The power that Greece had to evolve her luminous effluvia is
prodigious,--even like that to-day which we see in France. Greece did
not colonize without civilizing,--an example that more than one modern
nation might follow. To buy and sell is not everything.
Tyre bought and sold; Berytus bought and sold; Sidon bought and sold;
Sarepta bought and sold. Where are these cities? Athens taught; Athens
is still at this hour one of the capitals of human thought.
The grass is growing on the six steps of the tribune where spoke
Demosthenes; the Ceramicus is a ravine half-choked with the marble-dust
which was once the palace of Cecrops; the Odeon of Herod Atticus at
the foot of the Acropolis is now but a ruin on which falls, at certain
hours, the imperfect shadow of the Parthenon; the temple of Theseus
belongs to the swallows; the goats browse on the Pnyx. Still the Greek
spirit is living; still Greece is queen; still Greece is goddess. A
commercial firm passes away; a school remains.
It is curious to say to one's self to-day that twenty-two centuries
ago small towns, isolated and scattered on the outskirts of the known
world, possessed, all of them, theatres. In point of civilization,
Greece began always by the construction of an academy, of a portico,
or of a logeum. Whoever could have seen, nearly at the same period,
rising at a short distance one from the other, in Umbria, the Gallic
town of Sens (now Sinigaglia), and, near Vesuvius, the Hellenic city
Parthenopea (at present Naples), would have recognized Gaul by the big
stone standing all red with blood, and Greece by the theatre.
This civilization by poetry and art had such a mighty force that
sometimes it subdued even war. The Sicilians--Plutarch relates it in
speaking of Nicias--gave liberty to the Greek prisoners who sang the
verses of Euripides.
Let us point out some very little known and very singular facts.
The Messenian colony, Zancle, in Sicily; the Corinthian colony,
Corcyra, distinct from the Corcyra of the Absyrtides Islands; the
Cycladian colony, Cyrene, in Libya; the three Phocean colonies, Helea
in Lucania, Palania in Corsica, Marseilles in France, had theatres.
The gad-fly having pursued Io all along the Adriatic Gulf, the Ionian
Sea reached as far as the harbour of Venetus, and Tregeste (now
Trieste) had a theatre. A theatre at Salpe, in Apulia; a theatre at
Squillacium, in Calabria; a theatre at Thernus, in Livadia; a theatre
at Lysimachia, founded by Lysimachus, Alexander's lieutenant; a theatre
at Scapta-Hyla, where Thucydides had gold-mines; a theatre at Byzia,
where Theseus had lived; a theatre in Chaonia, at Buthrotum, where
performed those equilibrists from Mount Chimera whom Apuleius admired
on the Pœcile; a theatre in Pannonia, at Bude, where the Metanastes
were,--that is to say, the "Transplanted." Many of these colonies,
situated afar, were much exposed. In the Isle of Sardinia, which the
Greeks named Ichnusa, on account of its resemblance to the sole of
the foot, Calaris (now Cagliari) was, so to speak, under the Punic
clutch; Cibalis, in Mysia, had to fear the Triballi; Aspalathon, the
Illyrians; Tomis, the future resting-place of Ovid, the Scordisci;
Miletus, in Anatolia, the Massagetes; Denia, in Spain, the Cantabrians;
Salmydessus, the Molossians; Carsina, the Tauro-Scythians; Gelonus,
the Arymphæans of Sarmatia who lived on acorns; Apollonia, the
Hamaxobians, wandering in their chariots; Abdera, the birth-place
of Democritus, the Thracians, men tattooed all over,--all these
towns, by the side of their citadel, had a theatre. Why? Because the
theatre keeps alight the flame of love for the fatherland. Having the
barbarians at their gates, it was important that they should remain
Greeks. The national spirit is the strongest of bulwarks.
The Greek drama was profoundly lyrical. It was often less a tragedy
than a dithyramb. It had occasionally strophes as powerful as swords.
It rushed on the scene, wearing the helmet, and it was an ode armed
_cap-à-pie._ We know what a Marseillaise can do.
Many of these theatres were in granite, some in brick. The theatre
of Apollonia was in marble. The theatre of Salmydessus, which could
be moved to the Doric place or to the Epiphanian place, was a vast
scaffolding rolling on cylinders, after the fashion of those wooden
towers which they thrust against the stone towers of besieged towns.
And what poet did they play by preference at these theatres? Æschylus.
Æschylus was for Greece the autochthonic poet. He was more than Greek,
he was Pelasgian. He was born at Eleusis; and not only was he Eleusian,
but Eleusiatic,--that is to say, a believer. It is the same shade as
English and Anglican. The Asiatic element, the grandiose deformation
of this genius, increased respect for it; for people said that the
great Dionysus, that Bacchus, common to the West and the East, came in
Æschylus's dreams to dictate to him his tragedies. You find again here
the "familiar spirit" of Shakespeare.
Æschylus, Eupatride, and Eginetic struck the Greeks as more Greek
than themselves. In those times of code and dogma mingled together,
to be sacerdotal was an elevated way of being national. Fifty-two
of his tragedies had been crowned. On leaving the theatre after the
performance of the plays of Æschylus, the men would strike the shields
hung at the doors of the temples, crying, "Fatherland, fatherland!" Let
us add here, that to be hieratic did not hinder him from being demotic.
Æschylus loved the people, and the people adored him. There are two
sides to greatness: majesty is one, familiarity is the other. Æschylus
was familiar with the turbulent and generous mob of Athens. He often
gave to that mob a fine part in his plays. See, in the "Orestias,"
how tenderly the chorus, which is the people, receive Cassandra! The
queen uses the slave roughly, and scares him whom the chorus tries to
reassure and soothe. Æschylus had introduced the people in his grandest
works,--in "Pentheus," by the tragedy of "The Woolcombers;" in "Niobe,"
by the tragedy of the "Nurses;" in "Athamas," by the tragedy of the
"Net-drawers;" in "Iphigenia," by the tragedy of the "Bed-Makers."
It was on the side of the people that he turned the balance in that
mysterious drama, "The Weighing of Souls."[1] Therefore had he been
chosen to preserve the sacred fire.
In all the Greek colonies they played the "Orestias" and "The
Persians." Æschylus being present, the fatherland was no longer absent.
The magistrates ordered these almost religious representations. The
gigantic Æschylean theatre was intrusted with watching over the infancy
of the colonies. It enclosed them in the Greek spirit, it guaranteed
them from the influence of bad neighbours, and from all temptations
of being led astray. It preserved them from foreign contact, it
maintained them within the Hellenic circle. It was there as a warning.
All those young offsprings of Greece were, so to speak, placed under
the care of Æschylus.
In India they readily give the children into the charge of elephants.
These enormous specimens of goodness watch over the little things.
The whole group of flaxen heads sing, laugh, and play under the shade
of the trees. The habitation is at some distance. The mother is not
with them. She is at home, busy with her domestic cares; she pays
no attention to her children. Yet, joyful as they are, they are in
danger. These beautiful trees are treacherous; they hide under their
thickness thorns, claws, and teeth. There the cactus bristles up, the
lynx roams, the viper crawls. The children must not wander away; beyond
a certain limit they would be lost. Nevertheless, they run about, call
to one another, pull and entice one another away, some of them scarcely
stuttering, and quite unsteady on their little feet. At times one of
them goes too far. Then a formidable trunk is stretched out, seizes the
little one, and gently carries him home.
[Footnote 1: The Psychostasia.]