Illustrated history of ancient literature, oriental and classical

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Title: Illustrated history of ancient literature, oriental and classical
Author: Quackenbos, John Duncan
Language: English
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ANCIENT LITERATURE, ORIENTAL AND CLASSICAL ***

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and
punctuation remains unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_, bold thus =bold= and
superscripts thus y^{en}.

Symbols that are not available are marked {symbol}.

There are several variations between the Table of Contents and the
headings within the text. These remain.

[Illustration: THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY OF LANGUAGES.]

[Illustration: Linguistic Map OF EUROPE]

ILLUSTRATED HISTORY

ANCIENT LITERATURE

BY
JOHN D. QUACKENBOS, A.M., M.D.
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND
LITERATURE, COLUMBIA COLLEGE

ACCOMPANIED WITH
_ENGRAVINGS AND COLORED MAPS_

NEW EDITION
_REVISED AND CORRECTED_

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
1890

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by
JOHN D. QUACKENBOS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PREFACE.

The History of Literature, as a separate branch of the history of
civilization, is of comparatively recent origin; the first work on
the subject in any language dating no further back than the sixteenth
century, and being little more than a crude catalogue of authors and
their books. Yet who can deny the great importance of such history?
When studied in connection with illustrative extracts from the
masterpieces of which it treats, it furnishes a key to the intellectual
development of our race, introduces us to the great minds that stand
as beacon lights in successive ages, and with their wisdom widens
the scope of knowledge, while it refines the taste and disciplines
the judgment. Lord Bacon said but the truth, when he remarked that
the history of the world without the history of letters would be as
incomplete as a statue of Polyphemus deprived of his single eye.

Nor is this study without results of a direct practical bearing.
Certainly all must appreciate the importance of understanding current
allusions to the writers and literary works of other ages and
countries, and must admit that some acquaintance at least with such
writers and works is essential to a well-grounded knowledge of one’s
own language and a correct estimate of its literature. But when is
such an acquaintance to be obtained, if not during a school or college
course? The engrossing duties of after-life leave little time for
the pursuit of liberal studies. And how is such an acquaintance to
be obtained? All are not linguists, and the greater part must get it
second-hand—must avail themselves of the labors of others who have
delved in these unfamiliar fields.

It is to facilitate and popularize this study of general literature by
furnishing a complete and carefully condensed text-book on the subject,
unencumbered by obscure names and wearisome details, that the volume
now offered to the public has been prepared. It presents a full account
of the literatures of ancient nations, and, treating of the origin
and relationships of their respective languages, incidentally brings
forward some of the most interesting facts of Comparative Philology.
While the writings of Greece and Rome receive due attention, a new,
and, it is believed, peculiarly valuable feature of the book will be
found in its treatment of ancient Oriental literature—particularly
the Sanscrit and Persian. The labors of European scholars during the
last quarter-century have thrown a chain of living interest around the
subject, and awakened on this side of the Atlantic as well a thirst
for further knowledge, which it is here attempted to satisfy. The
principles of Egyptian writing are also explained; and the literary
treasures recently unearthed amid the ruins of the Nile Valley and
elsewhere are described and illustrated.

In treating the subject the author has aimed, while giving a clear
outline of each literature as a whole, to make its great writers stand
out in bold relief, and to associate them in the pupil’s mind with the
works that have made them immortal. With this view brief biographies,
not fragmentary or isolated, but grafted on the narrative where they
naturally belong, are accompanied with short specimens, carefully
selected to give the best idea of each author’s style and genius.
In the critical views as well as the historical facts presented,
the latest authorities have been followed, and the aid of maps and
illustrations has been freely resorted to for the better elucidation of
points on which they could throw light.

The present volume has grown out of the author’s experience in the
lecture-room; and in the belief that it is of a scope and grade
that will meet the popular want, he now offers it to high-schools,
academies, and colleges. From such institutions he feels that no class
should graduate in ignorance either of the Greek and Roman classics
which have inspired the modern poet and philosopher, or of those
precious remains of once great Oriental literatures that patient
scholars of the nineteenth century have brought to light—that helped to
shape the Greek mind itself in the morning of the world. He trusts that
it may foster in the young admiration of the brilliant thoughts that
sparkle in the pages of ancient lore, a love of literature, and a taste
for philological investigations.

COLUMBIA COLLEGE, _June, 1878_.

In order that the friends of this popular work on Ancient Literature
may be advised of the progress made in philological study during the
present decade, the author has thoroughly revised the text, diagrams,
and maps. The value of the revision is enhanced by the introduction
of a carefully selected bibliography; frequent references to standard
monographs—not made to supply omissions, but as guides to those who
may desire a full and authoritative course of collateral reading—are
incorporated in the narrative. Attention is especially directed to
the chapter on Egyptian writing and literature, for which the author
is extensively indebted to F. C. H. Wendel, Ph.D. (Strasburg). The
results of the vast amount of labor expended in this most interesting
and important field during the ten years that have elapsed since the
issue of this text-book, are here for the first time given to English
readers. Other specialists have materially aided the author in his work
of revision. Acknowledgment is due to Dr. H. T. Peck, Professor of the
Latin Language and Literature, and Dr. R. J. H. Gottheil, Professor of
Syriac and Rabbinical Literature, Columbia College; to Drs. E. D. Perry
and A. V. W. Jackson, instructors respectively in Sanscrit and Avesta,
Columbia College; and to Dr. Chas. E. Moldehnke, the Egyptologist.

COLUMBIA COLLEGE, _May 1, 1889_.

CONTENTS.

_INTRODUCTION._

(Pages 11-30.)

Definition and Divisions of Literature, page 11.—Origin and Relationship
of Languages, 12.—The Aryans, 13.—Aryan Languages, 16.—Semitic Languages,
16.—Turanian Languages, 17.—Written Language, 18.—Ideographic Writing,
18.—Phonetic Writing, 19.—Modes of Writing and Pointing, 20.—Ancient
Writing Materials, 21.—General View of Ancient Literature, 25.

PART I.

_ANCIENT ORIENTAL LITERATURES._

CHAPTER I.—HINDOO LITERATURE.

(Pages 31-60.)

Sanscrit Language, 31.—Sanscrit Alphabet, 32.—Sanscrit Researches,
33.—The Veda, 34.—The Upavedas, 35.—The Purânas, 35.—Social Life
of the Vedic People, 37.—Code of Manu, 38.—Epic Poetry, 40.—The
Râmâyana, 40.—The Mahâbhârata, 43.—Lyric and Didactic Poetry,
46.—Kalidâsa, 46.—Jayadeva, 48.—Gitagovinda, 49.—The Sanscrit
Shakespeare, 50.—Sakoontalâ, 50.—The Hindoo Drama, 54.—Tales and
Fables, 56.—History and Grammar, 57.—Buddhist Literature, 58.—Writing
Materials of the Hindoos, 60.

CHAPTER II.—PERSIAN LITERATURE.

(Pages 60-67.)

Avesta Tongue, 60.—Zoroaster, 61.—The Avesta, 62.—Avesta Philosophy,
63.—Persian Inscriptions, 65.—Rock of Behistun, 65.—The Royal Library,
67.

CHAPTER III.—CHINESE LITERATURE.

(Pages 67-83.)

Chinese Language, 67.—Chinese Writing, 68.—Antiquity of Chinese
Literature, 69.—Confucius, 70.—The Chinese Classics, 73.—The Four
Shoo, 77.—The Confucian Analects, 77.—Mencius, 79.—Spirit of the
Chinese Classics, 80.—Lao-Tse, 82.

CHAPTER IV.—HEBREW LITERATURE.

(Pages 83-104.)

The Semitic Languages and their Distribution, 84.—The Ancient Hebrew,
85.—Hebrew Alphabet, 86.—Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, 88.—Parallelism,
89.—Dawn of Hebrew Literature, 90.—The Books of Moses, 90.—The
Historical Books, 92.—The Book of Job, 93.—Golden Age of Hebrew
Poetry, 93.—The Psalms, 93.—Elegiac Poetry, 94.—Didactic Poetry,
95.—Prophetic Poetry, 96.—Silver Age, 97.—The Apocrypha, 99.—The
Talmud, 100.

CHAPTER V.—CHALDEAN, ASSYRIAN, ARABIC, AND PHŒNICIAN LITERATURES.

(Pages 104-117.)

Cuneiform Letters, 104.—Assyrio-Babylonian Writing Materials,
106.—Golden Age of Babylonian Literature, 107.—Deluge Tablets,
112.—Arabic Literature, 114.—Himyaritic Inscriptions, 114.—Phœnician
Literature, 115.—Carthaginian Relics, 116.

CHAPTER VI.—EGYPTIAN LITERATURE.

(Pages 117-131.)

Egyptian Language, 118.—The Rosetta Stone, 119.—Hieroglyphic Writing,
120, 121.—Archaic Age of Egyptian Literature, 122.—Classical Age,
123.—Memoirs of Saneha, 124.—Tale of Snake Island, 125.—Minstrel’s
Song, 126.—Golden Age, 126.—Book of the Dead, 126,127.—Hymns,
128.—Epic Poetry, 129.—Authorship, 130.

PART II.

_GRECIAN LITERATURE._

CHAPTER I.—BIRTH OF GRECIAN LITERATURE.

(Pages 133-138.)

Early Settlement of Greece, 133.—Pelasgi and Hellenes, 134.—The Greek
Language, 135.—Earliest Forms of Poetry, 137.—Legendary Poets, 138.

CHAPTER II.—AGE OF EPIC POETRY.

(Pages 139-156.)

Homer, 139.—The Iliad, 141.—The Odyssey, 147.—Minor Poems of Homer,
150.—Cyclic Poets, 152.—Hesiod and his Works, 152.—Poets of the Epic
Cycle, 156.

CHAPTER III.—LYRIC POETRY.

(Pages 157-178.)

Rise and Varieties of Lyric Poetry, 157.—Callinus, 159.—Tyrtæus,
160.—Archilochus, 161.—Æolic and Doric Schools, 163.—Alcæus, 164.—The
Lesbian Poetesses, 164.—Sappho, 165.—Sappho’s Pupils, 171.—Anacreon,
172.—Simonides, 174.—Minor Lyric Poets, 177.

CHAPTER IV.—RISE OF GREEK PROSE.

(Pages 178-184.)

Earliest Prose Writings, 178.—The Seven Sages, 179.—Solon,
179.—Thales, 180.—Æsop, 181.—Progress of Greek Prose, 182.—Early
Philosophers and Historians, 183.

CHAPTER V.—GOLDEN AGE OF GRECIAN LITERATURE.

(Pages 184-262.)

The Attic Period, 184.—Pindar, 185.—Antimachus, 192.—Dramatic
Poetry, 192.—Æschylus, 194.—“Prometheus Chained,” 196.—Sophocles,
200.—“King Œdipus,” 202.—Euripides, 207.—“Medea,” 209.—Greek Comedy,
212.—Aristophanes, 213.—“The Clouds,” 214.—“The Birds,” 219.—History,
221.—Herodotus, 222.—Thucydides, 225.—Xenophon, 229.—Ctesias and
Theopompus, 233.—Philosophy, 234.—The Ionic and Italic Schools,
234.—Pythagoras, 235.—Empedocles, 236.—Xenophanes, 237.—Democritus,
237.—School of Epicurus, 238.—Pyrrho, the Skeptic, 238.—The
Socratic School, 239.—Plato and the Academic School, 241.—“Phædo,”
244.—Aristotle and the Peripatetic School, 247.—Aristotle’s
Writings, 248.—Theophrastus, 252.—The Stoic School, 253.—The Cynics,
254.—Oratory, 255.—Demosthenes, 256.—The Speech “On the Crown,”
257.—Æschines, 260.

CHAPTER VI.—THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD.

(Pages 262-280.)

Decline of Letters, 262.—The New Comedy, 263.—Menander, 264.—Philemon,
265.—Pastoral Poetry, 266.—Theocritus, 266.—Bion and Moschus, 269.—The
Museum, 272.—The Alexandrian Library, 273.—Poetry at Alexandria,
274.—Callimachus, 274.—Apollonius Rhodius, 275.—Writers on Science,
276.—Critics and Grammarians, 277.—History, 277.—Polybius, 278.—The
Septuagint, 279.

CHAPTER VII.—LATER GREEK LITERATURE.

(Pages 230-302.)

Decay of Greek Genius, 280.—Writers of the First Century B.C.,
281.—Writers of the First Three Christian Centuries, 284.—Plutarch,
285.—Lucian, 288.—Pausanias, 292.—Origen, 293.—Neo-Platonism,
293.—Longinus, 294.—Athanasius and Chrysostom, 294.—Novel writers,
295.—Hierocles, 295.—Byzantine Literature, 297.—The Greek Anthology,
297.—Gems of Greek Thought, 300.

PART III.

_ROMAN LITERATURE._

CHAPTER I.—LATIN AND ITS OLDEST MONUMENTS.

(Pages 303-307.)

Italy Peopled, 303.—The Latin Language, 304.—Ancient Latin Relics, 305.

CHAPTER II.—DAWN OF ROMAN LITERATURE.

(Pages 307-329.)

Indebtedness of Rome to Greek Authors, 307.—The Roman Drama,
308.—Livius Andronicus, 309.—Cneius Nævius, 310.—Ennius, 311.—Plautus,
312.—“The Captives,” 313.—Terence, 315.—“The Self-Tormentor,”
317.—Decline of the Drama, 319.—Epic Poetry, 320.—Nævius and Ennius
as Epic Poets, 320.—Satiric Poetry, 322.—Lucilius, 323.—Early Latin
Prose, 324.—Cato the Censor, 324.—Lælius, Scipio, and the Gracchi,
326.—Antonius, Crassus, and Hortensius, 327.—Minor Historians and
Orators, 328.

CHAPTER III.—GOLDEN AGE OF ROMAN LITERATURE.

(Pages 329-388.)

Periods of the Golden Age, 329.—Cicero, 330.—Varro, 337.—Julius Cæsar,
339.—Sallust, 343.—Cornelius Nepos, 347.—Poets of the Ciceronian
Period, 348.—Lucretius, 348.—Catullus, 352.—Poetry of the Augustan
Age, 354.—Virgil, 355.—Virgil’s Eclogues, 359.—Georgics, 360.—Æneid,
362.—Horace, 369.—Varius, 375.—Tibullus, 375.—Propertius, 377.—Ovid,
379.—Prose Writers of the Augustan Age, 382.—Livy, 382.

CHAPTER IV.—AGE OF DECLINE.

(Pages 388-428.)

Silver Age of Roman Letters, 388.—Velleius Paterculus, 389.—Valerius
Maximus, 389.—Celsus, 390.—Phædrus, 390.—Persius, 392.—Seneca,
394.—Lucan, 397.—Pliny the Elder, 401.—Martial, 404.—Statius,
405.—Sulpitia, 406.—Quintilian, 407.—Juvenal, 408.—Tacitus,
412.—Suetonius, 415.—Pliny the Younger. 418.—Apuleius, 420.—Latin
Fathers, 421.—Specimens of Later Latin Poetry, 423.—Gems of Latin
Thought, 425.

HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE.

INTRODUCTION.

Literature, in its broadest sense, comprises the written productions
of all nations in all ages. It is the permanent expression of the
intellectual power of man, and reflects the popular manners, the
political condition, the moral and religious status. In its literary
productions, a nation bequeaths to posterity an ever-speaking record of
its inner life.

The history of literature traces the progress of the human mind from
age to age, by landmarks erected by the mind itself. It represents
the development of different phases of thought in written language,
and shows their influence in moulding the public taste and morals.
It investigates the connection between the literatures of different
countries, considers the causes of their growth and their decay, and
critically examines the works of individual authors.

Literature may be divided into two parts, Ancient and Modern. The
former, to which this volume is devoted, includes the literatures
of the ancient Oriental nations, the Greeks, and the Romans. To the
second division belong the literatures of modern Europe, of the modern
Oriental nations, and of America.

After considering the origin and relationship of languages, we shall
give a brief summary of the history of ancient literature as a whole,
without national divisions; so that the reader, having previously
followed the progress of letters from age to age and people to people,
may be enabled to study more intelligently the separate literatures of
the different countries.

ORIGIN AND RELATIONSHIP OF LANGUAGES.

=The Dawn of History.=—When the mist that envelops the early history of
the world first rises, it discovers to our view, in parts of western
Asia, communities more or less advanced in knowledge and the arts,
gathered about certain centres of civilization; and others, of less
culture, leading a wandering life, spent mostly, we may conjecture,
in the chase, in predatory excursions, and the tending of herds. We
find at this time a thrifty race, called Aryans (_är’yanz_), settled
in the district between the Hindoo Koosh Mountains and the upper
course of the Amoo—the ancient Bactria (part of what is now Turkestan
and Afghanistan; see Map, p. 15). The region watered by the rivers
Euphrates and Tigris was occupied by the forefathers of the Chaldeans
and Assyrians, the Jews and Arabians; while over the plains of Tartary,
known as Turan, wandering tribes were spread—whence their name,
Turanians, _swift horsemen_. Corresponding with these three divisions
of the human race are three distinct families of languages,—the ARYAN
or INDO-EUROPEAN, the SEMITIC, and the TURANIAN,—embracing more
than one hundred and fifty tongues. (_See Rawlinson’s “The Origin of
Nations.”_)

In Africa, also, civilization was a plant of early growth, Egypt
ranking among the most ancient monarchies. Europe, however, in these
primeval ages, was either a tenantless wilderness or the home of rude
adventurers like the Lapps and Finns, of whom the Basques in the
Pyrenees are perhaps the only remnants in the west.

THE ARYANS.

=The Aryans= have left no account of themselves sculptured on rocks or
the walls of crumbling temples; but by careful study of the languages
of Aryan origin we obtain, after the lapse of four thousand years, a
glimpse of the social condition of those who spoke the mother-tongue
among the mountains of Bactria. We infer that nouns similar in the
various derived languages,—as father (_protector_), brother (_helper_),
house, door, walls, boat, grain, etc.,—are the names of objects or
notions familiar to the original family.[1] Thus utilizing language
as a key to what would otherwise be locked up in the unknown past,
we learn that the inhabitants of the fertile Bactrian valleys were
devoted to agricultural pursuits. Tilling the ground was an honorable
employment, the very name _Aryan_ signifying _high-born_, _noble_. We
have pictured to us law-abiding communities, grouped together in towns,
ruled by chiefs and a king, recognizing family ties, entertaining
exalted conceptions of woman, and a solemn regard for the marriage
bond—the latter always a mark of high civilization.

Language also tells us that this interesting people preferred the arts
of peace to war. With the dog for his companion, the shepherd folded
his flocks of sheep; with the horse and ox for his servants, the
landholder broke the soil with a plough of bronze. Pigs and fowls were
raised; cattle formed the chief wealth; and the cows were milked by the
_daughter_ of the household—this name meaning _milk-maid_.

The Aryan drove from village to village in his wheeled carriage, over
well-constructed roads; worked the metals; plied the loom; moulded
clay into pottery; and even navigated the neighboring waters in boats
propelled by oars. He gave names to numbers as far as one hundred, was
familiar with the principles of decimals, and took the moon for his
guide in dividing the year into months.

A Supreme Being was worshipped in Bactria, the Great Unseen, the
Creator and Governor of the world. In the reference to him of
controversies that were difficult to settle, we trace the origin of the
later trial by ordeal. Even some of our commonest stories are derived
from fables current at least two thousand years B.C. in ancient Arya.

=Aryan Migrations.=—Few in number at first, the Aryans long lived
peaceably together. But as the population grew denser, great bodies,
either compelled to search for food in other lands or moved by a thirst
for exploration, broke away at different periods from the cradle of
their race, in quest of new abodes.

Among these emigrants were Teutonic, Lithuanian, and Slavonian
hordes, who pushed to the northwest, and became the ancestors of the
Scandinavian and German nations, the Letts, Russians, and Poles. The
Celts and Græco-Italic tribes, probably passing between the Caspian
Sea and the Black, made their way by different routes into the fertile
regions of southern and southwestern Europe. The Slavs, Teutons, and
Celts, appear to have dispossessed an indigenous population of supposed
Turanian origin.[2] Of the Aryans who migrated to the northwest, Max
Müller says that they “have been the prominent actors in the great
drama of history, and have carried to their fullest growth all the
elements of active life with which our nature is endowed. They have
perfected society and morals. They have become, after struggles with
Semitic and Turanian races, the rulers of history; and it seems to be
their mission to link all parts of the world together by the chains of
civilization, commerce, and religion.”

[Illustration: ORIGINAL HOME of the ARYAN TRIBES with their ROUTES OF
MIGRATION.]

After the last emigration of Aryans to the west, the parent community
extended its settlements southward into the Tableland of Iran (_érahn_)
(modern Persia, Afghanistan, and Beloochistan; see Map), and finally,
in consequence of a religious difference, separated into two great
branches. One remained on the Iranian plateau, and was ultimately known
in history as the Medes and Persians. The other made its way through
the mountain-passes, crossed the upper Indus (at some uncertain date,
between 2000 and 1400 B.C.), and in time effected the conquest of the
rich peninsula of Hindostan. The invaders were the “fair-complexioned”
Indo-Aryans, who spoke the polished Sanscrit, and among whom sprung up
the institution of caste and many gross superstitions.

=Aryan Languages.=—Similarity in the words and grammatical structure of
their languages proves that the Hindoos, the Persians, the Greeks and
Romans, the Celtic races, the Slavonian and Teutonic nations,—all had
a common origin; that the frozen Icelander and Indian fire-worshipper,
the outcast Gypsy and the plaided Highlander, the English master and
his Cooley servant, are brothers of the same stock. Their tongues have
been derived from the same parent—a language full of poetic grandeur,
older than Greek or Sanscrit, and containing the germs of both—a
language which has perished.

Spoken as we have seen from India to the west of Europe, these tongues
have been called INDO-EUROPEAN. They embrace the dialects of India and
Persia; the Welsh, and the Celtic of Scotland and Ireland; the Latin
and its derivatives, the Romance languages, viz., Italian, Spanish,
French, etc.; Greek; Russian and Polish; English, German, Danish, and
Swedish (see diagram preceding the title-page).

Some philologists hold that the primitive home of the Indo-European
race cannot be determined, and incline to the opinion that the
Asiatic representatives of the family emigrated from Europe into
Asia. (_Consult Brugman’s “Elements of the Comparative Grammar of the
Indo-Germanic Languages,” p. 2._)

THE SEMITES.

=The Semitic Languages=, in like manner, may all be traced to a common
source. To this group belong the Syriac, the Hebrew, the Arabic, the
Ethiopic, the ancient Phœnician, and the Carthaginian; while the
cuneiform inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria are the written
characters of a Semitic tongue common to those countries. (See Chart,
p. 85.)

Philology has not followed the Semites to a home as limited as that of
the Aryans; though tradition points to Armenia as their early domicile,
ethnological science to Arabia or Africa. It declares, however, the
Semitic and the Aryan to be distinct forms of speech, perhaps branches
of a common stem, but neither derivable from the other.

THE TURANIANS.

=Turanian Dialects.=—Here there is slighter evidence of relationship.
The Turanian languages, though they seem to be members of the same
original family, differ widely; for those who spoke them were nomads,
wanderers over the globe, whose customs, laws, and dialects were
modified with every change of habitation and condition. To this
sporadic group belong the Mongolian tongues, the Turkish, Finnic, and
Hungarian, together with certain Polynesian dialects; but the Chinese,
Japanese, Australian, North American Indian, South African, and many
others of the nine hundred languages spoken on the earth, bear hardly
enough resemblance to these to be classed in the same family.

SYSTEMS OF WRITING.

=Language= is either spoken or written. Spoken language we find to have
been used as a medium of communication between men in the earliest
periods to which history carries us back. It is the expression of
reason, and as such constitutes a line of demarcation between man and
the lower animals. Without it, indeed, the brute can, to a certain
extent, make known his emotions and desires. The house-dog, by the
distinctive character of his bark, welcomes his master or threatens
the intrusive stranger. The hen warns her chicks of danger by one set
of signals, and calls them to feed by another. The ant, discovering
an inviting grain too heavy for itself alone, bears the intelligence
to its fellows and promptly returns with aid. But such limited means
of communication fall infinitely short of the perfect system which is
exclusively man’s birthright—which uses articulate sounds to represent
ideas, and combines them so as to express every shade of thought.

=Written Language.=—Spoken Language lives only for the moment; words
uttered to-day die and are forgotten to-morrow. To give permanency
to his passing thoughts, when advancing civilization showed such
permanency to be desirable, man devised Writing, the art of
representing ideas by visible characters. Written Language is the
vehicle of literature—the material in which the thinker embodies
his conceptions for future generations, just as the sculptor gives
permanent forms to his ideals in marble, or the painter on the glowing
canvas.

Writing is either Ideographic or Phonetic. The Ideographic System
represents material objects _directly_, by pictures or symbols. The
Phonetic System uses certain characters to express the articulate
sounds by which such objects or notions are denoted, and thus
_indirectly_, through the two media of sounds and characters, indicates
the objects or notions themselves.

IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING.—It has long been contended that the earliest
method of conveying ideas was by means of pictorial images, and there
is no reason for disputing such a theory. But this is not _written_
language; it is mere thought-painting, or the representation of objects
and actions by pictures, and may satisfy the wants of primitive races
in conveying a limited amount of information. Thus the American
Indians informed one another of the presence and movements of troops,
or of engagements that had taken place, by means of pictures. The
emblems employed were generally understood among the different tribes:
_e.g._, a tree with human legs stood for a botanist; and the figure
of a man with two bars on the stomach and four across the legs, was
a prescription ordering abstinence from food for two days, and rest
for four. The original characters of the Egyptians and Chinese, of
the cuneiform systems, and of the Aztecs, were, in like manner, _mere
pictures_, and nothing more.

The test of a written language is its ability to express abstract
thoughts by single signs or combinations of signs; in this direction,
rude symbols are found utterly wanting. It may be that picture-drawing
gave the first impulse to the invention of phonetic writing; yet the
origin of such writing, with its gradual development, is as hidden from
us as that of language itself. We are justified, however, in assuming
that wherever we have history, we have also written language.

PHONETIC WRITING.—There are two systems of phonetic writing, the
Syllabic and the Alphabetic. The characters of the former are used
to represent _syllables_, or combinations of sounds (either words or
parts of words) uttered by distinct impulses of the voice; those of the
latter represent the elements of which these syllables are composed, or
_letters_. History indicates that written language is always phonetic.
In Egypt it is both syllabic and alphabetic; in Babylon, syllabic alone.

The characters by which the elementary sounds of any language are
denoted, arranged in order, constitute its Alphabet. A perfect alphabet
would be one in which every letter represented but one simple sound,
and every simple sound was represented by but one letter—a perfection
never yet attained.

It is to the Egyptians that the world is indebted for Alphabetic
Writing. Their hieroglyphics were partly alphabetic, partly syllabic,
and partly determinative, the latter, in the course of centuries,
becoming word-signs or ideograms (see p. 120). From a modification
of their alphabet employed by them in transliterating Semitic
words and names, the Phœnician alphabet was derived. This modified
alphabet, including several syllabic signs, consisted of about thirty
characters. It has been conjectured that Phœnicians, dwelling or
trading in Egypt, saw the advantage of written language, and employed
this transliteration alphabet to write their own tongue. All the
modifications introduced by them are graphic in nature, and designed to
simplify the original characters. It is further important to note that
the Phœnician alphabet is not derived from the hieroglyphics, but from
the second form of the hieratic (see p. 122, and table, p. 87, where
the theory is illustrated). The Hittite hieroglyphics (p. 114) may be
derived from the Egyptian; but other ancient Oriental alphabets, as
the Babylonian, the Chinese, and perhaps the Sanscrit, were possibly
independently invented and developed.

Such is the most probable account of the origin of letters. Tradition
variously ascribes their invention to Thoth, an Egyptian god, to Cadmus
of Phœnicia, to Odin the supreme deity of the Scandinavians, and to
others. Of the varied exports of the Phœnicians, their alphabet was
the most precious. Wherever their sails were spread, their letters
were made known, and all nations sooner or later profited by this
great Semitic invention. In the table on page 87 may be traced a
decided resemblance between several of the Phœnician characters and the
hieroglyphics in which they originated; also the successive changes
by which they were modified in the earlier and later Greek and Latin
letters—whence most of our English capitals. (_See Taylor’s “The
Alphabet.”_)

=Modes of Writing and Pointing.=—As regards the direction in which
their writing ran, ancient nations differed. In the Egyptian
hieroglyphics there was no established order; but the figures of men
and animals, facing the beginning of the lines, often gave a clue to
the direction in which they were meant to be read. As a general rule,
the Indo-Europeans wrote from left to right, the Semites from right to
left. The Laws of Solon and other Greek writings of that period (about
600 B.C.) appeared in lines running alternately from right to left
and from left to right, as an ox walks in ploughing; this “ox-turning
system” (_boustrophedon_), however, was soon followed by our present
method. The Chinese, Japanese, and Mongols, wrote in columns, which
were read from the top of the page, and from right to left. In the
ancient Mexican pictographs, similar columns were read from the bottom.

The ancients did not separate sentences, or their subdivisions,
with points; but wrote their words together, leaving the meaning
to be deciphered from the context. Rings, ovals, or squares, were
sometimes drawn around proper names, and words were occasionally
separated by some device—a diagonal bar or wedge {symbol}, as in
ancient Persian inscriptions; or a letter placed on its side, as
between the following words: CONJUGI{Sideways T}KARISSIMAE. In a Roman
inscription found near Bath, England, a small _v_ occurs after every
word: JULIUSvVITALISvFABRI. A peculiar sign was used, in some cases,
immediately before the name of a god or of a person.

In the third century B.C., a system of punctuation, devised by
Aristophanes, a grammarian of Alexandria, became known to the Greeks.
It employed a dot (.), which had the force of our period, colon, or
comma, according as it was placed after the top, middle, or bottom of
the final word. The better system of modern times was not invented till
the sixteenth century.

ANCIENT WRITING MATERIALS.

=Stylus and Tablets.=—The first writing was done on rocks with
sharp-pointed instruments of iron or bronze, to record great events.
Next came tracings on bricks of soft clay, afterward sun-dried or
baked; and then writing with a metal or ivory _stylus_ on sheets of
lead or layers of wax, from which erasures could be made, if needful,
with the flattened end of the instrument.

Pliny speaks of leaden sheets, thus inscribed, rolled up in a
cylindrical form when not in use. But under provocation the metallic
stylus could be employed as a dagger; and when a Roman schoolmaster
was killed by his pupils with their styles and heavy table-books, the
dangerous instrument was banished, and superseded by a similar one of
horn. The early shepherds, we are told, imitated this mode of writing,
making thorns or awls do duty as styles, and scratching their songs on
leather straps which they wound round their crooks.

Wooden tablets, glazed to receive coloring matter, were used by
the Jews and early Egyptians, and the former wrote also with a
diamond-tipped stylus on stone or metallic tables. The Greeks and
Romans sometimes wired their tablets of citron-wood, beech, or fir,
together at the back, so as to allow them to open like a modern book.

=Calamus, or Reed.=—A great advance was made when the stylus gave way
to camel’s hair brushes or reeds (_calami_) sharpened and split like
our pens, and the tablets were replaced with papyrus and parchment. The
reeds in common use came from Egypt, but persons of fortune often wrote
with a silver calamus. The ink employed was thicker and more lasting
than ours; sometimes prepared from the black fluid of the cuttle-fish,
but generally from lampblack and glue, or from soot, rosin, and
pitch.—Chalk pencils were at one time manufactured by the Egyptians and
Greeks.

With the reed and ink, bark came into use as a cheap writing material;
hence the Latin word for bark, _liber_, meant also book. Leaves, too,
were employed for this purpose, particularly those of the palm—whence,
perhaps, the _leaf_ of a book was so called. But for manuscripts
designed for permanent preservation, papyrus had the decided preference.

=Papyrus=, or the _paper_-plant, the bulrush of Scripture, grew in
the marshes and pools of Egypt. Its branchless stem rose from five to
ten feet above the water, and was surmounted by a cluster of long,
spike-shaped, drooping leaves. This plant was woven into sandals, mats,
clothing, and even boats; was eaten, raw and boiled; was manufactured
into furniture; and was burned for fuel and light; when prepared for
writing purposes, it was invaluable. The part under the water was
selected, the outer bark removed, and the delicate white layers found
beneath were pressed together into sheets and dried. These were written
on with red and black ink, and some of them were elaborately ornamented
with many-colored figures.

[Illustration: EGYPTIAN PAPYRUS.]

The finest papyrus was reserved for the priests, and never exported
till they had used it. But the Romans, having invented a process for
removing what was first written on it, imported it in large quantities;
they also attempted its cultivation in the marshes of the Tiber, but
without success. The Greeks did not use it extensively until the era of
the Ptolemies.

=Parchment= was prepared from the skins of sheep and goats by polishing
them with pumice-stone and then rubbing in fragrant oil. Its name, in
Latin _pergamena_, would seem to indicate Pergamus in western Asia
as the place of its origin; but centuries before that little kingdom
became celebrated for its library of parchment volumes, this material,
or something very like it, was known. Herodotus mentions its use in
his time; and the Jews, as a pastoral people familiar with the art of
dressing skins, wrote their first books on a kind of leather.

[Illustration: READING A VOLUMEN, OR ROLL.]

But if parchment was not invented at Pergamus, Eu’menes, king of that
country, was certainly the first to make extensive use of it (175
B.C.). He had founded a splendid library, which he determined should
eclipse that of Alexandria. In the reign of Ptolemy Epiph’anes, king
of Egypt, it was sought to prevent the transcription of books for the
rival library by prohibiting the exportation of papyrus. This obliged
Eumenes to resort to parchment as a substitute. From Pergamus it spread
to Europe, finally superseding all other materials, and continuing in
demand until the art of making paper cheaply from rags was invented
toward the close of the Middle Ages.

Ancient manuscripts were put up in the form of rolls
(_volu’mina_—whence _volumes_), made of sheets fastened together in a
continuous strip, sometimes forty or fifty yards in length. This was
wound round wooden cylinders, the ends of which were often set with
jewels, or ornamented with knobs of ivory, silver, or gold. Titles
were either suspended from these books like tags, or glued upon them
as labels. An outside cover of parchment protected the scrolls, which,
enclosed in cylindrical cases and placed horizontally on shelves ranged
about a room, constituted an ancient library.

The Chinese, after writing for centuries, in common with their
neighbors of India, on bark and dried palm-leaves, are believed to have
discovered a process of preparing a pulp from cotton or bamboo, and to
have manufactured it into paper as early as the commencement of our
era. Perhaps, as observation of the silkworm spinning her cocoons led
them to devise the art of weaving silk, they in like manner borrowed
his cunning from the paper-making wasp, and thus early perfected an
invention which has been of incalculable service to literature.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE.

A comprehensive glance over the entire field whose treasures we are
about to examine in detail, will enable us the better to appreciate and
remember their relative age and value. Beginning, then, with the most
distant periods, we find a literature developed in Mesopota’mia, Egypt,
Iran, and China, even before 2000 B.C. At that date, the valley of the
Euphrates and Tigris was the seat of a civilized Turanian people, the
inventors of the complex system of cuneiform writing, thought by some
to be the oldest in the world. These Turanian Chaldees, mingled with a
Semitic race, were then beginning to enjoy their golden age of letters;
at the same time, the ancient Persians and Hindoos were composing
hymns; the sages of China were busy on their sacred books; and Egypt
had made considerable advance in both poetry and prose.

To trace the progress of literature in these remote times from century
to century is impossible. Five hundred years, however, bring us to
the Augustan era of romance and satire, epic and devotional poetry,
in Egypt: they introduce us to Zoroas’ter, the founder or reformer of
the ancient Persian religion, whose teachings are set forth in the
Aves’ta; to the Ve’da, or Brahman Bible; to Moses and the Pentateuch;
and to Phœnician theology, science, and poetry. Meanwhile Chaldean
literature declines, and Assyrian letters come into view. During the
next five centuries, poetry and science continue to flourish in Egypt,
though not perhaps with their pristine vigor; Phœnicia maintains her
literary reputation; the Veda grows; and Persian priests are occupied
in enlarging and modifying their sacred texts.

1000 B.C. was the era of great epics. The epic, or narrative poem,
based on some important event (in Greek, επος) or chain of events,
though first appearing in Egypt, was brought to perfection, about
this time, by the Greeks, and some say by the Hindoos also, Aryan
nations holding no intercourse with each other. Homer’s Iliad and
Odyssey were paralleled by two stupendous Indian poems, the Râmâyana
(_rah-mah’-yă-nă_) and the Mahâbhârata (_mă-hah’bah’ră-tă_).[3] To
these, all dazzling with Oriental splendor, the epics of the Greek bard
may yield in luxuriance of fancy and gorgeous imagery; but in power
of description, sublimity of thought, and attractive simplicity of
expression, Homer was without an equal.

While, then, the Semitic nations as a rule employed prose as the
vehicle of their earliest records of events, Greece and India, types of
the Aryan stock, transmitted their legends to posterity in epic verse.
Later times have not failed to perpetuate the taste, and measurably
the ability; epic poetry has been cultivated by all the Indo-European
nations, and to them it has been confined.—Contemporaneously with
Homer, native poets were inditing ballads and pastorals in China, and
the Hebrews enjoyed their golden age of secular and religious poetry;
Egypt had entered on her literary, as well as her political, decline.

Henceforth our interest centres principally in Greece. Until 800
B.C., the poems of Homer and of Hesiod, his contemporary or immediate
successor, constituted the bulk of Hellenic literature. Then began
a transition to a poetry more natural—a poetry of the emotions—on
themes that kindled love, anger, hatred, grief, hope; and for three
centuries _lyrics_ in different forms echoed throughout the land.
Archil’ochus poured forth his caustic satires; Tyrtæus, his inspiriting
war-songs; Sappho, her passionate strains; Anacreon, the joys of the
winecup; Simon’ides breathed his touching laments; and Pindar stirred
the soul with his grand odes, as with the sound of the trumpet. Prose
also received attention, and Ionian authors took the initiative in
systematic historical composition. Rude religious festivals suggested
dramatic representations; and the pioneers in tragedy and comedy rode
about the country, exhibiting their novel art on carts which carried
the performers and their machinery.—Meanwhile in the East, Assyrian
literature reached its highest development at Nineveh, to be buried
beneath the ruins of that city, 625 B.C. Letters then revived at
Babylon, and for nearly a century flourished there; Jewish poetry
declined; and Confucius, the philosopher of transcendent wisdom,
appeared in China.

Early in the 5th century, Greece plunged into a struggle for life
or death with the Persian Empire—a struggle from which she emerged
covered with glory, united and free. Her triumph is straightway sung in
immortal verse, and historians arise to record her exploits. Athens,
who faced the enemy at Marathon, Salamis, and Platæa, and drove him
back crippled and disgraced to Asia, now becomes the leader of grateful
Hellas, and the centre of literature and refinement. Blossom after
blossom unfolds in her genial clime. She makes ample amends for her
barrenness in the past by unprecedented fruitfulness, and gives to
the nations a drama, lustrous with the names of Æschylus, Sophocles,
Euripides (_es’ke-lus_, _sof’o-kleez_, _eu-rip’e-deez_)—the great
tragic trio of antiquity. Comedy also, as represented by Aristophanes,
is perfected in her theatre.

Then come the Peloponnesian War and the consequent humiliation of
Athens; the overthrow of her democratic government, and the partial
decline of literature, particularly poetry, with the fall of free
institutions. Still, writers of genius are not wanting. The graphic
pens of Thucydides and Xenophon lend additional graces to the history
of Greece; Plato and Aristotle make her name immortal in philosophy;
and the world’s greatest orators electrify her assemblies with their
eloquence. Demosthenes, prince of them all, stands forth as the
champion of Grecian liberty, and thunders his Philippics at the wily
Macedonian who would enthrall his country. But the star of Macedon was
in the ascendant. Chærone’a decided the fate of Greece; and she who had
withstood the legions of Xerxes, gave way before the invincible phalanx
of Philip and Alexander.

A sad period of decadence followed. Alexandria, in Egypt, founded
by the conqueror whose name it bore (332 B.C.), became the centre
of learning as well as commerce; and Athens yielded to her fate,
wasting her time in empty philosophical discussions and the pursuit
of pleasure. Poetry languished, yet flashed out occasionally in epic
or didactic form, bringing to mind the glories of the past. It is
true that in the idyls of Theocritus (_little pictures of domestic
life_) pastoral verse now bloomed for the first time on European soil,
and with fine effect; but it was in far-off Syracuse, not in classic
Greece. Here the deepening twilight was fatal to literary growth; and
when Egypt fell beneath the power of Rome in the first century B.C.,
Greek letters sought a new asylum in the city of Romulus.

Turning to Rome, we find that she had long displayed an appreciation
of Grecian genius as well as a striking talent for imitation. About
the middle of the third century B.C., with little or no literature of
her own, she gladly appropriated the foreign treasures held up before
her admiring eyes by Liv’ius Androni’cus, a Tarentine Greek, whom the
fortunes of war had made the slave of a Roman master. This most ancient
of Latin poets put upon the stage versions of the Greek dramas, and
with his translation of the Odyssey took his captors captive. Nævius
and Ennius, following in the path thus opened, gave Italy its first
epics; Ter’ence and Plautus made the people familiar with the humors of
comedy; and Cato imparted dignity to Latin prose.

Oratory, for which the Romans had a natural aptitude, culminated in the
speeches of Cicero, who ushered in the golden age. In his writings,
as well as in the histories of Cæsar, Sallust, and Livy, prose now
attracted with its finished periods. Nor was poetry less notably
represented. Catullus, vehement and pathetic by turns, transplanted
the ode and epigram to Italy; Lucre’tius threw into verse his ideal
of philosophy; Tibullus excelled in simplicity and tenderness; while
Virgil and Horace rivalled, as they doubtless imitated, the first poets
of Greece.

Virgil’s epic, the Æne’id, as remarkable for beauty as Homer’s is for
grandeur, secured to its author the first place among Latin poets; and
next to him stands Horace, with his faultless mastery of metre and keen
observation of men and manners. Their genius shed on the court of the
first emperor, Augustus, a peculiar lustre, still recognized in our
application of the epithet _Augustan_ to the most brilliant period of a
nation’s literature.

It is not strange that under the tyranny of the Cæsars literary
decay set in; yet Rome’s silver age was kept bright by the labors of
Persius and Juvenal, the unsparing satirists; Lucan, author of the
epic Pharsalia; the grave and accurate historian Tacitus; the two
Plinies; and Quintilian, the rhetorician. Taste, however, had sadly
deteriorated; genius died with patriotism; and despots sought in vain
to restore for their own corrupt purposes the ancient spirit which they
had crushed out. At length the degenerate Latin writers laid aside
their own manly tongue for Greek; and the list of the monuments of
Roman genius was complete.

Such has been, in general, the course of every literature. We trace
successively the birth of poetry; the gradual perfecting of prose; the
ripening of simplicity into elegance; the perversion of elegance into
affectation; the language and literature, losing the vigor of manhood,
affected with the feebleness of age, and either succumbing at once to
some great civil convulsion or perishing by a slow but no less certain
living death. As with political, so with literary history:—

“This is the moral of all human tales;
’Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,—
First freedom, and then glory; when that fails,
Wealth, vice, corruption, barbarism at last;
And History, with all its volumes vast,
Hath but one page.”
BYRON.

PART I.

ANCIENT ORIENTAL LITERATURES.

CHAPTER I.

_HINDOO LITERATURE._

THE SANSCRIT LANGUAGE.

=Characteristics.=—Oldest of all the Indo-European tongues, and most
closely resembling the common parent that is lost, is SANSCRIT—the
language spoken by those fair-skinned Aryans who more than thirty
centuries ago, swarming through the Hindoo Koosh passes, made the sunny
plains of Hindostan their own (page 16). Sanscrit spread over most of
the peninsula; and the meaning of the word, _perfected_, is significant
of the flexibility, refinement, regularity, and philosophical system
of grammar, by which the language was distinguished. In luxuriance
of inflection it was unequalled. Its nouns were varied according to
eight cases, and three numbers (singular, dual, and plural); and
its verbs, which assumed causal, desiderative, and frequentative
forms, were carried in conjugation through three voices, the
active, middle, and passive. Its chief fault—a result of its very
richness—lay in the frequent use of long compounds, particularly
adjectives, presenting what seems to us a confused combination of
ideas, sometimes ludicrously lengthened out; as in the expressions,
“always-to-be-remembered-with-reverence patriot,” “water-play-delighted
maidenn-bathing-fragrant river-breezes” (that is, _river-breezes made
fragrant by the bathing of maidens delighted with sporting in the
water_). (_Consult Dr. Perry’s “Sanscrit Primer.”_)

Neither the parallelism of Hebrew poetry (page 89) nor the rhyme of
modern times finds a place in Sanscrit verse; it is distinguished from
prose, like Greek poetry, simply by a metrical arrangement of long
and short syllables. The measured cadence gave great delight to the
cultivated ear of the Hindoos. “There are two excellent things in the
world,” says one of their writers—“the friendship of the good, and the
beauties of poetry.”

Sanscrit is now a dead language. About three hundred years before the
Christian era, dialects similarly derived took its place among the
people, and it has since been kept alive only in the conversation and
writings of the learned, as the sacred language of the Brahmans, or
priestly caste.[4] Yet so extensive is its literature that it costs a
Brahman half his life to master a portion of its sacred books alone.

[Illustration: BRAHMAN PRIEST.]

=Sanscrit Alphabet.=—As to the origin of the Sanscrit alphabet,
consisting of fifty letters, history is silent. It is believed that
the entire early literature was preserved for centuries by oral
repetition. When their polished tongue was first expressed in written
characters—derived from the Phœnicians or independently invented—so
perfectly did these answer the purpose that the Hindoos styled their
alphabet “the writing of the gods.” The Sanscrit letters are still
preserved in the written language of the pure Hindoos, but in that of
the Mohammedan population have been replaced with the Arabic characters.

=History of Sanscrit Researches.=—Arabian translations of Sanscrit
works were made as early as the reign of the Caliph Haroun’-al-Raschid,
at Bagdad (800 A.D.), and appeared from time to time in the succeeding
centuries. Europeans first knew of the existence of Sanscrit and its
literature during the reign of Au’rungzebe (1658-1707), in whose
time the French and English obtained a foothold in Hindostan. Before
this, the Jesuit Nobili (_no’be-le_) had gone to India to study the
sacred books with a view to the conversion of the Hindoos, and, having
mastered them, boldly preached a new Veda; but he died on the scene of
his labors, and Europe profited nothing by his researches. It was left
for the Asiatic Society, organized at Calcutta in 1784 by Sir William
Jones, to open the eyes of Europe to the importance and magnitude of
Brahman literature, of which the translation of Sakoon’talâ (page 50)
by this great orientalist gave a most favorable specimen.

Following in the footsteps of the English scholar just mentioned, the
German critic Schlegel, in his “Language and Wisdom of the Indians”
(1808) laid the permanent foundations of COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY, a
science of recent birth but one that has been of incalculable service
to history, establishing the kinship of the Hindoos and Persians
with the old Greeks and Romans, as well as the modern nations of the
west, by striking resemblances in their respective tongues. Eminent
scholars have since prosecuted the work with enthusiasm—especially
Bopp, Humboldt, Pott, and Grimm among the Germans, the French savant
Bournouf, Max Müller in England, and the American Whitney. Sanscrit is
no longer a sealed volume. The leading European universities have their
professors of that tongue, who lecture also on comparative grammar.
(_See Whitney’s article on Philology, Enc. Brit. V. xviii._)

SACRED LITERATURE OF THE HINDOOS.

=The Veda.=—The language of the ancient Indo-Aryans survives in the
Ve’da, the oldest work of Indo-European literature, dating back to the
prehistoric era of the Aryan race. The Veda, while rich in striking
imagery, is marked by a beautiful simplicity of diction. In its
language, we behold the most ancient form of our own tongue; in the
hymns of its poets, those germs of Aryan intellectual development that
no long time after bloomed in epic and idyl through the fertile valleys
of India, bore immortal fruit on the soil of Greece and Rome, and have
been brought to perfection in the grand productions of modern genius.
(The student is referred to _Max Müller’s “Rig-Veda-Sanhita,”_ and _Dr.
Arrowsmith’s Translation of Prof. Kaegi’s “Rig-Veda.”_)

The word _Veda_ means _knowledge_. The Mantra, or “song” portion of
the Veda, is divided into four parts: the Rig-Veda (_knowledge of the
stanzas_), or Veda of hymns; the Sâma-Veda, of tunes or chants, and the
Yajur-Veda, of sacrificial rites (prayers)—both purely ritualistic; and
the Artharva-Veda, in the main a collection of incantations and spells:
Each of the last-named Vedas is a medley of extracts from the Rig-Veda,
with additions from outside sources. Thus it will be seen that the
Hindoos were believers in the efficacy of sacrifices, some of which
were prolonged for months and even years, as well as of talismans,
charms, and incantations to ward off disease, bring riches, and inspire
love.

To the metrical parts of the Vedas are attached the Brâhmanas, which
abound in tedious descriptions of rites, and were written long
after in prose to explain the hymns. There are also collections of
rules for worship and sacrifice; and speculations on philosophy and
religion, which display no little acuteness, for the Hindoo mind seems
to have been prone to metaphysical investigation and ingenious in
reasoning even to the verge of sophistry. Supplements to the Vedas
contain abundant commentaries on their grammar and language, as well
as astronomical facts—the latter mainly borrowed from other nations
and not based on original researches or discoveries. Finally, the
Upave’das (_oo-pă-vā’dăz_—_appended_) treat of diseases and their cure,
devotional music, the use of weapons, and the arts; while the Purânas
(_poo-rah’năz_), of more recent birth, believed to have been revealed
from heaven like the Vedas, present in verse the mythology of India and
the history of its legendary age.

=Religion of the Veda.=—The Supreme Being first acknowledged by the
Aryans was gradually lost sight of, and a worship of Nature arose.
In the 1,028 hymns of the Rig-Veda (by several hundred authors,
and comprising 10,580 verses), “thrice eleven” gods are invoked as
intelligent beings, the principal of whom are Varuna (_vur’oo-nah_)—god
of waters, the sun, the moon, the day, fire, the storm (Indra), the
dawn, and the earth; and to “the three and thirty,” offerings were
made of cakes, wine, and grain. They were immortal; clothed with power
to answer prayer, and punish those who offended them. But as each
great god is recognized as supreme in different hymns, it is with good
reason thought that, under various names, one omnipotent Being is
worshipped, called in the Veda “God above all gods,” “that One alone
who has upheld the spheres.” “Wise poets,” says the Rig-Veda, “make the
Beautiful-winged, though he is one, manifold by words.”[5]

In the following hymn to Varuna is apparent the belief that evil-doing
is hateful to the Almighty, that man is by nature prone to sin, and
that God stands ready to exercise forgiveness.

HYMN TO VARUNA.

(We have given Max Müller’s literal translation a dress of verse, the
better to bring out the effect of the refrain.)

O Varuna, let me not yet enter the house of clay:
Mercy, Almighty one, thy mercy I pray!
If, like a cloud the sport of winds, I trembling go astray—
Mercy, Almighty one, thy mercy I pray!
Through want of strength, thou strong bright God, I’ve wandered from
the way:
Mercy, Almighty one, thy mercy I pray!
Thirst comes upon the worshipper, though round the waters play:
Mercy, Almighty one, thy mercy I pray!
When we do wrong through thoughtlessness, thy hand of vengeance stay:
Transgressors of thy righteous law, thy mercy, God, we pray!

But of all the conceptions of the Vedic writers, that of the Dawn
Goddess was the most poetical. Watching for the first flush in the
eastern sky, her ancient worshippers, with their hands devoutly placed
upon their foreheads, opened their hearts in strains of praise to the
gloom-dispelling Dawn, the golden-hued Daughter of Heaven, leading on
the sun with her modest smile, “like a radiant bride adorned by her
mother for the bridegroom.”

The sun is represented as a glorious prince, hastening after the
Dawn-maiden and trying to discover her by a tiny slipper which she has
dropped, and which is too small for another to wear; but the prince
never overtakes the flying maid. This beautiful myth is the origin of
the tale of Cinderella.

The Veda contains no allusions to those corrupt practices which
afterward became the distinguishing marks of Brahmanism. At this early
period there was no belief in the transmigration of the souls of men
into inferior animals; on the contrary, the Vedic Aryans looked for
“excellent treasures in the sky.” To caste, they were also strangers;
idols were unknown; and suttee, the burning of the widow at her
husband’s funeral, was an unheard-of barbarity.

=Social Life of the Vedic People.=—The hymns of the Rig-Veda picture
the manners and customs of an intellectual people, far advanced in
the arts. Princely palaces are described, fortified cities, monarchs
possessed of fabulous riches, ladies elegantly attired. There were poor
as well as rich, workers in the various handicrafts; shipbuilding was
practised, and naval expeditions were undertaken. Even at this remote
day literary meetings were held.

Nor were the crimes and vices of later times unknown. Liars are
denounced; thieves, robbers, and intoxicating drinks, are mentioned;
while in one hymn, a gambler laments his ruin by “the tumbling dice,”
and warns others not to play, but rather to practise husbandry. (On the
lessons of the Veda, _see Max Müller’s “India: What can It Teach Us?”
p. 141_.)

The following extract from one of the secular hymns which are
interspersed with those of a religious character, shows some knowledge
of human nature:—

EVERY ONE TO HIS TASTE.

“Men’s tastes and trades are multifarious,
And so their ends and aims are various.
The smith seeks something cracked to mend;
The doctor would have sick to tend.
The priest desires a devotee
From whom he may extract his fee.
Each craftsman makes and vends his ware,
And hopes the rich man’s gold to share.
My sire’s a doctor; I, a bard;
Corn grinds my mother, toiling hard.
All craving wealth, we each pursue,
By different means, the end in view,
Like people running after cows,
Which too far off have strayed to browse
The draught-horse seeks an easy yoke,
The merry dearly like a joke,
Of lovers youthful belles are fond,
And thirsty frogs desire a pond.”—MUIR.

LAW-BOOKS OF THE HINDOOS.

=Laws of Manu.=—Of the many Indian treatises on the moral law still
extant, the most important is the Institutes of Manu (_mun’oo_). Early
texts transmit the idea of this venerable lawgiver, sprung from Brahma
in the Vedic period. That the code now bearing his name embodies the
precepts of so ancient a sage, is doubtful. The laws are written in
verse. Four distinct castes are recognized, ascending through the
successive grades of laborers, farmers, warriors, and princes, to the
highest, which consisted of the priests of Brahma, “the soul of the
universe, whom eye, tongue, mind, cannot reach,” from whose substance
all men proceed and to whom all must return through various states of
existence. The childlike religion of the Veda has disappeared.

The word _brahma_ often occurs in the Vedas with the signification of
worship, or hymn, the vehicle of worship. In the later Vedic poems
it came to mean the universal but impersonal spiritual principle,
all-pervading and self-existent. In Manu’s Ordinances, Brahma is
endowed with personality, and a definite place is assigned him in
the national religious system, as the creative spirit who made the
universe before undiscerned discernible in the beginning. He, as the
Creator, is united with the three-eyed thousand-named Siva (_se’vah_)
the Destroyer, and Vishnu the Preserver, in the Hindoo triad. Vishnu
was the first-begotten of Brahma, a benevolent being who, to overcome
the malignant agents of evil, submitted to various embodiments in human
or animal form, known as _Av’atars_. Nine avatars, which the Hindoos
believed to have taken place, were favorite themes of Sanscrit poetry;
the tenth, still future, would result in the overthrow of the present
state of things and the ushering in of a new and better era. (_Read
Hopkins’s “The Ordinances of Manu.”_)

=Moral Precepts.=—The Institutes of Manu regulated the moral and social
life of the people, prescribing certain rules for the government of
society and the punishment of crimes. Purity of life was enjoined on
all. One of the chief duties was to honor father and mother—the mother
a thousand times the most—and the Brahman more than either. Widows are
forbidden to remarry, and the duties of a wife are thus described:—

“The wife must always be in a cheerful temper, devoting herself to the
good management of the household, taking great care of the furniture,
and keeping down all expenses with a frugal hand. The husband to
whom her father has given her, she must obsequiously honor while he
lives and never neglect him when he dies. The husband gives bliss
continually to his wife here below, and he will give her happiness in
the next world. He must be constantly revered as a god by a virtuous
wife, even if he does not observe approved usages, or is devoid of
good qualities. A faithful wife, who wishes to attain heaven and dwell
there with her husband, must never do anything unkind toward him,
whether he be living or dead.”

The following was the punishment for killing a cow, an animal treated
with the honors due to a deity:—

“All day he must wait on a herd of cows, and stand quaffing the dust
raised by their hoofs.

Free from passion, he must stand when they stand, follow when they
move, lie down near them when they lie down.

By thus waiting on a herd for three months, he who has killed a cow
atones for his guilt.”

OTHER EXTRACTS FROM MANU.

“Greatness is not conferred by years nor by gray hairs, by wealth nor
powerful kindred. Whoever has read the Veda, he always is great.

A Brahman beginning or ending a lecture on the Veda must always
pronounce to himself the syllable OM[6]; for unless the syllable OM
precede his learning will slip away from him, and unless it follow
nothing will be long retained.

When one among all the organs sins, by that single failure all
knowledge of God passes away; as the water flows through one hole in a
leathern bottle.

The names of women should be agreeable, soft, clear, captivating
the fancy, auspicious, ending in long vowels, resembling words of
benediction.”

EPIC POETRY.

Indian literature boasts of two grand epic poems—gems that
would shine in the crown of a Homer or a Milton—the Râmâyana
(_rah-mah’yă-nă_—Adventures of Râma) and the Mahâbhârata
(_mă-hah’bah’ră-tă_—Great War of Bhârata), “the Iliad and Odyssey of
Sanscrit poetry.” The date of these epics is uncertain. Both contain
ancient Vedic traditions, but mingled with these is much that is more
recent. It is probable that the old songs and stories were current
among the people ages before they were arrayed in their present dress
by later poets, who gave them a different religious coloring to suit
the Brahmanical doctrines. Their language is an improvement on that of
the Veda in polish and softness; improvement would naturally result
from oral repetition. (_See Monier Williams’s “Indian Wisdom.”_)

=The Râmâyana=, by the poet Vâlmiki (_vahl’me-ke_), relates the
achievements of Râma (the name assumed by Vishnu in his seventh avatar,
or incarnation), who descended to earth that he might destroy a
demon-prince in Ceylon. Râma becomes the first-born of the monarch of
Oude and heir-apparent to the throne, marries a lovely princess, Sîtâ
(_se’tah_), whose hand others had vainly sought, and daily increases
in popularity. But Râma’s mother was not the only queen; a younger and
more beautiful rival prevails on the old king to appoint her son his
successor instead of Râma, and to banish the latter for fourteen years.

Loyal to his father, though he might have seized the crown by force,
as his mother in her first disappointment bade him do, Râma set out
for the wilderness, accompanied by his bride, who refused to remain
behind in the luxurious capital. Soon after his father died of grief;
whereupon the younger brother rejected the crown, and, seeking the
exile in the jungle, saluted him as king. Râma, however, declined
the honor, and, proceeding to fulfil his mission, slew the demon and
conquered Ceylon. Then with his faithful wife he returned to Oude, to
reign jointly with his brother and usher in a golden age.

The Râmâyana, in this fiction, is supposed to refer to the conquest of
southern India and Ceylon by the Aryans. It so delighted the Hindoos
that it was said, “He who sings and hears this epic continually has
attained to the highest enjoyment, and will finally be equal to the
gods.”

FROM THE RÂMÂYANA.

Sîtâ, informed by her husband of his banishment, thus tenderly pleads
to be the companion of his exile:—

“I will not be a charge to thee: the wood will give me roots,
The spring will yield me water, and the branch provide me fruits.
In hermit’s humble mantle clad, and guarded by my lord,
I long to wander through the wood, the rivulet to ford,
To climb the rock, and gaze upon the lake that looks so cool;
And oh! the pleasant bathing in the clear and shaded pool,
With waters freshly running from the sweet perennial springs,
All lovely with the lotuses and wild swans’ silver wings.
I would not live in heaven itself, and thou, my love, away;
A thousand years with thee, my love, would seem one blissful day.
Then take me with thee to the wood, nor leave me here alone:
I will not be a burthen sore to thee, mine own! mine own!”

But Râma seeks to dissuade her:—

“The forest life has fears and woes too many to be told:
Thirst, hunger, burning heat by day, by night the bitter cold.
Each moment on some deadly thing the heedless step may fall,
Where serpents with their venomed fangs and poisonous scorpions
crawl;
There thro’ the day the tiger roams, the panther and the boar,
And thro’ the night the caverned hills echo the lion’s roar;
There many a river deep and wide will bar thine onward way,
Where fearful crocodiles amid the foaming waters play.
The forest paths, my Sîtâ dear, are rough and hard to pass,
Tangled with knotted creeping plants, and thorns, and matted grass.
O’er many a league the wild woods stretch, and savage beasts abound;
No fruit or flower may there be seen, and water scarce is found;
No bed is there to rest the limbs, but stretched upon a heap
Of fallen leaves and gathered grass the homeless wretch must sleep.
No, such a life is not for thee; cast thou the thought away;
Here in the palace of the king in peace and safety stay.
Though far away from thee I go, and thou remainest here,
Still shalt thou live within the heart to which thou art so dear.”

Yet Sîtâ still refuses to be parted from her husband, and with tearful
eyes exclaims:—

“And death to me were sweeter far, with thine arms round me thrown,
Than life in thy father’s palaces, in safety, but alone.
The wife’s eternal duty is, as holy priests declare,
To follow where her husband goes, his weal and woe to share;
And for the true and loving wife remains the endless bliss
Of sharing all this life with him, and the life that follows this.”

But, Râma being still inexorable, Sîtâ bursts forth in anger, upbraids
him for his cruelty in deserting her, and finally, overcome by emotion,
falls weeping at his feet. Then Râma raises her in his arms, and pours
these soothing accents in her ear:—

“Oh! what is heaven without thee, love? With thee I’ll live and die;
Never will Râma stoop to fear, though Brahma’s self come nigh.
Obedience to my father’s will now sends me to the wood;
For paramount of duties this is counted by the good.
Only to try thy mind, my love, thy prayer I first denied:
I never dreamed that aught could harm the lady by my side;
But yet I feared to suffer thee, so delicate and fair,
The troubles of a forest life and all its woes to share.
Now, as the glory of his life the saint can ne’er resign,
Thou too, devoted, brave, and true, shalt follow and be mine.”
GRIFFITH.

As a favorable specimen of the florid description in which Hindoo
imagination excels, we quote from the same epic,

THE DESCENT OF THE GANGES.

“From the high heaven burst Ganges forth, first on Siva’s lofty
crown;
Headlong then, and prone to earth, thundering rushed the cataract
down.
Swarms of bright-hued fish came dashing; turtles, dolphins, and in
their mirth,
Fallen, or falling, glancing, flashing, to the many-gleaming earth;
And all the host of heaven came down, sprites and genii in amaze,
And each forsook his heavenly throne, upon that glorious scene to
gaze.
On cars, like high-towered cities, seen, with elephants and coursers
rode.
Or on soft-swinging palanquin lay wondering, each observant god.
As met in bright divan each god, and flashed their jewelled
vestures’ rays,
The coruscating ether glowed, as with a hundred suns ablaze.
And in ten thousand sparkles bright went flashing up the cloudy
spray,
The snowy-flocking swans less white, within its glittering mists
at play.
And headlong now poured down the flood, and now in silver circlets
wound;
Then lake-like spread, all bright and broad, then gently, gently
flowed around;
Then ’neath the caverned earth descending, then spouted up the
boiling tide;
Then stream with stream, harmonious blending, swell bubbling up or
smooth subside.
By that heaven-welling water’s breast, the genii and the sages
stood;
Its sanctifying dews they blest, and plunged within the lustral
flood.”—MILMAN.

=The Mahâbhârata= is a vast collection of miscellaneous poetry,
attributed to Vyâsa (_ve-ah’să_), “the arranger,” containing over
200,000 lines, and relating the history of a struggle between two
branches of an ancient royal family. Jealousy led to the separation of
the rival parties, one of which, the Pândavas (_pahn’dă-văz_), cleared
the jungle and founded the city of Delhi (_del’le_). But their enemies,
the Kurus (_Koo’rooz_), resolving to dispossess them, challenged the
Pândavas to a gambling match; the latter accepted, but were cheated
out of all their possessions by the use of loaded dice, and driven
into the wilderness. A savage war ensued, resulting in the triumph of
the Pândavas, and their elevation over the neighboring rajahs. (_See
Arnold’s “Indian Idylls.”_)

The great Hindoo epics are both enlivened by charming episodes. The
most beautiful of those interwoven in the Mahâbhârata are called “the
Five Precious Gems.” Of these, the magnificent philosophical poem
entitled THE DIVINE SONG withdraws the reader for a while from the
tumult of war, and introduces him to a profound theological dialogue
between a disguised god and one of the principal combatants. It
inculcates the existence of one Immutable, Eternal Being, and teems
with grand thoughts not unlike those we should expect from a Christian
teacher. The immortality of the soul is thus sublimely set forth by the
deity, on the eve of a decisive battle, for the purpose of removing
the scruples of the chief, while the latter humanely hesitates to
precipitate the conflict in view of the slaughter that would ensue:—

“Ne’er was the time when I was not, nor thou, nor yonder kings of
earth:
Hereafter, ne’er shall be the time, when one of us shall cease to be.
The soul, within its mortal frame, glides on thro’ childhood, youth,
and age;
Then in another form renewed, renews its stated course again.
All indestructible is He that spread the living universe;
And who is he that shall destroy the work of the Indestructible?
Corruptible these bodies are that wrap the everlasting soul—
The eternal, unimaginable soul. Whence on to battle, Bhârata!
For he that thinks to slay the soul, or he that thinks the soul is
slain,
Are fondly both alike deceived: it is not slain—it slayeth not;
It is not born—it doth not die; past, present, future knows it not;
Ancient, eternal, and unchanged, it dies not with the dying frame.
Who knows it incorruptible, and everlasting, and unborn,
What heeds he whether he may slay, or fall himself in battle slain?
As their old garments men cast off, anon new raiment to assume,
So casts the soul its worn-out frame, and takes at once another
form.
The weapon cannot pierce it through, nor wastes it the consuming
fire;
The liquid waters melt it not, nor dries it up the parching wind:
Impenetrable and unburned; impermeable and undried;
Perpetual, ever-wandering, firm, indissoluble, permanent,
Invisible, unspeakable.”—MILMAN.

But of all the episodes, that of Nala (_nul’ă_) and Damayanti is
unsurpassed for pathos and tenderness of sentiment. King Nala, enamored
of the “softly-smiling” Damayanti, “pearl among women,” finds his love
returned, and is accepted by her in preference to many other princes
and even four of the gods. A jealous demon, however, possesses him, and
causes him to lose at play everything except his bride, whom he cannot
be prevailed upon to stake. Yet at last, in his madness, he deserts her
in the forest, and Damayanti, after many strange adventures, reaches
her father’s court in safety. There she adopts the device of inviting
suitors a second time to propose for her hand, in the hope of bringing
her lost husband to her side if he should hear that there was danger of
his losing her forever.

Nala, meanwhile, disguised as a charioteer, had entered the service
of another king, who now sets forth to offer himself to the beauteous
princess, driven by her husband. When they arrive Damayanti penetrates
the disguise of the charioteer, and to prove the correctness of her
suspicions, puts him to the severest test. She contrives to have his
children brought before him. The father’s heart is touched at once; he
clasps them in his arms, and bursts into tears.

“Soon as he young Indrasena and her little brother saw,
Up he sprang, his arms wound round them, to his bosom folding both.
When he gazed upon the children, like the children of the gods,
All his heart o’erflowed with pity, and unwilling tears brake forth.”

Not wishing, however, to reveal himself to a wife whom he thought
false, he added by way of apology for his conduct,

“Oh! so like my own twin children was yon lovely infant pair,
Seeing them thus unexpected, have I broken out in tears.”

Finally Nala makes himself known to Damayanti, and, convinced of her
faithfulness, is reunited to her and regains his crown.

Such are the Sanscrit epics and their episodes. They are still recited
in the temples of India to vast throngs of appreciative listeners; the
reading of the Mahâbhârata is said to occupy from three to six months.
(On the epics, _consult Muir’s “Metrical Translations from Sanscrit
Writers.”_)

LYRIC AND DIDACTIC POETRY.

=Kâlidâsa.=—In lyric poetry, embracing idyls and amatory pieces,
Sanscrit is no less rich than in epic, whether quantity or quality be
considered. Foremost in this department is Kâlidâsa (_kah’le-dah’să_),
about whose life, and even his exact period, nothing is certainly
known, but whose works have crowned him with immortality. He is the
author of many charming verses; and his poem, “the Seasons,” which
draws fascinating pictures of the luxuriant landscapes of India,
displaying on every page the poet’s ardent love for the beauties of
nature, has the honor of being the first book ever printed in Sanscrit.

AUTUMN.

FROM KÂLIDÂSA’S SEASONS.

“Welcome Autumn, lovely bride,
Full of beauty, full of pride!
Hear her anklets’ silver ring:
’Tis the swans that round her sing.
Mark the glory of her face:
’Tis the lotus lends its grace.
See the garb around her thrown;
Look and wonder at her zone.
Robes of maize her limbs enfold,
Girt with rice like shining gold.
Streams are white with silver wings
Of the swans that autumn brings.
Lakes are sweet with opening flowers;
Gardens, gay with jasmine bowers;
While the woods, to charm the sight,
Show their bloom of purest white.
Vainly might the fairest try
With the charms around to vie.
How can India’s graceful daughter
Match that swan upon the water?
Fair her arching brow above,
Swimming eyes that melt with love:
But that charming brow can never
Beat that ripple on the river;
And those eyes must still confess
Lilies’ rarer loveliness.
Perfect are those rounded arms,
Aided by the bracelets’ charms:
Fairer still those branches are,
And those creepers, better far,
Ring them round with many a fold,
Lovelier than gems and gold.
Now no more doth Indra’s Bow
In the evening sunlight glow,
Nor his flag, the lightning’s glare,
Flash across the murky air.
Beauty too has left the trees,
Which but now were wont to please;
Other darlings claim her care,
And she pours her blossoms there.

Now beneath the moonlight sweet,
Many troops of maidens meet.
Many a pleasant tale they tell
Of the youths that love them well;
Of the word, the flush, the glance,
The kiss, the sigh, the dalliance.

Not a youth can wander when
Jasmine blossoms scent the glen,
While the notes of many a bird
From the garden shades are heard,
But his melting soul must feel
Sweetest longing o’er it steal.
Not a maid can brush away
Morning dew-drops from the spray,
But she feels a sweet unrest
Wooingly disturb her breast.
As the breezes fresh and cool
From the lilies on the pool,
Sweet with all the fragrance there,
Play, like lovers, with her hair.”
GRIFFITH.

Surpassing “the Seasons” in dignity and elegance, “the Cloud
Messenger,” by the same author, contains some fine flights of fancy.
It tells how an inferior god, banished for twelve months to a sacred
forest and thus separated from a wife whom he fondly loves, commits to
a passing cloud a message for his goddess. He directs its imaginary
journey through the sky, over forests and hills, to the city of the
gods. There it will easily distinguish his wife, whom he paints to
the cloud in glowing colors as the “first, best work of the Creator’s
hand,” mourning over their separation.

“And sad and silent shalt thou find my wife,
Half of my soul and partner of my life;
Nipped by chill sorrow, as the flowers enfold
Their shrinking petals from the withering cold.
I view her now! Long weeping swells her eyes,
And those dear lips are dried by parching sighs.
Sad on her hand her pallid cheek declines,
And half unseen through veiling tresses shines;
As when a darkling night the moon enshrouds,
A few faint rays break straggling through the clouds.”

He then intrusts the cloud with the tender words that he would breathe;
bids it tell his beloved how he sees her in the rippling brooks, how

“O’er the rude stone her pictured beauties rise;”

and finally he charges his messenger to console her afflicted heart
with assurances of his unabated love, and to hasten back with tidings
that may relieve his soul of its anxiety. The cloud obeys; but
meanwhile the supreme deity learns of the message, repents of his
severity, restores the exile to his wife, and blesses the pair with
ceaseless joy.

Kâlidâsa also wrote three epics of a romantic character, one of them on
the adventures of Nala and his devoted Damayanti. Well does he merit
the title conferred on him by his admiring countrymen,—“the Bridegroom
of Poesy.”

=Jayadeva= (_jī-ă-dā’vă_), a poet probably of more recent times, if
not equal to Kâlidâsa, yet has given us in Gîtagovinda one of the most
enchanting idyls ever written. In this Song of the Shepherd Govinda,
the form assumed by the god Krishna, are set forth in voluptuous colors
the adventures of the deity and nine shepherdesses, his beautiful
attendants. The whole is supposed to be a mystical allegory.

The high estimation in which Jayadeva is held, may be inferred from
the following eulogy by an Oriental critic: “Whatever is delightful in
the modes of music, whatever is exquisite in the sweet art of love,
whatever is graceful in the strains of poetry—all that let the happy
and wise learn from the songs of Jayadeva.” (_See Arnold’s “Indian
Poetry,” p. 86._)

* * * * *

Whittier has furnished us the following spirited version of a Hindoo
lyric by a poet who flourished in the third century of our era, and
who, if we may judge by his writings, had conceptions of God and duty
not unworthy of a Christian bard.

GIVING AND TAKING.

“Who gives and hides the giving hand,
Nor counts on favor, fame, or praise,
Shall find his smallest gift outweighs
The burden of the sea and land.

Who gives to whom hath naught been given,
His gift in need, though small indeed,
As is the grass-blade’s wind-blown seed,
Is large as earth, and rich as heaven.

Forget it not, O man, to whom
A gift shall fall while yet on earth;
Yea, even to thy sevenfold birth
Recall it in the lives to come.

Who dares to curse the hands that bless,
Shall know of sin the deadliest cost;
The patience of the heaven is lost
Beholding man’s unthankfulness.

For he who breaks all laws may still
In Siva’s mercy be forgiven;
But none can save, in earth or heaven,
The wretch who answers good with ill.”

THE DRAMA.

=The Sanscrit Shakespeare.=—Not the least valuable of Sanscrit
treasures is its dramatic poetry. Here, as in lyric verse, Kâlidâsa
stands prëeminent, the Shakespeare of India. His title to this
distinction rests mainly on his drama of Sakoon’talâ, or the Lost Ring,
which portrays the simple life and unsophisticated manners of his
countrymen with all his characteristic tenderness of expression and
rich imagination.

PLOT OF SAKOONTALÂ.—In early summer—the fitting season, sacred as it
was to the god of love—the play of Sakoontalâ was wont to be acted
in ancient India. The heroine, whose name the drama bears, was the
daughter of a nymph, and dwelt at a hermitage in the jungle. Led to
her retreat by chance in his pursuit of a deer, a neighboring rajah
espies the “slender-waisted” forest maid, with two lovely companions,
watering the shrubbery. Concealing himself among the trees, he plays
eaves-dropper, and as he watches the trio he cannot restrain his
admiration; “the woodland plants,” he cries, “outshine the garden
flowers.” His heart is lost forthwith. Ordering his camp to be pitched
near by, he wooes and finally weds Sakoontalâ, with the assurance that
she shall “reign without a rival in his heart.” Then leaving his bride
a marriage-ring, engraved with his name, as a token of their union, the
rajah goes back to his palace, promising that Sakoontalâ shall soon
share his throne.

“Repeat each day one letter of the name
Engraven on this gem; ere thou hast reckoned
The tale of syllables, my minister
Shall come to lead thee to thy husband’s palace.”

Not long after his departure, a sage whose anger she has incurred
pronounces a curse upon the pair,—“that he of whom she thought should
think of her no more,” should even forget her image, and that the
spell should cease only at sight of the marriage-ring. This token
of remembrance, however, was secured on her finger; and at length
Sakoontalâ, re-assured by a favorable omen, leaves the sorrowing
companions of her girlhood, and the venerable hermit, her reputed
father, to seek her husband in his capital.

Arrived in safety, she gains access to the royal presence; but the
king, laboring under the curse, fails to recognize her. Sakoontalâ is
unveiled, and stands before him in all her beauty—a beauty that stirs
him to exclaim:—

“What charms are here revealed before mine eyes!
Truly no blemish mars the symmetry
Of that fair form; yet can I ne’er believe
She is my wedded wife; and like a bee
That circles round the flower whose nectared cup
Teems with the dew of morning, I must pause
Ere eagerly I taste the proffered sweetness.”

Then Sakoontalâ seeks her ring, but alas! it is not on her finger; she
must have dropped it in the Ganges. In the midst of her confusion a
nymph appears, and carries her off to a sacred retreat, where she gives
birth to a son.

Meanwhile a fish is caught, in which is found the fatal ring, stamped
with the rajah’s name. It is restored to its owner, and at once the
recollection of his long-forgotten Sakoontalâ flashes upon his mind.
Overwhelmed with poignant regret for her loss, he abandons himself
to melancholy for a time, calling on her beloved name, or trying to
beguile his grief by tracing with his pencil her features now but too
well remembered. At length ambition and piety unite to wake him from
his lethargy. He embarks in a campaign against the giants, enemies of
the gods; is victorious; and finds the consummation of happiness at
last in a union with his long-lost wife, and with his son, whose name,
Bhârata, becomes the most distinguished in the mythology of India.

English readers are enabled to enjoy the beauties of Sakoontalâ through
the metrical version of Prof. Williams.

EXTRACTS FROM SAKOONTALÂ.

PARTING WORDS OF THE SAGE TO HIS ADOPTED DAUGHTER.

“This day my loved one leaves me, and my heart
Is heavy with its grief: the streams of sorrow,
Choked at the source, repress my faltering voice.
I have no words to speak; mine eyes are dimmed
By the dark shadows of the thoughts that rise
Within my soul. If such the force of grief
In an old hermit parted from his nursling,
What anguish must the stricken parent feel,
Bereft forever of an only daughter!

Weep not, my daughter, check the gathering tear
That lurks beneath thine eyelid, ere it flow
And weaken thy resolve; be firm and true—
True to thyself and me; the path of life
Will lead o’er hill and plain, o’er rough and smooth,
And all must feel the steepness of the way;
Tho’ rugged be thy course, press boldly on.

Honor thy betters; ever be respectful
To those above thee. Should thy wedded lord
Treat thee with harshness, thou must never be
Harsh in return, but patient and submissive.
Be to thy menials courteous, and to all
Placed under thee considerate and kind:
Be never self-indulgent, but avoid
Excess in pleasure; and, when fortune smiles,
Be not puffed up. Thus to thy husband’s house
Wilt thou a blessing prove, and not a curse.

How, O my child! shall my bereaved heart
Forget its bitterness, when, day by day,
Full in my sight shall grow the tender plants
Reared by thy care, or sprung from hallowed grain
Which thy loved hands have strewn around the door—
A frequent offering to our household gods.”

THE KING AND SAKOONTALÂ’S PORTRAIT.

“My finger, burning with the glow of love,
Has left its impress on the painted tablet;
While here and there, alas! a scalding tear
Has fallen on the cheek and dimmed its brightness.
Go fetch the brush that I may finish it.
A sweet Sirisha blossom should be twined
Behind her ear, its perfumed crest depending
Toward her cheek; and resting on her bosom,
A lotus-fibre necklace, soft and bright
As an autumnal moonbeam, should be traced.”

While gazing on the picture, the king in his infatuation mistakes for
reality a bee which he has himself painted in the act of settling on
the rosy lips of his love, and after attempting to drive it off is
apprised of his error by an attendant, whom he thus addresses:—

“While all entranced I gazed upon her picture,
My loved one seemed to live before my eyes,
Till every fibre of my being thrilled
With rapturous emotion. Oh! ’twas cruel
To dissipate the day-dream, and transform
The blissful vision to a lifeless image.
Vain is the hope of meeting her in dreams,
For slumber, night by night, forsakes my couch.
And now that I would fain assuage my grief
By gazing on her portrait, here before me,
Tears of despairing love obscure my sight.”

MONIER WILLIAMS.

Sakoontalâ may justly be called the pearl of Eastern dramatic poetry.
It has been translated into every European tongue, and has elicited the
admiration of all civilized nations. In the language of Goethe:—

“Would’st thou the young year’s blossom and the fruits of its
decline,
And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed—
Would’st thou the earth and heaven itself in one sole name combine?
I name thee, O Sakoontalâ! and all at once is said.”

From the author of this drama we have two other pieces worthy of his
fame, “the Hero and the Nymph” and a popular comedy. His era was the
golden age of the Hindoo theatre.

Other noted plays, a few out of many, are “the Toy Cart,” a domestic
drama with a public underplot; “the Signet of the Minister,” which had
a political bearing; “the Stolen Marriage;” and an allegorical play,
“the Moonrise of Science.”

=The Hindoo Drama=, the invention of which was ascribed to an ancient
sage inspired by Brahma himself, consisted at first of music, dancing,
and pantomime. An outcome of the prevailing mythology, it was made a
feature of the Indian festivals, and from very early rude beginnings of
which we have no remains gradually progressed to the perfection with
which Kâlidâsa invested it. Unfolding the inner life of the people and
illustrating their peculiar institutions, it is at once interesting and
valuable, original, and in its delineations of character strikingly
true to nature. Love is its principal subject; and, what is markedly
characteristic, its denouements are always happy. Tragedy is foreign to
the Hindoo stage.

The Indian plays began and closed with a benediction or prayer; in many
cases there was a preliminary account of the author, or a colloquy
between the manager and one of the actors, leading the way to the
play itself. The heroes were generally kings or deities. As foils to
these, it was usual to introduce mountebanks or buffoons, and as such
Brahmans were made to figure. The Hindoo dramatists did not hesitate to
set forth their priests in a ridiculous light; a remarkable fact, when
we remember that the drama in India was a semi-religious institution,
and that the managers of companies were usually themselves Brahmans.
The playwright who in Greece should have taken such liberties with his
religious superiors would have run the risk of being driven from the
stage, if indeed he were not more seriously handled by an indignant
audience.

The consistency observed in managing the dialogue is noteworthy.
The parts spoken by divinities and heroes, rulers and priests, are
always in ancient Sanscrit; while the inferior personages and the
female characters use the later and more familiar dialect. Want of
acquaintance with the sacred language, which thus formed the staple
of the classical plays, no doubt prevented the common people from
fully understanding and enjoying dramatic representations; and hence
the latter never attained that popularity which they had in other
countries. They were the entertainment of the cultured class rather
than the masses.

Another curious feature of the Hindoo drama was the absence of scenery,
the plays being mostly represented in the open air, the courts of
palaces, etc. The great advantage which the modern performer derives
from fine scenic effects was entirely wanting. Changes of scene could
be indicated only in the text, by minute descriptions of the new
locality, thrown into the mouths of the speakers and left for the
audience to fill out and remember. No shifting of scenes, for instance,
as with us, would denote the entrance of one of the characters from
out-doors into a drawing-room; but the personage entering, either in
a soliloquy or in colloquy with some other, would immediately call
attention to every little point—the threshold, the floor, the ceiling,
the walls, the doors, the windows, the furniture—and the glowing fancy
of his hearers would at once picture the scene as vividly as if it
stood before them in reality.

The proprieties were strictly observed. To represent a death scene
would have been intolerable; nor only so, but in the earlier and
purer days no dramatist would introduce before his audience a scene
of violence, eating, sleeping, or the performance of the marriage
ceremony. A charming love-scene in the Sakoontalâ breaks off just at
the critical moment when the hero and heroine are about to interchange
a token of affection; yet the embrace does not appear always to have
been repugnant to the Hindoo ideas of delicacy.

As to the date of the dramas that have been mentioned, they are
supposed to have been written during the first ten centuries of the
Christian Era; but here, as in the case of the epics and lyrics, we
are left to conjecture. Could we know more certainly what times they
reflect, our pleasure in perusing them would be complete.

TALES AND FABLES.

India has long enjoyed the reputation, and not without reason, of
having been the favorite home of fairy-tale and fable. From her
storehouse of fictions, many waifs have crept into the literatures of
both Europe and Asia, and striking the popular taste have attained
wide currency. Tongues have changed, dynasties have fallen; but these
stories by unknown hands still live in the nursery, influencing the
pliant minds of the children of to-day as they have done those of the
last twenty centuries.

The Sanscrit has two great collections of fables,—the Pankatantra,
_Five Stories_ (more properly _Five Sections_); and the Hitopadesa,
_Friendly Advice_, a charming compilation from the former. The
Hitopadesa, translated into many languages, has almost rivalled in
circulation the Bible itself. In the following fable, selected from
“the Friendly Advice,” will be seen the germ of La Fontaine’s charming
imitation, “the Milkmaid and the Pitcher of Milk;” both point the same
moral as our own cautionary proverb, “Don’t count your chickens before
they are hatched.”

THE STUPID BRAHMAN.

“In the town of Devikotta there lived a Brahman of the name of
Devasarman. At the feast of the great equinox he received a plateful
of rice. He took it, went into a potter’s shop, which was full of
crockery, and, overcome by the heat, he lay down in a corner and began
to doze. In order to protect his plate of rice, he kept a stick in
his hand; and he began to think:‘Now if I sell this plate of rice,
I shall receive ten cowries. I shall then, on the spot, buy pots and
plates, and after having increased my capital again and again I shall
buy and sell betel nuts and dresses till I grow enormously rich. Then
I shall marry four wives, and the youngest and prettiest of the four I
shall make a great pet of. Then the other wives will be so angry and
begin to quarrel. But I shall be in a great rage, and take a stick,
and give them a good flogging.’

While he said this, suiting the action to the thought, he laid about
him with his stick; the plate of rice was smashed to pieces, and many
of the pots in the shop were broken. The potter, hearing the noise,
ran in; and when he saw his pots broken, gave the Brahman a good
scolding and drove him out of the shop.

Therefore I say,‘He who rejoices over plans for the future will come
to grief, like the Brahman who broke the pots.’”—MAX MÜLLER.

Of the numerous collections of tales and romances, the best known is
“the Ocean of the Rivers of Narratives,” the original of that more
familiar compilation, the Arabian Nights.

HISTORY, GRAMMAR, ETC.

Sanscrit is also worthily represented in other departments of
literature; on the fine arts we have nothing worthy of notice, but
science has not been neglected, while historical, grammatical, and
philosophical works, complete the category of its productions. Its
chronicles, however, obscured as they are by myths without number, are
comparatively valueless; but one deserves the name of history, the
Chronicle of Cashmere, or the Stream of the Kings, extending from the
fabulous ages to the reign of Akbar, who reduced that province in the
16th century.

But in grammar we must certainly award to Sanscrit the very first
place. Commentaries on the constructions of the Veda, dating perhaps
from 750 B.C., embody the earliest attempts at grammatical and critical
investigation with which we are acquainted; and in the digest of Pânini
(_pah’ne-ne_) (500 B.C.?) we have the first systematic grammar that the
world ever produced—a book remarkable for its completeness, declared by
Max Müller to be “the perfection of an empirical analysis of language,
unsurpassed—nay, even unapproached, by anything in the grammatical
literature of other nations.”

In connection with the literature of India, we may also mention
inscriptions on monuments, in temples and grottoes, and on plates of
marble and copper. These are worthy of study mainly in view of the
historical information they may afford.

Such is a history, in outline, of the ancient Sanscrit, of which Prof.
Müller has written: “The study of it will open before you large layers
of literature as yet almost unknown and unexplored, and allow you an
insight into strata of thought rich in lessons that appeal to the
deepest sympathies of the human heart.”

The reader is further referred to _Sayce’s “Introduction to
Comparative Philology;”_ for an exposition of the religious ideas, to
_Cox’s “Mythology of the Aryan Nations,” vol. I._, and _Perry’s “Indra
in the Rig-Veda;”_ for the literature and general history, to _Max
Müller’s “Hibbert Lectures,”_ 1878, and _Mrs. Manning’s “Ancient and
Mediæval India.”_

BUDDHIST LITERATURE.

About 500 B.C., a new and purer religion was preached in India by a
monk of royal birth, afterward called Buddha (_the Enlightened_). It
met with a hearty reception from the people, for it taught men to
live in charity with their neighbors, to reverence their parents, to
practise truth and morality; above all, it overthrew the institution
of caste, and abolished the foolish system of Brahman sacrifices. The
riches and fleeting pleasures of this world, Buddha proclaimed unworthy
of pursuit, representing life itself as a burden, and promising his
followers a paradise of eternal rest[7] beyond the grave. No wonder
that thousands declared in favor of the new faith, which during a
struggle of many centuries disputed with Brahmanism for the supremacy
of India. Pushing out to the northeast, it made its way into Thibet,
China, and Japan; and at the present day has more followers than any
other religious system, their number being estimated at 450,000,000.
(_Consult Hardy’s “Manual of Buddhism.”_)

The sacred books of the Buddhists are called the Tripitaka (_three
baskets_); one is metaphysical, another disciplinary, and the third
contains the discourses of Buddha. They are written in a dialect of
Sanscrit, and are made up of 600,000 stanzas, containing five times
as much matter as our Bible. (_See Monier Williams’s “Buddhism in its
Contrast with Christianity.”_)

EXTRACTS FROM THE BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES.

“The succoring of mother and father, the cherishing of child and wife,
and the following of a lawful calling,—this is the greatest blessing.

The giving of alms, the abstaining from sins, the eschewing of
intoxicating drink, diligence in good deeds, reverence and humility,
contentment and gratitude,—this is the greatest blessing.

He who lives for pleasure only, his senses uncontrolled, idle and
weak, the tempter will certainly overcome him as the wind throws down
a weak tree.

Like a beautiful flower, full of color but without scent, are the fine
but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly.

As the bee collects nectar, and departs without injuring the flower,
or its color and scent, so let the sage dwell on earth.

Let no man think lightly of evil, saying in his heart,‘It will not
come near unto me.’ Even by the falling of water-drops a water-pot is
filled; the fool becomes full of evil, even if he gathers it little by
little.

Let us live happily then, though we call nothing our own; not hating
those who hate us, free from greed among the greedy. We shall then be
like the bright gods, feeding on happiness.”

NOTES ON HINDOO LITERATURE, ETC.

The literature of India incalculably vast, and its individual works
voluminous. The Mahâbhârata six times as long as the Iliad, Odyssey,
and Æneid united; the Râmâyana half this size. The eighteen Purânas
contain 1,600,000 lines. The library of one of the kings said to
have numbered so many books that a hundred Brahmans were employed in
taking care of it, and a thousand dromedaries were required to convey
it from place to place; twenty years were consumed in condensing
its contents, by the royal command, into an encyclopædia of 12,000
volumes. Sir William Jones computed that the longest life would not
suffice for the perusal of all the Sanscrit writings.—First century
B.C. believed to have been an Augustan age of Indian literature.

Writing apparently unknown to the ancient Hindoos before the time
of Pânini. No mention anywhere made, in the early works, of writing
materials, pen or brush, paper, bark, or skin. The Vedic hymns sung
or repeated probably for a thousand years before they were committed
to writing. The use of the alphabet long regarded as impious. First
letters appear in Buddhist inscriptions of the 3d century B.C. Later
Indian manuscripts, beautifully inscribed on palm leaves. The letters
of the Sanscrit alphabet thought to be the oldest forms of our Arabic
figures, which came originally from India, as did also our decimal
system.

Chess one of the earliest inventions of the Hindoos—called chess
(_king_) from the principal piece. The Brahman inventor, so the
story goes, asked of the reigning emperor as his reward, a single
grain of wheat for the first square of the chess-board, two for the
second, four for the third, and so on to the sixty-fourth; apparently
a modest price, but one that it would have taken years to pay with
the wheat crop of the whole world. Elephants, horses, foot-soldiers,
and chariots, the original chess-men. From India, the game found its
way into China, Japan, and Persia, and finally into Europe.—Throwing
dice, also, a favorite pastime; the “Game of Four Crowns,” with
playing-cards, early known to the Hindoos.

Square copper money coined in the 3d century B.C., and stamped with
inscriptions in a Sanscrit dialect.

CHAPTER II.

_PERSIAN LITERATURE._

=Avesta.=—Sprung from the same ancient Aryan tongue as the Sanscrit of
India, and distinguished by the same richness of inflection, is Avesta,
the earliest language of Persia, still preserved to us in the Persian
Scriptures known as _the_ Avesta. The Veda and the Avesta have been
described as “two rivers flowing from one fountain-head;” and beyond a
doubt the Vedic Aryans and the Avesta-speaking Persians were originally
one community, conversing in a common tongue.

The Avesta was first made known to Europeans by a French orientalist;
Anquetil Duperron (_on^{g}k-teel’ deu-pa-ron^{g}’_), who went to India
for the express purpose of discovering the sacred books of the
Parsees. With great difficulty he at length possessed himself of the
much-desired Avesta manuscripts, and in 1771, after long and patient
effort, he gave his countrymen men the first translation of the Avesta
into a European tongue. The language has since been carefully studied,
and in our own day has at last been mastered. Time wrought many changes
in it; the Persian of Xerxes’ reign differed much more from the Avesta
of antiquity than our present language does from the English of
Chaucer. Further modifications and the introduction of Arabic elements
have made modern Persian still more unlike the ancient vernacular.

The sacred writings of Persia just referred to are among the oldest
and most important in the whole range of Indo-European literature.
They contain the doctrines of Zoroaster, or Zarathushtra, the Bactrian
sage who reformed the religious system of his country. (_See Jackson’s
Avesta Series, Part I._)

=Zoroaster= is believed to have flourished about 1400 B.C. Nothing
is known of his life or history. Yet, through more than thirty
centuries his influence has been felt; and to-day, though they have
dwindled to perhaps 150,000 souls, his followers constitute a thrifty
and intelligent population in India and Persia. These Parsees, or
Fire-worshippers (called by the Mohammedans _Guebres_, or infidels),
still burn the eternal fire, kindled as they believe from heaven, not
for idolatrous worship, but as an emblem of Ormazd, the Almighty source
of light. They are descendants of those Zoroastrians whom Darius and
Xerxes launched against Europe in the mightiest armies ever raised by
man, threatening to plant their purer faith amid the ruined shrines of
Greece. (_Read Haug’s “Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and
Religion of the Parsis.”_)

At a later date, when the Caliph Omar converted Persia to Mohammedanism
with the sword (641 A.D.), their forefathers clung to the ancient
faith, and found an asylum across the Indus or in the deserts of their
native land.

=The Avesta= (_sacred text_) contains the only existing monuments
of a once extensive literature. It is divided into distinct parts,
made up of separate pieces and fragments, which, repeated orally
from generation to generation, were probably collected and reduced
to writing in their present form many centuries after the period
of Zoroaster. The compositions in question are chiefly professed
revelations and instructions to mankind, confessions, prayers to
the Supreme Being and various inferior deities, and metrical hymns
(_Gâthâs_), simple and some of them so grand as to be deemed the
productions of Zoroaster himself.

Zoroaster is represented in the Avesta as conversing with Ormazd,
who, in answer to the inquiries of the sage, reveals his will, and
prescribes the moral and ceremonial law. Thus, in the following
passage, Zoroaster questions Ormazd:—

“O Ormazd (Ahura Mazda), most holy spirit, creator of existent worlds,
righteous One! What, O Ormazd, was the Word (more correctly, Ahuna
Vairya, the name of a sacred verse) which you pronounced for me before
the heaven, before the water, before the cow, before the tree, before
the fire, before the righteous man, before the demons and noxious
creatures?”

Then Ormazd replies: “I will tell thee, most holy Zoroaster, what was
the Creative Word I pronounced for thee before the heaven, before the
water, before the cow, before the tree, before the fire, before the
righteous man, before the demons and noxious creatures, before all the
universe. Such is the whole of the Creative Word, which, even when
unpronounced and unrecited, outweighs a thousand breathed prayers,
which are not pronounced, nor recited, nor sung. And he who in this
world, O most holy Zoroaster, remembers the whole of the Creative
Word, or utters it, or sings it, I will lead his soul thrice across
the bridge of the better world, to the better existence, to the better
truth, to the better days. I pronounced this Speech which contains the
Word and its working, before the creation of this heaven, and before
the creation of the earth.

“He is a holy man,” says Ormazd elsewhere, “who constructs upon the
earth a habitation in which he maintains fire, cattle, his wife,
his children, and flocks and herds. He who makes the earth produce
grain, who cultivates the fruits of the fields, he maintains purity;
he promotes the law of Ormazd as much as if he offered a hundred
sacrifices.”

=Avesta Philosophy.=—The Avesta seems to recognize one eternal Supreme
Being, infinite and omnipotent. This was Ormazd (_Spiritual Wise One_),
whom Zoroaster invokes as the source of light and purity, “true, lucid,
shining,” all-perfect, all-powerful, all-beautiful, all-wise.” Opposed
to Ormazd was a principle of darkness and evil, called Ah’riman (Angra
Mainyu, _Sinful-minded_). The theory of evolution finds no support in
the Avesta, which contains an account of the creation of the universe
strikingly like that of Moses. Traditions of the fall of man through
the falsehood of Ahriman, and of a universal deluge, are also handed
down. (On the Avesta, _see Müller’s “Sacred Books of the East,” vols.
iv., xxiii., xxxi._)

Zoroaster’s mission was to exhort men to follow the right and forsake
the wrong. “Choose one of these two spirits, the Good or the Evil,” he
said; “you cannot serve both.”

“Of these two Spirits, the Wicked One chose to do evil; the Holy
Spirit, whose garment is the immovable sky, chose what is right, as
they also do who faithfully please Ormazd by good works.

“And between these two Spirits, the demons chose not aright. Madness
came upon them, so that they chose the Worst Mind, and they went over
to the side of wrath to destroy the life of mankind.

“Now then, may we be those who make this life perfect; and may Ormazd
and Asha (Righteousness) grant their aid, that he whose faith is
altered may become of believing heart.

“For at the final reckoning, the blow of annihilation will come upon
falsehood; but they who enjoy a good report will see their hopes
fulfilled in the blessed abode of the Good Mind.

“If, O men, ye mark these doctrines which Mazda instituted for your
well-being, and that torment will come to the wicked and blessing to
the righteous, through these will be your salvation.”—_Geldner._

Like Buddha, the Persian reformer raised his voice against the
priesthood, and the corruptions which had crept into the national
religion. Devil-worship, which had come into vogue as a means of
averting the evil supposed to be wrought by wicked spirits, he
specially denounced, recognizing in sin the cause of all human
sorrow, and urging men to wage uncompromising warfare with the powers
of darkness, relying for aid on the Good Spirit. “Give offering and
praise,” says the Avesta, “to that Lord who made men greater than all
earthly beings, and through the gift of speech created them to rule the
creatures, _as warriors against the evil spirits_.” Fire was invoked
as the symbol of Divinity, and the sun as “the eye of Ormazd;” but
idolatry Zoroaster and his disciples abhorred.

Ormazd was the rewarder of the good, the punisher of the bad. Those
who obeyed him, and were “pure in thoughts, pure in words, pure in
actions,” were admitted at death into _Paradise_, “the House of the
Angels’ Hymns,” where all was brightness: the wicked were consigned to
a region of everlasting darkness, “the House of the Fiend Deceit.” Of
all the religions of human origin, Zoroaster’s, though not free from
superstition and cumbrous rites, approaches nearest to the truth. It
was gladly accepted by the people, and did much to elevate them and
improve their condition. We have thrown into verse the following

HYMN TO ORMAZD.

Praise to Ormazd, great Creator,
He it was the cattle made;
Lord of purity and goodness,
Trees and water, sun and shade.
Unto him belongs the kingdom,
Unto him the might belongs;
Unto him, as first of beings,
Light-creator, float our songs.

Him we praise, Ahurian Mazda,
With our life and bodies praise;
Purer than the purest, fairest,
Bright through never-ending days.
What is good and what is brilliant,
That we reverence in thee—
Thy good spirit, thy good kingdom,
Wisdom, law, and equity.

=Persian Inscriptions.=—In a flower-clad plain of southwestern
Persia, shut in from the outer world by lofty hills, and now dotted
with pleasant villages, once stood the great palace of Persep’olis,
the wonder of the world for its magnificence—which Alexander, in a
fit of drunken fury, reduced to a heap of ruins with his wanton torch
(331 B.C.). Yet, though silent and deserted, “the piles of fallen
Persepolis” speak to us, not only with their strange sculptures, but
also through the inscriptions carved upon them in cuneiform letters,
originally adorned with gold.

[Illustration: THE ROCK OF BEHISTUN.
MOUNTAIN RECORD OF DARIUS.]

Not far from these ruins is the famous rock of Behistun, 1,700
feet high, and inscribed with the same arrow-headed, wedge-shaped
characters. Some of these, protected from the weather by a varnish of
flint, have been wonderfully preserved to the present time.

This mountain-record was set up by Darius I. (516-515 B.C.), who, in
the shadow of the palace-walls of Persepolis, was wont to sit upon a
throne of gold, canopied by a vine of the same precious metal bearing
clusters of priceless gems. It is his triumphal tablet, graven with
figures of himself and several conquered princes. It records his
victories, asserts his hereditary right to the throne, and enumerates
the provinces of his vast empire, in nearly a thousand lines of
cuneiform characters—in three different languages, the Persian,
Scythian, and Babylonian—that it might be understood by all his
subjects.

Here the Persian monarch announces his dignity, while he attributes the
glory of it all to the God Supreme:—

“I am Darius, the Great King, the King of Kings, the King of Persia,
the King of the dependent provinces, the son of Hystaspes.

By the grace of Ormazd I am King. Ormazd has granted me my empire. The
countries which have fallen into my hands, by the grace of Ormazd I
have become king of them.

Within these countries, whoever was good, him have I cherished and
protected; whoever was evil, him have I utterly destroyed. By the
grace of Ormazd, these countries have obeyed my laws. By the grace of
Ormazd, I hold this empire.”

Other inscriptions were cut by order of Xerxes, whose royal name and
title they formally declare; but there are none of any later date.
Cuneiform letters were also employed by other nations, as will be
hereafter seen (page 105). Most of the ancient Persian literature was
lost during the struggle with Alexander the Great, and subsequent wars
and convulsions. (On the cuneiform monuments, _see Johnson’s “Oriental
Religions: Persia.”_)

NOTES ON PERSIAN LITERATURE, ETC.

Ancient Persian records made on leather; parchment the favorite
writing material, the high price of papyrus preventing its adoption.
Bricks seldom used for inscriptions. A running hand, different
from the cuneiform, probably in use among the people for ordinary
purposes, as every educated person could undoubtedly write: no trace
of this left.

The kings of Persia founders of a library consisting of historical
records, state archives, and royal ordinances. “The house of the
rolls” at Babylon is mentioned in the book of Ezra as being searched,
during the reign of Darius, for a certain volume supposed to contain
a decree of Cyrus, providing for the rebuilding of the Temple at
Jerusalem.

The old priestly order of Media and Persia, known as Ma’gi; devoted
to scientific studies, in which they attained such eminence that they
were believed to possess supernatural powers—whence our word _magic_.
The “wise men” of the New Testament by some supposed to be Persian
Magi.

The Zoroastrian religion, which was on the wane, restored and
maintained in the third century after Christ by the Sassan’idæ, who
measured swords successfully with the Roman emperors, and extended
the power of Persia. The Avesta translated into Pahlavi, a mixture
of Semitic with Iranian elements, in which are preserved most of the
details of the traditions, ceremonies, and customs of the ancient
faith. The combined text and Pahlavi translation known as Avesta-Zend,
or _revelation_ and _commentary_. (_See “Sacred Books of the East,”
vol. v._)

CHAPTER III.

_CHINESE LITERATURE._

=Chinese Language.=—From the Persian Gâthâs and Vedic hymns, let us now
turn to the prose writings of the Chinese philosophers, plain, grave,
and moral in their tone. The language in which their tenets have been
preserved differs materially from the musical Sanscrit and its sister
Avesta.

Modern Chinese, which has changed but little from the ancient tongue
and is the least developed of all existing languages, is monosyllabic;
i. e. each syllable conveys a complete idea, all its words are
expressed by single separate sounds. Of these elements, or _roots_,
it contains 450; changes of emphasis and intonation, accompanied with
corresponding changes in meaning, increase this number to 1,263.

Chinese may be called a language without grammar, as it dispenses
with inflection and conjugation, and leaves the relations of words and
their functions as different parts of speech to be determined by the
arrangement. Thus _sin_ means _honor_, _honorable_, _honorably_, or _to
be honorable_, according to its position in the sentence. Plurality
and gender are generally indicated by adding roots with a modifying
signification. Son in Chinese is _man-child_; daughter, _woman-child_;
a mare is called a _mother-horse_; people is the word _surnames_ with
_a hundred_ prefixed. This grouping together of roots is carried to
great lengths. Writing materials is expressed by two words denoting
_four precious objects_ (paper, brush, ink, and palette); a trader is
_a buying-selling-man_; a knife is a _sword’s-son_; while difference of
opinion is expressed by four words meaning _I east, thou west_.

=Characters used in Writing.=—The written characters of the Chinese
were originally outline pictures of visible objects; specimens are
presented below. A crescent (1) stood for the moon; three peaks (2),
for a mountain; (3) is a tortoise, (4) a fish, (5) a field. Pictographs
were frequently combined to represent a single idea. The notion of
song, for instance, was conveyed by a mouth and a bird (6); that of
tears, by the symbols for eye and water; beauty and goodness, by the
representation of a virgin and an infant.

[Illustration: Pictographs as above]

One or more of these hieroglyphic symbols (_determinatives_) enter
into the composition of every modern Chinese character—which has also
a phonetic element, like the characters of the Egyptian (p. 120) and
Assyrian (p. 106) systems. The ideographic element is indispensable:
the one sound _tschoo_, for example, means ape, whirlpool, island,
silk, deep, a wine, a kind of plant, to enclose, to help, to quarrel,
to walk, to answer. It would be next to impossible to interpret the
written symbol correctly, were not a separate ideogram adopted for
each idea. This necessary device, however, involved the wholesale
multiplication of characters. Over 40,000 are contained in the fullest
dictionaries; but three-fourths of this number are almost wholly
unknown, and only about 5,000 are in common use.

It is interesting to notice how, in the course of ages, the old
hieroglyphics have been transformed into the present characters. The
symbol representing the verb to listen, two folding-doors and an ear
between them {symbol} is now written {symbol}. Two shells exactly alike
originally stood for two friends {symbol}; this symbol has been changed
to {symbol}. A mountain is now {symbol}; a field {symbol}. The most
complicated modern character is made by fifty-two strokes of the pen.

=Antiquity of Chinese Literature.=—China prides herself on her
antiquity, and her literature carries us back to the remotest past.
From those early days to the present the chain is almost unbroken,
notwithstanding the irreparable loss sustained when the ruthless Ching
Wang destroyed the great bulk of Chinese literature (220-205 B.C.).
This emperor is noted for his erection of the Great Wall, and notorious
for his contempt of learning. Thinking to reconcile the masses to his
despotism by keeping them in ignorance, and to deceive posterity with
the belief that he had founded the empire, he ordered all books, except
those on husbandry, divination, and medicine, to be burned. Any person
found with a book in his possession was condemned to labor four years
on the Great Wall, and several hundred scholars who resisted the royal
decree were buried alive.

The dynasty of “the book-burner,” however, was not long after
overthrown; and among the succeeding princes was found a “restorer of
literature,” who collected and preserved for future generations the
writings which, concealed by the people in the walls of their houses
or buried beneath the beds of streams, had escaped destruction. To
his praiseworthy efforts we are indebted for all that remains of the
ancient literature,—the Sacred Books of China, edited by Confu’cius her
admirable philosopher, as well as for the works of Confucius himself
and his disciples.

=Confucius=, to whom we are thus introduced, the _reverend master_,
the beloved teacher of his countrymen, stands out in bold relief as
the most distinguished personage in Chinese history. His birth, which
took place 551 B.C., was mysteriously predicted, as legend tells us,
on a precious stone found in his father’s garden: “A child is about
to be born, pure as the crystal wave; he shall be a king, but without
territorial dominion.” Wonderfully has this prophecy been fulfilled;
the child, as we shall see, became a king whose subjects were numbered
by hundreds of millions.

Born in an evil age, when corruption had undermined the government, and
misrule and violence were everywhere rife, Confucius early dedicated
himself to the cause of social and political reform. At twenty-two he
entered upon his work as a teacher, thoroughly fitted for the high
vocation, for he had been so eager after knowledge as to feel no toil
in its pursuit, and sometimes even to forget his food. His merits
were recognized; and when at last he was raised to the position of
prime-minister, he labored in season and out of season for the welfare
of his people—and with the best results. But then, as now, princes were
ungrateful, and the neglect of his sovereign led to his resignation.
Henceforth the mission of Confucius, no less useful if humbler than
before, was simply to disseminate his precepts, wandering from state
to state among the fifteen millions who constituted the population of
what was then China. Occupied thus and with the study of the Sacred
Books, he finally found rest in his native state, and there passed his
declining years in the midst of loving disciples, “unconscious,” as
he tells us, “that he had reached old age.” He died at seventy-three,
lamenting that, despite his prolonged efforts, so little had been
accomplished toward elevating the moral standard of the nation.

[Illustration: CONFUCIAN PRIEST.]

Yet after his death, his influence was destined far to exceed his most
sanguine longings; it has been greater than that of any other human
teacher. No other has ever spoken to so many millions, or received such
honors from posterity. For more than twenty centuries, his precepts
have been taught in the schools of China (and each little village has
its common school); at stated times, every scholar, on entering in the
morning, still bows in adoration before a tablet sacred to Confucius.
The learned can repeat page after page from his classical books; and
scores of his maxims are familiar to the masses, who have positively
no other moral law to guide them. His tomb, approached by an avenue of
cypresses through a gate of exquisite workmanship, is inscribed with
the words, “The most sagely ancient Teacher; the all-accomplished,
all-informed King.” About the spot are imperial tablets “with glowing
tributes to the one man whom China delights to honor;” and in the
city near by live 50,000 of his descendants, constituting a distinct
class—the head of the family holding large estates as “Duke by
imperial appointment and hereditary right, continuator of the sage.”
There is a temple of Confucius in every city, and Confucian priests
superintend various ceremonies for both mandarins and common people.

=Tenets of Confucius.=—Confucius claimed no divine inspiration; he
founded no new religion. To him the Almighty was “the Unknown God,”
and there was no Paul to declare him to the philosopher. He avoided
referring to a personal Supreme Being, and thought that the study of
themselves should suffice for men. As to death and a future state,
he was equally reticent. “While you do not know life,” he said to an
inquiring disciple, “what can you know about death?” With polygamy,
then an institution of his country, he found no fault; and for women as
such he appears to have had no kindly word, or very elevated regard.

The aim of Confucius was to inculcate certain lofty principles of
conduct, to govern men in their relations to each other and to the
ruling powers. Respect for learning, filial piety,[8] and veneration
for the men and institutions of ancient days, were corner-stones of
his system, and are still deeply impressed on the Chinese mind. His
golden rule “What you do not like when done to yourself, do not to
others”—expressed in written language by a single ideogram—was the _one
word_ he specially commended as embodying the sum and substance of duty.

[Illustration: Ancestral tablet referred to in footnote 8.]

The practical workings of this rule, as enforced by the authority of
the great master, were recently exemplified in the case of an American
traveller. As he and his companion were passing through a Chinese town,
their strange faces and unusual costumes attracted a crowd, and hooting
seemed likely to be followed by serious violence. With admirable
presence of mind, one of the strangers faced the throng, and amid a
shower of mud and stones exclaimed: “Is this the way, O people! that
you obey the precepts of your philosophers, to treat strangers within
your walls tenderly? Have you forgotten the saying of your great master
Confucius,—“That which I wish another not to do to me, I must not do
to him?” The effect was electric. In a moment every hand was lowered,
and the recent assailants sought as best they could to make amends for
their rudeness.

=The Chinese Classics= comprise the Sacred Books already alluded to,
viz., the Five King; also the Four Shoo, or Books of the Philosophers
(Confucius and the writers of his school). _King_ is the equivalent
of our word _text_, and the Five Sacred Texts are the YIH King, Book
of Changes; the SHOO King, Book of History; the SHE King, Book of
Poetry; the _Le Ke_ King, Book of Rites; and the Spring and Autumn, an
historical record of events in the native state of Confucius, from 721
to 480 B.C. It was written by that philosopher himself, who so entitled
it because “its commendations were life-giving like spring, and its
censures life-withering like autumn.” The first four King, which rank
with the most ancient creations of the human mind, were compiled and
published by Confucius; the Book of Rites, originally drawn up by the
ruler of Chow in the twelfth century B.C., received additions from
subsequent writers. (_See Johnson’s “Oriental Religions: China.”_)

Little is known of the true nature of the mysterious Book of Changes;
it apparently relates to divination. The Shoo King gives us the
history of China from the earliest periods to about 720 B.C., and
contains, besides, discourses on music, astronomy, and the principles
of government. Part of it was dictated from memory by a blind man after
the destruction of the original tablets.

In the She King, we have a collection of 305 odes and hymns. Many
of them, more than three thousand years old, were written while the
Chinese Empire was as yet a mere bundle of feudal states; here, as in
all other lands, the first grand thoughts of the people were cast in
the mould of poetry. The odes are in rhyme, and mirror the every-day
life and simple manners of antiquity—often in a highly metaphorical
style, but with a dignity and attractiveness which the later poetry
fails to exhibit. They paint pleasing pictures of rural quiet, contain
delicate touches of nature, and in some few cases display a high
appreciation of woman’s worth; on the whole, however, the status
assigned to the gentler sex is low. Extracts from the Book of Poetry
follow.

FESTAL ODE.

(Celebrating a feast given by an ancient king.)

“See how the rushes spring
Thickly along the way!
Ye browsing herds, no foot
Upon those rushes lay!
Grown to their height ere long,
They soft and rich shall shine;
Close as the rushes grow,
Should brethren all combine.
Let all at feast appear,
None absent, none thought mean.
Mats for the young be spread!
On stools let elders lean!

Lo! double mats are spread,
And stools are featly set.
Servants in waiting stand;
See! host and guests are met.
He pledges them; they him;
He drinks, again they fill.
Sauces and pickles come,
Roast meat, and broiled; and still
Palates and tripe are brought.
Then lutes and drums appear,
Singers fine concord make—
The joyous feasters hear.

The feasting o’er, from bow,
Lacquered and strong and bright,
Four well-poised shafts each sends,
That in the target light.
The guests are ranged as they
The mark have nearest hit.
They shoot again; the shafts
Are fairly lodged in it.
Their bearing then is judged;
Each takes his final place,
As mild propriety
Has round him thrown its grace.

The long-descended king
Presides and ends the feast.
With spirits sweet and strong
From vase he cheers each guest.
And for the old he prays,
While all with rapture glow,
That they the wrinkled back
And whitening hair may show;
Striving with mutual help
In virtue’s onward ways,
That brightest happiness
May crown their latest days.”
LEGGE.

PASTORAL ODE.

(An industrious wife wakens her husband at early dawn.)

“‘Get up, husband, here’s the day!’
‘Not yet, wife, the dawn’s still gray.’
‘Get up, sir, and on the right,
See the morning-star shines bright.
Shake off slumber, and prepare
Ducks and geese to shoot and snare.

All your darts and line may kill,
I will dress for you with skill.
Thus a blithesome hour we’ll pass,
Brightened by a cheerful glass;
While your lute its aid imparts,
To gratify and soothe our hearts.’”
LEGGE.

ODE TO A BRIDE.

“Gay child of Spring, the garden’s Queen
Yon peach-tree charms the roving sight;
Its fragrant leaves, how richly green!
Its blossoms, how divinely bright!

So softly smiles the blooming bride,
By love and conscious virtue led,
O’er her new mansion to preside,
And placid joys around her spread.”
SIR WILLIAM JONES.

The Book of Rites prescribes rules of conduct for all occasions, from
the most important down to a mere interchange of greetings. With
Chinamen ceremonial is everything, and the influence which this book
has exerted on manners and society for three thousand years cannot be
estimated. It is still the standard of etiquette, a governing board at
Pekin being charged with the duty of enforcing its rigid observance.

Spring and Autumn, professedly written in the interests of morality
and good order, to inspire wicked officials and undutiful sons with
wholesome terror, disappoints us in the reading. It is made up of
short, unconnected sentences, stating isolated facts (some of them
quite insignificant) in the baldest manner, without any attempt at
rhetorical excellence or any expression of condemnation or praise.
Whether a temple is struck by lightning, or a father is murdered by his
son, or locusts appear, or some glorious exploit is performed, or the
ruler goes on a journey, or the sun is eclipsed—it is just stated in so
many words—nothing more. The historical style of Confucius is certainly
not striking, and we fail to see why the guilty should have “quaked
with fear” when his annals appeared.

=The Four Shoo= are constituted as follows: 1. The Confucian Analects
(literary fragments). 2. The Great Learning. 3. The Doctrine of the
Mean (as opposed to extremes—the Moderate). 4. The works of Mencius, or
the philosopher Meng, a disciple of Confucius, and second only to his
master among the sages of China.

The Analects consist of the sayings of Confucius, as they occur in
conversations with his followers. Sententious, simple, and sometimes
signally beautiful, they contain the very marrow of wisdom based upon
observation and experience. They shine among the laconics of the world.
A few specimens are subjoined.

EXTRACTS FROM THE ANALECTS.

“The Master said:‘In the Book of Poetry are three hundred pieces, but
the design of all may be embraced in one sentence—Have no depraved
thoughts.’

There are cases in which the blade springs, but the plant does not
go on to flower. There are cases where it flowers, but no fruit is
subsequently produced.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is
perilous.

Worship as if the Deity were present.

Good government obtains when those who are near are made happy, and
those who are far off are attracted.

Three friendships are advantageous,—friendship with the upright,
friendship with the sincere, and friendship with the man of
observation. Three are injurious,—friendship with the man of specious
airs, friendship with the insinuatingly soft, and friendship with the
glib-tongued.

To see what is right and not to do it, is want of courage.

The cautious seldom err.

If I am building a mountain, and stop before the last basketful of
earth is placed on the summit, I have failed of my work. But if I have
placed but one basketful on the plain and go on, I am really building
a mountain.

Shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to hold
that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to confess your
ignorance—is knowledge.

Extravagance leads to insubordination, and parsimony to meanness. It
is better to be mean than insubordinate.

Learn the past, and you will know the future.

A poor man who flatters not and a rich man who is not proud, are
passable characters; but they are not equal to the poor who are yet
cheerful, and the rich who yet love the rules of propriety.

When you transgress, fear not to return.

Were I to say that the departed were possessed of consciousness, pious
sons might dissipate their fortunes in festivals of the dead; and
were I to deny their consciousness, heartless sons might leave their
fathers unburied.

With coarse rice to eat, water to drink, and my bended arm for a
pillow—I have still happiness even with these; but riches and honors
acquired by unrighteousness are to me as a floating cloud.

What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is
in others.”

The Great Learning, based on the teachings of Confucius, and ascribed
to one or more of his followers, evinces political sagacity in its
suggestions for the perfecting of government, insisting that the
welfare of the people should be the single aim, and scouting the idea
of any divine right in kings to rule except in accordance with the
principles of justice and virtue.

EXTRACTS FROM THE GREAT LEARNING.

“The ancients who wished to establish illustrious virtue throughout
the empire, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order
well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to
regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing
to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts.

From the loving example of one family, a whole state becomes loving;
and from its courtesies, the whole state becomes courteous: while from
the ambition and perverseness of one man, the whole state may be led
to rebellious disorder: such is the nature of influence. This verifies
the saying:‘Affairs may be ruined by a single sentence; a kingdom may
be settled by its one man.’

It is not possible for one to teach others, while he cannot teach his
own family. There is filial piety, there is fraternal submission,
there is kindness. Therefore the ruler, without going beyond his
family, completes the lessons for the state.

Never has there been a case of the sovereign loving benevolence, and
the people not loving righteousness. Never has there been a case where
the people loved righteousness, and the affairs of the sovereign have
not been carried to completion.

What a man dislikes in his superiors, let him not display in the
treatment of his inferiors; what he dislikes in inferiors, let him not
display in the service of his superiors. What he hates in those who
are before him, let him not therewith precede those who are behind
him. What he is unwilling to receive on the right, let him not bestow
on the left. This is what is called‘The principle with which, as with
a measuring-square, to regulate one’s conduct.’”

The Doctrine of the Mean was written by the grandson of Confucius,
who in his boyhood listened to the wise instructions of the sage, and
professed himself ready to carry “the bundle of firewood his grandsire
had gathered and prepared,” thus leading Confucius to exclaim with
delight: “My undertakings will not come to naught; they will be carried
on, and flourish.” The philosophy of this work is obscure; for while it
presents examples of filial piety, and draws an ideal of the perfect
man, “possessed of all sagely qualities,” who alone is able to “accord
with the course of the Mean,” its language with reference to that Mean
is decidedly mystical. Thus:—

“While there are no stirrings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, or joy, the
mind may be said to be in a state of EQUILIBRIUM. When those feelings
have been stirred and act in their due degree, there ensues what may
be called the state of HARMONY. This equilibrium is the great root
from which grow all the human actings in the world, and this harmony
is the universal path which they all should pursue.

Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, and a
happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things
will flourish.

The Master said:—’Perfect is the virtue which is according to the
Mean. Rare have they long been among the people, who could practice
it! I know how it is that the path of the Mean is not walked in: the
knowing go beyond it, and the stupid do not come up to it.’”

=Mencius=, author of the fourth Shoo, lived in a degenerate age, but
without fear or favor threw himself into the arena to wrestle with
wickedness. In the society around him he found many fitting marks for
his shafts of humor and satire. Purification of heart was his remedy
for evil; the sinlessness of childhood, his standard of moral purity.
“The great man,” said Mencius, “is he who does not lose his child’s
heart.” Virtue and benevolence are insisted on in the voluminous works
of this philosopher—the Plato of Chinese literature as Confucius was
its Socrates[9]—a benevolence that should not only provide for the
physical wants of the people, but also secure their education and moral
advancement. We glean the following pointed sentences from the

SAYINGS OF MENCIUS.

“I like life and I also like righteousness. If I cannot keep the two
together, I will let life go and choose righteousness.

When one by force subdues men, they do not submit to him in heart, but
because their strength is not adequate to resist. When one subdues
men by virtue, in their heart’s core they are pleased, and sincerely
submit, as was the case with the seventy disciples in their submission
to Confucius.

The noblest thing in the world is the people. To them the spirits of
the earth and the fruits of the earth are inferior. The prince is
least important of all.

Benevolence brings glory, its opposite brings disgrace.

That whereby man differs from the animals is small. Superior men
preserve it, while the mass of men cast it away.

There is a way to get the kingdom; get the people, and the kingdom
is got. There is a way to get the people; get their hearts, and the
people are got. The people turn to a benevolent rule as water flows
downward.

Mencius said:‘The richest fruit of benevolence is the service of
one’s parents; of righteousness, the service of one’s elder brother;
of wisdom, the knowing those two things and not departing from them.’”

=Spirit of the Chinese Classics.=—One prevailing spirit breathes
through the nine classical books of the Chinese—a spirit of
conservatism. Confucius nowhere encourages men to take independent
flights into the realms of original thought. He ignores the future, and
exalts the past. His motto was not _Go up higher_, but _Walk in the
trodden paths_. He sought to reclaim from sin and folly, but only by
winning to the purer practices of that venerable antiquity which he so
blindly admired. Beyond the old landmarks, he cared not even to point
the way. (_See Gray’s “China,” p. 75._)

[Illustration: WORSHIPPING THE ANCESTRAL TABLET (p. 72).]

It is hardly strange that under such leadership the nation became
wedded to formalism, wrapped itself in a complacent aversion to novelty
or progress, eschewed dealings with the outer world, and in a word came
to an intellectual standstill for four and twenty centuries.

=Other Works.=—There are numerous commentaries on the old classics,
some themselves quite ancient; but they are mere reproductions or
servile imitations of the original texts.

Different, however, are the works of Lao-Tse, who was contemporary with
Confucius, and whose writings are so mystical that the matter-of-fact
Confucius declared himself unable to comprehend them. He made something
which he calls Tao the mainspring of the universe, the source and
ultimate destination of all things. Many of his followers, to whom
he recommended self-denial and retirement, became recluses; their
philosophy was perpetuated, and Taoism is still professed to some
extent in China.

Having little imagination for works of fiction and no genius for the
higher departments of poetry, the ancient Chinese produced nothing of
special note—nothing, at least, that has come down to us—except what
has been mentioned. We have indeed numerous chronicles of the various
dynasties, industriously and no doubt accurately compiled; but they
lack the graces of style, and possess little interest for the general
European reader. The Bamboo Annals, found in a royal tomb 284 A.D., is
the oldest of these chronicles that have thus far come to light.

We are also told that before the Christian Era numerous treatises
were written on philosophy, mathematics, medicine, military affairs,
husbandry, law, and geography; but many of these perished in the
convulsions which afterward shook the empire. (On the religious books
of China, _consult Max Müller’s “Sacred Books of the East,” vols. xvi.,
xxvii._)

* * * * *

With the languages of Siam, Burmah, and Thibet—all monosyllabic like
the Chinese—are also connected literatures of considerable antiquity.
In both Burmah and Siam the drama, often licentious, has always been
popular, its exhibitions being sometimes prolonged for days. Burmah
has records that purport to carry back its history almost to the
Christian Era. The best writings of the Siamese are imitations of
Hindoo fictions, while the literature of Thibet is largely made up of
commentaries on the Tripitaka.

NOTES ON CHINESE LITERATURE, ETC.

Bamboo tablets and the stylus, the ancient writing implements; these
in the reign of Ching Wang, the book-burner, superseded by the brush,
and paper made of closely woven silk. Silk paper, found too expensive,
replaced in turn by paper made of the inner bark of trees, old rags,
and worn-out fishing-nets. Books multiply in consequence. At the
Christian Era, the imperial library contained 11,332 sections filled
with books on all subjects, but no great productions of genius. The
old classics still in the front rank.

Printing practised in China 600 A.D., nearly 900 years before its
invention in Europe. Movable types invented by a blacksmith between
1000 and 1100 A.D. The types, made of clay hardened in the fire,
reduced to an exact level by a smooth board, and then cemented to an
iron plate with a mixture of resin and wax. The production of books
thus greatly facilitated. Chinese books at the present day not printed
from movable types, but from wooden blocks of the size of the page, on
which the characters are cut in relief.

Bronze pieces called _cash_, worth one-tenth of a cent, coined as
early as the 12th century B.C.; strung on cords through holes with
which they are pierced; in later times worn as amulets.

[Illustration: SPECIMEN CASH.]

The golden age of China’s later ancient literature, the period of the
Tang dynasty (620-907 A.D.), when the imperial armies penetrated to
Samarcand and Bokhara in Turkestan. Le Taipih, the Chinese Anacreon,
the greatest poet of this period; but even he seldom rises above
mediocrity.

CHAPTER IV.

_HEBREW LITERATURE._

=The Semitic Languages=, enumerated on page 16, have certain
peculiarities in common:—

They are triliteral, i. e. three consonants enter into the composition
of every root. Consonants only are represented by letters; vowels,
indicated by points and lines, play a subordinate part. The latter vary
according to the relation to be expressed; while the consonant root,
which conveys the leading idea, remains for the most part unchanged.
Thus, in Arabic, the notion of bloodshed is expressed by the triple
root _q_ _t_ _l_; _quatl_ is murder; _quitl_, enemy; _uqtul_ means to
kill; _quatala_, he kills. The picturesque compounds, so convenient in
the Indo-European languages, are here wanting.

The Semitic verb is deficient in mood-forms, and has in general only
two tenses, which represent action completed and action continuing.
Case, in the later developments of the different languages, is left
undistinguished. Brevity is gained, but at the expense of precision.

=Distribution of the Semitic Tongues.=—The great divisions of the
Semitic family of languages are designated as Northern and Southern
Semitic. They include the Arama’ic, Hebræo-Phœnician, and Arabic, which
are much more alike than the Aryan tongues. Assyrio-Babylonian occupies
a peculiar position between the Northern and Southern Semitic groups.

Aramaic (from the Hebrew Arâm—_highlands_) was spoken in northern
Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia. A dialect of it, the Jews gradually
adopted after their return from captivity at Babylon (536 B.C.),
retaining the Hebrew as their sacred language, but speaking and writing
in Aramaic somewhat modified by Greek. Aramaic, therefore, was the
tongue in which our Lord and his disciples conversed.

The Hebræo-Phœnician was spread over Palestine, and included the
dialects of the Ammonites, Moabites, and Philis’tines. Samaritan was a
development of the Western Aramaic, corrupted by the speech of foreign
settlers introduced into the land of Israel by the Assyrians, to
replace the Ten Tribes whom they had transplanted beyond the Euphrates.

The softer Arabic, musical by reason of its preponderance of vowel
sounds, was carried from Arabia into Africa, where it was long the
language of the cultivated Ethiopians, and where it still survives in
its Abyssinian derivatives, the Amharic, etc.

=The Ancient Hebrew= shares the imperfections of the Semitic group
to which it belongs. It is one of the oldest members of this family,
and was long thought to have been the original language of the human
race. Its name is derived by some from Heber, ancestor of Abraham and
consequently of the people who spoke the classical tongue of the Old
Testament; while by many it is believed to mean _belonging to the other
side_, that is, of the Jordan—an epithet applicable to the Chosen
People as coming from beyond that river to dispossess the Canaanitish
tribes.

[Illustration: THE SEMITIC FAMILY OF LANGUAGES.]

In the days of the patriarch Abraham, whose father dwelt in “Ur of the
Chaldees” (see Map, p. 105), about 2000 B.C., the Semitic dialects
differed slightly, if at all. Recently separated from the primitive
stock, they possessed the same roots, the same grammatical forms and
inflections, and conspicuously agreed in regard to rules of order and
construction.

The meagre vocabulary and other defects of the Hebrew are
counterbalanced by its euphony, simplicity, and power of poetical
expression. Conciseness is its crowning merit. A single sonorous word
often conveys an idea that would require a clause of four or five words
in English. The whole range of literature in other fields affords
no such examples of majestic thought, grand imagery, and impetuous,
heart-warming outpourings of soul, as the poetry of that sublime Hebrew
tongue which was developed by a simple race of shepherds beneath the
mild skies of western Asia.

=The Hebrew Alphabet.=—The Hebrews early profited by the invention
of their Phœnician kinsmen, borrowing from them an alphabet which,
as may be seen on the opposite page, they changed little from the
original. After the Captivity (588-536 B.C.), the more elegant _square_
characters from the Aramaic took the place of the ancient letters;
the latter, however, for reasons political as well as religious,
were reproduced on the shekels coined during the period of Jewish
independence under the Maccabees (168-37 B.C.), by which time the
written language was universally expressed in Aramaic characters. (_See
Land’s “Hebrew Grammar.”_)

[Illustration: HEBREW SHEKEL.]

The oldest Hebrew alphabet (see Table) contained no more than
ten or twelve letters; the number was afterward increased to
twenty-two—consonants all. These were qualified by vowel sounds,
denoted by vowel-points {symbols} placed over or under the consonants
to which they belonged. Capitals there were none.—While some have held
that the names of the letters were given them arbitrarily, merely
to facilitate the memorizing of the alphabet, others believe that a
connection existed between their names and their forms: that, for
example, A, called _Aleph_ (ox), was originally a rough picture of an
ox’s head; that B was the representation of a house or tent, such being
the meaning of its name _Beth_, etc.

[Illo: ANCIENT ALPHABETS.]

┌──────────┬───────────┬────────────┬───┬───┬───┬───┬──────┬───┬──────
│ Hebrew │ Meaning in│ English │ A │ B │ C │ D │ Later│ E │Later
│ Letters. │ English │Equivalent. │ │ │ │ │ Greek│ │Latin
├──────────┼───────────┼────────────┼───────────────┼──────┼───┼──────
│ Aleph │ Ox │ A │ │ Α │ │ A
│ Beth │ House │ B │ │ Β │ │ B
│ Gimel │ Camel │ G │ │ Γ │ │ C
│ Daleth │ Door │ D │ │ Δ │ │ D
│ He │ Window │ H, E │ │ E │ │ E
│ Vau │ Hook │ V │ │ │ │ F
│ Zayin │ Weapon │ Z │ │ Ζ │ │ Z
│ Cheth │ Fence │ Ch │ │ Η │ │ H
│ Teth │ Snake │ Th │ │ Θ │ │
│ Yod │ Hand │ Y, I, J │ │ Ι │ │ I
│ Kaph │ Bent Hand │ C, Ch │ │ K │ │ K
│ Lamed │ Ox-goad │ L │ │ Λ │ │ L
│ Mem │ Water │ M │ │ M │ │ M
│ Nun │ Fish │ N │ │ N │ │ N
│ Samekh │ Post │ S │ │ Σ │ │
│ Ayin │ Eye │ O │ │ O │ │ O
│ Pe │ Mouth │ P, Ph │ │ Π │ │ P
│ Tsade │ Javelin? │ Ts │ │ │ │
│ Koph │ Knot? │ K, Q │ │ │ │ Q
│ Resh │ Head │ R │ │ Ρ │ │ R
│ Shin │ Tooth │ Sh │ │ Σ │ │ S
│ Tau │Sign (Cross)│ T, Th │ │ T │ │ T
└──────────┴───────────┴────────────┴───────────────┴──────┴───┴──────
Transcriber’s Note
The six blank columns show equivalent symbols for:
A Egyptian (transliteration). Hieroglyphic & Hieratic.
B Ancient Phœnician.
C Old Hebrew.
D Square Hebrew.
E Old Greek
F Old Latin

=Spirit of Hebrew Poetry.=—The most ancient Semitic poetry is found in
the pure musical Hebrew of the oldest books of the Bible. Nearly one
half of the Old Testament was in verse, mainly lyrical, ranging from
the simplest song or dirge to the sublimest strains of prophecy; yet
didactic poetry has also a place, for in it were embodied the proverbs
of Israel’s wise men.

Other literatures boast of their epics and dramas; but the Hebrew,
without either, has exerted a far more exalted influence on the human
mind than any other. In vain do we search the Veda and the Avesta for
conceptions as grand as those in the Scriptures. God is apprehended in
all his majesty by the Hebrew bards, and speaks through them to nations
that are yet to be. The Bible poets wrote not merely for the purpose
of pleasing; as teachers and prophets, they had a divine mission and
a loftier aim. The graces of rhetoric were employed to present their
impressive subjects in the strongest and clearest light. Frequent
metaphors embellished their style, and striking personifications
endowed it with life and energy. Imagery drawn from the picturesque
scenes about them,—the hills, the streams, the plains of Palestine,—or
from their every-day employments as tillers and herdsmen, they used
without stint; while _parallelism_, whether it consisted in the
repetition of the same sentiment or in a contrasting of opposite ideas,
was a peculiar beauty of their poetry.

Their language significant and striking, their thoughts lofty and
solemn, their tone severely moral, their themes of the deepest interest
to man, what wonder that the Hebrew poets tower above the sublimest
writers of other times and countries? “Whatever in our literature,”
says Taylor, “possesses most of simple majesty and force, whatever is
most fully fraught with feeling, whatever draws away the soul from
its cleaving to the dust and lifts the thoughts toward a brighter
sphere—all such elements we owe directly or indirectly to the Hebrew
Scriptures, especially to those parts that are in spirit and form
poetic.”

=Parallelism= has been mentioned as a distinctive feature of Hebrew
poetry. This is defined by Bishop Lowth as “a certain equality,
resemblance, or relationship between the members of a period, so that
things shall answer to things and words to words, as if fitted to each
other by a kind of rule or measure.”

Parallelism may be either cumulative, antithetical, or constructive. In
the first, a proposition, after having been once stated, is repeated in
equivalent words of similar construction, as in Isaiah, lv., 6, 7:—

“Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found;
Call ye upon him, while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts:

And let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him;
And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

Antithetical parallelism is similar, except that the two periods
correspond with each other by an opposition of sentiments and terms; as
in Proverbs, xxvii., 6:—

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.”

In the third kind of parallelism, there is neither correspondence nor
opposition in the sentiment, but simply a similarity of construction in
the two periods, as in Psalm xix., 8, 9:—

“The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

DAWN OF HEBREW LITERATURE.

There is good reason for believing that the ancient Hebrews had an
extensive literature; but out of their “multitude of books,” all that
have descended to us are those of the Old Testament. Their secular
poetical and prose works are wholly lost.

=The Books of Moses.=—The earliest Hebrew writer of whom we have
positive knowledge was Moses, author of the greater part of the
Pentateuch[10] (_five volumes_—the first five books of the Bible), or,
as it was called by the Jews, the Book of the Law.

The first book of the Pentateuch, Genesis (_the generation_), tells
us all that we know of the Creation, the Deluge, the Confusion of
languages, the Dispersion, and the lives of the patriarchs, whose
history it sketches till the death of Joseph in Egypt, keeping
everywhere prominent the relation of Jehovah to the chosen race.

Exodus (_the going out_) continues the story of the Hebrews from the
death of Joseph, relates their oppression under the Pharaoh Ram’eses
the Great, their miraculous escape from the land of bondage in the
reign of his successor, and the promulgation of the commandments on
Mount Sinai. It is in this book that we catch an early glimpse of
Hebrew poetry in the Song of Moses and his sister Miriam—a magnificent
triumphal ode, the most ancient in any language. The rescued host
pour forth in unison their joy and gratitude; while in response the
exulting prophetess, timbrel in hand, leads the women of Israel, on the
shore of that sea which had engulfed their enemies, to celebrate their
deliverance with sacred dance and rapturous verse. (See Exodus, chapter
xv.)

Leviticus (the book _pertaining to the Levites_) consists of
regulations relative to worship and sacrifice, together with historical
items touching the consecration of Aaron, his first offering, and the
destruction of two of his sons for their impiety. Here is developed the
theocratic system that lay at the base of Hebrew society.

Numbers takes its name from the _numbering_ of the Israelites in the
wilderness of Sinai; it gives an account of this census, and continues
their history during thirty-seven years of subsequent wandering, up to
their arrival on the borders of the Promised Land. In this book there
are several brief specimens of poetry, commemorative of victory, of the
digging of a well in the wilderness, etc.

In Deuteronomy (_the second law_) the law is repeated and explained
by Moses in three fervid discourses, just before the entrance of
the Hebrews into Canaan. The Pentateuch closes with a simple but
inexpressibly grand outburst of the Hebrew legislator in song (chapter
xxxii.), the blessings he pronounces upon the twelve tribes, and an
account of his death.

Of the facts presented in these first five books of the Old Testament,
some are confirmed by hieroglyphic inscriptions and the traditions
of different nations; but of the greater part we should have had no
knowledge without the inspired narrative. Aside, therefore, from its
religious bearing, the Pentateuch is invaluable as an historical record
of primeval ages; while its clear, concise, dignified style, rich with
noble thoughts expressed in the venerable manner of antiquity, is
worthy of its sublime subjects.

=The Historical Books.=—The Pentateuch is followed by the historical
books of Scripture, which, though extending into the silver age, will
for convenience’ sake be here considered together. With the Pentateuch
they form a complete summary of national history, in which are
interwoven religious matters that explain and illustrate it. We may
glance briefly at their authorship and contents.

The Book of Joshua, classed with the Pentateuch (the Torah, or Law)
under the name of Hexateuch, covers a period of twenty-five years
(about 1425 B.C.); it relates to the conquest of Canaan and the
partition of that promised land among the twelve tribes, closing
with the farewell exhortation and death of the great leader. Judges,
ascribed to the Prophet Samuel, continues the history of the nation
to about 1100 B.C.; it tells how the Jews, as a punishment for their
apostasy, were at different times reduced to servitude by their heathen
enemies, and on their repentance delivered by heroes who became their
Judges. Ruth, regarded by the ancient Jews as belonging to the Book of
Judges, is of unknown date and authorship, though attributed by some to
Samuel. It is an exquisite idyl of domestic life, designed to show the
origin of King David. (_See Chapman’s “Hebrew Idyls.”_)

The Books of Samuel, the first portion of which Samuel probably
composed himself, give an account of the magistracy of that prophet and
the reigns of Saul and David. The Books of the Kings dwell upon the
glorious reign of Solomon, and then take us through the divided lines
of Israel and Judah, till both were finally overthrown and carried
into captivity; Jewish tradition points to Jeremiah as the author of
these books. Ezra seems to have written most of the Chronicles, which
is supplementary to the Kings; he was also the author of the book that
bears his name. This and Nehemiah describe the return of the Jews from
their captivity in Babylon, and the restoration of the temple worship
at Jerusalem. The Book of Esther is devoted to a touching episode of
the reign of Ahasuerus, king of Persia, supposed to be identical with
Xerxes, the son of Darius Hystaspis.

=The Book of Job= is worthy of special mention, as the most artistic
specimen of Hebrew genius. Whether this unique poem was the work of Job
himself in his later days, or of some other whose name is lost, its
author was evidently proficient in all the scientific knowledge of his
time. The hero, a native of northern Arabia, whose name has become a
synonym for patient suffering, is reduced to the very depths by family
bereavements, bodily anguish, and the well-meant reproaches of his
friends; yet his faith in God is unshaken, and in the end that faith
is amply vindicated and rewarded. (_See Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond’s “The
Book of Job.”_)

Bold imagery, vividness of description, life-like delineations
of lofty passion as well as the gentler emotions, combined with
master-touches of dramatic art, stamp this poem as the greatest in
Oriental literature. Its passages relating to the war-horse, behemoth,
and leviathan (chapters xxxix., xl., xli.), are cited by writers on
the sublime as among the grandest illustrations of their subject; and
its descriptions of the Deity, as manifested in his works, exhibit the
noblest conceptions of the Infinite that man’s finite intellect is
capable of forming.

GOLDEN AGE OF HEBREW POETRY.

=The Psalms.=—The flourishing period of David (1085-1015 B.C.) ushers
in the Augustan age of Hebrew poetry. The Lyric was then carried to
perfection by the poet-king himself and his contemporaries in their
Psalms,—“those delicate, fragrant, and lovely flowers,” as Luther
calls them, “springing up out of all manner of beautiful joyous
thoughts toward God and his goodness.” The strains of “Israel’s sweet
psalmist,” who began as a shepherd-lad to cultivate the arts of music
and poetry, breathe a spirit of plaintive tenderness that distinguishes
them from the statelier productions of other contributors to Hebrew
psalmody.

A utopian theory of the great Plato, but one that he declared could
be carried out only by “a god or some divine one,” was the training
of the Grecian youth in odes like the Psalms: and this—the religious
instruction of the people—was the very object of the Hebrew lyrics. The
plan of the Greek philosopher had been put in practice centuries before
his day in Palestine, and on a far grander scale than ever he imagined.
In the royal city of Jerusalem, four thousand musicians appointed by
David chanted hymns of triumph and praise, to the accompaniment of harp
and flute; while in the gorgeous temple of David’s son, the sublime
worship of Jehovah challenges description.

For three thousand years, these Hebrew anthems, unapproached by the
religious songs of any other age or people, have been the glory of the
Jewish and the Christian Church, eloquently testifying that “there
has been one people among the nations—one among the millions of the
worshippers of stocks—taught of God.”

Many of the Psalms date from David’s time; one (Psalm xc.) carries us
as far back as Moses, and others were as late as the Captivity. They
were probably arranged as we now have them in the fifth century B.C.;
though certain critics refer some of them to the Maccabean period
(second century B.C.).

=Elegiac Poetry.=—King David was also a writer of elegy, that kind of
song in which the Hebrew poets and prophets poured out their grief in
the unaffected language of nature. Some of his Psalms are beautiful
specimens of this species of poetry, especially Psalm xlii., “As the
hart panteth after the water-brooks,” composed during his exile among
the mountains of Lebanon. Another exquisite and pathetic elegy of this
poet, rendered below in English verse by Lowth, is the

LAMENTATION FOR SAUL AND JONATHAN.

“Thy glory, Israel, droops its languid head,
On Gilboa’s heights thy rising beauty dies;
In sordid piles there sleep the illustrious dead,
The mighty victor fall’n and vanquished lies.

Yet dumb be Grief; hushed be her clam’rous voice!
Tell not in Gath the tidings of our shame!
Lest proud Philistia in our woes rejoice,
And rude barbarians blast fair Israel’s fame.

The sword of Saul ne’er spent its force in air;
The shaft of Jonathan brought low the brave;
In life united equal fates they share,
In death united share one common grave.

Daughters of Judah! mourn the fatal day,
In sable grief attend your monarch’s urn;
To solemn notes attune the pensive lay,
And weep those joys that never shall return.

With various wealth he made your tents o’erflow,
In princely pride your charms profusely dressed;
Bade the rich robe with ardent purple glow,
And sparkling gems adorn the tissued vest.

On Gilboa’s heights the mighty vanquished lies,
The son of Saul, the generous and the just;
Let streaming sorrow ever fill these eyes,
Let sacred tears bedew a brother’s dust.

Thy firm regard revered thy David’s name,
And kindest thoughts in kindest acts expressed;
Not brighter glows the pure and generous flame
That lives within the tender virgin’s breast.

But vain the tear and vain the bursting sigh,
Though Sion’s echoes with our grief resound;
The mighty victors fall’n and vanquished lie,
And war’s refulgent weapons strew the ground.”

=Didactic Poetry.=—In the golden age, didactic poetry also reached the
acme of perfection. The Proverbs that then flowed from the inspired
pen of SOLOMON, prince of didactic writers as his father was of
lyric poets, are too well known, with all their richness of practical
wisdom, to require more than a passing mention. Expressed concisely in
energetic words, according to the different forms of parallelism, these
moral precepts are indeed “like apples of gold in baskets of silver.”

Of the same general scope as the Proverbs, and by the same author,
is Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher. In this book is shown the vanity
of earthly pleasures; and the whole duty of man is summed up in
the sentence, “Fear God and keep his commandments.” The Book of
Ecclesiastes has been attributed to Solomon’s latter days; the
Proverbs, to his prime; while that sweet pastoral, the Song of
Songs—singularly beautiful, whether taken literally as an exponent
of happy wedded love, or allegorically as delineating the mutual
attachment of God and his people—was the joyous outburst of his youth.
Solomon was also the author of a thousand canticles and various works
on miscellaneous subjects; books of making which, he tells us, there
was no end.

=Prophetic Poetry of the Golden Age.=—The writings of the earlier
prophets, florid with high-wrought imagery, revived for a time the
waning glories of the golden age. Foremost of this class in eloquence
of diction, sublimity of thought, and versatility of genius, stands
ISAIAH. Majesty united with elaborate finish; a harmony that delights
the soul; a variety that imparts freshness without detracting from
dignity; simplicity and unvarying purity of language,—conspire to make
the lyric verse of “the Evangelical Prophet” the most appropriate
embodiment of the awful messages of God to the Jews, the promise of a
Messiah and universal peace.

After a career of nearly seventy years, Isaiah sealed his great work
with his blood in the reign of the idolatrous Manasseh (698-643 B.C.).
His mind has been pronounced “one of the most sublime and variously
gifted instruments which the Spirit of God has ever employed to pour
forth its Voice upon the world.”

Even the minor prophets, if we except Jonah the oldest, exhibit in
their compositions unwonted grandeur and elegance: Hosea, with his
sententious style; Amos, “the herdman and gatherer of sycamore fruit;”
Joel and Micah; Habakkuk, whose fervent prayer to the Almighty is
graced with the loftiest embellishments, and Nahum, perhaps the boldest
and most ardent of all.

And so the Golden Age of Hebrew Literature ends. We know only its
sacred poetry, and much indeed of this has disappeared.[11] The harvest
and vintage songs which wakened the echoes amid the vales of Palestine,
the pastorals that accompanied the shepherd’s pipe on the hill-sides
of Ephraim, all are lost forever; “the voice of mirth and the voice of
gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride,” were forgotten
in the streets of Jerusalem, when the land was desolate under the
Babylonian and “the daughters of music were brought low.”

SILVER AGE.

=The Prophets.=—The names of three great prophets—Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
and Daniel—illuminate the first page in the history of the decline of
Hebrew literature. But in their writings, and notably so in those of
the later minor prophets, poetry was evidently on the wane. They lived
in a degenerate day. About half of the prophecy of Jeremiah, denouncing
the judgment of Heaven on the disobedient people, is poetry; he lacks
the pomp and majesty of Isaiah, but excels in stirring the gentler
emotions.

His Lamentations are beautiful elegies on the fall of his country and
the desecration of the temple; every letter seems “written with a
tear and every word the sound of a broken heart.” The verses of the
several chapters in the original begin with consecutive letters of
the alphabet, that they may be the more easily memorized, for it was
intended that the sins and sufferings of the Jewish nation should never
be forgotten. Can anything be more touching than the personification of
Jerusalem, sitting as a solitary widow on the ground and mourning for
her children?

“Is this nothing to all you who pass along the way? behold and see
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is inflicted on me;
Which Jehovah inflicted on me in the day of the violence of his wrath.
For these things I weep, my eyes stream with water,
Because the comforter is far away that should tranquillize my soul.
My children are desolate, because the enemy was strong.”

Ezekiel and Daniel were carried captives to Babylon, where they made
known their prophetic visions. The former wrote partly in poetry,
characterized by a rough vehemence peculiar to himself. The Book of
Daniel, in which history is combined with prophecy, is in prose, and a
portion of it in the Aramaic language. (_Consult Keith’s “Evidence of
Prophecy.”_)

[Illustration: THE TOMB OF EZRA.]

Another writer of distinguished merit, belonging to this age, was the
scribe and priest Ezra (already mentioned), who was permitted to
return from Babylon to Jerusalem with a company of his people, 458 B.C.
He settled the canon of Scripture, restoring and editing the whole of
the Old Testament.

=The Apocrypha= (_secret writings_) consist chiefly of the stories
of To’bit and Judith, the first and second books of Esdras and of
the Maccabees, Ba’ruch, the Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus or
the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach. Composed during the three centuries
immediately preceding the Christian Era, they bear internal evidence,
in their lack of the ancient poetical power, of belonging to an age of
literary decline. They were mostly included in the canon of Scripture
by the Council of Trent in 1545, but are rejected by Protestants as
uninspired.

Ecclesiasticus, best of the Apocryphal books, is full of moral,
political, and religious precepts, its object being to teach true
wisdom and its style resembling the didactic poetry of Solomon. The
following fine passage, versified by Lowth, personifies

WISDOM.

“Wisdom shall raise her loud exulting voice,
And midst her people glory and rejoice;
Oft the Almighty’s awful presence near,
Her dulcet sounds angelic choirs shall hear.

Me before time itself He gave to-day,
Nor shall my spirit faint or feel decay;
I bowed before Him in His hallowed shrine,
And Sion’s pride and Sion’s strength was mine.
Did I not tall as those fair cedars grow,
Which grace our Lebanon’s exalted brow?
Did I not lofty as the cypress rise,
Which seems from Hermon’s heights to meet the skies?
Fresh as Engaddi’s palm that scents the air,
Like rose of Jericho, so sweet, so fair;
Green as the verdant olive of the groves,
Straight as the plane-tree which the streamlet loves,
Richer than vineyards rise my sacred bowers,
Sweeter than roses bloom my vernal flowers;
Fair love is mine, and hope, and gentle fear;
Me science hallows, as a parent dear.

Come, who aspire beneath my shade to live;
Come, all my fragrance, all my fruits receive!
Sweeter than honey are the strains I sing,
Sweeter than honey-comb the dower I bring;
Me, taste who will, shall feel increased desire,
Who drinks shall still my flowing cups require;
He whose firm heart my precepts still obeys,
With safety walks through life’s perplexing maze;
Who cautious follows where my footsteps lead,
No cares shall feel, no mighty terrors dread.

Small was my stream when first I rolled along,
In clear meanders Eden’s vales among;
With fresh’ning draughts each tender plant I fed,
And bade each flow’ret raise its blushing head;
But soon my torrent o’er its margin rose,
Where late a brook, behold an ocean flows!
For Wisdom’s blessings shall o’er earth extend,
Blessings that know no bound, that know no end.”

=The Talmud.=—Our treatise would be incomplete without some notice
of the mysterious book whose name heads this paragraph,—the Talmud.
Comparatively unknown except in name for centuries, it was repeatedly
suppressed in the Dark Ages by popes and kings, as likely to be
dangerous to Christianity. (_See Dr. Jastrow’s “Dictionary of the
Talmud.”_)

Talmud means _learning_. It is essentially a digest of law, civil and
criminal, and a collection of traditions orally preserved. It consists
of two parts, viz., the Mishna, or earlier text; and the Gemara
(_ghe-mah’ră_), a commentary on the Mishna. The age that gave birth
to the Talmud was the period after the Captivity, when a passionate
love for their sacred and national writings animated the Jews restored
to their country and its institutions. Hundreds of learned men, all
great in their day, who treasured in their memories the traditions of a
thousand years, contributed to its pages.

The Talmud was a cyclopædia treating of every subject, even down to
gardening and the manual arts; it depicts incidentally the social life
of the people, not of the Jews alone, but of other nations also. It is
enlivened by parables, jests, and fairy-tales, ethical sayings, and
proverbs; the style is now poetical, anon sublime; and there may be
gathered amid its wilderness of themes “some of the richest and most
precious fruits of human thought and fancy.”

After two unsuccessful attempts, the Talmud was finally systemized in a
code by the Saint Jehuda (about 200 A.D.). A remarkable correspondence
exists between it and the Gospel writings, explained by the fact that
both reflect in a measure the same times. (_Read Sekles’s “Poetry of
the Talmud.”_)

EXTRACTS FROM THE TALMUD.

“Turn the Bible and turn it again, for everything is in it.

Bless God for the evil as well as the good. When you hear of a death,
say‘Blessed is the righteous Judge.’

Even when the gates of heaven are shut to prayer, they are open to
tears.

When the righteous die, it is the earth that loses. The lost jewel
will always be a jewel, but the possessor who has lost it—well may he
weep.

Life is a passing shadow, says the Scripture. Is it the shadow of a
tower, of a tree? A shadow that prevails for a while? No, it is the
shadow of a bird in his flight; away flies the bird, and there is
neither bird nor shadow.

Teach thy tongue to say,‘I do not know.’

If a word spoken in its time is worth one piece of money, silence in
its time is worth two.

The ass complains of the cold even in July.

Four shall not enter Paradise: the scoffer, the liar, the hypocrite,
and the slanderer. To slander is to murder.

The camel wanted to have horns, and they took away his ears.

Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend’s friend has a friend: be
discreet.

The soldiers fight, and the kings are heroes.

Love your wife like yourself, honor her more than yourself. Whoso
lives unmarried, lives without joy, without comfort, without blessing.
He who forsakes the love of his youth, God’s altar weeps for him. It
is woman alone through whom God’s blessings are vouchsafed to a house.
She teaches the children, speeds the husband to the place of worship,
welcomes him when he returns, keeps the house godly and pure, and
God’s blessings rest upon all these things. He who marries for money,
his children shall be a curse to him.

Men should be careful lest they cause women to weep, for God counts
their tears. The world is saved by the breath of school-children.

When the thief has no opportunity of stealing, he considers himself an
honest man. The thief invokes God while he breaks into the house.

Get your living by skinning carcasses in the street, if you cannot
otherwise; and do not say,‘I am a great man, this work would not
befit my dignity.’ Not the place honors the man, but the man the place.

Youth is a garland of roses; age is a crown of thorns.

The day is short and the work is great. It is not incumbent upon thee
to complete the work: but thou must not therefore cease from it. If
thou hast worked much, great shall be thy reward; for the Master who
employed thee is faithful in his payment. But know that the true
reward is not of this world.”—DEUTSCH.

RETURNING THE JEWELS.

“Rabbi Meir, the great teacher, was sitting on the Sabbath-day and
instructing the people in the Synagogue. In the meantime, his two sons
died; they were both fine of growth and enlightened in the law. His
wife carried them into the attic, laid them on the bed, and spread a
white cloth over their dead bodies.

In the evening, Rabbi Meir came home.‘Where are my sons,’ inquired
he,‘that I may give them my blessing?’—‘They went to the Synagogue,’
was the reply.—‘I looked round,’ returned he,‘and did not perceive
them.’

She reached him a cup; he praised the Lord at the close of the
Sabbath, drank, and asked again,‘Where are my sons, that they also
may drink of the wine of blessing?’—‘They cannot be far off,’ said
she, and set before him something to eat. When he had given thanks
after the repast, she said:‘Rabbi, grant me a request.’—‘Speak, my
love!’ answered he.

‘A few days ago, a person gave me some jewels to take care of, and
now he asks for them again; shall I give them back to him?’—‘This my
wife should not need to ask,’ said Rabbi Meir.‘Wouldst thou hesitate
to return every one his own?’—‘Oh! no,’ replied she,‘but I would not
return them without thy knowledge.’

Soon after she led him to the attic, approached, and took the cloth
off the dead bodies.‘Oh! my sons!’ exclaimed the father sorrowfully,
‘My sons!’ She turned away and wept.

At length she took his hand, and said:‘Rabbi, hast thou not taught me
that we must not refuse to return that which hath been intrusted to
our care? Behold, the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; praised
be the name of the Lord.’

‘The name of the Lord be praised!’ rejoined Rabbi Meir.‘It is well
said: He who hath a virtuous wife hath a greater treasure than costly
pearls. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the
law of kindness.’”

THE PAINTED FLOWERS.

“The power of Solomon had spread his wisdom to the remotest parts
of the known world. Queen Sheba, attracted by the splendor of his
reputation, visited this poetical king at his own court. There, one
day, to exercise the sagacity of the monarch, Sheba presented herself
at the foot of the throne: in each hand she held a wreath; the one
was composed of natural, and the other of artificial flowers. Art, in
constructing the mimetic wreath, had exquisitely emulated the lively
hues of nature; so that, at the distance it was held by the queen
for the inspection of the king, it was deemed impossible for him to
decide, as her question required, which wreath was the production of
nature, and which the work of art.

The sagacious Solomon seemed perplexed; yet to be vanquished, though
in a trifle, by a trifling woman, irritated his pride. The son of
David, he who had written treatises on the vegetable productions‘from
the cedar to the hyssop,’ to acknowledge himself outwitted by a woman,
with shreds of paper and glazed paintings! The honor of the monarch’s
reputation for divine sagacity seemed diminished, and the whole Jewish
court looked solemn and melancholy.

At length an expedient presented itself to the king; and one, it must
be confessed, worthy of the naturalist. Observing a cluster of bees
hovering about a window, he commanded that it should be opened. It
was opened; the bees rushed into the court, and alighted immediately
on one of the wreaths, while not a single one fixed on the other. The
baffled Sheba had one more reason to be astonished at the wisdom of
Solomon.”—D’ISRAELI.

NOTES ON WRITING, EDUCATION, ETC., AMONG THE HEBREWS.

The art of writing practised by the Hebrews at a very remote period.
In primitive times, records of important events cut in stone; the
letters sometimes filled with plaster or melted lead. Engraving also
practised with the stylus on rough tablets of boxwood, earthenware,
or bone. Leather early employed; the Law written on skins (of “clean
animals or birds”) in golden characters. The skins rolled round one or
two wooden cylinders, the scroll then tied with a thread and sealed.
Parchment written on with reed pens, which, together with a knife for
sharpening them and an ink of lampblack dissolved in gall-juice, were
carried in an inkhorn suspended from the girdle. Letter-writing in
vogue from the time of David.

Many ancient Jewish cities far advanced in art and literature.
Reading and writing from the first not confined to the learned, for
the people were required to write precepts of the Law upon their
door-posts, and on crossing the Jordan were commanded to place certain
inscriptions on great stones very plainly, that they might be read
by all. _Scribes_ in readiness to serve those who could not write.
Schools established in different localities in the prophetical age,
in which “the sons of the prophets” lived a kind of monastic life,
studying their laws and institutions along with poetry and music.

After the Captivity, education recognized as all-important, and
at length made compulsory. The Jews in consequence soon noted for
learning and scholarship. $2,500,000 paid by Ptolemy Philadelphus (260
B.C.) to seventy Jewish doctors for translating the Old Testament
into Greek, at Alexandria; hence the _Septuagint_, as it is called,
or version of the _Seventy_. By 80 B.C., Palestine filled with
flourishing schools. _Jerusalem was destroyed because the instruction
of the young was neglected—Revere a teacher even more than your
father—A scholar is greater than a prophet_—common sayings among
the Jews. Colleges maintained where lectures were delivered, and
the Socratic method of debate was pursued. Every student trained
to some trade, the ripest scholars working with their own hands
as tent-makers, weavers, carpenters, bakers, cooks, etc. A large
library at Jerusalem composed of volumes in history, royal letters,
and various works of the prophets. The most learned of the later
Platonists the Jew Phi’lo (20 B.C.-50 A.D.), who tried to reconcile
the Platonic philosophy with the teachings of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Riddles, enigmas, and play upon words, the chief sources of amusement
among the Hebrews. Dice mentioned in the Talmud. Public games unknown.
Fishing with nets and hooks, favorite sports. Dancing practised as a
religious rite; the stage on which it was performed in the temples
styled the _choir_: each Psalm perhaps accompanied by a suitable dance.

CHAPTER V.

_CHALDEAN, ASSYRIAN, ARABIC, AND PHŒNICIAN LITERATURES._

=Cuneiform Letters.=—North of the Persian Gulf, and drained by the
rivers Euphrates and Tigris, lay Chalde’a, or Babylonia, the “Land of
Shi’nar” (_country of the two rivers_). Here arose the earliest cities,
amid a population principally Turanian and Semitic, with a limited
intermixture of the Aryan element. A Semitic dialect prevailed among
the people at large; but the Turanian (Non-Semitic or Ural-Altaic)
Chaldees, to whom Babylonia was indebted for its aboriginal
civilization, through the centuries of their ascendency, political and
intellectual, not only kept alive their native tongue in conversation
with each other, but, inscribing it on imperishable monuments, caused
it to endure through all time.

[Illustration: ASSYRIA and the ADJACENT COUNTRIES]

To these Turanians the honor of having invented cuneiform letters
must be conceded; an honor, indeed, when we remember that theirs was
possibly the most ancient device for embodying human thought. The
characters, called wedge-formed or arrow-headed, they appear to have
brought with them into the Euphrates valley from the more northerly
country which they previously occupied; and their Semitic co-residents
in Babylonia were not slow in adopting the ingenious system which they
had elaborated. (_Consult Budge’s “Babylonian Life,” By-Paths of Bible
Knowledge Series, p. 100._)

The cuneiform characters, like the hieroglyphics, were at first rude
representations of objects, but in most cases the resemblance to the
original was soon lost. In some archaic forms, however, it may be
readily detected; as in the character for fish, {symbol}. The common
signs eventually acquired phonetic values. The Assyrian writing is made
up of ideograms, phonograms, and determinatives.

When by the victory of Alexander at Arbe’la (331 B.C.) the great
Persian Empire fell, cuneiform writing ceased to be practised, and
cuneiform literature was buried in the mounds of Assyria and Babylonia
for two thousand years. During the present century it has been
disinterred by inquisitive scholars, whose labors have resulted in the
restoration of a forgotten history, through the wonderful literature of
a people long known only in name. (_See Sayce’s “Hibbert Lectures.”_)

ASSYRIO-BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.

=Writing Materials.=—The cuneiform letters heretofore spoken of as
in use among the Persians at a later date (p. 66) were doubtless
originally intended to be cut on rocks with chisels, and hence were
angular instead of round. But the ancient Babylonians preferred bricks
and tablets of clay, on which, when moist and soft, they traced their
legends, annals, and scientific items, with an ivory or bronze stylus,
hardening the surface thus inscribed by drying in the sun. The tablets,
from one inch in length upward, are pillow-shaped and covered with
characters so minute as to be almost illegible without a glass. After
drying, to insure their preservation, they were often enclosed in cases
of clay, and on these the inscriptions were duplicated. Such are known
as “case-tablets.”

The Assyrians used similar kiln-baked tablets, and, besides, carved
their records exquisitely on the stone panels of their palaces, and
on colossal human-headed bulls. The tablets above described, together
with terra-cotta cylinders, formed the books of this inventive nation,
who also engraved with wonderful delicacy glass, metals, the amethyst,
jasper, and onyx.

Stone slabs were generally reserved for royal inscriptions; the
literary classes of Assyria preferred the cheaper clay, on which they
could write more rapidly and quite as legibly with their triangular
instruments. Something like paper or parchment seems to have been used
to a very limited extent; but if so, it has entirely disappeared. It is
also thought that the Chaldeans may have practised a simple method of
printing, as wedge-like types of stone have been found among the ruins
of their cities.

=Golden Age of Babylonian Literature= (2000-1550 B.C.).—Not a little
of the Assyrio-Babylonian literature has been recovered; but a mine
of literary wealth in the valley of the Euphrates still awaits the
persevering student, for before 2000 B.C. important works were
written in Chaldea. In the twentieth century, a golden age dawned
on this ancient land; its great cities became centres of literary
refinement, as well as of commerce and art, and a lofty poetical style
characterized the writings of the time. Standard texts on religion,
science, and history were then and shortly thereafter produced, the
copying of which appears to have satisfied the ambition of subsequent
generations.

In 1887, numerous Babylonian tablets, dating from the 15th century
B.C., were found at Tell-Amarna, Egypt. They contain letters addressed
by Asiatic kings to the third and fourth Amenophis (a portion of the
correspondence relating to the marriage of an Egyptian monarch with the
princess of Mitanni), and imply that the cuneiform writing of Babylonia
was in that day the vehicle of correspondence, as was the Aramaic in
the time of Persian supremacy.

Among early specimens of Chaldean writing is a set of bricks,
discovered near the site of E’rech. They are thought to have been
made about 2008 B.C. As these bricks illustrate the most ancient
cuneiform character, two of them are here presented, accompanied with a
translation.

[Illustration: “Beltis, his lady, has caused Urukh, the pious chief and
king of Ur, king of the land of Accad, to build a temple to her.”

CHALDEAN BRICKS.]

FROM A TABLET OF BABYLONIAN LAWS.

“A certain man’s brother-in-law hired workmen, and on his foundation
built an enclosure. From the house the judge expelled him.

His father and his mother a man shall not deny.

A decision. A son says to his mother:‘Thou art not my mother.’ His
hair is cut off; in the city they exclude him from earth and water,
and in the house imprison him.

A decision. A mother says to her son:‘Thou art not my son.’ They
imprison her.

A decision. A woman says to her husband:‘Thou art not my husband.’
Into the river they throw her.

A decision. A husband says to his wife:‘Thou art not my wife.’ Haifa
ma’neh (thirty ounces) of silver he weighs out in payment.

A decision. A master kills his slaves, cuts them to pieces, injures
their offspring, drives them from the land. His hand every day a half
measure of corn measures out.”

Babylonian literature was rich in the departments of law, mathematics,
astrology, grammar, and history. Nor was fiction wanting; fables, in
which the lower animals carried on spirited dialogues, were favorites
with the people. At a very early date, the inscribed tablets and
cylinders were collected, and the chief cities were made the seats of
libraries.

From a volume of Chaldean hymns, somewhat similar to the Rig-Veda, are
taken the following verses to the Babylonian Venus:—

PRAYER OF THE HEART TO ISTAR.

“Light of heaven, who like the fire dawnest on the world, art
thou!
Goddess in the earth, who dawnest like the earth, art thou!
To the house of men in thy descending thou goest: prosperity
approaches thee.
Day is thy servant, heaven thy canopy.
Princess of the four cities, head of the sea, heaven is thy canopy.
Exalted of the Sun-god, heaven is thy canopy!
For my father the Moon-god, revolver of the seasons, sanctuaries I
build, a temple I build.
For my brother the Sun-god, revolver of the seasons, sanctuaries I
build, a temple I build.
In the beginning the goddess spoke thus to men:
The Lady of Heaven, the divinity of the zenith, am I!
The Lady of Heaven, the divinity of the dawn, am I!
The Queen of Heaven, the opener of the locks of the high heaven, my
begetter.
O Istar! Lady of Heaven! may thy heart rest.
O Lady, Queen of Heaven! may thy liver be magnified.
O Lady, Queen of the land of the four rivers of Erech! may thy
heart rest.
O Lady, Queen of Babylon! may thy liver be magnified!
O Lady, Queen of the Temple of the Resting-place of the World!
may thy heart rest.”—A. H. SAYCE.

The Babylonians believed in omens. They gathered auguries from dreams,
inspection of the hand, the time of birth, and various phenomena,
establishing a national system of divination not without its amusing
features. For instance, we have the following

OMENS CONNECTED WITH DOGS.

“If a blue dog enters into a palace, that palace is burned.

If a yellow dog enters into the palace, exit from that palace will be
baleful.

If a spotted dog enters into the palace, that palace its peace to the
enemy gives.

If a dog to the palace goes and on a bed lies down, that palace none
with his hand takes.

If a dog to the palace goes and on the royal parasol lies down, that
palace its peace to the enemy gives.

If a white dog into a temple enters, the foundation of that temple is
not stable. If a yellow dog into a temple enters, that temple sees
plenty.

If a spotted dog into a temple enters, that temple do its gods love.”

Many charms and exorcisms appear in the ancient language of Babylonia,
disease being attributed to possession by evil spirits. Specimens
follow.

BABYLONIAN EXORCISMS.

“Wasting, want of health, the evil spirit of the ulcer, spreading
quinsy of the throat, the violent and noxious ulcer. Spirit of Heaven!
remember; Spirit of Earth! remember.

Sickness of the stomach, sickness of the heart, palpitation of the
heart, sickness of the head, noxious colic, the agitation of terror,
lingering sickness, nightmare. Spirit of Heaven! remember; Spirit of
Earth! remember.

Poisonous spittle of the mouth which is noxious to the voice, phlegm
which is destructive, tubercles of the lungs. Spirit of Heaven!
remember; Spirit of Earth! remember.”

A belief in a future life is expressed in the Poem on the Descent
of Istar, the moon-god’s daughter, to Hades, “the land whence none
return,” where “the dead outnumber the living;” and further in the
so-called Nimrod-Epic, the most ancient approach to epic poetry known
to exist, embodying the Babylonian story of Izdubar (identified with
Nimrod)—his rejection of the suit of the goddess Istar, and his
victory over the human-headed bull sent to revenge the slight. Nimrod
is ferried across the waters of the dead to the shores of the regions
of the blessed, where he recognizes his ancestor, Samas-napistim, and
exclaims:

“Thy appearance is not changed; like me art thou.
And thou thyself art not changed; like me art thou.”

=Chambers of Records at Nineveh.=—The Semites who, as the sacred
historian informs us, left the land of Shinar to found Nineveh and the
neighboring cities, carried with them the civilization and literary
culture of the Chaldeans. The earliest permanent seat of letters was
Ca’lah (see Map, p. 105), where, during the reign of Shalmane’ser
II. (860-824 B.C.) many clay tablets borrowed from the Babylonians
were copied by Assyrian scribes. This same king erected at Calah an
obelisk of black marble—one of the few Assyrian monuments of its kind
commemorative of national triumphs.

The library thus begun at Calah was enlarged under succeeding kings.
Removed at length to Nineveh, it there attained vast proportions
through the efforts of that munificent patron of letters, Sardanapa’lus
(Assur-bani-pal), (668-626 B.C.). The number of engraved tablets
reached ten thousand.

Here were grammars[12] and lexicons, law-books and scientific
treatises, histories, astronomical and arithmetical works, songs,
prayers, hymns sometimes approaching the Hebrew sacred lyrics in
sublimity, books of charms and omens, natural histories, botanies, and
geographies—a complete encyclopædia of ancient literature. The books
of this curious collection were carefully arranged according to their
subjects, numbered, catalogued, and placed in charge of librarians.
They were public property, intended for the instruction of the people.

Such was the library of Sardanapalus—principally copied from Babylonian
texts; such, it was buried beneath the ruins of the palace when “the
gates of the rivers were opened and Nineveh became a desolation;” such,
it lay amid the débris for centuries, “while the cormorant and the
bittern lodged in the upper lintels.”

But the mounds that so long covered the site of Nineveh have recently
surrendered their treasures. Clouds that environed the history of
the past have been dissipated; ancient nations, for ages wrapped
in obscurity, we no longer “see through a glass, darkly;” and the
narrative of the inspired writers of the Bible has been in many places
confirmed by the inscriptions disentombed in the East. Among the most
interesting fragments found scattered through the ruined “Chambers
of Records” of the Assyrian palace are the tablets relating to the
Creation, the Fall of Man, and the Deluge, copied from Babylonian
records hundreds of years older than the Pentateuch.

FROM THE CHALDEAN ACCOUNT OF THE DELUGE.

(Compiled originally about 2000 B.C.)

“The flood reached to heaven: the bright earth to a waste was turned.
It destroyed all life from the face of the earth, the strong deluge
over the people. Brother saw not brother, they did not know the
people. In heaven, the gods feared the tempest and sought refuge: they
ascended to the heaven of the King of angels and spirits.

Six days and nights passed; the wind, deluge, and storm, overwhelmed.
On the seventh day, in its course, was calmed the storm; and all the
deluge, which had destroyed like an earthquake, quieted. The sea he
caused to dry, and the wind and deluge ended.

I perceived the sea making a tossing; and the whole of mankind turned
to corruption; like reeds the corpses floated. I opened the window,
and the light broke over my face; it passed. I sat down and wept; over
my face flowed my tears. I perceived the shore at the boundary of the
sea. To the country of Nizir went the ship. The mountain of Nizir
stopped the ship; and to pass over, it was not able. The first day,
and the second day, the mountain of Nizir the same. The third day, and
the fourth day, the mountain of Nizir the same. The fifth and sixth,
the mountain of Nizir the same. On the seventh day, in the course of
it, I sent forth a dove, and it left. The dove went and turned, and a
resting-place it did not find, and it returned.

I sent forth a swallow, and it left. The swallow went and turned, and
a resting-place it did not find, and it returned.

I sent forth a raven, and it left. The raven went, and the decrease of
the water it saw, and it did eat, it swam, and wandered away, and did
not return.

I sent the animals forth to the four winds. I poured out a libation. I
built an altar on the peak of the mountain.”—GEORGE SMITH.

SPECIMENS OF ASSYRIAN SACRED POETRY.

A PRAYER FOR THE KING.

“Length of days,
Long, lasting years,
A strong sword,
A long life,
Extended years of glory,
Preëminence among kings,
Grant ye to the King my Lord,
Who has given such gifts
To his gods.

The bounds vast and wide of his empire,
And of his rule,
May he enlarge and may he complete,
May he attain to gray hairs and old age.

And after the life of these days,
In the feasts of the Silver Mountain, the heavenly courts,
The abode of blessedness:
And in the Light
Of the Happy Fields,
May he dwell a life
Eternal, holy,
In the presence of the gods
Who inhabit Assyria.”—H. F. TALBOT.

Here is undoubtedly expressed a belief in the soul’s immortality, which
also appears in the following prayer for the spirit of a dying man:—

“Like a bird may it fly to a lofty place!
To the holy hands of its god may it ascend!”

A PENITENTIAL PSALM.

“O my Lord! my sins are many, my trespasses are great; and the wrath
of the gods has plagued me with disease, and with sickness and sorrow.

I fainted: but no one stretched forth his hand!

I groaned: but no one drew nigh!

I cried aloud: but no one heard!

O Lord! do not abandon thy servant!

In the waters of the great storm, seize his hand!

The sins which he has committed, turn thou to righteousness.”—H. F.
TALBOT.

HITTITE INSCRIPTIONS.

=Altaic Hieroglyphs.=—Inscriptions on stones and various objects, in
an unknown system of hieroglyphics, have been found near Damascus and
elsewhere in the East. They have been ascribed to the Hittites (the
_Khita_ of the Egyptian monuments, the _Khittim_ of Scripture), a
powerful race of northern Syria, who were constantly at war with the
Babylonians, successfully opposed both Assyria and Egypt, and in the
thirteenth century B.C. extended their power as far west as the Ægean
Sea. It is claimed that the symbols are “the prototypes whence the
cuneiform system was developed,” and that the language is an Altaic
(Turanian or Accadian) dialect. The date assigned is 1400 B.C. (See
opposite engraving of an inscribed stone from Jerabis.) Scholars
are now engaged in an attempt to decipher these inscriptions. (The
reader is referred to _Sayce’s “The Hittites: the Story of a Forgotten
Empire.”_)

[Illustration: The inscribed stone described.]

ARABIC LITERATURE.

=Himyaritic Inscriptions.=—The high-spirited war-loving tribes that
roved over the tablelands of Arabia, as well as the more refined
inhabitants of her ports on the Red Sea, doubtless cultivated letters.
We may suppose the former to have given their florid fancies vent in
pastorals, rude songs for the desert bivouac, or triumphal odes. More
finished species of poetry would have been congenial to the courtly
residents of the cities, whose knowledge of the world was extended by
trading expeditions to India, and along the African coast as far as the
Mozambique Channel.

Yet of this probable literature we possess little that is older than
the era of Mohammed (600 A.D.), at which time the Arabians awoke to a
new life, for centuries leading the van of the nations in the march
of literature and science. But the little that we have is not without
interest.

At least eighteen hundred years before the Christian Era, descendants
of Joktan, called Sabæans and afterward Himyarites, established
themselves in southwestern Arabia; but not until about 800 B.C. do they
appear to have gained permanent dominion over the neighboring tribes.
Inscriptions in their language, the Sabæan, a Semitic tongue closely
related to the Arabic, if not sufficiently like it to be called by the
same name, have been found in the lower part of the Arabian peninsula
on walls, tombs, dikes, and bronze tablets.

These are the oldest known Arabic writings, and are believed by
scholars to date between the 8th century B.C. and the 4th century A.D.
Gems have also been discovered, inscribed with these same characters.

PHŒNICIAN LITERATURE.

=Its Lost Treasures.=—In the most ancient records, the narrow strip
of coast between the Lib’anus Mountains and the Mediterranean was
recognized as an important centre of civilization. Its cities were
seats of art and commerce; Africa, Sicily, and Spain, were dotted
with its colonies and trading-stations; the sails of its merchantmen
sparkled on every sea; its language was known throughout the ancient
world.

It cannot be that a nation so advanced in knowledge was without a
literature; and if works on their philosophy and religion, on history,
geography, navigation, and agriculture, didactic poems and love-songs,
constitute a literature, vast indeed was that of the Phœnicians. No
department of science or belles-lettres appears to have been overlooked
by their authors.

The famous “Book City,” Kir´jath-Se´pher, which, during the conquest
of Canaan, was taken by Othniel the future Judge, is thought to have
been a Phœnician town. Its name implies that it was a repository of
books, probably public records and works on law—perhaps an Athens
to the nations of Canaan, whither their youth flocked to consult
its libraries and receive instruction at its academies. Its valuable
collection of manuscripts was doubtless committed to the flames by the
Hebrew conqueror.

In like manner, the whole constellation of Phœnician hymns, and lyrics,
and prose pieces, has become extinct, except a lonely star left here
and there in the works of foreign authors; or a faint light glimmering
on some coin or tablet, gem or tombstone.

The only important Phœnician writer known to us is Sanchoni´athon.
Fragments of his History, written perhaps in the fourteenth century
B.C., have survived through a Greek translation. In accounting for the
origin of the universe, Sanchoniathon taught the theory of evolution,
that “from certain animals not having sensation, intelligent animals
were produced.”

=Phœnician Carthage= also developed an extensive literature. The
records of the city were kept by native historians; and we know that
Ma’go’s great work on agriculture, in twenty-eight parts, was highly
appreciated at Rome, and there rendered into Latin. When the city of
Hannibal fell before her more powerful rival, her vast library was
scattered among the African allies of the Romans, and lost to history.

An interesting relic of Carthaginian literature is the Circumnavigation
of Hanno, the history of a voyage undertaken in the sixth century B.C.
to the coasts of Libya—the oldest history of a voyage existing. This
work of Hanno, which used to hang in a temple at Carthage, describes a
savage people called _Gorillas_, whose bodies were covered with hair
and who defended themselves with stones. The narrator says: “Three
women were taken, but they attacked their conductors with their teeth
and hands, and could not be prevailed on to accompany us. Having killed
them, we flayed them, and brought their skins with us to Carthage.”

NOTES ON ASSYRIO-BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.

Oldest Semitic cuneiform text written before 3000 B.C. The golden age,
2000-1850 B.C.; oral traditions collected and committed to writing;
tile-libraries in all the principal Chaldean cities. Decline begins
about 1550 B.C. The term _Chaldean_ long synonymous with _man of
learning_.

Rise of Assyrian literature, 1500 B.C.; confined to archives and
records for a number of centuries. Renaissance under Sardanapalus
I. and his son Shalmane´ser II. (885-824 B.C.). Enlargement of the
national library in the reign of Tig´lath-Pile´ser II. (745-727 B.C.)
and of Sargon (722-705 B.C.), followed by a revival of the study of
ancient literature. Copies made of the masterpieces of antiquity.
Reign of Sardanapalus II. (668-626 B.C.), the golden age of Assyrian
letters. Fall of Nineveh, 625 B.C.

Babylon succeeds as the seat of power and the centre of literature in
western Asia; attains the height of its glory under Nebuchadnezzar
(604-561 B.C.). Great revival of ancient learning: “the Lady of
Kingdoms” soon boasts of a library emulating in extent and variety
that of her former rival Nineveh. Little of this later Babylonian
literature recovered: its restoration left for future laborers in the
field of philology.

During these centuries, a wild poetry probably flourished on the
highland wastes of Arabia, and Phœnician cities attained literary
greatness.—Coins made of British tin, the money of Phœnician commerce.

CHAPTER VI.

_EGYPTIAN LITERATURE._

=The Egyptian Language.=—There yet remains one field of Oriental
literature for us to visit, and it is specially interesting on account
of the valuable treasures it long concealed. These have recently been
brought to light in the writings of that people who settled the fertile
valley of the Nile in prehistoric times, and adorned the land of Egypt
with monuments inscribed with their mysterious characters.

Thousands of inscriptions—some on the walls of vast temples, or of
memorial chapels attached to the tombs of private citizens; others
hewn in the living rock, or carefully cut on obelisks of granite with
chisels of bronze and steel—have endured to our day; and thousands of
papyri have come down to us; some of the rolls many feet in length,
and covered with figures of men, birds, insects, and reptiles, in
profile, often illuminated with high colors and gold wrought in
artistic vignettes. The ingenuity of modern science has wrung from
these their secrets, and disclosed a wealth of knowledge in connection
with the history, literature, civilization, and religion of the ancient
Egyptians.

The Egyptian language is undoubtedly Semitic, and, in its oldest form,
perhaps represents the primitive Semitic stock. It contains, however,
certain elements that are not Semitic, but that seem to have been
derived from a tongue of distinct origin, spoken in the country before
its conquest by a Semitic race. The language has therefore been called
Egypto-Semitic.

EGYPTIAN WRITING.

=Decipherment of the Hieroglyphics.=—The decipherment of the Egyptian
hieroglyphics will always be regarded as one of the greatest triumphs
of the present century. As early as 1652, Kircher (_kěěr´ker_), a
learned German Jesuit, attempted to translate the monumental writing;
but, by reason of his absurd renderings, only cast discredit on the
science of Egyptology. Scholars of the period preferred the study
of Coptic, the language of Egyptian Christianity; it was through
their labors in this field that the way was prepared for the final
interpretation of the older speech.

=The Rosetta Stone.=—The finding of the Rosetta Stone, in 1799,
led to the brilliant discoveries of the French savant, Champollion
(_sham-pol´le-on_). A French officer, while erecting works at Rosetta,
in the delta of the Nile, during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign,
unearthed a piece of black basalt, which contained, in equivalent
inscriptions in hieroglyphics, Greek, and _demotic_ (popular hand),
a decree conferring divine honors on Ptolemy V., a monarch of the
second century B.C. The meaning of the Greek text being known, the
hieroglyphics through it were translated. Thomas Young, an English
mathematician, and the French scholar, independently, and almost
simultaneously, succeeded in finding a true solution of the problem.
Young determined correctly the value of some of the characters; but the
result of Champollion’s labors were vastly more important. He not only
gave the correct rendering of long inscriptions and of numerous papyri,
but prepared an Egyptian grammar and a hieroglyphic dictionary that
for years were unrivalled as authorities.

[Illustration: THE ROSETTA STONE.

The famous stone rests on a block of red porphyry in the Egyptian
gallery of the British Museum. Dimensions: 3 ft., 1 in. high; 2
ft., 5 in. broad; 6 to 12 in. thick. (_Read the “Report of the
Committee appointed by the Philomathean Society of the University of
Pennsylvania to translate the Inscription on the Rosetta Stone.”_)]

Champollion’s work was carried on by other scholars after his death.
In 1867, Lepsius discovered in the ruins of Tanis a second trilingual
inscription, the so-called decree of Cano’pus, the study of which fully
confirmed the theories previously advanced. The work of Lepsius gave
a new impulse to Egyptian study. His immediate successor in this line
of exploration was Mariette, who built up the museum of Boulaq. Many
others in France, England, Germany, and America, have devoted their
lives to the study of Egypt and her systems of writing. The problem
that baffled alike Greeks, Romans, and all subsequent nations, has
been solved at last; and the door has been opened to “a library of
stones and papyri in myriads of volumes,” in which every branch of
literature is represented. The crumbling walls scattered throughout
“the Monumental Land” now utter intelligible words; the very implements
and toys have their stories to tell; and many a tomb has yielded up its
brittle treasure of papyrus, its eulogy or legend, its history or hymn.

=System of Writing.=—From the earliest times the Egyptians possessed
a phonetic system of writing. They had an alphabet of twenty-two
characters, consisting of consonants only, which became the basis of
the Phœnician, and through it of every ancient and modern European
alphabet. Besides these consonants, there were in use numerous syllabic
signs, in which two or three consonant sounds, or a consonant and a
vowel sound, were represented by one character. Owing to the absence
of vowel signs, it was often next to impossible to discriminate
between words composed of the same consonants, but having different
significations (as it would be in English, if, for instance, we should
write _s t r_ for _star, store, stair_, or _straw_, and leave the
signification of the three consonants to be determined by the context).
To obviate this difficulty, the Egyptians early invented a simple
system of _determinatives_. A determinative is a picture of the object
described by the word in question, and was placed after the name. Thus
the word _rômet_, signifying _man_, was followed by the picture of a
kneeling man, {hieroglyph} as was also every word signifying a male
human being or his occupation. After the word _himet_, signifying
_woman_, after the names of goddesses, the proper names of women, and
all words denoting female human beings, was placed the picture of a
woman sitting. {hieroglyph} After the names of gods occurred a typical
representation of a god. In like manner, to the names of Egyptian
cities was attached the representation of a plan of a city, while the
picture of a range of hills distinguished foreign localities (mountains
being unknown in the Nile Valley).

Some of these determinatives in time came to be used instead of
the words they originally determined; and thus arose word-signs
(_ideograms_), which, though at first comparatively few, soon
increased in number. In this way, the picture of the city’s plan,
originally a mere determinative, was eventually used as the written
sign of the word city itself. The Egyptian system of writing is
thus extremely complicated, consisting, as it does, of an alphabet,
syllabic signs, and word-signs (_ideograms_), supplemented by a system
of determinatives. The whole number of signs exceeds 2000. (_See
Moldehnke’s “Language of the Ancient Egyptians.”_)

=Hieroglyphics.=—The oldest form of Egyptian writing is called
hieroglyphic;[13] its characters are well-drawn pictures of natural
objects; but these pictures had no ideographic values. They were
originally, as above stated, partly determinative in their nature.
The oldest hieroglyphical texts that have come down to us have been
referred to the II. Dynasty (now estimated at about 4000 B.C.). The
youngest texts date from the period of the Roman Empire.

The inconvenience experienced in writing the hieroglyphics early
led to the invention of abbreviated forms. These were of two kinds,
viz., the _linear hieroglyphics_, and a derivative therefrom, the
cursive _hieratic character_, suitable for rapid writing. On some of
the stone blocks in the Pyramid of Cheops (_ke’ops_), the monarch’s
name is inscribed in hieratic characters; while the oldest texts of
the so-called Book of the Dead are in linear hieroglyphics, which
remained the favorite form for this religious work, as well as for
most funeral papyri. There are two kinds of hieratic—one closely
resembling the old linear hieroglyphics, and in common use during the
Middle Empire (2100-1700 B.C.); the other, a simplified and abbreviated
form, introduced early in the period styled the New Empire (about 1530
B.C.). From this second form of hieratic, the Phœnicians derived their
alphabet (see p. 20, and plate p. 87). In the seventh century B.C.,
the hieratic gave place to the still simpler _demotic_, which has not
inaptly been called Egyptian short-hand.

LITERARY REMAINS.

Egyptian literature, like other ancient literatures, passed through
periods of development and decay. It had its dawn or archaic period,
its classical and Augustan era, and its age of decline.

=The Archaic Age of Egyptian Literature= was the epoch of the Old
Empire (3800-2400 B.C.) From this remote period there have come down
to us mainly inscriptions carved on the walls of private tombs and
royal pyramids. The earliest religious writings, comprising the oldest
portions of the Book of the Dead, date also from this time; and a few
popular songs remain, but they are difficult of interpretation. There
is further a compilation of maxims, attributed to Prince Ptahhôtep,
who lived about 2500 B.C. The style of the archaic period is simple,
clear, and forcible; the writings are, in the main, intelligible. As
specimens, we present the entire text of one inscription, with extracts
from another:

INSCRIPTION ON THE SARCOPHAGUS OF KING MENKAURÂ (3700 B.C.)

“O Osiris, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Menkaurâ,[14] immortal one!
Thy father is the heaven, thy mother is Nut (goddess of the heavens),
thou art of the family of Qeb (god of the earth). Thy mother Nut bends
over thee in the shape of her divine secret. She enables thee to be
a god; no longer hast thou enemies hereafter, thou immortal king of
Upper and Lower Egypt!”

FROM THE INSCRIPTION OF UNA,

A GENERAL OF THE VI. DYNASTY (2400 B.C.).

“This army went in safety; it devastated the land of the Bedouins.
This army went in safety; it destroyed their fortifications. This army
went in safety; it cut down their fig-trees and grape-vines. This
army went in safety; it killed their troops there by many thousands.
This army went in safety; it took very many prisoners alive. His
majesty praised me for this above everything. His majesty sent out
this army five times to devastate the land of the Bedouins, every
time they rebelled. I acted so that his majesty praised me above
everything.”—_Wendel._

The first extract is of interest as being a translation of the oldest
religious text yet found. (On the monuments, _consult “Records of the
Past,”_ 1874-1889; _and Maspero’s “Les Contes Populaires de l’Egypte.”_)

=Classical Age of Egyptian Literature.=—After the Archaic period there
is a great blank in Egyptian history; but about 2100 B.C. we begin
again with trustworthy accounts. It would appear that Egypt had been
subjected, at the close of Dynasty VI., by foreign invaders, who were
expelled by the Theban princes of Dynasty XI. The final regeneration
of the empire, however, was accomplished by Amenemhât I., the founder
of Dynasty XII., which, with the following, covers the period commonly
called the Middle Empire (2100-1800 B.C.), at the close of which Egypt
fell a prey to the Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings.

This epoch was regarded by later native writers as the classical age of
their literature. It is represented by large numbers of inscriptions,
and some remarkable papyri. Among the latter are the so-called Prisse
papyrus,[15] a collection of ill understood moral maxims attributed
to Prince Ptahhôtep; and the memoirs of Prince Saneha, a noble of the
time, who was forced to fly from Egypt, and for many years lived among
the Bedouins of Asia. Other works of the period are “The Instructions
of Amenemhât I. to his son Usertesen I.,” the oldest version of the
famous “Minstrel’s Song” (sometimes called the “Festal Dirge”), and
several fairy stories, notably the “Tale of Snake Island.” The style
of the literature is obscure. Much of it was unintelligible even to
scholars of the succeeding periods.

Under the Hyksos, phenomenal encouragement appears to have been given
to the study of science. A mathematical hand-book of considerable
merit reflects the tendencies of the time, as does more markedly
the interesting “Papyrus Ebers,”[16] the oldest medical work in the
world—both dating from the 17th century B.C.

Selections from two prose works, and a poem entire, follow, in
illustration of the style of the Classical Age:

FROM THE MEMOIRS OF PRINCE SANEHA.

This noble, who held a high command in the army, having been
implicated in a conspiracy against King Amenemhât I., was compelled
to fly the country, and lived for many years in Syria, among the
Bedouins. The Memoirs contain interesting details of his Arab
life. He tells us that on reaching the eastern boundary of Egypt,
he encountered a line of forts stretching across the isthmus as a
protection against the Bedouins. “Then I hid in the bushes for fear
the sentinels on the wall would see me. In the night I went on, and
reached the land of Peten by daybreak. As I approached Lake Qemwer,
thirst came upon me, and my throat was parched; so I said,‘this is a
foretaste of death.’ Suddenly my heart took new courage, and I arose—I
had heard the lowing of a herd. I saw a Bedouin. He gave me water, and
cooked milk for me.”

Then Saneha proceeds to relate how he found his way into Syria, and
was cared for by the king, who gave the fugitive the hand of his
daughter in marriage; for the prince had heard who Saneha was, and
“all his prowess,” from Egyptians dwelling at the court. “He let me
choose a tract from the finest lands on the border of another country.
This was the beautiful district of Aaa; there grow in it figs and
grapes; it has much wine, and is rich in honey; abundant are its
olives, and all kinds of fruits grow on its trees. Wheat and barley
mature there, and herds unnumbered find pasturage. And yet greater
grace he showed me in making me sheik of a tribe. Every people against
which I went, I conquered and drove away from its pastures and wells.
I stampeded its herds, enslaved its children, plundered its stores,
and killed the people with my sword, my bow, and my wise plans.”—After
living in Syria for some years, Saneha was pardoned by his king, and
returned to Egypt.

THE TALE OF SNAKE ISLAND.

This charming tale relates how a treasury official is wrecked on an
island in the Red Sea, while on his way to the mines of Sinai. The
island is ruled by a great serpent, and inhabited only by snakes. The
official remains for some time the guest of the prince, and is then
dismissed loaded with presents.

“I was travelling to the mines of the king, and had gone to sea on
a ship 150 yards long and 40 yards broad (compare with the size of
modern vessels), that was manned by 150 of the best Egyptian sailors,
who knew heaven and earth, and whose hearts were wiser than those of
the lions. When we were at sea, a storm arose; and as we approached
land the wind grew stronger, and the waves were eight yards high (only
in most violent storms are waves observed whose height from crest to
trough is 40 feet). I alone caught hold of a piece of timber; all the
others that were on the ship perished. A wave cast me on an island.
There I found figs and grapes, melons, fish, and birds. I ate, and of
what I had taken too much I laid aside. Then I lighted a fire, and
sacrificed to the gods.”

THE MINSTREL’S SONG (2150 B.C.).

“Song which is in the house of the late king Antef, and which is
before the minstrel. It is a wise decree of that Good Lord, a perfect
fate, that while one body passes away others remain, ever since the
time of our ancestors! The gods that once lived (the dead kings) now
repose in their tombs The mummies are buried. When houses are built,
there is no room for them. What has become of them? I have heard
the sayings of Imhotep and Hardedef (two sages), which are sung in
numerous lays:‘What are now their places? Their walls are fallen;
they are no more, even as if they had never been.’ No one chants their
good qualities or their deeds; no one decides that our hearts shall go
where they have gone.

“Thou art in good health; thy heart revolts against the funeral rites.
Follow thy heart while thou livest. Put perfumes on thy hair, don fine
linen! Anoint thyself with the finest of the salves of the gods! Do
more than thou hast hitherto done! Let not thy heart grow sore! Follow
thy desire and thy happiness while thou dwellest on the earth, until
that day comes for thee when men will pray, and the god whose heart
no longer beats (Osiris) hears not those who pray! The lamentations
will not rejoice the dead. Have a good time! Assuredly none take
their possessions with them! Assuredly no one that hath gone hath yet
returned!”—_Wendel._

=Golden Age of Egyptian Literature.=—With the expulsion of the Hyksos
by Theban kings (1530 B.C.), the New Empire began; it continued
until about 1080 B.C., and was contemporaneous with the Golden Age
of Egyptian letters. Under the New Empire, the Egyptian dominion was
extended eastward into Asia, and far to the south in Ethiopia. Foreign
successes kindled the native imagination; hence the general tone of
gayety which pervades the literature of the period. Religious works
naturally occupy the first place. They comprise commentaries on the
older theological writings embodied in the Book of the Dead,[17] long
rituals and liturgies, and numerous sublime hymns to the gods.

[Illustration: PAPYRUS, FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL
SOCIETY.]

The secular literature is peculiarly brilliant. Magnificent hymns to
the kings, legendary accounts of historical events like “The Taking
of Joppe” and “The Expulsion of the Hyksos,” charmingly told fairy
tales, accounts of travel and adventure, and spirited lyrics—give us an
exalted opinion of the literary ability of Egyptian writers. Even an
epic is not wanting, if we may so call the poetic description of the
battle of Rameses II. with the Hittites. The inscriptions are of great
value, for it is from them we have derived our knowledge of the history
of the period. Both kings and private citizens have left coherent
accounts. Nor was science neglected. Several medical papyri have been
found, and in certain tombs have been preserved veritable treatises
on astronomy and long astronomical tables. The style is attractive,
clear, and vigorous, owing to the fact that the grammatical forms have
increased in number, thus permitting a more easy and varied expression.
(_See Erman’s “Ægypten,” vol. ii., p. 442_). Literary specimens follow:

HYMN TO THE SUN GOD RÂ.

(FROM THE BOOK OF THE DEAD.)

“Hail to thee who art Râ when thou risest, and Atum when thou settest!
Thou risest, risest and glowest, glowest crowned as king of the gods!
Thou art Lord of heaven and earth, creator of stars and men! Thou art
the sole god who hath existed from the beginning, who hath made the
lands and created men, who hath made the heavens and created the Nile,
who hath made the waters and endowed with life all that therein is!
Thou who hath built the hills and created men and the beasts of the
field!”—_Wendel._

The genius of the poets of the Golden Age may be estimated from the
following verses discovered on a monumental tablet among the ruins of
Thebes. They are represented as addressed by Amen-Râ (_ah’men rah_),
the supreme god of that city, to Thothmes III., under whom (15th
century B.C.) Egypt rose to the zenith of her military greatness, and,
according to a popular saying of the day, “placed her frontier where it
pleased herself.” The hymn is peculiarly beautiful in the original, by
reason of the harmonious cadence of its periods, and that parallelism
or “balance of clauses and ideas” which is largely characteristic of
Oriental poetry.[18]

HYMN TO THOTHMES III.

“I am come—to give thee power to destroy the princes of Djah:[19]
I cast them beneath thy feet that follow with their peoples.
Like to the Lord of Light, I make them see thy glory.
Thou glowest as my image!

I am come—to give thee power to destroy the people of Asia;
Captive now thou dost lead the Syrian Bedouin chieftains;
Adornèd in thy majesty, I make them see thy glory,
Glittering in thine arms and fighting high in thy war-car.

I am come—to give thee power to trample on western nations;
Cyprus and Phœnicia are lying at thy mercy.
Like a bold young bull, I make them see thy glory,
Strong with piercing horns, whom none approach.

I am come—to give thee power to trample on those in their harbors;
Tremble for fear of thee the distant islands of Metjen.[20]
Like the dreaded crocodile, I make them see thy glory,
Lord of fear in the waters, whom none approach.”

It was by Thothmes III. that the obelisk conveyed from Alexandria to
the United States and erected in Central Park, New York (1880), was
inscribed with hieroglyphics and set up among “the images of On.”
Rameses II. subsequently added to the inscription of Thothmes. (_Read
Dr. Moldehnke’s “The New York Obelisk.”_)

AN EGYPTIAN EPIC.

Among the relics of this age of literary culture are several copies of
an epic celebrating the prowess of Rameses the Great in a war with the
Hittites—the only representative of its class in all the literature
that has been recovered. It has been compared to the Iliad, but
lacks many of the qualities which have rendered that poem immortal.
The grand central scene, vividly portrayed by the hand of a master
artist, discloses the king, forsaken by his cowardly troops in the
heat of battle, calling on Amen for aid, and with the god’s assistance
discomfiting single-handed the hostile multitude.

“How is this, father Amen? Doth the father forget his son? Naught have
I done without thee. Did I not march at thy word? What would these
Asiatics before Amen? Miserable he who knoweth not the god. Have I
not reared to thee unnumbered monuments and filled them with booty?
Shame on him who would scorn thy will! Hail to him who knoweth thee,
Amen! I call on thee, my father.

I am in the midst of many peoples! I am alone, my infantry and
charioteers have left me! When I called upon them, no one heard me.
When I called upon them, I found that Amen was better for me than
millions of foot-soldiers and thousands of charioteers, of brothers
and sons united. Vain are the works of men; Amen is mightier. He is
coming to me! He giveth me his hand! I take courage again! I shoot
right and left. I am as a pestilence over them!”

THE TALE OF THE TWO BROTHERS.

One of the most beautiful of the old fairy tales is that bearing the
title above. It sets forth the rustic life of two devoted brothers;
the false accusation of one by the wife of the other; the flight of
the accused after a warning given him by his faithful cattle; his
pursuit by the elder brother, and his miraculous escape; the reunion
of the brothers; many strange adventures, terminating in the elevation
of the younger brother to the throne of Egypt, and of the elder to the
proud position of hereditary prince.

It is a curious fact that, with few exceptions, we are left in
ignorance of the names of the Egyptian authors. The papyri generally
conclude with a remark to the effect that they have been copied at the
instance of the royal scribes.

=The Period of Decline= began about 1080 B.C. Demotic literature
contains but two noteworthy works—“The Romance of Setna,” a weird
tale of magic, and a half-legendary history known as the “Demotic
Chronicles.” Demotic fables, in which animals are represented as
conversing, appear to have been imitations of Greek originals. The
writings of this period are in the main religious.

Such is the literature which the sands of Egypt have yielded to modern
research—a literature which, itself of greater antiquity, furnished
models even to the nations that we call ancient. While these later
nations, judging from the remains that have thus far come to our
knowledge, certainly improved on their masters in artistic finish
and grandeur of conception, it must be remembered that we have not
yet fully sounded the depths of Egyptian literature. We know not
what masterpieces may still lie hid beneath the sand, or bear the
mummy company in some undiscovered tomb. We are, indeed, justified
in expecting greater works from the land that was the fount of Greek
inspiration—the dayspring of knowledge to the Chosen People; whose
religion bears in many points a strange analogy to ours; whose lasting
structures are emblematic of the soul’s immortality; and whose
lotus-blossoms, reopening every morning, symbolize the resurrection
from the night of death.

NOTES ON EGYPTIAN EDUCATION, ETC.

Egyptian education in the hands of state officials, who gave
instruction in the duties of their several offices. In ancient times,
boys born on the same day with a prince educated with him. Those that
were to become scribes, sent to school at a very early age; the same
advantages enjoyed by poorer pupils as by their richer fellows. No
castes. After the children had learned to write, they were given old
texts to copy in the form of letters, moral treatises, tales, hymns,
etc. Thus they mastered the grammar of their language, and at the
same time became acquainted with its literature. Schools dismissed at
noon; boys employed during the afternoon in the practical work of the
department. Corporal punishment in great repute. Students of theology
afterward entered at temple schools. No mention made of the education
of girls.

Particular attention bestowed on astronomy and elementary mathematics.
Arithmetic and geometry taught; possibly the rudiments of algebra.
Considerable progress made in medical science; Egyptian physicians
versed in materia medica and physiology, and thoroughly familiar with
anatomy. They were adepts in surgery, and practised specialties.
Mummies found with gold fillings in their teeth, and bandaged as
skilfully as by an expert of to-day.

The ancient Egyptians excelled all other nations in their fondness for
recording. The chisel or reed ever busy. Red and black ink employed in
inscribing papyri, the former marking the openings of paragraphs. Inks
and colors kept in pots fitted in depressions in the oblong palettes.

Dancing, gymnastics, games of ball and draughts, fishing in preserves,
or in the swamps of the Delta with hooks, nets, and spears,
spearing the hippopotamus from canoes, and hunting wild fowl in the
marshes—favorite pastimes. Ladies present at the sports and sumptuous
banquets. A keen eye for humor manifested in the fondness of the
Egyptians for caricature, from which even their representations of
funeral ceremonies were not exempt.

[Illustration: ANCIENT GREECE with the COAST OF ASIA MINOR
_Russell & Struthers, N.Y._]

PART II.

GRECIAN LITERATURE.

CHAPTER I.

_BIRTH OF GRECIAN LITERATURE._

=Early Settlement of Greece.=—While Chaldea and Assyria were rising to
greatness, while Phœnicia was winning for herself maritime supremacy,
and wonders in art and science were spreading the renown of Egypt
throughout the earth, a simple agricultural people was quietly moving
westward toward Greece and Italy. In very early times, Aryan tribes
known as _Pelasgic_ quitted their habitations in southwestern Bactria
(Map, p. 15), and made their way through Persia and Mesopotamia into
Asia Minor. Here, on rich tablelands irrigated by the head-waters of
streams flowing into the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, presumably
among the gold-bearing mountains and vine-grown valleys of Phrygia (see
Map), they cultivated their grain, pastured their sheep, made permanent
settlements, and rapidly grew into a great nation. These Pelasgic
tribes were the ancestors of the Greeks and Romans.

The same general causes that led to emigration from the mother-country
crowded toward the coast communities of this Phrygian people, and
ultimately obliged them to seek new homes in the west. Perhaps,
paddling from island to island in rude galleys, some crossed the
Æge’an; perhaps, passing the Hellespont, some picked their way through
Thrace and Macedonia, entered the defiles of the northern mountains,
and spread over Greece; while others, more adventurous, pushed their
course still farther, and peopled the Italian peninsula.

The Pelasgic tribes were probably the first occupants of Greece and
Italy. Earlier emigrants from Asia appear to have found all they
desired in the accessible districts of central Europe, and not to have
climbed the steep ranges that hemmed in those regions on the south. The
Greeks themselves claimed with pride to have sprung from the earth; and
a golden grasshopper, worn in the hair as an ornament by the Athenians,
pointed to this belief in their _autochthony_.

=The Hellenes.=—Fresh bodies of Pelasgians continued to arrive from
Asia Minor, until all Greece was populated with a thrifty race of
husbandmen and shepherds. Upon this primitive Pelasgian stock was
afterward engrafted a branch called Hellenic, identical with it in
origin, but forced to a higher state of development in the garden of
Asiatic culture, and ready to burst into blossom on the soil of Greece.
The new-comers were the Helle’nes, a people of greater vigor, physical
and intellectual. Mingling with their Pelasgian kinsmen in the Grecian
peninsula, they formed a new nation, endowed with fresh life; and the
Pelasgic dialect, modified and energized by their more cultivated
tongue, was converted into GREEK.

The Greeks had a popular proverb, _do nothing too much_, which they
applied in writing as in acting. Pruning away too great exuberance and
repressing the Oriental tendency to exaggerate, they reduced everything
to the standard of a rigid but elegant correctness. More artistic
than the Hindoos, less luxuriant in imagination but with a chaster
and severer taste, they established a literature richly furnished in
every department, whose influence can be traced in the works of genius
that stand out in every age and country. As Professor Jebb says, “the
thoughts of the great Greek thinkers have been bearing fruit in the
world ever since they were first uttered.” (_See Dr. Curtius’s “History
of Greece.”_)

Thus in Greece, Aryan energy, freed from the trammels of Oriental
despotism, seems first to have found its true development. The
facilities which this country enjoyed for intercourse with Egypt and
Phœnicia, enabled it to draw from the learning of one, to copy the
enterprise and adopt the inventions of the other. This accounts for its
having been the seat of the earliest European civilization.

At a later period, we find the Hellenes separated into three great
families—the Æolians, occupying generally the north of Greece; the
Ionians, distributed over the central portions; and the Dorians,
settled in the south (the Peloponnesus, _island of Pelops_). Connected
with these three divisions were as many dialects—Æolic, Ionic, and
Doric Greek—of which, Ionic was the softest and most polished. This
Ionic, refined and perfected, became what is known as Attic Greek; it
was the language of Athens in the golden age of her art and poetry, and
for centuries was understood by the educated classes throughout a great
part of the civilized world.

These Hellenic dialects were also spoken on the islands of the Ægean
and the coast of Asia Minor; for the tide of emigration set back again
toward the Asiatic shores, and Æolians, Ionians, and Dorians, returned
in great colonies to the neighborhood of their early home.

=Ancient Greek= is the most musical language of the Indo-European
group. Sanscrit indeed excels it in regularity, but offends the ear
with its sameness, the constant recurrence of a sounds wearying the
European reader. No such monotonous repetition mars the harmony of
Greek, which, on the other hand, presents a pleasing variety in its
vowel sounds, its numerous diphthongs, and consonant combinations.
Nor is this variety to be wondered at, for tribes differing in their
habits and intellectual traits, mingling on the shores of the Ægean,
contributed different elements to the common language. Above all, the
Greeks were gifted with a delicate ear, which led them, in the oral
transmission of their earliest poetry, to soften all harshness in their
tongue and make it melody itself.

In common with Sanscrit, Greek was well adapted to the formation of
compound words by the combining of primitives; but this facility for
combination was turned to account only so far as was consistent with
clearness and taste; the unwieldy polysyllabic compounds of Sanscrit
were wanting. The Greek rivals its Indian sister in luxuriance of
inflection also, having five cases, three numbers, and three voices
for the verb. Accents were used in later days to denote the peculiar
key or tone of voice; for the Greeks appreciated the subtle difference
between _tone_ (accent) and _quantity_ in pronunciation, a distinction
unrecognized in modern languages.

Greek is universally admired for its dignity, versatility, and
precision; its blending of strength and elegance, unity and variety.
It is suited to all departments of composition; to the effective
expression of the various emotions; to stately prose or simple verse.
Its perfection at so early a period, particularly in view of the social
condition of the people who spoke it, is a phenomenon which we vainly
seek to explain.

=The Greek Alphabet.=—The Phœnician letters were adopted by the Greeks,
legend ascribing their introduction to Cadmus, the storied founder of
Thebes (1500 B.C.). Some changes were made in these; new characters
were added by the Ionians; and about 400 B.C. the resulting alphabet,
consisting of twenty-four letters, was officially adopted at Athens.
The resemblance between the Greek and the Phœnician alphabet is
obvious; see Table, p. 87.

That there was Pelasgian picture-writing in Greece before the Phœnician
alphabet reached that country, is by no means improbable.

=The Beginnings of Greek Poetry= are found in the sacred ode, the
metrical response of the oracle, the festal song, and the ballad
immortalizing the deeds of heroes during the mythical ages. The art of
poetry was coeval with the first settlement of the peninsula; but its
higher development followed the transfusion of Hellenic genius into the
older Pelasgian race.

The earliest forms of poetry were hymns to the deities. The religion
of the Greeks was a worship of Nature. Imagination peopled every nook
of their picturesque land with supernatural beings; and each was
propitiated with song, from the wood-nymph supposed to reside in the
spreading oak to the sun-god Apollo, who, with the Nine Muses, the
goddesses of poetry, abode on snow-crowned Parnassus.

To Mother Earth (Deme’ter) were poured forth strains of glowing
gratitude for her bounty; the Mother of the Gods (Cyb’ele) was
worshipped with wilder verse, accompanied with the sound of cymbals
and riotous dances; the god of wine (Diony’sus or Bacchus) was hymned
with lively lays in praise of revelry; and so the burden of sacred
song varied with the character of the divinity. When spring clothed
the earth with beauty, the hymns were joyous; in autumn they breathed
a spirit of sadness, and at the grape-harvest was sung a plaintive
ditty, the Li’nus, as a coranach for the death of Nature. The perishing
of vegetation before the blighting breath of approaching winter was
symbolized by the fate of the beauteous youth Linus torn and devoured
by furious dogs. Of similar allegorical significance were many of the
hymns.

The delights and sorrows of domestic life also found utterance in
verse; when the bride was escorted to her new home the nuptial song was
sung, and for the dead the funeral dirge was chanted. At first this
was no doubt done with solemn pomp, as a religious ceremony; but the
tendency in Greece was to popularize song, and both dirge and bridal
hymn in time lost their mere ritual complexion, and became changed in
the mouths of the people into free outpourings of emotion.

The bard now aimed at entertaining his listeners; he filled an
important place at banquets and festivals, where, in short poems, he
chanted to the accompaniment of flute or lyre the adventures of heroes,
or so transformed old traditions that he was looked upon as their
maker (_poie’tes_, _poet_). All Greece honored him, regardless of his
nationality. Whether Æolian, Dorian, or Ionian, he contributed equally
to Hellenic fame, and was entitled to the sympathy and support of all
Hellenes. Indeed, he was invested with a sacred character, for he was
regarded as divinely inspired.

Thus was laid the foundation of Greek letters. From such rude
beginnings, the Greek imagination, by strides unparalleled in history,
mounted to the grandest heights ever attained in poetry. Moreover,
to original Greek genius we owe the different varieties of literary
composition,—epic, lyric, and dramatic poetry, history, criticism, and
oratory. Without the Grecian models, nowhere has marked superiority
been attained; the originals themselves have never been surpassed.

Tradition has given us the names of many poets belonging to the
fabulous age. (On the gods and men of the Heroic Period, _read
Gladstone’s “Juventus Mundi.”_)

LEGENDARY POETS OF GREECE.

ORPHEUS, the Thracian minstrel, inventor of religious poetry.

THAM’YRIS, deprived of his sight and poetical talent for challenging
the Muses to a trial of skill on the lyre.

EUMOLPUS, a Thracian priest; reputed founder of the Eleusinian
Mysteries.

O’LEN, earliest prophet of Apollo.

CHRYSOTH’EMIS, the Cretan.

MUSÆUS (_inspired by the Muses_), a son or disciple of Orpheus.

AMPHI’ON, taught of the god Mercury; raised stones into the walls of
Thebes by the strains of his lyre.

PHILAMMON, son of Apollo, and inventor of choral music.

PAMPHOS, author of the first Linus.

OLYMPUS, introducer of the flute.

PHEMON’OE, first priestess at the Delphic shrine, inventor of
hexameters.

CHAPTER II.

_AGE OF EPIC POETRY._

HOMER AND HIS WORKS.

=Homer.=—The oldest literary productions of Greece extant are the
poems of Homer, the most ancient monuments of Aryan poetry west of the
Persian Gulf. About 1000 B.C., among the legion of ballad-writers,
the reciters of battle-songs, myths, and traditions (known as
Rhapsodists—_ode-stitchers_), there arose an Ionian poet who soon
towered head and shoulders above them all—a giant among the giants of
literature—HOMER, of unique genius and world-wide fame.

As to Homer’s life, we must ever remain in the dark. For the honor
of giving him birth, seven cities of antiquity disputed,[21] Smyrna
seeming to have the best claim. If we may believe tradition, he gave
early evidence of his divine powers. Chance took him on a sea-voyage,
during which he visited many countries, among them Ithaca, the home
of Ulysses, one of his heroes. On the island of Chi’os, his favorite
resort, he is thought to have written his epics the Il’iad and
Od’yssey, the first in early manhood, the second in old age.

Legend relates that Homer, twice warned by an oracle to _beware of the
young men’s riddle_, went ashore one day on I’os, an island of the
Cyc’lades, and there, noticing some boys who had been fishing, asked
them, “What luck?” “What we caught we left, what we could not catch we
carried with us,” was the reply. Unable to guess the riddle, the old
poet died of vexation. According to another account, disease carried
him off. He was buried on the sea-shore at Ios, where in after years
this epitaph marked his tomb:—

“Here Homer the Divine, in earthy bed,
Poet of heroes, rests his sacred head.”

=Homer’s Style.=—Homer’s Iliad was the first Greek poem in which
were combined ingenuity of plot, unity of subject, and a faithful
delineation of character throughout. He deals with heroes, but they
are men of like passions with ourselves. The Odyssey, if less sublime,
in its pathos and fine touches of nature shows the same rich gifts of
genius as the older poem of loftier flight. Both works are written in
hexameter verse, the true metre of the ancient epic.

The distinguishing features of Homer’s style are clearness, a vigor
which makes us feel we are in the presence of a master, and a childlike
simplicity that well accords with his sublime themes. His fidelity
to nature is matched only by Shakespeare’s; and imagery, profuse as
it is rich, life-like, and appropriate, lights up every page. Simile
is Homer’s own figure; and transporting pictures flash ever and anon
across the scene, called up by his magic wand. For example:—

“As when, high-fed with grain, a stall-bound steed
Snaps his strong cord, and flies, from bondage freed,
Strikes with resounding hoof the earth, and flies
Where the wide champaign spread before him lies,
Seeks the remembered haunts, on fire to lave
His glowing limbs, and dash amid the wave,
High rears his crest, and tossing with disdain
Wide o’er his shoulders spreads his stream of mane,
And fierce in beauty, graceful in his speed,
Snuffs his known fellows in the distant mead:
Thus Hector—”

“As a young olive, in some sylvan scene,
Crowned by fresh fountains with eternal green,
Lifts its gay head in snowy flowerets fair,
And plays and dances to the gentle air;
When lo! by blasts uprooted, whirled around,
Low lies the plant, extended on the ground:
Thus in his beauty young Euphorbus lay.”

Homer astonishes us with his universal knowledge. He names every part
of a vessel technically with all the accuracy of a veteran seaman; he
is as conversant with the details of a sacrifice as the officiating
priest; he describes a conflict between two warriors with the precision
of a master of fence; he sketches the forms and usages of palaces as
if born and bred in kings’ courts, and is equally familiar with the
manners of the meanest hind. Everywhere he is at home.

Other poets[22] may be stars in the firmament, but Homer, as Longi’nus
says, is the sun in the zenith. His poetry is all nature, life, action,
fire. It breathes an atmosphere of pure morality, and furnishes ideal
characters long held up as models to the Grecian youth, who learned
his verses by heart and in some cases could even repeat his entire
poems. Human genius has left on earth at intervals of centuries a few
imperishable monuments; none nobler among these than the marvellous
Greek epics.

=Plan of the Iliad.=—The Iliad, a poem of twenty-four books, is a
tale of the siege of Troy (Il’ium), a city on the coast of Asia Minor
(probable date of the siege, 1194-1184 B.C.). The cause of the war was
the perfidious conduct of Paris, son of Priam, the Trojan monarch.
Hospitably entertained at the court of Menela’us, king of Sparta, he
eloped with Helen, the wife of his host, the most beautiful of women,
and carried her off to Asia with the treasures of her husband. To
avenge this outrage, Menelaus, supported by Nestor the sage of Py’los,
called upon the Greek princes, collected an armament of a thousand
ships, the command of which was conferred upon his brother Agamemnon,
and set sail for Troy. A war of ten years followed, which ended in
the capture of the city by stratagem, the slaughter of Priam and his
family, and the enslavement of many of the Trojans.

The special subject of the Iliad is the wrath of the Thessalian
Achilles (_a-kil’leez_), the leading warrior of the Grecian host,
and the time of the action is near the close of the war. Agamemnon,
compelled to restore to her father, a priest of Apollo, the captive
maid Chryse’is who had fallen to his share, seizes upon Brise’is, a
virgin allotted to Achilles. A quarrel results, and Achilles withdraws
from the camp.

Emboldened by his absence, the Trojans redouble their efforts.
Misfortunes to the Greek cause follow; and though many heroes second
only to Achilles—the stalwart Ajax, the cunning Ulysses, king of
Ithaca, Menelaus, and Diomede—exert themselves to turn the tide of
battle, the Greek host is made keenly to feel the loss of its puissant
champion. Jupiter, king of heaven, sides with the Trojans; and Hector
“of the dancing helm-crest” drives the besiegers to their ships.

At length Achilles, still unwilling to join in the fray himself,
allows Patro’clus, his bosom-friend, to lead his Myrmidons to the
rescue. Arrayed in the armor of the Thessalian chief, Patroclus puts
to flight the deceived Trojans; but, pursuing them too far, receives
a death-wound from the hand of Hector. The news of his friend’s fall
fills Achilles with thirst for revenge. A reconciliation is effected
with Agamemnon; Achilles returns to the field; the enemy are thrown
into confusion; and Hector, pierced by his spear, is dragged in triumph
at Achilles’ chariot-wheels. The wrath of the Greek hero is finally
appeased by the sacrifice of twelve Trojan captives at the funeral of
Patroclus.

To redeem the body of his son, old Priam, alone and unarmed, enters the
Grecian camp, is well received by Achilles, who melts into pity at the
sight of the grief-stricken suppliant, accomplishes his purpose, and
returns to Troy with Hector’s corpse. This meeting between Achilles and
Priam is counted among the finest scenes.—The Iliad closes with the
obsequies of Hector. (_See Gladstone’s “Homer and the Homeric Age.”_)

Achilles, the central figure of the poem, over whose grave Alexander
wept jealous tears, was the impersonation of youthful beauty and
physical prowess. Brave, generous, passionate, devoted in his
friendship but awful in his implacable anger, in him we are brought
face to face with the ideal of Greek chivalry. Hector, the magnanimous
Trojan hero, was the type of moral courage and domestic virtue. He
appears as the affectionate husband, the loving father, kind even to
fallen Helen. Homer has painted with exquisite touch a parting scene
between Hector and his consort Androm’ache, possessed of every wifely
virtue. This passage, herewith presented, is pronounced the most
beautiful in the Iliad.

PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.

“Hector left in haste
The mansion, and retraced his way between
The rows of stately dwellings, traversing
The mighty city. When at length he reached
The Scæan gates, that issue on the field,
His spouse, the nobly dowered Andromache,
Came forth to meet him—daughter of the prince
Eëtion, who, among the woody slopes
Of Placos, in the Hypoplacian town
Of Thebè,[23] ruled Cilicia and her sons,
And gave his child to Hector great in arms.
She came attended by a maid, who bore
A tender child—a babe too young to speak—
Upon her bosom; Hector’s only son,
Beautiful as a star, whom Hector called
Scamandrius, but all else Astyanax,—
The city’s lord,—since Hector stood the sole
Defence of Troy. The father on his child
Looked with a silent smile. Andromache
Pressed to his side meanwhile, and all in tears
Clung to his hand, and, thus beginning, said:—

‘Too brave! thy valor yet will cause thy death.
Thou hast no pity on thy tender child,
Nor me, unhappy one, who soon must be
Thy widow. All the Greeks will rush on thee
To take thy life. A happier lot were mine,
If I must lose thee, to go down to earth,
For I shall have no hope when thou art gone,—
Nothing but sorrow. Father have I none,
And no dear mother. Great Achilles slew
My father, when he sacked the populous town
Of the Cilicians,—Thebè with high gates.
‘Twas there he smote Eëtion, yet forbore
To make his arms a spoil; he dared not that,
But burned the dead with his bright armor on,
And raised a mound above him. Mountain nymphs,
Daughters of ægis-bearing[24] Jupiter,
Came to the spot and planted it with elms.
Seven brothers had I in my father’s house,
And all went down to Hades in one day;
Achilles the swift-footed slew them all
Among their slow-paced bullocks and white sheep.
My mother, princess on the woody slopes
Of Placos, with his spoils he bore away,
And only for large ransom gave her back.
But her Diana, archer-queen, struck down
Within her father’s palace. Hector, thou
Art father and dear mother now to me,
And brother and my youthful spouse besides.
In pity keep within the fortress here,
Nor make thy child an orphan nor thy wife
A widow.’

Then answered Hector, great in war: ‘All this
I bear in mind, dear wife; but I should stand
Ashamed before the men and long-robed dames
Of Troy, were I to keep aloof and shun
The conflict, coward-like. Not thus my heart
Prompts me, for greatly have I learned to dare
And strike among the foremost sons of Troy,
Upholding my great father’s fame and mine;
Yet well in my undoubting mind I know
The day shall come in which our sacred Troy,
And Priam, and the people over whom
Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all.
But not the sorrows of the Trojan race,
Nor those of Hecuba[25] herself, nor those
Of royal Priam, nor the woes that wait
My brothers many and brave,—who all at last,
Slain by the pitiless foe, shall lie in dust,—
Grieve me so much as thine, when some mailed Greek
Shall lead thee weeping hence, and take from thee
Thy day of freedom. Thou in Argos then
Shalt, at another’s bidding, ply the loom,
And from the fountain of Messeis draw
Water, or from the Hypereian spring,
Constrained, unwilling try thy cruel lot.
And then shall some one say who sees thee weep,
“This was the wife of Hector, most renowned
Of the horse-taming Trojans, when they fought
Around their city.” So shall some one say,
And thou shalt grieve the more, lamenting him
Who haply might, have kept afar the day
Of thy captivity. Oh! let the earth
Be heaped above my head in death, before
I hear thy cries as thou art borne away!’

So speaking, mighty Hector stretched his arms
To take the boy; the boy shrank crying back
To his fair nurse’s bosom, scared to see
His father helmeted in glittering brass,
And eying with affright the horse-hair plume
That grimly nodded from the lofty crest.
At this both parents in their fondness laughed,
And hastily the mighty Hector took
The helmet from his brow, and laid it down
Gleaming upon the ground; and, having kissed
His darling son and tossed him up in play,
Prayed thus to Jove, and all the gods of heaven:—
‘O Jupiter and all ye deities,
Vouchsafe that this my son may yet become
Among the Trojans eminent like me,
And nobly rule in Ilium. May they say,
“This man is greater than his father was!”
When they behold him from the battle-field
Bring back the bloody spoil of the slain foe,—
That so his mother may be glad at heart.’

So speaking, to the arms of his dear spouse
He gave the boy; she on her fragrant breast
Received him, weeping as she smiled. The chief
Beheld, and, moved with tender pity, smoothed
Her forehead gently with his hand and said:—
‘Sorrow not thus, beloved one, for me.
No living man can send me to the shades
Before my time; no man of woman born,
Coward or brave, can shun his destiny.
But go thou home, and tend thy labors there,—
The web, the distaff,—and command thy maids
To speed the work. The cares of war pertain
To all men born in Troy, and most to me.’

Thus speaking, mighty Hector took again
His helmet, shadowed with the horse-hair plume,
While homeward his beloved consort went,
Oft looking back and shedding many tears.
Soon was she in the spacious palace-halls
Of the man-queller Hector. There she found
A troop of maidens,—with them all she shared
Her grief; and all in his own house bewailed
The living Hector whom they thought no more
To see returning from the battle-field,
Safe from the rage and weapons of the Greeks.”
BRYANT.

The ancients implicitly believed the story of the Iliad, but modern
scepticism has doubted its truth and questioned the authenticity of the
poem itself. The German critic Wolf and others have even gone so far as
to deny that any such person as Homer ever existed, contending that the
name means simply a _fitter together or compiler_, and that the great
epic is a mosaic of romantic legends by different rhapsodists, for
years kept from perishing merely by oral repetition.

Such, however, is the continuity of the narrative, the identity of
style, the consistency in carrying out the several characters, that
this theory, ingeniously as it has been urged, lacks credibility.
We see no reason to doubt that, despite a few minor discrepancies,
one great intellect gave birth in the main to both these epics; that
whatever foundations for them may have been laid in previous ballads,
the glorious superstructures were reared by one master-builder. It is
easier to believe that there was one transcendent genius, than that
there were half a dozen of uniform poetic power, competent to have had
a hand in works so glorious—works displaying perfect unity of design,
and taste so faultless that from them, as standards, have been deduced
the very principles of criticism and laws of epic poetry.

Besides the internal evidence of its authenticity, the historical facts
woven into the Iliad have received unexpected confirmation in the
discoveries of Doctor Schliemann, a German explorer who claims to have
unearthed the Ilium of Homer, and to have found among its ruins gold
and amber ornaments once worn by King Priam.

=Plan of the Odyssey.=—In the Odyssey, divided like the Iliad
into twenty-four books, Homer has immortalized the story of the
return-voyage of Ulysses (_Odysseus_ in Greek) from Troy to Ithaca.
After a series of remarkable adventures and hair-breadth escapes,
the hero is cast on the lovely island of the sea-nymph Calypso, who,
becoming enamored of him, detains him for seven years. During this
time, a number of insolent suitors force themselves upon Ulysses’
faithful wife Penelope, take up their residence at her court, and there
lead a riotous life, hoping that the queen will bestow her hand on one
of them and thus make him lord of Ithaca. They even plan the murder of
her son Telem’achus.

Admonished by Jupiter, Calypso reluctantly allows Ulysses to depart,
and he finally reaches Ithaca in safety. Disguised as a beggar, he
enters his palace after an absence of twenty years, to endure the
insults of the suitors, but to concert with his son for their overthrow.

On the following day, a great festival is held, and Penelope agrees to
give her hand to him who shall send an arrow from Ulysses’ bow through
a row of twelve rings. The suitors try in turn without success; but
the beggar, obtaining possession of the bow, draws the shaft to its
head and accomplishes the feat. Then turning on the trembling suitors,
he showers his arrows among them, and none escape. The true-hearted
Penelope is restored to him whom she had wept as lost, and husband and
wife sit down together to talk over the sorrows of the past.

“She told him of the scorn and wrong
She long had suffered in her house,
From the detested suitor throng,
Each wooing her to be his spouse;
How, for their feasts, her sheep and kine
Were slaughtered, while they quaffed her wine
In plentiful carouse.

And he, the noble wanderer, spoke
Of many a deed of peril sore,
Of men who fell beneath his stroke,
Of all the sorrowing tasks he bore.
She listened with delighted ear;
Sleep never came her eyelids near,
Till all the tale was o’er.”

Ulysses next discovers himself to his father; and they two, with their
friends, succeed in putting down the adherents of the suitors and
restoring peace to the kingdom.

Among the most beautiful passages of the Odyssey is that in which
the poet introduces us to the happy household of Alcinoüs, king of
an island on which Ulysses was thrown. Charming is the simple sketch
he gives of the unaffected princess of this isle, just before her
marriage, driving her maidens to the river in her father’s chariot, to
wash the robes of state, lunch, and disport upon the bank while the
clothes are drying. The royal mother superintends the weaving, the
royal daughter the washing. We quote Homer’s description of the

PALACE AND GARDEN OF ALCINOÜS.

“Ulysses, then, toward the palace moved
Of King Alcinoüs, but immersed in thought
Stood first and paused, ere with his foot he pressed
The brazen threshold; for a light he saw,
As of the sun or moon, illuming clear
The palace of Phæacia’s mighty king.
Walls plated bright with brass on either side
Stretched from the portal to the interior house,
With azure cornice crowned; the doors were gold,
Which shut the palace fast; silver the posts
Reared on a brazen threshold, and above,
The lintels, silver architraved with gold.
Mastiffs, in gold and silver, lined the approach
On either side, by art celestial framed
Of Vulcan, guardians of Alcinoüs’ gate
Forever, unobnoxious to decay.
Sheer from the threshold to the inner house
Fixed thrones the walls, through all their length, adorned,
With mantles overspread of subtlest warp
Transparent, work of many a female hand.
On these the princes of Phæacia sat,
Holding perpetual feasts, while golden youths
On all the sumptuous altars stood, their hands
With burning torches charged, which, night by night,
Shed radiance over all the festive throng.
Full fifty female menials served the king
In household offices; the rapid mills
These turning, pulverize the mellowed grain;
Those, seated orderly, the purple fleece
Wind off, or ply the loom, restless as leaves
Of lofty poplars fluttering in the breeze;
Bright as with oil the new-wrought texture shone.

Without the court, and to the gates adjoined,
A spacious garden lay, fenced all around
Secure, four acres measuring complete.
There grew luxuriant many a lofty tree,
Pomegranate, pear, the apple blushing bright,
The honeyed fig, and unctuous olive smooth.
Those fruits nor winter’s cold nor summer’s heat
Fear ever, fail not, wither not, but hang
Perennial, whose unceasing zephyr breathes
Gently on all, enlarging these, and those
Maturing genial; in an endless course
Pears after pears to full dimensions swell,
Figs follow figs, grapes clustering grow again
Where clusters grew, and (every apple stripped)
The boughs soon tempt the gatherer as before.
There too, well-rooted, and of fruit profuse,
His vineyard grows; part, wide-extended, basks
In the sun’s beams; the arid level glows;
In part they gather, and in part they tread
The wine-press, while, before the eye, the grapes
Here put their blossom forth, there gather fast
Their blackness. On the garden’s verge extreme
Flowers of all hues smile all the year, arranged
With neatest art judicious, and amid
The lovely scene two fountains welling forth,
One visits, into every part diffused,
The garden ground, the other soft beneath
The threshold steals into the palace court,
Whence every citizen his vase supplies.
Such were the ample blessings on the house
Of King Alcinoüs by the gods bestowed.”—COWPER.

=Minor Poems of Homer.=—The Iliad and the Odyssey are the only
authentic productions of Homer. To their author, however, have been
attributed about thirty hymns and several minor poems, which have
little claim to so distinguished an origin. Of these, “the Margites,”
a satire on a blockhead who knew much “but everything knew ill,” was
probably the work of some clever Athenian in an age when epic poetry
was a thing of the past; the poem is no longer extant.

“The Battle of the Frogs and Mice,” a mock heroic of comparatively
modern birth, is still preserved and appreciated. It is a witty
burlesque on the Iliad (perhaps the earliest burlesque extant),
written in a bold and flowing style. The plot is brief. A mouse,
Crumb-snatcher, son of the Mice-king, flying from an enemy, reaches
a pool over which a courteous frog, Puff-cheek, undertakes to carry
him. But during the passage a water-snake appears; the frightened frog
dives to escape his foe, and thoughtlessly leaves his newly-made friend
to drown. The mice gather to avenge the loss of their prince; a great
battle ensues, and but for the interference of Jupiter the frogs would
have been annihilated.

The so-called HOMERIC HYMNS, which the ancients believed to be the
work of Homer, if somewhat inferior in age to the Iliad and Odyssey,
are undoubtedly older than the pieces named above. Those addressed
to Apollo, Mercury, Venus, and Ceres, the finest in the collection,
are regular poems of some length; the others are simple eulogies or
brief preludes to longer pieces. The Hymn to Venus has a tenderness
and warmth not unworthy of Homer. The one in honor of Ceres relates
the abduction of her daughter Pros’erpine by Pluto, king of the
lower world, the mother’s search for the stolen maiden, her anger on
discovering the ravisher, and the final arrangement that the goddess
shall enjoy the society of her daughter during two-thirds of the year.
As a favorable specimen of its style, we cite the lines that follow:—

THE ABDUCTION OF PROSERPINE.

“In Nysia’s vale, with nymphs a lovely train,
Sprung from the hoary father of the main,
Fair Proserpine consumed the fleeting hours
In pleasing sports, and plucked the gaudy flowers.
Around them wide the flamy crocus glows,
Through leaves of verdure blooms the opening rose;
The hyacinth declines his fragrant head,
And purple violets deck th’ enamelled mead.
The fair Narcissus far above the rest,
By magic formed, in beauty rose confessed.
So Jove, t’ ensnare the virgin’s thoughtless mind,
And please the ruler of the shades, designed.
He caused it from the opening earth to rise,
Sweet to the scent, alluring to the eyes.
Never did mortal or celestial power
Behold such vivid tints adorn a flower.
From the deep root a hundred branches sprung,
And to the winds ambrosial odors flung;
Which, lightly wafted on the wings of air,
The gladdened earth and heaven’s wide circuit share.
The joy-dispensing fragrance spreads around,
And ocean’s briny swell with smiles is crowned.

Pleased at the sight, nor deeming danger nigh,
The fair beheld it with desiring eye:
Her eager hand she stretched to seize the flower,
(Beauteous illusion of the ethereal power!)
When, dreadful to behold, the rocking ground
Disparted—widely yawned a gulf profound!
Forth rushing from the black abyss, arose
The gloomy monarch of the realm of woes,
Pluto, from Saturn sprung. The trembling maid
He seized, and to his golden car conveyed.
Borne by immortal steeds the chariot flies:
And thus she pours her supplicating cries:—
‘Assist, protect me, thou who reign’st above,
Supreme and best of gods, paternal Jove!’
But ah! in vain the hapless virgin rears
Her wild complaint: nor god nor mortal hears!
Not to the white-armed nymphs with beauty crowned,
Her loved companions, reached the mournful sound.”
HOLE.

There are also various fragments styled Homeric, supposed to have been
dropped from the poet’s genuine or spurious works. Among these is the
beautiful couplet quoted by Plato:—

“Asked and unasked, thy blessings give, O Lord!
The evil, though we ask it, from us ward.”

=Cyclic Poets.=—After the death of Homer, a host of imitators sprung up
in Greece and Asia Minor. Rhapsodists by profession, as they wandered
among the Grecian cities reciting the Homeric poems, their attention
was naturally directed to epic composition, and they sought to supply
in verse like Homer’s what the Iliad and Odyssey had left untold.
Confining themselves to the Cycle (_circle_) of the Trojan War, they
were called _Cyc’lic_ poets.

One bard sung of the preparations made by the Grecian chiefs and the
events of the war prior to Achilles’ withdrawal; two others took up
the narrative where the Iliad left it, and described the sack of Troy;
a fourth celebrated the return voyages of the Greek heroes; a fifth
supplemented the Odyssey with the later history of Ulysses. Fragments
only of these Cyclic epics survive.

HESIOD AND HIS WORKS.

=Hesiod.=—Homer was an Ionian of Asia Minor. Shortly after his time,
or, as some think, contemporaneously with him, a new school of epic
poetry appeared in the mother-country. Its founder was Hesiod, who,
like Homer, wrote in the Ionic dialect.

Hesiod was born at Ascra in Bœotia, and brought up in the midst of
rural life at the base of Mount Helicon. Here first he held free
converse with the Muses. On his father’s death, he was defrauded of
his portion of the estate by his younger brother Perses, who bribed
the judges charged with making the division. Hesiod felt the wrong
keenly, yet seems to have regarded his unnatural brother with fraternal
interest; for one object of his poem entitled “Works and Days,” was to
reclaim Perses from dissolute improvidence and incite him to a life of
industry.

The first portion of this work is devoted to moral lessons; some in
a proverbial form, and others illustrated by narratives and fables.
The latter part contains practical directions for the husbandman,
and also treats of the art of navigation, important to the Bœotian
farmer because much of his produce was shipped to other countries. The
whole abounds in excellent precepts for every-day life, and forms the
earliest specimen of didactic poetry among the Greeks. For ages its
lines were committed to memory and recited as part of the course of
ethics in their schools.

FROM HESIOD’S WORKS AND DAYS.

RIGHT AND WRONG.

“Wrong, if he yield to its abhorred control,
Shall pierce like iron to the poor man’s soul:
Wrong weighs the rich man’s conscience to the dust,
When his foot stumbles on the way unjust.
Far different, is the path, a path of light,
That guides the feet to equitable right:
The end of righteousness, enduring long,
Exceeds the short prosperity of wrong.
The fool by suffering his experience buys;
The penalty of folly makes him wise.
But they who never from the right have strayed,
Who as the citizen the stranger aid,
They and their cities flourish: genial Peace
Dwells in their borders; and their youth increase:
Nor Jove, whose radiant eyes behold afar,
Hangs forth in heaven the signs of grievous war.
Nor scathe nor famine on the righteous prey;
Feasts, strewn by earth, employ their easy day:
Rich are their mountain oaks; the topmost trees
With clustering acorns full, the trunks with hiving bees.
Still flourish they, nor tempt with ships the main;
The fruits of earth are poured from every plain.
But o’er the wicked race, to whom belong
The thought of evil, and the deed of wrong,
Saturnian Jove, of wide beholding eyes,
Bids the dark signs of retribution rise.
The god sends down his angry plagues from high,
Famine and pestilence: in heaps they die.
Again, in vengeance of his wrath he falls
On their great hosts, and breaks their tottering walls;
Arrests their navies on the ocean’s plain,
And whelms their strength with mountains of the main.”
ELTON.

SOME OF HESIOD’S PROVERBS.

‘Than wife that’s good man finds no greater gain,
But feast-frequenting mates are simply bane.

Invisible, the gods are ever nigh.
Senseless is he who dares with power contend.

Know then this awful truth: it is not given
To elude the wisdom of omniscient Heaven.

Toil, and the slothful man shall envy thee.
The more children, the more cares.
Sometimes a day is a step-mother, sometimes a mother.

Whoever forgeth for another ill,
With it himself is overtaken still.

The procrastinator has ever to contend with loss.
The idler never shall his garners fill.
The lips of moderate speech with grace are hung.

When on your home falls unforeseen distress,
Half-clothed come neighbors; kinsmen stay to dress.

Justice is a virgin pure.
The road to vice is broad and easy; that of virtue, difficult, long,
and steep

Fools! not to know how better for the soul,
An honest half than an ill-gotten whole.

Oh! gorged with gold, ye kingly judges hear!
Make straight your paths; your crooked judgments fear.

How richer he who dines on herbs with health
Of heart, than knaves with all their wines and wealth.

He who nor knows himself, nor will take rule
From those who do, is either knave or fool.”

Next in importance to the “Works and Days” is “the Theogony,” devoted
to the genealogy and history of the Grecian gods, thirty thousand in
number. Whatever interest this poem may have possessed for the believer
in the Greek mythology, to the reader of the present day it is for the
most part tedious, though relieved by occasional grand descriptions of
battles between the celestial personages. “The Shield of Hercules” also
bears the name of Hesiod; and of works ascribed to him, but not now
extant, there are about a dozen.

Hesiod mentions a poetical contest between himself and another, which
took place at the funeral of Amphid’amas, king of Eubœa, and in which
he obtained a tripod as a prize. Tradition mentions Homer as his
competitor on that occasion, and even gives the inscription placed on
the tripod by the victor:—

“This Hesiod vows to th’ Heliconian Nine,
In Chalcis won, from Homer the divine.”

But this part of the story rests on insufficient evidence.

Hesiod is said to have been slain, during a visit to the Locrian town
of Œnoë, by two brothers, in revenge for an insult offered to their
sister by Hesiod’s companion, which caused her to destroy herself. The
poet’s body, thrown into the sea, was brought to shore by his dog,
or as some say by dolphins. Thereupon the indignant people put the
murderers to death and razed their dwellings to the ground—an incident
which shows the sacredness attached to the vocation of the bard in
those early times.

Though Hesiod ranks far below Homer, and indeed is often commonplace,
yet at times his style exhibits enthusiasm and even rises to sublimity.
We must respect him for the pure morality of his teachings.

POETS OF THE EPIC CYCLE.

ARCTI’NUS OF MILE’TUS.

His poem of 9,100 verses had Memnon, an Ethiopian chief, for its
hero. It treated of the part taken in the Trojan War by the Amazons,
who arrived after Hector’s funeral; the death of their queen,
Penthesile’a, at the hand of Achilles; the fall of Achilles himself;
and the sack of Troy.

LES’CHES OF MYTILE’NE.

Author of the _Little Iliad_, a supplement to the greater work of that
name; it took up the narrative where Homer leaves off, and carried it
to the fall of Troy.

STASI’NUS OF CYPRUS.

Wrote the _Cypria_, in eleven books, narrating the events that
preceded the Trojan War, and the incidents of the first nine years of
the siege.

A’GIAS THE TRŒZENIAN.

His epic in five books, called _Nostoi_ (the Returns), was descriptive
of the home-voyages of the Greek heroes.

EU’GAMON OF CYRE’NE.

The _Telegonia_, a continuation of the Odyssey to the death of
Ulysses, who falls by the hand of Teleg’onus, his son by Cir’ce.

NOTES ON GREEK WRITING, ETC.

The language of epic poetry perhaps once the common tongue of the
people, and merely elaborated by the bards. The art of writing, old in
Greece; while there is no positive evidence of its being known before
800 B.C., the historian Herodotus (450 B.C.) speaks as if it had been
familiar to his countrymen for hundreds of years. Homer’s epics,
though by some thought to have been handed down by oral repetition,
probably written on metallic or wooden tablets by their author.
Hesiod’s works originally committed to leaden tables and deposited in
the temple of the Bœotian Muses.

Greek papyrus-factories on the Nile, 650 B.C. Writing first
extensively used by priests and bards, particularly at the temple of
Delphi.

* * * * *

(The student is further recommended to read _Cox’s “Mythology of
the Aryan Nations,” vol. ii._, _Harrison’s “Myths of the Odyssey,”_
_Coleridge’s “Minor Poems of Homer,”_ _Tyler’s “Theology of the Greek
Poetry,”_ and _Mahaffy’s “History of Classical Greek Literature” vol.
i._, and “_Social Life in Greece_.”)

CHAPTER III.

_LYRIC POETRY._

=Rise of Lyric Poetry.=—For more than two hundred years after Homer
and Hesiod, no one worthy of the name of poet appeared in Greece.
Greek genius seemed to have exhausted itself. A few feeble imitators
of the great master, and epic poetry was no more. The spirit of the
Iliad and the Odyssey died with the monarchies whose chieftains they
immortalized. When popular governments arose, the bard no longer
celebrated the gods and demigods of the past, or traced the genealogies
of kings, but sung the glories of his country, or poured forth without
restraint the emotions of his soul. Thus lyric poetry was the child of
liberty.

=Varieties.=—At the beginning of the seventh century B.C., there
was a new birth of poesy; Grecian song burst forth once more, from
hearts throbbing with enthusiasm at the triumph of free institutions.
Solemn dirges and stately hymns chanted by olive-crowned youth bearing
offerings to the gods, were no longer paramount; ballads full of human
feeling, lyrics appealing directly to the people—to the patriot, the
artisan, the shepherd, the lover, the pleasure-seeker—struck chords
that vibrated in many hearts. Feasts afforded frequent occasions for
outbursts of national feeling, it being the custom of the guests to
pass a branch of myrtle from hand to hand, each as he received it
repeating an appropriate verse.

A favorite banquet-song of the fifth century B.C. was the following
eulogy of Harmo’dius and Aristogi’ton, the Athenian heroes who slew the
tyrant Hipparchus:—

“In a wreath of myrtle I’ll wear my glaive,
Like Harmodius and Aristogi’ton brave,
Who striking the tyrant down,
Made Athens a freeman’s town.
Harmodius, our darling, thou art not dead!
Thou liv’st in the isles of the blest, ’tis said,
With Achilles first in speed,
And Tydi’des Diomede.

In a wreath of myrtle I’ll wear my glaive,
Like Harmodius and Aristogiton brave,
When the twain on Athena’s day
Did the tyrant Hipparchus slay.
For aye shall your fame in the land be told,
Harmodius and Aristogiton bold,
Who, striking the tyrant down,
Made Athens a freeman’s town.”
PROF. CONINGTON.

The flower-songs of the Greeks were especially beautiful; children
enjoyed their nursery rhymes; while in the Lay of the Swallow, the
penniless bard, chanting at the gate, sought an avenue to the charity
of his rich neighbor.

FROM THE LAY OF THE SWALLOW.

“The swallow is here, the swallow is here,
She comes to proclaim the reviving year;
With her jet-black hood, and her milk-white breast,
She is come, she is come, at our behest,
The harbinger of the beautiful spring,
To claim your generous offering.
Let your bountiful door its wealth outpour,
What is little to you is to us great store;
A bunch of dry figs, and a savory cruse
Of pottage the swallow will not refuse;
With a basket of cheese and a barley cake,
And a cup of red wine our thirst to slake.”—MURE.

The creations of the lyric muse are graceful, touching, and true to
nature. We regret not to exchange the sublime heights of epic poetry
for an humbler field in which we may commune with the joys and sorrows,
the hopes and fears, of humanity. Here, as Tegner says, Greek poetry
arises “slender, smooth, erect like the palm-tree with its rich yet
symmetrical crown; and a nightingale sits among the leaves and sings.”

THE ELEGY.

The Ionians, first to free themselves from kingly rule, gave to the
Hellenic world the earliest forms of lyric poetry,—the elegiac couplet
and the lighter iambic verse appropriate to satire. These twin-born
metres, of Ionian parentage, grew up side by side in Greece. In the
elegiac couplet, a dactylic line of five feet or their equivalent
followed the sonorous hexameter,[26] constituting a livelier measure
than the old heroic verse, which consisted of hexameters alone.

The Greek elegy was not necessarily plaintive; on the contrary, it did
good service in rousing to action in time of war, and gave fitting
expression to the spirit of the banquet-hall.

=Callinus.=—The inventor of this metre was Calli’nus of Eph’esus, in
Ionia, who flourished between 730 and 678 B.C. He attempted by it to
excite his countrymen against a horde of barbarian invaders; but the
people were too much enervated by intercourse with the effeminate
nations of Asia to respond to his thrilling strains.

The following is a fragment of Callinus, perhaps the oldest war-elegy
in existence:—

“How long will ye slumber? When will ye take heart,
And fear the reproach of your neighbors at hand?
Fy! comrades, to think ye have peace for your part,
Whilst the sword and the arrow are wasting our land!
Shame! grasp the shield close! cover well the bold breast!
Aloft raise the spear as ye march on the foe!
With no thought of retreat, with no terror confessed,
Hurl your last dart in dying, or strike your last blow!
Oh! ’tis noble and glorious to fight for our all—
For our country, our children, the wife of our love!
Death comes not the sooner! no soldier shall fall
Ere his thread is spun out by the sisters above.
Once to die is man’s doom; rush, rush to the fight!
He cannot escape, though his blood were Jove’s own;
For a while let him cheat the shrill arrow by flight:
Fate will catch him at last in his chamber alone.
Unlamented he dies—unregretted? not so,
When, the tower of his country, in death falls the brave;
Thrice hallowed his name amongst all, high or low,
As with blessings alive, so with tears in the grave.”
H. N. COLERIDGE.

=Tyrtæus.=—Another proficient in this variety of elegy was Tyrtæus,
supposed to have been born in the Attic town of Aphidnæ. He led the
Spartans in the Second Messenian War (685-668 B.C.), they having,
by the direction of an oracle, sent to Athens for a general, to
secure the success which had before been denied them. The story is
that the jealous Athenians despatched to their neighbors a deformed
schoolmaster, the cripple Tyrtæus, in the belief that his services
would be of little value; but they mistook. The greatest military
genius could not have accomplished more; for Tyrtæus, by his wise
counsels and inspiriting war-songs, made his soldiers invincible.
Messenia fell, and her citizens became slaves to the Spartans. Nor,
afterward, was the poetry of Tyrtæus less efficacious in quelling civil
dissensions and establishing domestic peace. In every respect, “the
Muse of Sparta,” as he was called, proved to be to his adopted country
the blessing promised by the oracle.

Tyrtæus is said to have invented the trumpet, and introduced it as a
companion to the flute, then the chief instrument in use. Some have
interpreted the lameness of the bard as signifying his limping measure,
the second line of the elegiac couplet being, as we have seen, a foot
shorter than the first.

Of the many productions of Tyrtæus, consisting of marching-songs, as
well as warlike and political elegies, only a few fragments survive.
His poems, characterized by terseness and impassioned power, were long
popular among the Spartans, who, on a campaign, were wont to recite
them after each evening meal to kindle afresh their martial fire.

BATTLE-HYMN OF TYRTÆUS.

“Our country’s voice invites the brave
The glorious toils of war to try;
Cursed be the coward, or the slave,
Who shuns the fight, who fears to die.

Obedient to the high command,
Full fraught with patriotic fire,
Descends a small but trusty band,
And scarce restrains the impatient ire.

Behold! the hostile crowds advance;
Unyielding, we their might oppose;
With helm to helm, and lance to lance,
In awful pomp we meet our foes.

Unawed by fear, untaught to yield,
We boldly tread the ensanguined plain;
And scorn to quit the martial field,
Though drenched in blood, though heaped with slain.

For, though stern Death assail the brave,
His virtues endless life shall claim;
His fame shall mock the invidious grave,
To times unborn a sacred name.”—LOWTH.

THE SATIRE.

=Archilochus= of Pa’ros (728-660 B.C.) was the first great satirist,
the inventor of that rapid, loosely-constructed iambic measure so
admirably adapted to his withering lampoons. The son of a slave-woman,
Archil’ochus was treated with indignity in his native island; so
bidding adieu to “the figs and fishy life” of Paros in early youth,
he sailed with a colony to Tha’sos in the northern Ægean. His new
home, however, disappointed his expectations; its gold-mines yielded
not the fortune he had dreamed of, and he denounced it as “the sink
of all Hellenic ills.” The colonists becoming engaged in war with a
neighboring people, a pitched battle proved too severe an ordeal for
the poet’s courage, and dropping his shield he fled.

Perhaps it was for this cowardly action, perhaps on account of his
empty purse, that when he returned to Paros, one of its fair daughters,
who had been his boyhood’s love, refused him her hand. Her father,
also, denied his suit; whereupon the furious poet poured forth in
stinging verses such a torrent of violent invective upon the girl and
her whole family, that she, her father, and her sisters, are said to
have taken refuge from his scurrilous attacks in suicide.

The public odium thus excited drove Archilochus from Paros. But the
brand of cowardice was upon him. The Spartans, whose mothers, pointing
to the battle-field, were wont to say “Return with your shields or upon
them,” disdained the man who could write,

“That shield some Saian decks, which, ’gainst my grain,
I left—fair, flawless shield—beside the wood.
Well, let it go! I and my purse remain:
To-morrow’s bull-skin may be just as good.”

Insult met him at every step, till a poetical victory at the Olympic
Games restored him to popular favor. He went back to Paros, an old
man, to redeem his reputation as a soldier by dying in battle with the
Naxians. Then all Greece awoke to the greatness of his genius; and the
prediction of an oracle before his birth, that he would be “immortal
among men in the glory of his song,” was fulfilled.

Fertility of invention, and an intimate acquaintance with human nature,
were conspicuous in the poetry of Archilochus. Elegies and love-songs
flowed from his pen, and his philosophical poetry gained for him from
Plato the epithet of “Wisest;” but it was in satire that classical
writers conceded to him the highest rank. Archilochus likens himself
to a hedgehog bristling with quills, whose “one great resource is
worth all the devices of more powerful animals.” From his birthplace,
ill-natured satire has been called _Parian verse_.

So little remains of the writings of this author that we can hardly
decide whether his countrymen judged aright in reckoning him second
only to Homer. The two represented distinct departments of poetry; each
in his own, it was claimed, fell little short of perfection. Where
Homer praised, Archilochus reviled. Their birthdays were celebrated in
one grand festival, and a single double-faced statue perpetuated the
memory of the Epic Poet and the Parian Satirist.

ARCHILOCHUS TO HIS SOUL.

“My soul, my soul, by cares past all relief
Distracted sore, bear up! with manly breast
And dauntless mien, each fresh assault of grief
Encountering. By hostile weapons pressed,
Stand firm. Let no unlooked-for triumph move
To empty exultation, no defeat
Cast down. But still let moderation prove
Of life’s uncertain cup the bitter and the sweet.”
MURE.

Greek satire had other representatives, whose names will be found at
the end of this chapter; but their genius was of a lower grade.

ÆOLIC AND DORIC SCHOOLS.

Lyric poetry was the peculiar province of the Æolian and Dorian Greeks,
who carried it to perfection. The Æolic writers were replete with
intense passion, and employed lively metres of simple structure. The
Dorian lyric, intended to be sung by choruses or to choral dances on
great occasions, funerals, marriages, or public festivals, was a much
more majestic, but at the same time a more intricate and artificial
composition. The most distinguished composers of the Æolic School were
Alcæus and Sappho; of the Doric, Simonides and Pindar.

=Alcæus= flourished in the latter part of the seventh century B.C.
He was a noble of Lesbos, and lived in the stirring times when
the constitutional and the aristocratic party contended for the
sovereignty. In this struggle Alcæus appears as the deadly foe of
democratic rule; when his friend Pittacus was clothed with supreme
authority by the people, Alcæus directed against him the keenest shafts
of his satire. Pittacus defeated him in an attempt to overthrow the
government, but generously spared his life, saying, “Forgiveness is
better than revenge.” Of the poet’s subsequent career we are ignorant.

The ancients were loud in their praises of Alcæus. His poems were
polished, full of vehemence and passion, sublime in their denunciations
of tyranny and encomiums of freedom. Love and wine were two of his
favorite topics; yet even his jovial pieces were pervaded by a
loftiness of sentiment foreign to mere sensual songs. Among his most
beautiful compositions were the odes to Sappho, whose love he once
sought, but whose genius soared to greater heights than his. We take
from Alcæus

THE CONSTITUTION OF A STATE.

“What constitutes a state?
Not high-raised battlement or labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities fair, with spires and turrets crowned:
No:—Men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued,
In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude—
Men who their duties know,
Know too their rights, and knowing, dare maintain;
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain.”
SIR WILLIAM JONES.

=The Lesbian Poetesses.=—Lesbos was the centre of lyric song. To
its shores, the waves of ocean are fabled to have borne the lyre of
Orpheus, which the people hung in Apollo’s temple: thus traditionally
distinguished by fate, it became renowned as the home of Grecian
poetesses.

The Lesbian women were not confined to domestic duties, but were
allowed to take part in public affairs. They founded societies for the
cultivation of their literary tastes, and before all Greece vindicated
the genius of their sex. And Lesbos was the very clime for poetry to
ripen in. The love of the beautiful was fed on every side. The island
was a paradise of groves and rivulets, of blossoms and perfumes. Among
its olive-clad hills, at its fountains set in violets and fringed with
fern, under its stately pines, and in its temples shining with ivory
and gold, its poetesses received their inspiration.

=Sappho.=—Greatest of these, and queen of her sex in intellectual
endowments, was Sappho, “the Lesbian Nightingale,” “spotless,
sweetly-smiling, violet-wreathed,” as Alcæus fondly described her, whom
all Greece knew as _The Poetess_.

In her history it is difficult to separate the true from the fabulous.
Born at Mytile’ne, the capital of the island, in the latter part of
the seventh century B.C., she was deprived of a mother’s care at the
age of six. In early womanhood, a new calamity befell her in the loss
of her husband, and thenceforth she devoted her genius to letters,
making the elevation of her countrywomen the great object of her life.
Her reputation soon spread throughout Greece. Mytilene became the seat
of a brilliant sisterhood eager in the study of the polished arts;
sparkling conversation enlivened its meetings; music and poetry were
the branches its members specially cultivated; love was the common
subject of their verse; their lives were above reproach. In the centre
of this constellation of gifted women blazed Sappho, “Star of Lesbian
Song.” Greece, captivated by her sweet numbers, accorded her a place
by Homer’s side—then raised her to the level of its goddesses as “the
Tenth Muse.”

[Illustration: THE LOVER’S LEAP.]

Ancient story made Sappho the victim of disappointed love. Overcome
with passion for Pha’on, a beautiful Mytilenean youth notorious for
his heart-breaking propensities, and finding Phaon indifferent to
her advances, she is said to have thrown herself from the Leuca’dian
promontory[27] and drowned her passion in the Ionian Sea. There is,
however, no evidence to support the story; on the contrary, the
poetess seems to have been implicated with Alcæus in a conspiracy
against Pittacus, who then ruled in Lesbos, and to have been banished
in consequence. (On the Æolic school of Sappho, _consult Donaldson’s
“History of the Literature of Ancient Greece,” p. 218_.)

SAPPHO’S STYLE.—Simplicity, tenderness, concentrated passion, and
brilliancy of description, are characteristic of Sappho’s verse. Her
poetry is the very language of harmony; no more musical measures than
hers were known to the Greeks. Her favorite stanza, an invention of her
own, consisted of four lines with a cadence like the following:—

Tenderest mistress | of the heart’s emotion,
Over whom love sweeps | as the mighty ocean,
Unto thee pour we | all our soul’s devotion,
Glorious Sappho!

In depicting love, Sappho is unmatched. Her utterances, indeed, were
so intense as to be misconstrued by the sensual Greeks of a later
day, and give rise to reports injurious to her good name; or possibly
she may have been confounded with another Sappho, of a different
character; but we have no doubt that her life was as pure as her poetry
is charming. Her imagery, when imagery she used, Sappho gathered from
the bright-tinted flowers, the starry skies, and fragrant zephyrs of
Lesbos, where, as she sung,

“Through orchard plots, with fragrance crowned,
The clear cold fountain murmuring flows;
And forest leaves, with rustling sound,
Invite to soft repose.”

Judging from her fragments, we must admit that in her peculiar
department Sappho stands without a peer. Indeed, her own graceful lines
may well be applied to herself:—

“The stars that round the beauteous moon
Attendant wait, cast into shade
Their ineffectual lustres, soon
As she, in full-orbed majesty arrayed,
Her silver radiance showers
Upon this world of ours,”—

for the lesser lights of lyric poesy pale in the lustre of her genius.

Addison, in his Spectator, makes the following remarks on Sappho,
which are fully justified by the praises of ancient critics:—“Among
the mutilated poets of antiquity, there are none whose fragments are
so beautiful as those of Sappho. One may see, by what is left, that
she followed nature in all her thoughts, without descending to those
little points, conceits, and turns of wit, with which many of our
modern lyrics are so miserably infected. Her soul seems to have been
made up of love and poetry. She felt the passion in all its warmth and
described it in all its symptoms. I do not know, by the character that
is given of her works, whether it is not for the benefit of mankind
that they are lost. They were filled with such bewitching tenderness
and rapture, that it might have been dangerous to have given them a
reading.”

It is told that a physician, by studying the symptoms of love as
described by Sappho, detected in the mysterious sickness of the
young Anti’ochus, son of the king of Syria, a hidden passion for his
step-mother. The treatment was in accordance with the diagnosis, the
disease disappearing when the anxious father relinquished to the youth
the beautiful object of his affections.

Sappho’s description of the raptures of love, commended by all critics
from Longinus down, is certainly a nonpareil. It has been thus
translated by Ambrose Philips, a friend of Addison’s:—

A LOVE SONG.

“Blest as th’ immortal gods is he,
The youth who fondly sits by thee,
And hears, and sees thee all the while
Softly speak and sweetly smile.

’Twas this deprived my soul of rest,
And raised such tumults in my breast;
For while I gazed in transport tost,
My breath was gone, my voice was lost.

My bosom glowed: the subtle flame
Ran quick through all my vital frame;
O’er my dim eyes a darkness hung;
My ears with hollow murmurs rung.

In dewy damps my limbs were chill’d;
My blood with gentle horrors thrill’d;
My feeble pulse forgot to play;
I fainted, sunk, and died away.”

The grave Solon paid our authoress a delicate compliment. Having heard
his nephew recite one of her poems, he is said to have exclaimed that
he would not willingly die till he had learned it by heart.

The works of Sappho, comprised in nine books, embraced love-lays,
elegies, bridal songs sometimes extended into miniature dramas, and
amorous hymns to Venus and Cupid. The remnants are principally erotic
pieces. We present below the Hymn to Venus, preserved entire, in which
the writer delicately makes the goddess her confidante, and modestly
discloses the secret of her misplaced affections.

HYMN TO VENUS.

“O Venus, beauty of the skies,
To whom a thousand temples rise,
Gayly false in gentle smiles,
Full of love-perplexing wiles;
O goddess! from my heart remove
The wasting cares and pains of love,

If ever thou hast kindly heard
A song in soft distress preferred,
Propitious to my tuneful vow,
O gentle goddess! hear me now.
Descend, thou bright immortal guest,
In all thy radiant charms confessed.

Thou once didst leave almighty Jove,
And all the golden roofs above:
The car thy wanton sparrows drew,
Hovering in air they lightly flew;
As to my bower they winged their way,
I saw their quivering pinions play.

The birds dismissed (while you remain),
Bore back their empty car again.
Then you, with looks divinely mild,
In every heavenly feature smiled,
And asked what new complaints I made,
And why I called yon to my aid:

What frenzy in my bosom raged,
And by what cure to be assuaged:
What gentle youth I would allure;
Whom in my artful toils secure:
Who does thy tender heart subdue,
Tell me, my Sappho, tell me, who?

Though now he shuns thy longing arms,
He soon shall court thy slighted charms:
Though now thy offerings he despise,
He soon to thee shall sacrifice;
Though now he freeze, he soon shall burn,
And be thy victim in his turn.

Celestial visitant, once more
Thy needful presence I implore!
In pity come and ease my grief,
Bring my distempered soul relief;
Favor thy suppliant’s hidden fires,
And give me all my heart desires.”
AMBROSE PHILIPS.

THE ROSE.

“Did Jove a queen of flowers decree,
The rose the queen of flowers should be;
Of flowers the eye; of plants the gem;
The meadow’s blush; earth’s diadem;
Glory of colors on the gaze
Lightening in its beauty’s blaze.
It breathes of Love; it blooms the guest
Of Venus’ ever-fragrant breast.
In gaudy pomp its petals spread;
Light foliage trembles round its head;
With vermeil blossoms fresh and fair
It laughs to the voluptuous air.”—ELTON.

=Sappho’s Pupils.=—Doubtless many went forth from Sappho’s school
to reflect, in their own accomplishments, the brilliancy of
their mistress. History has preserved the names of two of her
pupils—Damoph’yla of Asia Minor, noted for a Hymn to Diana; and
ERINNA, a Rhodian maid who shone among the brightest lights of
Sappho’s circle, and, if we may believe the story, died of a broken
heart when compelled by her parents to exchange the delights of
literature for the drudgery of the spinning-wheel. This cruel treatment
Erinna made the subject of an affecting lament, “the Spindle,” a poem
of three hundred hexameters, on which her reputation rests. Her death
at the age of nineteen cheated the world of a writer who promised to
rival Homer himself.

“The Spindle” is lost; but the following epigram on a virgin of Lesbos,
who died on the day appointed for her marriage, speaks for Erinna:—

“The virgin Myrtis’ sepulchre am I;
Creep softly to the pillar’d mount of woe;
And whisper to the grave, in earth below,
‘Grave! thou art envious in thy cruelty!’
To thee, now gazing here, her barbarous fate
These bride’s adornments tell; that, with the fire
Of Hymen’s torch, which led her to the gate,
Her husband burned the maid upon her pyre:
Yes, Hymen! thou didst change the marriage-song
To the shrill wailing of the mourners’ throng.”

A pointed epitaph in the Greek Anthology shows the estimation in which
the poetess was held by her countrymen:—

“These are Erinna’s songs: how sweet, though slight!
For she was but a girl of nineteen years;
Yet stronger far than what most men can write:
Had death delayed, whose fame had equalled hers?”

=Anacreon.=—In the sixth century, Te’os, a seaport of Ionia, gave birth
to the society poet, Anacreon; who, though an Ionian, wrote rather in
the style of the Æolian lyrics. His verses, however, while soft and
graceful, were marked by levity, and lacked the dignity and depth of
the Æolic school. “The Muse, good humor, love, and wine,” Anacreon
tells us, were his themes; accordingly his songs, brimming with
sensuality, grew in popular estimation as Greece degenerated in public
morality.

When his native city fell a prey to Cyrus the Persian, Anacreon with
the other inhabitants set sail for Thrace (540 B.C.). From Thrace,
while yet in his youth, he withdrew to the island of Sa’mos whose
tyrant, Polyc’rates, was a munificent patron of literature and art.
Amid the gayety of the Samian court, the witty and pleasure-loving poet
found a congenial home, Polycrates making him an intimate companion
and confiding to him important state secrets. But the ruler of Samos
was treacherously put to death by a Persian satrap; about which time,
Anacreon was invited to Athens by the tyrant Hipparchus, who sent his
royal trireme to bring his poet-laureate across the Ægean.

At Athens, Anacreon for a time gave free rein to his passions, joining
a set of boon companions who basked in the sunshine of royal favor.
His voluptuous career was cut short by the assassination of Hipparchus,
and he returned to Teos (repeopled during his absence), to be choked by
a grape-seed at the advanced age of eighty-five—or, if we are to take
the story figuratively, to fall a victim to his irrepressible love of
the bottle.

A statue of a drunken old man on the Athenian acropolis kept alive
in the minds of the people as well the graceful odes of Anacreon as
his prevailing weakness. His friend Simonides wrote an epitaph to his
memory, in which we catch a glimpse of the exciting whirl of pleasures
that made up his existence:—

“Bland mother of the grape! all-gladdening vine!
Teeming inebriate joy! whose tendrils bloom
Crisp-woven in winding trail, now green entwine
This pillar’s top, this mount, Anacreon’s tomb.
As lover of the feast, the untempered bowl,
While the full draught was reeling in his soul,
He smote upon the harp, whose melodies
Were tuned to girlish loves, till midnight fled;
Now, fallen to earth, embower him as he lies,
Thy purpling clusters blushing o’er his head:
Still be fresh dew upon the branches hung,
Like that which breathed from his enchanting tongue.”

The name of Anacreon is attached to about sixty odes, but they are all
probably from five hundred to a thousand years later than he. Yet, if
they are not by his hand, they breathe his spirit. As a sample of these
Anacreontics, we give a paraphrase of

CUPID AND THE BEE.

Young Cupid once a rose caressed,
And sportively its leaflets pressed.
The witching thing, so fair to view
One could not but believe it true,
Warmed, on its bosom false, a bee,
Which stung the boy-god in his glee.
Sobbing, he raised his pinions bright,
And flew unto the isle of light,
Where, in her beauty, myrtle-crowned,
The Paphian goddess sat enthroned.
Her Cupid sought, and to her breast
His wounded finger, weeping, pressed.
“O mother! kiss me,” was his cry—
“O mother! save me, or I die;
A winged little snake or bee
With cruel sting has wounded me!”

The blooming goddess in her arms
Folded and kissed his budding charms;
To her soft bosom pressed her pride,
And then with truthful words replied:
“If thus a little insect thing
Can pain thee with its tiny sting,
How languish, think you, those who smart
Beneath my Cupid’s cruel dart?
How fatal must that poison prove
That rankles on the shafts of Love!”

=Simonides= (556-467 B.C.), who brought into high repute the Doric or
Choral School while he also composed in the Ionic dialect, was born
in Ceos, an island of the Cyclades. He was one of a brilliant coterie
of poets attracted to Athens by the munificence of Hipparchus; and
after the assassination of the latter he withdrew to Thessaly, to find
rich and powerful patrons there on whom to lavish his eulogies; for
Simonides was the first poet that set a price upon his talents and
turned his panegyrics into gold. He who, when small pay was offered,
disdained to celebrate a mule victorious in the race on the plea that
it was an ass’s daughter, when the price was raised found in the “child
of thunder-footed steeds” no unfit subject for his facile Muse.

In connection with this rather unpoetical eye to business, we are told
that once Simonides, having extolled in verse one of his Thessalian
patrons, was refused more than half the promised price and referred for
the balance to the gods Castor and Pollux, whose praises filled most
of the poem. The Thessalian noble was still laughing at his ruse for
evading payment, when Simonides was summoned from the room to speak
with two strangers. Hastening out, he found that they had vanished; but
no sooner had he withdrawn from the apartment than the roof fell and
killed all whom he had left there. Thus the twin deities discharged
their indebtedness to the poet.

The evening of his days Simonides passed in Syracuse, the ornament of
Hi’ero’s court, the recipient of royal favors during his life, and at
his death of the highest funeral honors. It was here that the poet, who
was somewhat of a philosopher, confessed his inability to answer the
question of the Syracusan monarch, “What is God?”

Simonides was remarkably successful in adapting the elegy to funeral
songs and epitaphs, and thus embalming Grecian heroism for the
contemplation of future ages. He lived in the time of the Persian
War, and commemorated its worthies. The tomb of the three hundred
who fell at Thermopylæ for the liberties of Greece bore this grand
inscription from his pen: “Go, stranger, and tell the Lacedæmonians
that we lie here in obedience to their laws.” In his workshop the
epigram was wrought to perfection. “The Simonidean tears” seemed to
well up from the very depths of the heart. Among all the epigrammatists
known to literature, none have excelled him whom Plato styled “the
divine Simonides;” who was “the voice of Hellas—the genius of Fame,
sculpturing with a pen of adamant, in letters of indelible gold, the
achievements to which the whole world owes its civilization.” Fifty-six
times, the last time at the age of eighty, he bore away from all
competitors the prize of poetry.

Besides dirges and epigrams, hymns, prayers, pæans, and processional
odes, flowed from the prolific pen of Simonides. Long a chorus-teacher
in the land of his birth, he was peculiarly fitted for the composition
of solemn choral poetry. “The Lament of Danaë,” his finest surviving
work, is a noble specimen of the Greek lyric. It describes the Argive
princess set adrift with her child in an ark upon the stormy billows
by her inhuman parent. Tenderly she folds the sleeping boy in her arms,
and prays Father Zeus that like him the sea may sleep.

DANAË’S LAMENT.

“Closed in the fine-wrought chest,
She felt, the rising wind the waters move.
Then, by new fear possessed,
With action wild
And cheeks bedewed, she stretched her arms of love
Toward Perseus:‘O my child,
What sorrow wrings my breast!
While thou art sunk so deep
In infancy’s calm sleep;
Launched in this joyless ark,
Bronze-fastened, glimmering-dark,
Yet, pillowed on thy tangled hair,
Thou slumberest, nor dost care
For billows past thee bounding
Nor breezes shrilly sounding.
Laid in thy mantle red, sweet face, how fair!
Ah! but if Fear
Had aught of fear for thee,
Thou even to me
Wouldst turn thy tender ear.
But now I bid thee rest, my babe; sleep still!
Rest, O thou sea! Rest, rest, unbounded ill!
Zeus, Father, some relief, some change from thee!
Am I too bold? For _his_ sake, pardon me!’”

EPITAPH ON THE NIECE OF HIPPARCHUS.

“Archedicè, the daughter of King Hippias,
Who in his time
Of all the potentates of Greece was prime,
This dust doth hide;
Daughter, wife, sister, mother, unto kings she was,
Yet free from pride.”—HOBBES.

Pindar, the friend and pupil of Simonides, the greatest master of the
Doric School, adorned the golden age of Grecian literature, and will
there be considered as the representative of lyric poetry.

MINOR ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETS.

MIMNERMUS of Colophon (634-590 B.C.), the first to adapt the elegiac
couplet to plaintive and erotic themes: he bewails the enslavement
of his degenerate country by Lydia. Old age the terror of the poet;
life without “the gold-haired goddess” of love not worth living; a
characteristic saying of his, “When the flower of youth is past, it is
best to die at once; may death strike me at my sixtieth year.”

SOLON, the Athenian lawgiver (638-559 B.C.), the first _gnomic_ poet:
embodied his moral maxims (_gnomes_) in elegiac verse: also a master
of the martial elegy, as his famous “Salaminian Ode” shows. Plato
declared that if Solon had devoted his genius to the Muses, Homer
might not have stood alone in his glory.

THEOGNIS (583-495 B.C.), a noble of Meg’ara, who opposed the
democratic faction, and was in consequence expelled from the state
and deprived of his hereditary lands by the Commons. He sang his
songs in elegiac verse. Distinguished also as a gnomic poet. The
following thoughts are culled from among his sayings:—“Wealth is
almighty.”—“Easy among men is the practice of wickedness, but hard
the method of goodness.”—“No one descends to Hades with his riches,
nor can he by paying ransom escape death.”—“Prefer to live piously on
small means to being rich on what is gotten unjustly.”

PHOCYL’IDES of Miletus (550-490 B.C.), an Ionian gnomic poet whose
didactic couplets, generally marked by sound sense, sometimes
breathing a worldly spirit, began with the introductory phrase, “And
this too is Phocylides’.” The following are maxims of his:—“First get
your living, and then think of getting virtue.”—“A small city set upon
a rock and well-governed is better than all foolish Nineveh.”

XENOPH’ANES of Colophon (about 540 B.C.), founder of the Eleatic sect
of philosophers: also an elegiac poet: condemns the effeminacy of his
countrymen, and derides a prevailing preference for physical over
intellectual culture.

THE SATIRISTS.

SIMONIDES THE ELDER, of Amorgus (660 B.C.), “the Iambographer: “style
flowing and polished: masterpiece, a satire on women—“Even though they
seem to be good, when one has got one she becomes a plague.”

HIP’PONAX of Ephesus (540 B.C.), the father of parody, and inventor
of the choliambic measure, or limping iambic, in which the last foot
was a spondee. He attacked the luxury and vice of his day, sparing
neither friend nor relative; it is told that by his crushing satire a
sculptor who had caricatured his ugly person was driven to suicide. It
was Hipponax who said: “Woman gives two days of happiness to man, the
day of her bridal and the day of her funeral.” The stranger who passed
his tomb was warned:

“Wake not the sleeping wasp, for though he’s dead,
Still straight and sure his crooked lines are sped.”

MINOR POETS OF THE CHORAL SCHOOL.

ALCMAN (671-631 B.C.), Sparta’s jovial lyric poet, an emancipated
Lydian slave.

STESICH’ORUS of Sicily (632-560 B.C.), inventor of the choric system;
named from his occupation _Stesichorus_, leader of the chorus. His
greatness foreshadowed by a nightingale that alighted on his infant
lips and burst into song: hymns, fables, pastorals: the earliest Greek
novelist; his love tales and romances narrated in verse.

TERPANDER the Lesbian (about 650 B.C.), the founder of Greek musical
science, and inventor of the heptachord, or seven-stringed lyre.

IB’YCUS, of Rhegium in southern Italy (540 B.C.), lived in Samos as
the friend of Polycrates, His odes principally erotic: from the warmth
of his passion, Ibycus was styled “the love-maddened.”

BACCHYL’IDES (470 B.C.), the nephew of Simonides of Ceos: hymns,
epigrams, etc., in Doric: style highly polished: a specimen epigram is,

“The touchstone tries the purity of gold,
And by all-conquering truth man’s worth and wit are told.”

TIMOC’REON OF RHODES (471 B.C.), lyric poet and satirist.

CHAPTER IV.

_RISE OF GREEK PROSE._

=Earliest Prose Writings.=—For several centuries, the literature of
Greece was confined to poetry. In Hellas, as elsewhere, verse for a
time at first so charmingly and completely filled the popular ear that
there was no desire, no room, for prose. But, as new necessities arose,
poetry could not suffice for Greece; not with epic and lyric voice
alone were her men of genius to gain a hearing from the world. National
achievements must be recorded; the people must be appealed to in the
agora; the curtain of metaphysics must be raised; and so History,
Oratory, and Philosophy appeared upon the stage. To these practical
new-comers, the plain garb of prose was found more appropriate than the
broidery of verse.

Moreover, the introduction of facilities for writing favored the
development of prose literature; for, unlike poetry, it needed a
written form to give it permanence. When the art of writing became
familiar, and men with its help could rapidly inscribe their thoughts
for others still more rapidly to read, prose, as a distinct branch of
composition, was born; and its birth marked an era in the intellectual
growth of the Greeks.

Ever since the introduction of letters, prose had doubtless been used
more or less in despatches, records, laws, and official documents.
Pherecy’des of Sy’ros and Cadmus of Miletus (about 550 B.C.) were the
first to secure its recognition as a department of polite literature,
the one embodying in it his philosophical doctrines, the other the
fabulous history of his native land—with homely strength, if not with
artistic finish.

=Era of the Sages.=—In the period during which prose gained its
first foothold flourished the Seven Sages of Greece (665-540
B.C.). Revolutions were then the order of the day, the people were
beginning actively to assert their rights, and political questions
of vital interest absorbed the attention of thinkers. The flights of
fancy became fewer, as these grave problems presented themselves.
Philosophers strove to solve them at home; patriots went abroad to
study foreign institutions; and all awoke to the discovery that
“knowledge is power.”

The Seven Sages were gnomic poets, as well as philosophers and
statesmen. Their moral and political maxims they usually threw into
verse; but those inscribed on plates of metal and deposited in the
temple of Apollo at Delphi, were in prose. In their proverbs, whether
prose or poetry, we discern the dawn of moral philosophy.

SOLON.—The greatest of the Seven Sages were Solon and Thales. Solon
of Athens was born about 638 B.C. After extensive travels and studies,
he drew up for the Athenians (594 B.C.) the famous code called by his
name, which reformed many abuses and secured to the people a liberal
government. His laws were written in prose on the polished faces of
triangular wooden prisms. These were set in frames, and turned on
pivots by persons who wished to consult them. The state copy was carved
on four-sided blocks of brass, and kept in the Acropolis.

[Illustration: SOLON’S TABLETS.]

After Solon’s code was adopted, that it might be the better enforced,
its author is said to have absented himself from Athens for ten years,
visiting among other courts that of Crœsus, King of Lydia. To this
visit, Crœsus owed his life; for afterward, when chained to the stake
by Cyrus the Persian, the truth of one of Solon’s remarks,—that no man
can be accounted happy while he still lives,—flashed upon his mind, and
he thrice called upon the name of the Athenian sage. Cyrus demanded an
explanation of his words, and, struck with the truth of Solon’s saying,
revoked the order of execution and made Crœsus his friend.

THALES, of Miletus in Ionia (640-550 B.C.), was the founder of Greek
philosophy. Water, according to his theory, was the source of all
things; without this element, he truly said, his own body would fall
into dust. This doctrine he is supposed to have derived from the
Egyptians, who worshipped the Nile as a god, being dependent on its
annual inundations for their crops.

In mathematical science and astronomy, Thales was an adept. His
knowledge of the latter enabled him to predict a solar eclipse, which
took place 610 B.C., and to divide the year into three hundred and
sixty-five days. If he was an author, not a line of what he wrote has
survived.

=Fable.=—An outgrowth of these practical times was the Fable, or
Allegory, in which the lower animals were introduced as speakers, with
the object of satirizing the follies of mankind, or of conveying some
useful moral more pointedly than by means of dry argument.

Destitute of the outward form of poetry, while in a measure retaining
its imagery, fable may be regarded as a stepping-stone from the early
lyrics to the stately prose of a later period. It at once became
popular, as did also a kindred class of humorous tales, the characters
of which were inanimate objects endowed with the power of speech. An
earthen pot, for example, is represented as clamoring loudly against
the woman who broke it; and she, as bidding it “cease its plaints and
show its wisdom by buying a copper ring to bind itself together.”

ÆSOP.—The great fabulist of Greece, and indeed of all time, was Æsop.
Born a Phrygian slave about 620 B.C., he passed from one master to
another till at last his wit gained him freedom. Thus left to choose
his own course, he became a student in foreign lands. Athens was his
home for a number of years; and there, in his well-known fable of “the
Frogs asking Jupiter for a King,” he read a lesson both to Pisistratus
the Tyrant and to the people who imagined themselves oppressed under
his government.

By special invitation, Æsop spent some time at the court of Crœsus.
Here he made the acquaintance of Solon, who had incurred that monarch’s
displeasure by speaking lightly of his vaunted wealth; and he is said
to have admonished the Athenian sage that a wise man should resolve
either not to converse with kings at all, or to converse with them
agreeably.”—“Nay,” replied Solon, “he should either not converse with
them at all, or converse with them usefully.”

Crœsus commissioned Æsop to go to Delphi for the purpose of sacrificing
to Apollo and distributing a sum of money among the citizens. But Æsop
quarrelled with the Delphians, and taking it upon himself to withhold
from them the Lydian gold, was seized by the enraged people and
hurled from a precipice. Legend says that the murderers brought upon
themselves the vengeance of heaven in the form of mysterious plagues.

While these particulars of Æsop’s life rest on rather dubious
authority, it is certain that as a fable-writer he was deservedly
appreciated in ancient Greece. At Athens, Æsop’s Fables became
indispensable to a polite education. Their author does not appear to
have committed them to writing; they passed from mouth to mouth for
generations, undergoing more or less change. Hence we have left only
the substance of those pointed stories over which the Athenians went
into transports, and which Socrates amused himself by turning into
verse during his imprisonment. The young folks of every age, with
whom Æsop has always been a favorite, would applaud the Athenians for
placing the statue of the world’s great fabulist before those of their
Seven Sages.

When the people of Samos were on the point of executing a public
officer who had robbed the treasury, they were induced to spare the
offender by Æsop’s spicy fable of

THE FOX AND THE HEDGEHOG.

A Fox, while crossing a river, was driven by the stream into a narrow
gorge, and lay there for a long time unable to get out, covered with
myriads of horse-flies that had fastened upon him. A Hedgehog, who was
wandering in that direction, saw him, and taking compassion on him,
asked if he should drive away the flies that were so tormenting him.
But the Fox begged him to do nothing of the sort.

“Why not?” asked the Hedgehog.

“Because,” replied the Fox, “these flies that are upon me now are
already full, and draw but little blood; but should you remove them, a
swarm of fresh and hungry ones will come, who will not leave a drop of
blood in my body.”—JAMES.

=Progress of Greek Prose.=—An impetus was given to the development of
Greek prose by the praiseworthy efforts of Pisistratus (537-527 B.C.),
who gathered the first library in Greece, collected and edited the
poems of Homer, and imitated his kinsman Solon in laboring to elevate
the literary taste of the people. During his administration and that
of his sons Hippias and Hipparchus, also patrons of letters, prose
literature took deep root throughout the Ionian colonies, where history
and philosophy had many representatives.

The style of these early writers was for the most part fragmentary,
dry, and inelegant. It soon improved, however, grew into favor, and in
the hands of the profound thinkers, fluent historians, and persuasive
orators of Greece, was wrought into models which are still the
admiration of the world.

EARLY PROSE WRITERS.

PHILOSOPHERS.

ANAXIMANDER (born 610 B.C.), first map-drawer, and introducer of the
sundial. He represented the earth as cylindrical, and as the centre
about which the stars and planets revolved; its inhabitants as the
result of fermentation caused by the action of the sun’s rays on
its marshes. His “Treatise on Nature” (547 B.C.), the first work on
biology and the earliest philosophical essay written in Greek.

ANAXIM’ENES (born 556 B.C.) made the earth a leaf-shaped mass
floating in the air; the sun and moon flat circular bodies; _air_ the
elementary principle from which all things were made and to which they
returned: the soul, air.

HERACLI’TUS of Ephesus (505 B.C.) rejected the nature-worship of his
countrymen, and believed in an all-wise, omnipresent Power. He is
recorded to have wept continually over the sins of men; hence called
the weeping philosopher. _Fire_ the first principle. “No man,” said he
in allusion to the never-ceasing changes in the world, “can wade twice
in the same stream.”

HISTORIANS.

CADMUS of Miletus (540 B.C.): “Primeval History of Miletus and Ionia.”

ACUSILA’US the Argive (525 B.C.): “Genealogies,” a prose translation
of Hesiod’s “Theogony,” altered in parts to suit the theories of the
author.

HECATÆUS the Milesian (520-479 B.C.), “the far-travelled man:”
“Genealogies,” a history of the mythical heroes of Greece; and a
“Description of the Earth,” containing a summary of his own travels
and explorations.

CHARON of Lampsacus (500-450 B.C.), the first historian to record
authentic events: “History of the Persian War,” “Annals of Lampsacus,”
“Chronicles of the Spartan Kings.”

HELLANI’CUS of Mytilene, a noted compiler.

XANTHUS the Lydian: “The Lydiaca,” a history of Lydia in four volumes.

SEVEN SAGES AND THEIR MOTTOES.

SOLON of Athens: “Know thyself.”

CHI’LO of Sparta: “Consider the end.”

THALES of Miletus: “Who hateth suretyship is sure.”

BIAS of Priene: “Most men are bad.”

CLEOBU’LUS of Lindus: “Avoid extremes.”

PIT’TACUS of Mytilene: “Seize time by the forelock.”

PERIANDER of Corinth: “Nothing is impossible to industry.”

CHAPTER V.

_GOLDEN AGE OF GRECIAN LITERATURE._

(480-330 B.C.)

=The Attic Period.=—In their wars with the Persians (492-479 B.C.),
the Hellenic people fully demonstrated their military superiority,
vindicating their manhood on the fields of Marathon and Platæa, and
in the sea-fight with Xerxes at Salamis. Under the stimulus of these
national triumphs, conducing to national unity, as well as of the free
institutions now generally established, the Greek mind was awakened to
renewed action; literature made unprecedented growth, and in the fifth
century B.C. matured its choicest products.

Athens, the laurel-crowned saviour of Greece, hitherto but an
indifferent contributor to art and poetry, now became the centre of
letters, aspiring through her statesman Pericles (469-429 B.C.) to
both literary and political supremacy. Her Attic dialect, nervous but
not rough, harmonious without a too effeminate softness—the perfection
of the Greek language—materially helped to make her the “mother of
eloquence,” the home of poets and philosophers, the school of the
nations; while Pericles extended her imperial dominion over many
cities and islands, and filled her coffers with their tribute. Her
sculptor Phidias devoted his genius to the erection and decoration of
public edifices; his grand creations in marble adorned her fanes; and
the Parthenon, whose classic beauty has passed into a proverb, owed
to him its graceful embellishments as well as its renowned statue of
Minerva. Another colossal image of the goddess surmounted the Athenian
Acropolis, which was crowned with noble temples; and votaries of the
sister art added to the attractions of the city with their brush and
colors.

It was at this noonday of Attic glory that Grecian literature reached
its meridian. Then lyric verse climbed to heights before unattained;
and dramatic poetry, tragic and comic, held its listeners spell-bound.
History found distinguished representatives in Herodotus the Ionian,
and later in Thucydides and Xenophon, the Athenians. Philosophy, in no
other age or clime, has had worthier teachers than Socrates, Plato,
and Aristotle; while the art of persuasion seemed to be impersonated
in Pericles, Isoc’rates, Æschines (_es’ke-neez_), Demosthenes—all true
sons of Attica.

LYRIC POETRY.

=Pindar.=—Lyric poetry culminated in the sublime odes of Pindar, who
ushered in the golden age. Pindar was born of noble parents about 520
B.C., near Thebes, a city of Bœotia. The celestials are fabled to have
danced at his birth, and the dropping of honey on his infant lips by a
swarm of bees was interpreted as an omen of a brilliant literary career.

An early display of poetical talent led his father to yield to the
boy’s desire and send him to Athens for instruction; thence he returned
to Thebes, to study under the direction of the Bœotian poetesses,
Myrtis and Corinna, who gave the finishing touches to his education. At
the age of twenty, he composed an ode which established his reputation
throughout Greece, and brought him into great request with princes and
heroes who craved immortality for victories at the national games.
Corinna was the rival of his youth; though she reproached Myrtis for
entering the lists against Pindar, she was herself tempted to contend
with her former pupil, and five times bore away from him the fillet of
victory.

Pindar made choral poetry his profession, and was handsomely paid out
of the treasuries of the Greek princes and free cities for laudatory
odes written to their order. But he never descended to flattery or
falsehood; on the contrary, he leavened his panegyrics with salutary
advice, and fearlessly denounced pride, cupidity, and tyranny, even
in monarchs. To the king of Cyrene, for example, whose tyranny
afterward cost him his throne, he said: “It is easy for a fool to
shake the stability of a city, but it is hard to place it again on its
foundations.”

Pindar’s home was at Thebes, near Dirce’s fountain;[28] but he
travelled much in Greece. For a time he was the honored guest of
the Athenians; and no wonder, for when his native city sided with
Persia in the deadly struggle with that empire, the poet condemned so
pusillanimous a course and upheld Athens in her resistance, styling her
“the Pillar of Greece.” It is told that he received from the Athenians
a gift of 10,000 drachmas ($1,800), and that when the Thebans mulcted
him for the bold expression of his views, the former generously paid
the fine. At Delphi, which Pindar often visited, the people contributed
their finest fruits for his entertainment by order of the priestess;
and an iron chair was set apart for his use in the temple, where he was
wont to sit and sing the praises of Apollo, god of poetry. He lived
four years with Hiero, and doubtless sojourned with others of his
patrons. But Pindar was no boon companion of kings like Simonides, and
while he accepted their costly presents he never forfeited the respect
of his countrymen.

Pindar died at the age of eighty, in the theatre, it is related, amid
the acclamations of the audience. He had been taking part as usual, and
overcome with weariness, rested his head on the knees of a favorite
pupil, and fell into a slumber from which his friends vainly strove
to wake him. A tradition, more in accordance with the Greek love of
the marvellous, informs us that a few days before he died Proserpine
(goddess of the lower world) appeared to him, and having reproached him
for slighting her in his odes, announced that he should soon compose
a song in her honor within the confines of her own kingdom. Shortly
after, Pindar’s death occurred; and on the following day, Thebes
resounded with a hymn to Proserpine sung by an old woman, who declared
the poet’s ghost had dictated it to her in a dream.

Statues were erected to Pindar at Athens and in the hippodrome of
Thebes; a hundred years after, when Alexander the Great destroyed the
latter city in consequence of its rebellion, he bade his soldiers
spare the house hallowed by having once been the residence of the
Theban bard. Statues and dwelling have since passed away, and the only
surviving monument of Pindar is that reared by himself in the deathless
odes he has left us.

THE PINDARIC ODE.—Pindar’s fertile pen enriched every department of
lyric poetry; but all his compositions are lost except a few fragments
of pæans and dirges, with forty-five Triumphal Odes (which we have
entire) written to commemorate victories at the Great Games of Greece.

These games were celebrated at Olympia, Delphi, Neme’a, and on the
Corinthian Isthmus: they consisted of athletic sports, races, literary
and musical contests. All Greece was represented at them. Peasant and
prince, trader and priest, poet and historian, painter and sculptor,
hurried to the exciting scene as contestants or spectators; and the
simple crown of olive or laurel, pine or parsley, that was placed on
the conqueror’s brow, was valued beyond price. All that was needed to
complete the triumph was an ode in its honor from the Great Lyrist.
This, when obtained, was sung at an honorary banquet or solemn
procession, amid great rejoicings; and was annually rehearsed in the
victor’s native town to the accompaniment of soul-stirring music—for
his family, town, and state, participated in the victor’s glory.

PINDAR’S STYLE is original, chaste, full of splendor and majestic
energy. The Theban eagle, as he has often been called, soaring to the
sun, seems to disdain the commonplace in his solitary flight. His
style, however, is not faultless. The over-boldness of his metaphors
confuses; his massing of magnificent images and high-sounding epithets
wearies; his Doric condensation obscures his meaning; his metre is too
complicated for the uneducated ear, and his transitions are so abrupt
that the reader has difficulty in finding the connection. His subjects
were hard to treat; but Pindar found material and lent variety to his
odes by skilfully interweaving legendary lore, history, and fragments
of mythology. This was by Corinna’s advice; but her young pupil carried
it to such excess in his first attempt that his fair teacher warned
him, “One should sow with the hand, not with the whole sack.”

Pindar’s tone is everywhere moral. He merits indeed the title of
“Sacerdotal Poet;” for he upheld the religion of Greece in its purity,
rejecting all sensual notions of “the blessed ones,” and asserting
his faith in their holiness and justice. He taught the immortality
of the soul; “things of a day” are men, but after death there is in
store “a gladsome life.” His belief in an existence beyond the grave
is indicated in the following lines from one of his dirges. And here
be it observed that no translation can do justice to Pindar; the Doric
diamonds cease to flash when removed from their Doric setting.

“Shines for them the sun’s warm glow,
When ’tis darkness here below;
And the ground before their towers,
Meadow-land with purple flowers,
Teems with incense-bearing treen,
Teems with fruit of golden sheen.
Some in steed and wrestling feat,
Some in dice take pleasure sweet,
Some in harping: at their side
Blooms the spring in all her pride.
Fragrance all about is blown
O’er that country of desire,
Ever as rich gifts are thrown
Freely on the far-seen fire,
Blazing from the altar-stone.
But the souls of the profane
Far from heaven removed below,
Flit on earth in murderous pain,
’Neath the unyielding yoke of woe;
While pious spirits tenanting the sky
Chant praises to the mighty one on high.”
CONINGTON.

The more characteristic extract given below consists of portions
of the Seventh Olympic Ode, in which the poet sings the praises of
Diag’oras of Rhodes for having gained a victory with the cestus (made
of leather thongs and worn round the hands in boxing). This ode was
so much admired by the Rhodians that they wrote it in golden letters
on the wall of Minerva’s temple at Lindus. It relates the birth of
their patron goddess and the story of their own origin, closing with
an invocation to Jupiter, who was worshipped on Ataby’ris, a mountain
of the island. Here stood a temple, dedicated to him, containing the
fabulous brazen bulls that bellowed when any calamity threatened.

ODE TO DIAGORAS.

“As when a sire the golden bowl,
All foaming with the dew of wine,
Takes with a liberal hand and soul,
Chief gem where all his treasures shine—
Then tends the beverage (hallowed first
By prayers to all the powers above)
To slake the youthful bridegroom’s thirst,
In honor of connubial love;
The social pledge he bears on high,
And, homeward as his course he bends,
Blesses the fond connubial tie,
Admired by all his circling friends;

E’en thus I bring the nectared strain,
The Muses’ gift, to those who gain
The Pythian and Olympic crown;
Thrice blest, to whom ’tis given to share
The arduous fruit of mental care,
Cheered by the voice of high renown!
Full many a victor in the fray
My life-inspiring strains survey—
Which bid the sweet-toned lyre its music raise,
And wake the sounding flutes through all their notes of praise.

And now, Diagoras, to thee
They breathe united melody.
When Rhodes, the warlike isle, is sung,
Apollo’s bride from Venus sprung;
He too, the hero brave and bold,
With hardy frame of giant mould,
Who, by Alphe´us’ sacred tide,
And where Castalia’s waters glide,
First in the cestus’ manly fray,
Bore the triumphant prize away.
Let Damage’tus next, his sire,
To justice dear, the strain inspire.
Fixed on that isle which three fair cities grace,
Where Embolus protects wide Asia’s coast,
They dwell united with the Argive host.

In that blest isle secure at last,
’Twas thine, Tlepolemus, to meet
For each afflictive trial past
A recompense and respite sweet.
Chief of Tirynthian hosts, to thee,
As to a present deity,
The fumes of slaughtered sheep arise
In all the pomp of sacrifice:
Awarded by thy just decree,
The victor gains his verdant prize—
That crown whose double honors glow,
Diagoras, around thy brow;
On which four times the Isthmian pine,
And twice the Nemean olive shine:
While Athens on her rocky throne
Made her illustrious wreath his own.

Trophies of many a well-fought field
He won in glory’s sacred cause,
The Theban tripod, brazen shield
At Argos, and Arcadia’s vase.
Her palms Bœotia’s genuine contests yield;
Six times Ægina’s prize he gained,
As oft Pellene’s robe obtained,
And graved in characters of fame,
Thy column, Megara, records his name.

Great sire of all, immortal Jove!
On Atabyris’ mount enshrined,
Oh! still may thy propitious mind
The encomiastic hymn approve,
Which celebrates in lawful strain
The victor on Olympia’s plain,
Whose valorous arm the cestus knows to wield.

Protected by thy constant care,
In citizens’ and strangers’ eyes
Still more exalted shall he rise
Whose virtuous deeds thy favor share:
Since he, to violence and fraud unknown,
Treads the straight paths of equity alone;
His fathers’ counsels mindful to pursue,
And keep their bright example still in view.
Then let not inactivity disgrace
The well-earned fame of thine illustrious race,
Who sprang from great Calli’anax, and crown
The Erat’idæ with splendor all their own.
With joy and festal hymns the streets resound—
But soon, as shifts the ever-varying gale,
The storms of adverse fortune may assail—
Then, Rhodians, be your mirth with sober
temperance crowned.”—WHEELWRIGHT.

=Antimachus.=—An elegiac poet of the golden age was Amtim’achus
of Col’ophon, whose “Ly’de,” an elegy on his lost love, enjoyed
considerable celebrity. When, however, Antim’achus undertook to read
his long “Theba’is” to an audience, their patience became exhausted and
one after another departed, until finally he had but a single listener
left,—the young Plato.
‘

DRAMATIC POETRY.

=Rise of the Attic Drama.=—The Greek drama, like the Hindoo, had a
religious origin. In the festivals of Bacchus, the wine-god, which
consisted of licentious dances and songs round his altar by persons
disguised in goat-skins as fauns and satyrs (beings half-man and
half-goat), we must look for its earliest phase. From the dress of
those who composed the chorus, or because a goat was sacrificed, or a
goat-skin of wine awarded to the poet who wrote the best ode for the
occasion, such ode was called a _tragedy_ (_goat-song_); and the name
was afterward extended to the entire department of dramatic poetry to
which these rude hymns gave rise.

Comedy, on the contrary, was elaborated from the _village-songs_ rife
during the gala-days of the vintage, when companies of noisy revellers
(in Greek, _kōmoi_), their cheeks stained with wine-lees, went about
from town to town, plunging into all kinds of excesses, and garnishing
their songs with jokes at the expense of the spectators.

The Father of Greek tragedy was THESPIS, the Icarian,[29] who
refined the coarse Bacchanalian orgies, and introduced a single actor
(generally sustaining the part himself), to alternate with the chorus
or enter into a dialogue with its leaders (536 B.C.). Between the
hymns, the poet, having smeared his face with paint, would mount a
table and recite with copious gestures some mythological legend,
perhaps relating to Bacchus.

With a trained chorus, Thespis strolled about Greece, stopping at
the towns to give his exhibitions on the wagon which carried his
machinery and skin-clad troupe. Dancing was a prominent feature of
his entertainments. His pupil Phryn’icus improved the performance by
exchanging myths for real events and introducing female characters; but
the recitations were still disconnected and the plays lacked method;
albeit Phryn’icus was fined by the Athenians for moving their feelings
too deeply by one of his pieces.

=Birth of Tragedy.=—Out of these rude materials, Æschylus, who was
born about ten years after the first Thespian exhibition, constructed
genuine tragedy. He added a second actor and remodelled the chorus,
making it secondary to the dialogue, and instituting a connection
between its songs and the events represented on the stage. Appropriate
theatrical costumes, stationary scenery, painted masks, and thick-soled
buskins to increase the height of the performers, complete the list of
his innovations. Thus the goat-song of early days developed into the
true drama (_action_), the crowning effort of Greek genius. Athens had
the honor of creating and perfecting it; while in other departments of
verse she fell behind her neighbors, in dramatic poetry she eclipsed
them all.

The love of the theatre grew into a passion at Athens. When the first
rude structure of boards gave way under the weight of the audience, her
citizens erected a permanent edifice of semicircular form, whose seats,
rising in tiers, were hewn in the rocky side of the Acropolis. This new
theatre accommodated thirty thousand persons, who sat under the shadow
of Athens’ patron-goddess, and with reverent gaze watched actors and
chorus go through their parts round the altar of Bacchus.

The performances took place by day, and in the open air, the theatre
not being roofed. They began immediately after the morning meal, and on
great occasions seats were secured and occupied during the preceding
night. It was the custom of those who desired a comfortable sitting
to bring their own cushions. Tickets of admission at first cost one
drachma (18 cents); but Pericles reduced the price to six cents, and
thus placed dramatic entertainments within the reach of the poorest
citizens. The audience sometimes remained in the theatre twelve hours,
gossiping during the intervals, and refreshing themselves with cake,
wine, and sweetmeats.—In ancient Greece, the actor’s profession was
lucrative and honorable; dramatic authors not unfrequently performed
parts in their own plays. (_Read Donaldson’s “Theatre of the Greeks.”_)

Under the favoring skies of Athens the drama advanced to perfection
with marvellous rapidity. In the hands of Æschylus it was all grandeur;
Sophocles invested it with beauty, and Euripides with pathos. These
three tragic poets, almost contemporaries, were the brightest ornaments
of the Attic capital, where there were many bright. Their triumphs
cover a period of seventy-eight years (484-406 B.C.), including the
proud age of Pericles, but extending beyond it till the Peloponnesian
War had deprived Athens of her supremacy. Simultaneously with Sophocles
and Euripides flourished Aristophanes, under whom comedy reached its
climax.

It has been computed that during the golden age 250 dramatic poets
flourished, who produced more than 3,400 plays. Out of this vast
number, only 44 have survived to our time.

=Æschylus= (525-456 B.C.).—Eleusis, a hamlet of Attica, was the
birthplace of Æschylus. It is related that in his youth he was charged
with watching grapes, and overcome by slumber, saw Bacchus in his
dreams, who bade him devote himself to tragedy. The boy forgot not
the injunction; he applied himself diligently to study, and in his
twenty-fifth year contended, though unsuccessfully, for the chaplet of
ivy.

Ten years afterward, he acquitted himself so bravely in the battle of
Marathon as to receive a special prize, and have his deeds immortalized
in a painting which was hung in the theatre at Athens. He also won
distinction at Salamis and Platæa; and the name of one of his brothers
was long remembered in connection with the sinking of the Persian
admiral’s galley. During the flourishing period of Athenian history
that followed, the literary reputation of Æschylus became as great as
his military renown. He was the hero of thirteen poetical victories.

In 468 B.C. Æschylus left Athens for the court of Hiero, the Syracusan
prince, round which so many great men clustered. According to some, the
unjust award of the tragic prize to Sophocles, for political reasons,
was the cause of his going. The more probable account is that his
exile followed a public accusation of impiety, for disclosing certain
religious mysteries in one of his plays. The popular excitement ran
high; the poet was attacked with stones, when his brother happily
averted the fury of the mob by uncovering before them the stump of his
own arm, which had been mutilated at Salamis in defence of his country.

Hiero received our author hospitably; and the poet made return by
writing for him a drama called “the Women of Etna.” Æschylus may have
visited Athens after this; but if so, he returned to Sicily to die,
in the sixty-ninth year of his age. While he sat in a field near Gela
absorbed in thought, so the fable goes, an eagle, hovering over the
spot with a tortoise in its talons, let the tortoise fall on his bald
crown, which it mistook for a shining cobble-stone, for the purpose of
breaking the shell. The bird’s aim was true; and the blow fractured the
poet’s skull. Thus, in fulfilment of an oracular prediction, Æschylus
received his death-stroke from heaven.

In sublimity and power of dealing with the terrible, Æschylus is
unequalled. Even the resources of the versatile Greek tongue were
hardly adequate to the expression of his conceptions. He found
congenial subjects only among the gods and demigods of mythology or the
tragical events of the heroic period. His genius enabled him to give
life and shape to the vast and the supernatural, as few others have
done—and most effectively, though his plot is always simple.

Sir Walter Scott thus speaks of Æschylus in his Essay on the Drama:—“At
his summons, the mysterious and tremendous volume of destiny, in
which are inscribed the dooms of gods and men, seemed to display its
leaves of iron before the appalled spectators; the more than mortal
voices of deities, Titans, and departed heroes, were heard in awful
conference; Olympus bowed, and its divinities descended; earth yawned,
and gave up the pale spectres of the dead; and the yet more undefined
and grisly forms of those infernal deities who struck horror into the
gods themselves. All this could only be dared and done by a poet of the
highest order.”

But seven of the seventy-five tragedies of Æschylus are extant. Of
these, “Prometheus Chained” is considered the greatest, and from it
we have selected our extracts. The opening scene is laid on the grim
ocean’s shore near frowning Caucasus, to which, in obedience to Jove’s
command, the giant Prometheus is to be chained. For thirty thousand
years a vulture is to tear his vitals, constantly growing out afresh,
as a punishment for his having given fire to mortals, and taught
them useful arts in opposition to the will of heaven. Strength and
Force, grandly personified, drag the victim to the place of torture;
and Vulcan, the god of fire, rivets his fetters to the rock. The
chorus is composed of sea-nymphs, who come to offer their sympathy
to the sufferer and advise him to submit; but Prometheus, who is the
embodiment of stern independence, fortitude, and decision, endures
unyieldingly to the last. Even amid “the thunder’s deepening roar,
blazing wreaths of lightning, and eddying sands whirled on high,”
while the earth rocks to its centre, and “boisterous billows rise,
confounding sea and sky,” he hurls a proud defiance at his oppressors.

SCENE FROM PROMETHEUS CHAINED.

_STROPHE._

“Thy dire disasters, unexampled wrongs,
I weep, Prometheus.
From its soft founts distilled, the flowing tear
My cheek bedashes.
’Tis hard, most hard! By self-made laws Jove rules,
And ’gainst the host of primal gods he points
The lordly spear.

_ANTISTROPHE._

With echoing groans the ambient waste bewails
Thy fate, Prometheus;
The neighboring tribes of holy Asia weep
For thee, Prometheus.
For thee and thine! names mighty and revered
Of yore, now shamed, dishonored, and cast down,
And chained with thee.

_STROPHE._

And Colchis, with her belted daughters, weeps
For thee, Prometheus;
And Scythian tribes, on earth’s remotest verge,
Where lone Mæotis[30] spreads her wintry waters,
Do weep for thee.

_ANTISTROPHE._

The flower of Araby’s wandering warriors weep
For thee, Prometheus;
And they who high their airy holds have perched
On Caucasus’ ridge, with pointed lances bristling,
Do weep for thee.

_EPODE._

One only vexed like thee, and even as thou
In adamant bound,
A Titan, and a god scorned by the gods,
Atlas I knew.
He on his shoulders the surpassing weight
Of the celestial pole stoutly upbore,
And groaned beneath.
Roars billowy Ocean, and the Deep sucks back
Its waters when he sobs; from earth’s dark caves
Deep hell resounds;
The fountains of the holy-streaming rivers
Do moan with him.

PROMETHEUS.—Deem me not self-willed nor with pride high-strung,
That I am dumb; my heart is gnawed to see
Myself thus mocked and jeered. These gods, to whom
Owe they their green advancement but to me?
But this ye know; and, not to teach the taught,
I’ll speak of it no more. Of human kind,
My great offence in aiding them, in teaching
The babe to speak, and rousing torpid mind
To take the grasp of itself—of this I’ll talk;
Meaning to mortal men no blame, but only
The true recital of mine own deserts.
For, soothly, having eyes to see they saw not,
And hearing heard not; but, like dreamy phantoms,
A random life they led from year to year,
All blindly floundering on. No craft they knew
With woven brick or jointed beam to pile
The sunward porch; but in the dark earth burrowed
And housed, like tiny ants in sunless caves.
No signs they knew to mark the wintry year:
The flower-strewn Spring, and the fruit-laden Summer,
Uncalendared, unregistered, returned—
Till I the difficult art of the stars revealed,
Their risings and their settings. Numbers, too,
I taught them (a most choice device), and how
By marshalled signs to fix their shifting thoughts,
That Memory, mother of Muses, might achieve
Her wondrous works. I first slaved to the yoke
Both ox and ass. I, the rein-loving steeds
(Of wealth’s gay-flaunting pomp the chiefest pride)
Joined to the car; and bade them ease the toils
Of laboring men vicarious. I the first
Upon the lint-winged car of mariner
Was launched, sea-wandering. Such wise arts I found,
To soothe the ills of man’s ephemeral life;
But for myself, plunged in this depth of woe,
No prop I find.

CHORUS.—Sad chance! Thy wit hath slipt
From its firm footing then when needed most,
Like some unlearned leech who many healed,
But being sick himself, from all his store,
Cannot cull out one medicinal drug.

PROMETHEUS.—Hear me yet further; and in hearing marvel
What arts and curious shifts my wit devised.
Chiefest of all, the cure of dire disease
Men owe to me. Nor healing food, nor drink,
Nor unguent knew they, but did slowly wither
And waste away for lack of pharmacy,
Till taught by me to mix the soothing drug
And check corruption’s march. I fixed the art
Of divination with its various phase
Of dim revealings, making dreams speak truth,
Stray voices, and encounters by the way
Significant; the flight of taloned birds
On right and left I marked—these fraught with ban,
With blissful augury those. I first did wrap
In the smooth fat the thighs; first burnt the loins,
And from the flickering flame taught men to spell
No easy lore, and cleared the fire-faced signs[31]
Obscure before. Yet more: I probed the earth,
To yield its hidden wealth to help man’s weakness—
Iron, copper, silver, gold. None but a fool,
A prating fool, will stint me of this praise.
And thus, with one short word to sum the tale,
Prometheus taught all arts to mortal men.”
JOHN STUART BLACKIE.

Prometheus may be regarded as typifying the spirit of progress, bound
by the shackles of inevitable destiny, chafing under its enslavement,
but enduring contumely and suffering rather than yield to tyranny.
The weird wail of Io on leaving Prometheus, wrung from her by the
persecution of Juno, is thus rendered by Mrs. Browning, with all the
wildness and fire of the original:—

“Io.—Eleleu! Eleleu!
How the spasm and the pain,
And the fire on the brain,
Strike me burning through!
How the sting of the curse, all aflame as it flew,
Pricks me onward again!
How my heart, in its terror, is spurning my breast!
And my eyes, like the wheels of a chariot, roll round;
I am whirled from my course, to the east and the west,
In the whirlwind of frenzy all madly inwound—
And my mouth is unbridled for anguish and hate,
And my words beat in vain, in wild storms of unrest,
On the sea of desolate fate.”

EXTANT PLAYS OF ÆSCHYLUS.

PROMETHEUS CHAINED.

SEVEN AGAINST THEBES. Founded on the siege of Thebes by seven Argive
chiefs, who espouse the cause of Polyni’ces against his brother
Ete’ocles, the latter having seized the crown contrary to agreement. A
great favorite, and the poet’s special pride.

THE PERSIANS. Subject, the overthrow of Xerxes: thought to be the
oldest Greek drama extant.

THE SUPPLIANTS. Danaus and his fifty daughters solicit of the king of
Argos protection from their enemies. The weakest of the seven.

AGAMEMNON. The murder of Agamemnon, on his return from Troy, by his
wife Clytemnestra and her paramour Ægisthus, is the material part of
the plot.

CHOËPHORÆ (libation-bearers). Based on the avenging of the crime by
Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, who slays his mother and her guilty partner.

THE FURIES. Here we have the pursuit of the parricide by the
Furies.—Clytemnestra, the Lady Macbeth of the Greek stage; her
deep-laid plan, her cunning welcome of her husband, the fatal
strokes dealt by her own hand, her fiendish glorying in the deed of
blood,—touched with masterly skill.

The three tragedies last named constitute what is called a _trilogy_,
or group of three dramas founded upon one story. “Prometheus Chained”
was one of a trilogy, of which the other two members are lost.

=Sophocles= (495-405 B.C.), the rival of Æschylus, was born at
Colo’nus, an Attic borough a short mile from the capital. He was
fortunate in having a father able to give him a liberal education, and
entered the service of the Muses at an early age. His skill in music
and the exercises of the gymnasium won him many a garland; and when
hardly sixteen, unrobed and crowned, he led the choir of boys with his
ivory lyre in the chant of triumph which the Athenians poured forth
round the trophy raised at Salamis.

Sophocles made his début as a tragic writer in that successful contest
with Æschylus which, some think, cost Athens her grand old dramatist.
Fame spread the news, and Greece looked to Sophocles as the coming
man. A succession of plays extended his popularity. He added nineteen
prizes to the one wrested from Æschylus in 468 B.C. In the year 440 he
completed the drama of “Antig’one,” the oldest of his seven surviving
tragedies, which secured for him an important official position. The
“Antigone” ushered in the most active portion of its author’s literary
life, during which eighty-one of his pieces were written. Although
history throws little light on this period of his career, we know that,
unlike his great contemporaries, he never left his native city to enjoy
the munificence of foreign patrons. The Greek theatre was indebted
to him for a third actor, improvements in scenery, and a further
modification of the chorus, which no longer took an active part in the
play.

In his eightieth year, Sophocles was charged with imbecility by an
ungrateful son, who regarded with jealous eyes his partiality for a
favorite grandchild, and hoped in this way to obtain control of his
property. The defence of the alleged dotard was to read before his
judges a choral song from a play which he had just finished—“Œdipus
at Colonus” (p. 206). The vindication was complete; the judges at
once rendered a decision in the old poet’s favor, and in a burst of
enthusiasm bore him home in triumph. He died at the age of ninety.
Some tell us that while he was repeating the pathetic plaints of his
“Antigone,” his breath suddenly ceased; others, that after gaining a
tragic victory, he died of excessive joy as the crown was placed on his
brow. He left the Athenians 113 dramas.

STYLE OF SOPHOCLES.—As Æschylus is the impersonation of grandeur,
so is Sophocles of beauty and harmony. He descends from the sublime
heights Æschylus loved to tread, and, appealing to our sympathy with
humanity, finds his way into the secret chambers of the heart. His
language is pure; his style, elegant, dignified, vivacious—faultless;
in allusion to his sweet diction, he was called by the ancients _the
Bee of Attica_. The type of manly beauty and intellectual power,
æsthetic culture and lofty morality, it seems as if Sophocles had been
“specially created to represent Greek art in its most refined and
exquisitely balanced perfection.”

THE MASTERPIECE OF SOPHOCLES is “King Œdipus.” Laïus, a Theban
monarch, told by an oracle (such was the legend) that his children
would be the cause of his death, had his infant son Œdipus exposed on
Mount Cithæron, hoping thus to escape his destiny. But the boy was
discovered by some herdsmen and carried to Corinth, where he grew to
man’s estate as the adopted son and heir of the king.

Warned at the Delphic shrine to beware of his native land lest he
should imbrue his hands in his father’s blood, and believing Corinth
to be his birthplace, he withdrew to Thebes; but on the way he met
Laïus, and, not knowing who he was, killed him in a quarrel. Arrived at
Thebes, he won the hand of the widow Jocasta, his own mother, who bore
him four children. All went well for a time. At length, however, an
epidemic broke out; and the oracle assigned as its cause the presence
of the late king’s murderer. Œdipus strained every nerve to discover
the offender, and at last, to his horror, fastened the crime, and the
more terrible guilt of parricide, upon himself. Unhappy Jocasta hanged
herself in the palace, and Œdipus in his frenzy beat out his eyes with
her gold-embossed buckles.

The play opens at Thebes, during the plague. Œdipus, in conversation
with a priest and Creon, Jocasta’s brother, is informed of Apollo’s
will,—that, to avert the evil, the land must be purified by the
punishment of the assassin. After the catastrophe above related,
blinded Œdipus bemoans his lot in heart-rending utterances, but finally
accepts his fate with resignation. We give the

CLOSING SCENE OF KING ŒDIPUS.

[_Enter Creon._]

“CREON.—I have not come, O Œdipus, to scorn,
Nor to reproach thee for thy former crimes;
But ye, if ye have lost your sense of shame
For mortal men, yet reverence the light
Of him, our King, the Sun-god, source of life,
Nor sight so foul expose unveiled to view,
Which neither earth, nor shower from heaven, nor light,
Can see and welcome. But with utmost speed
Convey him in; for nearest kin alone
Can meetly see and hear their kindred’s ills.

ŒDIPUS.—Oh! by the gods! since thou, beyond my hopes,
Dost come all noble unto me all base,
In one thing hearken. For thy good I ask.

CREON.—And what request seek’st thou so wistfully?

ŒDIPUS.—Cast me with all thy speed from out this land,
Where never more a man may look on me!

CREON.—Be sure I would have done so, but I wished
To learn what now the God will bid us do.

ŒDIPUS.—The oracle was surely clear enough
That I, the parricide, the pest, should die.

CREON.—So ran the words. But in our present need
’Tis better to learn surely what to do.

ŒDIPUS.—And will ye ask for one so vile as I?

CREON.—Yea, now thou too would’st trust the voice of God.

ŒDIPUS.—And this I charge thee, yea, and supplicate:
For her within, provide what tomb thou wilt,
For for thine own most meetly thou wilt care.
But never let this city of my fathers
Be sentenced to receive me as its guest;
But suffer me on yon lone hills to dwell,
Where stands Cithæron, chosen as my tomb
While still I lived, by mother and by sire,
That I may die by those who sought to kill.
And for my boys, O Creon, lay no charge
Of them upon me. They are grown, nor need,
Where’er they be, feel lack of means to live.
But for my two poor girls, all desolate,
To whom their table never brought a meal
Without my presence, but whate’er I touched
They still partook of with me—these I care for.
Yea, let me touch them with my hands, and weep
To them my sorrows. Grant it, O my prince!
O born of noble nature!
Could I but touch them with my hands, I feel
Still I should have them mine, as when I saw.

[_Enter Antigone and Ismene._]

What say I? What is this?
Do I not hear, ye gods! their dear, loved tones,
Broken with sobs, and Creon, pitying me,
Hath sent the dearest of my children to me?
Is it not so?

CREON.—It is so. I am he who gives thee this,
Knowing the joy thou hadst in them of old.

ŒDIPUS.—Good luck have thou! And may the Powers on high
Guard thy path better than they guarded mine!
Where are ye, O my children? Come, oh! come
To these your brother’s hands, which but now tore
Your father’s eyes, that once were bright to see,
Who, O my children, blind and knowing naught,
Became your father—how, I may not tell.
I weep for you, though sight is mine no more,
Picturing in mind the sad and dreary life
Which waits you in the world in years to come;
For to what friendly gatherings will ye go,
Or festive joys, from whence, for stately show,
Once yours, ye shall not home return in tears?
Who is there, O my children, rash enough
To make his own the shame that then will fall
On those who bore me, and on you as well?
What evil fails us here? Such shame as this
Will men lay on you, and who then will dare
To make you his in marriage? None, not one,
My children! but ye needs must waste away,
Unwedded, childless. Thou, Menœceus’ son,
Since thou alone art left a father to them,
Suffer them not to wander husbandless,
Nor let thy kindred beg their daily bread;
But look on them with pity, seeing them
At their age, but for thee, deprived of all.
O noble soul, I pray thee, touch my hand
In token of consent. And ye, my girls,
Had ye the minds to hearken, I would fain
Give ye much counsel. As it is, pray for me
To live where’er is meet; and for yourselves
A brighter life than his ye call your sire.

CREON.—Enough of tears and words. Go thou within.

ŒDIPUS.—I needs must yield, however hard it be.

CREON.—In their right season, all things prosper best.

ŒDIPUS.—Know’st thou my wish?

CREON.—Speak, and I then shall hear.

ŒDIPUS.—That thou should’st send me far away from home?

CREON.—Thou askest what the gods alone can give.

ŒDIPUS.—And yet I go most hated of the gods.

CREON.—And therefore it may chance thou gain’st thy wish.

ŒDIPUS.—And dost thou promise, then, to grant it me?

CREON.—I am not wont to utter idle words.

ŒDIPUS.—Lead me then hence.

CREON.—Go thou, but leave the girls.

ŒDIPUS.—Ah! take them not from me.

CREON.—Thou must not think
To have thy way in all things all thy life.
Thou hadst it once, yet went it ill with thee.

CHORUS.—Ye men of Thebes, behold this Œdipus,
Who knew the famous riddle[32] and was noblest,
Who envied no one’s fortune and success:
And lo! in what a sea of direst woe
He now is plunged. From hence the lesson draw,
To reckon no man happy till ye see
The closing day; until lie pass the bourn
Which severs life from death, unscathed by woe.”—PLUMPTRE.

Œdipus ended his days in exile at Colonus, where he was received by
Theseus, the hero of Attica, and attended to the last by his faithful
daughter Antigone. His death is the subject of the play “Œdipus at
Colonus,” written at the close of the poet’s life and reflecting the
gentleness and serenity of his last days. It contains one of the gems
of Sophocles—that chorus which has immortalized the lovely scenery
about Colonus—which the old poet recited before the Athenian judges to
prove his sanity. Bulwer furnishes us a spirited version of this famous
passage:—The chorus informs the outcast Œdipus that he has come to
Colonus,

“Where ever and aye, through the greenest vale,
Gush the wailing notes of the nightingale,
From her home where the dark-hued ivy weaves
With the grove of the god a night of leaves;
And the vines blossom out from the lonely glade,
And the suns of the summer are dim in the shade,
And the storms of the winter have never a breeze,
That can shiver a leaf from the charmèd trees;
For there, oh! ever there
With that fair mountain throng,
Who his sweet nurses were,
Wild Bacchus holds his court, the conscious woods among!
Daintily, ever there,
Crown of the mighty goddesses of old,
Clustering Narcissus with his glorious hues
Springs from his bath of heaven’s delicious dews,
And the gay crocus sheds his rays of gold.
And wandering there forever
The fountains are at play,
And Cephissus feeds his river
From their sweet urns, day by day;
The river knows no dearth;
Adown the vale the lapsing waters glide,
And the pure rain of that pellucid tide
Calls the rife beauty from the heart of earth;
While by the banks the Muses’ choral train
Are duly heard—and there Love checks her golden rein.”

EXTANT PLAYS OF SOPHOCLES.

KING ŒDIPUS: this and the next two tragedies form a trilogy.

ŒDIPUS AT COLONUS: well adapted to flatter the local pride of the
Athenians.

ANTIGONE: based on the story of “the Seven against Thebes.” Antigone
was the daughter of Œdipus. Her uncle, King Creon, forbids the burial
of her brother Polyni’ces, the instigator of the war and one of its
victims. Sisterly affection proves stronger than fear of the royal
decree; Antigone performs the last sad offices for her brother, and is
entombed alive for her disobedience.

THE TRACHINIAN WOMEN: subject, the poisoning of Hercules by his wife
Deïanira.

ELECTRA: called from the heroine, Electra, daughter of Agamemnon, who
is overpowered by hatred for her unnatural mother and Ægisthus. The
plot culminates with the slaughter of the guilty pair by Orestes the
avenger. Finest passage, the meeting between Orestes and his sister.

AJAX: founded upon the madness of Ajax in consequence of the bestowal
of Achilles’ arms on Ulysses in preference to himself; his suicide and
funeral.

PHILOCTE’TES: the hero was a Thessalian prince, whom the Greeks
treacherously abandoned on the island of Lemnos. Afterward, when
informed by the oracle that Troy would not fall until the arrows
of Hercules, which Philoctetes had, were brought to bear on its
defenders, they induced him to take part in the war.

=Euripides.=—In 480 B.C., on the island of Salamis, while the battle
that was to decide the future of Greece raged in the neighboring
waters, Euripides first saw the light. Æschylus, in his prime, was at
the time bravely fighting on an Athenian galley; while Sophocles, but
fifteen years of age, stood ready, should the gods grant his countrymen
success, to celebrate the victory with the arts in which he excelled.

The third of the illustrious tragic trio was carefully trained;
painting, rhetoric, and philosophy, besides the customary gymnastic
exercises, engaged his attention; and he had not attained his
eighteenth year when he finished his first drama. Not, however, until
441 B.C. did he, by winning the tragic prize, verify a prediction made
before his birth that he would be crowned with sacred chaplets.

His reputation was now secure; and though he was exposed to bitter
partisan attacks, his plays became widely popular. The philosopher
Socrates always went to see them performed, and is even suspected of
having had a hand in their composition. So great was the estimation
in which they were held at Syracuse, that, after the surrender of the
Athenian armies which had attempted the reduction of that city (413
B.C.), such of the soldiers as could teach their captors verses of
Euripides were exempted from the cruelties inflicted on their fellows,
and sent home to thank the author for their liberty. Athens itself is
said to have been saved nine years later, when the Spartan general
Lysander was minded to lay it in ashes, by the singing of a chorus of
Euripides at the triumphal banquet; who could raise his hand against
the city of one that had discoursed poetry so sweet?

Like his brother tragedians, Euripides drew his subjects from the
mythical history of his country. His plays numbered seventy-five, some
say ninety-two; and the best of them rank with the best pieces on the
roll of dramatic literature. He composed slowly and with care. On one
occasion, it is related, when he had completed only four verses in
three days, Euripides was told by a poetaster that in the same time
_he_ had produced a hundred. “And yours,” replied the great man, “will
live for three days; mine, forever.”

Euripides spent the last two years of his life at the Macedonian court,
then the abode of many illustrious men. He went there in search of
rest, but found that he had only exchanged persecution at home for
jealousy abroad. The honors heaped upon him by the Macedonian prince,
together with his own superior genius, raised him up enemies. In the
king’s savage hounds, if we may credit the legend, they saw the means
of removing an obnoxious rival; and while Euripides was walking in his
patron’s garden, he was attacked and fatally mangled by the fierce
brutes (406 B.C.).

Athens felt the loss, and went into mourning at news of his death;
vainly she supplicated the Macedonian king for his ashes. They were
magnificently interred at Pella; while his country was forced to remain
content with a statue, and a cenotaph on which was inscribed, “All
Greece is the monument of Euripides.” His verses, as he predicted, were
immortal; admiration of them led an epigrammatist to write:

“If it be true that in the grave the dead
Have sense and knowledge, as some men have said,
I’d hang myself to see Euripides.”

With Euripides, the glory of the Athenian stage descended into
the tomb; and Tragedy found no one worthy to fill his place till
Shakespeare’s day.

STYLE OF EURIPIDES.—Sophocles once remarked that he represented men
as they ought to be, Euripides as they are. This holding of the mirror
up to nature was what Athenian taste began to demand; Euripides had
the tact to see what was wanted, and the genius to make the innovation
successfully. His heroes and heroines talked and acted like men and
women of the day; hence he has been accused of degrading his art by
introducing the commonplace into his dramas, of lowering Greek tragedy
to the level of every-day life.

A more serious charge also was laid at his door—that of impiety.
Euripides rejected the faith of his fathers; we need not, therefore,
look in his plays for the religious fervor of Æschylus, or even for
the high moral tone of Sophocles. In one of his lines the doctrine of
mental reservation appears,

“My tongue took an oath, but my mind is unsworn”—

a sentiment which led to his prosecution for justifying perjury.

While Euripides was inferior to Æschylus in majesty, to Sophocles
in symmetry and finish, he surpassed both in delineating character,
and particularly in representing the human passions. He was the most
pathetic of the three, and in the portraiture of woman stands second to
no poet, ancient or modern. His heroines are his master-figures. Traces
of art are sometimes apparent in his writings, and occasionally he
verges on the sensational.

THE MEDE’A is the _chef d’œuvre_ of this author. Its plot is derived
from the story of Medea, a Colchian princess proficient in sorcery. She
won the love of the Greek prince Jason, who came to Colchis in the ship
Argo to obtain possession of the Golden Fleece, helped him to secure
the object of his search, and eloped with him to Greece. But when Jason
beheld the fair Glaucè, daughter of the King of Corinth, he resolved
to thrust aside Medea in favor of his new love, forgetful of the dark
power of the enchantress.

The opening scene is laid at Corinth, after the nuptials of Jason and
Glaucè. The infidelity of her husband has transformed Medea into a
tigress, whose conflicting passions the poet touches with consummate
skill—the anger of the dishonored wife, the love of the tender mother,
the steeling of the woman’s heart against its deep affection, the
all-absorbing thirst for vengeance.

The play ends with Medea’s terrible revenge. Banished by the king from
Corinth, she begs for one day of preparation, in which she sends to the
bride a costly robe and golden wreath poisoned by her fell arts. The
unsuspecting Glaucè smilingly arrays herself in these presents; but her
smiles give place to shrieks of agony as the enchanted garments burn
into her flesh and the chaplet blazes in her hair. Her father tries
to save her, and perishes in her flaming embrace. Medea completes her
work by the murder of her two children—Jason’s sons—and after jeering
at her husband’s grief disappears with the corpses in a chariot whirled
through the air by dragons.

One of the most affecting passages in Euripides is found in

MEDEA’S LAST WORDS TO HER SONS.

“O children, children! you have still a city,
A home, where, lost to me and all my woe,
You will live out your lives without a mother!
But I—lo! I am for another land,
Leaving the joy of you: to see you happy,
To deck your marriage-bed, to greet your bride,
To light your wedding-torch, shall not be mine!
O me! thrice wretched in my own self-will!
In vain then, dear my children! did I rear you;
In vain I travailed, and with wearing sorrow
Bore bitter anguish in the hour of childbirth!
Yea, of a sooth, I had great hope of you,
That you should cherish my old age, and deck
My corpse with loving hands, and make me blessed
’Mid women in my death. But now, ah me!
Hath perished that sweet dream. For long without you
I shall drag out a dreary doleful age.
And you shall never see your mother more
With your dear eyes: for all your life is changed.
Woe! woe!
Why gaze you at me with your eyes, my children?
Why smile your last sweet smile? Ah me! ah me!
What shall I do? My heart dissolves within me,
Friends, when I see the glad eyes of my sons!
I cannot. No: my will that was so steady,
Farewell to it. They too shall go with me:
Why should I wound their sire with what wounds them,
Heaping tenfold his woes on my own head?
No, no, I shall not. Perish my proud will.

Yet whence this weakness? Do I wish to reap
The scorn that springs from enemies unpunished?
Dare it I must. What craven fool am I,
To let soft thoughts flow trickling from my soul!
Go, boys, into the house: and he who may not
Be present at my solemn sacrifice—
Let him see to it. My hand shall not falter.
Ah! ah!
Nay, do not, O my heart! do not this thing!
Suffer them, O poor fool; yea, spare thy children!
There in thy exile they will gladden thee.
Not so: by all the plagues of nethermost hell
It shall not be that I, that I should suffer
My foes to triumph and insult my sons!
Die must they: this must be, and since it must,
I, I myself will slay them, I who bore them.
So is it fixed, and there is no escape.
Even as I speak, the crown is on her head,
The bride is dying in her robes, I know it.
But since this path most piteous I tread,
Sending them forth on paths more piteous far,
I will embrace my children. O my sons!
Give, give your mother your dear hands to kiss.
O dearest hands, and mouths most dear to me,
And forms and noble faces of my sons!
Be happy even there: what here was yours,
Your father robs you of. O delicate scent!
O tender touch and sweet breath of my boys!
Go, go, go—leave me! Lo, I cannot bear
To look on you: my woes have overwhelmed me.”
SYMONDS.

EXTANT PLAYS OF EURIPIDES.

ALCESTIS, first represented 438 B.C.
MEDEA, ” 431 ”
HIPPOL’YTUS, ” 428 ”
HECUBA, ” 423 ”
HERACLI’DÆ, ” 421 ”
THE SUPPLIANTS.
ION.
THE RAGING HERCULES.
ANDROMACHE.
THE TROJAN WOMEN, 415 B.C.: pathetic by reason of the plaints of the
captive women.
ELECTRA, first represented 413 B.C.
HELEN, ” 412 ”
IPHIGENI’A AT TAURIS.
ORESTES, 408 B.C.: demoralizing in its portraiture of crime.
THE PHŒNICIAN WOMEN.
THE FEMALE BACCHANALIANS: produced at the Macedonian court.
IPHIGENIA AT AULIS: not acted till after the author’s death.
CYCLOPS: a satyric drama (chorus of satyrs).

=Lost Tragedies.=—Dramatic literature has sustained an irreparable
loss, not only in the missing plays of the three great masters, but
also in those numberless works of their contemporaries and occasionally
successful competitors now buried in oblivion. From the allusions of
two or three Greek authors, a few meagre particulars may be gleaned,
now of one, now of another—but they only serve to make us more
painfully conscious of our loss.

=Greek Comedy.=—Comedy was older than tragedy in Greece. Thirty years
before the time of Thespis, Susa’rion of Meg’ara, in his burlesque
exhibitions, improved somewhat on the extempore jests and village-songs
of the Bacchic revellers, and hence has been called the inventor of
comedy. Susarion was no great lover of the fair sex, if we may judge
by an ungallant sentiment of his which has been preserved: “Woman is a
curse, but we cannot conduct our household affairs without this curse;
therefore to marry is an evil, and not to marry is an evil.” Perhaps he
had taken to wife a Xantippe.

The poet Epicharmus, also of Megara, but the Sicilian city of that
name, first committed his effusions to writing; he was the author of
thirty-five comedies, some of them on subjects not mythological.

The development of comedy, however, was interrupted. The Tragic Muse
enforced her claims at the expense of her elder sister, and the latter
was for a season neglected. But the flourishing era of republican
Athens, when the poet was free to lash whom he chose, saw comedy
restored to the favor of the satire-loving people. It may be said to
have been perfected by Aristophanes. He not only ridiculed the follies
and vices of the day, laid bare family secrets on the stage, and
edified his audiences by caricaturing the rich and great with masks and
costumes which reproduced their peculiarities, but fearlessly assailed
the government. When all others shrunk from playing so dangerous
a rôle, he himself performed the part of the insolent demagogue
Cleon (originally a leather-dresser), whom he mercilessly “cut into
sandal-strips” in his “Knights.”

Even the gods were not slighted by the comic poets. The gourmand
Hercules devours as fast as the cook can prepare victuals; Prometheus
is protected from the elements by an umbrella; Bacchus swaggers
as a fop and coward. Comedy in the hands of Aristophanes and his
contemporaries was to the Athenians what our press is to us, but
went still further. Always personal and sometimes scurrilous in its
attacks, too often coarse and licentious in its tone, it yet doubtless
accomplished much good in restraining political ambition, checking
public corruption, and modifying the prevailing faults of society.

=Aristophanes.=—The oldest comedies extant are those of Aristophanes,
a citizen of Athens by birth or adoption, born about the middle of the
fifth century B.C. If he was an adopted son, Athens had good reason
to be proud of her protégé. His society was sought by the learned and
great. He became the idol of the people, who fined such as brought
libelsuits against him, and voted him an olive crown for exposing the
misconduct of their rulers.

Nor was his fame confined to Athens. All Greece, and Sicily too,
laughed at his humorous sallies. The Persian king enjoyed his pungent
satires, and regarded him as such a power in Greece that when Spartan
ambassadors sought an alliance with Persia against their Athenian
rivals, the king asked on which side the comic poet was arrayed; for,
said he, “the party whose cause Aristophanes espouses will certainly
win.”

Aristophanes was loyal to the true interests of his country, and
declined the flattering invitations of Dionysius to dwell in ease
at Syracuse with the luminaries of his age. He longed for the
glorious Athens of the past, and attacked whatever conflicted with
his conservative ideas. None escaped his well-aimed shafts. He was
specially severe on the Sophists, a new class of teachers at Athens,
whose forte lay in chopping logic and splitting hairs, and who taught
the tricks of rhetoric rather than practical morality. In his “Clouds”
he derides their sharp practices and unsound system of education,
striking them over the head of Socrates, the exponent of true
philosophy, whose life was devoted to combating the false teachings of
these very pretenders.

That Socrates was merely the scape-goat is plain, for he and
Aristophanes were intimate friends. When the play was first exhibited,
the philosopher, who was in the audience, took it all in good part,
and even rose that the people might compare him with the caricature
presented, which exaggerated his eccentricities of dress and figure—his
pug-nose, thick lips, shabby garments, and absent-minded stare. The
chorus of changing clouds symbolized the meretricious charms of
sophistry.

“THE CLOUDS” opens in the sleeping-apartment of Strepsi’ades, an
Athenian citizen, his son Pheidippides occupying a pallet near him. The
slaves of the household are abed in an adjoining room. Strepsiades,
oppressed by debt incurred through the extravagance of his “precious
son,” a fast young man addicted to fast horses, is disturbed by the
recollection of numerous outstanding bills and notes about to mature.
He wakes before daylight and calls a slave:—

“Boy! light a lamp;
Bring me my pocket-book, that I may see
How my accounts stand, and just cast them up. [_Slave obeys._]
Let’s see now. First, here’s Prasias, fifty pounds.
Now, what’s that for? When did I borrow that?
Ah! when I bought that gray. O dear! O dear!
I shall grow gray enough, if this goes on.

PHEIDIPPIDES [_talking in his sleep_].—That’s not fair,
Philo! Keep your own side of the course!

STREPSIADES.—Ay, there he goes! that’s what is ruining me;
He’s always racing, even in his dreams.

PHEIDIPPIDES [_awaking_].—Good heavens! my dear father,
What makes you groan and toss so all night long?

STREPSIADES.—There’s a sheriff’s officer at me—in the bedclothes.

PHEIDIPPIDES.—Lie quiet, sir, do pray, and let me sleep.

STREPSIADES.—Sleep, if you like; but these debts, I can tell you,
Will fall on your own head some day, young man.
Heugh! may those match-makers come to an evil end
Who drew me into marrying your good mother!
There I was, living a quiet life in the country,—
Shaved once a week, maybe, wore my old clothes—
Full of my sheep, and goats, and bees, and vineyards,
And I must marry the fine niece of Megacles.
Marry a fine town-belle, all airs and graces!
A pretty pair we were to come together—
I smelling of the vineyard and sheep-shearing,
She with her scents, and essences, and cosmetics,
And all the deviltries of modern fashion.
Not a bad housekeeper though, I will say that—

SLAVE [_examining the lamp, which is going out_].—This lamp has
got no oil in it.

STREPSIADES.—Deuce take you,
Why did you light that thirsty beast of a lamp?
Come here, and you shall catch it.

SLAVE.—Catch it—why?

STREPSIADES [_boxes his ears_].—For putting such a thick wick in,
to be sure.
Well, in due time, this boy of ours was born
To me and my grand lady. First of all,
We got to loggerheads about his name;
She would have something that had got a _horse_ in it—
Xanthippus—or Charippus—or Philippides;
I was for his grandfather’s name—Pheidonides.[33]
Well, for some time we squabbled; then at last
We came to a compromise upon Pheidippides.
This boy—she’d take him in her lap and fondle him,
And say,‘Ah! when it grows up to be a man,
It shall drive horses, like its uncle Megacles,
And wear a red cloak, it shall.’ Then I would say,
‘He shall wear a good sheep-skin coat, like his own father,
And drive his goats to market from the farm.’”

Strepsiades finally bethinks him of a plan for paying his debts. He
will have his son trained by the Sophists; and when the creditors
bring the case into court, Pheidippides shall plead his cause, and
defeat them with fallacious arguments even in the face of a thousand
witnesses. Father and son at once arise, dress, and walk out in the
direction of the Sophists’ school. Arrived in front of it, Strepsiades
remarks:—

“That’s the great Thinking-school of our new philosophers;
There live the men who teach that heaven around us
Is a vast oven, and we the charcoal in it.
And they teach too—for a consideration, mind—
To plead a cause and win it, right or wrong.

PHEIDIPPIDES [_carelessly_].—Who are these fellows?

STREPSIADES.—I don’t quite remember
The name they call themselves, it’s such a long one;
Very hard thinkers—but they’re first-rate men.

PHEIDIPPIDES.—Faugh! vulgar fellows—I know ’em.
Dirty vagabonds,
Like Socrates there and Chærephon; a low set.

STREPSIADES.—Pray hold your tongue—don’t show your ignorance,
But, if you care at all for your old father,
Be one of them; now do, and cut the turf.

PHEIDIPPIDES.—Not I, by Bacchus! not if you would give me
That team of Arabs which Leogoras drives.

STREPSIADES.—Do, my dear boy, I beg you—go and be taught.

PHEIDIPPIDES.—What shall I learn there?

STREPSIADES.—Learn? Why, they do say
That these men have the secret of both Arguments,
The honest Argument (if there be such a thing) and the other;
Now this last—this false Argument, you understand—
Will make the veriest rascal win his cause.
So if you’ll go and learn for us this glorious art,
The debts I owe for you will all be cleared;
For I shan’t pay a single man a farthing.

PHEIDIPPIDES.—No—I can’t do it. Studying hard, you see,
Spoils the complexion. How could I show my face
Among the knights, looking a beast, like those fellows?

STREPSIADES.—Then, sir, henceforth I swear, so help me Ceres,
I won’t maintain you—you, nor your bays, nor your chestnuts.
Go to the dogs—or anywhere—out of my house!”

Failing to induce his son to enter the Thinking-school, Strepsiades
resolves himself to master the fashionable Argument that “pays no
bills;” he has an interview with Socrates, and is introduced to the
Clouds, the new goddesses of this misty philosophy.

One of the most beautiful passages of the play—having the ring of
the true metal—is the chorus of Clouds responding to the call of
Socrates—first, behind the scenes, in the distance; then nearer; then
rising from the lips of twenty-four gauze-clad nymphs, who descend upon
the stage as personifications of the ethereal deities.

CHORUS OF CLOUDS (_in the distance_).

“Eternal clouds!
Rise we to mortal view,
Embodied in bright shapes of dewy sheen,
Leaving the depths serene
Where our loud-sounding Father Ocean dwells,
For the wood-crownèd summits of the hills:
Thence shall our glance command
The beetling crags which sentinel the land,
The teeming earth,
The crops we bring to birth;
Thence shall we hear
The music of the ever-flowing streams,
The low deep thunders of the booming sea.
Lo, the bright Eye of Day unwearied beams!
Shedding our veil of storms
From our immortal forms,
We scan with keen-eyed gaze this nether sphere.”

CHORUS OF CLOUDS (_nearer_).

“Sisters who bring the showers,
Let us arise and greet
This glorious land, for Pallas’ dwelling meet,
Rich in brave men, beloved of Cecrops old;
Where Faith and Reverence reign,
Where comes no foot profane,
When for the mystic rites the Holy Doors unfold.
There gifts are duly paid
To the great gods, and pious prayers are said;
Tall temples rise, and statues heavenly fair.
There at each holy tide,
With coronals and song,
The glad processions to the altars throng;
There in the jocund spring,
Great Bacchus, festive king,
With dance and tuneful flute his Chorus leads along.”
W. L. COLLINS.

But though the Clouds assist Socrates in teaching Strepsiades, the
pupil proves an utter dunce. Finally, in a moment of impatience,
Socrates kicks him out of the school.

At last Pheidippides is prevailed upon to study with the Sophists. He
proves an apt scholar, rapidly developing into an unprincipled scamp.
When his education as a sharper is completed, he brings to bear his
specious arguments against the creditors, and cheats them out of their
dues. So far, so good; but his notions of filial duty have also been
greatly modified by the instructions of Socrates. A quarrel arising in
the family, he hesitates not to fall upon his father with a cudgel, and
threatens to do the same by his mother if she provokes him.

With a curse upon Socrates, the outraged old gentleman calls his
slaves, hurries to the Thinking-school, and sets fire to the building.
Thus the play ends.

* * * * *

Beneath the pleasantry of Aristophanes is a substratum of solid
sense; as is apparent in “the Birds,” an ingenious play in which the
woodland songsters take characters. It was produced at a time when the
Athenians, puffed up with vanity, confidently looked for the reduction
of Sicily and the dominion of Greece. Aristophanes alone, at this
critical period, ventured to raise the note of warning, and satirize
their foolish ambition. The choruses in this drama ring with the sweet
music of the wild woods; they were rendered by twenty-four performers
plumed so as to represent as many different kinds of birds. The Hoopoe
thus calls his fellows to a mass-meeting:—

“Hoop! hoop!
Come in a troop,
Come at a call
One and all,
Birds of a feather,
All together.
Birds of an humble gentle bill
Smooth and shrill,
Dieted on seeds and grain,
Rioting on the furrowed plain,
Pecking, hopping,
Picking, popping,
Among the barley newly sown.
Birds of bolder, louder tone,
Lodging in the shrubs and bushes,
Mavises and Thrushes.
On the summer berries browsing,
On the garden fruits carousing,
All the grubs and vermin smouzing.

You that in an humbler station,
With an active occupation,
Haunt the lowly watery mead,
Warring against the native breed,
The gnats and flies, your enemies;
In the level marshy plain
Of Marathon pursued and slain.

You that in a squadron driving
From the seas are seen arriving,
With the Cormorants and Mews,
Haste to land and hear the news!
All the feathered airy nation,
Birds of every size and station,
Are convened in convocation.
For an envoy, queer and shrewd,
Means to address the multitude,
And submit to their decision
A surprising proposition,
For the welfare of the state.
Come in a flurry,
With a hurry, scurry,
Hurry to the meeting and attend to the debate.”
FRERE.

STYLE OF ARISTOPHANES.—In weighing the merits of Aristophanes, it must
be remembered that many of his peculiar beauties cannot be translated,
and that we lose his local hits from our inability to see things from
an Athenian standpoint. He is often indelicate in his allusions; he
is as ready with town slang and the cant of the shop as with the most
elegant phrase. But Attic salt seasons the whole, and none ever handled
the versatile Greek tongue more deftly. In his command of language,
he is equalled only by Plato, who felt the comic poet’s power when he
said that in the soul of Aristophanes the Graces sought an imperishable
shrine. Amid all his humor and buffoonery sparkles genius of the
highest order. His aim seems to have been to elevate his art. Some of
the improvements he claimed to have introduced, are thus set forth in
an address which he puts into the mouth of the leader of the chorus in
his “Peace:”—

“It was he that indignantly swept from the stage the paltry ignoble
device
Of a Hercules needy and seedy and greedy, a vagabond sturdy and
stout,
Now baking his bread, now swindling instead, now beaten and battered
about.
And freedom he gave to the lacrimose slave who was wont with a howl
to rush in,
And all for the sake of a joke which they make on the wounds which
disfigure his skin.
Such vulgar contemptible lumber at once he bade from the drama
depart,
And then, like an edifice stately and grand, he raised and ennobled
the art.”
THOROLD ROGERS.

Aristophanes outlived the license of the old comedy, which died with
liberty. When in 404 B.C. the popular government was overthrown, and
Thirty Tyrants, supported by Sparta, lorded it over Athens, a statute
was passed making personal attacks on the stage capital offences; an
actor who defied the law was actually starved to death. Thenceforth the
comic poet dared not individualize the object of his satire; he tilted
against vice and folly in general, or thrust at his intended victims
indirectly under assumed names.

Aristophanes died about 380 B.C. No other comic poet could vie with him
during his lifetime; none worthy to be his successor arose after his
death, for “Nature broke the mould in which he was cast.” Of fifty-four
comedies from his pen, eleven remain entire.

THE ACHARNIANS 425 B.C.
THE KNIGHTS 424 ”
THE CLOUDS 423 ”
THE WASPS 422 ”

The persons constituting the chorus were girt in tightly about the
waist, to make them as wasp-like as possible in appearance; skewers
did service as stings.

PEACE 421 ”
THE BIRDS 414 ”
LYSISTRATA 411 ”
THE WOMEN CELEBRATING
THE FEAST OF CERES 411 ”
Ridicule of Euripides is the staple of this play.

THE FROGS 405 ”
Here again Euripides is the butt. The chorus was made up to represent
frogs, whose croakings were imitated.

THE WOMEN MET IN
ASSEMBLY 392 ”
Certain strong-minded female communists, advocates of women’s rights,
seize on the government and undertake the reformation of public
abuses. This play contains the longest word known, made up of 77
syllables and 169 letters.

PLUTUS 388 ”

HISTORY.

During this halcyon age of Greek poetry, prose also was cultivated, and
in the century following the Persian Wars it was brought to maturity.
After the victories that secured her freedom, Greece felt the need of a
national historian to record the story of her struggles and triumphs.
The earliest narrators, as has been shown, confined themselves to
mythology and tradition: the times now demanded an artist who could
paint with faithful pencil on living canvas those scenes that were the
glory of Hellas—and in Herodotus of Halicarnassus that artist appeared.

=Herodotus= (born 484 B.C.).—Halicarnassus was the capital of a Dorian
confederacy of states in southern Asia Minor. Its queen Artemisia
supported Xerxes in his quarrel with Greece; and although the
Athenians, provoked that a woman should take the field against them,
offered an immense reward for her capture, she escaped the perils of
war, and carried her kingdom safely through the political troubles of
the time.

The parents of Herodotus were persons of rank and property. His
writings prove him to have been well read in the literature of his
country. Though not an Ionian born, he adopted the Ionic dialect—the
dress in which Greek prose first appeared.

Herodotus spent the best twenty years of his life in travelling over
the greater part of the known world, studying the history, geography,
and customs of the countries he visited. Thebes and Memphis, Tyre
and Jerusalem, Babylon and Ecbat’ana—with all he made personal
acquaintance, extending his tour as far west as the Greek settlements
in Italy, and as far south as the first cataract of the Nile.

The marvellousness of the stories he collected brought down
upon Herodotus the ridicule of his fellow-citizens; so quitting
Halicarnassus when about thirty-seven years of age, he settled at
Athens. Here, it is related, he read his history, still in the
rough, to the admiring people, who voted him a handsome reward. Here
also he seems to have become intimate with Sophocles and his great
contemporaries; and here, perhaps, his ambition was kindled to add
another star to the galaxy that made Athens the glory of the world.

Not long, however, did Herodotus remain at the capital. As one of a
band of colonists sent out by Pericles in 443 B.C., he crossed to
Italy, and aided in founding the town of Thurii, near the ruins of
Syb’aris (see Map, p. 304). At Thurii he spent his last years in
revising, enlarging, and polishing his history; yet we are not to
believe that he ceased to indulge his passion for travelling when
Sicily and southern Italy lay so invitingly before him. He died at the
age of sixty, leaving the great work of his life unfinished.

The main subject of our author’s work is the Græco-Persian War and the
triumph of his country. His narrative is from time to time relieved by
delightful episodes. Indeed, we owe to him not a few of those romantic
tales that invest ancient history with its peculiar charm; while modern
research has verified many of the wonder-stories that provoked the
derision of his countrymen. Nor do his digressions mar the unity of
his history, which is planned and developed as skilfully as a drama of
Sophocles.

The style of Herodotus is poetical, clear, familiar, fascinating, and
marked by a pleasing variety. “His animation,” says Macaulay, “his
simple-hearted tenderness, his wonderful talent for description and
dialogue, and the pure sweet flow of his language, place him at the
head of narrators.” His history is the first work of its kind that
has descended to us entire. It is divided into nine books, said to
have been read by the author at the Olympic Games, and there to have
received the names of the Nine Muses, which they still bear.[34]
Certainly no names could have been more appropriately connected with a
work that has entitled its author to be called through all time “the
Father of History.”—Extracts follow:—

XERXES AND THE PILOT.

“It is said that Xerxes, leaving Athens, came to a city called Eïon,
on the banks of the Stry’mon. Hence he proceeded no farther by land,
but, intrusting the conduct of his forces to Hydarnes, with orders to
march them to the Hellespont, he went on board a Phœnician vessel to
cross over into Asia. After he had embarked, a heavy and tempestuous
wind set in from the lake; which, on account of the great number
of Persians on board, attendant upon Xerxes, made the situation of
the vessel extremely dangerous. The king, in a transport of terror,
inquired aloud of the pilot if he thought they were safe.

‘By no means,’ was the answer,‘unless we could be rid of some of this
multitude.’

Upon this Xerxes exclaimed,‘Persians, let me now see which of you
loves his prince; my safety, it seems, depends on you.’

As soon as he had spoken, they first bowed themselves before him, and
then leaped into the sea. The vessel being thus lightened, Xerxes was
safely landed in Asia. As soon as he got on shore, he rewarded the
pilot with a golden crown for preserving the life of the king; but, as
he had caused so many Persians to perish, he cut off his head.”—BELOE.

ANECDOTE OF QUEEN NITOCRIS.

“Nitocris had her tomb constructed in the upper part of one of
the principal gateways of the city, high above the heads of the
passers-by, with this inscription cut upon it:—’If there be one among
my successors on the throne of Babylon who is in want of treasure, let
him open my tomb, and take as much as he chooses; not, however, unless
he be truly in want, for it will not be for his good.’

This tomb continued untouched until Darius came to the kingdom. To him
it seemed a monstrous thing that he should be unable to use one of the
gates of the town, and that a sum of money should be lying idle, and
moreover inviting his grasp, and he not seize upon it. Now he could
not use the gate, because, as he drove through, the dead body would
have been over his head.

Accordingly, he opened the tomb; but, instead of money, found only the
dead body, and a writing which said:—’Hadst thou not been insatiate of
pelf, and careless how thou gottest it, thou wouldst not have broken
open the sepulchres of the dead.’”

CUSTOMS OF THE BABYLONIANS.

“Of their customs, whereof I shall now proceed to give an account,
the following is in my judgment the wisest. Once a year, in each
village, the maidens of age to marry were collected all together into
one place; while the men stood round them in a circle. Then a herald
called up the damsels one by one, and offered them for sale. He began
with the most beautiful. When she was sold for no small sum of money,
he offered for sale the one who came next to her in beauty. All of
them were sold to be wives.

The richest of the Babylonians who wished to wed, bid against each
other for the loveliest maidens; while the humbler wife-seekers, who
were indifferent about beauty, took the more homely damsels with
marriage-portions. For the custom was that when the herald had gone
through the whole number of the beautiful damsels, he should then
call up the ugliest—a cripple, if there chanced to be one—and offer
her to the men, asking who would agree to take her with the smallest
marriage-portion. And the man who offered to take the smallest sum,
had her assigned to him. The marriage-portions were furnished by the
money paid for the beautiful damsels, and thus the fairer maidens
portioned out the uglier.

No one was allowed to give his daughter in marriage to the man of his
choice, nor might any one carry away the damsel whom he had purchased
without finding bail really and truly to make her his wife. All who
liked might come, even from distant villages, and bid for the women.

The Babylonians have no physicians; but when a man is ill, they lay
him in the public square, and the passers-by come up to him, and if
they have ever had his disease themselves or have known any one who
has suffered from it, they give him advice, recommending him to do
whatever they found good in their own case, or in the case known to
them. And no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence without
asking him what his ailment is.”—RAWLINSON.

=Thucydides=, on whom the mantle of Herodotus descended, was born in
a village of Attica about 471 B.C. We may believe that he received
a polite education, and became proficient in military science at
an early age. It was in the prime of manhood, if the oft-repeated
story is to be credited, that the history of Herodotus, read before
an assembled throng, brought tears to his eyes and fired him with a
desire to emulate its distinguished author. Greece was then on the eve
of the Peloponnesian War, in which the rival states Athens and Sparta
figured as chief actors. Thucydides anticipated the impending storm,
and discerned his opportunity; this war should be his subject, and even
before it began he was busy collecting preliminary information.

Nor did he serve his country merely in the capacity of historian.
He engaged actively in the contest, and received as his reward the
command of an Athenian squadron. But he committed an unpardonable sin
by failing to save a town, which surrendered to the Spartans before
he could arrive with assistance. Instigated by Cleon, his countrymen
deprived him of his position and cast him forth an exile.

Thucydides retired to Thrace, where he had a valuable interest in
certain gold-mines, and there devoted himself to the preparation of
his history, narrowly watching the progress of events and gathering
intelligence with the utmost care. His exile of twenty years was indeed
“the Muses’ blessing;” it enabled him to pursue his studies without
interruption. Long after his death, the plane-tree in whose shadow he
was accustomed to compose, was pointed out to travellers.

Thucydides traced the Peloponnesian War to the middle of its
twenty-first year (411 B.C.), leaving it to be finished by another. Why
he did not complete it himself, being in possession of the necessary
materials, does not appear. After the Athenian power was broken by
Sparta (404 B.C.), the decree of banishment was revoked; but whether
Thucydides ever returned to Athens is a matter of doubt. According to
one account, he went back to fall the victim of a conspiracy; from
another we are led to infer that he died a natural death in Thrace
about 391 B.C.

The “History of the Peloponnesian War” is remarkable for its accuracy
and impartiality. Truth was the great object of its author, who,
dispassionate and unprejudiced, ignores the ingratitude of his country,
betrays no resentment even when he speaks of Cleon, and does full
justice to his Spartan foes. He intended his work to be an authority,
“a possession for everlasting.” In it we find the first attempts to
treat the philosophy of history, to trace events to their ultimate
causes, and deduce from the past lessons for the future. His style is
nervous, concise, stately, and even rises to the sublime; but lacks
harmony, and is sometimes obscure. About one fourth of his work is
composed of speeches, which indeed make an agreeable variety, but are
often involved, and in parts all but unintelligible. Antithesis is a
frequent figure.

Despite its faults, the history of Thucydides has always been a
favorite. Charles V. was never without a copy when on a campaign, and
the philosopher Hobbes declared that he valued its eight books above
all the rest of Greek historical literature. The extract selected is a
description of the plague which broke out at Athens in the year 430,
while the Lacedæmonians were ravaging Attica, and which the historian
contracted himself, but fortunately survived.

THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS.

“While the nature of this distemper was such as to baffle all
description, and its attacks were almost too grievous for human
nature to endure, it was still in the following circumstance that its
difference from all ordinary disorders was most clearly shown. All the
birds and beasts that prey upon human bodies either abstained from
touching them (though there were many lying unburied), or died after
tasting them. In proof of this, it was noticed that birds of this kind
actually disappeared; they were not about the bodies, or indeed to be
seen at all. But of course the effects which I have mentioned could
best be studied in a domestic animal like the dog.

Meanwhile the town enjoyed an immunity from all the ordinary
disorders; or, if any case occurred, it ended in this. Some died of
neglect, others in the midst of every attention. No remedy was found
that could be used as a specific; for what did good in one case,
did harm in another. Strong and weak constitutions proved equally
incapable of resistance, all alike being swept away, although dieted
with the utmost precaution.

By far the most terrible feature in the malady was the dejection which
ensued when they felt themselves sickening; for the despair into which
they instantly fell took away their power of resistance, and left them
a much easier prey to the disorder. Besides which, there was the awful
spectacle of men dying like sheep, through having caught the infection
in nursing each other. This caused the greatest mortality. On the one
hand, if they were afraid to visit each other, they perished from
neglect: indeed, many houses were emptied of their inmates for want
of a nurse: on the other hand, if they ventured to do so, death was
the consequence. This was especially the case with such as made any
pretensions to goodness: a sense of honor prevented them from sparing
themselves in their attendance at their friends’ houses, where even
the members of the family were at last worn out by the moans of the
dying, and succumbed to the force of the disaster. Yet it was with
those who had recovered from the disease that the sick found most
compassion. These knew what it was from experience, and had now no
fear for themselves; for the same man was never attacked a second
time—never at least fatally. And such persons not only received the
congratulations of others, but themselves also in the elation of the
moment half entertained the vain hope that they were for the future
safe from any disease whatever.

An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the
country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new
arrivals. As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be
lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the
mortality raged without restraint; bodies lay one upon another in the
agonies of thirst, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets
and round all the fountains in their longing for water. The sacred
places, also, in which they had quartered themselves, were full of
corpses of persons that had died there.

All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and they
buried the bodies as best they could. Many from want of the proper
appliances, through so many of their friends having died already, had
recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes getting the start
of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own dead body upon
the stranger’s pile and ignited it; sometimes they tossed the corpse,
which they were carrying, on the top of another which was burning, and
so went off.

Nor was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its
origin to the plague. Men now coolly ventured on what they had
formerly done in a corner, and not just as they pleased, seeing the
rapid transitions produced by persons in prosperity suddenly dying
and those who before had nothing succeeding to their property. So
they resolved to spend quickly and enjoy themselves, regarding their
lives and riches as alike things of a day. Perseverance in what men
called honor was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether they
would be spared to attain the object; but present enjoyment, and all
that contributed to it, was laid down as both honorable and useful.
Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain them. As for the
first, they judged it to be just the same whether they worshipped the
gods or not, as they saw all alike perishing; and for the last, no one
expected to live to be brought to trial for his offences, but felt
that a far severer sentence had been already passed upon them and hung
even over their heads, and before this fell it was only reasonable to
enjoy life a little.

Such was the nature of the calamity, and heavily did it weigh on the
Athenians; death raging within the city and devastation without.
Among other things which they remembered in their distress was, very
naturally, the following verse, which the old men said had long ago
been uttered:

‘A Dorian war shall come, and with it death.’”
RICHARD CRAWLEY.

=Xenophon=, who in his “Hellenica” continued the story of the
Peloponnesian War left unfinished by Thucydides, and carried the
history of Greece as far as the battle of Mantine’a, 362 B.C., was
born at Athens shortly after the middle of the fifth century. Of his
early life we know nothing, save that he was the friend and pupil
of Socrates; who, it is related, prepossessed with his intelligent
countenance, once stopped him in a narrow way and demanded where men
were made good and honest. Confused by the unexpected inquiry from
so great a teacher, the boy hesitated; whereupon, the philosopher
exclaimed, “Follow me and learn.” Xenophon obeyed, and became a
faithful student of his master’s moral and philosophical doctrines.
Together they braved the perils of the Peloponnesian War; and in the
battle of De’lium (424 B.C.), where the flower of Athens’ chivalry
fell, Xenophon’s life is said to have been saved by Socrates.

At the solicitation of his friend, Proxenus the Bœotian, Xenophon
joined as a volunteer the famous Expedition of the Ten Thousand,
made in the interest of Cyrus the Younger against his elder brother
Artaxerxes, who occupied the Persian throne. Feeling the necessity of
securing soldiers superior in bravery and discipline to the barbarian
hordes through which he must cut his way to the capital, Cyrus
supported the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War, in order to secure
their aid in dethroning Artaxerxes. Accordingly, at his summons, about
10,000 Spartans and other Greeks, deceived at first as to the real
object of the campaign, flocked to his standard, and in the spring of
401 B.C., with 100,000 Eastern troops, entered the confines of the
Persian Empire.

On the plain of Cunaxa, ninety miles from Babylon, the decisive battle
took place between the brothers, Artaxerxes having at his back an army
of nearly a million men. Superior numbers, however, availed little
against the superior discipline of the Greeks, who quickly routed the
wing opposed to them; but Cyrus, already hailed as king, imprudently
spurred into the disordered ranks of the foe, and was struck down while
engaged in a furious hand-to-hand conflict with Artaxerxes.

The fall of Cyrus was the signal for his Asiatic troops to disperse,
and the victors found themselves deserted in the heart of the enemy’s
country, more than 1,200 miles from home. Their generals were soon
after seized at a conference and put to death. In this crisis, by the
advice of Xenophon, inspired as he tells us by a dream, new leaders
were chosen, he himself in the place of his friend Proxenus, one
of the murdered chiefs. A retreat was determined upon; and during
fifteen months of indescribable hardships, he was the patient guide,
the sympathetic but vigilant and prudent commander. At last, from a
mountain height, the glittering Euxine broke upon the view of the van,
a glad shout rent the air—“the Sea! the Sea!”—proclaiming that their
sufferings were over, while officers and soldiers wept in each other’s
arms. Here, in the neighborhood of Greek settlements, they were safe,
and the march home was easy. The 8,600 survivors owed their lives to
Xenophon.

This “Retreat” of the Greeks is the subject of Xenophon’s graphic and
interesting history in seven books, the “Anabasis” (_march up_, though
most of the work is occupied with what happened on the march _down_).
The chaste, simple style of the author, who throughout modestly speaks
of himself in the third person, recommends his pages to readers of
every class. He writes to the point; there is no straining for effect.
We extract the passage relating to

XENOPHON’S DREAM.

“After the generals were made prisoners, and such of the captains
and soldiers as had accompanied them were put to death, the Greeks
were in great perplexity, reflecting that they were not far from the
king’s residence; that there were around them, on all sides, many
hostile nations and cities; that no one would any longer afford them
opportunities of purchasing provisions; that they were distant from
Greece not less than ten thousand stadia; that there was no one to
guide them on the way; that impassable rivers would intercept them in
the midst of their course; that the Babylonians who had gone up with
Cyrus had deserted them; and that they were left alone, having no
cavalry to support them.

Reflecting, I say, on these circumstances, and being disheartened at
them, few tasted food that evening, few kindled fires; and many did
not come to the place of arms during the night, but lay down to sleep
where they severally happened to be, unable to sleep for sorrow and
longing for their country, their parents, their wives and children,
whom they never expected to see again. In this state of mind they all
went to their resting-places.

When this perplexity occurred, Xenophon was distressed as well as the
other Greeks, and unable to rest; but having at length got a little
sleep, he had a dream, in which, in the midst of a thunder-storm, a
bolt seemed to him to fall upon his father’s house, and the house in
consequence became all in a blaze. Greatly frightened, he immediately
awoke, and considered his dream as in one respect favorable, inasmuch
as, being in troubles and dangers, he seemed to behold a great light
from Jupiter; but in another respect he was alarmed, because the
dream appeared to him to be from Jupiter, who was a king, and the
fire to blaze all around him, lest he should be unable to escape
from the king’s territories, but should be hemmed in on all sides by
inextricable difficulties.

What it betokens, however, to see such a dream, we may conjecture
from the occurrences that happened after the dream. What immediately
followed was this. As soon as he awoke, the thought that first
occurred to him was,‘Why do I lie here? The night is passing away.
With daylight it is probable that the enemy will come upon us; and,
if we once fall into the hands of the king, what is there to prevent
us from being put to death with ignominy, after witnessing the most
grievous sufferings among our comrades, and enduring every severity
of torture ourselves? Yet no one concerts measures or takes thought
for our defence, but we lie still, as if we were at liberty to enjoy
repose. From what city, then, do I expect a leader to undertake our
defence? What age am I waiting for, to come to myself? Assuredly I
shall never be older, if I give myself up to the enemy to-day.’ After
these reflections he arose, and called together, in the first place,
the captains that were under Proxenus.

When they were assembled, he said,‘For my part, captains, I cannot
sleep, nor, I should think, can you; nor can I lie still any longer,
when I consider in what circumstances we are placed. For it is plain
that the enemy did not openly manifest hostility toward us, until they
thought that they had judiciously arranged their plans; but on our
side no one takes any thought how we may best maintain a contest with
them. Yet if we prove remiss, and fall into the power of the king,
what may we not expect to suffer from a man who cut off the head and
hand of his own brother by the same mother and father, even after he
was dead, and fixed them upon a stake? What may not we, I say, expect
to suffer, who have no relative to take our part, and who have marched
against him to make him a subject instead of a monarch, and to put
him to death if it should lie in our power? Will he not proceed to
every extremity, that by reducing us to the last degree of ignominious
suffering, he may inspire all men with a dread of ever taking the
field against him? We must, therefore, try every expedient not to fall
into his hands.

For myself, I never ceased, while the truce lasted, to consider
ourselves as objects of pity, and to regard the king and his people
as objects of envy; as I contemplated how extensive and valuable a
country they possessed, how great an abundance of provisions, how many
slaves and cattle, and how vast a quantity of gold and raiment. But
since they have put an end to peace, their own haughtiness and our
mistrust seem likewise to be brought to an end; for the advantages
which I have mentioned lie now as prizes between us, for whichsoever
of us shall prove the better men. And the gods are the judges of the
contest, who, as is just, will be on our side; since the enemy have
offended them by perjury, while we, though seeing many good things to
tempt us, have resolutely abstained from all of them through regard to
our oaths; so that, as it seems to me, we may advance to the combat
with much greater confidence than they can feel.

We have bodies, moreover, better able than theirs to endure cold and
toil; and we have, with the help of the gods, more resolute minds;
while the enemy, if the gods, as before, grant us success, will be
found more obnoxious to wounds and death than we are. But possibly
others of you entertain the same thoughts; let us not then, in the
name of Heaven, wait for others to come and exhort us to noble deeds,
but let us be ourselves the first to excite others to exert their
valor. Prove yourselves the bravest of the captains, and more worthy
to lead than those who are now leaders. As for me, if you wish to
take the start, in the course, I am willing to follow you; or, if
you appoint me to be a leader, I shall not make my youth an excuse,
but shall think myself sufficiently mature to defend myself against
harm.’”—WATSON.

For his sympathy with Sparta, and possibly for sharing the opinions of
his beloved teacher Socrates, Xenophon was banished from Athens; but he
was recompensed by the Lacedæmonians with a house and piece of land in
E’lis. Here, amid lovely meadows and woodlands, he built a temple to
the goddess Diana in fulfilment of a vow he had made when encircled by
dangers in Asia. Here, free from the cares of public life, he passed
many years, happy in the society of his wife, children, and friends,
dividing his time among his farm, his hunting-parks, and his study. He
died at the age of ninety.—Of his two sons, one fell on the field of
Mantinea, after dealing the great Epaminondas his death-blow.

Besides the “Anabasis” and “Hellenica,” Xenophon wrote the
“Cy’ropædi’a” (_education of Cyrus_—the elder Cyrus, king of Persia), a
semi-didactic, semi-historical fiction, illustrating a model system of
education and setting forth his ideal of government—a perfect monarchy.
He is also the author of several works written in defence of Socrates
or as expositions of his philosophy, of which the “Memorabilia”
(_memoirs_) is particularly interesting, teeming as it does with
sayings and anecdotes of the sage.

In addition to his merits as an historian, Xenophon may justly claim
the distinction of having been the first essayist: we have from his
pen essays on the Policy of Lacedæmon, on the Chase, Horsemanship, and
Cavalry Tactics, not to mention several political treatises ascribed to
him. A creditable representative of elegant Attic prose, Xenophon has
been called _the Attic Muse_.

=Ctesias=, a Greek physician attached to the Persian court, who dressed
the wounds of Artaxerxes after the battle of Cunaxa, compiled a history
of Persia in twenty-three books, a description of India, and a variety
of other works. Of his writings, which were in the Ionic dialect,
little has survived.

=Theopompus= (probably 378-304 B.C.) is also worthy of mention as an
historian. He wrote a History of Greece from 411 to 394 B.C., and
“Philippica,” in fifty-eight books, in which he sketched the character
of Philip of Macedon. Of the latter work numerous fragments remain.
Ancient critics give him credit for general accuracy, though he took
rather too rose-colored views of his hero Philip as the promoter of
Grecian civilization.

PHILOSOPHY.

The earliest philosophical investigations were made by Ionians, and
THALES of Miletus is recognized as the founder of Greek philosophy. To
him and to Pythagoras the various systems may all be traced.

=The Ionic School= of Thales, devoted to physical science, rapidly
developed, theory after theory being brought forward to explain the
universe and the nature of Deity. One philosopher made the Supreme
Being an all-pervading, divine air; another, Heracli’tus “the Obscure,”
represented God as a subtile flame, and reduced the universe to an
eternal fire.

A notable step in advance was taken by ANAXAGORAS (500-428 B.C.),
who succeeded to the leadership of this school. The first to make the
study of philosophy fashionable at Athens, he became the instructor of
some of her great men, Socrates among the number. He represented God
as a divine _mind_, acting on the material world with intelligence and
design. Well did Aristotle say that Anaxagoras was like a sober man
among stammering drunkards, when compared with earlier philosophers. As
an astronomer, he anticipated some of the discoveries of more recent
times; he correctly explained eclipses, taught that the sun was a
molten ball, that from it the moon borrowed her light, that the lunar
surface was diversified with mountains and valleys, and that the earth
itself had been the scene of terrible convulsions.

=The Italic School= had meanwhile been founded by PYTHAG’ORAS, of
Samos, born about 540 B.C. He settled in Croto’na, a Greek town of
southern Italy, and there imparted to his disciples the philosophical
principles which he had gathered in other lands, particularly Egypt.

Pythagoras modestly styled himself a lover of wisdom (_philosopher_),
not a wise man (_sophist_). Among his doctrines were the mysterious
theory that _number_ is the first principle of all things, the
transmigration of souls, and a system of future rewards and
punishments. He forestalled Copernicus in his discovery of the true
theory of the solar system—that the sun, and not the earth, as was then
believed, is its centre; he taught that the moon was inhabited and
described the heavenly bodies as producing harmonious tones in their
passage through ether, from which his followers were accustomed to say
that to him the gods had revealed “the music of the spheres.”

With such perfect confidence did his disciples regard their master, who
usually gave his instructions from behind a thick curtain, that when
any one called their doctrines in question they deemed it sufficient
to reply, “He said so” (_ipse dixit_). Indeed, they invested him with
supernatural powers, nor, according to his early biographers, did he
deny the soft impeachment. On one occasion, we are told, to convince
his pupils that he was a god, he showed them his thigh, which was of
gold, and declared that he had assumed the form of humanity only the
more readily to impart his lessons to mankind.

Pythagoras was the inventor of the monochord, a one-stringed instrument
designed to measure musical intervals,—and also of the more useful, if
humbler, Multiplication Table. He is the first who practised mesmerism;
at least so we may account for his subduing a fierce Daunian bear, and
taming beasts and birds by gently passing his hands over their bodies.

There are no genuine remnants of this author. The celebrated “Golden
Verses,” long attributed to him, there is reason for supposing to have
been inspired by his teachings, but written by one of his pupils:—

FROM THE GOLDEN VERSES.

“Ne’er suffer sleep thine eyes to close
Before thy mind hath run
O’er every act, and thought, and word,
From dawn to set of sun;
For wrong take shame, but grateful feel,
If just thy course hath been;
Such effort, day by day renewed,
Will ward thy soul from sin.”

As the Ionics made physics everything, so the Pythagoreans regarded
mathematical science as the _summum bonum_. In their master’s eyes the
world was “a living arithmetic,” and virtue a proportion of all the
faculties of the soul. A mystical relation between mathematical and
moral truths was a principle of his philosophy.

Prominent among the followers of Pythagoras was EMPEDOCLES, of
Agrigentum in Sicily (450 B.C.), who combined the previous theories
of nature in his own, viz., that four elements—earth, air, fire, and
water—enter into the constitution of the universe, and that these are
constantly animated by the two opposing forces of Love and Strife. A
peculiar doctrine of his was that like is perceived only by like; thus
our knowledge of other bodies is due to minute emanations from their
substance which enter the pores and impress corresponding elements in
our own frames.

Empedocles is said to have arrogated to himself the importance of
a god, going about in a purple robe confined with a belt of gold,
performing wonderful cures. According to an old legend, he sought to
create the belief that he had been translated to heaven, by secretly
throwing himself into the crater of Mt. Etna; but the volcano, in
a subsequent eruption, cast forth one of his brazen sandals and
so exposed the fraud. He probably lost his life by accident while
examining the crater.

From the Italic School sprung the sects known as Eleatic, Epicurean,
and Skeptic. The Eleatic School was founded by XENOPH’ANES (600-500
B.C.), a contemporary of Pythagoras, and derived its name from the town
of E’lea in southern Italy.

Xenophanes asserted the unity of the Deity. “There is one god,” he
said, “among gods and men the greatest: unlike to mortals in outward
shape, unlike in mind and thoughts.” This was truly a sublime stand to
take in an age of polytheism; he who feared not to face a superstitious
people with such a doctrine, and ridicule even their divine Homer for
his degrading pictures of the deities, deserves to be ranked among the
greatest philosophers of Greece.

FRAGMENTS FROM XENOPHANES.

“If sheep, and swine, and lions strong, and all the bovine crew,
Could paint with cunning hands, and do what clever mortals do,
Depend upon it, every pig with snout so broad and blunt,
Would make a Jove that like himself would thunder with a grunt;
And every lion’s god would roar, and every bull’s would bellow,
And every sheep’s would baa, and every beast his worshipped fellow
Would find in some immortal form, and naught exist divine
But had the gait of lion, sheep, or ox, or grunting swine.”

* * * * *

“Homer and Hesiod, whom we own great doctors of theology,
Said many things of blissful gods that cry for large apology—
That they may cheat, and rail, and lie, and give the rein to passion,
Which were a crime in men who tread the dust in mortal fashion.”

* * * * *

“All eyes, all ears, all thought, is God, the omnipresent soul;
And free from toil, by force of mind, he moves the mighty whole.”
BLACKIE.

The noble conception of Deity entertained by Xenophanes was soon
perverted. We find his pupil PARMEN’IDES “the Great” in the next
century doing away with the personality of God, and confounding the
divine nature with pure being, which he made equivalent to thought.

DEMOC’RITUS, of Abde’ra in Thrace (460-357 B.C.), known as the
laughing philosopher from his constantly deriding the weaknesses of
men, put forth the _atomic theory_,—that the universe is made up of
countless minute, intangible atoms, and that in the motion of such
atoms, round and fiery, consisted the movements of the mind and soul.
God had no place in this philosophy; matter, time, space, and motion,
were eternal. Bodies were formed by the fortuitous concurrence of
atoms; and by the affinities and motions of atoms in the vacuum that
made up the universe, all natural phenomena were produced.

Such was the wisdom of one who laughed at the follies of his fellows,
and is stated to have put out his own eyes that nothing might distract
the current of his thoughts.

=School of Epicurus.=—The materialism of Democritus was at a later day
elaborated by EPICURUS (born on Samos about 340 B.C.) into a system of
philosophy which gained so many converts that we are told whole cities
could not contain the friends and followers of its author. According
to the Epicurean philosophy, chance governed the world of atoms; there
was no life beyond the grave. The gods were immortal, but were mere
figure-heads, enjoying an emotionless inactivity, indifferent alike to
the vices and fortunes of men: most likely Epicurus did not believe in
any gods at all, but allowed their existence, as nonentities, that he
might not shock the prejudices of the Athenians. Pleasure he made the
chief end of life; but with him pleasure was not sensual indulgence;
it lay in freedom from pain, the sober exercise of reason, and the
nobler enjoyments of man’s higher nature. Such a doctrine, it is plain,
was but too easy of perversion. The pure, high-toned “pleasure” of
the moral Epicurus degenerated with the voluptuaries and profligates
that adopted his tenets into the vilest excesses, and the very name
_epicure_ is applied to one unduly addicted to the gratifying of the
appetite.

=The Skeptical Philosophy.=—PYRRHO, who flourished about 300 B.C.,
was the father of the Skeptics. They held that there was no standard of
truth appreciable by the human mind; nothing can therefore be asserted
as true. Pyrrho doubted everything; his disciples used to follow him,
lest, in practically applying his theory, he should be run over in the
streets or walk off a precipice.

=The Socratic School.=—When Socrates (470-399 B.C.) came upon the stage
in the golden period of Athens, it was to denounce the atheistical
philosophy of his predecessors, and take the field against the
Sophists, who made endless disputation, fallacious but specious, the
head and front of their system. “These word-snapping quibblers,” says
Felton, “were prodigious favorites with the Athenians,—men who proved
that right was wrong, and wrong right, and that there was neither
wrong nor right; that knowing one thing is knowing everything, and
that there is no such thing as knowing anything at all; that as the
beautiful exists by the presence of beauty, so a man becomes an ass by
the presence of an ass; and so on, ringing myriads of changes, like the
fools in Shakespeare, upon these quirks of jugglery.”

Socrates had an effective way of dealing with these gentry. By
cunningly contrived questions, which at first seemed to have no bearing
on the point at issue, he led them on from admission to admission,
until he involved them in absurdities and convicted them out of their
own mouths.

For one like Socrates, the mythology of Greece was too gross, the
speculations of the philosophy then current were too unreal and hollow.
He aspired to something better. At length the unity of God, the soul’s
immortality, and the moral responsibility of man, dawned upon his
mind—sublime truths which he might well have drawn from revelation
itself. The practice of virtue he inculcated as indispensable to
happiness and true religion. A _demon_, or secret influence, he said,
constantly attended him, and was his director in the work of social
reform no less than in the every-day affairs of life. Whether he
deceived himself in this belief or strove to deceive others into it
that he might gain credence for his doctrines, certain it is that
his teachings exercised a most wholesome influence. All subsequent
Greek philosophy is stamped with their impress. (_See Blackie’s “Horæ
Hellenicæ.”_)

In his domestic relations, Socrates was not happy. Believing it
incumbent on him to devote every moment to philosophical inquiry or
exhortations of the people to practical morality, he was wont to
neglect his legitimate business of stone-cutting, and leave his family
to provide for its own support. This was too much for his good wife
Xantippe. Something of a shrew even under the best of circumstances, we
may imagine that she made his household rather hot, particularly when
he brought guests home to dinner and there was nothing in the larder.
On one occasion she went so far as to give emphasis to her reproaches
with a shower of dish-water. The dripping philosopher, not in the least
disturbed, calmly remarked, “I thought after so much thunder, we should
have some rain.”

Socrates declined the invitation of a Macedonian prince to live in
luxury at his court, with the characteristic reply, “At Athens meal
is two-pence the measure, and water may be had for nothing.” He clung
to Athens to the last, and so doing won a martyr’s crown. Accused of
impiety in corrupting the religious belief of the young committed to
his charge, he was condemned to drink the fatal hemlock. Surrounded by
sorrowing disciples, who had bribed the jailer and vainly urged him to
fly while there was yet time, he calmly placed the cup to his lips,
and soon after passed away with not a doubt as to “the undiscovered
country.” “I derive confidence,” said he, “from the hope that something
of man remains after death, and that the condition of good men will
then be much better than that of the bad.”

Socrates failed to commit his philosophy to writing; it is from the
pages of Xenophon and Plato, his most devoted admirers, that we have
learned his doctrines.

The principal schools that originated in the Socratic were the
Academic, Peripatetic, Cynic, and Stoic.

=Academic School.—Plato.=—The Academic School was founded by Socrates’
pupil, Plato, and derived its name from the grove of Acade’mus, a
public garden at Athens in which this philosopher was accustomed to
deliver his lectures. Beneath its planes and olives flowed the stream
Cephissus; statues and temples were scattered through its shade, and
solitary paths invited to rest and meditation.

[Illustration: GROVE OF ACADEMUS.]

Plato was noble-born, tracing his descent from King Codrus through one
parent and from Solon through the other. His great genius was early
seen. After mastering the elementary branches, he turned his attention
to painting and poetry; but when he compared an epic on which he had
tried his hand with Homer’s, he threw it into the fire in disgust.
Chancing to hear Socrates discourse, he forthwith resolved to forsake
the ornamental arts and study philosophy. So, when only twenty, Plato
attached himself to Socrates; his admiration quickly ripened into an
abiding affection; and for eight years he sat at the philosopher’s
feet as a pupil, though now and then obtruding new theories of his
own. In the dark days of his master’s trial and condemnation, he was
still faithful; and when the judges silenced his speech in defence of
Socrates, he would have resorted to the money-argument, which then, as
now, seldom failed, had not the high-minded sage refused to secure life
by such ignoble means.

After the execution of Socrates, Plato pursued his studies in foreign
lands. He visited Italy, Sicily, and Egypt, carefully examining
their different systems of philosophy, and possibly even making the
acquaintance of the Hebrew Scriptures. During this tour he is related
to have been sold into slavery at the instigation of Dionysius, tyrant
of Syracuse, whom he had offended by his bold expressions.

On his return to Athens, in accordance with a long-cherished plan,
Plato opened an humble dwelling in the grove of Academus for the
reception of pupils, and founded the famous Academic School. He soon
became the most popular man in Athens. Crowds thronged to his lectures
and dialogues, which were free to all; and even ladies assumed male
attire, that they might mingle unnoticed with the listeners and drink
in the eloquence which flowed from his lips. His fame went abroad also.
Foreign potentates sought his aid in adjusting political difficulties;
and twice, by request, he returned to the Syracusan court to effect a
reform in the government—but in this case, without success.

On his eighty-second birthday, while he was pursuing his accustomed
occupation, the stylus suddenly fell from Plato’s hand, and he expired.
Under the trees so long associated with his kindly instruction, he
found a final resting-place; an admiring country preserved his memory
by altars and statues; and the verdict of succeeding generations has
been that Plato was the greatest philosopher of antiquity.

PLATO’S PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM.—Plato was an enthusiast in the pursuit
of truth. He believed in a personal God, rational, immutable, eternal.
He realized that man could never attain absolute wisdom, possible to
God alone; and looked upon philosophy as “a longing after heavenly
wisdom.” He sought to correct abuses, to elevate humanity; and made
man’s highest duty consist in searching out God and imitating the
perfection of the Almighty as his rule of conduct. The four cardinal
virtues were wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice; but none could
be virtuous without aid from on high. (_Read Bulkley’s “Plato’s Best
Thoughts.”_)

The soul, an emanation from the Supreme Mind, was immortal. It existed
before its union with the body, and all earthly knowledge is but
the recollection of what it possessed in some former state. When,
disembodied, it stood face to face with kindred immaterial essences,
it acquired those _ideas_, or _forms_, which figure so prominently in
the Platonic system—interpreted by some to mean veritable objective
existences too subtile to be discerned by the eye of flesh, and by
others explained as mere intuitions or generalizations having no
objective reality.

Plato regarded men as free agents, to be rewarded or punished in a
future life for their deeds in this. His poetical fancy fixed on some
distant star as the abode of the blessed. The earth he supposed to
occupy the centre of the universe. It was not eternal, but was made
by an intelligent God, who breathed into it a soul; so it was a living
creature, self-active, and gifted with the beautiful form of the sphere.

Nor did the philosopher forget to train the reasoning powers, by the
study of mathematics. The importance he attached to this science may be
inferred from the sign on his school: “Let no one enter here who is a
stranger to geometry.” Plato has the honor of having been the inventor
of geometrical analysis.

PLATO’S WORKS, which have descended to us unimpaired, are in the
form of dialogues—a delightful method of conveying philosophical
instruction, when, as in Plato’s case, the personages introduced
as speakers are salient characters, and their idiosyncrasies are
maintained throughout with discrimination. The dull lessons of
dialectics are thus enlivened by graphic portraitures and happy strokes
of humor. Plato’s language is the perfection of Attic prose, beautified
by a poetical tinge. “If Jupiter should speak Greek,” said ancient
critics, “it would be Plato’s.” What Socrates dreamed on the night
before the young Plato entered his school—that a cygnet came from
the grove of Academus, and, after nestling on his breast for a time,
took its flight heavenward, singing sweetly as it rose—is recorded as
presaging his pupil’s sweet mastery of words.

The Platonic Dialogues, thirty-five in number, discuss various
subjects. One of the finest is “Phædo,” written to prove the immortal
nature of the soul. It derives its name from the beloved disciple of
Socrates, who is here made by Plato, prevented from being present
himself, to describe their master’s death-scene and repeat his last
discourse. Full of sublime and poetical conceptions, the “Phædo” aims
at lifting the mind above the sensual to the spiritual and eternal;
at foreshadowing the joys of the heavenly state, and painting death
as a thing to be desired rather than feared, since it is the portal
of bliss. The philosopher Cleom’brotus, on reading this Dialogue, is
said to have thrown himself into the sea to exchange this life for the
better one pictured by Plato.

EXTRACT FROM PHÆDO.

(Socrates, having proved the immortality of the soul to the
satisfaction of all present in the prison, addresses them as follows.)

“Then, Cebes, beyond question, the soul is immortal and imperishable,
and our souls will truly exist in another world!”

“I am convinced, Socrates,” said Cebes, “and have nothing more to
object; but if my friend Simmias, or any one else, has any further
objection, he had better speak out, and not keep silence, since I do
not know to what other season he can defer the discussion, if there is
anything which he wants to say or have said.”

“I have nothing more to say,” replied Simmias; “nor can I see any
reason for doubt after what has been said. But I still feel and cannot
help feeling uncertain in my own mind, when I think of the greatness
of the subject and the feebleness of man.”

“Yes, Simmias,” replied Socrates, “that is well said; but O my
friends! if the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken of
her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life,
but of eternity! And the danger of neglecting her from this point of
view does indeed appear to be awful. If death had only been the end of
all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying, for they would
have been happily quit not only of their body, but of their own evil
together with their souls. But now, inasmuch as the soul is manifestly
immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the
attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul, when on her
progress to the world below, takes nothing with her but nurture and
education; and these are said greatly to benefit or greatly to injure
the departed, at the very beginning of his pilgrimage in the other
world.

“Wherefore, Simmias, seeing all these things, what ought not we to do
that we may obtain virtue and wisdom in this life? Fair is the prize,
and the hope great!

“A man of sense ought not to say that the description which I have
given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true. But I do say that,
inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to think
that something of the kind is true. The venture is a glorious one, and
he ought to comfort himself with words like these, which is the reason
why I lengthen out the tale.

“Wherefore, I say, let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who has
cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the body as alien to him, and
has followed after the pleasures of knowledge in this life; who has
arrayed the soul in her own proper jewels, which are temperance, and
justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth—thus adorned, she is
ready to go on her journey to the world below when her hour comes.

“You, Simmias and Cebes, and all other men, will depart at some time
or other. Me already, as the tragic poet would say, the voice of fate
calls. Soon I must drink the poison; and I think that I had better
repair to the bath first, in order that the women may not have the
trouble of washing my body after I am dead.”

When he had done speaking, Crito said: “And have you any commands for
us, Socrates? anything to say about your children, or any other matter
in which we can serve you?”

“Nothing particular,” he said: “only, as I have always told you, I
would have you look to yourselves; that is a service which you may
always be doing to me and mine as well as to yourselves.”

“We will do our best,” said Crito; “but in what way would you have us
bury you?”

“In any way that you like; only you must get hold of me, and take care
that I do not walk away from you.”

Then he turned to us, and added with a smile:—“I cannot make Crito
believe that I am the same Socrates who have been talking and
conducting the argument; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom
he will soon see, a dead body—and he asks, How shall he bury me? And
though I have spoken many words in the endeavor to show that when I
have drunk the poison I shall leave you and go to the joys of the
blessed, these words of mine, with which I comforted you and myself,
have had, as I perceive, no effect upon Crito.

“You must be my surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away
and depart; and then he will suffer less at my death, and not be
grieved when he sees my body being burned or buried. I would not
have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial,‘Thus we lay
out Socrates,’ or‘Thus we follow him to the grave or bury him;’ for
false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul
with evil. Be of good cheer then, my dear Crito, and say that you are
burying my body only, and do with that as is usual, and as you think
best.—JOWETT.—(In this connection _read Grote’s “Plato and the Other
Companions of Socrates.”_)

In his “Republic,” Plato indulges in a political dream, sketching an
ideal government and embodying his conception of absolute justice. In
his “Atlantis,” he describes a large island lying west of Europe, which
some have tried to connect with America.

The Academic School long survived its founder; but little if any
advance was made by his successors. Its fundamental tenets outlived
Greece and Rome, to reappear in the schools of modern times. Many of
them are in wonderful harmony with Christian doctrines; and such a
resemblance to the Jewish Scriptures has been detected in the writings
of their author that he has been called “the Attic Moses.”

=Peripatetic School.—Aristotle.=—The Peripatetic was an offshoot from
the Academic School, its founder Aristotle having for twenty years
studied under Plato. Its influence cannot be estimated; for 1,800
years, up to the revival of letters in modern times, its author was
recognized as the supreme authority on every subject, whether by Moslem
or Christian.

ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.) was born at the Thracian town of Stagi’ra.
Inheriting from his father literary tastes as well as the means to
gratify them, he selected Athens as the scene of his labors, and
there, at the age of seventeen, he entered the Academy of Plato. So
energetically did he apply himself, not as a servile follower but often
as a pioneer in new paths of his own, that his master said he required
the bit rather than the spur, and styled him the Intellect of the
school. On one occasion, when none but this ardent pupil was present
to hear his lecture, Plato proceeded as usual, saying that “so long as
he had Aristotle for an audience, he had the better half of Athens.”
His industry was proverbial; he grudged the time needed for repose, and
used to sleep with a ball in his hand, that when it fell from his grasp
by the relaxing of the muscles the noise would awaken him.

When Plato died, Aristotle retired from the Academy; and in 342 B.C. he
received the following letter from Philip of Macedon, whose court he
had visited as an ambassador:—

“PHILIP to ARISTOTLE, wisheth health:

Be informed that I have a son, and that I am thankful to the gods, not
so much for his birth, as that he was born in the same age with you;
for if you will undertake the charge of his education, I assure myself
that he will become worthy of his father, and of the kingdom which he
will inherit.”

There was no declining such an invitation. At Stagira, his native
town, Philip provided a school and the accustomed grove for
instruction, in which the philosopher moulded the mind of Alexander the
future Conqueror. The king of Macedon was more than satisfied with the
results; and the royal pupil owned his indebtedness to his teacher,
exclaiming, “Philip only gave me life, but Aristotle has taught me the
art of living well!”

When, on the assassination of Philip, Alexander mounted the throne and
embarked on that expedition which extended the sway of Macedon over
half the known world, he showed his gratitude by making his instructor
a munificent present equivalent to nearly $1,000,000, and employed
two or three thousand men to fill his cabinets with specimens. Thus
supplied with material and funds, Aristotle, established in Athens
since 335 B.C. as a distinguished teacher despite his traditional lisp
and insignificant appearance, vigorously prosecuted his scientific
labors. At the Lyce’um, Apollo’s temple, he gave instruction to his
disciples, walking up and down in the covered paths (_peripatoi_) about
the building—whence the name of his school, _Peripatetic_. He mastered
all existing knowledge, regarding learning as “an ornament to men in
prosperity, a refuge in adversity;” and for thirteen years divided his
time between his pupils and his literary work.

The news of Alexander’s sudden death was the signal for Aristotle’s
enemies, no longer restrained by fear of his royal friend, to show
their hand. Impiety was alleged against him; but mindful of the fate
of Socrates, and, as he said, to prevent the Athenians from sinning a
second time against philosophy, he retired to Chalcis on the island of
Eubœa, where he died within a year.

PHILOSOPHY AND WRITING OF ARISTOTLE.—While to some extent following
his master, from several of Plato’s doctrines Aristotle felt compelled
to dissent; truth, he said, was dearer to him than any friend.[35]
He did not accept the Ideal theory, but inclined to materialism or to
pantheism, making _reason_ divine and omnipresent. He doubted his own
immortality, holding that the soul could not exist apart from the body,
and that there is “nothing good or bad beyond to the dead.” His style
was dry, elliptical, and full of technicalities; if we compare it with
Plato’s, we have the opposite poles of the magnet.

Plato was all imagination, Aristotle was thoroughly practical. The
inspiration of the one was a passionate love of wisdom; the forte of
the other was power of analysis, a wonderful faculty of systemizing
knowledge. The master captivated the heart; the pupil convinced the
reason. “The philosophy of Plato,” says Dr. Draper, “is a gorgeous
castle in the air; that of Aristotle is a solid structure laboriously
founded on rock.”

Aristotle’s style is devoid of ornament, and his subjects are too
abstruse for the general run of readers; but he was a keen observer
and a close reasoner. A few paragraphs from his Rhetoric, in which he
analyzes the peculiarities of old age, will show how well he understood
human nature.

THE DISPOSITION OF THE OLD.

“Those who are advanced in life, having been deceived in a greater
number of instances, err in everything more on the side of defect than
they ought. And they always _suppose_, but never _know_ certainly;
and, questioning everything, they always subjoin a _perhaps_, or a
_possibly_. And they are apt to view things in an unfavorable light;
for a disposition thus to view things, is the judging of everything on
the worse side.

Moreover, they are apt to be suspicious from distrust, and they are
distrustful from their experience. And on this account they neither
love nor hate with great earnestness; but, conformably to the remark
of Bias, they both love as though about to hate, and hate as though
about to love. And they are pusillanimous, from their having been
humbled by the course of life; for they raise their desires to nothing
great or vast, but to things only which conduce to the support of life.

And they are illiberal; for property is one of the necessaries;
and they are at the same time aware, from their experience, of the
difficulty of its acquisition, and of the ease with which it is lost.
They are timid and apprehensive of everything; for their disposition
is the reverse of that of the young; for they have been chilled by
years, but the young are warm in their temperament; so that their age
has paved the way to timidity; for fear is a certain kind of chill.

And they are attached to life, and particularly at its last closing
day, from the circumstance that desire is of some object which is
absent, and that men more especially desire that of which they stand
in need.

They have self-love more than is fitting; for this too is a kind of
littleness of spirit. And they live in a greater degree than they
ought by the standard of expediency, and not of what is honorable, by
reason of their self-love: for what is expedient is good _relatively_
to one’s self, but what is honorable is good _absolutely_.

Again, they are not easily inspired with hope, on account of their
experience; for the majority of things are but paltry; wherefore the
generality turn out inferior to the expectation; and once more, on
account of their timidity they are apt to despond. And they live more
in memory than in hope; for the remnant of life is brief, but what
has passed is considerable; and hope indeed is of what is to come;
whereas memory is of things gone by. The very reason, this, of their
garrulity; for they never cease talking of that which has taken place,
since they are delighted in awakening the recollections of things.

And their anger is keen, but faint. And some of their desires have
abandoned them. Others are faint; so that neither are they liable
to the influence of desire, nor apt to act in conformity to it, but
with a view to gain; on which account men of this age appear to be
naturally temperate, for both their desires have relaxed, and they are
enslaved to gain.

The old have moreover a tendency to pity, but not on the same
principle with the young; for the latter are thus disposed from
their love of human nature; the former from their imbecility. Whence
they are querulous, and neither facetious nor fond of mirth; for
querulousness is the very reverse of fondness for mirth. Such is the
disposition of those in advanced life.”—THEODORE BUCKLEY.

The writings of Aristotle exhausted the fields of art and science; 400
treatises, most of which have perished, at one time bore his name.
Rhetoric, psychology or mental science, and natural history, owed to
him their origin. In his “Organon” was first presented the method of
_deduction_,—the process by which the mind reasons down from general
propositions to particular cases, by means of the _syllogism_, the
_organ_ or instrument of reasoning. Men had thus arrived at conclusions
for ages, without any knowledge of Aristotle’s formulæ, just as they
had talked correctly though ignorant of analytical grammar. It was
reserved for the Stagirite to discover the laws by which they drew
conclusions, and thus at once to found and perfect LOGIC. This was
the science of _reasoning_, as contrasted with Plato’s _dialectics_ or
method of _discussing_. (_See Benn’s “The Greek Philosophers.”_)

Nor was Aristotle unacquainted with Induction, the great lever
of modern philosophy. This process, which reverses the steps of
deduction,[36] and reasons from particular cases up to general laws,
was employed in his researches, but was not fully developed till twenty
centuries later in the “Novum Organon” of Lord Bacon, opening the way
to a new era in scientific investigation.

Aristotle willed his writings to his disciple Theophrastus, whom
we shall next consider; and for many years they were kept from the
world, while numerous imitations and forgeries gained the popular ear
through the prestige of Aristotle’s name. It was not till 50 B.C.
that a complete edition of the genuine works was published, and then
at Rome. Meanwhile the Lyceum had waned; its later heads were men of
mediocre ability, and the Peripatetic School was superseded in popular
estimation by the Epicurean and the Stoic.

=Theophrastus=, of Lesbos (374-287 B.C.), a pupil of Plato and
afterward of Aristotle, succeeded the latter, by his appointment, as
head of the Lyceum. During his time, he maintained the high reputation
of the school, attracting many to it from all parts of Greece by his
eloquence. That he might address a still larger audience, he wrote
numerous treatises on philosophy and natural history.

His “Moral Characters,” which have descended to us, show up in lively
colors such representative personages as the Gabbler, the Niggard,
the Noodle, the Grumbler, the Swell, the Poltroon, the Slanderer,
the Newsmonger, the Clown, etc., from whom, it seems, that Greek
society was not exempt any more than our own. These were the first
character-sketches ever made; they served as models to La Bruyère in
French, to Sir Thomas Overbury and others in English literature. As
specimens, we cull the most pointed portions of the sections on the
Flatterer and the Unseasonable Man.

THE FLATTERER.

“Flattery may be considered as a mode of companionship, degrading but
profitable to him who flatters.

The Flatterer is a person who will say as he walks with another,‘Do
you observe how people are looking at you? This happens to no man in
Athens but you. A compliment was paid to you yesterday in the Porch.
More than thirty persons were sitting there; the question was started,
Who is our foremost man? Every one mentioned you first, and ended by
coming back to your name.’

Then he will request the company to be silent while the great man
is speaking, and will praise him, too, in his hearing, and mark his
approbation at a pause with‘True;’ or he will laugh at a frigid joke,
and stuff his cloak into his mouth as if he could not repress his
amusement.

He will request those whom he meets to stand still until‘his Honor’
has passed. He will buy apples and pears, and bring them in, and give
to the children in the father’s presence; adding, with kisses,‘Chicks
of a good father.’ Also, when he assists at the purchase of slippers,
he will declare that the foot is more shapely than the shoe. If his
patron is approaching a friend, he will run forward and say,‘He is
coming to you;’ and then, turning back,‘I have announced you.’

He is the first of the guests to praise the wine; and to say, as he
reclines next the host,‘How delicate is your fare! and (taking up
something from the table)‘Now this—how excellent it is!’ He will say
that his patron’s house is well built, that his land is well planted,
and that his portrait is a good likeness.”—JEBB.

MR. MALAPROP.

“Unseasonable behavior is such a manner of conversation as is very
troublesome to those with whom you converse.

A man that acts unseasonably will intrude himself upon his friend,
when he is engaged in earnest business, and consult him about his own
private concerns. When his mistress lies dangerously ill of a fever,
he’ll make her a visit and carry himself gayly. If he stands in need
of a surety, he begs that favor of one who has just smarted for being
bound to another. If he is summoned for a witness in any cause, he
appears in court immediately after judgment has been given.

When he is invited to a wedding, he takes the opportunity to rail
at the fair sex. If he meets a friend who has just come home from a
long journey, he’ll press him to take a walk. He is ever ready and
punctual, as soon as a shop-keeper has sold his goods, to help him to
a customer that would have given more.

If he happens to be in a place where a servant is chastised, all
the comfort he gives him is to tell him that he also had formerly a
boy whom he chastised in the same manner, and that the poor lad so
resented this usage that he immediately made way with himself. If
he is accidentally present at an arbitration, where the contending
parties desire to have the matter in dispute between them amicably
settled, instead of promoting a reconciliation, he sets them together
by the ears, and makes the difference ten times greater than it was
before.”—GALLY.

=The Stoic School= was so called from the Painted Portico (_stoa_) at
Athens, where its founder ZENO, the Cyprian, taught for fifty-eight
years (318-260 B.C.). It was based on high moral principles, but was
not free from errors. Duty was all in this philosophy; virtue alone,
happiness. Mastery of self, contempt alike for pleasure and pain, were
leading doctrines.

Fate governed the world, even God himself. Yet Zeno did not allow
this doctrine to excuse shortcomings or interfere with individual
responsibility. When his slave, detected in theft, besought exemption
from chastisement on the plea that it was fated for him to steal, he
replied, “Yes, and it was also fated for you to be flogged.”

Suicide, in Zeno’s creed, was justifiable when a man had outlived his
usefulness, and the great philosopher practised as he preached; for,
having received a severe fall at the age of ninety-eight, he quietly
remarked, “I obey the summons,” and went and hanged himself.

Zeno enjoyed public confidence at home as well as the respect of
foreign princes; among his disciples were enrolled some of the greatest
men of Greece and Rome. Nothing remains of his writings.

=The Cynics= derived their name from the gymnasium of _Cyn_osarges,
near the Lyceum, where they gathered to listen to Antisthenes, a
pupil of Socrates. This extremist perverted his master’s theory of
virtue, which he made to consist in a comfortless life, a renunciation
of pleasure, and a contemptuous and even shameless independence of
manners. Yet Socrates saw pride even through the holes of Antisthenes’
shabby robe.

Antisthenes was not much in metaphysics. He was puzzled by abstract
generalizations, and to Plato’s Idealism opposed an uncompromising
Realism. “Plato,” he said, “I can see a horse, and I can see a man,
but horsehood and manhood I cannot see.”—“True,” replied Plato, “you
have the eye that can see a horse and a man; but the eye which can see
horsehood and manhood you lack.”

Of the many works of this first Cynic philosopher, scarcely anything
is left. They were probably steeped in gall, for his powers of sarcasm
were unsurpassed; he dealt trenchant blows at what he considered folly,
wherever he found it. He ridiculed the want of judgment displayed at
Athens in the selection of generals, by counselling the Athenians to
vote their asses horses. “That is absurd,” was the reply. “No more
so,” he retorted, “than to think you have made ignoramuses generals, by
simply lifting up the hand. “Once when annoyed at a speaker’s dilating
on the joys of the future state, he abruptly demanded, “Why don’t you
die, then?”

His successor, DIOGENES, carried out the rôle. Soured by the
disgraceful failure of his father, he turned to the ascetic philosophy
of the Cynics, and took a morbid pleasure in outraging society by
his infringements on decency. His satirical remarks, which cut to
the quick, earned him the title of “the Dog” by way of eminence. He
slept wherever he happened to be, on stoops or in a tub; and eschewing
artificial wants, he felt so rebuked when he saw a boy drinking through
his hands and receiving his pottage in a hollowed loaf, that he threw
away his cup and platter.

Into such snarling, insolent, and offensive misanthropes did the Cynics
degenerate, that the name of their sect was popularly traced to the
_dogs_ (in Greek _cynes_) they so much resembled.—To this complexion
did the noble philosophy of Socrates come at last.

ORATORY.

=Political Eloquence=, like the drama, history, and philosophy,
attained perfection in the golden age. Public speaking was a natural
accomplishment of the Greeks; and from the days of Homer down,
soldiers, legislators, and statesmen, had been distinguished as
orators. In Pericles, who made eloquence a study, we are introduced
to one of the world’s most polished speakers. (_Consult Jebb’s “Attic
Orators.”_)

But the cultivation of rhetoric and oratory as an art was first
popularized by Gorgias of Leonti´ni (see Map, p. 304), who about 427
B.C. transplanted it from Sicily and saw it flourish in Athenian
soil as it had never flourished before. Gorgias founded a school of
eloquence at Athens, which was thronged by the great men of the time,
eager to acquire the persuasive arts of the Sicilian teacher. Thus
rhetoric became a fashionable accomplishment; and to such account was
it turned by the taste and genius of the Attic Greeks that they soon
produced the greatest orators of history.

Among these was the graceful and elegant LYSIAS (_lish’e-ăs_—458-378
B.C.), compared by Quintilian to a pure fountain rather than a great
river; and ISÆUS, the leading barrister of Athens and preceptor of
Demosthenes. Greater than either as a teacher and writer of orations
for others, though through timidity he rarely appeared in public
himself, was ISOCRATES, founder of a school from which Cicero said,
“as from the Trojan horse, princes only proceeded;” to use his own
figure, he was a whetstone which imparted the power of cutting to other
things, but cut not itself. Finally, to this category belonged the
great rivals Æschines and Demosthenes, foremost of the Attic orators.

=Demosthenes= (384-322 B.C.—it is worth remembering that his dates
are identical with Aristotle’s) stands alone in the power of his
eloquence. Born in Attica, he was left fatherless at the age of seven,
but inherited a large fortune. The bulk of this his guardians made away
with; although they engaged the best talent in the land to superintend
the education of their ward. When Demosthenes arrived at his majority,
he brought suit against them, and wrote his maiden speeches with such
skill as to obtain a judgment in his favor.

The study of oratory now became the passion of his life. By indomitable
perseverance he overcame what to many would have proved insuperable
difficulties—shortness of breath, a sickly constitution, a weak and
stammering utterance, and awkwardness in gesticulating. He practised on
the sea-shore till his voice rose clear and full above the breakers;
he placed pebbles in his mouth while declaiming to correct his
articulation, and improved his breathing by running up steep hills.
A friendly mirror helped him to make his gestures effective; and he
spent months at a time in a room underground, occupied in study, or
in copying the history of Thucydides to strengthen his style. Thus,
in spite of every natural disadvantage, he placed himself by his own
efforts “at the head of all mighty masters of speech.” He lived to
receive the homage, not only of those Athenians who had hissed the
early performances of “the stammerer,” but of crowds gathered from all
quarters of Greece.

Conciseness, precision, clearness, compact reasoning, power of
invective, and vehemence compared to that of a torrent carrying
everything before it, were characteristic of the orations of
Demosthenes. Sixty-one of these (probably not all genuine) are still
extant, the most famous being the twelve “Philippics,” delivered
against Philip of Macedon, who was insidiously plotting the subversion
of Grecian liberty. Demosthenes penetrated his designs, disdained
his bribes, and for fourteen years struggled nobly against him. His
impassioned utterances at last roused the slumbering patriotism
of his countrymen, and, joined by the Thebans, they met Philip at
Chæronea—but only to be hopelessly defeated. The fate of Greece was
sealed. Demosthenes fled from the field and escaped to Athens, where he
delivered the funeral eulogy on the slain.

The success of Philip strengthened the Macedonian sympathizers in
Athens, at the head of whom was the orator Æschines, accused by
Demosthenes of being in the pay of Macedon. When, therefore, Ctesiphon
proposed that the services of Demosthenes be rewarded with a golden
crown, Æschines opposed the measure. After a delay of six years, during
which we may be sure both orators strained every nerve to prepare for
the decisive struggle, the final contest took place before a vast
and excited concourse. The fiery vigor of Demosthenes, in the most
splendid effort of ancient eloquence, swept away like feathers the
arguments, the wit, the sarcasm, of his opponent; Æschines was utterly
discomfited.

The elaborate speech “On the Crown” is the masterpiece of Demosthenes;
we give parts of the peroration.

FROM DEMOSTHENES’ ORATION ON THE CROWN.

“Do you then, Æschines, ask me for what merit I claim public honors?
I will tell you. It is because, when all the statesmen in Greece had
been corrupted, beginning with yourself, first by Philip and then by
Alexander, I was never induced nor tempted by opportunity, nor by fair
speeches, nor by the magnitude of proffered bribes, nor by hope, nor
by fear, nor by favor, nor by any other consideration, to swerve a
hair’s-breadth from the course which I believed to be right and for
the public good. Never, in weighing my public counsels, have I, like
you, inclined to the scale in which hung my private advantage; but all
that I have done has been done straightforwardly, incorruptly, and
with singleness of purpose. While I have been charged with affairs
of greater magnitude than any of my contemporaries, the whole of my
administration has been pure, honest, disinterested. These are the
grounds on which I claim to be honored.

As for the fortifications and intrenchments which you have sneered
at, I deem myself entitled to thanks and gratitude on that behalf.
Wherefore should I not? But I am far, indeed, from placing such
services in the same category with my general policy. It is not
with stones nor with bricks that I have fortified Athens; it is not
upon such works that I chiefly value myself; but if you would truly
appreciate my fortifications, you will find them in arms, cities,
territories, harbors, ships, and men to avail themselves of these
advantages. These are the outworks which I have thrown up before
Attica, according to the best of human foresight; by these have I
fortified the whole country, not merely the circuit of the Piræus and
the city. Nor was I defeated by the calculations or preparations of
Philip; far from it: but the generals and the forces of our allies
were defeated by Fortune. * * *

If my measures had been successful—O heaven and earth! we must, beyond
all question, have become a first-rate power, as we well deserved to
be. If they have failed, we have left to us our honor. No reproach can
attach to the state or to its policy, but Fortune must bear the blame,
who has so ordered our affairs. Never, never, will the patriotic
citizen desert his country’s cause, and, hiring himself to her foes,
watch his opportunities of injuring her; never will he malign the
statesman who in his utterances and his measures has consistently
maintained his country’s honor; nor will he nurse and treasure up
resentment for private wrongs; nor, lastly, will he maintain a
dishonest and a treacherous silence, as you have often done. * * *

No part, Æschines, have you taken in any measure for strengthening
the country’s resources. What alliance has been ever obtained for the
state through your instrumentality? What succor? What acquisition of
good-will from others, or credit for ourselves? What embassy? What
public service that has added to our national renown? What public
affairs, whether domestic, Hellenic, or foreign, have been brought by
you to a successful issue? What ships have you furnished? What arms?
What dockyards? What fortifications? What cavalry? In what one respect
have you been useful? What pecuniary contribution have you ever made
upon public grounds for the benefit of either the rich or the poor?
None.

You were not deterred by your poverty, but by your anxiety to do
nothing opposed to the interests of those for whose benefit all your
policy has been designed. But what are the occasions of your brilliant
displays, the exhibition of your youthful vigor? When aught is to be
spoken against your countrymen, then is your voice best tuned, then is
your memory most accurate; then you act your part to perfection. * * *

Every well-affected citizen, Athenians, (in such terms I am able
to speak of myself least invidiously) is bound to possess two
qualities: when in authority, the fixed resolve to maintain the
honor and pre-eminence of his country; under all circumstances and
at all times, loyalty. This Nature can command—to another power
belong strength and success. By this spirit you find me to have been
uniformly actuated.

Observe—never when I was demanded for extradition, nor when
Amphictyonic suits were prosecuted against me, nor when threats, nor
when promises were brought to bear upon me, nor when these miscreants
were let loose like wild beasts upon me—never was I induced to abandon
one jot or tittle of my loyalty to you. From first to last I took the
straight and true path of statesmanship—that of complete devotion
to the maintenance and furtherance of the honor, the power, and the
glory of my country. Never was I beheld strutting about the Forum,
radiant with joy and exultation at foreign success, gesticulating
congratulations to those who might be expected to report them
elsewhere. Nor have I heard the tidings of our good fortune with
dismay and lamentations, and prostration to the earth, like these
impious men who inveigh against their country without perceiving that
their invective is directed against themselves, whose eyes are cast
abroad, who felicitate themselves on foreign success purchased by the
calamities of Greece, and avow their anxiety to secure its permanence.

Never, O ye Heavenly Powers! never may such designs obtain favor at
your hands! Rather, if it be possible, inspire even these men with
better thoughts, and turn their hearts; but if their moral plague
be incurable, cut them off from among us, and drive them forth to
destruction, sure and swift, over land and over sea: while to us who
are spared ye vouchsafe the speediest deliverance from our impending
alarms, and abiding security!”—SIR ROBERT COLLIER.

Twice after the reverse of Chæronea Demosthenes succeeded in arraying
his country against Macedon—at the assassination of Philip and on the
death of Alexander. When news of Alexander’s decease reached Greece,
the orator was in exile, having been unjustly convicted of taking
Macedonian treasure; yet he did his utmost to arm the Grecian cities,
and was in consequence recalled to Athens by the fickle people. But it
was all in vain.

At last, marked for destruction by the Macedonian regent Antip’ater,
and doomed to death by his cowardly fellow-citizens whose necks were
now under the tyrant’s heel, he fled to the temple of Neptune on
Calaure’a and there found relief from his troubles in a quill of poison
which he kept ready for an emergency. In Demosthenes, Athens lost an
incorruptible patriot—antiquity, one of her noblest characters. The
Athenians erected to his memory a brazen statue on which was inscribed:—

“Had you for Greece been strong, as wise you were,
The Macedonians had not conquered her.”

=Æschines= (389-314 B.C.), of whose early life little is known, after
his defeat at the hands of Demosthenes, went into exile. We are told
that his victorious rival magnanimously forgave him, and even offered
him money for the journey; which led Æschines to exclaim: “How I regret
leaving a country where I have found an enemy so generous that I must
despair of ever meeting with a friend who shall be like him!”

Æschines afterward established himself as a teacher of oratory in
Rhodes. Here he once repeated to his pupils his famous oration against
Ctesiphon in the contest for the crown, which filled them with wonder
that so able an orator should have been defeated. But when at their
request he read the reply of Demosthenes, his audience rose to their
feet with eager acclamations; and the orator, forgetting all jealousy
in his admiration, cried: “What would you have said, had you heard the
wild beast himself roaring it out?”

The oration against Ctesiphon is one of three familiarly known in
antiquity as “the Three Graces”—a title indicative of the refinement
and easy flow of the author’s style, deficient as it was in the energy
and vehemence of his great rival.

MINOR DRAMATIC AND LYRIC POETS.

ION (flourished 450 B.C.): a history and lyrics, as well as
tragedies; called “the Eastern Star,” from the first words of an ode
he was composing when death overtook him.

ACHÆUS (born 484 B.C.): tragic and satirical pieces.

AG’ATHON the Athenian: received his first tragic prize, 416 B.C.; his
masterpiece was “the Flower.”

CALLIS’TRATUS (flourished 420 B.C.): author of the convivial ode
celebrating the memory of Harmodius and Aristogiton (p. 158).

CRATI’NUS (519-423 B.C.): called the _Cup-lover_ from his excesses;
21 comedies; 9 prizes; with his last comedy, “the Wine-flask,” he
gained the first prize, triumphing over “the Clouds” of Aristophanes.

EU’POLIS: 15 plays; his first comedy was represented 429 B.C.

CRATES (450 B.C.): 14 comedies; the first poet to represent
drunkenness on the Athenian stage.

* * * * *

METON, the Athenian astronomer (flourished 430 B.C.): founder of the
Lunar Cycle of 19 solar years, which he discovered to be nearly equal
to 235 revolutions of the moon round the earth. From the “Metonic
Cycle” the Greeks computed their festivals; it is still used by the
Western churches in fixing Easter.

HIPPOC’RATES (460-357 B.C.), born on the island of Cos, “the Father
of Medicine:” knew little of anatomy; discovered the critical days in
fevers.

NOTES ON GREEK EDUCATION, ETC.

Education recognized as all-important in ancient Greece, and even made
compulsory by the great lawgivers. In Homer’s time, children taught
obedience, respect for the aged, and modesty of deportment; sons
instructed in the use of weapons and gymnastic exercises; daughters,
in domestic economy and virtue. Homer’s epics long the chief
text-books on all subjects.

Reading and writing, accomplishments of the earliest periods. An
ignorant Greek an anomaly. Even among the Spartans, who affected
contempt for literature, reading and writing were practised. The
magistrates and their officers were provided with wooden cylinders
of the same size; when one desired to communicate, he wound a strip
of parchment round his cylinder and wrote his message thereon; then,
removing the strip, he sent it to the other party, who was enabled to
read it by rolling it upon his own cylinder in the same folds.

In the golden age, common schools were the glory of Greece; the
rudiments of education everywhere taught. The importance of grammar
urged by Plato, who was the first to explain the difference between
nouns and verbs; articles and conjunctions distinguished by
Aristotle, and also differences of number and case. The foundation
of scientific grammar laid by the Stoics, who recognized eight parts
of speech. Those who could afford it completed their education at
the Lyceum, Academy, or some other celebrated school, often paying
most extravagantly for instruction in rhetoric and philosophy. Some
teachers charged their pupils as much as $2,000 apiece for a course of
lectures. Foreign languages were never studied by the Greeks.

Many private libraries were established during the golden age, but no
circulating or public libraries. As early as 400 B.C. Athens carried
on quite a trade in manuscripts, one quarter of the market-place being
called “the book-mart.” Books were generally abundant and cheap, being
copied by slaves, but rare works were very costly. Plato paid $1,600
for three books. (_The reader is referred to Becker’s “Charicles; or,
Illustrations of the Private Life of the Ancient Greeks.”_)

Wooden tablets for accounts sold for 18 cts. each about 400 B.C. A
small blank book of two wax tablets was worth less than a penny.
Pencils are said to have been invented 408 B.C. by Apollodorus, the
self-styled “Prince of Painters.”

CHAPTER VI.

_THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD._

=Decline of Letters.=—The triumph of the Doric states over Athens
in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) gave the first blow to the
intellectual power of Greece. Literary decay forthwith set in; its
progress was hastened by internal dissensions, and completed when
liberty was hopelessly extinguished by Philip of Macedon and his
successors.

Alexander indeed benefited the East by introducing the Greek language
and culture, and building magnificent cities in return for her hordes
of barbarians slain; but his policy left out of view the interests
of Greece. While Athens remained the seminary of Europe for several
centuries after his death, Alexandria, founded by him at the mouth of
the Nile, became the intellectual as well as commercial capital of the
world. From this city, the period we are about to consider derives its
name. It extends from the death of Alexander the Great (323 B.C.) to
the conquest of Egypt by the Romans (30 B.C.).

=The Alexandrian Age= produced no grand masterpieces. No glorious
struggle for freedom inspired the historian; there was no further need
for the efforts of the orator; science and criticism flourished instead
of poetry; and a host of imitators usurped the place of the mighty
originals of the olden time. The national taste had sadly deteriorated;
an affected obscurity was fashionable; and gaudy tinsel was more highly
valued than true gold.

Yet one bright bloom gladdened this waste—Idyllic Poetry, which
expanded into a perfect flower in the hands of Theoc’ritus the
Sicilian. A new school of comedy was also established by Menander and
Phile’mon; and many seeds of Greek genius that Alexander had scattered
broadcast over the earth sprung up on foreign soil, and yielded
fruit—but fruit inferior to that ripened under its native sun.

DRAMATIC POETRY.

=The New Comedy= dealt with the follies and vices of society at large,
not with individuals, the actor no longer venturing, since the downfall
of political liberty, to imitate Aristophanes in representing living
characters. Its simple plot was generally based on some love-intrigue.
Though the broad fun of the Old Comedy was wanting, quiet humor
contrasted happily with pathos, the grave with the gay; the audience,
provoked by turns to laughter and to tears, were all the time learning
some useful principle or moral lesson. Cicero styled the New Comedy
“the mirror of real life.”—The chorus now ceased to take part in
the representation, and the play was divided into acts separated by
intervals of time.

Of the sixty-four poets associated by the ancients with the New Comedy,
the greatest were Menander and Philemon, both citizens of Athens,
though Philemon was foreign-born. Not until both had passed from the
stage of life was the meed of superior excellence awarded to Menander.

=Menander= (341-291 B.C.) dramatized love-stories for the young with
elegance and dignity; while the undercurrent of wisdom that flowed
through his plays recommended them to the old. Out of a hundred
comedies of which he was the author, only a few fragments are left; but
these Goethe pronounced “invaluable.” So perfectly did he delineate
character that Aristophanes, the grammarian, asked whether Menander
copied life, or life Menander.

His talent early displayed itself, securing him a crown while he was
yet a mere youth, but subjecting him to the displeasure of his defeated
rivals, who accused him of presumption in vying with experienced poets.
Menander replied to the charge by appearing on the stage with an armful
of new-born puppies, which he cast into a tub of water. Bidding the
audience mark how they swam, he exclaimed: “You ask me, Athenians, how
at my years I can have the knowledge of life required in the dramatist;
I ask you under what master and in what school these creatures learned
to swim?”

Despite his superior merit, however, Menander obtained the dramatic
prize but eight times, owing to the greater influence of his rival
Philemon with the masses. It is stated that this injustice at length
led the poet to drown himself. His plays long served as models to the
comic stage. The Romans, Plautus and Terence, helped themselves freely
from his treasury, and through their dramas our modern comedy may be
traced back to Menander himself.

FRAGMENTS FROM MENANDER.

“When thou would’st know thyself, what man thou art,
Look at the tombstones as thou passest by:
Within those monuments lie bones and dust
Of monarchs, tyrants, sages, men whose pride
Rose high because of wealth, or noble blood,
Or haughty soul, or loveliness of limb;
Yet none of these things strove for them ’gainst time:
One common death hath ta’en all mortal men.
See thou to this, and know thee who thou art.”
SYMONDS.

“The sum of all philosophy is this—
Thou art a man, than whom there breathes no creature
More liable to sudden rise and fall.”

“Of all bad things with which mankind are cursed,
Their own bad tempers surely are the worst.”

“The maxim‘Know thyself’ does not suffice;
Know others!—know them well—that’s my advice.”

=Philemon= exhibited the first of his ninety-seven comedies when
Menander was a boy of eleven. Nine years later Menander’s first piece
appeared, and the rivalry between the poets began. In their subsequent
contests, Philemon sometimes stooped to unworthy means to defeat his
opponent; still, that his countrymen really admired him is evident from
the legend current of his death. As he was concluding a comedy in his
ninety-ninth year, nine beautiful maidens were said to have entered
his chamber and beckoned him away. They were the Muses, about to wing
their flight from Athens forever, and with them departed the soul of
Philemon—the last of the Athenian poets.

FRAGMENTS FROM PHILEMON.

“Have faith in God, and fear; seek not to know him,
For thou wilt gain naught else beyond thy search:
Whether he is or is not, shun to ask:
As one who is, and sees thee, always fear him.”

“All are not just because they do no wrong,
But he who will not wrong me when he may,
He is the truly just. I praise not them
Who, in their petty dealings, pilfer not;
But him whose conscience spurns a secret fraud,
When he might plunder and defy surprise.
His be the praise who, looking down with scorn
On the false judgment of the partial herd,
Consults his own clear heart, and boldly dares
To be, not to be thought, an honest man.”

PASTORAL POETRY.

=Theocritus= (flourished 283-263 B.C.).—The pastoral, or bucolic,
poetry of the Greeks, which originated in the rude songs of Laconian
and Sicilian shepherds, was matured and elevated into a new department
of polite composition in the idyls of Theocritus. Born in Sicily, as he
tells us in an epigram intended to preface his works, he was tempted
to the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Here his refreshing pictures of
rural scenery were the delight of the Alexandrians, shut in by the
walls of their city from the beauties of nature. Theocritus eventually
returned to Sicily, and ended his days amid his native fields.
(_Symonds’s “Studies of the Greek Poets,” p. 302._)

The poetry of Theocritus exhibits originality and refinement, the Doric
dialect in which he wrote lending the charm of picturesqueness to his
descriptions. Pope commends him for simplicity and truthfulness to
nature; Dryden, for “the inimitable tenderness of his passions” and
the skill with which he disguised his art. As a delineator of natural
scenery, he has no superior among ancient or modern poets.—There are
extant thirty idyls and twenty-two epigrams of this poet. We present
below Idyl VIII.

THE TRIUMPH OF DAPHNIS.

“Daphnis, the gentle herdsman, met once, as rumor tells,
Menalcas making with his flock the circle of the fells.
Both chins were gilt with coming beards, both lads could sing and
play;
Menalcas glanced at Daphnis, and thus was heard to say:
‘Art thou for singing, Daphnis, lord of the lowing kine?
I say my songs are better, by what thou wilt, than thine.’
Then in his turn spake Daphnis, and thus he made reply:
‘O shepherd of the fleecy flock, thou pipest clear and high;
But come what will, Menalcas, thou ne’er wilt sing as I.’

MENALCAS.

This art thou fain to ascertain, and risk a bet with me?

DAPHNIS.

This I full fain would ascertain, and risk a bet with thee.

MENALCAS.

But what, for champions such as we, would seem a fitting prize?

DAPHNIS.

I stake a calf: stake thou a lamb, its mother’s self in size.

MENALCAS.

A lamb I’ll venture never: for aye, at close of day,
Father and mother count the flock, and passing strict are they.

DAPHNIS.

Then what shall be the victor’s fee? What wager wilt thou lay?

MENALCAS.

A pipe discoursing through nine months I made, and full fair to view;
The wax is white thereon, the line of this and that edge true.
I’ll risk it: risk my father’s own is more than I dare do.

DAPHNIS.

A pipe discoursing through nine months, and fair, hath Daphnis too;
The wax is white thereon, the line of this and that edge true.
But yesterday I made it: this finger feels the pain
Still, where indeed the rifted reed hath cut it clean in twain.
But who shall be our umpire? who listen to our strain?

MENALCAS.

Suppose we hail yon goatherd; him at whose horned herd now
The dog is barking—yonder dog with white upon his brow.

Then out they called: the goatherd marked them, and up came he;
Then out they sang; the goatherd their umpire fain would be.
To shrill Menalcas’ lot it fell to start the woodland lay:
Then Daphnis took it up. And thus Menalcas led the way.

MENALCAS.

Ye god-created vales and streams! Oh! if Menalcas e’er
Piped aught of pleasant music in your ears;
Then pasture, nothing loath, his lambs; and let young Daphnis fare
No worse, should he stray hither with his steers.

DAPHNIS.

Ye joy-abounding lawns and springs! If Daphnis sang you e’er
Such songs as ne’er from nightingale have flowed;
Lend to his herd your fatness; and let Menalcas share
Like plenty, should he wend along this road.

MENALCAS.

’Tis springtide all and greenness, and all the udders teem
With milk, and all things young have life anew,
Where my sweet maiden wanders: but parched and withered seem,
When she departeth, lawn and shepherd too.

DAPHNIS.

There shep and goats twin-burdened abound, and honey-bees
Peopling the hives, and oaks of statelier growth,
Where falls my darling’s footstep: but hungriness shall seize,
When she departeth, herd and herdsman both.

MENALCAS.

Storms are the fruit-tree’s bane; the brook’s, a summer hot and dry!
The stag’s, a woven net; a gin, the dove’s;
Mankind’s, a soft sweet maiden. Others have pined ere I:
Zeus! Father! hast not thou thy lady-loves?

Thus far, in alternating strains, the lads their woes rehearsed:
Then each one gave a closing stave. Thus sang Menalcas first:

MENALCAS.

O spare, good wolf, my weanlings! their milky mothers spare!
Harm not the little lad who hath so many in his care!
What, Firefly, is thy sleep so deep? It ill befits a hound,
When ranging with his master, to slumber over-sound.
And, wethers, of this tender grass take, nothing coy, your fill:
So, when the after-math[37] shall come, will none be weak or ill.
So! so! feed on, that ye be full, that not an udder fail:
Part of the milk shall rear the lambs, and part shall fill my pail.

Then Daphnis flung a carol out, as of a nightingale:—

DAPHNIS.

Me from her grot but yesterday a girl of haughty brow
Spied as I passed her with my kine, and said,‘How fair art thou!’
I gave for answer not so much as one disdainful word,
But, looking ever on the ground, paced onward with my herd.
For sweet the heifer’s music, and sweet the heifer’s breath;
Sweet things to me the youngling calf, sweet things her mother saith;
And sweet is sleep by summer brooks upon the breezy lea:
And acorns they grace well the oak, apples the apple-tree,
Her calves the cow; the herdsman, but for his herd cares he.

So sang the lads; and thereupon out spake the referee:—

GOATHERD.

O Daphnis! lovely is thy voice, thy music sweetly sung;
Such song is pleasanter to me than honey on my tongue.
Accept this pipe, for thou hast won. And, should there be some notes
That thou couldst teach _me_, as I plod alongside with my goats;
I’ll give thee for thy schooling this ewe, that horns hath none:
Day after day she’ll fill the can, until the milk o’errun.

Then how the one lad laughed, and leaped, and clapped his hands
for glee!
A kid that bounds to meet its dam might dance as merrily.
And how the other inly burned, struck down by his disgrace!
A maid first parting from her home might wear as sad a face.

Thenceforth was Daphnis champion of all the country side:
And won, while yet in topmost youth, a Naiad for his bride.”
C. S. CALVERLEY.

=Bion= of Smyrna, a contemporary of Theocritus, emigrated to Sicily
for the purpose of studying pastoral poetry in its native haunts. What
little we know respecting his life is gathered from the elegy written
by his pupil, the delicate and graceful MOSCHUS, a bucolic poet of
Syracuse ranked with Theocritus and Bion, but inferior to both. “The
Lament for Bion” intimates that he died from the effects of poison,
administered perhaps by jealous rivals.

Bion’s love-songs and pastorals are characterized by sweetness and
finish; they are less life-like, however, than those of Theocritus.
The “Lament for Adonis” is the poet’s best effort; but as it is
uninteresting to the general reader, we give a free paraphrase of

THE BIRD-CATCHER AND LOVE.

A young bird-catcher sat ’neath a wide-spreading tree,
Where the breath of the summer breeze sported free,
Looking round on the neighboring bushes with care,
To see if a songster were lingering there.
At length, in the distance, he something espies—
A creature with wings of unusual size—
“Aha! what a treasure!” he joyously cries;
“To catch such a bird would indeed be a prize!”
And then sets to work with his rods all together,
To take the huge bird without spoiling a feather.

But the creature, alarmed, from its perch quickly flew;
The boy, all excited, still kept it in view
Till it lit on a box-tree—then followed his prey;
Alas! with a cry, it again flew away.
At length he grew tired of this profitless chase,
And turned toward his home with a wearisome pace.
But ere long, on the road, an old farmer he met,
Who had taught him his snares for the songsters to set.
And he told how the bird all his skill had evaded,
And to go see this wonder the farmer persuaded.

At length they drew near; in a thicket of trees,
Whose tops gently waved in the murmuring breeze,
On a dwarf laurel-bush, on the verge of the grove,
In beauty bewitching, there sat errant Love!
His pinions hung prettily down by his side,
And his features, the Cyprian goddess’s pride,
Were as lovely as ever, more roguish by half,
For he scarce could refrain from a boisterous laugh.
And as soon as he saw him, the husbandman, smiling,
Knew at once the young Love-god the boy was beguiling.

Then said he to the boy: “Quick, away from this grove:
The bird thou art seeking is mischievous Love!
Though brilliant his hues as the butterfly’s wings,
And melody dwells on the strain that he sings,
Yet a dangerous prize to the catcher he’ll prove.
Then away with thy bird-lime, nor follow this Love!
When he flies, seize thy chance and escape if thou can,
For in vain wilt thou shun him when grown to a man.
Then thou’lt be the bird—he, the catcher,’ll pursue thee;
Though now he evades, then he’ll quickly fly to thee.”

LINES TO HESPER.

“Hesper, thou golden light of happy love,
Hesper, thou holy pride of purple eve,
Moon among stars, but star beside the moon,
Hail, friend! and since the young moon sets to-night
Too soon below the mountains, lend thy lamp
And guide me to the shepherd whom I love.
No theft I purpose; no wayfaring man
Belated would I watch and make my prey;
Love is my goal, and Love how fair it is,
When friend meets friend sole in the silent night,
Thou knowest, Hesper!”—SYMONDS.

FROM MOSCHUS’S LAMENT FOR BION.

“Ye mountain valleys, pitifully groan!
Rivers and Dorian springs, for Bion weep!
Ye plants, drop tears; ye groves, lamenting moan!
Exhale your life, wan flowers; your blushes deep
In grief, anemonies and roses, steep;
In whimpering murmurs, hyacinth! prolong
The sad, sad woe thy lettered petals keep;
Our minstrel sings no more his friends among—
Sicilian Muses! now begin the doleful song.

Ye nightingales! that ’mid thick leaves set loose
The gushing gurgle of your sorrow, tell
The fountains of Sicilian Arethuse
That Bion is no more; with Bion fell
The song—the music of the Dorian shell.
Ye swans of Strymon! now your banks along
Your plaintive throats with melting dirges swell,
For him who sang like you the mournful song;
Discourse of Bion’s death the Thracian nymphs among—

The Dorian Orpheus, tell them all, is dead.
His herds the song and darling herdsman miss,
And oaks, beneath whose shade he propped his head.
Oblivion’s ditty now he sings for Dis;
The melancholy mountain silent is;
His pining cows no longer wish to feed,
But moan for him; Apollo wept, I wis,
For thee, sweet Bion! and in mourning weed
The brotherhood of Fauns and all the Satyr breed.

The tears by Naiads shed are brimful bourns;
Afflicted Pan thy stifled music rues;
Lorn Echo ’mid her rocks thy silence mourns,
Nor with her mimic tones thy voice renews;
The flowers their bloom, the trees their fruitage lose;
No more their milk the drooping ewes supply;
The bees to press their honey now refuse;
What need to gather it and lay it by,
When thy own honey-lip, my Bion! thine is dry?”
CHAPMAN.

=The Museum.=—While the Muses who fled with the spirit of Philemon
were never induced to return to Hellas, in the East the Greek mind,
stimulated by the architectural wonders, the new religious systems, the
proficiency in many departments of knowledge, which it encountered,
entered upon a new phase of development. Alexandria witnessed its
proudest achievements in science.

This city was embellished with temples and palaces, with parks,
fountains, and monuments, until it eclipsed in beauty all others
of its time. Our interest, however, centres in its marble Muse’um,
or Temple of the Muses, begun by the first Ptolemy and finished by
his son Philadelphus, which sent forth the greatest scientists of
antiquity. In its halls, those hungering for knowledge were more than
satisfied; up and down its corridors the professors walked as they
gave instruction; while its botanical and zoölogical gardens afforded
opportunities for delightful relaxation. An observatory and the best
astronomical instruments of the day invited to the study of the
heavens, and a dissecting-room was at the disposal of the anatomist.
Chemical investigations were facilitated by a laboratory, where thus
early the science of alchemy was born, and Philadelphus himself eagerly
experimented in search of the elixir of life. To this brilliant centre
of letters, the first university in the world, learned men were
attracted from all quarters. At one time, 14,000 students were under
instruction.

=The Alexandrian Library.=—The Museum was the seat of a great library,
collected in accordance with Ptolemy’s command that all the writings
of the earth should be brought to Egypt to be transcribed. But once
there, the originals seldom parted company with the pictures and
statues in Ptolemy’s sculptured alcoves, the owners being obliged to
content themselves with fac-similes of their treasured rolls made by
the royal copyists. The Egyptian kings often paid roundly for valuable
manuscripts. It is stated that Philadelphus borrowed at Athens the
plays of Euripides to have them copied for his library, depositing
about $10,000 as security for their return. But when the work was done,
he sent back the transcript, preferring to lose his money rather than
part with the originals.

[Illustration: GREEKS OF THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD.]

Philadelphus left 100,000 volumes in the library. These quadrupled
after his death, and filled the Museum to overflowing, so that in the
Temple of Sera’pis was opened “the Daughter Library” for the reception
of additional volumes. The number of these ultimately reached 300,000,
making 700,000 in all.

When, after the assassination of Pompey, Cæsar fired Alexandria (47
B.C.), the flames enwrapped the Museum, and its library perished.
Antony subsequently gave Cleopatra the Pergamene Collection of
parchment books (see p. 24), which, with his kingdom, Attalus III.
had bequeathed to the Romans (133 B.C.). This, added to the rolls in
the Temple of Serapis, formed at once an extensive library. It was
increased by constant additions, but in the end served as fuel for
the four thousand baths of the city, when Alexandria fell before the
Mohammedan arms (640 A.D.), and the bigoted caliph decided that “if the
Greek writings agreed with the Koran, they were useless and need not
be preserved; if they disagreed, they were pernicious and ought to be
destroyed.”

POETRY AT ALEXANDRIA.

The first school of poetry at Alexandria was founded by Phile’tas
(330-285 B.C.), the elegiac writer, so dwarfish and emaciated that the
jesters of his time declared he had to wear leaden shoes to keep the
wind from blowing him away. Philetas was the instructor of Theocritus.
But the greatest names associated with the Museum are those of
Callim’achus and Apollonius Rhodius.

=Callimachus= (250 B.C.) shines not only as a lyric and epic poet,
but also as a critic and grammarian. From the position of a suburban
schoolmaster he rose to that of librarian at the Museum, and made
himself “the literary dictator and universal genius of his age.”

Callimachus exercised his talents in all the departments of poetry,
and wrote as well in prose. His works reached the number of 800; which
is not to be wondered at when we remember his remark, “A great book is
a great evil.” Such of his hymns and epigrams as time has spared, bear
the marks of study rather than genius.

=Apollonius=, called =Rhodius= from his long residence in Rhodes, was
born at Alexandria, and studied under Callimachus. But the master
grew jealous of his pupil, and a quarrel arose between them. When,
at the instigation of Callimachus, his epic poem on the Argonautic
Expedition was unfavorably received by the Alexandrians, Apollonius,
in his mortification, left the city and opened a school of rhetoric
in Rhodes. Here he revised his poem, and became justly renowned for
his brilliant attainments. After the death of Callimachus, he was
recalled to Alexandria, read his epic a second time to the people, and
had the satisfaction of receiving their warmest commendations with the
honorable office of librarian (194 B.C.).

The “Argonautica,” in four books, is all that is left of his works. We
take from it the passage which describes the impression made on Medea
by Jason, the leader of the expedition; compare the history of Medea
as sketched in connection with the play of Euripides bearing her name,
page 210.

MEDEA IN LOVE.

“Thus Medea went, her soul absorbed
In many musings, such as love incites,
Thoughts of deep care. Now all remembered things
In apparition rose before her eyes:
What was his aspect; what the robe he wore;
What words he uttered; in what posture placed,
He on the couch reclined; and with what air
He from the porch passed forth. Then red the blush
Burned on her cheek; while in her soul she thought
No other man existed like to him:
His voice was murmuring in her ears, and all
The charming words he uttered. Now, disturbed,
She trembled for his life; lest the fierce bulls,
Or lest Æe’tes should, himself, destroy
The man she loved.[38] And she bewailed him now
As if already dead; and down her cheeks,
In deep commiseration, the soft tear
Flowed anxiously. With piercing tone of grief
Her voice found utterance:‘Why, unhappy one!
Am I thus wretched? What concerns it me,
Whether this paragon of heroes die
The death, or flee discomfited? And yet
He should unharmed depart. Dread Hecate!
Be it thy pleasure! let him homeward pass,
And ’scape his threatened fate; or, if his fate
Beneath the bulls have destined him to fall,
First let him know that in his wretched end
Medea does not glory.’ So disturbed,
Mused the sad virgin in her anguished thoughts.”
ELTON.

PROSE WRITERS.

=Science.=—The influence of the Alexandrian university in shaping
modern science was all-potential. Among its ornaments are numbered the
mathematicians Euclid and Archime’des, the astronomer Eratos’thenes,
Hero the inventor of a steam-engine, and Ctesibius who devised
water-clocks, pumps, and other ingenious machines.

EUCLID (300 B.C.) compressed in one volume all the geometrical
knowledge extant, adding several original theorems. His “Elements”
has been translated into many languages, and though it has attained
the venerable age of 2,200 years, its clear demonstrations are still
standards in our schools.

ARCHIMEDES was educated in Alexandria, but afterward lived in
Syracuse, where his mathematical genius challenged the admiration
of the world. In geometry and mechanics he was the master-mind of
antiquity; and until the star of Newton rose twenty centuries after,
Europe saw not his equal. Many important discoveries in physical
science are due to Archimedes,—the principle of the lever, which led
him to exclaim, “Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the
world;” the process of finding the specific gravity of bodies; the
hydraulic screw and the pulley. Of his many mathematical works, written
in Doric Greek, eight survive.

ERATOSTHENES (276-196 B.C.) was the founder of geodesy and chronology,
as well as a proficient in astronomy, grammar, and poetry. The
ancients styled him _Pentathlos_ (_quintuple athlete_); also, from his
determining the magnitude of the earth, “Measurer of the Universe.”
His most important works are “Chronographies,” and geographical and
mathematical writings.

HIPPARCHUS (150 B.C.), an astronomer of the Alexandrian age, deserves
mention as the inventor of the planisphere and as the first to make a
catalogue of the stars. He devised the method of locating places by
latitude and longitude.

=Grammar.=—The Museum was especially eminent as a school of grammar and
criticism, the principal occupation of its scholars being the revision
and correction of the texts of the old authors.

The most distinguished of the Alexandrian critics were—ZENOD’OTUS, the
first librarian and critical editor of Homer’s epics; ARISTOPHANES
OF BYZANTIUM, his pupil (200 B.C.), the inventor of Greek accents
and punctuation; ARISTARCHUS (156 B.C.), “the arch-grammarian of
Greece,” who divided Homer’s poems into books, revised the Alexandrian
canon, and was the author of 800 commentaries; and CRA’TES, head of a
grammatical school at Pergamus, and the first to make grammar a popular
study at Rome.

=History.=—POLYBIUS (204-122 B.C.) was the chief historian of the
Alexandrian age. Brought to Rome a prisoner after the battle of Pydna
(168 B.C.), in which the king of Macedon was overthrown by Paulus
Æmilius, he became the intimate friend of Scipio Africanus the
Younger. Seventeen years elapsed before Polybius was permitted to
return to Greece. Then he went back the firm friend of the Romans; and
had his countrymen heeded his counsels, the sack of Corinth might have
been averted and Greece might have preserved her independence. So, at
least, declared the inscription on his statue: “Hellas would have been
saved had she followed the advice of Polybius.”

Polybius accompanied Scipio in several of his campaigns, and saw
Carthage burned to the ground. In his travels, which were varied
and extensive, he stored his mind with useful information for his
“Universal History,” the grand work of his life. Its forty books
impartially narrated the history of Rome and the contemporary
nations between the years 220 and 146 B.C., but in a style devoid of
attractions. Polybius, as Macaulay said, lacked “the art of telling a
story in an interesting manner.” The first five books of his work, and
a few fragments of the others, have been preserved.

As all eyes have recently been turned on Constantinople, whose
important situation has long made its acquisition the traditional
policy of Russia, it may not be uninteresting to present the view which
Polybius takes of this ancient city, then known as

BYZANTIUM.

“Byzantium, of all the cities in the world, is the most happy in its
situation with respect to the sea, being not only secure on that side
from all enemies, but possessed also of the means of obtaining every
kind of necessaries in the greatest plenty. But with respect to the
land, there is scarcely any place that has so little claim to these
advantages.

With regard to the sea, the Byzantines, standing close upon the
entrance of the Euxine, command so absolutely all that passage that
it is not possible for any merchant to sail through it, or return,
without their permission; and hence they are the masters of all those
commodities which are drawn in various kinds from the countries that
lie round this sea, to satisfy the wants or conveniences of other
men. For among the things that are necessary for use, they supply
the Greeks with leather, and with great numbers of very serviceable
slaves. And with regard to those that are esteemed conveniences, they
send honey and wax, with all kinds of seasoned and salted meats;
taking from us in exchange our own superfluous commodities, oil and
every sort of wine. They sometimes also furnish us with corn, and
sometimes receive it from us, as the wants of either may require.

Now it is certain that the Greeks must either be excluded wholly from
this commerce, or be deprived at least of all its chief advantages, if
ever the Byzantines should engage in any ill designs against them. For
as well by reason of the extreme narrowness of the passage as from the
numbers of barbarians that are settled around it, we should never be
able to gain an entrance through it into the Euxine.

Though the Byzantines, therefore, are themselves possessed of the
first and best advantages of this happy situation, which enables them
to make both an easy and a profitable exchange of their superfluous
commodities, and to procure in return, without any pain or danger,
whatever their own lands fail to furnish; yet since, through their
means chiefly, other countries also are enabled to obtain many things
that are of the greatest use, it seems reasonable that they should
always be regarded by the Greeks as common benefactors, and receive
not only favor and acknowledgments, but assistance likewise to
repel all attempts that may be made against them by their barbarous
neighbors.

And with these barbarous tribes they are involved in constant war. For
when they have taken great pains to cultivate their lands, which are
by nature very fertile, and the rich fruits stand ready to repay their
labors, on a sudden the barbarians, pouring down, destroy one part and
carry away the rest; and leave to the Byzantines, after all their cost
and toil, only the pain of beholding their best harvests wasted, while
their beauty aggravates the grief, and renders the sense of their
calamity more sharp and insupportable.”—HAMPTON.

MAN´ETHO in Egypt, BERO´SUS at Babylon, and TIMÆUS in Sicily, wrote
the annals of their several countries.

=The Septuagint.=—Finally, to the Museum we owe the Septuagint (p.
104), or Greek version of the Old Testament, made by learned Jews
employed by Ptolemy. The Jews no longer spoke the ancient Hebrew with
fluency, and their version in various parts betrays an imperfect
knowledge of the original. The Septuagint served as a basis for
translations into many different tongues.

THE SEVEN PLEIADES.

THEOCRITUS: the idyl-writer.

CALLIMACHUS: poet, grammarian, etc.

LYC’OPHRON, the Obscure: author of “Cassandra,” “the dark poem,” and
64 tragedies.

APOLLONIUS RHODIUS.

HOMER THE YOUNGER.

ARA’TUS: author of a popular astronomical poem; from him St. Paul
quoted the expression with reference to the Deity, “in whom we live,
and move, and have our being.”

NICANDER, a physician: two didactic medical poems on poisons and
their antidotes.

* * * * *

EUPHO’RION, author of three heroic poems and a celebrated
grammar—APOLLODORUS, the didactic poet—and MELEA’GER THE EXQUISITE,
flourished in the Alexandrian age. Meleager’s “Garland” was the first
anthology, or collection of epigrams. AN’YTE of Arcadia, “the female
Homer,” and NOSSIS, the Locrian poetess (300 B.C.), wrote epigrams.
CLEANTHES, the persevering disciple of Zeno (300-220 B.C.), composed
moral treatises and a hymn to Jupiter full of lofty sentiments.

CHAPTER VII.

_LATER GREEK LITERATURE._

=Extinction of Greek Genius.=—The long period which now engages our
attention is marked by a further decline, and the ultimate extinction
of letters. Roman despotism was inimical to literature; Greece lay
prostrate and broken-spirited; night was fast settling down on the
world. Poetry, a faint shadow of its former self, appeared principally
in epigrams. The prose of the early Christian centuries exhibits some
exceptional gleams, but they are only the flickerings of a dying flame.

About the Christian Era is gathered a group of geographical and
historical writers with Stra’bo, Diodo’rus Sic’ulus, and Dionysius
of Halicarnassus as the prominent figures. The first century after
Christ presents to us the authors of the New Testament; Clement of
Rome, an eminent authority with the early Christians; and Josephus, the
Jewish historian, all of whom wrote in Greek. Plutarch, the eminent
biographer, born about 50 A.D., lived through the first twenty years of
the second century, which was also adorned with the names of Lucian and
Pausanias the geographer. In the third century flourished Longi’nus,
the greatest rhetorician of this later age; while the writings of the
Christian fathers extend over a period of several hundred years, from
the time of Clement just named.

After the fall of Rome (476 A.D.), Constantinople became the sole
centre of letters, and there for nearly a thousand years they
languished. After Mahomet II. carried the city by storm in 1453, the
native scholars dispersed over Europe, and by awakening an interest in
classical studies contributed not a little to the revival of letters.

THE FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

=Diodorus Siculus= (_the Sicilian_) was the author of “the Historical
Library,” which cost him thirty years of labor. Unfolding the story of
the human race from remote antiquity to the time of Julius Cæsar, his
work contains much valuable information.

=Dionysius of Halicarnassus.=—The longest production of this writer is
his “Roman Antiquities,” a history of Rome prior to the Punic wars,
pervaded by an evident partiality for Greece and her institutions.
Dionysius was also a rhetorician of the highest rank, as his critical
essays on the eloquence of Demosthenes, the style of Thucydides, and
other subjects, testify.

=Strabo=, of Pontus in Asia Minor, must be remembered in connection
with his “Geography,” still extant, an interesting work in seventeen
books, for which he prepared himself by travels in Asia, Africa, and
Europe. It is not a mere tissue of names and statistics, but is lighted
up with sketches of social life, pleasant stories, and epitomes of
political history, thus entertaining at the same time that it instructs.

What this lively writer records of India may interest the reader:—

THE WONDERS OF INDIA.

“Between the Hydaspes and the Acesi’nes is the country of Porus,
an extensive and fertile district, containing nearly three hundred
cities. Here also is the forest in which Alexander cut down a large
quantity of fir, pine, cedar, and a variety of other trees fit for
shipbuilding, and brought the timber down the Hydaspes. With this he
constructed a fleet near the cities which he built on each side of
the river, where he had crossed it and conquered Porus. One of these
cities he called Bucephalia, from the horse Bucephalus, which was
killed in the battle with Porus. The name Bucephalus (_ox-headed_) was
given to the animal from the breadth of his forehead.

In the forest before mentioned it is said there is a vast number
of monkeys, as large as they are numerous. On one occasion the
Macedonians, seeing a body of them standing in array on some bare
eminences, prepared to attack them as real enemies.

The chase of this animal is conducted in two different ways. The
hunters, when they perceive a monkey seated on a tree, place in sight
a basin containing water, with which they wash their own eyes; then,
instead of water, they put a basin of bird-lime, go away, and lie in
wait at a distance. The animal, being an imitative creature, leaps
down, and besmears itself with the bird-lime, and when it winks,
the eyelids are fastened together. The hunters then come upon it,
and take it. The other method of capturing them is as follows: the
hunters dress themselves in bags like trousers and go away, leaving
behind them others which are downy, with the inside smeared over with
bird-lime. The monkeys put them on, and are easily taken.

* * * * *

A very singular usage is related of the high estimation in which the
inhabitants of Cathaia (the tract between the Hydaspes and Acesines)
hold the quality of beauty. They elect the handsomest person as king.
A child, two months after birth, undergoes a public inspection. They
determine whether it has the amount of beauty required by law. The
presiding magistrate then pronounces whether it is to be allowed
to live, or to be put to death. The bride and the husband are
respectively the choice of each other, and the wives, it is related,
burn themselves with their deceased husbands. The reason assigned for
this practice is, that the women sometimes fell in love with young
men, and deserted or poisoned their husbands. This law was therefore
established in order to check the practice of administering poison;
but neither the existence nor the origin of the law is probable.

The dogs in this territory are said to possess remarkable courage.
Alexander received from Sopeithes, the monarch, a present of one
hundred and fifty of them. To prove them, two were set at a lion; when
these were mastered, two others were set on; when the battle became
equal, Sopeithes ordered a man to seize one of the dogs by the leg,
and to drag him away; or to cut off his leg, if he still held on.
Alexander at first refused his consent to the dog’s leg being cut off,
as he wished to save the dog. But on Sopeithes saying,‘I will give
you four in the place of it,’ Alexander consented; and he saw the dog
permit his leg to be cut off by a slow incision rather than loose his
hold.

* * * * *

Nearchus is surprised at the multitude and the noxious nature of
the reptiles. They retreat from the plains to the settlements at
the period of inundations, and fill the houses. For this reason the
inhabitants raise their beds from the ground, and are sometimes
compelled to abandon their dwellings. Charmers go about the country,
and are supposed to cure wounds made by serpents. This seems to
comprise nearly their whole art of medicine, for disease is not
frequent among them, owing to their frugal manner of life, and to the
absence of wine. Whenever diseases do occur, they are treated by the
Sophists (_wise men_).

* * * * *

All the Indians are frugal in their mode of life, and are happy
on account of their simple manners. They never drink wine but at
sacrifices. Their beverage is made from rice instead of barley, and
their food consists for the most part of rice pottage. The simplicity
of their laws appears from their having few lawsuits. Theft is very
rare among them. Their houses and property are unguarded. These things
denote temperance and sobriety. Others of their customs no one would
approve; as their eating always alone, and their not having all of
them one common hour for their meals, but each taking food as he
likes. As an exercise of the body they prefer friction in various
ways, but particularly by making use of smooth sticks of ebony, which
they pass over the surface of the skin. They marry many wives, who are
purchased from their parents, and give in exchange for them a yoke of
oxen.

* * * * *

Megasthenes divides the philosophers into two kinds, the Brahmans and
the Garmanes. The Brahmans are held in greater repute. They do not
communicate their philosophy to their wives, for fear they should
divulge to the profane anything which ought to be concealed. They
discourse much on death, and discipline themselves to prepare for
it. According to the Brahmans, the world was created and is liable
to corruption; it is of a spheroidal figure; the god who made and
governs it, pervades the whole of it; the earth is situated in the
centre of the universe. Many other peculiar things they say of the
principles of generation and of the soul. They invent fables also,
after the manner of Plato, on immortality and on the punishment in
Hades; and other things of this kind.”—FALCONER.

THE FIRST THREE CHRISTIAN CENTURIES.

=Josephus=, born A.D. 37 at Jerusalem, was the scion of a noble line.
At the early age of fourteen he astonished the chief priests by his
mental power and familiarity with the intricacies of Jewish law. We
next hear of him as spending three years in the desert with a hermit,
and then as joining the Pharisees.

The revolutionary tendencies of his countrymen brought on a war with
the Romans, in the course of which Josephus, after the brave defence
of a city under his command, was made prisoner by the Roman general
Flavius Vespasian. Prophesying that Vespasian would one day wear the
purple of the emperors, he alone of the captives was spared; the
fulfilment of this prediction about three years later insured him
the favor of the Flavian family, whose name he prefixed to his own.
Vespasian’s son, Titus, he accompanied to the siege of Jerusalem,
receiving at the hands of the victorious general after its capture the
lives of two hundred and forty of his friends, together with the sacred
volumes which he greatly prized.

From the desolation of his country, Josephus returned to Rome as the
honored guest of the emperor and his sons, during whose reigns he
produced his great works,—“the History of the Jewish War” and “Jewish
Antiquities.” These interesting standards, though written in a style
which has led to their author’s being called “the Grecian Livy,” are
yet tinged with vanity and skepticism.

=Plutarch= (50-120 A.D.), the great biographer of antiquity, was born
in Chæronea, a Bœotian town. After completing his education at Athens,
he sailed to Egypt, and in Domitian’s reign (81-96 A.D.) visited Rome,
where his lectures won golden opinions from the learned.

From Italy, Plutarch returned to his native city, and there passed the
last twenty or thirty years of his life, happy in the society of his
wife, a paragon of good sense, economy, and virtue. Literature was
henceforth his pursuit; but believing it a duty to devote part of his
time to the public good, he accepted office from his fellow-townsmen,
and was finally made chief-magistrate of Chæronea. He tells us
with relish how his neighbors often laughed at his doing what they
considered beneath his dignity. When they wondered that so great a man
should carry fish from market in his own hands, he told them, “Why,
it’s for myself;” and when they found fault with him for personally
superintending the building of public edifices, he silenced them with
the reply, “This service is not for myself, but for my country.”
“The meaner the office you sustain,” said Plutarch, “the greater the
compliment you pay to the public.”

In his delightful retreat at Chæronea, Plutarch compiled from two
hundred and fifty authorities the work that has given him a niche
in the Temple of Fame—“Parallel Lives”—sparkling with interest and
animation, as it is underlaid by good judgment. His plan was to present
the biography of a distinguished Greek, follow it with that of some
Roman, and then critically compare the two characters. But the “Lives,”
as we have it, is not the complete work its author probably left at
his death, inasmuch as a number of biographies and parallels are
wanting. Though Plutarch’s passion for story-telling sometimes carries
him beyond the bounds of the probable, yet his work is an invaluable
storehouse; his capital literary portraits have stood the test of time,
and are still universally admired. The charms of a book in which are
recorded “the greatest characters and most admirable actions of the
human race” can never fade.

Among the best of Plutarch’s Parallels is his

COMPARISON OF DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO.

“Omitting an exact comparison of their respective faculties in
speaking, yet thus much seems fit to be said: That Demosthenes, to
make himself a master in rhetoric, applied all the faculties he
had, natural or acquired, wholly that way; that he far surpassed
in force and strength of eloquence all his contemporaries in
political and judicial speaking, in grandeur and majesty all the
panegyrical orators, and in accuracy and science all the logicians and
rhetoricians of his day: That Cicero was highly educated, and by his
diligent study became a most accomplished general scholar in all these
branches, having left behind him numerous philosophical treatises
of his own on Academic principles; as, indeed, even in his written
speeches, both political and judicial, we see him continually trying
to show his learning by the way.

One may discover the different temper of each of them in their
speeches. For the oratory of Demosthenes was without any embellishment
or jesting, wholly composed for real effect and seriousness; not
smelling of the lamp, as Pytheas scoffingly said, but of the
temperance, thoughtfulness, austerity, and grave earnestness of his
temper. Whereas Cicero’s fondness for mockery often ran him into
scurrility; and in his love of laughing away serious arguments in
judicial cases by jests and facetious remarks, with a view to the
advantage of his clients, he paid too little regard to what was
decent: saying, for example, in his defence of Cælius, that he had
done no absurd thing in indulging himself so freely in pleasures, it
being a kind of madness not to enjoy the things we possess, especially
since the most eminent philosophers have asserted pleasure to be
the chief good. So also we are told that when Cicero, being consul,
undertook the defence of Murena against Cato’s prosecution, by way
of bantering Cato, he made a long series of jokes upon the absurd
_paradoxes_, as they are called, of the Stoic sect; so that, a loud
laugh passing from the crowd to the judges, Cato, with a quiet smile,
said to those who sat next him,‘My friends, what an amusing consul we
have!’

Cicero was by natural temper very much disposed to mirth and
pleasantry, and always appeared with a smiling and serene countenance.
But Demosthenes had constant care and thoughtfulness in his look,
and a serious anxiety, which he seldom, if ever, laid aside; and,
therefore, he was accounted by his enemies, as he himself confessed,
morose and ill-mannered.

It is very evident, also, from their several writings, that
Demosthenes never touched upon his own praises but decently and
without offence when there was need of it, and for some weightier
end; but, upon other occasions, modestly and sparingly. But Cicero’s
immeasurable boasting of himself in his orations argues him guilty
of an uncontrollable appetite for distintion, his cry being evermore
that arms should give place to the gown, and the soldier’s laurel to
the tongue. And at last we find him extolling not only his deeds and
actions, but his orations also, as well those that were only spoken
as those that were published; as if he were engaged in a boyish trial
of skill, who should speak best, with the rhetoricians Isocrates and
Anaximenes, not as one who could claim the task to guide and instruct
the Roman nation, the

Soldier full-armed, terrific to the foe.

Moreover, the banishment of Demosthenes was infamous, upon conviction
for bribery; Cicero’s very honorable, for ridding his country of a
set of villains. Therefore when Demosthenes fled his country, no man
regarded it; for Cicero’s sake, the senate changed their habit and
put on mourning, and would not be persuaded to make any act before
Cicero’s return was decreed.

Cicero, however, passed his exile idly in Macedonia. But the very
exile of Demosthenes made up a great part of the services he did for
his country; for he went through the cities of Greece, and everywhere,
as we have said, joined in the conflict on behalf of the Grecians,
driving out the Macedonian ambassadors, and approving himself a much
better citizen than Themistocles and Alcibiades did in the like
fortune. After his return, he again devoted himself to the same
public service, and continued firm in his opposition to Antipater and
the Macedonians. Whereas Lælius reproached Cicero in the senate for
sitting silent when Cæsar, a beardless youth, asked leave to come
forward, contrary to the law, as a candidate for the consulship;
and Brutus, in his epistles, charges him with nursing and rearing a
greater and more heavy tyranny than that they had removed.

Finally, Cicero’s death excites our pity; for an old man to be
miserably carried up and down by his servants, flying and hiding
himself from that death which was, in the course of nature, so near
at hand—and yet at last to be murdered. Demosthenes, though he
seemed at first a little to supplicate, yet, by his preparing and
keeping the poison by him, demands our admiration; and still more
admirable was his using it. When the temple of the god no longer
afforded him a sanctuary, he took refuge at a mightier altar, freeing
himself from arms and soldiers, and laughing to scorn the cruelty of
Antipater.”—CLOUGH.

A moralist as well as a biographer, Plutarch wrote many ethical and
philosophical essays. The death of his daughter called forth a feeling
letter to his wife,—“the Consolation,”—in which he affectionately bids
her not give way to extravagant grief, but submit with resignation to
the blow, comforting her with thoughts of immortality; it may be added
that he held Plato’s views on this subject as on others.

In his “Essay on Inquisitiveness” he condemns all eagerness to learn
news and impatience in opening letters, or “biting the strings in two,
as many will if they do not succeed at once with their fingers.” As an
example of dignified patience, he instances Rusticus at Rome, who in
the midst of a lecture received a letter from the emperor Domitian, but
would not open it till Plutarch had finished speaking.

=Lucian= (probably 120-200 A.D.); one of the wittiest of Greek writers,
was a native of Syria, and passed his boyhood on the banks of the
Euphrates. Doubtless his favorite amusement of moulding wax into
figures weighed with his parents, no less than their own poverty, when
they bound him as an apprentice to his mother’s brother to learn the
sculptor’s art. The young Lucian enthusiastically fell in with their
decision, fondly anticipating the time when he should astonish his
playfellows with little gods cut from the marble by his own hands. But
his maiden attempt in the statuary’s shop resulted in a broken slab and
a cruel whipping at the hands of his uncle. “The first wages I earned,”
he said, “were tears”—but they were also the last. He never returned to
the chisel and mallet.

After picking up a rhetorical education, by what means he does not tell
us, Lucian established himself at Antioch as a lawyer; but failing of
success, he set out on a lecture tour through Europe. In Gaul, where
rhetoric, the art he taught, was in special demand, he accumulated a
fortune; with which he retired from his profession in the prime of
life, and took up his residence at Athens. Here he prosecuted his
literary studies, exchanged his Syrian Greek for pure Attic, and is
believed to have written his finest Dialogues.

At the age of seventy, Lucian found himself so reduced as to be obliged
to accept from the Roman emperor the clerkship of the Alexandrian
courts. This position, which allowed him to continue his literary
labors, he is said to have enjoyed until his death.

LUCIAN’S STYLE AND WRITINGS.—Piquant humor, inimitable power of
satire, and wonderful versatility, are Lucian’s strong points. His
style is clear and graceful. Of his voluminous writings the most
popular are the “Dialogues” on various subjects, serious and humorous.
He attacked falsehood and trickery, folly and superstition; and the
deadly blows he rained upon his country’s mythology, which led to his
being called “the Blasphemer,” indirectly, though unintentionally,
helped the spread of Christianity.

In the “Dialogues of the Gods,” the deities talk over the domestic
affairs of the Olympian household, gossip, and wrangle, and pry
into one another’s secrets, quite after the manner of humans. Such
a belittling of the national divinities could not be without an
unsettling effect on the popular faith.—The “Dialogues of the Dead” are
equally rich with humor and ridicule.

Against the philosophers of his day, whom he looked upon as miserable
charlatans, Lucian launched the laughable Dialogue entitled “the Sale
of the Philosophers,” in which the founders of the old schools are
disposed of at auction by Jupiter in a slave-market, Mercury playing
the part of auctioneer. Pythagoras is put up first and sells for $175;
Diogenes, the next, brings less than sixpence; while Socrates commands
the high price of two talents. Pyrrho, the universal doubter, will not
believe that he has been sold, even after he has seen himself paid for
and delivered. The laughing Democritus and weeping Heraclitus fail to
find a purchaser. The attempted sale of these two philosophers is thus
depicted:—

“JUPITER.—Bring out another. Stay—those two there, that fellow from
Abdera, who is always laughing, and the Ephesian, who is always
crying; I’ve a mind to sell them as a pair. MERCURY.—Stand out
there in the ring, you two.—We offer you here, sirs, two most
admirable characters, the wisest we’ve had for sale yet.

CUSTOMER.—By Jove, they’re a remarkable contrast! Why, one of them
never stops laughing, while the other seems to be in trouble about
something, for he’s in tears all the time. Holloa, you fellow! what’s
all this about? What are you laughing at?

DEMOCRITUS.—Need you ask? Because everything seems to me so
ridiculous—you yourselves included.

CUSTOMER.—What! do you mean to laugh at us all to our faces, and mock
at all we say and do?

DEMOCRITUS.—Undoubtedly; there’s nothing in life that’s serious.
Everything is unreal and empty—a mere fortuitous concurrence of
indefinite atoms.

CUSTOMER.—You’re an indefinite atom yourself, you rascal! Confound
your insolence, won’t you stop laughing? But you there, poor soul [_to
Heraclitus_], why do you weep so? for there seems more use in talking
to you.

HERACLITUS.—Because, stranger, everything in life seems to me to call
for pity and to deserve tears; there is nothing but what is liable to
calamity; wherefore I mourn for men and pity them. The evil of to-day
I regard not much: but I mourn for that which is to come hereafter—the
burning and destruction of all things. This I grieve for, and that
nothing is permanent, but all mingled, as it were, in one bitter
cup—pleasure that is no pleasure, knowledge that knows nothing,
greatness that is so little, all going round and round, and taking
their turn in this game of life.

CUSTOMER.—What do you hold human life to be then?

HERACLITUS.—A child at play, handling its toys, and changing them
with every caprice.

CUSTOMER.—And what are men?

HERACLITUS.—Gods—but mortal.

CUSTOMER.—And the gods?

HERACLITUS.—Men—but immortal.

CUSTOMER.—You speak in riddles, fellow, and put us off with puzzles.
You are as bad as Apollo Loxias, giving oracles that no man can
understand.

HERACLITUS.—Yea; I trouble not myself for any of ye.

CUSTOMER.—Then no man in his senses is like to buy you.

HERACLITUS.—Woe! woe to every man of ye, I say! buyers or not buyers.

CUSTOMER.—Why, this fellow is pretty near mad—I’ll have naught to do
with either of them, for my part.

MERCURY [_turning to Jupiter_].—We shall have this pair left on our
hands too.”—COLLINS.

“The Sale of the Philosophers” has a sequel in “the Resuscitated
Professors.” Permitted to return to earth for a day to revenge
themselves on Lucian, the Philosophers capture him, and bring him to
trial before the goddess of philosophy. He clears himself by showing
that he has not attacked the venerable sages themselves, but only the
impostors who cheat the world under their great names. In the beginning
of the Dialogue, Lucian is thus assailed by the belligerent Socrates
and his _confrères_:—

“SOCRATES.—Pelt the wretch! pelt him with volleys of stones—throw
clods at him—oyster-shells! Beat the blasphemer with your clubs—don’t
let him escape! Hit him, Plato! and you, Chrysippus! and you! Form
a phalanx, and rush on him all together. As Homer says—’Let wallet
join with wallet, club with club!’ He is the common enemy of us all,
and there is no man among ye whom he has not insulted. You, Diogenes,
now use that staff of yours, if ever you did! Don’t stop! let him
have it, blasphemer that he is! What! tired already, Epicurus and
Aristippus? Aristotle, do run a little faster! That’s good! we’ve
caught the beast! We’ve got you, you rascal! You shall soon find out
whom you’ve been abusing! Now what shall we do with him? Let us think
of some multiform kind of death that may suffice for all of us, for he
deserves a separate death from each.

PHILOSOPHER A.—I vote that he be impaled.

PHILOSOPHER B.—Yes—but be well scourged first.

PHILOSOPHER C.—Let his eyes be gouged out.

PHILOSOPHER D.—Ay—but his tongue should be cut out first.

SOCRATES.—What think you, Empedocles?

EMPEDOCLES.—He should be thrown down the crater of some volcano,[39]
and so learn not to revile his betters.

PLATO.—Nay—the best punishment for him will be that, like Pentheus or
Orpheus,

‘Torn by the ragged rocks he meet his fate.’

LUCIAN.—Oh! no, no, pray! spare me, for the love of Heaven!

SOCRATES.—Sentence is passed: nothing can save you.”
COLLINS.

Lucian is also famous in another line. His “True History,” a burlesque
on the Munchausen stories of the old poets and historians, recounts the
stirring adventures of a party of voyagers who sail westward from the
Pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar). It describes their visit to
the moon, their sojourn in a country where wine flowed in rivers, their
twenty months’ experience inside of a sea-monster that swallowed their
vessel, and their discovery of “the Island of the Blest,” with its
golden-paved city and vines loaded with monthly fruitage. The lunarians
happened to be engaged in war with the people of the sun, at the time
of Lucian’s arrival, and he had the good fortune to witness a grand
review of the lunar army. There were cavalry mounted on lettuce-winged
birds, darters of millet-seed, garlic-fighters, wind-coursers, and
archers who rode elephantine fleas. Spiders as large as islands hovered
on their flanks. On the side of the sun were mustered horse-ants that
covered two acres, archers on colossal gnats, slingers who discharged
fetid radishes, and dog-headed men astride of winged acorns.—Had
novel-writing been in vogue in Lucian’s time, he would no doubt have
excelled in that department of fiction.

=Pausanias=, the Lydian geographer, was a contemporary of Lucian’s. It
has been said that “no writer of antiquity except Herodotus has stored
away so many valuable facts in a small volume” as he in his “Itinerary
of Greece.” Pausanias made art items a special feature of his Itinerary.

=Other Writers of the Second Century.=—In the second century, CLAUDIUS
PTOLEMY, the astronomer, put forth his theory of the universe: that
the earth is stationary and the centre of eight huge, hollow, crystal
spheres, placed one within another. The moon he located in the nearest
sphere, Mercury in the next, Venus in the third, the Sun in the fourth,
Mars in the fifth, Jupiter in the sixth, and Saturn in the seventh.
The eighth sphere he appropriated to the stars, which, despite their
distance, were still visible through the transparent crystal. All these
heavenly bodies he believed to revolve in their respective spheres
around the earth. Ptolemy’s “Syntaxis,” or “Construction,” embodying
these views, was received as authority until Copernicus, fourteen
hundred years later, taught the true theory of the solar system.

In this century, also, JUSTIN MARTYR wrote his “Apologies” in defence
of Christianity against paganism; and POLYCARP, bishop of Smyrna, his
“Epistle to the Philippians”—both sealing their faith with their blood.
From IRENÆUS, bishop of Lyons, we have inherited a valuable legacy in
his “Treatise against Heresies.”

=Origen=, the gifted pupil of Cle’mens the Alexandrian, an ardent
Christian philosopher, flourished in the third century. Among his
writings, which, including his discourses, were numbered by thousands,
are “Commentaries on the Scriptures,” in the preparation of which he
was assisted by clerks who wrote in short-hand from his dictation.
Origen also replied effectively to CELSUS, an Epicurean philosopher
who some years before had attacked Christianity in his “True Story,” a
powerful and much-read work of the time.

=Neo-Platonism.=—The Academic philosophy, modified by its later
professors and wrapped in a veil of mysticism, gave rise to the
eclectic school of the Neo-Platonists, which was popular among the
learned till the time of Constantine. The seeds of this philosophy
were planted by Philo the Jew, mentioned on page 104 as attempting to
reconcile Plato’s doctrines with the teachings of the Hebrew Scriptures.

AMMONIUS, of Alexandria, was the real founder of Neo-Platonism, which,
as it left his hand, was a medley of Plato’s and Aristotle’s tenets
harmonized with the leading doctrines of Christianity. Though Ammonius
enjoined his disciples to keep the mysteries of his philosophy to
themselves, PLOTI’NUS, one of his distinguished pupils, unfolded them
in his writings and taught them publicly at Rome, where he went to live
244 A.D.

After Plotinus, PORPHYRY became a shining light of the Neo-Platonists;
but he was an outspoken opponent of Christianity, maintaining that the
world was without beginning, and denying the divinity of our Saviour.
His work “Against the Christians” was afterward burned by order of the
Roman emperor Theodosius the Great.

IAMBLICHUS, a successor of Porphyry, went back to the mystical
speculations of Pythagoras, and, taking quite a different view from the
early Neo-Platonists, turned his philosophy to the support of paganism.
The emperor Julian the Apostate was one of his converts.

EUSEBIUS, the learned ecclesiastical historian, bishop of Cæsare’a
in the fourth century, was among those who repelled the assaults of
Porphyry on the Christian faith. He was a favorite of Constantine,
whose life he wrote.

=Longinus= (213-273 A.D.) was the greatest critic and most learned
philosopher of his age. He studied and taught at Athens, and by reason
of his extensive information was styled “the Living Encyclopædia.”
The most distinguished of his pupils was Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, a
woman of refined tastes and unusual talent. By his advice, she revolted
from Rome; overpowered by the emperor Aurelian, 273 A.D., she sought
to exculpate herself by throwing the blame upon her counsellor, and
Longinus was put to death.

Part of this author’s “Treatise on the Sublime” is all that remains of
his many works.

=Athanasius.=—A century after Longinus, lived Athanasius, one of the
main pillars of the early Christian Church. His life was spent in
contentions with Arius and his followers, who denied the equality of
Christ with the Father; in controversy with them, his vigorous pen was
constantly employed.

=St. Chrysostom= (_golden-mouthed_, so called from his
eloquence—350-407) was the most famous of the Greek fathers. He was
archbishop of Constantinople, and a voluminous writer of homilies,
epistles, and commentaries. His language is elegant, and his fund of
figures inexhaustible.

LIGHT LITERATURE.

=Novel-Writers.=—The novel and romance are not unrepresented in Greek
literature. HELIODO’RUS, a Phœnician by birth, who lived toward the
close of the fourth century, obtained a well-deserved reputation
as the author of “Æthiopica,” a touching, pure-toned, but somewhat
sensational, romance. Its heroine, Charicle’a, an Ethiopian princess,
exposed by her mother in infancy and brought up in ignorance of her
birth, with her lover Theagenes, falls into the hands of pirates and
undergoes a variety of adventures. The tale ends happily, quite in the
modern style.

Heliodorus, later in life, gave up novel-writing for a mitre, being
made bishop of Tricca in Thessaly.

Another Greek novelist, perhaps a contemporary of Heliodorus, perhaps
belonging to a later generation, was LONGUS, author of the “Loves of
Daphnis and Chloë.” The scene of this pastoral love-story is laid in
the groves of Lesbos, where the hero and heroine have grown up together
in the bonds of innocent affection, _à la_ “Paul and Virginia.”

The “Story of Leucippe and Cli’tophon,” by ACHILLES TA’TIUS, an
Alexandrian rhetorician who flourished about 500, stands next to the
“Æthiopica” among the Greek novels.

=Hierocles.=—The “Facetiæ” of Hierocles (5th century) must not be
forgotten in this connection. Though a Neo-Platonist, grave and learned
enough to discuss “Providence and Fate” and make a volume of profound
commentaries on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, he evidently enjoyed a
good joke. He has left us twenty-eight brief stories of _Scholastici_,
or bookworms so unsophisticated and unused to the ways of the world
that we may call them simpletons. A few of these are given as samples
of his humor; from which it may be seen that some of the wit that
passes for modern is as old as Hierocles.

STORIES OF SIMPLETONS.

A simpleton, wishing to swim, was nearly drowned; whereupon he swore
that he would never touch the water until he had learned how to swim.

A simpleton, visiting a sick person, inquired about his health. He,
however, was not able to reply. Thereupon the simpleton, being angry
and scolding the man, said: “I hope that I shall be sick some of these
days, and then when you come to ask how I am, I will not answer.”

A simpleton, wishing to teach his horse to be a small eater, gave
him no food at all. At length the horse having starved to death, he
exclaimed: “I have suffered a great loss, for now that he had just
learned not to eat he has died.”

A simpleton, looking out of the window of a house which he had bought,
asked the passers-by whether the house was becoming to him.

A simpleton, having dreamed that he had trodden on a nail and that
the wound pained him, on waking bound up his foot. Another simpleton,
having learned the cause, remarked: “It served you right, for why do
you sleep without sandals?”

A simpleton, meeting a doctor, hid himself behind a wall. Some one
asking the cause, he answered: “I have not been sick for a long time,
and therefore I am ashamed to come into the sight of a physician.”

A simpleton had sealed up a vessel of Aminæan wine which he had.
His servant, having made a hole in the vessel beneath and drawn off
some of the wine, he was astonished to see the contents diminished
while the seals remained unbroken. A neighbor having told him to look
whether it had not been taken out from below, he replied: “Why, you
fool, it’s the upper part, not the lower, that is missing.”

A simpleton, meeting another simpleton, said, “I heard you were
dead.”—“And yet,” replied the other, “you see that I am still
alive.”—“Well,” said the first in perplexity, “I don’t know what to
believe, for he who told me is much more deserving of confidence than
you.”

A simpleton, learning that the raven would live more than two hundred
years, bought one and brought it up, that he might test the matter.

Of twin brothers, one died. A simpleton, thereupon, meeting the
survivor, asked, “Is it you that died, or your brother?”

A simpleton, in danger of being shipwrecked, called for his tablets
that he might make his will. Seeing, thereupon, his slaves lamenting
their lot, he said, “Do not grieve, for I am going to set you free.”

A simpleton, wishing to cross a river, went on board the boat on
horseback. When some one asked the reason, he answered that he wanted
to get over in a hurry.

A simpleton and a bald man and a barber, travelling together, agreed
to keep watch in turn four hours each while the others slept. The
barber’s turn came first. He quietly shaved the head of the sleeping
simpleton, and when the time elapsed awoke him. The latter, scratching
his head as he got up, and finding it bare, cried out: “What a rascal
that barber is; he’s waked the bald man instead of me!”

BYZANTINE LITERATURE.

The list of sophists, grammarians, historians, and other writers
belonging to the Byzantine period, contains names without number and
without lustre. A love-song of the Justinian era (527-565 A.D.), by the
emperor’s privy-councillor, will give an idea of the poetry of this age.

THE DRENCHED LOVER.

“The voice of the song and the banquet was o’er,
And I hung up my chaplet at Glycera’s door,
When the mischievous girl from a window above,
Who looked down and laughed at the offering of love,
Filled with water a goblet whence Bacchus had fled,
And poured all the crystal contents on my head.
So drenched was my hair, three whole days it resisted
All attempts of the barber to friz it or twist it;
But the water (so whimsical, Love, are thy ways!)
While it put out my curls, set my heart in a blaze.”
J. H. MERIVALE.

THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY.

=The Anthology= (_bunch of flowers_) is a collection of more than four
thousand short pithy poems, from the pens of about three hundred Greek
writers.

Melea’ger was the first gatherer of these literary flowers; his
“Garland” contained choice morsels of poetry from the time of Sappho
down, many of the best pieces being the work of his own hand.
“Meleager’s poetry,” says Symonds, “has the sweetness of the rose, the
full-throated melody of the nightingale.” Others added to Meleager’s
collection, the last ancient anthologist being the historian Aga’thias,
who flourished at Constantinople in the reign of Justinian.

The pieces of the Greek Anthology are epigrams and fugitive verses,
amatory, witty, and didactic. Some of them compare favorably with the
best efforts of the writers already considered; while not a few are
plainly the sources of some of the household sayings and proverbial
philosophy of modern times. (_Consult Macgregor’s “Greek Anthology.”_)

FLOWERS FROM THE ANTHOLOGY.

A PIOUS ACT REWARDED.

“While from the strand his line a fisher threw,
Shoreward a shipwrecked human head he drew.
His moistened eyes soft drops of pity shed,
While gazing on the bald and trunkless head.
No spade he had; but while his active hands
Scraped a small grave among the yielding sands,
A store of gold, there hid, he found. Yes! yes!
Heaven will the just man’s pious actions bless.”
CARPHYLLIDES.

“Enjoy your goods as if your death were near;
Save them as if ’twere distant many a year.
Sparing or spending, be thy wisdom seen
In keeping ever to the golden mean.”—LUCIAN.

THE PARTNERSHIP.

“Damon, who plied the undertaker’s trade,
With Doctor Cra’teas an agreement made.
What linens Damon from the dead could seize,
He to the Doctor sent for bandages;
While the good Doctor, here no promise-breaker,
Sent all his patients to the undertaker.”

“Swift kindnesses are best; a long delay
In kindness takes the kindness all away.”

THE LESSON OF THE TOPS.

“An Atarne’an stranger once to Pittacus applied,
That ancient sage, Hyrradius’ son, and Mytilene’s pride;
‘Grave sir, betwixt two marriages I now have power to choose.
And hope you will advise me which to take and which refuse.
One of the maidens, every way, is very near myself;
The other’s far above me, both in pedigree and pelf.
Now which is best?’ The old man raised the staff which old men bear,
And with it pointed to some boys that then were playing there,
Whipping their tops along the street:‘Their steps,’ he said,‘pursue,
And look and listen carefully; they’ll tell you what to do.’
Following them, the stranger went to see what might befall,
And‘Whip the top that’s nearest you!’ was still their constant call.
He, by this boyish lesson taught, resigned the high-born dame,
And wed the maiden‘nearest him.’ Go thou and do the same.”

ENVY.

“Poor Diophon of envy died,
His brother thief to see
Nailed near him, to be crucified,
Upon a higher tree.”

THE FLEAS OUTWITTED.

“A countryman once who was troubled with fleas,
Jumped up out of bed in a thundering breeze,
And triumphantly cried, as he blew out the light,
‘Now I have you, you rogues, you can’t see where to bite!’”
LUCIAN.

CURES FOR LOVE.

“Hunger, perhaps, may cure your love,
Or time your passion greatly alter;
If both should unsuccessful prove,
I strongly recommend a halter.”—CRATES.

“Too much is always bad; old proverbs call
E’en too much honey nothing else than gall.”

THE RAVEN LOCKS.

“Chloe, those locks of raven hair—
Some people say you dye them black;
But that’s a libel, I can swear,
For I know where you buy them black.”

LOVE SONG.

“The winecup is glad: dear Zenophilè’s lip
It boasts to have touched, when she stooped down to sip.
Happy winecup! I wish that, with lips joined to mine,
All my soul at a draught she would drink up like wine.”

“Short is the rose’s bloom; another morn
Will show no rose, but in its stead, a thorn.”

HELIODORA’S GARLAND.

“I’ll frame, my Heliodora! a garland for thy hair,
Which thou, in all thy beauty’s pride, mayst not disdain to wear;
For I, with tender myrtles, white violets will twine—
White violets, but not so pure as that pure breast of thine:
With laughing lilies I will twine narcissus; and the sweet
Crocus shall in its yellow hue with purple hyacinth meet:
And I will twine with all the rest, and all the rest above,
Queen of them all, the red, red Rose, the flower which lovers love.”
MELEAGER.

GEMS OF GREEK THOUGHT.

HOMER.

“Mob rule is not good; let there be one monarch.—Victory changes oft
her side.—Pray, for all men require aid from on high.—Even the fool
is wise after the event.—The man whom Jove loves, is a match for
many.—Wine leads to folly.—The force of union conquers all.—Too much
rest itself becomes a pain.—Noblest minds are most easily bent.—Few
sons are equal to their sires.—To sorrow without ceasing is wrong.”

HESIOD.

“Emulation is good for mortals.—The best treasure among men is a
frugal tongue.—Idleness, not labor, is disgraceful.”

PINDAR.

“Mirth is the best physician for man’s toils.—The guilty souls of
those who die here must pay the penalty in another life.—Point thy
tongue on the anvil of truth.”

ÆSCHYLUS.

“He hears but half that hears one party only.—To know and to
conjecture differ widely.—To be without evil thoughts is God’s best
gift.”

SOPHOCLES.

“Clamorous sorrow wastes itself in sound.—Quick resolves are often
unsafe.—What good man is not his own friend?—In a just cause, the weak
subdue the strong.”

EURIPIDES.

“The Deity helps him who helps himself.—Gold has greater power over
men than ten thousand arguments.—Temperance, the noblest gift of
Heaven!—To form devices, quick is woman’s wit.—In darkness a runaway
has mighty strength.—Death is a debt that all mortals must pay.”

ARISTOPHANES.

“To fear death is a great folly.—Old men are boys twice over.—Poverty
is a sister of beggary.”

HERODOTUS.

“Rash haste ever goes before a fall.—Men are dependent on
circumstances, not circumstances on men.—The god loves to cut down all
towering things. The god suffers none but himself to be haughty.—The
hand of a king is very long.—Self-restraint brings blessings, not seen
at the moment perhaps, yet found out in due time.”

XENOPHON.

“The sweetest of all sounds is praise.—It is impossible for a man
attempting many things to do them all well.”

PLATO.

“A boy is the most ferocious of animals.—Wisdom is the true and
unalloyed coin.—Much learning brings danger to youth.—The race of
fools is not to be counted.—Those are profane who think that nothing
exists except what they can grasp with their hands.—Dogs are like
their mistresses.—Let no one speak evil of another.—Self-conquest is
the greatest of victories.”

ARISTOTLE.

“One swallow does not make a spring.—We ought rather to pay a debt
to a creditor than give to a companion.—Of this alone is even God
deprived, the power of making that which is past never to have
been.—The beginning is said to be half the whole.—All flatterers are
mercenary.—No one loves the man whom he fears.”

DEMOSTHENES.

“Success tends to throw a veil over the evil deeds of men.—What we
wish, that we readily believe.—To find fault is easy.”

MENANDER.

“A daughter is an embarrassing and ticklish possession.—He whom the
gods love, dies young.—Evil communications corrupt good manners
(_quoted by St. Paul_).—Whoever blushes seems to be good.—Nobody
sees his own faults, but every one is lynx-eyed to those of his
neighbor.—Love blinds all men.—Silence has many advantages.—He is
well cleansed that hath his conscience clean.—There is nothing more
daring than ignorance.—Truth, when not sought after, sometimes comes
to light.”

POLYBIUS.

“Nothing happens without a cause.—Royalty, aristocracy, and democracy,
must combine to make a perfect government.—Many know how to conquer;
few are able to use their conquest aright.”

PLUTARCH.

“Absolute monarchy is a fair field, but has no outlet.—What one does
not need, is dear at a penny.—Often, while we are delighted with the
work, we regard the workman with contempt.—Dead men do not bite.”

MINOR WRITERS AND THEIR WORKS.

OPPIAN (second century): didactic poems on fishing and hunting.

ARRIAN (second century): masterpiece, “Expedition of Alexander the
Great.”

DION CASSIUS, a Roman senator (born 155 A.D.): “History of Rome” in
80 books, from the earliest ages to 229 A.D.

ÆLIAN (second century): a zoölogy and a miscellaneous history.

APPIAN of Alexandria (second century): a “Roman History” in 24 books.

HERO’DIAN (180-238 A.D.): “History of the Roman Emperors.”

DIOGENES LAERTIUS: his “Lives of the Philosophers” contains a
valuable summary of the Epicurean tenets.

GA’LEN (second century), one of the world’s greatest physicians:
medical treatises.

MUSÆUS (fifth century): the poem “Hero and Leander.”

TRYPHIODO’RUS (fifth century): poems on the Battle of Marathon and
the sack of Troy; a lipogrammatic Odyssey, from the first book of
which, styled _Alpha_, the letter _a_ was excluded; from _Beta_, the
second, _b_; and so the several letters in turn through its 24 books.
This work is lost.

QUINTUS SMYRNÆUS (500 A.D.): his poem, “Things Omitted by Homer,” a
continuation of the Iliad.

NONNUS (sixth century): “the Dionysiaca,” an Epic on Bacchus in 48
books.

PROCO’PIUS (flourished 550), the Byzantine historian: “History of his
Own Times.”

PART III.

ROMAN LITERATURE.

CHAPTER I.

_LATIN AND ITS OLDEST MONUMENTS._

=Italy Peopled.=—While watching the rise, meridian splendors, and
glowing sunset of Grecian letters, we have left unnoticed the dawn
of literary taste in Italy, the sister of Hellas, peopled, as we
have seen, by kindred Phrygian tribes who spoke dialects of the
Phrygo-Hellenic tongue (p. 133). Whether they were the first of human
kind to wake the echoes of the Italian solitudes, must ever remain a
matter of doubt. Some believe that the Alps had proved an insuperable
barrier to previous emigrants from the East; others, that the
adventurous Pelasgians, on descending their slopes, found a Turanian
population already in possession of the peninsula. If the latter theory
be correct, the Turanian aborigines were speedily overpowered by the
new-comers and became incorporated with their conquerors.

When Rome was founded, 753 B.C., the predominant Italian races were
distinguished as Latin and Umbrian (embracing the Oscans); their
languages were closely related, and have been called _Italic_. The
Etruscans, who lived west of the Tiber, though probably of Aryan
origin, differed in many respects from the Umbrians and Latins.

[Illustration: ANCIENT ITALY and the PLACES NOTED
in the HISTORY of its LITERATURE
[See the above map for the various localities mentioned in connection
with Roman Literature.]]

=The Latin Language=, in its most ancient form, was probably spoken by
the people of Latium at least twelve hundred years before the Christian
Era. For many centuries it remained harsh and unpolished, nor did its
roughness materially wear away until it came in contact with the Greek,
about 250 B.C. Then its vocabulary was enriched, and it gradually
acquired elegance and beauty. A knowledge of Greek came to be regarded
as indispensable to a polite education, and Roman children were taught
this language before their own.

A reaction, however, ultimately set in, and the foisting of foreign
words and idioms on the native tongue was condemned as strongly as it
had once been favored; a strange expression was now compelled to run
the gantlet of merciless criticism before it was admitted as part of
the language. Cæsar advised to shun a new term as one would a reef;
Augustus frankly acknowledged that, though he was emperor of the world,
he could not make a Latin word; and Tiberius was thus pointedly rebuked
by a Roman grammarian for a verbal error: “Thou, O Cæsar! canst confer
Roman citizenship on men, but not on words.”

When the rest of Italy submitted to the arms of Rome, it accepted the
language of the conqueror. Latin also supplanted the Carthaginian
tongue in Africa and Spain, Celtic in Gaul and Britain, and finally was
spoken in greater or less purity throughout the empire.

In its perfection, which it attained during the first century B.C.,
Latin was characterized by energy, dignity, and precision, its power
and gravity compensating for the lack of “Attic grace.” According to
its system of grammar, six cases and two numbers were distinguished;
nouns, pronouns, and adjectives, were declined; and verbs were varied
in form through the tenses and moods of two voices. Thus the Latin
had one more case-form than the Greek, but lacked the dual number and
middle voice of Greek and Sanscrit.

The Latin alphabet, consisting originally of twenty-one letters,
was borrowed from the Greeks through a Dorian colony at Cumæ. Its
resemblance to the Greek may be seen by turning to page 87. The
character X. of the Roman system of notation is ascribed to the
Etruscans.

=Ancient Latin Relics.=—During the five centuries that followed the
founding of Rome, the literary history of the city is all but a blank.
Curious specimens of its antique tongue are preserved in fragments
of laws and a few inscriptions; but the songs of the first Latin
bards are lost forever. The legends of Romulus, the seizure of the
Sabine women, the stories of Lucretia and Virginia, of Coriolanus
and Horatius,—these, with many similar traditions, were doubtless the
subjects of irregular ballads and heroic poems.

The rough simple verse in which they appeared was called
_Saturnian_;[40] it is supposed to have been adopted from the Etruscan
poets, and charmed the ears of the Romans until they listened to
the more tuneful measures of the Greeks. The time-honored Saturnian
verses were then thrust aside, with the old lays that told the proud
conquerors of Italy of their humble origin and early struggles. This
ballad-poetry may never have been written; sung from generation to
generation, it was kept alive to grace in after-days the epic of Ennius
and the pages of the historian Livy.

The oldest existing Latin poetry is inscribed on a tablet exhumed at
Rome in 1778. It is a chant of the _Arval Brothers_, an association of
priests founded under the Roman kings, and consists of an invocation
to Mars, the god of war, to avert pestilence. Almost as venerable is a
fragment from a _Salian Hymn_, sung by the Salian (_dancing_) priests
in honor of Ja’nus. (_See Prof. Allen’s “Remnants of Early Latin.”_)

Extracts from the Laws of the Twelve Tables (450 B.C.), which were
destroyed in the early wars, have been collected from the works of
later writers. The old Latin, however, is very obscure; so much did the
language afterward change that in the golden age the Salian poems were
enigmas to the Romans themselves.

There are also traces of an ancient Umbrian literature, which has
perished.

Age of native minstrelsy, 753-250 B.C.: early poetry composed of
hymns, festal and religious, banquet songs and funeral odes in
commemoration of heroes, rude satiric verses, and, according to
Niebuhr, epic poems surpassing the works of later times “in power and
brilliance of imagination.” No remnants of all this literature.—In
prose, a primitive oratory.

CHAPTER II.

_DAWN OF ROMAN LITERATURE._

As Italy received her first lessons in reading and writing from the
Greeks, in law-making from Solon, in art from Phidias and Praxiteles,
so in polite literature she drew her inspiration from the same source.
The early Roman writers not only took their cue from Greek authors, but
were in some cases downright imitators and mere translators.

A Greek slave, Livius Andronicus, who may be called the father of
Roman classical literature, translating the Odyssey into Saturnian
verse, introduced his captors to the literary treasures of his country.
Enraptured Rome eagerly snatched the crown of letters as it fell from
the head of her elder sister, and for a time the borrowed jewels
sparkled on her brow. But she paid dearly for her brilliant ornaments;
for, with Greek taste and culture, came also Greek effeminacy and vice.

The aim of the first Latin writers was to give their tongue the same
polish as the model from which they copied; but an excess of foreign
graces was repugnant to the genius of their more stately language, and
it was soon seen that the refinement of the Greek would prove fatal
to the vigor of Latin. Accordingly the Roman orators set their faces
against any further “Grecizing,” and struggled as manfully to preserve
the purity of their vernacular as they did to maintain the moral purity
of the nation, fast drifting into the dangerous quicksands of sloth and
self-indulgence.

The sixth and seventh centuries of Rome, the period covered by the
present chapter, saw the birth of the regular drama and its decline;
the earliest attempts at epic and satiric poetry; and the rise of a
vigorous prose. Livius Androni’cus paraphrased Greek tragedies; Nævius
and Ennius not only contributed to dramatic literature, but called
epic poetry into being; Plautus and Terence set forth a feast of good
things in their comedies; Lucilius, the father of Roman satire, lashed
vice and corruption unsparingly in his hexameters; and Cato laid the
foundations of Latin prose.

DRAMATIC POETRY.

=The Roman Drama.=—While in the later and more developed stages
of Roman literature the plastic influence of Greece is everywhere
perceptible, in the earlier days there were original elements, devoid
of polish indeed, but possessing the rude vigor that distinguished
the nation. There was a sort of drama, for instance, native to
Italy. It appeared in its primitive guise in the Fescennine[41]
dialogues—metrical songs accompanied with rustic dances—which were long
the delight of the mirth-loving Italian country-folk. When, however,
the improvised jests and satires of these entertainments opened the
door to malicious personal abuse, it was found necessary to prohibit
libellous verses by law.

The merry songs called _Saturæ_ (from the _satura lanx_, dish of
various fruits offered to the gods) were brought upon the Roman stage
in the fourth century B.C. A flute accompaniment and Etruscan actors,
who through ignorance of the Roman language merely played the part of
dancers and pantomimists, rendered the Saturæ highly attractive. At a
later period, these medleys formed the afterpieces to regular dramas.

From the Oscan town Atella in Campa’nia, the so-called _Atellane
Fables_ derived their name—pieces with simple plots, that pictured
ancient village-life in Italy, with its inevitable characters of the
chatterbox, the sharper, and the long-eared glutton. It was no disgrace
for young nobles, appropriately masked, to improvise the dialogue of
the Atellane Fable, or sing the songs in Saturnian verse.

The regular Roman drama was a copy of the Greek, and first saw the
light at the grand celebration over the downfall of Carthage, when (240
B.C.) a real tragedy and comedy were represented. Their author was

=Livius Andronicus= (about 285-204 B.C.), who fell into the hands of
the Romans when his native city, Tarentum in southern Italy, submitted
to their arms. Brought to their capital as a slave, he succeeded in
obtaining his liberty and opened a school for his support. The wants of
his pupils led him to translate Homer’s Odyssey into Latin; he thus not
only provided the Roman schools with a text-book which held its place
for centuries, but inspired the people generally with a strong desire
to become acquainted with the Greek masterpieces, and gave a spur to
the development of a national literature.

Andronicus was no less successful as a literary caterer, when he
put upon the Roman stage his Latin versions of certain Greek plays;
yet, though the public relished higher and more dignified dramatic
performances than the Fescennines and Saturæ, they loved the latter too
much to dispense with them entirely. The vulgar off-hand humor of the
amateur actors in these performances was long exceedingly popular.

Andronicus had a rough theatre assigned him on the Aventine Mount. In
accordance with the fashion of his day, he played entire parts without
assistance, until an injury to his voice obliged him to delegate the
recitative passages to a boy, who sung them to the accompaniment of
the flute, while he made the appropriate gestures. Thus originated a
custom which thereafter prevailed at Rome,—that of having two actors,
one to declaim and the other to gesticulate.

Livius Andronicus kindled the first spark of literary ambition in
Rome, and paved the way for her future progress in letters. He enjoyed
the respect of his contemporaries, and was honored by succeeding
generations, though Cicero pronounced his plays unworthy of a second
reading. If we except a few doubtful lines, posterity knows his dramas
only by their titles.

=Cneius Nævius= (269-204 B.C.), a Campanian by birth, after serving
in the First Punic War, took up his residence at Rome and there made
dramatic literature his profession. His first play was represented
about 235 B.C.

The Greek dramatists furnished Nævius with the material for his
tragedies and comedies, in the latter of which—better adapted to
his genius, and therefore more original—he particularly excelled.
Closing his eyes to the danger of satirizing the patrician houses, he
fearlessly revived the personal attack of Aristophanes in his ridicule
of Scipio and the Metelli. His lampoons directed against the latter
cost him dear. The verse of the poet,—“It is fate, not merit, that has
made the Metelli always consuls of Rome,”—stung them to the quick, and
they procured his imprisonment. Nævius employed the time in writing
comedies; and after his liberation, nowise daunted by his previous bad
fortune, he let fly his shafts at the nobility as recklessly as ever.
Rome could no longer tolerate him, and sent him forth from her gates to
die in exile.

The fate of Nævius proved a warning to future comic poets. None were
ambitious to assume the role which he had played; but, taking Menander
for their model rather than Aristophanes, they sought their subjects in
the follies and foibles of society at large.

So far as we can judge from the scanty fragments that remain, the style
of Nævius, though unpolished (for he still wrote in the old Saturnian
verse), was nervous, bold, and pointed. His works were for centuries
the delight of the Romans, who admired his independence; while
succeeding authors did not regard it unworthy of their genius to borrow
the spirited thoughts of Rome’s first native poet. His epitaph read as
follows:—

“If gods might to a mortal pay the tribute of a tear,
The Muses would shed one upon the poet Nævius’ bier;
For when he was transferred unto the regions of the tomb,
The people soon forgot to speak the native tongue of Rome.”

Sellar thus puts in English the old Roman’s description of a flirt,
which survives from one of his comedies:—

“Like one playing at ball in a ring, she tosses about from one to
another, and is at home with all. To one she nods, to another winks;
she makes love to one, clings to another. Her hand is busy here, her
foot there. To one she gives a ring to look at, to another blows a
kiss; with one she sings, with another corresponds by signs.”

The ablest work of Nævius is an epic poem, which will be described
hereafter.

=Ennius=, partly Greek, partly Oscan by descent, was born in Rudiæ in
southern Italy, 239 B.C. After serving with honor in the Roman army in
Sardinia, he was induced to visit Rome by Cato the Censor, who appears
at one time to have been his patron.

Filled with a desire to refine the taste of his countrymen, Ennius
drew upon Euripides for their benefit. The titles of twenty-five of
his tragedies survive; but the fragments that are preserved of these,
as well as of several comedies, show them to be mere copies of Greek
pieces. Though gifted with poetical genius and possessed of remarkable
learning, Ennius found imitation easier than original composition.

In the following fragment from one of his plays, Ennius denies the
providence of God:—

“Yes! there are gods; but they no thought bestow
On human deeds, on mortal bliss or woe;
Else would such ills our wretched race assail?
Would the good suffer? Would the bad prevail?”

It is not, however, as a dramatic poet that Ennius has won distinction.
His renown is based on his “Annals,” or “Metrical Chronicles,” of all
their poems the favorite with the Romans, in whose minds they were
associated with the heroic achievements they commemorated. The “Annals”
must be reserved for the present, while we view the progress of comedy
in the works of Plautus and Terence.

=Titus Maccius Plautus= (254-184 B.C.), a contemporary of Ennius, was
the first great comic poet of Rome. A boorish country-boy, he left his
home among the mountains of Umbria to seek his fortune in the capital,
and was at first quite successful as a stage-carpenter and decorator.
The sobriquet _Plautus_, by which he is universally known, was
significant of his large flat feet; nor do his personal peculiarities
generally, judging from a self-painted portrait in one of his comedies,
appear to have been of a very prepossessing type:—

“A red-haired man, with round protuberant stomach,
Legs with stout calves, and of a swart complexion:
Large head, keen eyes, red face, and monstrous feet.”

Unthrifty as he was uncomely, Plautus before long found himself reduced
to the menial employment of grinding corn for a baker, to keep body
and soul together; but his hardships were the making of the man.
While thus engaged, during his unoccupied hours he tried his hand at
writing comedies. He struck the right vein; play followed play in
rapid succession; the author rose in public estimation, and during the
rest of his life reigned without a peer on the comic stage. Modern
imitations of his comedies prove how lasting has been their popularity.

The Greek poets inspired the pen of Plautus; but he paints Roman
manners, breathes Roman sentiments, and employs the idiomatic
conversational Latin of his time. The tone of his dramas is far from
elevating; his humor, though bold and sprightly, is coarse; and his
Greek pictures of imbecile fathers, dissipated sons, intriguing slaves,
jealous husbands, hungry parasites, and disreputable female characters
(for all other female characters, except servants, were studiously kept
in the background), had their effect in undermining the stern old Roman
virtue. Yet the style of Plautus is flowing and animated; his plays
are full of bustle and fun; and we can but admire his fertility of
invention and wonderful command of language. Some of his characters are
not unworthy of Shakespeare.

Plautus prefaced most of his comedies with prologues, which served the
purpose of modern play-bills in that they contained brief analyses of
the pieces. Curious requests appear in some of these: women are asked
to refrain from disturbing the house by gossiping, children are desired
to keep quiet, and mothers are besought not to bring infants to the
theatre.

Twenty comedies of Plautus are extant, of which the finest is “the
Captives.” Its plot is as follows:—

During a war between Elis and Ætolia, Hegio, a rich Ætolian, buys at a
sale of captives Philoc’rates and Tyndarus his slave, hoping to possess
himself of a prisoner of rank to exchange for a son, who has fallen
into the enemy’s hands. To effect the negotiation, he proposes to send
the slave to Elis with a message to the father of Philocrates, who, he
learns, is a man of wealth and standing. The devoted Tyndarus, however,
seizes the opportunity to restore Philocrates to liberty, allowing him
to go on the journey and remaining in his stead, a change of apparel
having been made, to impose upon Hegio. The parting scene between the
two, in the presence of their master, is among the best passages of
the play. The disguised Philocrates, about to leave, has inquired what
message he shall carry to the captive’s father:—

“TYNDARUS (_habited as Philocrates_).—Say I am well;
and tell him this, good Tyndarus,
We two have lived in sweetest harmony,
Of one accord in all things; never yet
Have you been faithless, never I unkind.
And still, in this our strait, you have been true
And loyal to the last, through woe and want,
Have never failed me, nor in will nor deed.
This when my father hears, for such good service
To him and to his son, he cannot choose
But give you liberty. I will insure it,
If I go free from hence. ’Tis you alone,
Your help, your kindness, your devoted service,
Shall give me to my parents’ arms again.

PHILOCRATES (_as Tyndarus_).—I have done this:
I’m glad you should remember;
And you have well deserved it: for if I
Were in my turn to count up all the kindness
That you have shown to me, day would grow night
Before the tale were told. Were you my slave,
You could have shown no greater zeal to serve me.”

Hegio is moved to tears, and exclaims:—

“O ye gods!
Behold the honest nature of these men!
They draw tears from me. Mark how cordially
They love each other! and what praise the servant
Heaps on his master!”

Hegio, however, soon discovers the trick, and condemns Tyndarus to
the quarries—a punishment whose horrors the young man compares to
“the torments of the damned.” He is freed from bondage on the return
of Philocrates with Hegio’s son—to learn that he also is a son of
Hegio, stolen by a slave in his infancy and mourned as lost for twenty
years. It had been his good fortune to be bought by the father of
Philocrates, and to grow up the companion of the young noble.

After this happy dénouement, the play closes with an address to the
audience, valuable for the view it gives of the characters in the
popular comedy.

“Gallants, this play is founded on chaste manners;
No amorous intrigues, no child exposed,
No close old dotard cheated of his money,
No youth in love, making his mistress free
Without his father’s knowledge or consent.
Few of this sort of plays our poets find,
T’ improve our morals, and make good men better.
Now if the piece has pleased you, with our acting
If you’re content, and we have not incurred
Displeasure by it, give us then this token:
All who are willing that reward should wait
On chaste and virtuous manners, give applause.”
WARNER.

Among the best-known of our author’s comedies are “the Twins” and “the
Three Silver Pieces.” In the former a series of laughable incidents
grows out of the resemblance of twin brothers, separated for many years
and suddenly brought together. To this play Shakespeare owed the plot
of his “Comedy of Errors.” The second derives its name from three coins
paid to a man to disguise himself as a foreigner, and pretend to bring
a dowry of a thousand gold pieces to the heroine from her father, who
is abroad at the time. The unexpected arrival of the father changes the
aspect of affairs; but the marriage takes place, and everything ends
happily.

The best of the remaining plays of Plautus are,

THE BOASTFUL SOLDIER (_Miles Gloriosus_).
THE HAUNTED HOUSE (_Mostellaria_).
THE SHIPWRECK (_Rudens_).
AMPHITRYON.
THE YOUNG CARTHAGINIAN (_Pænulus_).
THE POT OF GOLD (_Aulularia_).
THE TWIN SISTERS (_Bacchides_).
THE LOST CHILD (_Epidicus_).
THE PARASITE (_Curculio_).
THE TRICKSTER (_Pseudolus_).

=Terence=, “the Prince of the Roman Drama,” flourished between 195
and 159 B.C. Of his life the accounts are scanty and unsatisfactory.
He appears to have been a Carthaginian slave-boy, the property of
a Roman senator, who treated him with great kindness, gave him an
education, and at last set him free. The youth’s mind matured early;
and when only twenty-one he submitted his first comedy, “the Andrian
Maid,” to the ædiles, who superintended dramatic representations,
for their acceptance. Referred by them to Cæcilius, a comic poet of
distinction, he repaired to the house of the latter at supper-time,
and, humbly seated on a stool, began to read his play. The first few
verses revealed to Cæcilius the genius of the young author; he beckoned
Terence to a seat beside him, heard him through, and accepted his
comedy at once.

On the performance of “the Andrian Maid,” the reputation of Terence
was secured. His plays paid him handsomely, and gave him the entrée
to the highest literary circles. The great men of Rome became his
intimates; among others, Scipio, the future destroyer of Carthage. They
are thought to have encouraged Terence with the view of elevating the
masses through his dramas, and are even suspected of having lent him a
helping hand in their composition.

After completing six comedies, Terence sailed for Greece, to travel
and study there. He is believed to have translated over one hundred of
Menander’s plays. None of these versions survive, and they are supposed
to have been lost, together with the poet himself, on the return voyage.

Terence, Carthaginian though he was, is distinguished for the
exceptional purity of his Latin and the beauty of his style. His taste
was cultivated; his sentiments were pure; and his plays put to shame
many a licentious comedy of the English stage. In lively humor and
comic effect, however, he falls short both of Plautus and his Greek
originals. It was in allusion to the source whence he borrowed his
plots that Julius Cæsar addressed him as “thou half-Menander.”

The masterpiece of Terence is “the Self-Tormentor,” a copy of one of
Menander’s lost plays. Its title is derived from the self-inflicted
punishment of Menede’mus, an Athenian, who, having refused his consent
to the nuptials of his son Clin’ia with a poor but virtuous Corinthian
girl, Antiph’ila, and thus driven Clinia to enlist as a mercenary, is
stricken with remorse, leaves the city, and imposes on himself the
severe toil of farm-life.

Chremes, a neighboring country gentleman, noticing how hard Menedemus
works when there is apparently no necessity for it, inquires the
reason. The first scene represents a conversation between the two,
in which Menedemus, after asking his neighbor how he found time
to pry into other people’s affairs, and receiving the memorable
answer,—“I am a man, and I have an interest in everything that concerns
humanity,”[42]—acquaints him with the state of affairs as told above.

The love-sick Clinia now returns, and, reluctant to go to his father’s
house, becomes the guest of Chremes’ son, Clit’ipho, the friend of
his youth. At his entreaty, Clitipho sends a slave for Antiphila; but
the cunning fellow brings at the same time the lady-love of Clitipho
himself, the dashing beauty Bacchis, introducing her to the family
as Clinia’s mistress, and passing off the modest Antiphila as one of
her servants. The slave thus describes to Clinia, Antiphila and her
employments when he came suddenly upon her, and announced her lover’s
return:—

“Busily plying the web we found her,
Decently clad in mourning. She had on
No gold or trinkets, but was plain and neat,
And dressed like those who dress but for themselves.
No female varnish to set off her beauty;
Her hair dishevelled, long, and flowing loose
About her shoulders.”

Chremes finds Bacchis a very expensive guest, and, announcing to
Menedemus the next morning the return of his son, tries to put him on
his guard against the extravagant tastes of Clinia’s supposed mistress,
but without producing any effect on the father thus relieved of his
anxiety:—

“CHREMES.—First, she’s brought with her half a score of maids,
Tricked out, the jades, with gold and jewelry;
Why, if her lover were an Eastern prince,
He couldn’t stand it—how on earth can you?

MENEDEMUS.—Oh! is she here, too?

CHREMES.—Is she here, do you ask?
Oh! yes, she’s here. There’s no doubt as to that.
I know it to my cost. They’ve had one dinner,
She and her party. If I give another
Such as last night, why—I’m a ruined man.
She’s very curious, mind you, as to her wines;
Knows the best brands—and drinks them.‘Ha!’ she’d say,
‘This wine’s not dry enough, old gentleman—
Get us some better, there’s a dear old soul!’
I had to tap my oldest casks. My servants
Are driven almost wild. And this, remember,
Was but one evening. What’s your son to do,
And you, my friend, that will have to keep her always?

MENEDEMUS.—Let him do what he will: let him take all,
Spend, squander it upon her; I’m content,
So I may keep my son.”—COLLINS.

The play is full of amusing incidents,—the intrusions of the eager
Clitipho on the pretended love-making of his adored Bacchis and
Clinia—the indignation of Chremes at his son’s seeming want of
politeness—the cozening of Chremes by the clever slave out of a large
sum for his young master to give to Bacchis. The discovery that
Antiphila is Chremes’ own daughter, whom, at her birth, his wife had
given to a Corinthian woman to expose, adds fresh interest to the plot.
The marriage takes place to the delight of all parties. Chremes is
persuaded to forgive his son, who promises to abandon Bacchis for a
more modest wife. The “Self-Tormentor” is happy at last, and can afford
to indulge in a hearty laugh at the misfortunes of his neighbor.

“I don’t profess myself to be a genius—
I’m not so sharp as some folk—that I know;
But this same Chremes—this my monitor,
My would-be guide, philosopher, and friend,
He beats me hollow. Blockhead, donkey, dolt,
Fool, leaden-brains, and all those pretty names—
They might suit _me_; to him they don’t apply:
His monstrous folly wants a name to itself.”

The extant comedies of Terence are,

THE ANDRIAN MAID (_Andria_).
THE MOTHER-IN-LAW (_Hecyra_).
THE SELF-TORMENTOR (_Heautontimoroumenos_).
THE EUNUCH (_Eunuchus_).
PHORMIO (_taken wholly from a Greek comedy of Apollodorus_).
THE BROTHERS (_Adelphi_).

=Decline of the Drama.=—While the comedies of Terence were drawing
crowded houses, tragedy, which Ennius attempted to popularize, that the
heroic examples of early times might be emulated by his countrymen, was
successfully cultivated by his nephew PACUVIUS “the Learned” (220-132
B.C.). The thirteen tragedies of Pacuvius (an accomplished painter
as well as poet) were long favorites, particularly with the educated
classes. The finest of them, “Orestes in Slavery,” contained the famous
scene between the bosom friends Py’lades and Orestes, in which each
offers his life for the other. At its representation, the audience
leaped to their feet and shouted their applause.

But Rome was no genial home for the tragic drama, and both tragedy
and comedy soon began to languish. With Terence, the glory of the
Roman theatre expired. Rope-dancing, buffoonery, and the games of the
circus, offered superior attractions; and as the Republic lapsed into
the Empire, the degenerate taste of the people sought gratification in
the sports of the arena, where gladiators fought together or with wild
beasts hardly more of brutes than themselves. In this first period of
the national literature, the history of the Roman drama is written.
(_Read Mommsen’s “History of Rome.”_)

EPIC POETRY.

=Nævius=, meanwhile, ventured to appeal to the popular taste in a new
department of poetry, with his epic, “the (First) Punic War”—in which
contest, it will be remembered, the poet took an active part. It was
written during his banishment at Utica, after he had signalized himself
as a dramatist at Rome, and was a work which Cicero said “afforded him
a pleasure as exquisite as the finest statue ever chiselled by Myron.”

“The Punic War” entitles Nævius to the claim of originality as well as
genius. The episode of Dido and Æneas, the career of Regulus, and other
soul-stirring stories, were told in its Saturnian lines; and it must
ever be a matter of regret that so interesting a poem is virtually lost
to literature. Nævius is called “the last of the native minstrels.”

=Ennius= (239-169 B.C.).—In Ennius we are introduced to a greater epic
poet, and the founder of a new school. Brought to Rome, as we have
seen, by Cato, he taught the young nobles Greek, translated dramas
from that tongue, and devoted his leisure to poetical composition.
A panegyric on Scipio decided his destiny; he rapidly rose in the
estimation of the distinguished men of the time, and in 184 B.C. was
made a Roman citizen—an honor to which Livius Andronicus had never
aspired, and which Nævius sought in vain.

Though a friend of the wealthy and powerful, Ennius himself seems
never to have been rich in this world’s goods. A genial _bon vivant_,
he spent his earnings in extravagant living; and much of his poetry
was written while he was confined by the gout, a disease brought on by
intemperate habits. Horace, perhaps, exaggerates his failing when he
tells us that “Father Ennius never sung battles unless intoxicated.”
The family tomb of his friend Scipio became the final resting-place
of Ennius; and from his time the name of poet was honored by the
aristocracy of Rome.

Ennius owes his fame chiefly to his “Annals,” an historical epic,
the work of his old age. Here he wove together the ancient legends
and folk-lore of the Romans handed down in Saturnian ballads, with
later accredited events, and contemporary history, accomplishing the
difficult task of adapting the old Latin to dactylic hexameters.
Greek metres henceforth superseded the irregular Saturnian verse, the
syllables being arranged according to quantity, and not as before
by accent. Moreover, the language was indebted to him not only for
this improved versification, but for fresh elements of strength, and
grammatical changes for the better. Thus Ennius introduced a new era
in Roman literature, laying solid foundations on which his successors
built. He is recognized as “the father of Latin song,” and it has
been well said: “Whatever in the later poets is most truly Roman in
sentiment and morality, appears to be conceived in the spirit of
Ennius.”

Ennius had a high opinion of his own talents; he deemed himself the
Roman Homer, and claimed, in accordance with the Pythagorean doctrines,
that the soul of the Greek bard had passed into his frame from the
intermediate body of a peacock. And indeed his spirited battle-scenes,
his “verses fiery to the heart’s core,” sometimes recalled his sublime
prototype; while an air of antiquity breathed in his picturesque style
and archaic forms.

The poet’s self-praise was echoed by his countrymen. Cicero proudly
styled him “our own Ennius;” Virgil enriched the Æneid with his most
musical verses; Horace hailed him as “the Calabrian Muse.” The triumphs
of Rome and her heroes were often told in the verse that he made
familiar; even during the Dark Ages his works remained favorites, until
in the thirteenth century they gradually sunk into obscurity. (_Read
Sellar’s “Roman Poets of the Republic.”_)

The versatile genius of Ennius displayed itself in satires, epigrams,
and didactic poems, as well as in epics and dramas. A curious specimen
of his composition was his metrical treatise on edible fish, a
compilation from a number of existing works on the subject.

From the fragments that remain of “the Annals” (600 lines in all) we
present one of the most pleasing passages,—that in which the vestal
Il’ia tells her elder sister a dream she has had, foreshadowing her
great destiny as the mother of Romulus, founder of Rome.

ILIA’S DREAM.

Quick rose the aged dame, with trembling limbs
The light to bring; and Ilia then, from sleep aroused,
With tears and terror tells her wondrous dream:—
“Child of Eurydice, by our sire beloved,
Through all my fibres fail my strength and life.
A goodly man, methought, bore me away
Through pleasant willow-groves and places strange.
Next, all alone I seemed to wander desolate,
And slowly, sister, to retrace my steps,
Thee seeking but not finding; nor did path
Steady my steps. Soon a familiar voice—
My father’s—thus with pitying accents spoke:
‘Daughter, ’tis thine deep sorrow to endure;
This borne, thy great good fortune then is sure!’
He spoke, and suddenly departing, gave
To my fond yearning arms no sweet embrace.
Alas! I saw him not, though eagerly
To the blue vault of heaven I stretched my hands,
And called on him with loving tones. At last,
With aching heart sleep left me, and I woke.”

The “Annals” were continued, and Homer’s Iliad was rendered into Latin
hexameters, by imitators of Ennius. But they were third or fourth rate
men, and epic poetry really slumbered after Ennius passed from the
stage, till it wakened to new triumphs at the call of Virgil.

SATIRIC POETRY.

In this era, we have to chronicle the birth of a new plant in the
parterre of Roman literature—Satirical Poetry. It was no exotic,
but native-born. The germ appeared in Nævius, the bud in Ennius, the
full-blown blossom in Lucilius, the ripe fruit in the golden age of
Augustus; the leaves were still green in the declining days of the
empire.

=Lucilius= (148-103 B.C.), a Roman knight who fought under Scipio at
the siege of Numantia, converted the _miscellanies_ (_saturæ_) of
Ennius into true satire. Though a mere youth, he was intimate with
Rome’s greatest statesmen, who were accustomed to doff their dignity in
his lively society, and even to frolic with him before dinner. Shielded
by them, and taking as his standard the stern morality and lofty
patriotism of the fathers, he assailed with impunity prevalent social
vices, ridiculed superstition, and denounced political corruption.

In bold relief against this dark background he brought out the noble
qualities of Scipio. Always arrayed on the side of virtue, he devoted
his brilliant talents to the improvement of the public morals. Yet
he occasionally stooped to abuse, if we may believe the story that,
having once sued a person for attacking his character, he lost his case
because it was shown that he himself was not above similar practices.

The satires of Lucilius were embraced in thirty books, many fragments
of which are extant. His style is forcible and not without elegance,
though some of his verses are harsh and occasional Greek words lower
the standard of his Latinity. He composed with haste, often standing on
one foot while he dictated two hundred verses. His satires, had they
been preserved, would have been valuable as a mirror of Roman manners.

VIRTUE AS DEFINED BY LUCILIUS.

“Virtue, Albinus, consists in being able to give their true worth to
the things on which we are engaged, among which we live. The virtue of
a man is to understand the real meaning of each thing: to understand
what is right, useful, honorable, for him; what things are good, what
bad, what is unprofitable, base, dishonorable; to know the due limit
and measure in making money; to give its proper worth to wealth;
to assign what is really due to honor; to be a foe and enemy of bad
men and bad principles; to stand by good men and good principles; to
extol the good, to wish them well, to be their friend through life.
Lastly, it is true worth to look on our country’s weal as the chief
good; next to that, the weal of our parents; third and last, our own
weal.”—SELLAR.

EARLY LATIN PROSE.

In her prose, Rome owed but little to Greece. Had she never known the
Greek masters, she might not have produced a poetical literature, but
she would have had her great orators and historians. Statesmanship was
the natural profession of her nobles and educated men; jurisprudence
and oratory were essential accomplishments of the aspirant to public
honors; and Latin was peculiarly adapted to prose composition, which
appears to have been practised very early in Latium. The development
of this primitive, yet nervous, prose was not left to Greek slaves and
freedmen, but called forth the efforts of the foremost citizens,—Cato
the Censor, Lælius and Scipio, the Gracchus brothers, Crassus and
Antonius, Hortensius. In the period under consideration it began to
lose its ruggedness, and acquire polish, grace, and harmony.

=Cato= (234-149 B.C.).—The early historians of Rome, following the
example of FABIUS PICTOR, the first of her prose annalists, employed
the Greek language. It was the elder Cato, the Censor and moralist, the
inflexible enemy of all that was Greek, whose warning voice foretold
the national corruption that must follow the introduction of Hellenic
literature; it was Cato, the philosopher, orator, and historian, who
dignified Latin prose by embodying in it his vigorous thoughts.

Inured from boyhood to hard toil and simple fare on his father’s Sabine
farm, Cato took an active part in the war against Hannibal, returning
after the conflict to his humble rustic life. But his country soon
demanded his services in another field; at her bar he won even greater
glory, and she rewarded him with every office in her gift. Cato nobly
discharged his various trusts; but it is as the uncompromising foe of
effeminacy and vice that we know him best. His political life, a model
of economy and uprightness, was a ceaseless battle with corruption—a
struggle to banish the luxury he despised and restore the stern virtue
of his fathers. But it was one man against a nation, and the current
was too strong for one alone to stem. He served Rome to the bitter end,
and fell in the traces at the age of ninety, his energies unimpaired,
his purpose unshaken.

Amid all his active duties, Cato, whose constitution like his will was
of iron, found time for literary work. He is known to have written at
least one hundred and fifty orations, not without faults of style,
for the amenities he was too apt to disregard, but cogent in their
reasoning, clear and powerful in expression. Extensive remains of his
practical hand-book “on Agriculture” are extant, which show him to
have been familiar with all the details of the farm and garden. In a
work on medicine, dedicated to his son, he exclaims against the Greek
physicians, and recommends the simple remedies which he had always
found efficacious. His prejudice against medical men was founded on
the belief that their introduction from Greece was a deep-laid plot to
poison his fellow-citizens; moreover, he knew that Rome had thriven
marvellously for five centuries, in blissful ignorance of the medical
faculty.

Cato’s chief work was his “Origines” (in seven books), a history of his
country, deriving its name from the first three books, which discussed
the origin of Rome and the Italian states. The aged patriot prepared
this treatise just before his death, to throw it into the scale against
Greek influence; but not a hundred Catos could have turned the balance
then. The loss of the “Origines” is an irreparable one to archæology.

SPECIMENS OF CATO’S STYLE.

“For myself, I think well of a merchant as a man of energy and
studious of gain; but it is a career that leads to danger and ruin.
Farming, however, makes the bravest men and the sturdiest soldiers;
and of all sources of gain is the surest, the most natural, and the
least invidious. Those who are busy with it have the fewest bad
thoughts.”—TREATISE ON AGRICULTURE.

“Buy not what you want, but what you must have; what you don’t want is
dear at a farthing.”—“Men are worn out by hard work; but if they do no
work, rest and sloth injure them more than exercise.”

HEROISM OF CÆDICIUS.

During the First Punic War the Roman army was surprised and threatened
with destruction, when Cædicius the Tribune promptly volunteered to
engage the enemy with 400 men, while the rest escaped. The little band
was cut down to a man.

“The immortal gods,” said Cato, “granted the tribune a lot according
to his valor. For thus it came to pass. Though he had received many
wounds, none proved mortal; and when his comrades recognized him among
the dead, faint from loss of blood, they took him up and he recovered.
But it makes a vast difference in what country a generous action is
performed. Leonidas of Lacedæmon, who performed a similar exploit
at Thermopylæ, is praised. On account of his valor, united Greece
testified her gratitude in every possible way, and adorned his exploit
with monumental records, pictures, statues, eulogies, histories. The
Roman tribune gained but faint praise, and yet he had done the same
and saved the republic.”—ORIGINES.

=Lælius= and =Scipio= followed Cato, and improved upon his rude
eloquence. Their speeches, which were committed to writing, bore the
impress of learning and genius.

=The Gracchi= (169-121 B.C.), sons of the noble Cornelia, Scipio’s
daughter, to whom they owed their early education, introduced a new era
in Roman eloquence, and have been called “the founders of classical
Latin.” Both gave up their lives in the interest of the Commons.

Tiberius, the elder, was the impersonation of clear-headed,
dispassionate, argumentative oratory. Caius, the younger, of greater
intellectual power, declaimed with such impetuosity that it was his
custom to keep a slave at his side to remind him with the note of a
flute when his vehemence became immoderate. Cicero inclined to the
belief that, had not Caius Gracchus met an untimely death, he would
have been the most brilliant representative of Roman eloquence. Nothing
remains of the speeches of Tiberius, and the few fragments we possess
of Caius indicate a want of finish.

=Antonius= and =Crassus= were the most distinguished speakers of the
period that separated the Gracchi from Cicero. Both were diligent
students of Greek literature, though both sought to conceal their
indebtedness to it. Crassus excelled in the elegance of his language;
Antonius, in gesture.

=Hortensius= (114-50 B.C.).—Crassus, in the last year of his life,
highly complimented the young Hortensius, whose promise as an orator he
was quick to discern. After the death of Antonius (87 B.C.), Hortensius
became “prince of the Roman bar,” a position which he enjoyed until
eclipsed by the superior genius of Cicero (70 B.C.). During his early
manhood he labored with untiring industry, turning his remarkable
memory to good account. His style was ornate, his voice perfect; his
gestures were so graceful that actors came to learn their art from
him; never before had Rome listened to a flow of language so copious
and elegant. As a matter of course his services were in great demand,
and hardly a day passed in which he did not either speak or prepare a
speech.

Thus Hortensius accumulated a vast fortune, which proved his
stumbling-block. Wealth begot a love of luxury, his energy gave way
to indolence, and he quietly yielded the first place to his youthful
rival. His luxurious villas, with their deer-parks, and gardens whose
plants he watered with wine, were more to Hortensius than the victories
of the forum. In these charming retreats he loved to entertain his
friends, and exhibit to them his menagerie and tame fish—for which he
showed more concern than for his servants. The death of a favorite
lamprey affected him to tears. At his luxurious mansion in Rome, the
nucleus of the future imperial palace, peacocks were served for the
first time at a feast.

The orator’s tastes, however, were æsthetic as well; he wrote poetry,
and expended large sums on statues and paintings. His orations are
lost. Only the merest fragments of all the above prose writers survive.

MINOR DRAMATIC POETS.

LAVINIUS, the rival of Terence, who jealously interrupted the
performance of the “Eunuch,” denouncing its author as a plagiarist;
yet this play brought Terence more than had ever before been paid for
a comedy.

TURPILIUS (125 B.C.), a popular comic poet.

ACCIUS (170-94 B.C.), the last of the tragic poets; 37 tragedies,
borrowed to a great extent from the Greek; diction majestic and
eloquent.

* * * * *

Early Roman theatres, temporary wooden structures; first stone theatre
built by Pompey (55 B.C.), capable of accommodating 40,000 spectators.
Pompey’s example promptly followed by others. The orchestra reserved
for the chief men of Rome, and not occupied by the chorus as in
ancient Greece. Awnings for theatres invented by the Romans. The vast
size of the later theatres obliged the actors to wear masks with
features much larger than life and arranged at the mouth so as to give
additional force to the voice.

MINOR PROSE WRITERS.

HISTORIANS.

FABIUS PICTOR: “Annals” of Rome, from the founding of the city to the
end of the Second Punic War; careless and inaccurate.

CINCIUS (210 B.C.): a truthful and diligent annalist.

ACILIUS GLABRIO (180 B.C.): History of Rome.

CALPURNIUS PISO: “Annals;” style barren and lifeless.

SISENNA (119-67 B.C.): History of Rome from the destruction of the
city by the Gauls.

ORATORS.

GALBA (180-136 B.C.): first master of Greek rhetoric; vehemence and
artifice his characteristics.

CARBO (164-119 B.C.): an unscrupulous, but sweet-voiced and powerful
pleader.

RUTILIUS (158-78 B.C.): a distinguished jurist.

CATULUS: graceful and elegant; a master of pure Latin.

COTTA: soft-spoken and courteous; his eloquence of the sweet,
persuasive kind. Study of grammar introduced by Crates, who,
fortunately for the Romans, broke his leg while on an embassy to
their city from the king of Pergamus (156 B.C.), and during his
convalescence lectured on philology at Rome. The earliest works on
Roman law were produced during this period.

CHAPTER III.

_GOLDEN AGE OF ROMAN LITERATURE._

(B.C. 80-14 A.D.)

=Divisions and Ornaments.=—The Golden Age, which now engages our
attention, is naturally divided into two distinct periods, bearing
the names of Cicero, the greatest of Roman writers, and Augustus, the
founder of the empire and patron of letters.

In the Ciceronian Period (80-43 B.C.), a stormy era of conspiracy as
well as conquest—marked by Catiline’s formidable attempt to destroy the
commonwealth, by the civil war of Cæsar and Pompey, and the murder of
these renowned leaders—political eloquence and history monopolized the
attention of the master minds of Rome. As a consequence, Latin prose
matured early in the golden age; while poetry boasted of no ornaments
until, at the close of the Ciceronian Period, Lucretius penned his
philosophical poem “On the Nature of Things,” and Catullus produced his
erotic odes and elegies.

In the Augustan Period (B.C. 42-14 A.D.), the greatest of Roman
poets, Virgil and Horace, lived and wrote, prose playing a secondary
part. Tibullus and Propertius put forth their sweet elegies, and
Ovid his amatory pieces. Even the pages of Livy’s history are aglow
with poetical coloring. But the blossom was as transient as it was
beautiful, and expanded only to die.

[Illustration: ORNAMENTS OF THE GOLDEN AGE
HORACE CICERO VIRGIL]

PROSE WRITERS OF THE CICERONIAN PERIOD.

=Marcus Tullius Cicero= (106-43 B.C.) was born at Arpi’num, a Latian
town south-east of Rome. As his family (of equestrian rank) had never
distinguished itself, he is known as a _novus homo_ (_new man_).
Detecting unusual talent in the boy, his father resolved to develop
it by a thorough education, which he himself superintended at Rome.
The most accomplished teachers were secured, the Greek poet Ar’chias
among the number, and the youth was thoroughly grounded in grammar,
rhetoric, and Grecian literature. This early training Cicero sedulously
supplemented with a course on Roman law under Scævola, avoiding the
whirl of dissipation that surrounded him, and even relinquishing social
pleasure for the labors of his closet or to study in the forum the
style of the first public speakers. “Who can blame me,” he asked in his
oration for Archias, “if while others are gazing at festal shows and
idle ceremonies, exploring new pleasures, engaged in midnight revels,
in the distraction of gaming, the madness of intemperance, I dedicate
_my_ time to learning and the Muses?”

At twenty-five Cicero made his début; and within two years he rose to
the highest rank at the Roman bar by ably pleading the cause of one
Roscius against a friend of the terrible Sulla. Successful in this
case, to escape the vengeance of the dictator as well as to recruit
his failing health, Cicero went abroad. At Athens he pursued the study
of philosophy with Pompo’nius Atticus, the companion of his boyhood
and ever after his warmest friend. In the schools of Asia Minor, as
well as at Rhodes, then a great literary centre, he studied under
distinguished teachers, storing his memory with valuable knowledge at
the same time that he made himself proficient in the rhetorical art.
The death of Sulla having removed all danger, at the age of thirty he
went back to Italy, thoroughly restored by his travels, and fired with
the noble ambition of making himself the Demosthenes of Rome. Step
by step he approached the realization of his hopes, and when, in the
prosecution of Verres, the rapacious governor of Sicily, he triumphed
over Hortensius (70 B.C.), his end was practically achieved.

Cicero served his country in many capacities, but in none more
effectively than as consul; since, while holding this office (63-62
B.C.), he saved the republic from a dangerous conspiracy, headed by
the profligate Catiline. The consul’s tact and courage were sorely
tried, but prevailed. Four crushing orations laid bare the plans of the
traitor and drove him from the city, to fall in a desperate battle with
the Roman legions, while a grateful nation greeted the vigilant Cicero
as “the Father of his Country.”

But the Roman people were fickle, and at the instigation of an enemy
banished Cicero from the city he had saved, 58 B.C. The next year,
however, the decree was revoked, and he returned. When the civil
war between Cæsar and Pompey was imminent, Cicero’s indecision told
powerfully against him.[43] At last he joined Pompey, who, provoked
at his vacillation, exclaimed: “I wish that Cicero would go over to
the other side; perhaps he would then be afraid of us.” The battle of
Pharsalia (48 B.C.) overthrew the hopes of the party whose cause he
had espoused, and Cicero, returning to Italy, accepted the rule and
friendship of Cæsar, and settled down to a literary life.

Shortly after, a plot is laid against the dictator; the fatal Ides
(15th) of March (44 B.C.) arrive; the assassins do their bloody work in
the senate-house; and Brutus, flourishing his traitorous dagger, cries
to Cicero: “Rejoice, O Father of our Country, for Rome is free!”

But it was grief, not joy, that the dagger of Brutus brought to the
Republic; another Pompey and another Cæsar arose to contend for the
mastery of the world. Marc Antony aspired to the dead dictator’s place;
but Cicero, now the foremost statesman in Rome, regarding him as the
enemy of liberty, upheld the cause of the people and of Octavius,
Cæsar’s young nephew. Into the struggle that ensued, he entered with
all the spirit of his youth, thundering against Antony his grand
“Philippics,” in the second of which are concentrated all his powers of
invective, passion, and eloquence. It is Cicero’s mightiest effort.

FROM THE SECOND PHILIPPIC.

“When, therefore, this fellow (_Antony_) had begun to wallow in the
treasures of that great man, he began to exult like a buffoon in a
play, who has lately been a beggar and has become suddenly rich.[44]
But, as some poet or other says,

‘Ill-gotten gains come quickly to an end.’

It is an incredible thing, and almost a miracle, how he in a few,
not months, but days, squandered all that vast wealth. There was an
immense quantity of wine, an excessive abundance of very valuable
plate, much precious apparel, great quantities of splendid furniture,
and other magnificent things in many places, such as one was likely
to see belonging to a man who was not indeed luxurious, but who was
very wealthy. Of all this in a few days there was nothing left. What
Charybdis was ever so voracious? Charybdis, do I say? Charybdis, if
she existed at all, was only one animal. The ocean, I swear most
solemnly, appears hardly capable of having swallowed up such numbers
of things so widely scattered, and distributed in such different
places, with such rapidity.

Nothing was shut up, nothing sealed up, no list was made of anything.
Whole storehouses were abandoned to the most worthless of men.
Actors seized on this, actresses on that; the house was crowded with
gamblers, and full of drunken men; people were drinking all day, and
that too in many places; there were added to all this expense (for
this fellow was not invariably fortunate) heavy gambling losses. You
might see, in the cellars of the slaves, couches covered with the most
richly embroidered counterpanes of Cneius Pompey. Wonder not, then,
that all these things were so soon consumed. Such profligacy as that
could have devoured, not only the patrimony of one individual, however
ample it might have been, but whole cities and kingdoms.

And then his houses and gardens! O the cruel audacity! Did you dare
to enter into that house? Did you dare to cross that most sacred
threshold? and to show your most profligate countenance to the
household gods who protect that abode? A house which for a long time
no one could behold, no one could pass by, without tears! Are you
not ashamed to dwell so long in that house—one in which, stupid and
ignorant as you are, still you can see nothing which is not painful to
you?

When you behold those beaks of ships in the vestibule, and those
warlike trophies, do you fancy that you are entering into a house
which belongs to you? It is impossible. Although you are devoid of all
sense and all feeling, still you are acquainted with yourself, and
with your trophies, and with your friends. Nor do I believe that you,
either waking or sleeping, can ever act with quiet sense.

It is impossible but that, were you ever so drunk and frantic, as
in truth you are, when the recollection of the appearance of that
illustrious man comes across you, you should be roused from sleep by
your fears, and often stirred up to madness if awake. I pity even the
walls and the roof.”—YONGE.

The patriot paid for his stanch defence of freedom with his life.
Octavius and Antony, becoming reconciled, formed with Lepidus the
Second Triumvirate, or board of three, to govern the Roman world; and
Cicero knew that the sun of liberty had set. The triumvirs agreed upon
a general proscription of their enemies. A reign of terror deluged
Italy with blood, but the noblest of those who fell was Cicero.

Antony demanded his life, and Octavius covered himself with infamy by
yielding it. The orator met his fate near his villa at Formiæ; timid
throughout his life, in the last scene he exhibited manly fortitude.
He is said to have been calmly reading the “Medea” of Euripides in
his litter when Antony’s myrmidons overtook him; a desperado who owed
him many favors, while even his brutal companions covered their eyes,
struck the fatal blow. The head and hands of the murdered orator were
cut off and sent to Antony, whose inhuman wife, as she fondled the
ghastly head in her lap, maliciously thrust her bodkin into the tongue
that had denounced her husband.—True as it was, it ill became the
time-serving Octavius to say, when afterward wielding the sceptre of
the world as Augustus Cæsar, “Cicero was a good citizen, who really
loved his country.”

CICERO’S WORKS.—Cicero was emphatically a many-sided man, and filled a
wide space in Roman literature. Though he excelled chiefly in oratory,
he has left us, besides fifty-nine orations, a number of philosophical
treatises, essays, and many letters to his friend Atticus, his brother,
and other correspondents. While deeply absorbed in public duties, he
found opportunities, without neglecting these, to pursue the study of
philosophy, having in view not only his own relaxation, but also the
moral advancement of his countrymen. His works on this subject, some of
which, for the sake of interest and variety, he wrote in the form of
dialogues, present a valuable survey of the Greek systems. They assert
his belief in the existence of one Supreme Creator and the immortality
of the soul. (_See Mayor’s “A Sketch of Ancient Philosophy.”_)

Cicero’s chief philosophical writings are “the Tusculan Disputations,”
imaginary discussions of various practical questions at the author’s
Tusculan villa,—the scorn of death, the endurance of suffering, etc.;
“the Offices,” a moral essay; treatises “On Friendship” and “On Old
Age,” justly considered as among the most charming productions of their
class in any literature; political dissertations “On the Republic” and
“On Laws;” and a theological disquisition “On the Nature of the Gods.”

THE END OF LIFE.

[From Cicero’s Treatise on Old Age.]

“An old man, indeed, has nothing to hope for; yet he is in so much the
happier state than a young one; since he has already attained what
the other is only hoping for. The one is wishing to live long, the
other has lived long. And yet, good gods! what is there in man’s life
that can be called long? To my mind, nothing whatever seems of long
duration, in which there is any end. For when that arrives, then the
time which is past has flowed away; that only remains which you have
secured by virtue and right conduct. Hours indeed depart from us, and
days, and months, and years; nor does past time ever return, nor can
it be discovered what is to follow.

Whatever time is assigned to each to live, with that he ought to be
content: for neither need the drama be performed entire by the actor,
in order to give satisfaction, provided he be approved in whatever act
he may be; nor need the wise man live till the _plaudite_.[45] The
short period of life is long enough for living well and honorably; and
if you should advance farther, you need no more grieve than farmers
do, when the loveliness of spring-time hath passed, that summer and
autumn have come. For spring represents the time of youth, and gives
promise of the future fruits; the remaining seasons are intended for
plucking and gathering those fruits. Now the harvest of old age, as
I have often said, is the recollection and abundance of blessings
previously secured. In truth, everything that happens agreeably
to nature is to be reckoned among blessings. What, however, is so
agreeable to nature as for an old man to die? which even is the lot
of the young, though nature opposes and resists. And thus it is that
young men seem to me to die, just as when the violence of flame
is extinguished by a flood of water; whereas old men die, as the
exhausted fire goes out, spontaneously, without the exertion of any
force. And as fruits when they are green are plucked by force from the
trees, but when ripe and mellow drop off, so violence takes away their
lives from youths, maturity from old men; a state which to me indeed
is so delightful that, the nearer I approach to death, I seem as it
were to be getting sight of land, and at length, after a long voyage,
to be just coming into harbor.”—EDMONDS.

Cicero also wrote a treatise “On Glory,” now lost. It was once in the
possession of Petrarch, who commends it in the most flattering terms.
The Italian poet was induced to lend it to his aged preceptor; but
the latter, driven by poverty, secretly put the work in pawn and died
without making known its whereabouts. It never saw the light afterward;
although it is supposed to have been destroyed two centuries later by a
plagiarist, who had helped himself to some of its fine periods.

As a letter-writer, Cicero excels all others. It was the custom of
his countrymen to bestow as great pains on private correspondence as
on works intended for publication; and his epistles, eight hundred of
which survive, are simple, elegant, and glow with wit, though some of
them were written so fast as to be almost illegible. (_Consult Jeans’s
“Life and Letters of Cicero; Church’s “Roman Life in the Days of
Cicero.”_)

Our author also turned his hand to history and poetry, but with
indifferent success. His works were extremely popular among his
contemporaries, some of them selling by the thousand.

CICERO’S STYLE.—Cicero has always been commended for the cadence of
his periods. The art of framing harmonious balanced sentences was his
special study, and the Latin language, which he perfected in beauty
and richness, was well adapted to his purpose. His style is often
exuberant, for he cultivated the flowers of rhetoric. Character he
sketched with a powerful pen, and his speeches are enlivened with
abundant illustrations drawn from the wonderful storehouse of his
memory. Too often, however, vanity crops out, to mar the effect.

Quintilian declared that as an orator Cicero combined “the force of
Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the elegance of Isocrates.”
Through all his works flows a current of mingled majesty and sweetness.
Merivale aptly styles him “the most consummate specimen of the Roman
character under the influence of Hellenic culture.”

CICERO ON PROVIDENCE.

[From the Treatise on the Nature of the Gods.]

“There are and have been philosophers who have given it as their
opinion that the gods exercise no superintending care whatever over
human affairs. Now, if the opinion of these men be true, what becomes
of piety? what of public worship? what of religion itself? For all
these marks of homage are to be rendered in a pure and holy spirit
unto the majesty of the gods, only in case they are observed by these
same, and in case any favor has been bestowed by the immortal gods on
the race of men. If, however, the gods are neither able nor willing to
assist us; if they take no care whatever of us; if they mark not what
we do; if there is nothing that can come from them and exercise an
influence on the lives of men,—what reason is there why we are to pay
any adoration, render any honors, offer any prayers, to the immortal
gods?

Piety, just as much as the other virtues, cannot exist in outward show
and empty feignings; while along with piety, both public worship and
religion itself must of necessity be done away with. Remove these, and
a great disturbance and total confusion of life ensue. Nay, indeed, I
do not know whether, if piety toward the gods be removed, good faith
also, and every social tie that binds together the human race, and
justice too, that most excellent of all virtues, would not be removed
along with it.”—CHARLES ANTHON.

=Varro= (116-28 B.C.).—The great central sun of the Republican Era was
Cicero, compared with whom the brightest of his contemporaries seem
but as lesser luminaries whose light is swallowed up in his. Of these,
Marcus Terentius Varro was perhaps the greatest. Years of incessant
application, which a boyhood passed among the Sabine mountains at Reate
(_re’ă-te_) had prepared him to endure, won for Varro the proud title
“Most Learned of the Romans.”

During the civil war, Varro sided with Pompey. After the triumph of
Cæsar, he retired from public life to his favorite studies, the victor
magnanimously recognizing his merit by placing him in charge of the
public library at Rome. The material results of his literary labors
enabled him to live like a prince, and we find him the proprietor of
three sumptuous country-seats, one of which was celebrated for its
costly marble aviary of three thousand song-birds—Varro’s pets.

All this wealth did not escape the notice of the rapacious triumvirs
after the assassination of Cæsar. The name of Varro, then more than
seventy, was placed on the proscription list; his property was
confiscated; and Antony sacked his beautiful villa at Casi’num,
committing his invaluable library to the flames. The old man owed his
life to friends, who concealed him from his implacable foe till the
order for his murder was countermanded. Augustus afterward restored his
fortune, but Varro always keenly missed the society of his books. At
the advanced age of eighty, he composed, in dialogue form, an admirable
work “On Husbandry,” written in a brisk and entertaining style.

The genius of Varro was remarkably versatile; as over six hundred
different books on various subjects, in both prose and verse,
abundantly testify. In fertility he surpassed all other Romans; and we
can but wonder, with St. Augustine, how he found time to write so much.
His most creditable work was his “Antiquities Divine and Human,” a lost
treasure, of which the present age, with its profound interest in the
religions of the past, severely feels the want.

Varro also prepared a treatise “On the Latin Language,” edited a
popular encyclopædia of the liberal arts, and wrote on history.
Throughout his works he appears as a pure patriot, a defender
of ancient simplicity and virtue. His satires on effeminacy and
affectation are caustic; no one can help enjoying his humorous etchings
of the spruce dandy, the dainty epicure, and the finical poet who
gargles his throat before reciting his pieces. In every kind of writing
that he attempted (and there was little he did not attempt) he is
worthy of respect: the familiar line from Dr. Johnson’s epitaph on
our own Goldsmith, would apply with equal force to Varro—“He touched
nothing that he did not adorn.”

Little survives of Varro’s writings beyond the treatise on agriculture,
and a part of that on the Latin language.

=Julius Cæsar.=—July 12th, 100 B.C., was the birthday of Caius Julius
Cæsar, by some believed to be, as Shakespeare styled him, “the foremost
man of all this world.” The period at which he lived was a critical one
in history. Roman virtue had depreciated, justice was bought and sold,
luxury had sapped the vigor of the nation, and vice ran riot. Only
one-man power, and that wielded by a clear head and powerful arm, could
save the state. The times demanded a statesman who would not shrink
from taking upon himself all needful responsibilities; and in Julius
Cæsar that statesman was forthcoming.

Cæsar’s whole career evinces ambition, courage, and determination.
Sulla himself he feared not to defy, when ordered to divorce his wife
for political reasons; and he was adroit enough to escape the vengeance
of the ruthless dictator who saw in “the loose-girt boy” many Mariuses.
Leaving Rome for the East, he acquitted himself with signal ability,
though only twenty-two, in a campaign against Mytilene; and when
captured by pirates on the high seas, he paid them an extortionate
ransom, but promptly turned the tables on them by overhauling their
vessel with a small fleet, and nailing them to crosses on the coast of
Asia Minor.

At Rhodes he studied oratory and rhetoric. On his return to Rome he
gave evidence of his powers in the forum, and was hailed as second in
eloquence to Cicero only. His readiness to protect the poor and the
oppressed, together with his insinuating manners, made Cæsar the idol
of the people, who bestowed upon him various offices and finally raised
him to the consulship. At the expiration of his term, he was intrusted
with the government of the two Gauls; and the military skill he
displayed in this position, during nine years of active service (58-50
B.C.), proved him to be one of the world’s great captains. Overpowering
many fierce tribes, he carried the terror of the Roman eagles into the
forests of Germany and even across the Channel. A million human beings
are computed to have been sacrificed in his Gallic campaigns.

Jealous of these brilliant successes, and recognizing in Cæsar a
dangerous opponent of his schemes for political aggrandizement, Pompey
prevailed on the senate to demand the resignation of his victorious
rival. This brought matters to a crisis. Cæsar with his legions crossed
the Rubicon, which separated Cisalpine Gaul from Italy (49 B.C.), and
was soon in Rome, whence Pompey and his friends had fled. The battle
of Pharsalia the next year decided the question in favor of Cæsar;
Pompey’s party was overthrown in Africa and Spain, and the Roman world
remained the prize of the conqueror.

Not long, however, did he enjoy it. Fearing his ambition, or
pretending to do so, a number of “liberators” conspired against his
life. On the 15th of March, 44 B.C., he fell pierced by their daggers
at the foot of Pompey’s statue, as that last cry, wrung from his
heart by the ingratitude of a trusted friend, resounded through the
senate-house,—“Thou, too, Brutus, my son!”

We can hardly see how, amid the excitements of such a career, Cæsar
found any time to devote to literary pursuits; yet his name is hardly
less eminent in letters than for statesmanship and military genius.
He seems to have had the rare ability of “employing at the same time
his ears to listen, his eyes to read, his hand to write, and his voice
to dictate.” While crossing the Alps, on one occasion, he wrote a
grammatical treatise of no little merit.

The greatest of Cæsar’s works are his “Commentaries” on the Gallic and
the Civil War—the former in seven books, to which an eighth was added
at the author’s request by his fellow-soldier HIRTIUS. In “the Gallic
War,” Cæsar not only recounts his successes and feats of engineering
skill, but also entertains us with pleasing descriptions of the
countries he visited and the tribes he encountered. He always aims at
justifying himself, and so plausibly defended his course in “the Civil
War” as to carry conviction even to the prejudiced. (_See Froude’s
“Cæsar;” Trollope’s “Cæsar.”_)

In Cæsar’s style, conciseness goes hand in hand with simplicity and
perspicuity. Dispensing with ornament, he uses every word to the
best advantage—and this despite the fact that he wrote with amazing
rapidity. Though, perhaps, he lacks vivacity and energy, there is no
purer Latin than his. We subjoin some interesting paragraphs from the
Commentaries on the Gallic War, relating to the customs of

THE ANCIENT GAULS AND GERMANS.

“The whole nation of Gauls is extremely addicted to superstition;
whence, in threatening distempers and the imminent dangers of war,
they make no scruple to sacrifice men, or engage themselves by vow to
such sacrifices. In these they make use of the ministry of the Druids:
for it is a prevalent opinion among them that nothing but the life of
man can atone for the life of man, insomuch that they have established
even public sacrifices of this kind. Some prepare huge colossuses of
osier twigs, into which they put men alive, and setting fire to them,
those within expire amid the flames. They prefer for victims such as
have been convicted of theft, robbery, or other crimes, believing them
the most acceptable to the gods; but, when criminals are wanting, the
innocent are often made to suffer.

Mercury is the chief deity with them; of him they have many images,
account him the inventor of all arts, their guide and conductor in
their journeys, and the patron of merchandise and gain. Next to him
are Apollo and Mars, Jupiter and Minerva. Their notions in regard to
these are pretty much the same as those of other nations. Apollo is
their god of physic, Minerva of works and manufactures; Jove holds the
empire of heaven, and Mars presides in war. To this last, when they
resolve on a battle, they commonly devote the spoil. If they prove
victorious, they offer up all the cattle taken, and set apart the rest
of the plunder in a place appointed for that purpose; it is common
in many provinces to see these monuments of offerings piled up in
consecrated places. Nay, it rarely happens that any one shows so great
a disregard of religion as either to conceal the plunder or pillage
the public oblations; and the severest punishments are inflicted on
such offenders.

The Gauls fancy themselves to be descended from the god Pluto; which,
it seems, is an established tradition among the Druids. For this
reason they compute the time by nights, not by days; and, in the
observance of birthdays, new moons, and the beginning of the year,
always commence the celebration from the preceding night. In one
custom they differ from almost all other nations, that they never
suffer their children to come openly into their presence until they
are old enough to bear arms; for the appearance of a son in public
with his father before he has reached the age of manhood is accounted
dishonorable.

Whatever fortune the woman brings, the husband is obliged to equal it
out of his own estate. This whole sum, with its annual product, is
left untouched, and falls always to the share of the survivor. The
men have power of life and death over their wives and children; and,
when any father of a family of illustrious rank dies, his relations
assemble, and, on the least ground of suspicion, put even his wives to
the torture like slaves. If they are found guilty, iron and fire are
employed to torment and destroy them. Their funerals are magnificent
and sumptuous, according to their quality. Everything that was dear to
the deceased, even animals, are thrown into the pile; and, formerly,
such of their slaves and clients as they loved most sacrificed
themselves at the funeral of their lord.

The Germans differ widely in their manners from the Gauls; for
neither have they Druids to preside in religious affairs, nor do
they trouble themselves about sacrifices. They acknowledge no gods
but those that they can see, and by whose power they are apparently
benefited: the sun, the moon, fire. Of others they know nothing, not
even by report. Their whole life is addicted to hunting and war;
and from their infancy they are inured to fatigue and hardships.
Agriculture is little regarded among them, as they live mostly on
milk, cheese, and the flesh of animals. Nor has any man lands of
his own, or distinguished by fixed boundaries. The magistrates and
those in authority portion out yearly to every canton and family
such a quantity of land, and in what part of the country they think
proper; and the year following remove them to some other spot. Many
reasons are assigned for this practice; lest, seduced by habit and
continuance, they should learn to prefer pillage to war; lest a desire
of enlarging their possessions should gain ground, and prompt the
stronger to expel the weaker; lest they should become curious in their
buildings, in order to guard against the extremes of heat and cold;
lest avarice should get footing among them, whence spring factions and
discords; in fine, to preserve contentment and equanimity among the
people, when they find their possessions nothing inferior to those of
the most powerful.

It is accounted honorable for states to have the country all around
them lie waste and depopulated; for they think it an argument of
valor to expel their neighbors, and suffer none to settle near them;
at the same time that they are themselves also the safer, as having
nothing to apprehend from sudden incursions. When a state is engaged
in war, either offensive or defensive, they make choice of magistrates
to preside in it, whom they arm with the power of life and death. In
time of peace there are no public magistrates; but the chiefs of the
several provinces and clans administer justice, and decide differences
within their respective limits. Robbery has nothing infamous in it
when committed without the territories of the state to which they
belong; they even pretend that it serves to exercise their youth,
and prevent the growth of sloth. The laws of hospitality are held
inviolable among them. All that fly to them for refuge, on whatever
account, are sure of protection and defence.”—DUNCAN.

=Sallust= (86-34 B.C.).—Another historian, whose name is as familiar as
Cæsar’s to classical students, is Caius Sallustius Crispus, popularly
known as Sallust. From his native town Amiternum, in the country of the
Sabines, he came to Rome, ambitious of public honors, and gradually
worked his way up to a seat in the senate. Alleged immorality, however,
caused his expulsion from that body, and not until he had rendered
important service to Cæsar in the civil war did he recover his good
standing. Cæsar made him governor of the rich province of Numidia (46
B.C.), which Sallust pretty thoroughly plundered during his one year
of office, returning to Rome with fabulous riches. It was fortunate
for him that, when a Numidian commission arrived to prosecute him for
extortion, his powerful patron interposed to save him from punishment.

On the assassination of Cæsar, Sallust retired from public life and
devoted part of his ill-gotten gains to the erection of a splendid
mansion on one of the seven hills. It was surrounded by lovely
pleasure-grounds, adorned with baths, statues, and other magnificent
works of art, prominent among which, on exquisitely chiselled columns,
rose a temple, paved in mosaic, and set off with Grecian marbles. “The
Gardens of Sallust” were preferred by many of the Roman emperors to the
imperial palace itself.

Here or at his Tiburtine villa, our author, thoroughly convinced of the
vanity of political honors, and filled with remorse for his youthful
indiscretions, spent the last nine years of his life in the compilation
of historical works which give us a high opinion of his abilities.
His first effort was “the Conspiracy of Catiline,” the facts of which
were vividly impressed upon his memory, since, when a student at Rome,
he was a witness of its thrilling scenes. “The Jugurthine War,” which
followed, treats of the struggle which the Roman people carried on with
Jugurtha, king of Numidia. This unscrupulous prince had made his way
to an undivided throne over the murdered bodies of his two cousins,
allies of the Romans, securing impunity for a time by buying up the
senate. Having, however, caused the assassination of another kinsman in
the very streets of Rome, whither he had been summoned, on the pledge
of the public faith, to expose those who had taken his bribes, he was
ordered to quit Italy. It was on leaving the capital that Jugurtha,
looking back, uttered those words so significant of the prevalent
corruption: “O venal city and destined soon to perish, if you can but
find a purchaser!”

A Roman army followed him into Africa; but little was effected until
the consul Metellus assumed the command, and, proof against Numidian
gold, prosecuted the war in earnest. After five years’ continuance,
it was successfully terminated by Marius. Sallust’s history ends with
the betrayal of Jugurtha to the Romans, and the triumph of the consul
Marius, “on whom the hopes of the state were then placed.” Plutarch
adds that, after figuring in the procession, Jugurtha was set upon by
the people, who tore the rings from his ears and even stripped him
of his clothes; then he was pushed into a damp dungeon to starve,
shuddering as he cried to the bystanders with a maniacal laugh, “How
cold is this bath of yours!”

Another work of Sallust was a History of Rome from 78 to 66 B.C.,
fragments of which remain.

SALLUST’S STYLE, modelled after that of Thucydides, is sententious,
energetic, and an improvement on the original in clearness.
Condensation without obscurity is its crowning excellence; and its
finish, though too plainly showing marks of labor, is always attractive.

The forte of Sallust lay in delineating character; his portraits of
Catiline and Jugurtha are as vivid as if the men themselves stood
before us. Especially striking are his pictures of remorse. Catiline,
who murdered his own son to induce an infamous beauty to become his
wife, “at peace with neither gods nor men, finds no comfort either
waking or sleeping; his complexion is pale, his eyes haggard, his walk
sometimes quick and sometimes slow, and distraction is apparent in
every look.” Jugurtha, red with the blood of many victims, “fears his
subjects and his enemies alike, is ever on the watch, starts from his
sleep to seize his arms, and is so agitated by terror as to appear
under the influence of madness.”

Sallust also affects the moralist, and throughout his works is as
loud in the praises of virtue as in his life he was careless of her
interests. From “the Jugurthine War” we take an interesting account of
the

CAPTURE OF A NUMIDIAN FORT.

“Not far from the river Mulucha, which separated the kingdoms of
Jugurtha and Bocchus, there stood, in the midst of a plain, a small
fort, on a rock of considerable breadth, and of prodigious height,
naturally as steep on every side as art or labor could render it;
it had no access, except at one place, and that was by means of a
narrow path. As the king’s treasure was deposited in this place,
Marius exerted his utmost efforts to reduce it; and succeeded, more by
accident than by prudent management.

The castle was abundantly provided with men, arms, provisions, and a
spring of water; its situation rendered it impossible to make use of
mounds and turrets, and the machinery usually employed in a siege;
the path to it was very narrow, with a precipice on each side. The
moving galleries were pushed forward with infinite hazard, and to no
purpose; for, when they advanced toward the garrison, they were either
destroyed by fire or crushed by prodigious stones. The soldiers could
neither maintain their footing nor make use of their batteries without
exposing themselves to continual danger. The most adventurous were
either slain or wounded, and the rest were greatly discouraged.

Marius, having thus spent many toilsome days, now hesitated whether
he should abandon his enterprise, which had proved unsuccessful, or
wait the interposition of fortune, which had so frequently befriended
him. While these reflections day and night occupied his mind, a
Ligurian, a common soldier of the auxiliary cohorts, who had gone out
of the camp in search of water, happened to observe, not far from
the opposite side of the castle, some periwinkles creeping among the
rocks; gathering one, then another, and still climbing to procure
more, he was led insensibly almost to the top of the mountain, where,
perceiving all was quiet in that quarter, the natural desire of
viewing unknown objects prompted him to proceed.

It chanced that an oak-tree, of considerable magnitude, here grew out
of the side of the rock, and, bending its trunk downward near the
root, then taking a turn, mounted upward, as is natural to trees in
such situations.

By the help of this, the Ligurian, laying hold of the branches of
the tree or of the prominences of the rock, was at length enabled
to survey the whole plan of the castle, without being disturbed by
the Numidians, who were all engaged on that side on which the attack
had been made. Having carefully examined whatever he thought would
be useful to him in the execution of his design, he returned the
same way; not hastily, as he went up, but pausing at every step, and
observing everything with the utmost care.

On his return to the camp, he hastened to Marius, informed him of what
he had done, pressed him to make an attempt on the castle on that side
where he himself had mounted, and promised that he would lead the
way, and be the first to face the danger. Marius despatched some of
those who attended him, accompanied by the Ligurian, to examine the
spot; and, although their reports varied as to the facility or the
difficulty of the undertaking, the consul, encouraged by the hope of
success, determined to make the attempt. He accordingly selected, from
among the trumpeters and cornet-blowers of the line, five of the most
active and enterprising men, together with four centurions to support
them, and, putting the whole under the command of the Ligurian, he
ordered them to be in readiness to set out on the following day.

At the time appointed the party left the camp, having previously taken
such measures as were necessary for the expedition. The centurions,
according to the instructions which they had received from their
guide, had changed their arms and dress, and marched with their heads
and feet bare, that they might have the freer prospect, and climb
with more facility. Their swords and bucklers were slung across their
shoulders; the latter, of the Numidian kind, and covered with hides,
as well for the sake of lightness, as that all noise might be avoided
if they struck against the rock.

The Ligurian, leading the way, fixed cords about the stones, and
such roots of trees as appeared proper for the purpose, to assist
the soldiers in climbing; stretching his hand, from time to time, to
such as were discouraged at so rugged a march. When the ascent was
more steep than ordinary, he would send them up before him unarmed,
and then follow himself with their arms. Wherever it appeared more
dangerous to climb, he went foremost; and, by ascending and descending
several times, encouraged the rest to follow him, and retired to make
way for them. At length, after much tedious labor, they gained the
castle, which was quite deserted on that side, the Numidians being all
employed in the opposite quarter.

When Marius was informed of the success of the Ligurian, although he
had kept the garrison employed the whole day by a continued attack,
he now, encouraging the soldiers, sallied from under the moving
galleries, and, drawing up his men in the form of a shell, rushed
forward to the castle; while the slingers and archers poured their
volleys from a distance, and the engines incessantly played on the
besieged. The Numidians, who had often before broken to pieces and
even burned the Roman galleries, did not now defend themselves within
their battlements, but passed whole days and nights without their
walls; they railed at the efforts of the Romans, upbraided Marius with
madness, and in the height of their exultation threatened to make our
men slaves of Jugurtha.

While both sides were warmly engaged in this vigorous struggle for
glory and empire on the one hand, and life and liberty on the other,
the trumpets on a sudden sounded in the enemy’s rear. The women and
children, who had come out to see the engagement, first fled in
dismay; after them, such as were nearest the walls; and at last the
whole, armed and unarmed, fairly gave way. The Romans now pressed
onward with greater vigor, overthrowing the enemy, and wounding most
of them; then, advancing over the heaps of slain, they flew to the
walls, all thirsting for glory, and each striving to be foremost,
without regard to plunder. Thus did accidental success justify the
rashness of Marius, while his imprudence contributed to heighten his
glory.”

=Cornelius Nepos= (74-24 B.C.), though inferior to the writers just
treated, deserves mention for his “Lives of Eminent Commanders,”
his only extant work. These sketches, especially the biography of
Pomponius Atticus, are clearly written and furnish valuable information
respecting the times to which they relate; but Nepos was not an
accurate compiler, and dependence cannot always be placed on his
statements. As a specimen of his style, we quote from his “Lives”.

THE CHARACTER OF ALCIBIADES.

“Nature seems to have tried in him what she could do. For it is agreed
upon among all who have written about him, that nobody was more
extraordinary than he, either in vices or in virtues; being born in
a very great city, of a great family, much the handsomest man of his
time, fit for all things, and abounding in judgment for the management
of affairs. For he was a very great commander, both by sea and land;
so eloquent that he mightily prevailed in speaking; and such was the
plausibility of his elocution and language that in haranguing nobody
was able to stand before him.

The same man, when occasion required, was laborious, hardy, generous,
splendid no less in his equipage than his diet, affable, fawning, very
cunningly serving the times. The same, when he had unbent himself, and
there was no reason why he should take upon him any labor of thought,
was found to be luxurious, dissolute, and intemperate, in so much that
all wondered that in the same man there should be so much unlikeness
to himself, and natures so different.”—JOHN CLARKE.

POETS OF THE CICERONIAN PERIOD.

=Lucretius= (95-55 B.C.).—Meanwhile Italy produced two poets of high
rank, Lucretius and Catullus. Of Lucretius we have little trustworthy
information. A native of Italy, he appears, in accordance with the
common practice, to have studied philosophy at Athens, where he
became the classmate of Memmius. From his poetry, we may infer his
indifference to all things transient, alike to social pleasures and the
stormy sea of politics that surged around him; his life was probably
one of deep thought, tinged with sadness. In dignity he was a true
Roman; in sympathy for his kind, a true man. With nature he must have
held frequent converse, for Homer alone of ancient writers excels him
in description. His life ended with suicide.

The only work of Lucretius was what Macaulay styles “the finest
didactic poem in any language,” “On the Nature of Things.” It was
dedicated to his school-friend Memmius, at whose suggestion it is said
to have been written. The old story that, having been crazed by a
love-philter administered through the jealousy of his wife, the poet
composed this work during the temporary returns of reason, is now
discredited as a fabrication of later times.

The poem is divided into six books, and embodies the dogmas of
Epicurus, which Lucretius vivified with the spirit of poetry and
beautified with its most attractive drapery. Pleasure, the chief
end of existence, is to be sought by banishing care and distressing
thoughts. God created not; but eternal atoms, variously and ceaselessly
active, constitute all existing things. The soul dies with the body; it
behooves us, therefore, to make the most of the little time allotted
us, by dividing it between moderate enjoyment and philosophical
contemplation. (_See Masson’s “The Atomic Theory of Lucretius.”_)

Lucretius also accounted for the origin of the universe, whose
government by a Divine Being he scouted; for that of plants, men, and
animals, teaching the survival of the fittest; for that of language and
the arts. To elevate his readers above degrading superstitions and the
cowardly fear of death is his primary aim; and “the constant presence
of this practical purpose imparts to his words that peculiar tone
of impassioned earnestness to which there is no parallel in ancient
literature.” In one of many passages on the subject, he thus speaks of

THE DREAD OF DEATH.

“Were then the Nature of Created Things
To rise abrupt, and thus repining man
Address:—’O mortal! whence these useless fears?
This weak, superfluous sorrow? why the approach
Dread’st thou of death? For if the time elapsed
Have smiled propitious, and not all its gifts,
As if adventured in a leaky vase,
Been idly wasted, profitless, and vain—
Why quitt’st thou not, thou fool! the feast of life
Filled, and with mind all panting for repose?
But if thyself have squandered every boon,
And of the past grown weary—why demand
More days to kill, more blessings to pervert,
Nor rather headlong hasten to thine end?’
Were Nature thus to address us, could we fail
To feel the justice of her keen rebuke?
So true the picture, the advice so sage!
But to the wretch who moans the approach of death
With grief unmeasured, louder might she raise
Her voice severe:—’Vile coward! dry thine eyes—
Hence with thy snivelling sorrows, and depart!’
Should he, moreo’er, have passed man’s mid-day hour—
‘What! thou lament, already who hast reaped
An ample harvest? By desiring thus
The past once more, the present thou abhorr’st,
And life flies on imperfect, unenjoyed,
And death untimely meets thee, ere thy soul,
Cloyed with the banquet, is prepared to rise.
Leave, then, to others bliss thy years should shun;
Come, cheerful leave it, since still leave thou must.’
Justly, I deem, might Nature thus reprove:
For, through creation, old to young resigns,
And this from that matures; nor aught descends
To the dread gulfs, the fancied shades of hell.
The mass material must survive entire
To feed succeeding ages, which, in turn,
Like thee shall flourish, and like thee shall die;
Nor more the present ruins than the past.
Thus things from things ascend; and life exists
To none a freehold, but a use to all.
Reflect, moreo’er, how less than naught to us
Weighs the long portion of eternal time
Fled ere our birth: so, too, the future weighs
When death dissolves us. What of horror, then,
Dwells there in death? what gloomy, what austere?
Can there be elsewhere slumber half so sound?”
JOHN MASON GOOD.

Lucretius reasons plausibly, but on some points, it is too evident,
unsatisfactorily even to himself. His work contains much that is
worthy of praise, but this only makes its atheistical tendencies more
dangerous. It was left unfinished at the poet’s death, to be revised
and edited by other hands.

The style of Lucretius is not uniformly harmonious; some of his verses
lack polish, and he inclines to antique forms. Yet it is dignified,
luminous, and animated; glows with all the poet’s enthusiasm, and is
marked by tenderness and pathos. The pictures drawn are so real as
to awaken the emotions that would be experienced on beholding the
originals. Schlegel gives Lucretius high praise: “As a painter and
worshipper of nature, he is the first of all the poets of antiquity.”

In the extract given below, the touching description of the cow
searching for her calf that has been offered in sacrifice, will show
how he dignifies commonplace subjects:—

VARIETY IN NATURE.

“Thus Nature varies; man, and brutal beast,
And herbage gay, and silver fishes mute,
And all the tribes of heaven, o’er many a sea,
Through many a grove that wing, or urge their song
Near many a bank of fountain, lake, or rill,
Search where thou wilt, each differs in his kind,
In form, in figure differs. Hence alone
Knows the fond mother her appropriate young,
The appropriate young their mother,’mid the brutes,
As clear discerned as man’s sublimer race.
Thus oft before the sacred shrine, perfumed
With breathing frankincense, the affrighted calf
Pours o’er the altar, from his breast profound,
The purple flood of life. But wandering wild
O’er the green sward, the dam, bereft of hope,
Beats with her cloven hoof the indented dale,
Each spot exploring, if, perchance, she still
May trace her idol; through the umbrageous grove,
With well-known voice, she moans; and oft reseeks,
Urged by a mother’s love, the accustomed stall.
Nor shade for her, nor dew-distended glebe,
Nor stream soft gliding down its banks abrupt,
Yields aught of solace; nor the carking care
Averts, that preys within; nor the gay young
Of others soothe her o’er the joyous green:
So deep she longs, so lingers for her own.
Thus equal known, thus longed for, seek, in turn,
The tender heifer, tremulous of voice,
And the gay bleating lamb, their horned dams,
Lured by the milky fount that nurtures life.”

=Catullus= (87-54 B.C.).—Verona in Cisalpine Gaul gave birth to
Catullus, the first great Roman lyrist. It was no doubt to avail
himself of the superior advantages Rome offered, that while still in
the greenness of his youth he exchanged his provincial quarters for
the capital. Here we catch occasional glimpses of him—moving among the
_élite_ as the equal of men like Nepos, Hortensius, and Cicero; or as
the reckless sensualist throwing himself at the feet of some dissolute
siren.

Upon the notorious “Lesbia,” who stole, our poet sung,

“The charms most rare of every fair
To frame a perfect whole,”

Catullus wasted alike his love and the finest lyrics of which the
Latin boasts. The coquettish beauty at first gloried in her conquest
of Rome’s most popular poet, and appears for a time to have been true.
Then she grew cold, and cast him off for new admirers. But Catullus,
though outraged by her fickleness, could not overcome his unworthy
passion:—

“I curse her every hour sincerely,
Yet hang me—but I love her dearly.”

At last, however, he renounced his faithless mistress, bidding her
adieu in an ode which closes with one of his most beautiful similes:—

“Nor give that love a thought which I
So nursed for thee in days gone by,
Now by thy guile slain in an hour,
E’en as some little wilding flower,
That on the meadow’s border blushed,
Is by the passing ploughshare crushed.”

Catullus spent his hours of relaxation at his villa in the suburbs
of the Latian town of Ti’bur, or at his favorite Sirmio on a lovely
lake in northern Italy, the subject of one of his most graceful odes.
Toward the close of his life, in the hope of refilling a purse which
his extravagance had depleted, he went to Bithynia in Asia Minor as a
staff-officer of the prætor Memmius, to whom Lucretius inscribed his
poem. But in consequence of the selfishness of his superior, Catullus
came back with wallet still lighter. Of two friends who went to Spain
on a similar errand, he archly inquired:—

“And have you netted—worse than worst—
A good deal less than you disbursed;
Like me, who following about
My prætor, was—in fact—cleaned out?”

The death of a brother to whom he was devotedly attached plunged
Catullus in grief; and now with nothing to live for, sated with worldly
pleasure, in which he found the vanity of vanities, he longed for the
fate that soon overtook him.

THE STYLE OF CATULLUS, called by the ancients “the Accomplished,” is
lively, graceful, and vigorous; he writes in the language of nature,
and excels in suiting his words to the sentiments expressed. The
musical measures of the Greeks, adapted by him to his native tongue,
lent intensity to his words, and there were “lutes in his very lines.”
From the Greek writers, particularly Sappho and Callimachus of
Alexandria, he borrowed largely. One of his odes to Lesbia is evidently
an imitation of Sappho’s celebrated love-song quoted on p. 169:—

TO LESBIA.

“The equal of a God he seems to me,
Surpassing wealth doth his blessed lot appear,
Who, sitting often opposite to thee,
May gaze and hear.

The radiance of thy smile from me hath reft,
From miserable me, all sense away,
For when I look on Lesbia naught is left
That Love can say.

My tongue is dumb, while through each trembling limb
The thin flame mounts, till self-wrought murmurs rise
To fill mine ears, and night grown doubly dim
Veils o’er mine eyes.”—C. N. GREGORY.

His book of poems, 116 in number, was dedicated to Cornelius Nepos.
Their subjects are as various as the metres in which they are written,
for they reflect the passing emotions of the poet, now lighted with
gayety, now clouded with sorrow, anon ablaze with love.

Among the other pieces of Catullus must be mentioned his cutting
satires, in which even Cæsar was not spared; his exquisite
_epithalamia_, or marriage-hymns; and the “Atys,” a weird poem
remarkable for its metrical effects. Our poet’s lyric powers may be
further judged of by the following

ELEGY ON LESBIA’S SPARROW.

“Loves and Graces, mourn with me,
Mourn, fair youths, where’er ye be!
Dead my Lesbia’s sparrow is,
Sparrow, that was all her bliss,
Than her very eyes more dear;
For he made her dainty cheer,
Knew her well, as any maid
Knows her mother, never strayed
From her lap, but still would go
Hopping round her to and fro,
And to her, and her alone,
Chirrup’d with such pretty tone.
Now he treads that gloomy track,
Whence none ever may come back.
Out upon you, and your power,
Which all fairest things devour,
Orcus’ gloomy shades, that e’er
Ye should take my bird so fair!
Oh! poor bird! Oh! dismal shades!
Yours the blame is, that my maid’s
Eyes, dear eyes! are swoll’n and red,
Weeping for her darling dead.”
THEODORE MARTIN.

POETRY OF THE AUGUSTAN AGE.

As prose reached its highest development in the last years of the
Republic, so many causes contributed to perfect Latin verse in the
reign of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. Secured upon the throne
by his triumph at Actium (31 B.C.), Augustus pursued a conciliatory
course, with a view to winning the love of his subjects, and he was
eminently successful. All classes, tired of civil war and its attendant
proscriptions and massacres, hailed with delight the return of peace;
and under the patronage of the emperor, seconded by his minister
Mæcenas, poetry revived.

Augustus was as fortunate in finding at Rome a number of youthful
poets, many of them in humble circumstances and of provincial origin,
as in the possession of a minister who could appreciate and foster
their talents. Mæcenas knew the value of genius too well to let it
die of neglect; and his name, as the patron of art and letters, has
passed into a proverb. His luxurious gardens were the haunt of poets
and savants, and round his sumptuous table sat an inspired circle who
poured their grateful tributes into the ears of their master and his.

Thus the munificence of Augustus and Mæcenas, themselves both critics
and writers, combined with the political quiet that gave leisure for
literary pursuits, to make their period the golden age of poetry.
Prose, on the other hand, declined. Political eloquence was powerless
in the face of despotism; while the veracious historian must needs
tread a dangerous path, or seal his lips.

The poets of the Augustan era were deficient, as a rule, in that
creative genius which characterized the age of Pericles in Greece,
their works being rather the fruits of art and industry. A long and
careful training, in which Greek studies played a prominent part,
prepared them for their high profession; Horace tells us that at the
age of twenty-three he was still “seeking the truth among the groves
of Academus.” Works on various subjects could now be consulted in the
public libraries of Rome; and Alexandrian models helped to mould the
literary taste of the day. (_Compare Sellar’s “Roman Poets of the
Augustan Age.”_)

=Virgil.=—In the little village of Andes near Mantua, on the 15th
of October, B.C. 70, Rome’s greatest poet, Virgil (Publius Virgilius
Maro), first saw the light. His boyhood was spent on the banks of the
winding Mincio in a quiet round of rural pursuits; his father, as owner
of a small farm, being among those whom the poet subsequently pictured
as the happiest of men.

[Illustration: ROMANS OF THE AUGUSTAN AGE (Becker’s “Gallus.”)]

Alive to the importance of education, Virgil’s parents set aside a
portion of their slender means to provide for his instruction; and when
he reached the age of twelve, his father entered him in a school at
Cremona. In his seventeenth year he went to Rome, and there prosecuted
the higher studies, familiarizing himself with the Greek poets, and
spending his leisure in the composition of lyric pieces. Having
completed his education, Virgil returned to his native place, where,
amid the natural attractions that surrounded him, he conceived the idea
of rivalling Theocritus in bucolic poetry, and in 42 B.C. began his
Eclogues.

After the victory of the Triumvirs in the civil war, the lands about
Cremona and Mantua were divided among the soldiers who had served
against Brutus, and the estate of Virgil, neutral though he had been,
was taken from him. On the poet’s application to Octavius, however,
it was restored, and in one of his Eclogues he gave utterance to his
sincere gratitude. Shortly after, Virgil was ejected again, and this
time narrowly escaped with his life by swimming the Mincio. Nor does
he appear to have ever been reinstated. Octavius, however, loaded him
with favors; and a house in Rome near the palace of his friend Mæcenas,
with a lovely villa in the suburbs of Naples, where the climate agreed
better with his delicate constitution than the damp air of the north,
reconciled him to the loss of his boyhood’s home.

The Eclogues, published about 37 B.C., established Virgil’s reputation
as a pastoral poet, and gained him no mean place among the literary and
political celebrities that crowded the house of Mæcenas. It was by the
advice of this statesman that the poet undertook the most finished and
original of all his productions,—the Georgics,—a work which, though
only about 2200 lines in length, occupied him for seven years.

Having declared in this poem that “he would wed Cæsar’s glories to
an epic strain,” Virgil was held to his promise by the emperor, at
whose solicitation he gave the rest of his life (eleven years) to the
composition of the Æneid. In this great epic, like the Odyssey a sequel
to the Iliad, the origin of Rome is traced back to ancient Troy, and
the genealogy of Augustus to her greatest surviving hero, “the pious
Æneas.” Death stopped the poet’s pen when three years’ labor was yet
necessary, in his estimation, to perfect his work.

It appears that in the year 19 B.C. Virgil undertook a tour through
Greece and Asia Minor, to acquaint himself with the geography of the
countries described in the Æneid; but meeting Augustus at Athens, he
changed his plans and started with the emperor for Rome. On the way he
was seized with a mortal illness, and only lived to reach the harbor
of Brundisium in southern Italy. On his death-bed, Virgil besought his
friends to bring him the manuscript of his epic, that he might consign
it to the flames; but they wisely saved a masterpiece which the modesty
of its author would have condemned to oblivion.

Virgil was interred at Naples. A simple vault, overgrown with ivy and
wild myrtle, still marks his grave. On a marble slab set in the rock
opposite is the inscription which Dryden has thus rendered:—

“I sung flocks, tillage, heroes: Mantua gave
Me life; Brundisium, death; Naples, a grave.”

Virgil has been described as a tall, dark-complexioned man, careless
of his dress, and with awkward country airs. His life was that of a
student; and despite the fact that he was a martyr to dyspepsia and
pulmonary disease, he did not allow his delicate health to interfere
with his literary labors. Of gentle, unassuming manners, he would fly
from the admiring crowds that followed him in the streets; and none
would have inferred from his appearance or conversation that he was a
great poet. He was more than a great poet—he was a pure, unselfish,
honest man, uncontaminated by the prevailing vices. Not the least among
his virtues was filial piety. His countrymen felt how great and noble
he was, when they rose in the theatre and paid him equal honor with the
emperor himself.

Had he lived, it was Virgil’s purpose, after completing the Æneid, to
study philosophy, the love of which he had imbibed in early life from
the verses of Lucretius. The investigation of truth was his highest
aim; and there are reasons for believing that he had in mind the
preparation of a grand philosophical poem that might have cast into the
shade the stately treatise “On the Nature of Things.”

Such liberality had Virgil experienced from his friends that he left
a fortune of $400,000, to be divided, as he never married, among his
brother, Augustus, Mæcenas, and others of his associates.

THE ECLOGUES.—Virgil was the first Roman writer to cultivate pastoral
poetry, and his Eclogues (_selections_), or more properly Bucolics
(_shepherd poems_), are mostly dialogues, in imitation of the idyls
of Theocritus. Various subjects are charmingly discussed by imaginary
shepherds, in whom one sometimes recognizes the poet and his friends.

The least understood of Virgil’s Eclogues is the one entitled “Pollio,”
from the name of the consul to whom it is addressed. It was written
B.C. 40, and predicts the coming of a wondrous Child, whose birth would
usher in a golden age of peace and happiness. Some have seen in this
child an unconscious allusion to the Babe of Bethlehem, whose advent
the Sibylline oracles are believed to have foretold. Perhaps Virgil
had heard of the Hebrew prophecies indirectly through the Alexandrian
Greeks, and recast them in Latin verse; perhaps it was but a Roman
infant—Pollio’s child—whose birth he sung in an exaggerated strain.
However this may be, we may remember that the heathen as well as the
Jewish world at this time expected a great reformer, who should restore
the innocence and bliss of by-gone ages.

EXTRACT FROM THE POLLIO.

“Comes the Last Age, of which the Sibyl sung—
A new-born cycle of the rolling years;
Justice returns to earth, the rule returns
Of good King Saturn; lo! from the high heavens
Comes a new seed of men. Lucina chaste,
Speed the fair infant’s birth, with whom shall end
Our age of iron, and the golden prime
Of earth return; thine own Apollo’s reign
In him begins anew. This glorious age
Inaugurates, O Pollio, with thee;
Thy consulship shall date the happy months;
Under thine auspices the Child shall purge
Our guilt-stains out, and free the land from dread.
He with the gods and heroes like the gods
Shall hold familiar converse, and shall rule
With his great father’s spirit the peaceful world.
For thee, O Child! the earth untilled shall pour
Her early gifts, the winding ivy’s wreath,
Smiling acanthus, and all flowers that blow.
The ground beneath shall cradle thee in blooms,
The venomed snake shall die, the poisonous herb
Perish from out thy path.
So, when the years shall seal thy manhood’s strength,
The busy merchant shall forsake the seas—
Barter there shall not need; the soil shall bear
For all men’s use all products of all climes.
The glebe shall need no harrow, nor the vine
The searching knife, the oxen bear no yoke;
The wool no longer shall be schooled to lie,
Dyed in false hues; but, coloring as he feeds,
The ram himself in the rich pasture-lands
Shall wear a fleece now purple and now gold,
And the lambs grow in scarlet. So the Fates,
Who know not change, have bid their spindles run,
And weave for this blest age the web of doom.”
W. L. COLLINS.

THE GEORGICS.—Having shown his powers in the Eclogues, Virgil was not
unwilling to put them to a further proof, when Mæcenas suggested a work
on husbandry, which should dignify that ancient art and revive a love
for the simple pursuits of the fathers of the Republic.

Taking Hesiod’s “Works and Days” as his model, he added the artistic
Georgics (_agricultural poem_) to the works of Cato and Varro on rural
life. No less elevated in tone than theirs, it possesses an additional
attraction in its dress of verse, glows with the author’s love of
nature, and displays his ardent zeal to check the national decay.
Virgil labored upon the Georgics for seven years, it being his habit to
rise betimes and dictate in the early morning verses which he spent
the rest of the day in polishing and condensing.

The Georgics is a didactic poem, and as such, with the work of
Lucretius, represents the only department in which the Romans excelled
both the Greeks and all modern nations. The first of its four books is
devoted to tillage; it gives directions for ploughing (early and often,
was Virgil’s motto), sowing, and fertilizing, and explains the signs of
the weather. We learn from it that the pests of the modern farmer were
not unknown to the old Roman husbandman:—

“With ponderous roller smooth the level floor,
And bind with chalky cement o’er and o’er;
Lest springing weeds expose thy want of art,
And worn in many a chink the surface part:
There builds the field-mouse underneath the ground,
And loads her little barn with plunder crowned;
There works the mole along her dark abode,
There in its hollow lurks the lonely toad,
There wastes the weevil with insatiate rage,
There the wise ant that dreads the wants of age.”

Arboriculture is treated minutely in the second book, the vine
receiving the principal share of attention. Here we have the most
beautiful of those digressions which lend an enchanting variety to the
style of the Georgics—the poet’s glowing eulogy of his native land.

PRAISES OF ITALY.

“Yet nor the Median groves, nor rivers, rolled,
Ganges, and Hermus, o’er their beds of gold,
Nor Ind, nor Bactra, nor the blissful land
Where incense spreads o’er rich Panchaia’s sand,
Nor all that fancy paints in fabled lays,
O native Italy! transcend thy praise.
Though here no bulls beneath the enchanted yoke
With fiery nostril o’er the furrow smoke,
No hydra teeth embattled harvest yield,
Spear and bright helmet bristling o’er the field;
Yet golden corn each laughing valley fills,
The vintage reddens on a thousand hills,
Luxuriant olives spread from shore to shore,
And flocks unnumbered range the pastures o’er.
Hence the proud war-horse rushes on the foe,
Clitumnus! hence thy herds, more white than snow,
And stately bull, that, of gigantic size,
Supreme of victims, on the altar lies,
Bathed in thy sacred stream oft led the train
When Rome in pomp of triumph deck’d the fane.
Here Spring perpetual leads the laughing Hours,
And Winter wears a wreath of summer flowers:
The o’erloaded branch twice fills with fruits the year,
And twice the teeming flocks their offspring rear.
Yet here no lion breeds, no tiger strays,
No tempting aconite the touch betrays,
No monstrous snake the uncoiling volume trails,
Or gathers orb on orb his iron scales.
But many a peopled city towers around,
And many a rocky cliff with castle crowned,
And many an antique wall whose hoary brow
O’ershades the flood that guards its base below.
All hail, Saturnian earth! hail, loved of fame,
Land, rich in fruits and men of mighty name!
For thee I dare the sacred founts explore,
For thee, the rules of ancient art restore,
Themes once to glory raised again rehearse,
And pour through Roman towns the Ascræan verse.”
SOTHEBY.

The raising of cattle and the management of bees form the subjects of
the remaining books of the Georgics.

THE ÆNEID narrates in epic verse the adventures of Æneas, the legendary
ancestor of the Romans. Virgil sums up his plot in the opening lines:—

“Arms and the man I sing, who first,
By Fate of Ilian realm amerced,
To fair Italia onward bore,
And landed on Lavinium’s shore:—
Long tossing earth and ocean o’er,
By violence of heaven, to sate
Fell Juno’s unforgetting hate:
Much labored too in battle-field,
Striving his city’s walls to build,
And give his Gods a home.
Thence come the hardy Latin brood,
The ancient sires of Alba’s blood,
And lofty-rampired Rome.”

Æneas, the son of Venus by the Trojan shepherd Anchi’ses, escaped from
burning Troy with his aged father, little son, and household gods. He
lay concealed for a time in the mountains; and, when the victorious
Greeks had all withdrawn, took ship with the remnant of his people
to found a new Troy in the west. After seven years of hardships and
mistakes, the Trojans embark from Sicily for “the Hesperian shore.”

Here the Æneid takes up the story. In the first book we see the
Trojan fleet driven by a tempest, sent at Juno’s solicitation, on the
opposite coast of Africa, near the rising walls of Carthage. Dido, its
queen, whom the murder of her husband Sichæus by her unnatural brother
had driven from Tyre, receives the strangers hospitably, and by the
strategy of Venus conceives a passionate love for Æneas. At her request
the Trojan prince tells the pathetic story—the fall of his native city
through the wiles of the Greeks, and his subsequent trials.

Æneas returns Dido’s love, but only at last to betray his confiding
hostess, and fly with his vessels under cover of the night, in
obedience to a warning from Mercury, the messenger of Jove. Too “pious”
to disregard the heavenly command, he left Dido to end her sorrow on
the funeral pyre.

After a temporary sojourn in Sicily, where he celebrates funeral games
to his father’s memory, Æneas at length reaches Cumæ in Italy, and at
once seeks the Sibyl. She informs him that his trials are not over, and
takes him to the lower world that he may hold an interview with his
father Anchises. There he descries among other shades the injured Dido,
to whom he endeavors to excuse his conduct.

“’Mid these among the branching treen
Sad Dido moved, the Tyrian queen,
Her death-wound ghastly yet and green.
Soon as Æneas caught the view
And through the mist her semblance knew,
Like one who spies, or thinks he spies,
Through flickering clouds the new moon rise,
The tear-drop from his eyelids broke,
And thus in tenderest tones he spoke.
‘Ah Dido! rightly then I read
The news that told me you were dead,
Slain by your own rash hand!
Myself the cause of your despair!
Now by the blessed stars I swear,
By heaven, by all that dead men keep
In reverence here ’mid darkness deep,
Against my will, ill-fated fair,
I parted from your land.’”
CONINGTON.

But Dido averts her eyes “that neither smiled nor wept,” and moves away
in silence to join Sichæus, who “gives her love for love.”

Æneas learns from the lips of Anchises the future of his race, and
beholds the shadowy forms of kings, generals, and statesmen that are to
shed glory on the Roman name. “Augustus Cæsar, god by birth,” figures,
as we should expect, the proudest of the throng. At last he espies the
great Marcellus, “the Sword of Rome,” glittering in the spoils of the
Punic War; and by his side

“A youth full-armed, by none excelled
In beauty’s manly grace.”

In answer to the inquiry of Æneas, Anchises tells his son that this
youth is “our own Marcellus,” and eulogizes his virtues. Thus Virgil
immortalized the name of a Roman prince of great promise, son of
Octavia, the emperor’s sister, whose premature death had filled the
Roman world with sorrow. When, at the request of Augustus, the poet
read this portion of his epic before the royal family, all were moved
to tears, and the bereaved mother fainted. She afterward showed her
appreciation of Virgil’s genius by presenting him about $400 for each
of the twenty-seven lines. The passage is well worth repeating here:—

VIRGIL’S TRIBUTE TO MARCELLUS.

“Seek not to know (the ghost replied with tears)
The sorrows of thy sons in future years.
This youth (the blissful vision of a day)
Shall just be shown on earth, then snatched away.
The gods too high had raised the Roman state,
Were but their gifts as permanent as great.
What groans of men shall fill the Martian field!
How fierce a blaze his flaming pile shall yield!
What funeral pomp shall floating Tiber see,
When rising from his bed, he views the sad solemnity!
No youth shall equal hopes of glory give,
No youth afford so great a cause to grieve.
The Trojan honor, and the Roman boast,
Admired when living, and adored when lost!
Mirror of ancient faith in early youth!
Undaunted worth, inviolable truth!
No foe, unpunished, in the fighting field
Shall dare thee, foot to foot, with sword and shield!
Much less in arms oppose thy matchless force,
When thy sharp spurs shall urge thy foaming horse.
Ah! couldst thou break through Fate’s severe decree,
A new Marcellus shall arise in thee!
Full canisters of fragrant lilies bring,
Mixed with the purple roses of the spring:
Let me with funeral flowers his body strow;
This gift which parents to their children owe,
This unavailing gift, at least I may bestow!”—DRYDEN.

From Cumæ the Trojan chief sails to Latium, the land of his destiny,
and there he receives from King Lati’nus the promise of his daughter
Lavinia’s hand. But this provokes a war with Turnus, a neighboring
prince, to whom Lavinia had been secretly plighted by the queen-mother.
Not until he had subdued Turnus and his Latin allies did Æneas make
Lavinia his own and rule as king of Latium. The poem ends with the fall
of Turnus in a duel between the rival chiefs. To finish the story, Alba
Longa was built by Æneas’ son Iulus, from whose royal line in later
ages sprung Romulus, founder of Rome, the _Julian_ family, and their
great hero _Julius_ Caesar.

The passion of Dido, as portrayed in the fourth book of the Æneid, is
the most masterly piece of Virgil’s handiwork. We present below the
closing scenes that sealed her sad fate.

THE DEATH OF DIDO.

“Now, rising from Tithonus’ bed,
The Dawn on earth her freshness shed:
The queen from off her turret height
Perceives the first dim streak of light,
The fleet careering on its way,
And void and sailless shore and bay;
She smites her breast, all snowy fair,
And rends her golden length of hair:
‘Great Jove! and shall he go?’ she cries,
‘And leave our realm a wanderer’s mock?
Quick, snatch your arms and chase the prize,
And drag the vessels from the dock!
Fetch flames, bring darts, ply oars!—yet why?
What words are these, or where am I?
Why rave I thus? Those impious deeds—
Poor Dido! how your torn heart bleeds.
Too late! it should have bled that day
When at his feet your sceptre lay.
Lo here, the chief of stainless word,
Who takes his household gods on board,
Whose shoulders safe from sword and fire
Conveyed his venerable sire!
Oh! had I rent him limb from limb
And cast him o’er the waves to swim,
His friends, his own Ascanius killed,
And with the child the father filled!
Yet danger in the strife had been:—
Who prates of danger here?
A death-devoted, desperate queen,
What foe had I to fear?
No, I had sown the flame broadcast,
Had fired the fleet from keel to mast,
Slain son and sire, stamped out the race,
And thrown at length with steadfast face
Myself upon the bier.

If needs must be that wretch abhorred
Attain the port and float to land,
If such the fate of heaven’s high lord,
And so the moveless pillars stand;
Scourged by a savage enemy,
An exile from his son’s embrace,
So let him sue for aid, and see
His people slain before his face;
Nor when to humbling peace at length
He stoops, be his or life or land,
But let him fall in manhood’s strength
And welter tombless on the sand.
Such malison to heaven I pour,
A last libation with my gore.
And, Tyrians, you through time to come
His seed with deathless hatred chase:
Be that your gift to Dido’s tomb:
No love, no league ’twixt race and race.
Rise from my ashes, scourge of crime,
Born to pursue the Dardan horde
To-day, to-morrow, through all time,
Oft as our hands can wield the sword:
Fight shore with shore, fight sea with sea,
Fight all that are or e’er shall be!’

She ceased, and with her heart debates
How best to leave the life she hates.
Then to Sichæus’ nurse she cried
(For hers erewhile at Tyre had died):—
‘Good nurse, my sister Anna bring:
O’er face and body bid her fling
Pure drops from lustral bough:
So sprinkled come, and at her side
The victims lead: you too provide
A fillet for your brow.
A sacrifice to Stygian Jove
I here perform, to ease my love,
And give to flame the fatal bed
Which pillowed once the Trojan’s head.’
Thus she: the aged dame gives heed,
And, feebly hurrying, mends her speed.

Then, maddening over crime, the queen,
With bloodshot eyes, and sanguine streaks
Fresh painted on her quivering cheeks,
And wanning o’er with death foreseen,
Through inner portals wildly fares,
Scales the high pile with swift ascent,
Takes up the Dardan sword and bares,
Sad gift, for different uses meant.
She eyed the robes with wistful look,
And, pausing, thought awhile and wept;
Then pressed her to the couch, and spoke
Her last good-night or ere she slept.

‘Sweet relics of a time of love,
When fate and heaven were kind,
Receive my life-blood and remove
These torments of the mind.
My life is lived, and I have played
The part that Fortune gave,
And now I pass, a queenly shade,
Majestic to the grave.
A glorious city I have built,
Have seen my walls ascend,
Chastised for blood of husband spilt
A brother, yet no friend.
Blest lot! yet lacked one blessing more,
That Troy had never touched my shore.’
Then as she kissed the darling bed,
‘To die! and unrevenged!’ she said,
‘Yet let me die: thus, thus I go
Exulting to the shades below.
Let the false Dardan feel the blaze
That burns me pouring on his gaze,
And bear along, to cheer his way,
The funeral presage of to-day.’

Thus as she speaks, the attendant train
Behold her writhing as in pain,
Her hands with slaughter sprinkled o’er,
And the fell weapon spouting gore.
Loud clamors thrill the lofty halls:
Fame shakes the town, confounds, appalls:
Each house resounds with women’s cries.
And funeral wails assault the skies:
E’en as one day should war o’erthrow
Proud Carthage or her parent Tyre,
And fire-flood stream with furious glow
O’er roof, and battlement, and spire.”
CONINGTON.

Virgil’s epic was the pride of his countrymen, who, with a pardonable
national vanity, pronounced it superior to Homer’s. Tenderness,
grace, elegance, rhythmical perfection, brilliance of description, it
certainly possesses; yet, with all its beauties, it is not faultless.
We miss the wonderful imagination that plays through every page of
the Iliad; indeed, Homer furnished the originals of many of its most
striking figures. Nor did Virgil disdain levying on Latin authors
also. Whatever recommended itself to him in the poetry of others, he
borrowed for his own. And yet he must not be regarded as a plagiarist;
doubtless it was his intention to enshrine in a national epic literary
monuments of all the great minds of his country.

Æneas, his hero, too often appears as the boaster or the heartless
hypocrite, rather than as the ideal of greatness and piety it was
designed to draw. The author himself seems to have felt the inferiority
of his epic to the Iliad, and hence his wish to destroy it. We are told
that it was first written in prose; and then the artist, having a clear
conception of the whole, threw different portions into verse as the
spirit moved him. (_See Nettleship’s “Introduction to the Study of the
Æneid.”_)

=Horace= (65-8 B.C.).—The great lyric poet of Rome was Horace (Quintus
Horatius Flaccus), a freedman’s son, of Venusia on the roaring
Au’fidus. That he might enjoy the best educational advantages, his
father took him to Rome at the early age of twelve. Here he was placed
in charge of a famous schoolmaster, called by his pupils “the Flogger;”
under whose rod the country lad made the acquaintance of Ennius and
Homer. To the watchful care and liberality of his parent, who remained
to guard him from the temptations of the metropolis, he gratefully
acknowledged that he owed everything.

Horace was at Athens, finishing his course, when Cæsar fell beneath
the daggers of the conspirators. With a number of hot-headed
fellow-students he promptly espoused the cause of Brutus the Liberator,
and served in the civil war as military tribune. But Horace’s courage
could not stand the touch of cold steel; he ignominiously fled from the
field of Philippi, and his estate was confiscated as a reward for his
patriotism. Poverty now compelled him to take a clerkship at Rome; and
to add to his slender income he began writing verses. This brought him
into notice, and in 38 B.C. he had the honor of an introduction to the
social circle that gathered round Mæcenas. His little farm, fifteen
miles from Tibur, the ruins of which are still pointed out to tourists,
was the gift of his munificent patron.

This “Sabine farm” was at once Horace’s joy and pride. Between Rome
and Tibur, therefore, he made frequent journeys, and the simple
country-folk, won by his affability, hailed with delight the occasions
when, tired of city excitements, he sought relaxation among them. Beset
by the throng of gossips and favor-seekers who haunted his footsteps
as the friend of Mæcenas, Horace in his Sixth Satire breaks out into
enthusiastic praises of his rural home, with its simple fare and
freedom from annoyances:—

“This fortune’s favorite son (’tis cried)
Is ever by Mæcenas’ side,
Companion wheresoe’er he goes,
In rural sports or festal shows.
Should any rumor, without head
Or tail, about the streets be spread,
Whoever meets me gravely nods,
And says,‘As you approach the gods,
It is no mystery to you;
What do the Dacians mean to do?’
‘Indeed I know not.’—’How you joke,
And love to sneer at simple folk.’
‘Then, pr’ythee, where are Cæsar’s bands
Allotted their long-promised lands?’
Although I swear I know no more
Of that than what was asked before,
They stand amazed, and think me then
The most reserved of mortal men.
Bewildered thus amidst a maze,
I lose the sunshine of my days,
And often wish: Oh! when again
Shall I behold the rural plain?
And when with books of sages deep
Sequestered ease and gentle sleep,
In sweet oblivion, blissful balm!
The busy cares of life becalm.
Oh! when shall Pythagoric beans
With wholesome juice enrich my veins?
And bacon, ham, and savory pottage,
Be served within my simple cottage?
O nights that furnish such a feast
As even gods themselves might taste!”
FRANCIS.

The loss of his friend Virgil cast a shadow over Horace’s latter years.
His own death was sudden. A short month before, Mæcenas had breathed
his last; and thus the promise of the poet not to survive his patron
was almost literally fulfilled. In an ode to Mæcenas, Horace had sung,

“Should you, alas! be snatched away,
Wherefore, ah! wherefore should I stay,
My value lost, no longer whole,
And but possessing half my soul?
One day (believe the sacred oath)
Shall lead the funeral pomp of both;
With thee to Pluto’s dark abode,
With thee I’ll tread the dreary road.”

The remains of the poet were laid by the side of his friend; and thus,
devoted to each other in life, they slept together in the grave. (_Read
Milman’s “Life of Horace.”_)

Horace, in his youth, was a free liver, a voluptuary; such, indeed,
were the men of his day, Virgil alone excepted. Time, however,
corrected his tastes, and at the close of his life we find him playing
the part of the moralist. If there is much to condemn in his character,
there is also much to admire,—his even temper, contented disposition,
and independent spirit. Quick to resent an affront, he was as ready
to forgive an injury. His friends found him ever a genial, frank,
warm-hearted companion.

As to his personal appearance, we may judge from his own accounts that
he was gray in advance of his years, short, corpulent, and withal
blear-eyed. This last defect furnished Augustus with a ready joke, when
he had Horace on one side and the asthmatic Virgil on the other: “I sit
between sighs and tears,” he used to say.

WORKS OF HORACE.—The earliest poetical efforts of Horace were Satires,
which, though written in hexameter verse, he called _prose-poems_.
Holding up to contempt the follies of fashionable society,
fortune-hunting, extravagance, avarice, etc., they pleased the Romans
and rapidly grew in popularity. But Horace merely derides, he does
not chastise, the vices of his day, evidently deeming ridicule a more
effective weapon than denunciation.

In his Epodes, Horace aimed his blows at individuals with something
like the force of Archilochus. But personal satire was not the author’s
forte, and his Epodes are hardly equal to his other productions.

It is to his Odes, in the lyric metres of Alcæus and Sappho, whose
poetry he not only loved, but recast after his own ideas in his
native tongue, that Horace owes his renown. Always brief and to the
point, clear and elegant in their condensation, graceful, spicy, true
to nature, these poems have been read with pleasure for nineteen
centuries. They deal with a great variety of subjects—the grand as well
as the commonplace; and, whatever the theme, their author is equally
admirable. He paints pictures of moral beauty and sublimity with
singular impressiveness. Nowhere in the classics is a nobler character
sketched than that drawn by Horace of a man firm in the cause of
justice (Book III., 3). Byron presents it in an English dress:—

“The man of firm and noble soul
No factious clamors can control;
No threat’ning tyrant’s darkling brow
Can swerve him from his just intent:
Gales the warring waves which plough
By Auster on the billows spent,
To curb the Adriatic main,
Would awe his fixed, determined mind in vain.

Ay, and the red right arm of Jove,
Hurtling his lightnings from above,
With all his terrors then unfurled,
He would unmoved, unawed behold:
The flames of an expiring world
Again in crashing chaos rolled,
In vast promiscuous ruin hurled,
Might light his glorious funeral pile:
Still dauntless, ’mid the wreck of earth he’d smile.”

Horace began writing his odes at the age of thirty-five, and was seven
years in completing the first three books; they were issued 23 B.C.
That he designed them to include all his lyric productions is evident
from the following ode, with which the third book closes:—

“And now ’tis done: more durable than brass
My monument shall be, and raise its head
O’er royal pyramids: it shall not dread
Corroding rain or angry Boreas,
Nor the long lapse of immemorial time.
I shall not wholly die: large residue
Shall ’scape the queen of funerals. Ever new
My after-fame shall grow, while pontiffs climb
With silent maids the Capitolian height.
‘Born,’ men will say,‘where Aufidus is loud,
Where Daunus, scant of streams, beneath him bowed
The rustic tribes, from dimness he waxed bright,
First of his race to wed the Æolian lay
To notes of Italy.’ Put glory on,
My own Melpomene, by genius won,
And crown me of thy grace with Delphic bay.”
CONINGTON.

The odes of the fourth book were written at the request of Augustus,
who commissioned the favorite poet to celebrate the victories of his
step-sons over a German tribe. After publishing the original three
books, Horace wrote his Epistles, the most finished of all his works.
They bear the ripe fruits of his experience, and are full of wise
reflections which do credit to his knowledge of men and manners.
Sprightliness and wit constitute their charm. Their subjects are
various, several of them being literary criticisms; the longest, called
“the Art of Poetry,” possesses the greatest value.

The works of Horace have maintained their popularity in all ages; his
sententious sayings have become aphorisms; and to-day he is a greater
favorite with scholars than ever. Few classical poets have been so
fortunate in their translators.

ODE TO MÆCENAS.

“Strong doors, wakeful watch-dogs, securely had barred
Danaë in her tower of brass,
If Venus and Jove had not laughed at such guard
And the shower of gold caused to pass.

Through an army of guards will bright gold make its way;
It will pierce through the thickest of walls;
More power it has and may strike more dismay
Than the lightning from heaven that falls.

Through lucre the house of the Argive seer[46] fell:
Philip forced cities’ gates with his gold;
The power of rivals with bribes he could quell:
We know, too, how fleets have been sold.

The increase of wealth ever brings with it care
And hungry ambition for more;
Thus, Mæcenas, O knight with whom none can compare!
Great fortune I ever forswore.

The more that a man to himself shall deny,
The more he shall have from the gods;
Poor, I seek for the home of contentment, and fly
With joy from the wealthy abodes.

With my stream of pure water, few acres of wood,
And secure that my harvest will pay,
A pleasure I have more substantial than could
Be to him that o’er Afric holds sway.

Though for me never works the Calabrian bee,
Though for me is no Formian wine,
Though no sheep in the pastures of Gaul feed for me.
Yet poverty never is mine.

Much must that man want ever who much shall demand;
What he gains whets the covetous vice;
Happy he to whom God with a niggardly hand
Has granted what yet will suffice.”—YARDLEY.

TO PYRRHA.

“What scented stripling, Pyrrha, wooes thee now
In pleasant cavern, all with roses fair?
For whom those yellow tresses bindest thou
With simple care?

Full oft shall he thine altered faith bewail,
His altered gods; and his unwonted gaze
Shall watch the waters darken to the gale
In wild amaze,

Who now believing gloats on golden charms;
Who hopes thee ever kind and ever void;
Nor, hapless! knows the changeful wind’s alarms,
Nor thee, untried.

For me, let Neptune’s temple wall declare
How, safe escaped, in votive offering
My dripping garments own, suspended there,
Him Ocean-king.”
GLADSTONE.

=Varius= (74-14 B.C.).—Older than Horace or Virgil in the Augustan
galaxy was Varius, the friend who introduced them both to Mæcenas. An
epic on the death of Cæsar, highly esteemed by his countrymen,—and a
tragedy entitled “Thyestes,” classed with the finest Greek dramas,—have
won for Varius an enviable fame.

Both are lost; but we still have the benefit of the poet’s labors as
the editor of Virgil’s Æneid.

=Albius Tibullus= (59-19 B.C.), another poet of the Augustan age,
perfected the erotic elegy which Catullus had introduced from Greece.
The meagre accounts that remain of his life inform us that he was a
knight, and lost his estates near Rome for political reasons, after
the overthrow of Pompey. These he partially recovered, it is supposed
through the influence of Messa’la, a noble of the old school, whose
praises he never tired of sounding. As aide-de-camp, he accompanied
Messala in his expedition against the rebellious Aquitanians, and
doubtless figured in the triumph decreed his victorious friend by the
emperor.

A peaceful life, however, was more in accordance with his tastes. The
hills and dales, the corn-fields, vineyards, and meadows, possessed
greater charms for him than the favor of Augustus, who vainly sought to
attract Tibullus to his court. Hence we find the poet generally living
at his country-seat, amid rural enjoyments.

The elegies of Tibullus preserve the names of two Roman
beauties—“Delia,” the early mistress of his heart, and “Nem’esis,”
her successor. Delia, “with her queenly charms and golden locks,”
first brought him to her feet, and he wooed her in his most finished
strains. But, like Catullus, he soon found occasion to lament his fair
one’s inconstancy. Delia jilted him for a richer lover, and Tibullus
transferred his affections to the imperious Nemesis.

The style of Tibullus is sweet and polished. A pensive, almost
melancholy tone pervades his verses. In the following plaintive elegy,
the injured but forgiving poet recalls to his false one how tenderly
he nursed her through a critical sickness, picturing his dream of
happiness with her installed as the mistress of his rural home, and his
rude awakening:—

ELEGY TO DELIA.

“Oh! I was harsh to say that I could part
From thee; but, Delia, I am bold no more!
Driven like a top, which boys with ready art
Keep spinning round upon a level floor.

Burn, lash me, love, if ever after this
By me one cruel, blustering word is said;
Yet spare, I pray thee by our stolen bliss,
By mighty Venus and thy comely head.

When thou didst lie, by fell disease o’erpowered,
I rescued thee, by prayers, from death’s domain;
Pure sulphur’s cleansing fumes I round thee showered,
While an enchantress sung a magic strain.

Yes—and another now enjoys the prize,
And reaps the fruit of all my vows for thee:
Foolish, I dreamed of life ’neath golden skies,
Wert thou but saved—not such great heaven’s decree.

I said—I’ll till my fields, she’ll guard my store
When crops are threshed in autumn’s burning heat;
She’ll keep my grapes in baskets brimming o’er,
And my rich must expressed by nimble feet.

She’ll count my flock; some home-born slave of mine
Will prattle in my darling’s lap and play:
To rural god ripe clusters for the vine,
Sheaves for my crops, cates for my fold, she’ll pay.

Slaves—all shall own her undisputed rule;
Myself a cipher—how the thought would please!
Here will Messala come, for whom she’ll pull
The sweetest apples from the choicest trees;

And, honoring one so great, for him prepare
And serve the banquet with her own white hands.
Fond dream! which now the east and south winds bear
Away to far Armenia’s spicy lands.”
CRANSTOUN.

=Propertius.=—With the name of Tibullus is often linked that of
Propertius, who was born about 50 B.C. at Assisium, among the
Umbrian mountains. In this lovely spot he was prepared for the study
of the law, which he afterward adopted as his profession at Rome.
But Propertius found this calling distasteful; relinquishing it,
accordingly, for the pursuits of literature, he aspired to be a Roman
Callimachus, and grounded himself in the principles of Alexandrian
verse. But too much study made him artificial, and his numerous
mythological allusions and digressions encumber rather than embellish.
He lacks the sweetness, simplicity, and tenderness, of Tibullus.

Catullus had his “Lesbia;” Tibullus, his “Delia;” and Propertius,
profiting not by the example of his brother bards, lavished his
affections on the accomplished but fickle “Cynthia,” who played him
false as soon as a rich prætor laid a fortune at her feet. Cynthia
was the single theme of our poet’s love-lays, all rapture or gentle
reproach. In an elegy to Mæcenas, who had pressed him to attempt an
epic, he sings:—

“You ask me why love-elegy so frequently I follow,
And why my little book of tender trifles only sings:
It is not from Calliope, nor is it from Apollo,
But from my own sweet lady-love my inspiration springs.

If in resplendent purple robe of Cos my darling dresses,
I’ll fill a portly volume with the Coan garments’ praise;
Or if her truant tresses wreathe her forehead with caresses,
The tresses of her queenly brow demand her poet’s lays.”

In another elegy he describes his Cynthia’s charms:—

“’Twas not her face, though fair, so smote my eye
(Less fair the lily than my love: as snows
Of Scythia with Iberian vermeil vie;
As float in milk the petals of the rose);

Nor locks that down her neck of ivory stream,
Nor eyes—my stars—twin lamps with love aglow;
Nor, if in silk of Araby she gleam
(I prize not baubles), does she thrill me so,

As when she leaves the mantling cup to thread
The mazy dance, and moves before my view,
Graceful as blooming Ariadne led
The choral revels of the Bacchic crew.”

The death of Propertius is supposed to have taken place about 15 B.C.
Of his elegies, there is none better than

LOVE’S DREAM REALIZED.

“Not in his Dardan triumph so rejoiced the great Atrides,
When fell the mighty kingdom of Laomedon of yore;
Not so Ulysses, when he moored his wave-worn raft beside his
Beloved Dulichian island-home—his weary wanderings o’er;

As I, when last eve’s rosy joys I ruminated over:
To me another eve like that were immortality!
Awhile before with downcast head I walked a pining lover—
More useless I had grown, ’twas said, than water-tank run dry.

No more my darling passes me with silent recognition,
Nor can she sit unmoved while I outpour my tender vow.
I wish that I had sooner realized this blest condition;
’Tis pouring living water on a dead man’s ashes now.

In vain did others seek my love, in vain they called upon her,
She leaned her head upon my breast, was kind as girl could be.
Of conquered Parthians talk no more, I’ve gained a nobler honor,
For she’ll be spoils, and leaders, and triumphal car to me.

Light of my life! say, shall my bark reach shore with gear befitting,
Or, dashed amid the breakers, with her cargo run aground?
With thee it lies: but if, perchance, through fault of my committing,
Thou giv’st me o’er, before thy door let my cold corse be found.”
CRANSTOUN.

=Ovid= (43 B.C.-17 A.D.).—Publius Ovidius Na’so, the last of the
Augustan poets, was a knight of Sulmo, an ancient Samnite town in the
eastern part of Italy. Designed for the legal profession, he was sent
to Rome to be educated; but the writing of verses was more congenial
than rhetorical studies; and an eminent critic of the day, on hearing
one of his early declamations, described it as “nothing else than
poetry out of metre.”

After the death of an elder son, his father consented that Publius
should follow the bent of his own inclinations, and the poet went
abroad to study in Greece and travel in Asia Minor. Returning to Rome,
he began his literary career as the glory of the Augustan age was
beginning to fade.

For twenty-two years Ovid wasted his talents on the composition of
licentious love-poems. In the “Loves” (Amo’res), the earliest of his
works, one Corinna is addressed throughout. The hearty reception with
which these loose songs met at Rome is a sad comment on the degeneracy
of the public taste and morals. They were followed by the “Hero’ides,”
a collection of twenty-one imaginary love-letters, inscribed by the
heroines of the past to their absent or unfaithful lords—an original
idea with Ovid. Penelope indicts an epistle to Ulysses, Medea to Jason,
Sappho to Phaon, etc. In the one last named, translated by Pope, the
Lesbian poetess informs the youth of her resolve to take the Lover’s
Leap.

“A spring there is, where silver waters show,
Clear as a glass, the shining sands below;
A flowery lotus spreads its arms above,
Shades all the banks, and seems itself a grove:
Eternal greens the mossy margin grace,
Watched by the sylvan genius of the place.
Here as I lay, and swelled with tears the flood,
Before my sight a watery virgin stood:
She stood and cried,‘O you that love in vain,
Fly hence, and seek the fair Leucadian main!
There stands a rock, from whose impending steep
Apollo’s fane surveys the rolling deep;
There injured lovers, leaping from above,
Their flames extinguish and forget to love.
Hence, Sappho, haste! from high Leucadia throw
Thy wretched weight, nor dread the deeps below.’
She spoke, and vanished with the voice—I rise,
And silent tears fall trickling from my eyes.
I go, ye nymphs, those rocks and seas to prove:
And much I fear; but ah! how much I love!
To rocks and seas I fly from Phaon’s hate,
And hope from seas and rocks a milder fate.”

In the “Art of Love,” Ovid again overleaped the bounds of propriety,
and threw so brilliant a coloring into his pictures of vice that his
readers were fain to linger over them, to enjoy, and to admire, with
manifest danger to their own morals. When even a daughter of the
imperial line was corrupted by them, Augustus, the professed defender
of virtue, felt that it was time to stop the dissemination of such
principles, and visited the poet with his displeasure. In consequence
of a subsequent and more serious offence, in some way connected with
the royal family, but the nature of which we can only conjecture, Ovid
suddenly received notice to quit the capital forever, and retire to
To’mi, a dreary and desolate village on the Black Sea, A.D. 9. Despite
his urgent prayers, the decree of banishment was never revoked.

The works of his eight years’ exile are the “Tristia,” or Sorrows,
“Letters from Pontus,” and some shorter poems; they prove his genius to
have been crushed, his spirit broken. Tomi gave Ovid a grave; even his
request to be buried in Italy was refused.

The best of Ovid’s works were the “Fasti,” or Roman Calendar, a
pleasant almanac in verse, and the “Metamorphoses,” ingenious in
both conception and expression. While engaged on the Fasti, which he
intended to complete in twelve books, one dedicated to each month,
the poet was surprised by the decree of banishment, and left his work
unfinished.

The Metamorphoses, from which modern writers have largely drawn, gives
an account of the transformations of ancient mythology, such as the
changing of Io into a heifer, Daphne into a laurel, the sisters of
Phaëton into the poplars of the Po, and Atlas into a mountain of stone
by the gorgon-head of Perseus. One of the prettiest of these poems
relates to the metamorphosis of the ivory statue wrought by Pygmalion,
into a living bride, by the goddess of beauty, in answer to the
sculptor’s prayer:—

PYGMALION’S STATUE.

“The sculptor sought
His home, and, bending o’er the couch that bore
His Maiden’s life-like image, to her lips
Fond pressed his own—and lo! her lips seemed warm,
And warmer, kissed again; and dimpling to his touch
The ivory seems to yield,—as in the sun
The waxen labor of Hymettus’ bees,
By plastic fingers wrought, to various shape
And use by use is fashioned. Wonder-spelled,
Scarce daring to believe his bliss, in dread
Lest sense deluded mock him, on the form
He loves again and yet again his hand
Lays trembling touch, and to his touch a pulse
Within throbs answering palpable: ’twas flesh!
’Twas very life!—Then forth in eloquent flood
His grateful heart its thanks to Venus poured!
The lips he kissed were living lips that felt
His passionate pressure; o’er the virgin cheeks
Stole deepening crimson; and the unclosing eyes
At once on heaven and on their lover looked!”
HENRY KING.

With the death of Ovid, the flourishing period of poetry terminated.
Among his contemporaries, we may mention, in passing, the epic poets
ALBINOVA’NUS author of the These’id, and CORNELIUS SEVE’RUS, who
wrote an heroic on the war between Augustus and Sextus Pompey. The
didactic poets GRATIUS and MANILIUS also flourished in the Augustan
age; the former memorable for his poem on hunting, the latter for his
“Astronomica.”

PROSE WRITERS.

=Titus Livius.=—The last ornament of the Augustan Era is the historian
Livy, born at Pata’vium (now Padua) about 59 B.C.—the scion of a noble
line that had figured proudly in the annals of the Republic. His
was the uneventful life of the scholar, and few particulars of his
biography have therefore been preserved. He appears to have begun his
career as a rhetorician; to have come to the capital about B.C. 31, for
what precise purpose we cannot say, and there to have gained a ready
introduction at court. The emperor, already favorably impressed with
his ability, is said to have placed at his disposal a suite of rooms in
the palace.

Perhaps, as his importunities made the reluctant Virgil the great epic
poet of Rome, so Augustus may have stirred the ambition of Livy to
become its historian; whether he did or not, we find the rhetorician
of Patavium, soon after taking up his abode at the imperial city,
entering upon the composition of his “Annals,” a work which progressed
simultaneously with the Æneid. As the different decades (divisions of
ten books) were completed, the author, after first reading them to
Augustus and Mæcenas, published them for the perusal of his countrymen.
They at once made his reputation, and became the received authority
on the national history, raising Livy during his lifetime, as at the
present day, to the rank of the most distinguished historians. The
estimation in which they were held may be inferred from the story of
Pliny—that a citizen of Cadiz came all the way to Italy merely to see
the great writer the whole Roman world was talking about.

For forty years Livy labored on his history. At the time of his death,
which took place in his native town, 17 A.D., he had finished 142
books, covering nearly seven and a half centuries from the founding of
Rome. It is supposed that he intended to add eight more, embracing the
entire reign of Augustus. Only thirty-five of the original books have
been recovered.

The loss of the decades relating to the civil wars is much to be
deplored, and it has ever been the hope of scholars that some day the
missing parts would be found. Several times has the literary world been
thrown into excitement by false rumors of their discovery. Once, we are
told, a learned man detected in the parchment covering of a battledoor
with which he was playing a page of the favorite historian; but on
hastening to the maker of the toy, to rescue the prized manuscript to
which it had belonged, he found that all had been utilized in a similar
manner. A meagre synopsis of the books that have perished, serves only
to make us regret their loss the more keenly. (_Read Taine’s “Essai sur
Tite Live.”_)

Livy’s “Annals” is a model of elegant historical writing, and a
repertory of tales and traditions of early heroism, which have
made Roman virtue and prowess the admiration of the world; yet his
statements must be taken with many grains of allowance. Not that he
wilfully misrepresented, but rather that he trusted too implicitly
authorities of doubtful veracity, and shrunk from the labor of
thorough original investigation. Moreover, a vein of exaggeration runs
through his pages. It was doubtless his intention to be impartial; but
carried away by a natural bias, he was too ready to color or cover over
the blots on his country’s escutcheon. That he stooped not to curry
favor with his superiors is evident from the epithet applied to him
by Augustus—“the Pompeyite”—by reason of his warm praises of Cæsar’s
rival. Ignorance of geography, military science, and even of the
constitutional development of Rome, is conspicuous in his narrative.

As an artist, however, Livy was great. He excels in depicting
character, whether directly by description, or indirectly in the
actions or utterances of the old Roman worthies. Hence, artificial as
they are and often smelling of the rhetorician’s lamp, the speeches
which Livy puts in the mouths of his different personages display his
genius to advantage. One of the finest, given below, is that of the old
Horatius, pleading with the people for the life of his son. According
to the legend, in a war between Rome and Alba Longa, it was agreed
by the contending parties, to save unnecessary bloodshed, that the
question at issue should be decided by a hand-to-hand conflict between
three champions on each side,—the brothers Horatii for Rome, the
Curiatii for Alba. All fell save one Horatius. We leave the conclusion
of the story to Livy:—

THE CRIME AND PUNISHMENT OF HORATIUS.

“Horatius advanced at the head of the Romans, bearing in triumph the
spoils of the three brothers. Near the gate Capena he was met by
his sister, a maiden who had been betrothed to one of the Curiatii;
observing on her brother’s shoulder the military robe of her
lover, made by her own hands, she tore her hair, and with loud and
mournful outcries called on the name of the deceased. His sister’s
lamentations, in the midst of his own triumph and of so great public
joy, irritated the fierce youth to such a degree that, drawing his
sword, he plunged it into her breast, at the same time upbraiding her
in these words:‘Begone to thy spouse with thy unseasonable love,
since thou couldst forget what is due to the memory of thy deceased
brothers, to him who still survives, and to thy native country; so
perish every daughter of Rome that shall mourn for its enemy!’

Both the senate and people were shocked at the horrid deed; but still,
in their opinion, his recent merit outweighed its guilt: he was,
however, instantly carried before the king for judgment. The king,
unwilling to take on himself a decision of so melancholy a nature,
summoned an assembly of the people, and then said:‘I appoint two
commissioners to pass judgment on Horatius for murder, according to
the law.’ The law was of dreadful import:‘Let two commissioners pass
judgment for murder; if the accused appeal from the commissioners, let
the appeal be tried; if their sentence be confirmed, cover his head,
hang him by a rope on the gallows, let him be scourged either within
the Pomœrium[47] or without the Pomœrium.’

The two commissioners appointed were of opinion that, according to
this law, they were not authorized to acquit him; and, after they had
found him guilty, one of them pronounced judgment in these words:
‘Publius Horatius, I sentence thee to punishment as a murderer; go,
lictor, bind his hands.’ The lictor had come up to him, and was fixing
the cord, when Horatius, by the advice of Tullus, who wished to give
the mildest interpretation to the law, said,‘I appeal;’ so the trial
on the appeal came before the Commons.

During this trial, the people were very deeply affected, especially
by the behavior of Publius Horatius, the father, who declared that
‘in his judgment his daughter was deservedly put to death; had it not
been so, he would, by his own authority as a father, have inflicted
punishment on his son.’ He then besought them that‘they would not
leave him childless, whom they had beheld, but a few hours ago,
surrounded by a progeny of uncommon merit.’ Uttering these words,
the old man embraced the youth, and pointing to the spoils of the
Curiatii, which were hung up in the place where now stands the
Horatian column, exclaimed:—

‘O my fellow-citizens! can you bear to behold him laden with chains,
and condemned to ignominy, stripes, and torture, whom but just now you
saw covered with the ornaments of victory, marching in triumph—a sight
so horrid that scarcely could the eyes of the Albans themselves endure
it? Go, lictor, bind the arms which but now wielded those weapons that
acquired dominion to the Roman people; cover the head of that man to
whom your city owes its liberty; hang him upon the gallows. Scourge
him within the Pomœrium; but do it between those pillars to which
are suspended the trophies of his victory. Scourge him without the
Pomœrium; but do it between the graves of the Curiatii. For to what
place can ye lead this youth, where the monuments of his glory would
not redeem him from the ignominy of such a punishment?”

The people could not withstand either the tears of the father, or
the intrepid spirit of the youth himself, which no kind of danger
could appall; and rather out of admiration of his bravery than regard
to the justice of his cause, they passed a sentence of acquittal.
Wherefore, that some expiation might be made for the act of manifest
murder, the father was ordered to make atonement for his son at the
public expense. After performing expiatory sacrifices, which continued
afterward to be celebrated by the Horatian family, he laid a beam
across the street, and, covering the young man’s head, made him pass,
as it were, under the yoke. The beam remains to this day, being
constantly kept in repair at the expense of the public, and is called
the Sister’s beam. A tomb of squared stone was raised for Horatia on
the spot where she fell.”—BAKER.

In addition to the “Annals of Rome,” Livy also wrote historical and
philosophical dialogues, which we know only by name. (_See Capel’s
“Introduction to the Study of Livy.”_)

=Pompeius Trogus=, contemporary with Livy, produced a history of the
world, extending from the founding of Nineveh to the Christian Era.
Macedonia fills an important place in this work, an abridgment of which
is still in existence.

* * * * *

A prominent rhetorician of the Augustan period was the elder SENECA, of
Cordova, in Spain. Portions of his works (which consist of rhetorical
exercises on imaginary cases, historical events, and circumstances
in the lives of great men, written for the benefit of his sons) have
survived; but nothing remains of a history of Rome ascribed to him.

The orators MESSALA and ASINIUS POLLIO graced the early years of the
first emperor’s reign; but, when political eloquence was interdicted,
they retired to private life,—Pollio, to win new laurels by his
tragedies and other literary compositions. Both were patrons of
literature, and loved to gather round them the eminent poets of their
day. Messala’s orations, known to us only by a few fragments that
remain, were regarded as almost equal to Cicero’s; while Pollio, none
of whose works have been preserved, was ranked by his contemporaries
with Cicero as an orator, with Virgil as a poet, and with Sallust as an
historian.

MINOR POETS AND PROSE WRITERS.

HELVIUS CINNA (50 B.C.): author of the lost epic “Smyrna,” the fruit
of nine years’ labor. In one of his Eclogues, Virgil compared himself
in the company of Cinna and his friend Varius to a goose among swans.

LICINIUS CALVUS (82-47 B.C.): poet and orator; elegies, epigrams, and
love-songs in the style of Catullus; an epic “Io;” no remains.

VALGIUS RUFUS, a friend of Horace: an epic and elegiac poet.

ÆLIUS GALLUS: a noted jurist.

TU’BERO (48 B.C.) the historian: contemporary with Sallust.

VERRIUS FLACCUS: a renowned grammarian; author of a voluminous Latin
lexicon, which is lost. His work was subsequently condensed into
twenty volumes.

VITRUVIUS POLLIO, the great architect of the Augustan Era: he prepared
a comprehensive work on the science of architecture, long received as
authority.

TITUS LABIE’NUS: an orator and historian.

NOTES ON EDUCATION, ETC., AMONG THE ROMANS.

Education never compulsory, as in Greece. Its chief aim in early times
to make warriors and statesmen. Children usually grounded in the
rudiments by their mother, the father occasionally doing service as a
teacher of reading and writing. From the Greeks, the Romans adopted
the custom of employing _pædagogi_ to instruct their children or
accompany them to and from school.

Private schools in Rome about 450 B.C.; Virginia insulted by Appius
Claudius, while on her way to school. The youth instructed at these
institutions in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and required to
memorize the laws of the Twelve Tables. Grammar was next essayed; and
a course in rhetoric and oratory completed the Roman boy’s education.
Many continued their studies at Athens, Rhodes, or Alexandria.

The teachers often provincials or freedmen. In the golden age, Greek
tutors very generally the companions and flatterers of the wealthy
Romans. During the reign of Augustus, great schools at Cordova and
Marseilles rivalled the academy of Flaccus at Rome, the favorite
of the emperor, who paid Flaccus a salary of $3,600, and offered
special inducements in the way of prizes to such as would join his
school. Under Vespasian the first Roman college, the Athenæum, was
established; botany, zoölogy, and mineralogy, now became favorite
studies.

Rome had its booksellers in the golden age, to supply the demand
for standard authors and school manuals. Books multiplied rapidly
by transcription, and were cheap in proportion. At the beginning of
the first century B.C., many private libraries in Rome; every noble
took pride in his collection of manuscripts. First public library
founded by Asinius Pollio, whose example was followed by others.
(_Consult Gove’s “Companion to School Classics.”_) Earliest known
attempts at journalism, 59 B.C. The _Acta_ of the senate and of
the people, the first publications. The latter, a daily (_diurna_,
whence _journal_), had an extensive circulation throughout the Roman
territories. Stenography practised at this time by the Romans, and
subsequently taught in their schools. A freedman of Cicero said to
have invented the system of short-hand. Sympathetic ink in use for
writing love-letters and secret correspondence. For this purpose
Ovid recommends milk, which may be made visible by dusting powdered
charcoal on the letters. To keep mice from gnawing their papyrus and
parchment rolls, some Roman writers mixed wormwood with their inks.

CHAPTER IV.

_AGE OF DECLINE._

=Silver Age of Roman Letters.=—With the death of Augustus and the
accession of his step-son Tiberius, despotism in its worst form
was established at Rome, and, as in Greece, a decline of letters
immediately followed. Symptoms of literary decay had already shown
themselves in the reign of the first emperor, although he took care to
conceal his assumption of absolute power under the mask of republican
forms, and was known to all as a patron of learning. Tiberius, on the
contrary, openly declared himself the enemy of freedom, both political
and intellectual; and when, in 37 A.D., his attendants, no longer able
to endure his rule of blood, smothered the monster with pillows, Latin
literature was at its lowest ebb.

A brief renaissance, however, succeeded; so that the imperial fiend
Nero was able to number among his victims an epic poet, Lucan, and a
philosopher and dramatist of no common stamp, Seneca. Under the Cæsars,
genius was hopelessly fettered; a chance word might condemn its author
to the headsman; the poet, the historian, the orator, must needs
suppress his sentiments or forfeit his self-respect by flattering the
reigning despot.

A brighter day dawned with the mild rule of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian,
and the Antonines (96-180 A.D.). During this golden age of the Roman
empire, poetry for a time recovered its vitality, and through the
stinging satires of Juvenal denounced the abuses that had prevailed
in the days of Nero and Domitian; while in the histories of Tacitus,
prose indignantly broke its enforced silence, and held up to public
detestation the despots of the past. But this revival was short-lived.
Latin literature rapidly degenerated, for Latin genius was no more.
In the later centuries of the empire, science and jurisprudence alone
flourished on the soil where poetry had now ceased to bloom. (_Refer to
Nisard’s “Études sur les Poètes Latins de la Décadence”_)

ERA OF THE CÆSARS (14-96 A.D.).

In the reign of Tiberius, we meet with the names of Velleius
Paterculus, the court historian, Celsus, and Phædrus.

=Velleius Paterculus= is memorable for his epitome of Roman history,
a work in other respects meritorious, but marred by its author’s
servile praise of Tiberius. Yet we must remember that Velleius was not
permitted to see the worst phase of this emperor’s tyranny. When the
treachery of the prime minister Seja’nus was exposed, the historian,
though not implicated with him, was one of the first to be put to
death. He was thus prevented from witnessing the murders of hundreds of
other innocent persons—atrocities that might have altered his estimate
of his ungrateful master.

=Valerius Maximus=, his contemporary and fellow-flatterer, prepared a
cyclopædia of anecdotes gleaned from the history of Rome and foreign
countries, entitled “Remarkable Deeds and Sayings.” It was designed for
the use of persons who had not the time or inclination to make original
investigations, and, though written in an artificial style, contains
much that is interesting.

=Celsus= was the author of a scientific encyclopædia, whose twenty
books were devoted to farming, medicine, rhetoric, jurisprudence,
and military tactics. The eight books on medicine still survive,
constituting the great Roman authority on that subject.

Before his day the art of medicine and surgery had been almost
entirely confined to Greek physicians; but Celsus dignified it as a
calling worthy of Romans, not only practising with success among his
countrymen, but committing to writing the results of his experience. He
was the first ancient author who recommended the tying of blood-vessels
for the purpose of checking hemorrhage.

=Phædrus=, the only noteworthy poet of Tiberius’s reign, is known to us
by his fables. Of his life, we have few facts. He is supposed to have
been brought from Thrace to Rome, as a captive; and to have lived there
as the slave of Augustus, who, recognizing his latent talent, gave him
an education and finally his freedom.

In the sunshine of his patron’s smiles, Phædrus led a happy life; but
on the death of Augustus he was exposed to the persecutions of Sejanus,
who virtually controlled the state under the succeeding emperor, and
who affected to see in the poet’s fables masked attacks upon his own
vicious career. Phædrus, however, outlived all his enemies, and died at
a good old age.

The fables of Phædrus, preserved in a single manuscript, were
discovered in an abbey at Rheims (1561), and, after narrowly escaping
destruction at the hands of some French fanatics, were published to
the world. In the main translated or imitated from Æsop, whom their
author thus made known to the Romans, they commend themselves for
their conciseness and simplicity, as well as for the moral lessons
they convey. His “pleasant tales” may be judged of by the following
specimens:—

THE FOX AND THE GOAT.

“A crafty knave will make escape,
When once he gets into a scrape,
Still meditating self-defence,
At any other man’s expense.
A fox by some disaster fell
Into a deep and fencèd well:
A thirsty goat came down in haste,
And asked about the water’s taste,
If it was plentiful and sweet?
At which the fox, in rank deceit:—
‘So great the solace of the run,
I thought I never should have done.
Be quick, my friend, your sorrows drown.’
This said, the silly goat comes down.
The subtle fox herself avails,
And by his horns the height she scales,
And leaves the goat in all the mire,
To gratify his heart’s desire.”

THE BALD MAN AND THE FLY.

“As on his head she chanced to sit,
A man’s bald pate a gadfly bit;
He, prompt to crush the little foe,
Dealt on himself a grievous blow.
At which the fly, deriding, said:—
‘You who would strike an insect dead
For one slight sting, in wrath so strict,
What punishment will you inflict
Upon yourself, whose heavy arm,
Not my poor bite, did all the harm?’
‘Oh!’ says the party,‘as for me,
I with myself can soon agree;
The intention of the act is all.
But thou, detested cannibal!
Bloodsucker! to have thee secured,
More would I gladly have endured.’
What by this moral tale is meant
Is, those who wrong not with intent
Are venial; but to those that do,
Severity is surely due.”—CHRISTOPHER SMART.

The three great ornaments of Nero’s reign (54-68 A.D.) were Persius the
satirist, Seneca, and his nephew Lucan.

=Persius.=—Born at the Etruscan town of Volaterræ (34 A.D.), Persius
was brought to Rome by his mother at the age of twelve, and there
educated. In the Stoic, Cornu’tus, he found his ideal preceptor, and
to this “best of friends” the poet pays a beautiful tribute in the
following verses, among the finest he ever wrote:—

“When first I laid the purple[48] by, and free,
Yet trembling at my new-felt liberty,
Approached the hearth, and on the Lares hung
The bulla, from my willing neck unstrung;
When gay associates, sporting at my side,
And the white boss, displayed with conscious pride,
Gave me, unchecked, the haunts of vice to trace,
And throw my wandering eyes on every face,
I fled to you, Cornutus, pleased to rest
My hopes and fears on your Socratic breast;
Nor did you, gentle sage, the charge decline.
Then, dextrous to beguile, your steady line
Reclaimed, I know not by what winning force,
My morals, warped from virtue’s straighter course.
Can I forget how many a summer’s day,
Spent in your converse, stole unmarked away?
Or how, while listening with increased delight,
I snatched from feasts the earlier hours of night?
One time (for to your bosom still I grew),
One time of study and of rest we knew;
One frugal board where, every care resigned,
An hour of blameless mirth relaxed the mind.”—GIFFORD.

Death overtook our poet in his 28th year (62 A.D.). All we have of his
writings is six satires—only 650 hexameter lines. After his death these
were published, and elicited unbounded admiration. Other works of his
were torn up by his mother, who deemed them unworthy of his genius.
Persius bequeathed to Cornutus his library of 700 manuscripts.

The satires of Persius were written in the interest of morality, and
what gave them weight was that all knew their author to be a man who
practised the virtue he commended, a man of stainless character in an
age of universal licentiousness. And yet we do not find him lashing
vice as we should expect. Was he loath to do so, lest the very pictures
he must draw might corrupt? Or, was Persius forced to hold his peace
in the presence of a despot who revelled in the vilest excesses, whose
policy it was to reduce his subjects to his own low level? Perhaps
for both reasons he preferred to assail wickedness in the abstract.
Certainly his “maidenly modesty” shrunk from portraying the hideous
sins that flaunted around him, while his philosophical tenets inclined
him to keep aloof from the world. (_Read Nettleship’s “The Roman
Satura.”_)

Poetasters and pedants that pandered to the perverted taste of the
day, received the brunt of his attack in his First Satire. The Second
discusses the proper subjects of prayer. How few, says the poet, would
be willing to have their petitions made public:—

“Hard, hard the task, from the low muttered prayer
To free the fanes; or find one suppliant there,
Who dares to ask but what his state requires,
And live to heaven and earth with known desires!
Sound sense, integrity, a conscience clear,
Are begged aloud, that all at hand may hear;
But prayers like these (half whispered, half suppressed)
The tongue scarce hazards from the conscious breast:—
‘O that I could my rich old uncle see
In funeral pomp!’—’ O that some deity
To pots of buried gold would guide my share!’—
‘O that my ward, whom I succeed as heir,
Were once at rest! poor child, he lives in pain,
And death to him must be accounted gain.’—
‘By wedlock thrice has Nerius swelled his store,
And now—is he a widower once more!’”

The Second Satire concludes with these noble lines:—

“No; let me bring the immortal gods a mind,
Where legal and where moral sense are joined
With the pure essence; holy thoughts, that dwell
In the soul’s most retired and sacred cell;
A bosom dyed in honor’s noblest grain,
Deep-dyed—with these let me approach the fane,
And Heaven will hear the humble prayer I make,
Though all my offering be a barley-cake.”—GIFFORD.

=Lucius Annæus Seneca=, son of the rhetorician, was born at Cordova
B.C. 7, but received his education at Rome under the supervision of
his father. From the first he displayed great interest in his studies,
and as he grew in years he indulged his natural bent for philosophical
researches. So thorough a Pythagorean did he become that he even
eschewed animal food, lest he should devour flesh that had once been
animated by a human soul. On the remonstrance of his parent, however,
he renounced vegetarianism and “lived as others lived” again. At a
later period we find him the leader of the Stoics at Rome.

Seneca early made his mark as an orator. Hearing him plead eloquently
on one occasion in the senate, Caligula, out of jealousy, threatened
to have him executed, and was deterred only by the consideration that
Seneca had the consumption and was not likely to live for any length of
time.

But Seneca survived this imperial butcher, to become the instructor and
moral guide of the youthful Nero. While Nero submitted to his counsels,
Rome enjoyed a halcyon age, long remembered by her people as _the Five
Years_. His influence led to the adoption of many salutary measures;
it is thought to have been at his instigation that Nero despatched an
expedition to explore the sources of the Nile—the first recorded in
history. Well would it have been for Rome, had Nero continued to follow
the advice of Seneca.

This, however, was not to be; a sudden change took place in the
disposition of the prince, when his mother was charged with conspiring
against him. It was her life or his; and Nero won. The taste of blood
transformed him into a monster, and he forthwith entered upon a reign
of horrors that has no equal in history. Virtue was now the surest
road to ruin. Falsely accused of complicity in a conspiracy, Seneca
was sentenced to put an end to his own life (65 A.D.). With perfect
calmness he received the royal mandate, and caused his veins to be
severed; but the blood flowing too slowly, he entered a vapor-bath and
ended his sufferings by suffocation. His wife Paulina elected to die
with him, and in the same manner; but Nero had her veins ligatured,
and thus added several years of misery to her life. To his friends,
Seneca was permitted to leave no more valuable legacy than his virtuous
example.

Seneca was a great moral leader, the first of a class of philosophers
who aimed at winning the people back to the virtue of primitive Rome.
His teachings were in strange contrast to the age in which he lived;
they bear a striking resemblance to those of the Gospel, with which he
may have become acquainted through St. Paul. The fathers of the Church
were loud in their praises of “the divine pagan,” but there is no
evidence that, as some have stated, Seneca was persuaded by the apostle
to become a Christian.

Our philosopher is described as simple in his tastes. Though the
envied possessor of a princely fortune, he could consistently write
in support of temperance on his table of gold. A cupful of water from
the brook was sweeter to him than beakers of Italy’s choicest wines,
and the fruits of the wild wood he preferred to the luxurious dishes
fashion required him to spread before the rich and great. His fault was
weakness, which betrayed him into flattery, and perhaps made him an
unwilling accessory to some of his master’s crimes.

Seneca was the author, not only of philosophical treatises, but also
of ten tragedies, and one hundred and twenty-four moral epistles. He
even attempted a satire on the stupidity of the emperor Claudius,
representing him as transformed after death, not into a god, as the
senate decreed, but into a pumpkin. Several other works from his pen
are lost.

The best of Seneca’s treatises are those on Anger, Providence, and
Consolation. His style, labored, antithetical, and full of repetitions,
has an artificial glitter about it that impresses the reader
unfavorably.

EXTRACTS FROM SENECA’S WRITINGS.

ON ANGER.

“How idle are many of those things that make us stark mad! A resty
horse, the overturning of a glass, the falling of a key, the dragging
of a chair, a jealousy, a misconstruction. How shall that man endure
the extremities of hunger and thirst, that flies into a rage only
for the putting of a little too much water in his wine? What haste
is there to lay a servant by the heels, or break a leg or an arm
immediately for it? The answer of a servant, a wife, a tenant, puts
some people out of all patience, and yet they can quarrel with the
government for not allowing them the same liberty in public which
they themselves deny to their own families. If they say nothing,
’tis contumacy; if they speak or laugh, ’tis insolence. Neither
are our eyes less curious and fantastical than our ears. When we
are abroad, we can bear well enough with foul ways, nasty streets,
noisome ditches; but a spot upon a dish at home, or an unswept hearth,
absolutely distracts us. And what’s the reason, but that we are
patient in the one place and peevish in the other?

Nothing makes us more intemperate than luxury. When we are once
weakened with our pleasures, everything grows intolerable. And we are
angry as well with those things that cannot hurt us as with those that
do. We tear a book because it is blotted; and our clothes because they
are not well made—things that neither deserve our anger nor feel it.
The tailor perchance did his best, or had no intent to displease us.
If so, first, why should we be angry at all? Secondly, why should we
be angry with the thing for the man’s sake? Nay, our anger extends
even to dogs, horses, and other beasts.

Cyrus, in his design upon Babylon, found a river in his way that put
a stop to his march. The current was strong, and carried away one
of the horses that belonged to his own chariot; upon this he swore
that, since it had obstructed his passage, it should never hinder
that of another, and presently set his whole army to work on it,
which diverted it into a hundred and fourscore channels, and laid it
dry. In this ignoble and unprofitable employment he lost his time
and the soldiers their courage; moreover, he gave his adversaries an
opportunity of providing themselves, while he was waging war with a
river instead of an enemy.”

ON A HAPPY LIFE.

“It is dangerous for a man too suddenly or too easily to believe
himself. Wherefore let us examine, watch, observe, and inspect our own
hearts; for we ourselves are our own greatest flatterers. We should
every night call ourselves to account—’What infirmity have I mastered
to-day? What passion opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue
acquired?’ Our vices will abate of themselves, if they be brought
every day to the shrift. O the blessed sleep that follows such a
diary! O the tranquillity, liberty, and greatness of that mind that is
a spy upon itself, and a private censor of its own manners! It is my
custom every night, so soon as the candle is out, to run over all the
words and actions of the past day; and I let nothing escape me. What
can be more reasonable than this daily review of a life that we cannot
warrant for a moment?”—L’ESTRANGE.

MISCELLANEOUS SAYINGS.

“Those whom God loves, he disciplines.

We can never quarrel enough with our vices.

The day of death is the birthday of eternity.

There is no need to pray the ædile to admit you to the ear of an
image, that so your petitions may be heard the better. God is near
you; he is with you; a holy spirit resides within us, our constant
guardian.

Let us be liberal after the example of our great Creator, and give to
others with the same consideration that he gives to us.

How many are unworthy of the light; yet the day dawns.

The good-will of the benefactor is the fountain of all benefits.

To obey God is liberty.

Apply thyself to the true riches. It is shameful to depend for a happy
life on silver and gold.”

=Lucan= (39-65 A.D.), the nephew of Seneca, though born at Cordova,
was brought up at Rome, and there became the fellow-pupil and favorite
companion of Nero. But the superior genius of the Spanish youth
provoked the jealousy of his royal master, who had rather too high an
opinion of his own attainments, and was nettled by the public verdict
that Lucan, then only twenty-three years of age, was the greatest
of living poets. At length the awarding of the prize to Lucan in a
literary contest between them so enraged the emperor that he forbade
his former friend to recite any more pieces.

Lucan’s indiscretion sealed his fate. Not content with libellous
attacks upon Nero, he became implicated in a conspiracy against the
government, upon the detection of which he was condemned to death. Nero
allowing him to choose the manner in which he should suffer, the poet
had his veins opened in a hot bath. Becoming faint from loss of blood,
he recited a passage from his own “Pharsalia,” descriptive of the death
of a snake-bitten soldier:—

“So the warm blood at once from every part
Ran purple poison down, and drained the fainting heart.
Blood falls for tears, and o’er his mournful face
The ruddy drops their tainted passage trace.
Where’er the liquid juices find a way,
There streams of blood, there crimson rivers stray;
His mouth and gushing nostrils pour a flood,
And e’en the pores ooze out the trickling blood.
In the red deluge all the parts lie drowned,
And the whole body seems one bleeding wound”—

and so he passed away.

Lucan was interred at Rome in his own garden. An ancient monument
in the church of Santo Paulo contains an inscription to his memory,
probably placed there by order of Nero, who seems after all to have
rendered secret homage to his genius and virtue. The talents of his
wife have been highly commended; and it is probable that she assisted
him in composing his work.

The epic “Pharsalia” is the only poem of Lucan’s that we now possess.
Its subject is the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey; and it receives
its name from the place at which the decisive battle between the rival
commanders was fought. Though inferior to the Æneid, it certainly
displays talent of a high order. Critics have differed in their
estimate of Lucan. That he has faults, none will deny who are familiar
with his tumid style and love of tinsel. On the other hand, energy,
exuberant imagination, and a fervent love of liberty, are his peculiar
excellences. The defects of the Pharsalia are excusable in a youth
of twenty-six. Had the author lived to revise and finish the work, it
might have equalled Virgil’s epic.

Lucan is partial to the supernatural; dreams, witches, and ghosts,
enter freely into his machinery. In the sixth book of the Pharsalia, he
makes Pompey’s son consult the witch Erichtho on the eve of the battle.
His picture of the weird woman is quoted here as one of the most
imaginative passages in the whole range of classical poetry. Erichtho
is the type of a class of impostors firmly believed in by the Romans of
that day; the powers with which the poet endows her are simply those
attributed to her by popular superstition.

THE WITCH ERICHTHO.

“Whene’er the proud enchantress gives command,
Eternal Motion stops her active hand;
No more heaven’s rapid cirles journey on,
But universal Nature stands foredone;
The lazy god of day forgets to rise,
And everlasting night pollutes the skies.
Jove wonders to behold her shake the pole,
And, unconsenting, hears his thunders roll.
Now, with a word she hides the sun’s bright face,
And blots the wide ethereal azure space:
Loosely, anon, she shakes her flowing hair,
And straight the stormy lowering heavens are fair:
At once she calls the golden light again;
The clouds fly swift away, and stops the drizzly rain.

In stillest calms, she bids the waves run high;
And smooths the deep, tho’ Boreas shakes the sky:
When winds are hushed, her potent breath prevails,
Wafts on the bark, and fills the flagging sails.
Streams have run back at murmurs of her tongue,
And torrents from the rock suspended hung:
No more the Nile his wonted seasons knows,
And in a line the straight Mæander flows.
The ponderous earth, by magic numbers struck,
Down to her inmost centre deep has shook;
Then, rending with a yawn, at once made way,
To join the upper and the nether day:
While wondering eyes, the dreadful cleft between,
Another starry firmament have seen.

Each deadly kind, by nature formed to kill,
Fears the dire hags, and executes their will:
Lions to them their nobler rage submit,
And fawning tigers crouch beneath their feet:
For them the snake foregoes her wintry hold,
And on the hoary frost untwines her fold;
The poisonous race they strike with stronger death,
And blasted vipers die by human breath.

But these, as arts too gentle and too good,
Nor yet with death or guilt enough imbrued,
With haughty scorn the fierce Erichtho viewed.
New mischief she, new monsters, durst explore;
And dealt in horrors never known before.
From towns and hospitable roofs she flies,
And every dwelling of mankind defies;
Through unfrequented deserts lonely roams,
Drives out the dead, and dwells within their tombs.
Grateful to hell the living hag descends,
And sits in black assemblies of the fiends.
Dark matted elf-locks dangling on her brow,
Filthy and foul, a loathsome burden grow:
Ghastly, and frightful pale, her face is seen;
Unknown to cheerful day and skies serene;
But, when the stars are veiled, when storms arise,
And the blue forky flame at midnight flies,
Then, forth from graves she takes her wicked way,
And thwarts the glancing lightnings as they play:
Where’er she breathes blue poisons round her spread,
The withering grass avows her fatal tread.

Oft in the grave the living has she laid,
And bid reviving bodies leave the dead:
Oft at the funeral pile she seeks her prey,
And bears the smoking ashes warm away;
Snatches some burning bone, or flaming brand,
And tears the torch from the sad father’s hand.
Her teeth from gibbets gnaw the strangling noose,
And from the cross dead murderers unloose:
Her charms the use of sun-dried marrow find,
And husky entrails withered in the wind.

Where’er the battle bleeds, and slaughter lies,
Thither, preventing birds and beasts, she hies;
Nor then content to seize the ready prey,
From their fell jaws she tears their food away;
She marks the hungry wolf’s pernicious tooth,
And joys to rend the morsel from his mouth:
Nor ever yet remorse could stop her hand,
When human gore her cursed rites demand.
When blooming youths in early manhood die,
She stands a terrible attendant by;
The downy growth from off their cheeks she tears,
Or cuts left-handed some selected hairs.
Oft, when in death her gasping kindred lay,
Some pious office would she feign to pay;
And, while close hovering o’er the bed she hung,
Bit the pale lips, and cropped the quivering tongue;
Then, in hoarse murmurs, ere the ghost could go,
Muttered some message to the shades below.”
ROWE.

The Flavian Era is memorable for a few writers of note. Pliny the
Elder, called also the Naturalist, was an intimate friend of the
emperor Vespasian; while the names of Martial, Statius, and Quintilian,
are associated with the reign of Domitian, Vespasian’s son (81-96 A.D.).

=Pliny the Elder= (23-79 A.D.) was born at Como in Cisalpine Gaul,
and there passed his boyhood. We find him afterward at Rome attending
rhetorical lectures, and still later in his career serving as a soldier
in Germany. Nero made him proconsul of Spain, and at the expiration of
his term he returned to Rome to find his old friend Vespasian invested
with the purple.

Pliny had already become distinguished as the author of a treatise on
“the Use of the Javelin,” a “History of the German Wars,” and eight
books on “Difficulties in the Latin Language.” He now devoted himself
to the compilation of his “Natural History,” the only work we have
left from his pen, which Cuvier pronounced “one of the most precious
monuments that have come down to us from ancient times.”

We might well wonder how, in the face of his onerous public duties,
Pliny found time for literary pursuits so engrossing, did not his
nephew, Pliny the Younger, describe to us his wonderful industry.
His day’s work began at 1 or 2 A.M., even in winter; sometimes at
midnight. Before sunrise he repaired to the palace to chat informally
with Vespasian, who like him was accustomed to rob the night of a few
hours; after which he applied himself to business and study, devoting
every spare moment to the accumulation of knowledge. “No book so bad
but that something good may be gleaned from it,” was his motto. To be
without a volume and a portable writing-desk was a crime in Pliny’s
eyes. A slave constantly attended him, to take down his words in
short-hand; during his meals he employed a reader, and even in his bath
he dictated or listened. “I remember his chiding me,” said his nephew,
“for taking a walk, saying‘You might have saved three hours.’ Compared
with him, I am an idle vagabond.”

Pliny the Elder was a martyr to science. In August, 79 A.D., while in
command of the Mediterranean squadron, to which he had been appointed
by Vespasian, word was brought him that Vesuvius was in a state of
eruption. Desiring to investigate the phenomenon, he steered straight
for the blazing mountain, pushed on through the rain of hot ashes and
pumice-stones, and when advised by the pilot to turn back fearlessly
replied, “Fortune favors the brave!” He effected a landing, but only to
be suffocated by the sulphurous vapors that proved fatal to so many of
the inhabitants of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

Pliny was the master-compiler of antiquity; and he was only a compiler,
as he himself acknowledged. His Natural History, in thirty-seven books,
is a storehouse of quaint lore, according to its author a condensation
of two thousand volumes, relating to astronomy, geography, zoölogy,
botany, mineralogy, diseases and their remedies, etc. A penchant
for the marvellous, which shows him to have been a man of infinite
credulity, was a weakness of Pliny; yet his stories were implicitly
trusted in the Dark Ages, and many of them reappeared in the tales of
the Arabian Nights. A few of his curious statements are subjoined:—

ECCENTRICITIES OF NATURE.

“Some individuals are born with certain parts of the body endowed
with properties of a marvellous nature. Such was the case with King
Pyrrhus, the great toe of whose right foot cured diseases of the
spleen merely by touching the patient. We are also informed that this
toe could not be reduced to ashes together with the other portions of
the body.

India and Ethiopia abound in wonders. According to Megasthenes, on
a mountain called Nulo there dwells a race of men who have their
feet turned backward, with eight toes on each foot. On many of the
mountains, again, there is a tribe of men who have the heads of dogs;
instead of speaking they bark, and, furnished with claws, they live
by hunting and catching birds. According to Ctesias, the number of
this people is more than 120,000. This author speaks also of another
race of men called Single-legs, who have only one limb, but are able
to leap with surprising agility. The same people are also called
Foot-shadowers, because they are in the habit of lying on their backs,
and protecting themselves from the sun by the shade of their feet.

At the very extremity of India, near the source of the river Ganges,
there is the nation of Mouthless people; their bodies are rough and
overgrown with hair, and they cover themselves with a down plucked
from the leaves of trees. These people subsist only by breathing and
by the odors which they inhale through the nostrils. They support
themselves upon neither meat nor drink; when they go upon a long
journey, they carry with them only odoriferous roots and flowers, and
wild apples, that they may not be without something to smell at. But
an odor which is a little more powerful than usual easily destroys
them.”

HYDROPHOBIA.

“Canine madness is fatal to man during the heat of the Dog-star, and
proves so in consequence of those who are bitten having a deadly
horror of water. For this reason, during the thirty days that the star
exerts its influence, we try to prevent the disease in dogs; or, if
they are attacked by it, give them hellebore.

We have a single remedy against the bite, which has been but lately
discovered—the root of the wild rose, which is called dog-rose.
Columella informs us that if, on the fortieth day after the birth of
a pup, the last bone of the tail is bitten off, the sinew will follow
with it; after which the tail will not grow, and the dog will never
become rabid.”

REMEDIES FOR TOOTHACHE, ETC.

“Toothache is alleviated by scarifying the gums with bones of the
sea-dragon, or by rubbing the teeth once a year with the brains of a
dog-fish boiled in oil. It is a very good plan, too, for the cure of
toothache, to lance the gums with the sting of the ray. This sting
is pounded and applied to the teeth with white hellebore, having
the effect of extracting them without the slightest difficulty. A
decoction is made of a single frog boiled in two-thirds of a pint of
vinegar, and the teeth are rinsed with it. It is generally thought
that this recipe applies more particularly to the double teeth, and
that the vinegar prepared as above mentioned is remarkably useful for
strengthening them when loose. Ashes, also, of burnt crabs make an
excellent dentifrice.

There is a small frog which ascends trees, and croaks aloud there; if
a person suffering from cough spits into its mouth and then lets it
go, he will experience a cure. For cough attended with spitting of
blood, it is recommended to beat up the raw flesh of a snail, and to
drink it in hot water.”—RILEY.

=Martial= (43-117 A.D.).—The chief poet of Domitian’s reign was
Martial, master of the Latin epigram. Born in Spain, Martial came
to Rome in Nero’s time and began the study of law. But finding it
uncongenial, he adopted literature as a profession, and rose to
distinction under Titus and Domitian, his sordid flattery of the latter
securing him wealth and honors.

The epigrams of Martial are pithy, pointed with satire, and not without
elegance; but the pleasure of reading them is constantly interrupted by
coarse allusions and even downright obscenity. Hence it has been justly
said that Martial taught vice while reproving it. His poems, however,
contain valuable pictures of Roman manners.

THE BEAU.

“They tell me, Cotilus, that you’re a beau:
What this is, Cotilus, I wish to know.
‘A beau is one who, with the nicest care,
In parted locks divides his curling hair;
One who with balm and cinnamon smells sweet,
Whose humming lips some Spanish air repeat;
Whose naked arms are smoothed with pumice-stone,
And tossed about with graces all his own.
A beau is one who takes his constant seat,
From morn to evening, where the ladies meet;
And ever, on some sofa hovering near,
Whispers soft nothings in some fair one’s ear;
Who scribbles thousand billets-doux a day;
Still reads and scribbles, reads and sends away.
A beau is one who shrinks, if nearly pressed
By the coarse garment of a neighbor guest;
Who knows who flirts with whom, and still is found
At each good table in successive round.
A beau is one—none better knows than he
A race-horse and his noble pedigree.’—
Indeed? Why, Cotilus, if this be so,
What teasing trifling thing is called a beau!”

“With but one eye Philœnis weeps. How done
If you inquire, know she hath got but one.”

=Statius= (61-96 A.D.), a contemporary and rival of Martial, was the
author of the epic “Theba’is,” based on the strife of the sons of
Œdipus (see p. 200). Despite the fact that the poet gave a year’s work
to each of its twelve books, this epic has little to recommend it.

Statius began another poem on the life of Achilles, which he did not
live to finish. His forte lay not in the line of epics, but in the
improvising of short pointed pieces, thirty-two of which are preserved
in the collection called “Silvæ.” Juvenal bears witness to his
popularity.

Statius was patronized by the emperor Domitian, but is said to have
been stabbed by the latter with a stylus, in a fit of anger. The
following tender lines are from a poem addressed to his wife Claudia.

STATIUS TO HIS WIFE.

“Whither could ocean’s waves my bark convey,
Nor thou be fond companion of my way?
Yes—did I seek to fix my mansion drear
Where polar ice congeals the inclement year;
Where the seas darken round far Thule’s isle,
Or unapproached recedes the head of Nile;
Thy voice would cheer me on. May that kind Power,
Who joined our hands when in thy beauty’s flower,
Still, when the blooming years of life decline,
Prolong the blessing, and preserve thee mine!
To thee, whose charms gave first the enamoring wound,
And my wild youth in marriage fetters bound;
To thee submissive, I received the rein,
Nor sigh for change, but hug the pleasing chain.

And thou hast listened, with entranced desire,
The first rude sounds that would my lips inspire;
Thy watchful ear would snatch, with keen delight,
My verse, low-murmured through the live-long night.
To only thee my lengthened toils were known,
And with thy years has my Thebaid grown.
I saw thee, what thou art, when late I stood
On the dark verge of the Lethæan flood;
When glazed in death, I closed my quivering eyes,
Relenting Fate restored me to thy sighs;
Thou wert alone the cause, the Power above
Feared thy despair and melted to thy love.”—ELTON.

SULPICIA.—We must not pass over the Roman lyric poetess Sulpicia, the
Sappho of Domitian’s age—a noble lady of exceptional genius, who claims
that she

“First taught the Roman dames to vie
With Græcia’s nymphs of lyric minstrelsy.”

A short satire on Domitian’s expulsion of the Greek philosophers from
Italy, bearing the name of Sulpicia, still survives. It is valuable, as
the only fragment we have from a Roman poetess. From it we extract the
following apt simile:—

“It fares with Romans as with wasps, whose home
Is hung where Juno’s temple rears its dome;
A bristling crowd, they wave their flickering wings,
Their yellow bodies barbed with quivering stings.
But not like wasps, thus tremblingly alive,
The bee, secure returning, haunts her hive;
Forgetful of the comb, by sloth oppressed,
The swarm, the queen, die slow in pampered rest:
And this the sons of Romulus have found,
Sunk in the lap of peace, in long perdition drowned.”

=Quintilian= (35-95 A.D.), of Spanish parentage but Roman education,
for many years taught eloquence successfully in the capital, numbering
among his pupils the nephews of Domitian. He had the good fortune to
enjoy the favor of the emperor, and filled a professorship to which was
attached an annual salary of about $4,000.

Quintilian is honored as the author of the “Institutes of Oratory,”
an exhaustive rhetorical treatise in twelve books, devoted to the
education of the orator from infancy. “No other author,” it has
been said, “ever adorned a scientific treatise with so many happy
metaphors.” No other author, it may be added, ever succeeded better in
investing a dry subject with general interest. The “Institutes” may be
read with profit by all who desire to improve their style.

Quintilian insists on virtue as a requisite of the perfect orator; yet
with strange inconsistency excuses a falsehood if told in a good cause,
and justifies the doing of evil that good may come. We present a few
paragraphs on

THE EMBELLISHMENT OF STYLE.

“By polish and embellishment of style the orator recommends himself
to his auditors in his proper character; in his other efforts he
courts the approbation of the learned, in this the applause of the
multitude. Cicero, in pleading the cause of Cornelius, fought with
arms that were not only stout, but dazzling; nor would he, merely by
instructing the judge, or by speaking to the purpose in pure Latin
and with perspicuity, have caused the Roman people to testify their
admiration of him not only by acclamations, but even by tumults of
applause. It was the sublimity, magnificence, splendor, and dignity of
his eloquence, that drew forth that thunder of approbation.

This grace of style may contribute in no small degree to the success
of a cause; for those who listen with pleasure are both more attentive
and more ready to believe; they are very frequently captivated
with pleasure, and sometimes hurried away in admiration. Thus the
glitter of a sword strikes something of terror into the eyes; and
thunderstorms themselves would not alarm us so much as they do, if it
were their force only, and not also their flame, that was dreaded.
Cicero, accordingly, in one of his letters to Brutus, makes with
good reason the following remark:‘That eloquence which excites no
admiration, I account as nothing.’ Aristotle, also, thinks that to
excite admiration should be one of our greatest objects.

But let the embellishment of our style be manly, noble, and chaste;
let it not affect effeminate delicacy, or a complexion counterfeited
by paint, but let it glow with genuine health and vigor. Should I
think a piece of land better cultivated, in which the owner should
show me lilies, anemonies, and violets, and fountains playing, than
one in which there is a plentiful harvest, or vines laden with
grapes? Should I prefer barren plane-trees, or clipped myrtles, to
elms embraced with vines, and fruitful olive-trees? The rich may have
such unproductive gratifications; but what would they be, if they had
nothing else?

Whatever may be attractive in conception, elegant in expression,
pleasing in figures, rich in metaphor, or polished in composition, the
orator, like a dealer, as it were, in eloquence, will lay before his
audience for them to inspect, and almost to handle; for his success
entirely concerns his reputation, and not his cause. But when a
serious affair is in question, and there is a contest in real earnest,
anxiety for mere applause should be an orator’s last concern. Indeed,
no speaker, where important interests are involved, should be very
solicitous about his words.”—WATSON.

Among the lesser lights of the first Christian century were QUINTUS
CURTIUS, who compiled a “History of Alexander the Great;” COLUMELLA,
a writer on agriculture; POMPONIUS MELA, the first Latin geographer;
PROBUS, the grammarian; VALERIUS FLACCUS, who wrote the epic
“Argonautica,” in imitation of Apollonius Rhodius; and SILIUS ITALICUS,
author of a third-rate epic on the Punic Wars.

AGE OF TRAJAN AND THE ANTONINES.

=Juvenal= (40-125 A.D.), the single poet of this age, ranks with Rome’s
great writers. The accounts of his life are fragmentary and obscure.
A native of Aqui’num in Latium, he came to Rome, and was apparently a
student of rhetoric, perhaps an advocate. A chance lampoon on an actor
revealed to him his satirical talent, and forthwith he applied himself
to that branch of poetry in which he became so eminent. Too modest at
first to read his satires even before his friends, Juvenal postponed
publishing them until his sixtieth year, when they took Rome by storm.
Sixteen of them survive.

His fierce diatribes not unnaturally gave offence in high places;
and at length the emperor Ha’drian[49] quietly sent their author off
to Egypt, to command a Roman cohort stationed there—a disgrace which
brought the old satirist in sorrow to the grave.

Juvenal probed Roman society to its very depths, laying bare vices of
the blackest dye. In his day, the degenerate masters of the world even
out-sodomed Sodom in depravity. Nobles and emperors openly perpetrated
the vilest crimes. High-born ladies, in male attire, entered the arena
to fight like gladiators; revelled in reckless extravagance; plunged
into immoralities that call up a blush in the very recital, and even
added the arts of the poisoner to their accomplishments. Thus the poet
exclaims against these fashionable murderesses:—

“They see upon the stage the Grecian wife
Redeeming with her own her husband’s life;
Yet, in her place, would willingly deprive
Their lords of breath, to keep their dogs alive!
Abroad, at home, the Belides[50] you meet,
And Clytemnestras swarm in every street;
But here the difference lies—those bungling wives
With a blunt axe hacked out their husbands’ lives;
While now the deed is done with dexterous art,
And a drugged bowl performs the axe’s part.”

In the blaze of his satire Juvenal brought out the representative
characters of his time. Parasites, hypocrites, and panders, upstarts,
legacy-hunters, and gamblers, ballet-dancers and fortune-tellers,
gluttons and sots,—defile before us in his pages till we turn with
nausea from the revolting panorama. Well might the poet sigh:—

“Oh! happy were our sires, estranged from crimes;
And happy, happy were the good old times,
Which saw beneath their kings’, their tribunes’ reign,
One cell the nation’s criminals contain!”

Juvenal’s vividness of description and minuteness of detail show him to
have been personally familiar with the vices he lashed; that he kept
himself unspotted we can neither assert nor deny. His satires are full
of moral precepts and virtuous sentiments; the Tenth, perhaps the gem
of the collection, has lent more thoughts and expressions to modern
times than any other Latin poem of equal length. It closes with a
beautiful petition:—

JUVENAL’S PRAYER.

“O Thou who know’st the wants of human kind,
Vouchsafe me health of body, health of mind;
A soul prepared to meet the frowns of fate,
And look undaunted on a future state;
That reckons death a blessing, yet can bear
Existence nobly, with its weight of care;
That anger and desire alike restrains,
And counts Alcides’ toils, and cruel pains,
Superior far to banquets, wanton nights,
And all the Assyrian monarch’s soft delights!
Here bound, at length, thy wishes. I but teach
What blessings man, by his own powers, may reach.
The path to peace is virtue. We should see,
If wise, O Fortune, naught divine in thee:
But we have deified a name alone,
And fixed in heaven thy visionary throne!”

Brevity, intensity, and vigor, are conspicuous elements in our author’s
style. He always used “the best words in the right places.” Said
Dryden, his only peer in satiric poetry, “Juvenal gives me as much
pleasure as I can bear.” We extract from the Tenth Satire one of his
most graphic passages:—

THE INSTABILITY OF FORTUNE.

[Illustrated by the fall of Sejanus.]

“Some, Power hurls headlong from her envied height;
Some, the broad tablet, flashing on the sight,
With titles, names: the statues, tumbled down,
Are dragged by hooting thousands through the town;
The brazen cars torn rudely from the yoke,
And, with the blameless steeds, to shivers broke—
Then roar the flames! The sooty artist blows,
And all Sejanus[51] in the furnace glows;
Sejanus, once so honored, so adored,
And only second to the world’s great lord,
Runs glittering from the mould, in cups and cans,
Basins and ewers, plates, pitchers, pots, and pans.
‘Crown all your doors with bay, triumphant bay!
Sacred to Jove, the milk-white victim slay;
For lo! where great Sejanus by the throng,
A joyful spectacle! is dragged along.
What lips! what cheeks! ha, traitor! for my part,
I never loved the fellow—in my heart.’
‘But tell me, why was he adjudged to bleed?
And who discovered, and who proved the deed?’
‘Proved!—a huge wordy letter came to-day
From Capreæ.’ Good! what think the people? They—
They follow fortune, as of old, and hate,
With their whole souls, the victim of the state.
Yet would the herd, thus zealous, thus on fire,
Had Nursia[52] met the Tuscan’s fond desire,
And crushed the unwary prince, have all combined,
And hailed Sejanus master of mankind!
Lured by the splendor of his happier hour,
Wouldst thou possess Sejanus’ wealth and power;
See crowds of suppliants at thy levee wait,
Give this to sway the army, that the state;
And keep a prince in ward, retired to reign
O’er Capreæ’s crags, with his Chaldean train?
Yes, yes, thou wouldst (for I can read thy breast)
Enjoy that favor which he once possessed,
Assume all offices, grasp all commands,
The Imperial Horse, and the Prætorian Bands,
’Tis Nature, this; e’en those who want the will,
Pant for the dreadful privilege to kill:
Yet what delight can rank and power bestow,
Since every joy is balanced by its woe!”—GIFFORD.

=Tacitus= (54-118 A.D.).—Foremost among the prose writers of this later
period was Caius Cornelius Tacitus, by some considered the greatest
of Roman historians. Of his early life we know nothing, though as a
youth he seems to have mastered those arts which afterward made him
a successful orator. In the reign of Vespasian he took to wife the
daughter of Julius Agricola, the Roman governor of Britain, and began a
public career which culminated under Nerva (97 A.D.) in the consulship.
After this he probably confined his attention to literature, busying
himself with the compilation of historical works until death put an end
to his labors.

The first of these in the order of time was the “Agricola,” an
admirable biography of the author’s father-in-law, “the hero of a
hundred fights, the conqueror of those warlike islanders whom the
mighty Julius left to their original freedom, and whom Claudius and
his captains imperfectly subdued.” It is particularly valuable for the
light it casts on the history of Britain, and the influence of Roman
institutions.

“Agricola,” said Tacitus, “gave private encouragement and public aid
to the building of temples, courts of justice, and dwelling-houses,
praising the energetic and reproving the indolent. Thus an honorable
rivalry took the place of compulsion. He likewise provided a liberal
education for the sons of the chiefs, and showed such a preference for
the natural powers of the Britons over the industry of the Gauls that
they who lately disdained the tongue of Rome now coveted its eloquence.
Hence, too, a liking sprung up for our style of dress, and the _toga_
became fashionable. Step by step they were led to things which dispose
to vice—the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this, in their
ignorance, they called civilization.”

The “Agricola” was followed by “the Germania,” a treatise on the
situation, customs, and tribes of Germany, in whose freedom-loving
warriors Tacitus saw an enemy to be feared. What more caustic satires
than his telling contrasts of their simple habits with Roman luxury,
their stern morality with Roman profligacy? The Germania may be
regarded as a warning from a patriotic historian to his vice-ridden,
enervated countrymen—a warning which they would have done well to
regard. Particularly pleasing are its picturesque sketches of German
life, written in concise, vigorous language.

The remaining works of Tacitus are his “Histories,” “Annals,” and a
Dialogue on “the Decline of Eloquence.” The Histories covered the
reigns of the Roman emperors from Galba to Domitian inclusive (69-96
A.D.); about one-third of the work is preserved. The genius of Tacitus
did ample justice to the tremendous issues of this eventful period,
described by him as follows:—

“I am entering on the history of a period rich in disasters, frightful
in its wars, torn by civil strife, and even in peace full of horrors.
Four emperors perished by the sword. There were three civil wars:
there were more with foreign enemies: there were often wars that had
both characters at once. Now, too, Italy was prostrated by disasters,
either entirely novel or that recurred only after a long succession
of ages. Cities in Campania’s richest plains were swallowed up and
overwhelmed; Rome was wasted by conflagrations, its oldest temples
were consumed, and the Capitol itself was fired by the hands of
citizens. Never, surely, did more terrible calamities of the Roman
people, or evidence more conclusive, prove that the gods take no
thought for our happiness, but only for our punishment.”

In the “Annals” (sixteen books), which traced the history of the
emperors from the death of Augustus up to the point at which the
Histories had opened, the voice of the indignant satirist is everywhere
heard. Portions of this work, which were published about 115 A.D., are
lost. We extract the historian’s vivid description of the burning of
Rome.

THE BURNING OF ROME.

“There followed a dreadful disaster, whether fortuitously or by the
wicked contrivance of the prince is not determined, for both are
asserted by historians. But of all the calamities which ever befell
this city from the rage of fire, this was the most terrible. It broke
out in that part of the Circus which is contiguous to mounts Palatine
and Cœlius, where, by reason of shops in which were kept such goods
as minister aliment to fire, the moment it commenced it acquired
strength, and being accelerated by the wind, it spread at once through
the whole extent of the Circus. For neither were the houses secured by
enclosures, nor the temples environed with walls, nor was there any
other obstacle to intercept its progress; but the flame, spreading
every way impetuously, invaded first the lower regions of the city,
then mounted to the higher; then again ravaging the lower, it baffled
every effort to extinguish it, by the rapidity of its destructive
course, and from the liability of the city to conflagration in
consequence of the narrow and intricate alleys, and the irregularity
of the streets in ancient Rome.

Add to this the wailings of terrified women, the infirm condition of
the aged, and the helplessness of childhood; such as strove to provide
for themselves, and those who labored to assist others; these dragging
the feeble, those waiting for them; some hurrying, others lingering;
altogether created a scene of universal confusion and embarrassment.
While they looked back upon the danger in their rear, they often found
themselves beset before, and on their sides; or if they had escaped
into the quarters adjoining, these too were already seized by the
devouring flames; even the parts which they believed to be remote and
exempt, were found to be in the same distress.

At last, not knowing what to shun or where to seek sanctuary, they
crowded the streets, and lay along in the open fields. Some, from
the loss of their whole substance, even the means of their daily
sustenance, others, from affection for their relatives whom they had
not been able to snatch from the flames, suffered themselves to perish
in them, though they had opportunity to escape. Neither dared any man
offer to check the fire: so repeated were the menaces of many who
forbade to extinguish it; and because others openly threw fire-brands,
with loud declarations‘that they had one who authorized them;’
whether they did it that they might plunder with less restraint, or in
consequence of orders given.

Nero, who was at that juncture sojourning at Antium, did not return
to the city till the fire approached that quarter of his house
which connected the palace with the gardens of Mæcenas; nor could
it, however, be prevented from devouring the house, and palace, and
everything around. But for the relief of the people thus destitute
and driven from their dwellings, he opened the field of Mars, and
even his own gardens. He likewise reared temporary houses for the
reception of the forlorn multitude; from Ostia and the neighboring
cities were brought household necessaries, and the price of grain was
reduced to three sesterces (about 11½ cts.) the measure. All which
proceedings, though of a popular character, were thrown away, because
a rumor had become universally current, that at the very time when the
city was in flames Nero, going on the stage of his private theatre,
sung‘The Destruction of Troy,’ assimilating the present disaster to
that catastrophe of ancient times.

At length, on the sixth day, the conflagration was stayed by pulling
down an immense quantity of buildings, so that an open space and, as
it were, void air, might check the raging element by breaking the
continuity.... But not all the bounties that the prince could bestow,
nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed
to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered
the fire. Hence, to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the
guilt and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons
commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities.[53]
Christus, the founder of that sect, was put to death as a criminal by
Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius; but
the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again,
not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through
the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful
flow from all quarters, as to a common receptacle, and where they are
encouraged.

Accordingly, first those were seized who confessed they were
Christians; next, on their information, a vast, multitude were
convicted, not so much on a charge of burning the city as of hating
the human race. And in their deaths they were also made the subjects
of sport, for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts and
worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and
when day declined burned to serve for nocturnal lights.[54] Nero
offered his own gardens for that spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian
game, indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the habit
of a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot. Whence a feeling of
compassion arose toward the sufferers, though guilty and deserving to
be made examples of by capital punishment, because they seemed not to
be cut off for the public good, but victims to the ferocity of one
man.”

=Suetonius=, a contemporary of Tacitus, appears to have been born in
the reign of Vespasian. His literary labors began in Trajan’s time; and
under Hadrian he occupied the honorable position of private secretary,
which, however, he lost in consequence of disrespect to the empress.

The best-known of his works, and the only one that has been preserved
entire, is his “Lives of the Twelve Cæsars,” full, interesting, and
trustworthy in its information, clear and vigorous in style. The
“Cæsars” of Suetonius has always been a standard. The Romans dwelt on
his stories with gusto; but in such frightful colors did he paint the
deeds of Caligula that the tyrant Com’modus made death by wild beasts
the penalty for reading his life of that emperor. After the invention
of printing, editions of Suetonius multiplied rapidly.

EXTRACTS FROM SUETONIUS.

SUPERSTITION OF AUGUSTUS.

“Some signs and omens he regarded as infallible. If in the morning his
shoe was put on wrong, the left instead of the right, that boded some
disaster. If when he commenced a long journey, by sea or land, there
happened to fall a mizzling rain, he held it to be a good sign of a
speedy and happy return. He was much affected likewise with anything
out of the common course of nature. A palm-tree which chanced to grow
up between some stones in the court of his house, he transplanted into
a court where the images of the household gods were placed, and took
all possible care to make it thrive. He also observed certain days; as
never to go from home the day after the market-days, nor to begin any
serious business upon the nones.”

CHARACTER OF CALIGULA.

“Caligula evinced the savage barbarity of his temper by the following
indications. When flesh was only to be had at a high price for feeding
his wild beasts, he ordered that criminals should be given them to
be devoured. After disfiguring many persons of honorable rank, by
branding them in the face with hot irons, he condemned them to the
mines, to work in repairing the highways, or to fight with wild
beasts; or, tying them by the neck and heels, would shut them up in
cages, or saw them asunder.

Nor were these severities inflicted merely for crimes of great
enormity, but for making remarks on his public games, or for not
having sworn by the Genius of the emperor. He compelled parents to
be present at the execution of their sons; and to one who excused
himself on account of indisposition, he sent his own litter. He
burned alive the writer of a farce, for some witty verse which had
a double meaning. A Roman knight, who had been exposed to the wild
beasts, crying out that he was innocent, Caligula called him back, and
having had his tongue cut out, remanded him to the arena.

Even in the midst of his diversions, while gaming or feasting, this
savage ferocity never forsook him. Persons were often put to the
torture in his presence, while he was dining or carousing. At Puteoli,
at the dedication of the bridge, he invited a number of people to come
to him from the shore, and then suddenly threw them headlong into the
sea; thrusting down with poles and oars those who, to save themselves,
had got hold of the rudders of the ships. As often as he met with
handsome men, who had fine heads of hair, he would order the back of
their heads to be shaved, to make them look ridiculous. At a sumptuous
entertainment, he fell suddenly into a violent fit of laughter, and
upon the consuls’, who reclined next to him, respectfully asking him
the occasion,‘Nothing,’ replied he,‘but that upon a single nod of
mine, you might both have your throats cut.’

In profuse expenditure he surpassed all the prodigals that ever lived;
inventing a new kind of bath, washing in precious unguents, both warm
and cold, drinking pearls of immense value dissolved in vinegar,
and serving up for his guests loaves and other victuals modelled in
gold. He built two ships with ten banks of oars, the sterns of which
blazed with jewels while the sails were of various colors. They were
fitted up with baths, galleries, and saloons, and supplied with a
great variety of vines and fruit-trees. In these he would sail in
the daytime along the coast of Campania, feasting amidst dancing and
concerts of music.”

STUPIDITY OF CLAUDIUS.

“Among other things, people wondered at the indifference and
absent-mindedness of Claudius. Placing himself at table a little after
Messalina’s death, he inquired,‘Why does not the empress come?’ Many
of those he had condemned to death, he ordered the day after to be
invited to his table, and to game with him, and sent to reprimand
them as sluggish fellows for not making greater haste. The following
expression he had in his mouth at all hours,‘What! do you take me for
a fool?’

A man engaged in litigation before his tribunal drew Claudius aside
and told him,‘I dreamt I saw you murdered;’ and shortly afterward,
when the defendant came to deliver his plea to the emperor, the
plaintiff, pretending to have discovered the murderer, pointed to him
as the man he had seen in his dream: whereupon, as if he had been
taken in the act, he was hurried away to execution.”—DR. THOMSON.

=Pliny the Younger= (62-113 A.D.), nephew and adopted son of the
naturalist, learned his early lessons from Quintilian and other
celebrated rhetoricians. After figuring for a time as a successful
advocate, he was elevated to the consulship, and in Trajan’s reign,
having served his second term as consul, received the appointment of
governor of Bithynia.

Pliny took a prominent stand as the champion of the wronged, and
delighted in compelling dishonest governors to disgorge their stolen
spoils. The eloquent speeches identified with his name have perished,
with the exception of a single specimen, a panegyric on Trajan. It is
as a letter-writer that Pliny is entitled to a place among the worthies
of Latin literature. His epistles to his friends and the emperor (in
ten books) are among the most pleasing relics of antiquity, affording,
as they do, many instructive glimpses of contemporary society. They are
written with life and polish, and show their author to have been “the
perfect type of a pagan gentleman.”

While governor of Bithynia, Pliny corresponded frequently with Trajan
on official business. We give below one of his letters in relation to
the Christians, with Trajan’s reply.

PLINY’S LETTER ON THE CHRISTIANS.

“I had never attended at the trial of a Christian; hence I knew not
what were the usual questions asked them, or what the punishments
inflicted. I doubted, also, whether to make a distinction of ages, or
to treat young and old alike; whether to allow time for recantation,
or to refuse all pardon whatever to one who had been a Christian;
whether, finally, to make the name penal, though no crime should
be proved, or to reserve the penalty for the combination of both.
Meanwhile, when any were reported to me as Christians, I followed
this plan. I asked them whether they were Christians. If they said
yes, I repeated the question twice, adding threats of punishment; if
they persisted, I ordered punishment to be inflicted. For I felt sure
that whatever it was they confessed, their inflexible obstinacy well
deserved to be chastised. There were ever, some Roman citizens who
showed this strange persistence; those I determined to send to Rome.

As often happens in cases of interference, charges were now lodged
more generally than before, and several forms of guilt came before me.
An anonymous letter was sent, containing the names of many persons,
who, however, denied that they were or had been Christians. As they
invoked the gods and worshipped with wine and frankincense before
your image, at the same time cursing Christ, I released them the more
readily, as those who are really Christians cannot be got to do any
of these things. Others, who were named to me, admitted that they
were Christians, but immediately afterward denied it; some said they
had been so three years ago, others at still more distant dates, one
or two as long ago as twenty years. All these worshipped your image
and those of the gods, and abjured Christ. But they declared that all
their guilt or error had amounted to was this: they met on certain
mornings before daybreak, and sung one after another a hymn to Christ
as God, at the same time binding themselves by an oath not to commit
any crime, but to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery, perjury, or
repudiation of trust. After this was done, the meeting broke up; they,
however, came together again to eat their meal in common, being quite
guiltless of any improper conduct. But since my edict forbidding (as
you ordered) all secret societies, they had given this practice up.

However, I thought it necessary to apply the torture to some young
women who were called _ministræ_ (deaconesses), in order, if possible,
to find out the truth. But I could elicit nothing from them except
evidence of some debased and immoderate superstition; so I deferred
the trial, and determined to ask your advice. For the matter seemed
important, especially since the number of those who run into danger
increases daily. All ages, all ranks, and both sexes, are among the
accused, and the taint of the superstition is not confined to the
towns; it has actually made its way into the villages. But I believe
it possible to check and repress it. At all events, it is certain
that temples which were lately almost empty are now well attended,
and sacred festivals long disused are being revived. Victims too are
flowing in, whereas a few years ago such things could hardly find a
purchaser. From this I infer that vast numbers might be reformed, if
an opportunity of recantation were allowed them.”

TRAJAN’S REPLY.

“I entirely approve of your conduct with regard to those Christians of
whom you had received information. We can never lay down a universal
rule, as if circumstances were always the same. They are not to be
searched for; but if they are reported and convicted, they must be
punished. But if any denies his Christianity and proves his words
by sacrificing to our divinity, even if his former conduct may have
laid him under suspicion, he must be allowed the benefit of his
recantation. No weight whatever should be attached to anonymous
communications; they are no Roman way of dealing, and are altogether
reprehensible.”—CRUTTWELL.

During the period under consideration, FLORUS abridged Livy’s “Annals;”
AULUS GELLIUS (125-175 A.D.) crowded into his “Attic Nights” (a work in
twenty books, prepared by night at Athens) a vast store of historical
anecdotes and extracts from works now lost; GAIUS, the jurist, composed
his “Institutes;” and FRONTO wrote his epistles.

=Apuleius.=—Last of the writers of this age, but by no means least
when we consider the influence of his tales upon modern fiction, is
Apuleius, author of the romance of “the Golden Ass.” Lucius, the
hero, an enthusiast in the study of magic, having seen the sorceress
Pam’phile transform herself into an owl by rubbing an ointment on her
person, endeavors, with the help of her maid, to imitate her example.
But the girl selects the wrong box of ointment from her mistress’s
cabinet; and Lucius, on applying it, is changed into a donkey.

Hardly, however, had the metamorphosis been effected when a band of
robbers made a descent upon the house, loaded a portion of their
plunder on the ass’s back, and made good their escape, driving Lucius
before them. In search of rose-leaves, which the maid told him
would remove the spell, the hero meets with a series of marvellous
adventures. Among the episodes introduced is the oft-repeated tale of
Cupid and Psy’che. In the Decameron, Don Quixote, and Gil Bias, some of
these old Roman stories are told over again.

The style of Apuleius is unnatural; his Latin is bad. Besides “the
Golden Ass,” he wrote a discourse on Magic, on “the God of Socrates,”
and the “Florida,” a collection of paragraphs from his own orations.

LATER LATIN AUTHORS.

After its temporary revival under Trajan’s kindly rule, Latin
literature gradually sunk into a hopeless decline. In the long array
of names that represent the last three centuries of the Roman Empire,
we find none more worthy of respect than those of the Latin fathers.
Greatest of these was

=St. Augustine= (354-430 A.D.), of whom Tulloch said “no single name
has ever made such an impression upon Christian thought.”

Impressed with the truth of the Gospel by the eloquence of Ambrose
at Milan, where he had gone to teach rhetoric, Augustine at length
received baptism, to the delight of his saintly mother Mon’ica, who had
long prayed for his conversion. When raised to the bishopric of Hippo
in Africa, Augustine zealously engaged in a controversy with Pela’gius
and his followers, who entertained heterodox views in relation to grace
and original sin. The bishop put forth fifteen treatises in refutation
of the Pelagian heresies. His greatest works were “the City of God,”
a vindication of Christianity, “Confessions,” and a treatise on the
Trinity.

=Ambrose=, bishop of Milan, who lived in the last half of the fourth
century, was the author of numerous epistles and hymns, the _Te Deum_
being one of his compositions. His “Offices” defines the duties of
Christian pastors.

=St. Jerome= (Hieronymus) (340-420), the great apostle of monasticism,
from a convent at Bethlehem promulgated his Latin version of the Old
and New Testaments, called the Vulgate (_common_) because designed for
the use of the common people, who understood no language but Latin.
Jerome’s Bible, adopted as a standard version, was the first book ever
put to press (1455).

=St. Gregory=, bishop of Constantinople, the last of the four great
Latin fathers and the most poetical of early Christian writers, has
left us a book of epistles, orations, and religious poems. He pressed
into the service of Christianity the arts of Greek rhetoric, and
assailed Julian the Apostate in two speeches that recall the invective
of the Attic orators.

=Tertullian= (150-230), “the Master,” one of the earlier Christian
authors, is worthy of mention not only for his numerous practical
treatises on Penance, Idolatry, Theatrical Exhibitions, etc., but also
for his polemical works against unbelievers, and the “Apologeticus” in
defence of Christianity. In after-life Tertullian joined a heretical
sect.

=Cyprian=, bishop of Carthage, the pupil of Tertullian, defended his
religion with an eloquent pen, and finally laid down his life for his
faith (258).

=Lactantius=, “the Christian Cicero,” was the most learned man of
Constantine’s age (306-337). His earliest effort, an hexameter poem,
“the Banquet,” gained him such reputation that the emperor Diocletian
appointed him to give instruction in rhetoric at Nicomedia. The
“Banquet” is lost; but several of the author’s prose works remain, the
greatest being his “Divine Institutions.” In his treatise “On the Death
of the Persecutors,” Lactantius endeavors to prove the avenging hand of
God in the violent ends of those emperors who had oppressed his people.

=Boëthius.=—Finally, we must notice the famous moral treatise “On the
Consolation of Philosophy,” by Boëthius, a Roman noble who outlived the
fall of his country (476). A model of integrity and justice, Boëthius
was loaded with honors by Theod’oric, the Ostrogothic king of Italy;
but at last, falsely accused by his enemies of witchcraft and treason,
he was executed by his suspicious master (525).

The above-mentioned work was much read during the Middle Ages. Alfred
the Great rendered it into Anglo-Saxon; Chaucer, into English; and
later writers have reproduced its sentiments.

SPECIMENS OF LATER POETRY.

As a favorable specimen of later Latin poetry, we quote a few verses
from an eclogue on hunting by NEMESIAN (280), a favorite poet in the
time of Charlemagne, extensively read in the schools:—

“The toil that should round lawn and forest spread,
Hemming the nimble prey in moveless dread,
Must with inwoven plumes its threads divide,
From every various wing diversely dyed.
This the keen wolf and flying stag shall scare,
The fox, the monstrous boar, and shaggy bear;
As if with lightning flash, aghast, confound,
And still forbid to pass the checkered bound.
This then, with various paint anointing, smear;
Let florid hues with snowy white appear,
And lengthen on the threads the alternate fear.
A thousand terrors from his painted wings,
To aid thy enterprise, the vulture brings.
The swan, the goose, the crane, and each that laves
His webbèd feet amid the stagnant waves.
Then rarer plumes shall brighter tints bestow,
Where scarlet deepens in its native glow:
Where flights of birds on blooming pinions rise,
And plumage reddens with its saffron dyes,
Or streaks in green its pied varieties.
Thy gear complete, when autumn’s end is near,
And showery winter overhangs the year,
Begin: your hounds unkennel in the mead;
Begin: O’er champaign fields impel the steed.
Hunt, while the daybreak sheds its glimmering light,
And the fresh dews retain the scented tracks of night.”
ELTON.

A different style was that of CLAUDIAN, the court poet in the reign of
Theodosius the Great (379-395). Tawdry and artificial in general, it
was displayed to the best advantage in his amatory pieces and marriage
hymns; as in this description of

THE SLEEPING VENUS.

“It chanced, in quest of slumbers cool, the Queen
Of Love in vine-wrought grot retired unseen;
Her star-bright limbs on tufted grass were spread,
A heap of flowers the pillow for her head.
The Idalian maids lie round; the Graces twine
Their arms, and screened by spreading oak recline.
The wingèd boys, where shade invites, repose
On every side; unstrung their loosened bows;
While, on a neighboring branch suspended high,
With gentle flames their breathing quivers sigh.
Some wakeful sport, or through the thickets rove;
Climb for the nest, or blithely strip the grove
Of dewy apples for the Queen of Love;
Along the bough’s curved windings creeping cling,
Or hang from topmost elm with light-poised wing.”

AUSONIUS of Bordeaux, an affected verse-maker of the fourth century,
wrote much that is second-rate, in the way of epigrams and idyls, too
often of a licentious tone; but there is some merit in the following
reflections on

ROSES.

“’Twas spring; the morn returned in saffron veil,
And breathed a bracing coolness in the gale.
Through the broad walks I trod the garden bowers,
And roamed, refreshed against the noontide hours.
I saw the hoary dew’s congealing drops
Bend the tall grass and vegetable tops;
The sprinkled pearls on every rose-bush lay,
Anon to melt before the beams of day.
I saw a moment’s interval divide
The rose that blossomed from the rose that died.
This with its cap of tufted moss looked green;
That, tipped with reddening purple, peeped between.
One reared its obelisk with opening swell,
The bud unsheathed its crimson pinnacle;
Another, gathering every purfled fold,
Its foliage multiplied, its blooms unrolled.
While this, that ere the passing moment flew,
Flamed forth one blaze of scarlet on the view,
Now shook from withering stalk the waste perfume,
Its verdure stript, and pale its faded bloom.
I marvelled at the spoiling flight of time,
That roses thus grew old in earliest prime.
E’en while I speak, the crimson leaves drop round,
And a red brightness veils the blushing ground.
These forms, these births, these changes, bloom, decay,
Appear and vanish in the self-same day.
One day the rose’s age; and while it blows,
In dawn of youth, it withers to its close.
O virgins! roses cull while yet ye may;
So bloom your hours, and so shall haste away.”
ELTON.

GEMS OF LATIN THOUGHT.[55]

PLAUTUS.

“Easy is sway over the good.—Man to his fellow-man is a wolf.—No one
left to himself is sufficiently wise.—All things are not equally sweet
to all.—No one is inquisitive without being ill-natured.—A woman who
has good principles has dowry enough.—Courage in danger is half the
battle.—Good fortune finds good friends.—Love is very fruitful in both
honey and gall.—Flame is very near to smoke.”

TERENCE.

“The strictest administration of law is often the greatest
wrong.—Without danger no great and memorable deed is done.—Fortune
favors the brave.—Many men, many minds.—Nothing in excess.—As we can,
when we cannot as we would.—Nothing is said now that has not been said
before.—Obsequiousness begets friends, truthfulness hatred.”

VARRO.

“It is divine nature that has given the country, human art that has
built cities.—As a state ought to worship the gods in its public
capacity, so ought each family.”

CICERO.

“Justice gives every one his due.—No one was ever great without
divine inspiration.—The noblest spirit is the most strongly attracted
by the love of glory.—One man is more useful in one thing, another
in another.—Guilt lies in the very hesitation, even though the act
itself has not been reached.—The chief recommendation comes from
modesty.—Fear is no lasting teacher of duty.—Any man may err, but no
one but a fool will persevere in error.—The memory of a well-spent
life is everlasting.—Whatever you do, you should do it with your
might.—Glory follows virtue like its shadow.”

LUCRETIUS.

“The ring on the finger is worn thin by constant use.—It is pleasant,
when winds roughen the sea with great waves, to behold from the shore
another’s arduous toil.—We are all sprung from heavenly seeds.—Weigh
well with judgment; what seems true, hold fast; gird thyself against
what is false.—We see that the mind strengthens with the body, and
with the body grows old.”

CATULLUS.

“Nothing is sillier than a silly laugh.—What a woman says to her fond
lover may well be written on the wind and rapid stream.”

SALLUST.

“Every one is the architect of his own fortune.—The endowments of the
mind form the only illustrious and lasting possession.—Fear closes the
ears of the mind.—The mind is the leader and director of the life of
mortals.—In grief and miseries, death is a respite from sorrows, not
a punishment.—To have the same likes and dislikes, this in a word is
firm friendship.”

VIRGIL.

“Endure, and preserve yourselves for prosperous times.—We are not all
able to accomplish all things.—Love conquers all things, and to love
let us yield.—Praise large farms, cultivate a small one.—The only
safety for the vanquished is to hope for no safety.—Accursed thirst
for gold, what dost thou not drive mortal breasts to do?—Nowhere is
faith safe.—Whatever shall happen, every kind of fortune is to be
overcome by patient endurance.—Hug the shore; let others launch out
into the deep.”

HORACE.

“There is a mean in all things.—It is right for one craving
forgiveness for his sins to grant it to others in turn.—There
is nothing too high for mortals; in our folly we storm heaven
itself.—Life has given nothing to mortals without great toil.—Avoid
inquiring what is about to be to-morrow.—To die for one’s native land
is sweet and glorious.—Punishment presses on crime as a companion.—He
has carried every point who has mingled the useful with the agreeable.”

LIVY.

“Wounds cannot be cured unless they are touched and handled.—Necessity
is the ultimate and strongest weapon.—In nothing do events less
answer to men’s expectations than in war.—It is safer that a wicked
man should not be accused at all than that he should be acquitted.—In
difficult and almost hopeless cases the boldest counsels are the
safest.”

TIBULLUS.

“There is a God who forbids that crimes should be concealed.—Happy
thou who shalt learn by another’s suffering how to avoid thine
own.—While thy early summer-time is blooming, use it; it slips away
with no slow foot.”

PROPERTIUS.

“Neither is beauty a thing eternal, nor is fortune lasting to any;
later or sooner death awaits everybody.—In maddening love nobody
sees.—Let no one be willing to injure the absent.—Great love crosses
even the shores of death.”

OVID.

“A wounded member that cannot be healed must be cut off with the
knife, lest the healthy part be affected.—It is the coward’s part
to wish for death.—Even the unconquered man grief conquers.—A mind
conscious of rectitude laughs at the lies of rumor.—The reefed sail
escapes the storms of winter.”

NEPOS.

“No evil is great which is the last.—Peace is obtained by war.—The
mother of a coward is not wont to weep.”

PHÆDRUS.

“The poor man, striving to imitate the powerful, comes to grief.—The
fair speeches of a bad man are full of snares.—Rashness is an
advantage to few, a source of evil to many.—The learned man always has
his riches within himself.”

PLINY.

_The Elder._—“Every one is pleased with his own, and wherever we go
the same story is found.—No one of mortals is wise at all hours.—Our
ancestors used to say that the master’s eye is the best fertilizer for
the field.”

_The Younger._—“Nothing seems as good, when we have gained it, as
it did when we were wishing for it.—I deem him the best and most
commendable who pardons others as if he himself daily went astray, yet
abstains from faults as if he pardoned no one.”

LUCAN.

“Great fear is concealed by daring.—The prosperous man knows not
whether he is truly loved.—An offence in which many are engaged, goes
unpunished.”

PETRONIUS ARBITER.

“A physician is nothing more than a satisfaction to the mind.—Fear
first made gods in the world.—There is no one of us that sinneth not;
we are men, not gods.—Poverty is the sister of a sound mind.”

TACITUS.

“Traitors are odious even to those whom they benefit.—When the state
is most corrupt, the laws are most numerous.—There will be vices
as long as there are men.—Everything unknown is magnified.—It is a
peculiarity of the human mind to hate one whom you have injured.”

JUVENAL.

“Rare is the combination of beauty and modesty.—Nature never says one
thing, and wisdom another.—Himself being the judge, no guilty man
is acquitted.—The anger of the gods, however great it may be, yet
certainly is slow.—Less frequent enjoyment of them makes pleasures
keener.”

MINOR POETS AND PROSE WRITERS.

CREMU’TIUS CORDUS, the historian: “Annals.” Cordus offended Tiberius
by styling Cassius “the last of the Romans,” and starved himself to
death to escape the tyrant.

AUFID’IUS BASSUS: histories of the civil and German wars.

ASCO’NIUS PEDIA’NUS: a grammarian of Patavium; commentaries on
Cicero’s orations.

PETRO’NIUS ARBITER, the companion and victim of Nero: author of
“Satyricon,” a witty romance, of which a few fragments remain.

JULIUS FRONTI’NUS: a self-made man of the Flavian era; works on the
Roman aqueducts, military tactics, the measurement of land, etc.

LICINIA’NUS (age of the Antonines): a history of republican Rome;
style affected.

MARCUS AURELIUS, the emperor (161-180): a devoted Stoic; his
“Meditations” (in Greek) full of noble sentiments.

PAPINIAN AND ULPIAN, the jurists (about 200): writers on law.

SPARTIA’NUS (300): “Biographies of the Roman Emperors.”

ÆLIUS DONA’TUS (4th century): the preceptor of St. Jerome; his “Art of
Grammar” once a popular text-book.

PRUDENTIUS CLE’MENS (4th century): a Christian poet; hymns, etc.

AVIE’NUS (4th century): poems on astronomical and geographical
subjects.

AMMIA’NUS MARCELLI’NUS (died about 400): the last Latin historian; his
“Thirty-one Books of Events,” a continuation of the history of Tacitus
through the reign of Valens (378).

SYMMACHUS (400): a high-minded opponent of Christianity; defeated
by Ambrose in an attempt to restore the altar of Victory; orations,
epistles.

RUTILIUS (5th century): poetical diary of a journey from Rome to Gaul;
style terse and elegant.

PRISCIAN (6th century): the greatest of classical grammarians; the
most complete Latin Grammar of antiquity.

INDEX.

Academic School of Philosophy, 241.

Accius, 328.

Achæus, 261.

Achilles Tatius, 295.

Acusilaus, 183.

Ælian, 302.

Æneid, the, 362.

Æschines, 257, 260.

Æschylus, 193, 194.

Æsop, 181.

Agathon, 261.

Agias, the Trœzenian, 156.

Albinovanus, 382.

Alcæus, 164.

Alcman, 178.

Alphabetic Writing, 19, 20.

Alphabets, Table of Ancient, 87.

Ambrose, 421.

Ammonius, 293.

Amos, 97.

Amphion, 138.

Anacreon, 172.

Anaxagoras, 234.

Anaximander, 183.

Anaximenes, 183.

Anthology, the, 297.

Antimachus, 192.

Antisthenes, 254.

Antonius, 327.

Anyte, 280.

Apocrypha, the, 99.

Apollodorus, 280.

Apollonius Rhodius, 275.

Appian, 302.

Apuleius, 420.

Arabic literature, 114.

Aratus, 280.

Archilochus, 161.

Archimedes, 276.

Arctinus of Miletus, 156.

Aristarchus, 277.

Aristophanes, 213; of Byzantium, 277.

Aristotle, 247.

Arrian, 302.

Aryans, the, 13.

Assyrio-Babylonian literature, 106-114.

Athanasius, 294.

Augustine, St., 421.

Augustus, 329, 334, 338, 354, 357, 373, 380, 382.

Aurelius, Marcus, 428.

Ausonius, 424.

Avatars, 39.

Avesta, 60, 62.

Avienus, 428.

Bacchylides, 178.

Bassus Aufidius, 428.

Berosus, 279.

Bias of Priene, 184.

Bion, 269.

Boëthius, 422.

Book of the Dead, 122, 126.

Buddhist literature, 58.

Cadmus of Miletus, 179, 183.

Cæcilius, 316.

Cæsar, Julius, 339.

Callimachus, 274.

Callinus, 159.

Callistratus, 261.

Calpurnius Piso, 328.

Calvus, Licinius, 387.

Carbo, 328.

Carthaginian literature, 116.

Cato the Censor, 324.

Catullus, 352.

Catulus, 328.

Celsus, the philosopher, 293; the physician, 390.

Champollion, 119, 120.

Charon of Lampsacus, 184.

Chilo of Sparta, 184.

Chinese, language, 67; literature, 67-83.

Chrysostom, St., 294.

Cicero, 330.

Cincius, 328.

Cinna, 387.

Claudian, 423.

Cleanthes, 280.

Cleobulus of Lindus, 184.

Cleon, 213, 226.

Columella, 408.

Comparative Philology, 33.

Confucius, 70-73.

Cordus, Cremutius, 428.
Corinna, 186, 188.

Cornelius Severus, 382.

Cornutus, 392.

Cotta, 328.

Crassus, 327.

Crates, the poet, 261; the grammarian, 277, 329.

Cratinus, 261.

Crœsus, 180, 181.

Ctesias, 233.

Cuneiform letters, 19, 65, 66, 105.

Curtius, Quintus, 408.

Cyclic Poets, 152, 156.

Cynics, the, 254.

Cyprian, 422.

Cyrus the Younger, 229.

Damophyla, 171.

Daniel, 98.

Darius, 66.

David, 93, 94.

Democritus, 237.

Demosthenes, 256.

Diodorus Siculus, 281.

Diogenes, the Cynic, 255; Laertius, 302.

Dion Cassius, 302.

Dionysius, of Syracuse, 214, 242; of Halicarnassus, 281.

Donatus, Ælius, 428.

Drama, Hindoo, 54; Greek, 192, 263; Roman, 308.

Ecclesiastes, 96.

Ecclesiasticus, 99.

Egyptian education, 131.

Egyptian literature, 117-131.

Eleatic School of Philosophy, 237.

Empedocles, 236.

Ennius, 311, 320.

Epicharmus, 212.

Epicurus, 238.

Eratosthenes, 277.

Erinna, 171.

Euclid, 276.

Eugamon of Cyrene, 156.

Eumenes, 24.

Euphorion, 280.

Eupolis, 261.

Euripides, 207.

Eusebius, 294.

Ezekiel, 98.

Ezra, 92, 98.

Fabius Pictor, 324, 328.

Flaccus, Verrius, 387; Valerius, 408.

Frontinus, 428.

Galba, 328.

Galen, 302.

Gallus, Ælius, 387.

Glabrio, Acilius, 328.

Gorgias, 255.

Gracchi, the, 326.

Gratius, 382.

Greece, language of, 135; literature of, 133-302.

Gregory, St., 421.

Habakkuk, 97.

Hebrew, language, 84; literature, 83-104.

Hecatæus, the Milesian, 183.

Heliodorus, 295.

Hellanicus, 184.

Heraclitus, 183.

Herodian, 302.

Herodotus, 222.

Hesiod, 152.

Hiero, 175, 187, 195.

Hierocles, 295.

Hieroglyphics, 18; Chinese, 68; Cuneiform, 105, 106, 108; Egyptian, 120.

Himyaritic inscriptions, 114,

Hipparchus, the astronomer, 277.

Hippocrates, 261.

Hipponax, 177.

Hirtius, 341.

Hittite inscriptions, 113.

Homer, 139-152.

Horace, 369.

Hortensius, 327.

Hosea, 97.

Iamblichus, 294.

Ibycus, 178.

Iliad, the, 141.

Ion, 261.

Ionic School of Philosophy, 234.

Irenæus, 293.

Isæus, 256.

Isaiah, 96.

Isocrates, 256.

Italic School of Philosophy, 234.

Jayadeva, 48.

Jehuda, 101.

Jeremiah, 97.

Jerome, St., 421.
Job, Book of, 93.

Joel, 97.

Jonah, 97.

Jones, Sir William, 33.

Josephus, 284.

Joshua, Book of, 92.

Judges, Book of, 92.

Justin Martyr, 293.

Juvenal, 408.

Kâlidâsa, 46; lyrics of, 46; epics of, 48; dramas of, 50, 53.

King, the Five, 73.

Kings, Books of the, 92.

Labienus, Titus, 387.

Lactantius, 422.

Lælius, 326.

Language spoken, 17; written, 18; the Sanscrit, 31; the Avesta, 60; the
Chinese, 67; the Hebrew, 84; the Chaldean, 105; the Egyptian, 117; the
Greek, 135; the Latin, 304.

Languages, origin and relationship of, 12; Aryan, 16; Semitic, 16, 83,
84; Turanian, 17.

Latin, language, 304; literature, 303-428.

Lavinius, 328.

Lesches of Mytilene, 156.

Library, the Pergamene, 24, 274; the royal Persian, 67; the imperial
Chinese, 83; the Hebrew, at Jerusalem, 104; the royal Assyrian, 110;
the Alexandrian, 272.

Licinianus, 428.

Literature, General View of Ancient, 25; Hindoo, 31-60; Persian, 60-67;
Chinese, 67-83; Hebrew, 83-104; Assyrio-Babylonian, 104-114; Arabic,
114; Phœnician, 115; Egyptian, 117-131; Grecian, 133-302; Roman,
303-428.

Livius Andronicus, 309.

Livy, 382.

Longinus, 294.

Longus, 295.

Lucan, 397.

Lucian, 288.

Lucilius, 323.

Lucretius, 348.

Lyceum, the, 248.

Lycophron, 280.

Lysias, 256.

Mahâbhârata, the, 43.

Manetho, 279.

Manilius, 382.

Manu, Code of, 38.

Marcellinus, 428.

Martial, 404.

Maximus, Valerius, 389.

Meleager, 280, 297, 300.

Menander, 264.

Mencius, 79.

Messala, 376, 386.

Micah, 97.

Mimnermus, 177.

Moschus, 269, 271.

Moses, 90.

Musæus, 138, 302.

Museum, the, 272.

Myrtis, 186.

Nævius, 310, 320.

Nahum, 97.

Nemesian, 422.

Neo-Platonism, 293.

Nepos, Cornelius, 347.

Nicander, 280.

Nonnus, 302.

Nossis, 280.

Odyssey, the, 147.

Oppian, 302.

Origen, 293.

Ovid, 379.

Pacuvius, 319.

Pânini, 57.

Papinian, 428.

Papyrus Ebers, 124.

Parallelism, 89.

Paterculus, Velleius, 389.

Pausanias, 292.

Pedianus, 428.

Pentateuch, 90.

Periander, 184.

Peripatetic School of Philosophy, 247.

Persian literature, 60-67.

Persius, 392.

Petronius Arbiter, 428.

Phædrus, 390.

Pherecydes of Syros, 179.

Philemon, 265.

Philo, 104, 293.

Phocylides, 177.

Phœnician literature, 115.

Phrynicus, 193.
Pilpay, 56.

Pindar, 185.

Pittacus, 164, 184.

Plato, 241.

Plautus, 312.

Pliny, the Elder, 401; the Younger, 418.

Plotinus, 293.

Plutarch, 284.

Pollio, Asinius, 386; Vitruvius, 387.

Polybius, 277.

Polycarp, 293.

Porphyry, 293.

Priscian, 428.

Prisse Papyrus, 124.

Probus, 408.

Procopius, 302.

Propertius, 377.

Proverbs, the, 96.

Prudentius Clemens, 428.

Psalms, the, 93.

Ptolemy, the astronomer, 292.

Purânas, 35.

Pyrrho, 238.

Pythagoras, 234.

Quintilian, 407.

Quintus Smyrnæus, 302.

Râmâyana, the, 40.

Rig-Veda, 34.

Rosetta Stone, 119.

Rufus, Valgius, 387.

Rutilius, the jurist, 328; the poet, 428.

Sakoontalâ, 50.

Sallust, 343.

Samuel, Books of, 92.

Saneha, Memoirs of, 124.

Sanscrit, language, 31; literature, 31-60.

Sappho, 165.

Scipio, 323, 326.

Semites, 16; languages of, 83, 84.

Seneca, the rhetorician, 386; the moralist, 394.

Septuagint, the, 104, 279.

Shoo, the Four, 77.

Silius Italicus, 408.

Simonides, 174; the Elder, 177.

Sisenna, 328.

Skeptics, the, 238.

Socrates, 239.

Solomon, 96,

Solon, 177, 179, 184.

Sophocles, 200.

Spartianus, 428.

Stasinus of Cyprus, 156.

Statius, 405.

Stesichorus, 178.

Stoic School of Philosophy, 253.

Strabo, 281.

Suetonius, 415.

Sulpicia, 406.

Susarion, 212.

Symmachus, 428.

Tacitus, 412.

Talmud, the, 100.

Terence, 315.

Terpander, 178.

Tertullian, 422.

Thales, 180, 184, 234.

Theocritus, 266.

Theognis, 177.

Theophrastus, 252.

Theopompus, 233.

Thespis, 192.

Thucydides, 225.

Tibullus, 375.

Timæus, 279.

Timocreon, 178.

Trogus, Pompeius, 386.

Tryphiodorus, 302.

Tubero, 387.

Turanians, 12; languages of, 17.

Turpilius, 328.

Tyrtæus, 160.

Ulpian, 428.

Varius, 375.

Varro, 337.

Veda, the, 34.

Virgil, 355-369.

Writing, ideographic, 18; phonetic, 19; among the Hindoos, 60; of the
Persians, 66; Chinese, 68; Hebrew, 86; Cuneiform, 104; Egyptian, 118;
Greek, 136, 156, 180, 262.

Xanthus, 184.

Xenophanes, 177, 237.

Xenophon, 229.

Zend, 67.

Zeno, 253.

Zenodotus, 277.

Zoroaster, 61-64.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A thousand words have thus been traced through the sister languages
of Aryan birth—a number certainly adequate to the wants of primitive
man, when we remember that of more than 120,000 words which constitute
our present vocabulary but 3,000 are in common use. The Old Testament
was translated with the help of only 5,642 English words. While
Shakespeare’s genius required 21,000 words for its expression, Milton’s
epic employs less than half that number.

[2] In common with the Celts, the North American Indians, Chinese,
Egyptians, and other ancient nations, cherished a tradition that they
had supplanted an original population—_the children of the soil_—of low
intellectual powers, feeders on roots, hole-dwellers, serpent-eaters.

[3] Some regard the Hindoo epics as belonging to a much later period.
It is probable that the present versions are essential modifications of
the original forms.

[4] The language of the Gypsies, descendants of those Hindoos who fled
from the persecutions of Tamerlane, is a corrupted Vedic dialect.

[5] “He is the only master of the world; he fills heaven and earth.
He gives life and strength: all the other gods seek for his blessing;
death and immortality are but his shadow.

The mountains covered with frost, the ocean with its waves, the vast
regions of heaven, proclaim his power.

By him the heaven and earth, space and the firmament, have been solidly
founded: he spread abroad the light in the atmosphere.

Heaven and earth tremble for fear before him. He is God above all gods!”
RIG-VEDA.

[6] The mystical name formed of the three elements A U M, representing
the three forms of the deity.

[7] _Nirvâna_—“a condition of total cessation of changes; of perfect
rest; of the absence of desire, and illusion, and sorrow; of the total
obliteration of everything that goes to make up the physical man.
Before reaching Nirvâna, man is constantly being re-born; when he
reaches Nirvâna, he is born no more.”—_Olcott’s “Buddhist Catechism,”
p. 32._

[8] We find one phase of this in the worship of ancestral tablets.
These are of wood, a foot high, and bear the name of the departed
ancestor, the hour of his birth, and that of his decease. They are
worshipped twice a month with tapers and burning incense. Death is
believed to liberate three spirits from the tenement of clay; while one
of these occupies the grave, and another seeks the invisible world,
the third is supposed to take up its habitation in the tablet erected
by filial reverence. The accompanying engraving shows one of these
ancestral tablets with its inscription in Chinese. (_Read Du Bose’s
“The Dragon, Image, and Demon.”_)

[9] The two Chinese philosophers remind us of the two Greeks, not only
by the moral tone of their teachings, but by their relative positions
as master and follower. Nor were their respective eras widely apart;
compare their dates—

The master, Confucius, 551-478 B.C.
The disciple, Mencius, 370-288 B.C.

The master, Socrates, 470-399 B.C.
The pupil, Plato, 429-348 B.C.

[10] Some hold that the Pentateuch was compiled by Moses from extant
writings of an earlier period; others believe it to have been reduced
to its present form at a much later date; while many theologians
ascribe it all to Moses, except the part that relates to his death and
a few interpolated sentences. Its authenticity as part of God’s Word
has been disputed from time to time, and particularly in these later
days; but neither Jews nor Christians doubt its inspiration, though
they admit that in parts its meaning may have been misconceived. We
have here to do with it, as with other parts of the Bible, simply as a
_literary_ work. (_See Rawlinson’s “Historical Illustrations of the Old
Testament.”_)

[11] For example, the Book of Jasher, which appears to have been a
collection of songs in praise of the just and upright—the subject of
endless discussions.

[12] The grammatical literature of the Assyrians is equalled only by
that of the Hindoos and the Greeks.

[13] The Greeks, erroneously believing these characters to have
been used by the priests alone, called them hieroglyphics (_sacred
carvings_).

[14] That is, _dead king Menkaurâ_; the deceased was identified with
Osiris, god of the dead.

[15] M. Prisse first published this papyrus in France; hence its name.

[16] Papyrus published by Ebers.

[17] What is known as the Book of the Dead, or Funeral Ritual, is not
a homogeneous whole which has descended to us as such from antiquity,
but a collection of all the funeral texts found in various tombs. The
dead man was believed to encounter various dangers in the lower world,
and hence it was of great importance that he should be thoroughly
instructed in advance. He had to know the magical names of all parts
of “the land of the dead,” of thousands of malignant and benignant
demons he would there meet. He must also be acquainted with the names
of the forty-two associate judges of Osiris who considered his claim to
admission into future joys, as well as with the proper confession to
make to each. The texts are partly descriptions of funeral ceremonies
and of various localities in the Lower Heaven, partly hymns and magical
formulæ for exorcising demons, and partly long speeches the dead man
must pronounce, with directions for making and inscribing amulets. Of
these texts, some were written on papyrus and placed in the tomb with
the mummy, others were inscribed on amulets and sarcophagi. In no one
tomb have all been found.

[18] Nothing is known of ancient Egyptian metres: but it is evident
that the poetry was characterized by parallelism analogous to that of
Hebrew verse.

[19] Unknown locality.

[20] Unknown locality.

[21]

“Septem urbes certant de stirpe insignis Homeri,—
Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenæ.”

For all places mentioned in the history of Grecian literature, see Map,
p. 132.

[22] In this category we do not mean to include our own Shakespeare;
Homer’s pedestal is no loftier than his.

[23] A city south-east of Troy, situated at the base of Mount Pla’cos,
and hence called Hypoplacian (_under Placos_).

[24] The ægis was Jupiter’s shield, which inspired fear, and caused
darkness, clouds, and storms.

[25] His mother, Priam’s wife, king of Troy.

[26] The following lines, with their long and short syllables
distinguished and arranged as in the dactylic hexameter and pentameter,
will give an idea of the cadence of the elegiac couplet:—

“Give mĕ sŏme | mŏre,” săys thĕ | mīsĕrlỹ | mān, thoŭgh ăs |
rīch ăs ă | Crœsūs;
Nēvĕr e|noūgh ĭn hĭs | stōre, || īf hĕ căn | gēt ănỹ | mōre.

[27] The Leucadian promontory projects from the southern shore of the
island of Leucadia, off the coast of Acarnania (see Map, p. 132). On
the bluff stood a temple of Apollo, to whom, in very ancient times,
human sacrifices were yearly offered, a victim being hurled from the
rock into the sea below. The priests sometimes took the place of
these unfortunates, but on such occasions carefully avoided danger by
fastening to their persons flocks of live birds, the flapping of whose
pinions during the descent broke their fall. This rite was gradually
modified; and at one time we find the leap from the cliff used as an
ordeal to test the guilt of suspected persons.

In Sappho’s day it was customary for those suffering the pangs of
unrequited affection to take the Lover’s Leap from the precipice,
after secretly uttering their vows in the sanctuary of the god. Some,
intent on suicide, were dashed to pieces on the rocks below or perished
in the waves; others took the precaution to buoy themselves up with
feathers or bladders, trusting to a plunge in the cold sea or the
bruises they might receive, to cure their passion. Queen Artemisia, of
Halicarnassus, lost her life in taking the Lover’s Leap, after putting
out the eyes of the youth who would not return her attachment; and one
case is recorded in which a man four times resorted to this perilous
remedy.—The modern Greek sailor still calls the promontory “the Lady’s
Cape.”

[28] From which he has been called “the Dircean Swan.”

[29] The true site of the deme of Icaria, the birthplace of the drama,
was discovered in eastern Attica in the spring of 1888, by Prof. A. C.
Merriam, of Columbia College.

[30] The Sea of Azof.

[31] The sacrificial flame, from which omens were taken.

[32] The riddle proposed by the Sphinx: “What animal is that which goes
on four feet in the morning, two at noon, and three at evening?” The
answer of Œdipus was, _Man_.

[33] _Hippos_ means a _horse_ in Greek; _pheidon_, _economical_.

[34] An epigram of later date thus accounted for their names:—

“The Muses to Herodotus one day came, nine of them, and dined;
And in return, their host to pay, left each a book behind.”

[35] Hence probably the origin of the proverb, “Amicus Plato, sed magis
amica veritas”—“_Plato is dear, but truth is dearer_.”

[36] The difference between reasoning by Deduction and by Induction may
be made clearer by the following examples:—

DEDUCTION.—Dogs are quadrupeds.
Tray is a dog.
Therefore, Tray is a quadruped.

INDUCTION.—Tray is a quadruped; Carlo is a quadruped; Fan is a
quadruped;
Pet is a quadruped; etc.
Tray, Carlo, Fan, Pet, etc., are dogs.
Therefore, _all_ dogs are quadrupeds.

[37] Second crop of grass.

[38] An allusion to the hostility of Æetes, Medea’s father, and his
fire-breathing bulls, which Jason was required to tame before he could
get possession of the Golden Fleece.

[39] An allusion to the fate of Empedocles himself; see p. 236.

[40] From _Saturn_, an ancient Italian god fabled to have instructed
the people in agriculture. The metre was accommodated to the rapid
beats of the foot in the country dances at harvest-time.

[41] From Fescennium, an Etruscan town.

[42] When the Roman audience heard this sentiment, they shook the
theatre with their applause.

[43] A Roman knight, Laberius, who had lost caste by appearing on the
stage, made a good hit at Cicero, for his political non-committalism.
As he was going to his place in the theatre one day, Cicero, who was
seated in the orchestra, called out to him, “Laberius, I would make
room for you, if we were not so crowded here.”—“You crowded!” answered
Laberius. “Why, how is that? you generally manage to sit on two stools.”

[44] Allusion is here made to Antony’s purchase of the goods of Pompey
the Great, at auction, after the defeat of the latter in the civil war.

[45] The last word of the play, which invites the applause of the
audience.

[46] Amphiara’us, whose wife betrayed him for a pearl necklace, and was
afterward murdered by her son.

[47] A consecrated ground in ancient Rome, on which it was unlawful to
build.

[48] An allusion to the change from the purple-bordered _toga_ of the
youth, to the _toga virilis_, or manly robe.

[49] Hadrian was for the most part a patron of literary men, and
himself spoke and wrote with eloquence. Pope’s paraphrase has made
familiar his verse addressed to his soul:—

“Ah! fleeting spirit! wandering fire,
That long hast warmed my tender breast,
Must thou no more this frame inspire,
No more a pleasing, cheerful guest?
Whither, ah! whither art thou flying?
To what dark undiscovered shore?
Thou seem’st all trembling, shivering, dying,
And wit and humor are no more.”

[50] The fifty daughters of Danaus, who stabbed their husbands on the
marriage-night.

[51] The wicked minister of the emperor Tiberius, who encouraged his
master in the most detestable vices. At length, having engaged in a
conspiracy with the view of usurping the empire, he was executed by
Tiberius. The fate of the bronze statues raised in his honor is related
by the poet.

[52] The Etruscan goddess of fortune.

[53] Tacitus shared the unjust prejudice current among the Romans.

[54] This was the first of the ten persecutions of the Christians.

[55] For these “Gems,” as well as those under Greek literature, we have
drawn to some extent on the collections of Ramage.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Illustrated history of ancient literature, oriental and classical" ***

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