remaining in the
nursery, while governors, kept expressly for the purpose, conducted
the boys to the public schools.[1140] Too little is known of the
material circumstances attending the mental and bodily training of the
girls, or at what age they were taught to read and write. Much,
however, in those ages was communicated orally. Their mothers imparted
to them whatever notions they possessed of religion, performed in
their presence several sacrifices and other pious rites, and gradually
prepared them for officiating in their turn at their country’s
altars.[1141] In a certain sense, therefore, every Athenian woman was
a priestess, and though their piety was imperfect and their faith
corrupt, it will still be admitted that important benefits must have
been derived from imbuing the youthful mind with some principles of
religion.
Footnote 1140:
From a passage in Terence (Phorm. i. 2. 30. sqq.) Perizonius
concludes that even girls were sent to school. But he applies to
Athenian maidens of free birth what in the Roman poet is related of
a servile music girl: Ea serviebat lenoni impurissimo.—(Not. ad
Ælian. Hist. Var. iii. 21.) It appears, however, from this passage,
as Kuhn has already observed, that there existed public schools for
girls at Athens, whatever might be the condition of the persons who
frequented them. In Lambert Bos’s Antiquitates, (Pars. iv. c. 5. p.
216,) the error of Perizonius is repeated; that is, in the note;
for, according to the text, the Attic virgins were closely confined
to the house.
Footnote 1141:
Πολλὰς ἑορτὰς αἱ γυναῖκες ἔξω τῶν δημοτελῶν ἦγον ἰδία
συνερχόμεναι.—Sch. Aristoph. Lysist. i. In Homer we find the Trojan
women performing sacrifice to Athena—Il. ζ. 277. 310, just as the
Athenian matrons did on the Acropolis.—Aristoph. Lysistr. 179.
The performance of these pious duties commenced very early.
Immediately on attaining the age of five years, they might be called
on to officiate, clothed in saffron robes,[1142] in the rites of
Artemis Brauronia, when a she-goat was sacrificed to the goddess,
while professed rhapsodists chaunted select passages from the Iliad.
Here they were initiated in the mysteries of their national
piety,[1143] accompanied by all the charms of music, and of a style
of declaiming no less impressive than that of the theatre. At this
festival, celebrated every five years, all the ceremonies were
performed by virgins, none of whom could be above ten years
old;[1144] we must, therefore, infer that they underwent much
previous training, and were instructed carefully respecting the
object of the rites. Another religious festival at which youthful
virgins only officiated, was the Arrhephoria, celebrated in honour
of Athena or Herse. The ceremonies performed on this occasion appear
to have required something more of preparation, since it was
necessary that the youthful sacrificers should, at least, be seven
years old and not exceed eleven. Four, selected for their noble
birth and training, presided, and other two were chosen to weave the
sacred peplos, while engaged in which they resided in the
Sphæresterion, on the rock of the Acropolis, habited in white
garments with ornaments of gold.[1145] The bread which they eat
during their seclusion was called Anastatos.[1146]
Footnote 1142:
Suid. v. ἄρκτος. t. i. p. 425. c.—Sch. Aristoph. Lysistr.
645.—Meurs. Græc. Fer. lib. ii. p. 67.—During the dances performed
in honour of this goddess, the women commonly played on brazen
castanets.—Athen. xiv. 39.
Footnote 1143:
As Plato in his Republic appropriates to each sex a separate class
of songs, it may be inferred that both in Athens and elsewhere in
Greece, men and women habitually sung the same lays.—De. Legg. vii.
t. viii. p. 30.
Footnote 1144:
Pollux. viii. 107.—Cf. Herod. vi. 138. Women practised various
dances, to perform which with skill constituted a branch of their
accomplishments. One of these dances was called the Apokinos, or
Mactrismos, of which Cratinos made mention in his Nemesis,
Cephisodoros in his Amazons, and Aristophanes in his Centaurs. These
dances, however, appear to have been a particular class, and
obtained the name of Marctypiæ. Athen. xiv. 26.
Footnote 1145:
Etym. Mag. 149, 13. sqq.—Suid. v. Ἁῤῥηνηφ. t. i. p. 222. c.
Ἀῤῥηφορια—ἐπειδὴ τὰ ἀῤῥητα ἐν κίσταις ἔφερον τῇ θεῷ ὡι παρθένοι.
idem. t. i. p. 423. c. et v. χαλκεῖα t. ii. p. 110 d. Harpocrat. v.
ἀῤῥηφόρειν. p. 48 Maussac.—Aristoph. Lysistr. 643. et. schol.—Lys.
Mun. Accept. Apollog. §. 1.—Plut. Vit. Dec. Orat. iv. t. v. p.
145.—Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Acharn. 241. In several religious
processions the women except the canephori, followed not the
pageant, but looked upon it from the housetop.
Footnote 1146:
Athen. iii. 80.
I own it is not a little remarkable, that in proving the women of
Athens to have received what in our times are regarded as the humblest
elements of education, we should be compelled to rely on indirect
evidence, or on mere inferences, or, indeed, that the point should
require proof at all.[1147] This fact itself is decisive of their
comparative seclusion. Had they mingled much in society, more
occasions would have occurred of dwelling on their acquirements, and
in dramatic compositions of representing them delivering opinions, and
exhibiting tastes and preferences, obviously incompatible with an
uncultivated intellect. But, though the difficulty of the investigator
be augmented by the paucity and indistinct manner of the witnesses, we
are still not left entirely without ground for coming to a decision,
and if writers have, hitherto, so far as I know, overlooked some of
the principal testimonies, that must be regarded only as an additional
cause for bringing them forward now.[1148]
Footnote 1147:
Muretus has brought forward several passages to prove that learned
women bore but an indifferent character in antiquity.—Var. Lect.
viii. 21. The Hetairæ of course were taught to read. Of this we have
abundant proof: τὰ ἐπὶ τῶν τοίχων γεγγραμμένα ἐν τῷ κεραμεικῷ
ἀναγνοθὶ, ὅπου κατεστηλίτευται ὑμῶν τὰ ὀνομάτα—says the jealous
lover to Melitta in Lucian.—Diall. Hetair. iv. 2. Nay even the
servant maid of this Hetaira Acis is able to read; for desirous to
ascertain whether there was any thing in the report of her lover,
Melitta sends forth the girl to examine the walls, who discovers and
reads the words “Melitta loves Hermotimos,” &c. which written there
in jest by some wag had proved the cause of her lover’s jealousy and
the quarrel that ensued.
Footnote 1148:
Cf. Telet. ap. Stob. Florileg. Tit. 108. 83. Gaisf.
A report current in antiquity, and preserved by Marcellinus in his
Life of Thucydides,[1149] represents the daughter of that great
historian as the continuator of her father’s work, and as, in fact,
the author of the whole eighth book. The biographer does not, indeed,
receive the legend, but in rejecting it his assigned reasons are not
that in the days of Thucydides Athenian ladies were not taught to
read, and were, therefore, incapable of any species of literary
exertion, but that the portion in question of the history bears
evident marks of the same lofty and masculine mind to which we owe the
rest, and no-wise resembles the productions of a woman. Had
Marcellinus known the art of writing to have formed no part of an
Athenian lady’s education, that could have been the proper reason to
assign for his doubt. He might, under such circumstances, have
ridiculed the folly of such a supposition. But no such objection
occurred to him. He knew well that they could and did write, and had,
therefore, recourse to the proper argument for establishing his point.
Footnote 1149:
P. xxi. For Plato’s views on the education of women, see De Legg. t.
viii. p. 36.—Cf. Xen. Conviv. ii. 9, 10.
Again, in that fragment of the oration of Lysias which he wrote for
the children of Diodotos, an Athenian woman of rank is introduced
defending, under very distressful circumstances, the rights of her
children against her own father. Diodotos, it seems, had married his
niece, and by her had several children. He was at length required by
the commonwealth to proceed on a military expedition, during which he
fell under the walls of Ephesos. Diogeiton, father of his wife, having
been appointed guardian of the children, endeavours to defraud them of
their property, and their mother, calling in the aid of impartial
arbiters, pleads before them her children’s cause, and the orator,
addressing one of the tribunals of Athens, does not hesitate to put in
her mouth language worthy of a rhetorician. This, however, I am aware,
cannot be regarded as a proof. But, in the course of her speech she
discloses a circumstance which must be so considered. During the
period of her stay in her fathers house, the old man removed from one
street to another, and in the confusion a small memorandum book,
dropped from among his papers, was picked up by one of the children
and brought to their mother.[1150] It happened to contain the account
of the money her husband had left on departing for the army; this she
reads,[1151] and thus discovers the state in which the affairs of the
family had been left on the departure of her husband.
Footnote 1150:
Lys. Cont. Diog. § 5. By τοὺς παῖδας: Reiske, however, understands
the servants of Diogeiton, though these would have been more likely
to carry the book to their master.
Footnote 1151:
See also in Demosthenes the account of a wife and husband examining
a will.—Adv. Spud. § 8.
Another proof that writing formed one of the accomplishments of women
occurs in Xenophon. Ischomachos is laying open the road to domestic
happiness and wealth. He enters, as elsewhere will be shown, into a
variety of interesting details, and among other things, discusses the
character and duties of a housekeeper; for in Greece the principal
care of the household was always committed to women. Thus, going back
to the Heroic ages, we find Euryclea the housekeeper of
Odysseus,[1152] and Hector’s palace in Troy is also placed under the
care of a woman.[1153] In the Cretan states, moreover, even the public
tables had female inspectors,[1154] and at Athens, where domestic
economy was so much better understood than in the rest of Greece,
women necessarily obtained the government of the household,[1155]
which men would have certainly managed more imperfectly. But in
well-regulated families, the supreme control of everything rested with
the wife, whom Xenophon[1156] represents engaging with her husband in
taking a list of all the moveables in the house, and this afterwards
remains in her hands as a check upon the housekeeper, which, had she
not known how to read, it would not have been. Besides, she is spoken
of as aiding in writing the catalogue, and displays throughout the
dialogue so much ability and knowledge that it would not surprise us
to find her discoursing with Socrates on household affairs. There is,
moreover, a remark of Plato[1157] subversive at the same time of
another error on this same subject, which exhibits women exercising
their judgment in literary matters. Children, he says, may find comedy
more agreeable, but educated women, youths, and the majority indeed of
mankind, will prefer tragedy. Here we find the opinion corroborated
that both the comic and tragic theatres were open to them, otherwise
it could not have been known which they would prefer. But of this more
elsewhere.
Footnote 1152:
Odyss. α. 428. β. 345, 361.
Footnote 1153:
Iliad. ζ. 381. 390.
Footnote 1154:
Athen. iv. 22.
Footnote 1155:
In the household of Pericles, however, we find mention made of a
steward, and learn that the regulation of affairs was taken out of
the hands of the women.—Plut. Pericl. § 16.
Footnote 1156:
Œconom. ix. 10. p. 57, Schneid. Similar business habits prevailed
among our neighbours, the Dutch, while they enjoyed the advantages
of republican institutions. Among the causes of their prosperity Sir
Josiah Child enumerates, “the education of their children, as well
daughters as sons, all which, be they of never so great quality or
estate, they always take care to bring up to write perfect good
hands, and to have the full knowledge and use of arithmetic and
merchants’ accounts, the well understanding and practice whereof,
doth strangely infuse into most that are the owners of that quality,
of either sex, not only an ability for commerce of all kinds, but a
strong aptitude, love and delight in it; and in regard the women are
as knowing therein as the men, it doth encourage their husbands to
hold on in their trades to their dying days. Knowing the capacity of
their wives to get in their estates and carry on their trades after
their deaths; whereas if a merchant in England arrive at any
considerable estate, he commonly withdraws his estate from trade,
before he comes near the confines of old age, reckoning that if God
should call him out of the world while the main of his estate is
engaged abroad in trade, he must lose one third of it, through the
inexperience and inaptness of his wife to such affairs, and so it
usually falls out.”—Discourse of Trade, p. 4.
Footnote 1157:
De Legg. l. ii. t. vii. p. 243. Bekk.—Ἐὰν δέ γ᾿ οἱ μείζους παῖδες,
τὸν τὰς κωμῳδίας· τραγωδίαν δὲ αἵ τε πεπαιδευμέναι τῶν γυναικῶν καὶ
τὰ νέα μειράκια καὶ σχεδὸν ἴσως τὸ πλῆθος πάντων.
In all countries, a great part of a woman’s education takes place
after marriage. But at Athens, where they entered so early[1158] into
the connubial state, marriage itself must be reckoned among the
principal causes of their mental developement. They came into the
hands of their husbands unformed, but pliable and docile. The little
they had been taught seemed rather designed to fit them to receive his
instructions than to dispense with them.[1159] Their seclusion from
the world preserved their character unfixed and impressionable. They
passed from the nursery, as it were, to the bridal chamber, timid,
unworldly, unsophisticated, and the husband, if he desired it, might
fashion their mind and opinions as he pleased. In the women of Athens
we, accordingly, observe the most remarkable contrast to the Spartans.
Their influence, in effect greater, perhaps, acted invisibly, warming
and impelling the ruder masculine clay, but without humbling their
lords or exposing them to the ridicule of living under petticoat
government. Yet in Themistocles we have an example of the sway they
exercised. Fondling one day his infant son he observed, sportively,
but with that ambitious consciousness of power ever present to the
mind of a Greek—"This little fellow is the most influential person I
know." His friends inquired his meaning—"Why, replied Themistocles, he
completely governs his mother, while she governs me, and I the whole
of Greece."[1160]
Footnote 1158:
The Roman ladies entered still earlier into the married state; at
the age of twelve, says Plutarch, or under. Parall. Num. et Lycurg.
§ 4.
Footnote 1159:
Xenoph. Œconom. vii. 5. 6. sqq.
Footnote 1160:
Plut. Themist. § 18.
The steps by which an Athenian girl might arrive at so envied a
position are not unworthy our attention. From the age of fifteen she
might look to become the mistress of a family; and it is probable that
the maxim of Cleobulos,[1161] that women should approach their
nuptials young in years but old in understanding, often governed their
conduct. Love no doubt was not the only matchmaker at Athens.[1162] In
general the heart, as in modern times, followed in the train of
prudential calculation. But this arose, not so much from any
impracticability[1163] of obtaining interviews, as from the habitual
preference for gold, which, in all ages, has been found to actuate the
conduct of the majority. To this day, in every country in Europe,
marriage in the upper classes is too frequently a matter of mere
bargain and sale, in which the feelings remain altogether unconsulted.
And it was the same at Athens, though to suppose with Müller that
interest was always the sole motive would be palpably to embrace an
error, alike uncountenanced by history and philosophy.
Footnote 1161:
Diog. Laert. i. 6. 4.
Footnote 1162:
In Greece, as everywhere else, portionless girls had few admirers.
Diog. Laert. v. 4. 1.
Footnote 1163:
Examples occur in the comic poets, of men choosing for themselves.
Thus in Terence a young man declines the lady offered him by his
father, and proposes to marry the mistress of his choice, to which
both parents agree. Heautontimor. v. 5. sub. fin.
When it is said that virgins in all Ionic states led an extremely
secluded life, we are not thence to conclude that no opportunity of
beholding, or even conversing with them, was enjoyed by men.[1164] It
has already been seen that from the age of five years various
ceremonies of their ancestral religion[1165] led females into the
street, that they walked leisurely, arrayed with every resource of art
and magnificence, in frequent processions to the temples, and it is
known that numerous private occasions, such as funerals, marriages,
&c., exposed them to the indiscriminate gaze of the public. Thus, we
have in Terence a youth who from beholding a young lady with face
uncovered and dishevelled hair lamenting at her mother’s funeral,
falls desperately in love;[1166] and the wife in Lysias, whose frailty
led to the murder of Eratosthenes,[1167] was first seen and admired
under similar circumstances. Excuses, in fact, were never wanting to
be in public, and occasions unknown to us were clearly afforded men
for becoming acquainted with the temper and character of their future
spouses, since we find Socrates conversing with men well acquainted
with their country’s manners, jocularly feigning to have chosen
Xantippe for her fierce, untameable spirit.[1168]
Footnote 1164:
Athen. xiii. 29.
Footnote 1165:
The religious rites in which the women of Athens officiated were
numerous and important: 1. The orgiastic ceremonies in honour of Pan
were performed with shouts and clamour, it not being permitted to
approach that divinity in silence.—Sch. Aristoph. Lysistr. 2. They
celebrated sacred rites in honour of Aphrodite Colias, id. ibid. 3.
Another divinity, in whose honour they congregated together, was
Ginesyllis a goddess in the train of Aphrodite, who obtained the
name ἀπὸ τῆς γενέσεως τῶν παίδων. id. ibid. Cf. Luc. Amor. § 42. 4.
The part they took in the orgies of Dionysos is well known. 5. They,
too, were the principal actors in the festival of Adonis. Plut.
Alcib. § 18. and to mention no more they may strictly be said to
have constituted the principal attraction of the Panathenaic
procession.
Footnote 1166:
Phorm. 2. 2. 40. sqq.
Footnote 1167:
Lys. De Cæd. Eratosth. § 2.
Footnote 1168:
Diog. Laert. ii. 5. 18.
It has been supposed by many distinguished scholars, that, at
Athens,[1169] the theatre—that great bazaar of female beauty in modern
states—was closed against the women, at least the comic theatre. One
principal ground of this opinion is the coarse and licentious
character of the old comedy which, with its broad humour, political
satire, and reckless disregard of decency, appears fitted for men
only, and those not the most refined. But there are strange
contradictions in human nature. The very religion of Greece teemed
with indecency. Phallic statues crowded the temples and the public
streets. Phallic emblems entered into many of the sacred ceremonies at
which women, even in their maiden condition, assisted, and the poems
chaunted at sacrifices, where they associated in every rite, were, in
many parts, broader than an Utopian legislator would consider
permissible. Besides, to prove the nullity of this objection, we need
only note the history of our own stage. English women refused not,
when they were in fashion, to behold, under the protection of a
mask,[1170] the comedies of Massinger, Wycherly, Beaumont and
Fletcher. They still read, and, on the stage, admire, Shakespeare, and
from these the interval is not wide to Aristophanes, the lewdest and
most shameless of ancient comic writers.[1171] And, further, it should
never be forgotten, that their perverted religion flung its protecting
wing over the stage. Plays exhibited during the festivals of Bacchos
were, like our old mysteries and moralities, strictly sacred shows,
and, consistently, women could no more have been excluded from them
than from the other exhibitions connected with public worship.
Footnote 1169:
To prove the presence of the women at the theatre among the other
Greeks, ample testimonies might be collected. Thus, when in Æolis, a
certain Alexander exhibited dramatic performances, the people
flocked thither from all the neighbouring towns and villages, upon
which he surrounded the theatre with soldiers, made prisoners both
men, women, and children, and only released them on payment of a
large ransom.—Polyæn. Stratagem. vi. 10.
Footnote 1170:
To this Pope alludes:
“And not a mask went unimproved away.”
See also Swift, Tale of a Tub, § ix.
Footnote 1171:
On the coarseness of the German theatre, in the eighteenth century,
frequented by the empress and the first ladies of the court, see
Lady Montague’s Letters, ix.
As on many other points, however, the positive and direct testimonies
to be adduced in proof of the position I maintain are scanty, and of
modern authorities nearly all are against me. Still, truth is not
immediately to be deserted because there happens to be much difficulty
in defending it. It will be time enough to run when we have exhausted
all our resources. An unknown writer, but still a Greek,[1172] relates
that, during the acting of the Eumenides, that awe-inspiring and
terrible drama of Æschylus, the sight of the furies rushing
tumultuously, like dogs of hell, upon the stage, with their frightful
masks and blood-dripping hands, shed so deep a terror over the
theatre, that children were thrown into fits, and pregnant women
seized with premature birth-pangs. This, if admitted, would be
evidence decisive as regards the tragic stage. But, because it is
impossible to elude its force, modern critics boldly assume the
privilege to treat the whole passage contemptuously, opposing scorn
when they have no counterproof to oppose. Such a mode of arguing,
however, by whomsoever pursued, must clearly bear upon the face of it
the mark of sophistry, for in that way there is no position which
might not be overthrown or established.
Footnote 1172:
Τινες δὲ φάσιν, ἐν τῇ ἐπιδείξει τῶν Εὐμενίδων σποράδην εἰσαγαγόντα
τὸν χορὸν, τοσοῦτον ἐκπλῆξαι τὸν δῆμον, ὥστε τὰ μὲν νήπια ἐκψύξαι,
τὰ δὲ ἔμβρυα ἐξαμβλωθῆναι.—Vit. Æschyl. p. 6.
But our anonymous authority has not been left to encounter the attacks
of the critics and historians alone. Other ancient authors, though
their corroborative testimonies have, hitherto, been generally
overlooked, furnish incidental hints and revelations which, duly
weighed, will, I make no doubt, be admitted to amount to positive
proof. Describing the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, Strabo observes,
that so vast were its dimensions, that during the celebration of the
mysteries, it would contain the whole multitude usually assembled at
the theatre.[1173] Now, in the mysteries, we know that the Athenians
of both sexes, and of all ages above childhood, were present, so that,
if men only had been admitted to the theatre, it need not have been
half the size of the Eleusinian temple, and, consequently, would have
furnished the geographer with no proper subject of comparison. Again,
in the passage quoted above, from Plato, the presence of women at both
the tragic and comic theatres is indubitably presumed, since, to judge
of both these kinds of exhibitions, it was necessary either to see
them, or to read the plays. If they read the plays there could be no
reason for restraining them from the theatre, since, whatever they
contained of objectionable matter would thus be equally placed within
their reach. It is to be presumed, therefore, even from this passage,
that the theatre was free to women.
Footnote 1173:
Ὄχλον θέατρου δέξασθαι δυνάμενον.—Strab. ix. i. p. 238.—We have in
Pollux, ii. 56. and iv. 121., θεάτρια “a spectatress,” and
συνθεάτρια “a fellow spectatress,” a word used by Aristophanes, and,
doubtless, applied to women forming part of a theatrical audience.
But the philosopher is elsewhere more explicit. Treating in his
Dialogue on Laws expressly of tragic poetry, and speaking always in
reference to his imaginary state, he respectfully and with many
flattering compliments proscribes this branch of the mimetic arts,
not, however, without assigning his reasons. Assuming for the moment
the part of leader of the legislative chorus, he informs the
tragedians, that “we, also, in our way, are poets, and aim at
producing a perfect representation of human life. You must regard us,
therefore, as your rivals, and believe that we labour at the
composition of a drama, which it is within the competence of perfect
law only to achieve. You must not, accordingly imagine, that, as
jealous rivals, we shall readily admit you into our city to pitch your
tents in our agora, and, through the voice of loud-mouthed, actors to
imbue our wives and children and countrymen with manners the very
opposite to ours.”[1174] Now, what point, or, indeed, what sense would
there be in this, if in the commonwealths actually existing dramatic
poets had always been prohibited from addressing themselves to the
women? Would it not have been just such another novelty as an
ingenious philosopher of our days would hit upon, were he in a state
of his own invention, to propose, as a great improvement on existing
customs, that women should go to church?
Footnote 1174:
Plat. de Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 59. Bekk. Compare with this the song
of the φαλλοφόρος..—Athen. xiv. 16.
Σοὶ, Βάκχε, τάνδε μοῦσαν αγλαΐζομεν,
Ἁπλοῦν ῥυθμὸν χεόντες αἰόλῳ μέλει,
Καὶ μὰν, ἀπαρθένευτον. κ. τ. λ.
His songs and his acting were, no doubt, little suited to the taste
of a virgin; but if virgins had never frequented the theatre, and
the comic theatre, too, where would have been the necessity for any
such remark?
This, therefore, were there no other proof, would, to me, appear
convincing; but a still stronger remains. It is well known that the
theatre was, among the ancients, parcelled out into several divisions,
some more, some less honourable; and of these one whole division, by
the decree of Sphyromachos, was appropriated to the female citizens,
who would appear previously to have sat indiscriminately among the men
and female strangers. To the latter the upper ranges of seats would
appear to have been appropriated.[1175] On this point, therefore, the
opinion received among the generality of writers is erroneous. Women
were not debarred the amusement or instruction of the theatre,[1176]
which, for good or for evil, influenced their education, and rendered
their minds subservient or otherwise to the designs of the legislator
and the welfare of the state.
Footnote 1175:
Aristoph. Eccles. 22. et Schol.
Ἐνταῦθα περὶ τὴν ἐσχάτην δεῖ κερκίδα
Ὑμᾶς καθιζούσας βεωρεῖν ὡς ξένας.
Alexis, ap. Poll. ix. 44.
Footnote 1176:
An anecdote related by Plutarch, would of itself, in my opinion,
suffice to prove the presence of women at the theatre, as well as
that Athenian ladies habitually went abroad attended by a single
maid-servant. For on one occasion, when an actor who played the part
of a queen would have refused to appear upon the stage unless
furnished with a splendid costume and a large suite of attendants,
Melanthios, the manager, pushed him on the boards, saying, “Don’t
you see the wife of Phocion constantly going abroad attended by but
one maid? And wouldst thou affect superior pomp and corrupt our
wives?” It is evident that the pride of this actor could not have
exercised any evil influence on the women had they not been present
to witness his ostentation. We must necessarily infer, therefore,
that they were, and that they joined the theatre in the thunders of
applause with which it received the observation of Melanthios, who
had spoken so loud as to be heard by the whole audience.—Plut. Phoc.
§ 19. The passage of Alexis had not escaped Casaubon, who, in his
notes on Theophrastus’ Characters, p. 165, has discussed the point
with his usual learning and ability. A passage in the
Thesmophoriazusæ of Aristophanes, seems however, but only seems, to
make against this opinion. There a woman says that when men returned
from seeing a play of Euripides, a “Woman-hater,” they used to
search the house in quest of lovers; but when Euripides’ plays were
acted they might be supposed to remain at home from pique.
From all which it will be apparent that the sexes enjoyed at Athens
abundant occasions of meeting; and in the other Ionian states similar
customs and similar manners prevailed. For this we are reduced to rely
on no obscure scholiast or grammarian. Thucydides himself, describing
the second purification of Delos by the Athenians, and the institution
of the Delian games, observes, that from very remote times the people
of Ionia and the neighbouring islands had been accustomed to come with
their wives and children to the sacred festivals there celebrated in
honour of Apollo. On these occasions gymnastic exercises and musical
contests took place; and of the chorusses who chaunted the praises of
the god some were female. The whole of the ceremonies are described in
the Homeric hymns to the tutelar divinity, where the poet very
animatedly recapitulates the principal features of the games.
To thee, O Phœbos! most the Delian isle
Gives cordial joy, excites the pleasing smile,
When gay Ionians flock around thy fane,
Men, women, children,—a resplendent train:
Where flowing garments sweep the sacred pile,—
Where youthful concourse gladdens all the isle,—
Where champions fight,—where dancers beat the ground,—
Where cheerful music echoes all around,
Thy feast to honour, and thy praise to sound.[1177]
Footnote 1177:
Thucyd. iii. 104. The version is Dr. Smith’s. Cf. Hom. Hymn. in
Apoll. 146. sqq.
Footnote 1178:
I have, as the reader will perceive, adopted the verse proposed by
Barnes:—
Δηλιάδες δὲ τε κοῦραι Ἀπόλλωνος θεράπαιναι.
Though Ernesti is perhaps right in supposing no addition necessary.
See his note on v. 165. Franke, in his recent edition of the Hymns,
has, with Ernesti, rejected the verse.
The great historian who quotes this hymn, and unhesitatingly
attributes it to Homer, brings forward to prove the occurrence of
musical contests another passage, in which, as he observes, the poet
speaks of himself:—
But now, Apollo, with thy sister fair,
Smile as the lingering bard prefers his prayer;
And ye, O Delian nymphs,[1178] who guard the fane
Of Phœbos, listen to my parting strain;
Should some lone stranger, when my lay no more
Floats on the breezes of the sacred shore,
Demand who best, with soul-entrancing song,
Earned blithe your praise, and bore your hearts along?
Then answer with a warm approving smile—
“The blind old man of Chios’ rocky isle.”[1179]
Footnote 1179:
Of these verses (Hymn. in Apol. v. 165. 172) I give my own
translation, the last line excepted, which Byron had somewhere done
ready to my hand.
And down to the period of the Peloponnesian war similar games and
sacred rites were performed at Ephesos, at which the Ionians with
their wives and children were usually present.
The Doric historian, to whom all these circumstances must be
familiarly known, makes, however, no account of them, but consistently
with his theory, if not with facts, remembers no well-authenticated
instance in the annals of Attica of a person’s marrying for love. What
he would admit to be well authenticated it were difficult to say. He
rejects, whenever his particular notions seem to require it, the
testimonies both of Herodotus and Thucydides, so that for a narrative
resting on the authority of Polyænus, Plutarch, and Valerius Maximus,
we can expect no quarter. Nevertheless, as these writers are at least
faithful in their delineations of manners, the following romantic
incident may be hazarded even on their authority. Thrasymedes, an
Athenian youth, entertaining a strong passion for the daughter of the
tyrant Peisistratos, had the hardihood one day as she walked in a
religious procession to kiss her openly in the street. Her brothers,
young men of a fiery temper, regarded the act as an affront almost
inexpiable, and were apparently preparing to take vengeance on the
offender, when the old prince allayed their anger by observing,—"If we
punish men for loving us, how shall we conduct ourselves towards our
enemies?" Escaping thus, Thrasymedes still cherished his love. He
therefore determined on carrying away the lady by force; and gaining
over a number of his associates, he seized the occasion of a sacrifice
on the sea-shore in which the maiden was officiating, and rushing,
attended by his followers with drawn swords, through the crowd, he
succeeded in conveying her to a boat, and set sail for Ægina.
Unfortunately, however, for his design, Hippias, eldest son of
Peisistratos, happened at this moment to be cruising in the bay on the
lookout for pirates, and perceiving a bark putting hastily out to sea,
he bore down upon it, took the young men prisoners, and conducted them
together with his sister back to Athens. Thrasymedes and his
companions being brought before the tyrant, abated not a jot of their
courage, but bade him, in determining their punishment, use his own
discretion, since from the moment they resolved on the enterprise they
had made light, they said, of life. Peisistratos, tyrant though he
was, regarded their loftiness of soul with admiration, freely bestowed
his daughter on Thrasymedes, and won them to his interest by
gentleness and friendship. In this, says Polyænus, acting the part of
a good father and a popular citizen rather than of a tyrant.[1180]
Footnote 1180:
Polyæn. Strat. v. 14. Meurs. Peisist. vi. p. 46. seq. Plutarch. in
Apophthegm. Peisist. § 3. who calls the young man Thrasybulos.
Valer. Max. v. 1.
But supposing no instances remained on record, who can doubt that the
heart prompted, and the hand followed its promptings, at Athens as
elsewhere? Its walls, its columns, every plane-tree in the Academy,
the Cerameicos, and other public walks, glowed with the language of
the passions, and the names of virgins beloved for their beauty. There
was, no doubt, some want of delicacy in this; but the manners of the
Athenians, though they presented no insuperable bar to so much of
intercourse as might serve to enkindle affection,[1181] opposed,
nevertheless, that facility of communication which at Sparta existed,
and in our own country is common. However, had the beloved been
incapable of reading, to what purpose should her name, coupled with
endearing epithets, have illuminated the bark of the smilax, or the
marble skreens of the gymnasia? It was traced there in order that her
bright eyes might peruse it, and learn who of all the youth of Athens,
had singled her forth from the world to be the object of his love.
Lucian, in his sarcastic humour, represents a mad lover of the goddess
Aphrodite carving every tree and end of wall with her name.[1182] From
a fragment of Callimachos it would seem too as if men had sometimes
written the beloved syllables on the leaves of trees;[1183] which may
well have been, since in our own days we have seen the English people
inscribing in letters of gold the name of their youthful queen on
leaves of laurel. Euripides, who lost no opportunity of venting his
aversion for the sex, introduces one of his characters protesting that
his opinion of women would not be bettered though every pine in Mount
Ida were covered with their names.[1184]
Footnote 1181:
Schol. in Aristoph. Acharn. 144. Vesp. 98. Young men in love would
appear to have played at dice, with fortune, to discover whether
they should be successful or otherwise. Luc. Amor. § 16. Speaking of
Ameipsias’ Sphendone, or Jewelled Ring, Hemsterhuis observes:—“Nomen
habere potuerit hæc comedia ab annulo mutui amoris signo, atque
arrha, cujus in palâ fuerit insculpta, quod haud apud antiquos
insolens, amoris figura, quæque vario ut modo per aliorum manus
vagata.” ad Poll. ix. 96. t. vi. p. 1123.
Footnote 1182:
Amor. § 16. Τοῖχος ἄπας ἐχαράσσετο, καὶ πᾶς μαλακοῦ δένδρου φλοιὸς
Ἀφροδίτην καλὴν ἐκήρυσσεν.
Footnote 1183:
Callim. Frag. xxv. p. 241. Spanh.—Theoc. Epithal. Hell. 48.
Footnote 1184:
Ap. Eustath. Iliad, ζ. 490. Potter, Archæol. ii. 244.
Another mode of declaring love, not quite unknown in modern times, was
to clothe the language of the heart in verse. Poets, we are told,
often disguised their own feelings by attributing them to the actors
in a feigned narrative, which they would compose as an offering to the
object of their attachment who, it is very obvious, to appreciate such
a gift, must have been able to read it.[1185] They had likewise
another fashion, particularly Greek, of making known their sentiments,
which was to suspend garlands of flowers, or perform sacrifice before
the door where the person possessing their heart resided.[1186]
Sometimes they repaired to the spot and poured forth libations of wine
as at the entrance of a temple, a practice alluded to by the Scholiast
on Aristophanes, who relates that a number of Thessalian gentlemen
being in love with Laïs,[1187] betrayed their passion by publicly
sprinkling her doors with wine. Among the symptoms which disclosed the
condition of the feelings, a garland loosely thrown upon the head was
one.[1188] Women suffered their secret to escape them by being
discovered wreathing garlands for their hair.[1189]
Footnote 1185:
Philostrat. Epist. xx. p. 921. Hermann. Com. in Arist. Poet. p. 87.
Footnote 1186:
Athen. xv. 9.
Footnote 1187:
Cf. Naïs according to Harpocrat. in v. p. 203. Sch. Aristoph. Plat.
179. Cf. Athen. xiii. 51.
Footnote 1188:
Athen. xv. 9.
Footnote 1189:
Aristoph. Thesmoph. 400.
But in whatever way the existence of passion was externally
manifested, a more interesting question is the modification which the
passion[1190] itself underwent in the Greek mind.[1191] Numerous
circumstances concur to mislead our judgment on this subject. In the
first place, the writers who sprang up like fungi amid the corruption
and profligacy which attended the decay of Hellenic society, standing
nearer to us, obstruct our view. Among them a coarse unhealthy craving
after excitement led to nefarious perversions of sentiment, and to
countenance their own excesses they threw back their vile polluting
shadows upon the loftier and brighter moral station of their
forefathers. Even so early as the age of Æschylus this culpable
practice began to prevail, for this great poet scrupled not to
attribute to Achilles vices, which, in the Homeric period, were
evidently unknown.[1192]
Footnote 1190:
Σὲ δέσποινα τῶν ὑπὲρ σοῦ λόγων, Ἀφροδίτη, σὲ βοηθὸν αἱ ἐμαὶ δεήσεις
καλοῦσιν. Luc. Amor. § 19.
Footnote 1191:
See the whole question treated with peculiar ability by Maximus
Tyrius viii. 105. sqq. Homer, in the opinion of this writer,
exhibits especial felicity in his description of love, from the
cool, timid dawn of passion to its fervid noon, pourtraying its
operations, the age at which it is experienced, its forms, its
feelings, chaste or unchaste. See too Lycophron Cassand. 104. with
the commentary of Meursius, p. 1184. 1186. sqq.
Footnote 1192:
The friendship of Achilles for Patroclos is celebrated by Maximus
Tyrius, viii. 106. Cf. Luc. Amor. 20.
But rightly to comprehend the spirit of an age, we must by no means
confide in the interpretation of the succeeding, or even in any one
class of contemporary writers. Least of all, in the authors of comedy,
who seldom paint men as they are, but run into exaggeration and
caricature for the sake of effect. To the imaginative, spiritual,
impassioned must we have recourse, if we would learn what the
impassioned, spiritual and imaginative felt, and to such only in any
age or country, is love, in the poetical sense of the word, familiar
or indeed intelligible.
In the apprehension of several modern writers, love among the Greeks,
was not merely based upon physical elements, as it must everywhere be,
but included little or nothing else.[1193] It had there, they suppose,
none of these romantic features, nothing of that heroic self-devotion
or lofty intercommunion of soul with soul, which among northern
nations, more particularly in fiction, characterises this powerful and
mysterious principle, which binds together in indissoluble union
individuals of different sexes, and renders throughout life the
contentment and happiness of the one, dependent on the well-being of
the other.
Footnote 1193:
Maximus Tyrius has, on the origin of love, a very beautiful passage.
“Its well-spring is the beauty of the soul gleaming upward through
the body. And as flowers seen under water appear still more
brilliant and exquisite than they are, so mental excellence seems to
manifest additional splendour when invested with corporeal
loveliness.” ix. 113. Euripides, whatever he may have written in his
old age, was once an enthusiastic panegyrist of love, of which he
has left a brilliant description. Athen. xiii. 11. In the gymnasia
the statue of Eros was placed beside those of Hermes and
Hercules—eloquence and strength. Love festivals Ἐρωτίδια were
celebrated by the Thespians. Athen. xiii. 12. Before entering battle
the Cretans and Spartans sacrificed to Eros, Id. xiii. 12. Alexis
imitates Plato in describing this passion. Eros had two bows, the
one of the graces producing happiness, the other engendering
violence and wrong. Id. xiii. 14. On the power of love see § 74.
Cleisophos of Selymbria fell in love at Samos with a statue of
Parian marble. § 84.
But I can discover in the Greeks nothing which, on this point, can
distinguish them from other civilised races, except, perhaps, that
there was in their love, more of earnestness and reality and less of
dreaminess and fantastic affectation, than might be brought home to
several modern nations. Their fables, however, and their poetry teem
with ideas and examples of the loftiest and purest love, such love,
I mean, as is natural to mankind, as harmonises with the structure
of their minds, and the object and tendency of their passions,
growing like the oak out of earth, but springing upward and rearing
its majestic stature and beautiful foliage towards heaven. Thus
Odysseus in Homer prefers the sunshine of a wife’s affection to
immortality[1194] and the smiles of a sensual goddess. Hæmon with a
tenderness carried to excess, spurns the blandishment of empire,
nay, the very laws of duty and nature, that he may cling to the form
of Antigone[1195] and join her in the grave. And Alcestis, rising
above them all, quits in youth and health and beauty
“The warm precincts of the cheerful day,”
that she may preserve the existence of one beloved still more than
life.[1196]
Footnote 1194:
Καὶ τὴν Πηνελόπην ἄλλως Ὀδυσσεὺς ὁρᾷ, ἄλλως ὁ Εὐρύμαχος.—Max. Tyr.
ix. 115.
Footnote 1195:
Soph. Antig. 635. sqq.—Καὶ ἐν εὐτυχίαις συνευτύχει καὶ ἀποθανόντι
συναποθνήσκει, Max. Tyr. ix. 116. We discover the same idea in our
own marriage ceremony, where husband and wife are said to be joined
together, “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness
and in health.”
Footnote 1196:
Even Lucian could discover that there was something holy in love.
Κοινὸν οὖν ἀμφοτέρῳ γένει πόθον ἐγκερασαμένη, συνέζευξεν ἄλληλοις
θεσμὸν ἀνάγκης ὅσιον. Amor. § 19.
Nay, to prove the elevated conceptions of love that prevailed in
earlier Greece, we find a personification of this passion reckoned
among the most ancient gods of its mythology. Altars were erected,
festivals instituted, sacrifices offered up to it, as to a power, in
its origin and nature divine.[1197] It breathed the breath of life
into their poetry, it was supposed to elicit music and verse from the
coldest human clay, like the sun’s rays from the fabulous Memnon—it
allied itself in its energies with freedom—to love, in the imagination
of a Greek, was to cease to be a slave,[1198]—it emancipated and
rendered noble whomsoever it inspired,—it floated winged through the
air, and descended even in dreams[1199] upon the mind of men or women,
revealing to sight the forms of persons unknown, annihilating
distance, trampling over rank, confounding together gods and men by
its irresistible force.[1200] Much of the beauty of their fables is
concealed from us by the atmosphere of triteness and familiarity with
which our injudicious education invests them. Every puling sonneteer
babbles of Eros. And Aphrodite, a creature of the imagination brighter
and lovelier than her own star, has been rendered more common in
modern verse, than the most celebrated of her priestesses in ancient
Corinth. But the poets of Greece possessed the art of clothing their
gods in colours warm as life, varied as the rainbow; and as to Love,
never was his influence more delicately shadowed forth than by him who
introduces Endymion slumbering with unclosed lids on Mount Latmos,
that the divinity of sleep might enjoy the brightness of his
eyes![1201]
Footnote 1197:
See too in Stobæus, the addresses of a bereaved husband to
philosophy—ὦ φιλοσοφία, τυραννίκά σου τὰ επιτάγματα· λεγεις φίλει·
κᾄν ἀποβάλῃ τις, λέγεις, μὴ λύπου. 34. Cf. Senec. Epist. 99.
Scheffer, ad Ælian. 27. p. 471.
Footnote 1198:
Max. Tyr. x. 119. This author observes that the love depicted by the
tragedians was a piece of ill-regulated passion rarely leading to
happiness. Id. 123. 124. Cf. Luc. Amor. § 37.
Footnote 1199:
Ἐξ ὀνείρων ἐραστης. Max. Tyr. x. 126.
Footnote 1200:
See the invocation to Love in Lucian: σὺ γὰρ ἐξ ἀφανοῦς καὶ
κεχυμένης ἀμορφίας τὸ πᾶν ἐμόρφωσας. κ. τ. λ. Amor. § 32.
Footnote 1201:
This thought occurs in a fragment of Licymnios
Ὕπνος δὲ χαίρων ὀμμάτων
αὐγαῖς, ἀναπεπταμένοις ὄσσοις,
ἐκοίμιζεν κούρον.
Athen. xiii. 17.
=END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.=
LONDON:
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Transcriber’s Note
The printer employed the cursive forms of beta (ϐ) and theta (ϑ),
sometimes in the same passage with the standard β and θ. These have
been replaced with the standard forms.
Minor punctation errors and inconsistencies in the footnote apparatus
have been corrected with no further mention here.
Those errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been
corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line
in the original. Corrections within notes are denote with ‘n’ and the
original note number.
6.n1 Steph. Byzant. _v._ [Ἀ/Α]ἰτωλ. p. 71. Replaced.
a.
23.24 not wide enough to contain[.] the whole Removed.
49.14 that were band[i]ed to and fro Inserted.
49.21 _petits-ma[í/î]tres_ Replaced.
54.34 like a huge uncrenalated _sic_: uncrenelated
68.14 but Sir Willia[n/m] Gell Replaced.
78.4 couchant s[y/p]hynxes Replaced.
155.35 like those of Hindùs[s]tân Removed.
166.29 the love of glory and independ[a/e]nce Replaced.
170.4 and where[-e]ver else it was thought fit Removed.
174.n1 Cf. Dion. Ch[r]ysost. Inserted.
176.6 to the latest times[,/.] Replaced.
178.n7 aremus osseo.[”] Added.
178.n8 calamis superata degit.[”] Added.
186.26 its moaning sounds to hear.[”] Added.
213.30 by heroic and fabulous associa[a]tions. Removed.
222.n2 as the Calydo[do]nian boar in Ovid Removed.
225.32 from his ophthalmia and his headach[e] Added.
234.32 εὐφυεῖς καὶ [ἰ/ἱ]κανοὶ Breathing corrected.
288.1 Bacchanalian character.[”] Added.
343.33 had the merit of extreme boldness[.] Added.
263.29 [ὄ/ὅ]τι ἀμαθία μὲν θάρσος Breathing corrected.
347.4 full of unstem[m]able currents Added.
359.15 By these means, likewise, Inserted.
tran[s]gressors
360.8 in the case of lesser tran[s]gressions Inserted.
361.32 which only incidena[ta/at]lly Transposed.
371.n2 ὀφθαλμο[ι\ὶ] μεγάλοι τε καὶ διαυγεῖς Replaced.
357.37 it is a clumsy throw of her[’]s Removed.
379.16 the list of their occupations[,/.] Replaced.
391.32 τρεῖς υ[ἰ/ἱ]οὺς ἄφρουρον Breathing corrected.
393.14 regal in loftiness[s] of stature. Removed.
409.7 decisive of their comparative Added.
seclusion[.]
418.n2 per aliorum manus vagata.[”] Added.
423.n1_1 συν[εζεἠ/έζευ]ξεν Replaced.
423.n1_2 ἄλληλοις θεσμὸν ἀνάγκ[ὴ/η]ς ὅσιον. Replaced.
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