CHAPTER I.

WESTWARD EMPIRE;

OR,

The Great Drama of Human Progress.

BY

E.L. MAGOON,

AUTHOR OF "PROVERBS FOR THE PEOPLE," "REPUBLICAN CHRISTIANITY," "ORATORS OF

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION," "LIVING ORATORS IN AMERICA," ETC., ETC.

"Westward the course of empire takes its way,

The four first acts already past;

A fifth shall close the drama with the day,

Time's noblest offspring is the last."

GEORGE BERKELEY.

NEW YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS,

329 TO 335 PEARL STREET.

1856.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by

HARPER AND BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York.

TO CITIZENS

WHO TRUST IN PROVIDENCE,

MEN WHO ARE TRUE TO HUMANITY,

AND PATRIOTS

ALWAYS HOPEFUL OF THE REPUBLIC,

THIS WORK

IS FRATERNALLY INSCRIBED.

INTRODUCTION.

By a natural movement, in not one of its great elements has

civilization gone eastward an inch since authentic history began. To

demonstrate this simple and comprehensive fact is the motive of the

following work, and all the great leading events of time are the means

employed. Berkeley has suggested a grand outline in his significant

stanza, but neither he nor any other author has hitherto attempted to

define the acts, and portray the connected scenes, which constitute the

one great drama of human progress.

Artistic beauty, martial force, scientific invention, and universal

amelioration, have thus far illustrated the great progressional law

of successive predominance, and these, we believe, will ultimately

be consummated in the supreme sway of perfect civilization. We are

led to this view by taking a catholic survey of every nation that

has risen above the historical horizon; in which course we observe

that all are alike the subjects of Providence, each in its time and

place being furnished with a part to act, and a destiny to fulfill.

Considered in this light, it may be reverently said that human history

is a sacred drama, of which God is the poet, each transitional age an

act, humanity the hero, and the discriminating annalist a prophetical

interpreter.

But this work is not so much the defense of a theory as it is the

display of facts, and the deduction of a general principle consequent

thereupon. The travels of men, and the trade-currents of God, move

spontaneously and perpetually toward the West. The opposite direction

is always "down East," while all healthful expansion and improvement is

"out West." The great eastern turnpike, canal, or railway, was never

built, nor has a great eastern ship yet been launched on the deep. If

the unnatural name has of late been given to a colossal craft, the

misnomer is indicated by the fact, that her first trip is appointed to

be a western one, and to terminate in our most eastern harbor, where

the most stupendous development of western commerce just begins. All

great enterprises by land and by sea have ever commenced in the East,

and augmented both their efficiency and worth through a continuous

unfolding toward the setting sun. The latest race is evermore the

best, the last half of each great age is most prolific in progressive

elements, and the west end of every great town throughout Europe and

America is the growing end.

An introduction ought to stimulate rational curiosity, while it

justifies the labors of the author, by furnishing his reader with a

succinct programme of the conditions of the subject. We consider the

age of Pericles to have terminated four centuries before, and that of

Augustus five centuries after, the birth of Christ. The age of Leo

X. began in the fifth century, with the fall of the Western Empire,

and ended in the sixteenth, soon after the final downfall of the East.

The seventeenth century was the great era of colonial empire, and then

began the age of Washington. It is not man but God who has thrown

these clear lines of demarcation over the entire mass of humanity, as

innumerable dates, names, and events, alluded to in the following work

will show. Copious references to authorities are purposely omitted,

as we wish to render the pages as compact as possible with unbroken

thought, but the facts themselves can easily be verified by the

enlightened reader, or confuted if they are incorrect.

The service we herein attempt is to portray the relations of the

present to the past and future, by tracing all the mightiest elements

of our civilization to their respective sources, and by indicating

the antecedents of those national heroes whose names shine upon the

forehead of our age, and whose accumulated productions constitute the

grandest inheritance of the remotest posterity. The mighty princes of

literature of all climes, "who still rule our spirits from their urns,"

are summoned into stately procession, followed by the great masters

of art, science, philosophy, and religion, each one bearing his own

distinct physiognomy, and taking precedence in historical order. It

is in this natural course that we would mold numerous and diversified

materials into one homogeneous whole. The work is an abbreviated

nomenclature of celebrated personages and events, a bold sketch of the

great historical ages, not divided according to arbitrary chronological

dates, or a formal geographical plan, but embracing all authentic

periods in their indissoluble continuity of development, illustrated

by the multifarious monuments which it has successively produced and

passed. The philosophy of history resides not in isolated events and

detached facts, but flows without interruption down the lapse of ages,

the accompaniment of human destiny, and the life of ennobling actions;

at once penetrating all incidents, and perpetuating all progress.

In the present undertaking, the author proposes in general terms

to remind the reader of the various masterpieces which the past

has bequeathed, rather than minutely to describe their authors, or

criticise their merits. It is not our object to pronounce a judgment

upon the characters and achievements of the great actors on the stage

we survey, but simply to point out the manifest unity and advancement

of the great drama as it proceeds. All minute details are omitted,

in order to present as distinctly as possible the main outlines.

As we contemplate the vast patrimony of knowledge, whence it came,

and whither it leads, we watch the twilight on eastern hills as it

brightens into midday, and then goes flooding over the broad expanse

of the West. The consecutive series of historical events, though they

transpire wide apart, and extend through a long lapse of ages, are

never absolutely separated, but in the presence of the great Father are

intimately joined in a sublime association, and mutually co-operate

for the highest good of the greatest number. Different currents may

seem to flow from the most diverse sources, and in opposite directions,

but they are all tributaries to one centralizing channel, wherein flows

forward forever the accumulating aggregate of human fortunes, under the

divine control. A papal decree was once obtained condemning Galileo's

doctrine touching the revolution of the earth; but that did not arrest

pre-ordained planetary motion, nor prevent all sublunary beings from

turning with it. Fortunately the tide of improvement has already

rolled onward so far, and with such increased might, that Oxford is

just as impotent to stay the ameliorating progress of mankind as was

the Vatican, and both must advance with a diviner momentum, or be

outstripped by a younger competitor in the heavenly course.

Without an intelligent faith in the divine purpose to incite and

control perpetual progress toward the perfection of mankind, history is

an insoluble enigma, a huge pile of detached fragments, and the great

drama of humanity must forever remain devoid of all proper results.

But even Aristotle expressed a worthier view, in saying that every

end is great; it is so, because it forms the beginning of something

greater. In nature, nothing actually perishes. Death is birth, and the

dissolution of every organization is but the development and visible

advancement of a fresher type of being. Naturally every substance is

conservative of all the vitality it can possibly sustain, and when any

given form apparently perishes, it is but to reveal a still higher life

that lay concealed behind it, awaiting the moment of its appointed

succession to power. Thus decay and renewal constitute a perpetual

struggle, identical life rising through multifarious death toward the

supreme in freedom and power. In proportion to the graduated scale

of existence, lesser or greater, lower or higher, this law applies

with more palpable justness, and is best exemplified in the unpausing

progress which humanity makes in its predetermined career.

In tracing the evolution of those laws which rule in the various realms

of simultaneous growth, we see that, while all are connected, and

always act upon each other, some one of them, for the time being, must

be preponderant, in order to impart an impulse to the rest, though,

in its appointed time, another may be called to succeed, and receive

superior expansion. It is that which develops the most advanced nation

of a given era, and constitutes the moving centre of progressive

civilization. It is the connecting bond and quickening impulse of

those heroes who can marshal motives as well as armies, and make the

grandeur of their own nationality the introduction and nutriment of a

grander nation to come. The vanguard of the human race, invested with

and impelled by this indomitable energy, moves in the appointed orbit,

losing neither momentum nor effulgence as it advances, but rather

increasing both. If we inquire as to the area and agency of the chief

progression in the domain of human history, it will be found that

Japhet has been the constant leader, Europe the intermediate track,

and America the manifest goal. From all the premises furnished by

experience, and the fullest assurance of faith, we must infer that

this continent, ruled by the Republic upon its centre, is destined to

garner the selected seed from antecedent harvests, that it may sow

world-wide the germs of ultimate and universal worth.

Every great epoch has its master impulse, which acts as the precursor

of a yet greater one to succeed it. A multitude of hearts may throb

with ardent impatience, and myriads of hands may be ready to act, but

not one profitable pulsation is there, nor an effective achievement,

save as the actuating soul of the age shall animate and direct. All

great revolutions in the intellectual world are marked by successive

steps of generalization and transitions into wider realms through

more expanded truths. We advance from the obscure to the obvious,

from single facts to homogeneous combinations, and from particular

doctrines to an all-comprehensive system. Nothing that does not relate

to the perpetual progress of the great drama of divine Providence,

and illustrate it, is admitted within our plan. With the whole field

of human history before us, we are first to mark the most prominent

features, and then trace whatever is subordinate and auxiliary. Four

mighty landmarks rise most prominently to the view, around which

are concentrated all the beneficent inventions and renowned names,

universally admired by the civilized world. But, though supreme, these

are not separate from inferior agents. True, the chief glory of an

age, or people, seems to be the work of a few leading minds, while all

others are transient actors on the stage. But each epoch, and all

connected therewith, is a unit, indissolubly joined to its successors,

in the formation of which it has contributed all the primary elements.

Every subsequent act is the legitimate evolution of its predecessor,

and from prelude to sequel, there is but one symmetrical development

of an infinite plan. There may be deep and dark eddies in the stream,

and even long reaches, wherein the current seems to assume a retrograde

course, nevertheless its progress is not for a moment arrested, nor

does it ever cease from innumerable tributaries evermore to augment its

force. The spring-head we may not discern, but the main channel can be

clearly traced through every clime, without meeting with whirlpools

completely stationary, or depths too stagnant for some lofty use.

Veritable history is but an exponent of Providence, a vivid commentary

on the one great purpose of the divine mind in the work of redemption,

and should be written, as it is realized, with this intent. This

is the Ariadne clew which alone can guide us through the otherwise

inextricable labyrinth. We need, if possible, to reproduce, in

subdued outline, the comprehensive political and ecclesiastical drama

which the Revelator witnessed, as in a moving panorama, reaching

from the beginning of sublunary scenes to their end. Such would be

the portraiture of great men, great revolutions, and great results,

illuminated by the one glorious purpose of the great God. This is

signalized not only in always providing and fitting instruments for

each emergency that may arise, but in subordinating all agents, and

the causes which exercise their worth, to the perfection of humanity,

by means of salutary discipline. When the ancient muses inspired

Herodotus to write, and the genius of the nation prompted him to recite

before assembled Greece, it was the first epical announcement of that

divine poetry which forever celebrates the destinies of our race. An

immensity of facts has since been added, and innumerable scenes have

further evolved the purposes of the Supreme to such an extent, that

the utmost comprehensiveness of dramatic delineation is requisite to

give an adequate idea of the ever enlarging orbits of development,

through which humanity has already passed, together with the legitimate

unfoldings which a yet sublimer future will present. This highest ideal

is beyond the reach of epical representation, and is of all unities

the grandest since it considers the whole human race as one, like an

individual soul, having the Infinite as the beginning and end of its

finite existence.

We are probably in near neighborhood to inventions and improvements

soon to eclipse all foregone wonders. The greatest proficient in

letters, art, or science, is merely a flugelman in the army of

knowledge, and if called to proclaim the miracle of to-day, doubtless

he will be further summoned to announce the reward of nocturnal

marchings, by the news of a greater miracle, to-morrow. Every year

finds us a new stadium in advance; but it is only at great culminating

eras that civilization seems to become aware of the actual speed of

its reformatory motion. Victory always remains with the new spirit,

and freedom, like truth, never can become old; they are in God, and

thereby the final battle and widest conquest must eventually be

secured. Not one great campaign was ever lost to humanity, nor ever

will be. Every historical nation bears in its bosom the germs of more

prolific and ennobling fruits, which their successors will employ to

subdue and adorn hardier and richer fields. The scenery changes with

each act performed, but the plot goes steadily forward. Providence is

making the tour of the world, and every new phase of civilization is

an additional proof of a divinely identical plan. As the age to come

shall lapse continuously upon the tombs of empires and generations of

mankind, we believe that this era will not descend undistinguished

among the centuries past. The present march of the human mind, and the

exalted ends it has in view, are so remarkable, that the period of our

existence will ever be distinguished in the esteem of those who will

come after us. From the past and the present a glorious future must

succeed. We may most reasonably hope that the age now transpiring, the

age we have seen born, and which will see us buried, will transmit to

our children and their remotest posterity, increasing virtues, and

perpetually lessened wrongs.

Such, in fine, is the profound and joyous conviction of the author,

and to elucidate which has been consecrated a considerable portion

of what leisure he has been able to command during the past seven

years. Herein will not be found one local allusion, or envenomed word,

designed to wound any sect or section. But, with one absorbing purpose,

he has pressed steadily forward, laying all available resources

under contribution, to show how each advancing epoch recasts the

history of the past, and foretokens the future, in contemplating it

from its own point of view. Let us fondly hope that, on the side of

the globe opposite to the first Ararat, shall a second be reached by

the Ark of conservative civilization, whereon human reason and divine

righteousness will repose in the sublimest earthly union, and thence

send down a perfected race to propagate their virtues, and redeem

mankind.

ELM.

NEW YORK, July 4th, 1856.

CONTENTS.

PART FIRST.

AGE OF PERICLES.

Chapter I.--Literature 21

II.--Art 48

III.--Science 71

IV.--Philosophy 81

V.--Religion 92

PART SECOND.

AGE OF AUGUSTUS.

Chapter I.--Literature 121

II.--Art 154

III.--Science 176

IV.--Philosophy 193

V.--Religion 208

PART THIRD.

AGE OF LEO X.

Chapter I.--Literature 231

II.--Art 265

III.--Science 292

IV.--Philosophy 313

V.--Religion 325

PART FOURTH.

AGE OF WASHINGTON.

Chapter I.--Literature 347

II.--Art 372

III.--Science 388

IV.--Philosophy 407

V.--Religion 423

PERICLES;

OR,

THE AGE OF ARTISTIC BEAUTY.

PROLOGUE OF MOTTOES.

"Could we create so close, tender, and cordial a connection between

the citizens of a state, as to induce all to consider themselves as

relatives--as fathers, brothers, and sisters, then this whole state

would constitute but a single family, be subjected to the most perfect

regulations, and become the happiest republic that ever existed upon

earth."--Plato.

"Although this great edifice of universal history, where the conclusion

at least is still wanting, is in this respect incomplete, and appears

but a mighty fragment of which even particular parts are less known to

us than others; yet is this edifice sufficiently advanced, and many of

its great wings and members are sufficiently unfolded to our view, to

enable us, by a lucid arrangement of the different periods of history,

to gain a clear insight into the general plan of the whole."--Frederic

Von Schlegel.

"Whatever is necessary exists."--De Maistre.

"God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of

Shem."--Genesis ix. 27.

PART FIRST.

PERICLES.--AGE OF ARTISTIC BEAUTY.

CHAPTER I.

LITERATURE.

Civilization is earth's central stream, and all literatures, arts,

sciences, philosophies, and religions are but tributaries to swell its

tide and increase its current. To indicate the successive sources,

describe the multiform elements, and demonstrate the progressive

aggregation and enrichment of this unity in diversity, is the object of

the present work.

Much patient and critical research will be requisite at each remove,

but the chief difficulty lies at the threshold of the undertaking.

When and with what does authentic history, illustrated through human

progress, begin? Geography, ethnology, and philology must be our chief

oracles in reply.

Western Asia was doubtless the cradle of the earliest civilized

communities, and the source of all authentic improvement. Mount Kylas

gave the term _koilon_, heaven, to the Greeks, and is probably

the highest eminence on earth. Moorcroft viewed it from a tableland

more than seventeen thousand feet high, and describes its sides and

craggy summits of still more tremendous altitude, apparently covered

thickly with snow. At its base emerges the Indus, that mighty artery

of western India, on the bank of which stands Attac, a name which the

great civilizing race afterward applied to the fairest realm of their

culture. Standing at this fountain-head, we find increased facilities

for striking out the great historico-geographical outline which marks

the progress of the patriarch bands of India, Egypt, and Europe. The

intimate connection between the Nilitic valley, Greece, and the

lands of the Indus, is rendered yet more evident by the geographical

development of the colonization of eastern Europe, in which the

ingenious people of _Abu-Sin_, Abyssinians, founded the mercantile

and prosperous community of Corinthus. _Cor-Indus_, that is,

mouth of the Indus, carried westward, became the classical Corinth.

The distance from the Indian shore was not so great but that the sail

which spread for Ceylon could waft to the Red Sea, where the fleets of

Tyre, of Solomon and of Hiram were to be found. The ancient Institutes

of Menu expressly refer to merchants who traffic beyond sea; and,

moreover, that the Hindoos were westward navigators from the earliest

ages, the vestiges of their religion in the Archipelago abundantly

attest. From the same lofty regions descended the _Parasoos_,

that is, warriors of the Axe, to penetrate and give name to Persia,

while Colchis and Armenia became as distinctly the product and proof

of Indian colonization. Down this central route came the Pilgrim

Fathers of the first great civilizing nations, making the whole mass

of authentic geography a venerable journal of emigration on the most

gigantic scale.

Let us now briefly consider the progressive changes which have passed

upon this great geographical chart of historical development, and

observe their effects. Successive tribes of living beings have perished

thereon, and been replaced with better and nobler races, until at last

man came to be lord of earth, and to reap from it all the enjoyments

increasing culture could bestow. From the beginning, progress has

been maintained in and through convulsions, each succeeding tempest

alternating with a sublimer calm. Relying on human traditions alone,

we can acquaint ourselves with no primary people, no first seat of

civilization, no original philosophy, or natural wisdom. Guided by a

higher authority, it is necessary to penetrate the intervening mists of

symbolical fables, and collect numerous scientific facts, in order to

attain secure ground, whereon the first germ of humanity was planted,

and whence it has perpetually developed itself under the control

of unfaltering law. At the farthest horizon of the most venerable

antiquity, several light points appear, the harbingers of civilization,

radiating toward each other, and indicating a common point of union in

the darkness behind. They resemble the superior lights among the stars

of the firmament, whose brightness we perceive amid the eternal suns

of the universe, but whose relative distances from our own planet it is

impossible to ascertain. The dwelling of a divine spark in the human

bosom has, even from the obscurest height of Caucasus, been recognized

in the beautiful tradition of Prometheus; but the question of the first

springing up of mankind can not be fully elucidated by mere antiquarian

research. In the last result, that is a matter to be left to the

disclosures of revelation and the exercise of faith.

The Mosaic narrative of creation is the primitive document of our

race, and this commemorates the repeated convulsions and prodigious

corruption of the world, previous to the Noachian flood. Of the

earliest period, it says: "The earth was without form, and void; and

darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved

upon the face of the waters." Gen. i. 2. Of post-diluvian history,

every thing was embraced in that last recorded fact of Noah's life,

a prophecy delivered in the infancy of mankind, and which every

succeeding development has only tended to illustrate and confirm. Gen.

ix. 18, 19--"The sons of Noah that went forth from the ark, were Shem,

Ham, and Japheth. These are the three sons of Noah, and of them was

the whole (inhabited) earth overspread." On these three races distinct

destinies were pronounced, they receiving a moral and physical nature

accordant to their several allotments. The office of extension was

given to Japhet, that of religion to Shem, and servitude to Ham.

Ethnology, the science of nations, in its most recent and profound

deductions, differs somewhat in detail, but the great conclusion is

the same. The threefold branches radiate from a common stock, and in

their growth from east to west, they mark the high road of universal

progress, and adorn the stage on which the entire drama of ancient

history has been performed. The prediction of Noah is the record of

human destiny, and has been subjected to the severest test. Material

vestiges of creation, and the earliest monuments of mind, alike place

the origin of man in the central East. The people of the Brahmins

come down from the Hindo-Khu into the plains of the Indus and the

Ganges; Assyria and Bactriana receive their inhabitants from the high

lands of Armenia and Persia. Those nations advance rapidly, and, in

the remotest antiquity, attained a degree of culture of which the

temples and monuments of Egypt and India, together with the palaces

of Nineveh, are glorious witnesses. As the basis of preliminary

improvement, they rapidly developed to a degree, then movement was

stayed, and thenceforth their stationary remains mark the oriental

boundary of the historic race. Ethnology testifies that Ham peopled

Egypt, and that the primary emigration thither from Asia may have

been ante-Noachian. The native name of Egypt is Chami, the black; and

this fact is symbolically represented by the name of its predestined

ancestor, Cham, Shem's eldest brother, Japhet being the youngest of the

three. When the comprehensive fortunes of the triple founders of our

race were foretold, Shem was called the elder brother of Japhet, but

not of Ham. Gen. x. 32--"By these were the nations divided after the

flood." Thus the great middle country in western Asia is the central

point of the general view. On the south, the race of Ham includes

degenerate Egypt, and all the sombre African tribes beyond. In the

north Caucasian regions, the race of Japhet spread widely; and in

central Asia the race of Shem. These general positions have been proved

by the ethnologists, Pritchard and Bunsen, and are confirmed by the

most reliable archæologists, as well as by the leading physiologists of

the world, Morton, Cuvier, and Blumenbach.

But we will pass to the third and most copious means of demonstration,

philology. It is believed that a furious religious war, long anterior

to the historic Shem, drove a large multitude of oriental inhabitants

westward, and that these became the primary stratum of European

humanity, afterward superseded by the Japhetic race, wherever the germs

of true history took root. The names given by the Pelasgi to the chief

mountains of Greece, as well as the name itself of that mysterious

people, point to an emigration from India, whence a twofold stream

of emigration seems to have flowed. We have alluded above to the one

which, under the auspices of the semi-historic Shem, passed through

Persia and northern Arabia into Egypt, and adjoined the unhistoric

Ham. At a later period, whatever of excellence that transition

realm developed passed into southern Greece. The other current, the

grandest and most prolific of all, passed through Persia, along the

Caspian sea, over mount Caucasus, and thence through Thrace direct to

northern Greece. The productive tribes, at their first appearance on

the horizon, enter upon the prospective stage with the elements of

language, and with this fundamental power eliminated for their use,

they were formed into the social compact of progressive humanity.

The earliest inventors of the glorious art of writing deserve the

most grateful regard. The search after them, and their several stages

of discovery, tends to strengthen the view held by many, that the

common chronology of history embraces too limited a period; and that

hoary India, at an era anterior to human record, originated the first

pictorial system and communicated it to the Chinese, whose records

attribute their mode of writing to a foreign source. But the yellow

races of the far East are destined to remain still in the dawn: the sun

of civilization has never risen sufficiently high above them to give

vital growth to any product they have either invented or received. But

the old emigrants of Egypt soon reduced their pictorial language to

rough hieroglyphic outlines, and then to signs yet more approximating

sounds, which laid the foundation for European alphabets.

Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia, have left us no specimens of their

writing, aside from the dubious carvings upon the lofty rocks of Asia.

But this "handwriting upon the wall," so long ago interpreted by the

prophet Daniel, is now laid open to general comprehension, through

Layard and Rawlinson, as a most important link in the philological

chain. It was indeed strange that when the Egyptians had broken down

the thin partition which separated them from phonetic language, their

last monuments should exhibit no nearer approach to it than the first.

The cuneiform inscriptions of Assyria render the order of progression

perfect, connecting the later achievements in literary research with

the previous triumphs of Young and Champollion. We discover syllables

at length; and if on the banks of the Nile, we found a full grown

adult, but impotent and out of the way, we meet, on the banks of the

Euphrates, with a vigorous child, yet imperfect certainly, but actually

advancing, and in the right path. Leaving the cumbrous and astute

paraphernalia of pictorial and symbolic characters, the speaking signs

passed from the arrow-points of Assyria into the flexile and immortal

worth of the Phœnician alphabet. As soon as this invention had been

planted in a neighboring state, the alphabetic system was appropriated

by the great leader of the Hebrews, when they returned to the land

of their fathers, and became neighbors to the Phœnicians. Certain

modifications supervened, adapted to their political and religious

institutions; but the original names of the signs which constitute the

Hebrew alphabet, strikingly prove their derivation from a hieroglyphic

system, and indicate clearly a pictorial origin. Moreover, the first

allusion to writing in the books of Moses is to the _tablets_

of stone, "after the manner of a signet," by which we may understand

engraved writing, like that of the Assyrian cylinders, or scales.

If the Shemitic tongues exhibit undeniable proof of their being derived

from the western part of central Asia, the Indo-European languages

present no less evidence of the gradual extension of these races from

the eastern part. The Shemitic tribes never extended into Europe,

except by temporary excursions. With the exception of Armenia, they

have not lost ground in Asia, and have, from the beginning, penetrated

into Africa, where no traces of Japhetic origin are discernible. Of

Shem, the Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew are the three great monuments.

Japhet nationalized the Sanscrit, Persian, and Greek, with all their

descendants, the languages of beauty, power and progress everywhere.

In early Greece, a purely Egyptian element was planted by Cecrops, a

native of Säis, in the Delta, but whether he was a native Copt does

not appear. He migrated B.C. about 1550, and married a daughter of the

Pelasgi, so it is not likely he introduced any of his own language.

The same may be said of the colonist Danaus and his family, though

he, as brother of the king Sesostris, was doubtless of unmingled

Egyptian race. A much stronger element must be accounted for in the

Phœnician immigration of Cadmus, and the constant intercourse kept

up by that people with continental Greece. Crete should be regarded

as the stepping-stone on the auspicious high way, the first amalgam

wherein Egyptian, Pelasgic, and Phœnician civilization mingled, and,

when properly blended, was transferred to the main land. Then came the

purely Japhetic element, and gave tone and character to all. That great

genius of Hellas, whose name has perished like that of the inventor

of the plow, but who lives enshrined in the most intellectual of all

monuments, worked upon this eastern element as he did upon every other

capability submitted to his inventive and intellectualizing power.

He rendered the limited alphabet of Shem universal, eliminating the

signs for harsh, guttural sounds, and by preserving those which were

rejected, in the series of the numerals. The twenty-two letters of

Shem became the twenty-four of Japhet, and thus, by their combined

energies, a philosophical alphabet was produced, at once the aggregate

of all Asiatic idioms, and the guaranty of all European culture. It

was the receiver and transmitter of the most noble treasures ever

garnered in the realms of intellect and emotion, a pure medium for

the investigating faculty of the senses, as well as the mightiest

weapon for the plastic and vitalizing power of imagination, the Greeks

ever possessed, and which imperishable heritage they have left as the

richest gift to coming generations.

During thrice ten centuries of the early world, the various oriental

nations followed in their development an isolated course; and two

vast peoples, the Chinese and Indians, have remained to this day in a

totally sequestered state. They are in the same condition of immobility

now, as at the beginning of the historical nations, that is to say,

only six, or at most seven centuries before the Christian era. Still,

India, with its philosophy and myths, its literature and laws, is

worthy of special study, as it presents a page of the primitive annals

of the world. But before the brilliant rays of the East streamed

toward us from Hellenic sources, every thing seemed obscure--as to

an explorer of the majestic tombs of Egypt, the farther he advances

within, the more is he deserted by light. The first reliable guide we

meet, is the art of writing; and this, so far from being an invention

of recent times, reaches back to the most venerable antiquity. The only

key to an understanding of the literature of Media and Persia, and in

some respects of Greece, is furnished by the languages of India, and

especially by that preserved in the hymns of the Veda, some of which

ascend to the remote era of B.C. 2448. A claim to antiquity so great

would appear incredible, were it not sustained beyond a doubt by the

Assyrian remains recently exhumed. Like the region of its origin,

Sanscrit literature is perfectly anomalous, and bears a striking

resemblance to the extinct relics of that vast area over which it

passed, to become the parent of all those dialects which in Europe are

called classical.

Escaping from the mummified civilization of Egypt and the inflexible

East, we strike more boldly into the high road of all improvement,

and observe how rapidly power of every kind passes from Shem to the

irresistible Japhet. The continuous stream of humanity moves clearly

and with increased speed through a new and broader channel. As Shem was

employed to introduce all religions on earth, so is he made to perform

the most prominent part in the theological culture of mankind. But

conscious speculation, elegant letters, and beautifying art all belong

to the younger Japhet, whose heroes are Hellenes, and whose magnificent

progeny are the myriad multitudes of the entire Indo-Germanic stock.

Thus, by the light of linguistic research, we descend from the exalted

cradle of the human race to the prepared field of their first grand

development. As we approximate the sphere wherein all faculties are

free, and each element of excellence soars rapidly to its culminating

height, a historical unity becomes manifest in language, wisdom, arts,

sciences, and the most comprehensive civilization. These innumerable

facts are no patch-work of incoherent fragments, no chance rivulets

flowing in isolated beds, but tributaries to one uninterrupted current,

correlative proofs of one and the same grand development. Language,

the last struggle of the agonized age of Ham, the first triumph of

the reason of Shem, was the magnificent medium perfected by Japhet,

and through which, under the auspices of the Periclean age, universal

man might see all his glories simultaneously revealed. Five hundred

years before the Christian era, all nationalities east of Athens had

perished; then and there, in consummate literature, we behold God's

vanguard on earth. To the Hellenes, the beautiful of every type was

revealed.

In fullness, exactness, flexibility and grace, the Greek language

surpasses all other linguistic forms, and remains the first great

masterpiece of the classic world. As we watch the growth of a tender

exotic plant, gradually removed to a higher latitude, and at each

stage of its matured beauty experience fresh joy, so the philologist

watches the tender shoot of the first European tongue as it unfolds

under the mild skies of Ionia, passes to the isles of the Ægean, and

finally strikes its strong roots in fruitful Attica. In infancy, it was

redolent with the fragrance of festive song; in maturity it scattered

abroad priceless worth in every style of literature, art, science and

philosophy; till at last, touched by the hand of despotism, its living

beauty faded, but even in death, like Medora, is still invested with

the lingering charms of youth.

Literature, as we design to use the term, embraces all those mental

exertions which relate to man and his welfare; but which, in their

most refined form, display intellect as embodied in written thought.

The first great original was produced by the Greeks. It is true they

received their alphabet and many imperfect elements from the Asiatic

nations, but the perfected whole of a national literature was doubtless

their own. The Shemite could even excel in the primitive strains of

poetry, but the restrictive power of local attachments rendered him

incapable of producing any more regular form. That vivid combination of

lyric beauty and epic might, the drama, which constitutes a complete

representation of national destinies, was entirely unknown to him. The

"Song of Solomon," which best represents the mental character of that

race, shows that however near the Hebrew mind in its zenith, might

approach the higher forms of art, it could not go beyond the ode.

Though the elements of all literature, art and science existed in the

east, Sesostris of the old empire was obliged to borrow from Japhetic

inventors, as Solomon and Hiram did.

The geographical position of Athens is worthy of notice. In the

march of civilization from east to west, she stood nearly midway,

and extended her open palm to receive and impart the physical and

intellectual wealth of nations. Her people united the hardihood of

the mountaineer with the elasticity of maritime tribes, and never

had a country of such diversified physical qualities, elicited such

varied excellences of mind. We look in vain for like effects among

the colossal monarchies from which the colonists had been sifted, and

are led in wonder to contrast the smallness of the country with the

wealth of its products. Ranging from Olympus on the north, to Pænarus,

her southern headland, Greece extended but two hundred and fifty

miles; while two thirds of that distance would conduct the traveler

from the temple of Minerva, on the eastern promontory of Sunium, to

Leucadia her western extreme. But if the superfices of that area were

insignificant, whereon the dragon teeth were sown, prolific of all

inland fruitfulness, its coasts were rich in harbors, from one of

which the Argonauts embarked on their romantic voyage, followed in

succeeding ages by numerous larger expeditions in successful search

after golden gains. The small but glorious land of Hellas lay within

the line of beauty, by which, from the first, the uncouth barbarian was

separated from the graceful Greek. Coincident with the happy period of

the political history of that land, all her mental glories occupy no

greater space than the three centuries which intervened between Solon

and Alexander, having Pericles for the culminating point.

It is necessary that the fullness of invention should precede the

refinement of art, legend before history, and poetry before criticism.

A long period of traditionary wealth existed between the Trojan war and

the arts of peace, upon which the plastic spirit of Greece breathed

an energizing originality and independence, creating the variety,

beauty, and immortality of unrivaled works. The Hellenic race, children

of the beautiful, became veritably a nation, in expressing the first

great idea of earth, beauty. This entered into all the elements which

composed their interior life, as well as outward expressions, and

stamped upon all departments a distinct physiognomy. Uncounted millions

had roamed the wilds of Africa and Asia, of whom history takes no

account, because they matured no idea; but the true dawn of improvement

began at length to appear, and representative individuals stood forth

as the aggregate of anterior worth and progenitors of prospective

glories. A great age was easily read in a few resplendent proper names.

Pericles was the exactest symbol of his age, his character its product,

and his career its historian. His advent marked the close of a heroic

period in the sudden meridian of fascinating civilization. For forty

years he was the ruling genius of that glorious city which it was the

ambition of his life to adorn for exhibition, and crown for command.

Each individuality fashioned by Homer, expressed some distinct

quality of heroic power, and thereby represents a separate class.

Grace characterizes Nereus, dignity Agamemnon, impetuosity Hector,

massiveness the unswerving prowess of the greater, and velocity the

lesser Ajax; perseverance Ulysses, and intrepidity Diomede; but in

Achilles alone, all these emanations of energy and elegance, mingle and

are combined in one splendid whole. And so the susceptible intellect

of Pericles precipitated the world of beauty held in suspense at the

period of his birth, and laid every element under contribution to

nourish his predilections, supply his resources, and consummate the

multifarious splendors which forever glorify the culmination of his

power. Democratic freedom had inspired lyric melody, epic grandeur,

and dramatic force: that music of painting, and sculpture of poetry.

Tragedy was exclusively created by the Athenian mind, and joined all

the other great masterpieces of human excellence as they gathered

in the order of perfection round the Parthenon. With the epos and

drama came the harbingers of philosophical history, and historical

philosophy. At the feet of Minerva, on the magnificent terrace of the

Acropolis, as in the Portico, Lyceum, or Garden, the Japhetic thinker

sat in masterly scrutiny over the greatest mystery, the mycrocosm man,

and his eternal destiny. Dignified achievements had given rise to

historic literature, ethical disquisition required elaborate rhetoric,

political debate in the midst of inflamed parties necessitated

persuasive speech, and Pericles arose the master of every art. Like

the golden lamp, which the exquisite skill of Callimachus hung in the

national temple, and which was fed once a year, the great Athenian

saw kindled in his age a pharos of literary splendor which will be

the genial guide and model of all masters so long as time shall last.

Then did thought begin to throb and glow with ardent aspirations.

Indian, Egyptian, and Persian works only attest man's power over the

dullness of materialism; but Greece demonstrated his sovereignty over

the might of intellect. The East was grand, impressive, awful; this

fair metropolis of the West as infinitely better than all that, she was

beautiful. In Athens was exhibited more than power, or genius coarse

and unfettered by the instincts of elegant taste; her ornaments were

pure, her magnificence serene. For grace, symmetry, and loveliness,

we must look for the best models amongst that wonderful people who

still remain in the great past, a centre of literary glory above all

competition; from whose poets we derive our best ideas of the beautiful

and sublime; from whose artists we copy the eternal rules of taste; and

from whose orators we catch the high passions which most thrill the

human breast. Such, in general terms, was the age when Pericles ruled

in the first of cities, not by the degrading arms of mercenaries, but

through the magical influence of genius and talent.

From this comprehensive survey, let us descend to a more specific

notice of the superior luminaries in that great constellation, as each

shines in his appropriate sphere. And first of all, let us contemplate

the blind old minstrel we dreamed of in our childhood, who sang on his

way six and twenty centuries ago, and his songs are echoing to the

nations with unrivaled enchantment still.

Homer was the encyclopædia of civilization in his time. He fertilized

antiquity to such an overflowing extent, that all the parent geniuses

were recognized as his children, and the richest harvests ever

garnered, were accredited to the seed he had sown. The epic of his

creation, mirrored traditionary history in transparent song. The

minute was depicted, the grand illuminated, and all the glorious world

of heroic character and romantic scenery moved past the spectator in

serene dignity and poetic splendor. The highest utterance was requisite

to embody the intensest conceptions, and the Ionic dialect was exactly

fitted to both. Language is the individual existence of a national

spirit, the external reason, as reason is the internal speech; and the

purest of idioms sprang perfected from the lips of Homer, as Minerva

came completely armed from the brow of Jove. The hexameter therein

assumed the freest and most forcible movement possible within the

limits of law, and thenceforth epic composition ever remained Ionic in

language, measure, and melody. Looking back upon the succeeding age,

and its grateful enthusiasm, we need not wonder that a tyrant lived in

the affection, and died under the benediction of Greece, for collecting

the works of Homer in a volume, and his ashes in an urn.

The epic and cyclic poets were followed by lyrical writers, and the

dramatists of Athens, who flourished cotemporaneously with all that

is most admirable in the kindred productions of music, painting,

sculpture, architecture, philosophy, and the civil forms of democratic

life. Orpheus, Linus, Musæus, and others, the earliest poets of

Greece, but of whom little is known, indicate the existence of a mass

of poetic material extremely antique, which began to be reduced to

writing as soon as the Dorians emerged from barbarism and the ignoble

pursuits of war. When they awoke to national consciousness, they found

themselves surrounded by an enchanted land, teeming everywhere with the

fascination of heroic deeds done by heroic men, and the Cadmean Hesiod

arose to garner the rich harvest in his immortal songs. Subjected to

the outer world, and attracted by all that was novel, beautiful, or

sublime, the people listened to tales of deified heroes, whose devotion

and wanderings filled a preceding age with renown, and their own bosoms

with delight. It was thus that popular legends assumed by degrees an

epic dignity, or by more flexile art were perfected into the beauty of

festive airs. But into whatever mold the golden current was cast, the

narrative remained clear, impassioned, varied, minute, as the taste of

the age and eagerness of listening multitudes required. Thus Homer and

Hesiod were as truly legislators and founders of national polity, as

Moses and Zoroaster had been in their respective spheres.

The earliest patrons of literature, were the Peisistratidæ who

endeavored to supply the general want of books, by inscribing the

select passages on columns along the public streets. All that was most

valuable and attainable, such as fragmentary laws, proverbial sentences

of wise men, fables of Æsop, verses of Simonides, together with the

lyric poets and tragedians of primitive times, Theognis and Solon, were

collected in the library which they were the first to found. By the

same conservative foresight, Homer was arranged in continuous form, and

superseding the foregoing literary world, became the foundation and

source of a better one already begun.

Archilochus, memorable as the inventor of Iambic verse; Terpander,

celebrated for his exquisite talents as a musician; and Stersichorus,

of whom a few beautiful fragments remain, bring us to the consideration

of that more renowned trio, Sappho, Pindar and Anacreon. The latter was

a voluptuary, whose luxurious pictures might please the sensual, but

contained nothing beautiful or sublime.

Pindar was cotemporary with Æschylus, and senior to Bacchylides,

Simonides of Ceos, Alcman, and Alcæus, all of whom he excelled in

lyrical excellence. Corinna, his famous teacher, beat him five times

in musical composition, the fair rival perhaps triumphing by personal

charms, rather than through poetical superiority. But in the highest

order of his art, Pindar was almost always declared supreme. He had

a particular regard for Pan, and took up his abode contiguous to the

temple of that deity, where he composed the hymns which were sung by

the Theban virgins in honor of that mystic emblem of universal nature.

This Theban eagle, whose pride of place is still undisturbed in the

Grecian heavens, dedicated his chief odes to the glory of the Olympic

games, when the selectest aspirants of a mighty nation joined in the

competition for prizes awarded there.

Sappho, it would seem, was endowed with a soul overflowing with

acute sensitiveness, that glorious but dangerous gift. Her life, as

indicated by the relics of her composition, was a current of perpetual

fluctuation, like a troubled billow, now tossed to the stars, and

anon buried in the darkest abyss. "To such beings," is the remark of

Frederick Schlegel, "the urn of destiny assigns the loftiest or most

degrading fate; close as is their inward union, they are, nevertheless,

entirely divided, and even in their overflow of harmony, shattered and

broken into countless fragments." Few relics of her harp remain, and

these are borne down to us on the stream of time, imbued with the lofty

tenderness of cureless melancholy. She was of that old Greek temper

that wreathed the skeleton with flowers, and to her might be applied

the legend which testifies that the nightingales of sweetest song were

those whose nests were built nearest to the tomb of Orpheus. The early

lyrics of Greece were productions full of wonders. They glowed with

the hues of that orient of their origin, and where all forms appear in

purple glory; each flower beams like a morning ray fastened to earth,

and eagle thoughts soar to the sun on golden wings. Each style of

national poetry grew gracefully and erect, like the palm-tree, with

its rich yet symmetrical crown; and while in broad day it was fairest

to the eye, even in gloom it bore nocturnal charms, as glow-worms

illuminated the leaves, and birds of sweetest note perched on the

boughs to sing.

Passing from the fervor of youth to the reflection of maturity, the

epic muse retreated before the lyric. Plants of a richer foliage and

more pungent perfume sprang up in the garden of poetry. Language more

compressed and intense was required, and the Æolic and Doric became the

appropriate organ of the latter, as the Ionic had been of the former

style. In the Attic era, the partial excellence of earlier times became

fully developed under the focal effulgence of universal rays; and,

as the altar of Vesta united all the citizens of the same town, the

crowned champions in every department of letters gathered under "the

eye of Greece," and paid tribute to the age of Pericles. Then each

leading writer, called to conserve all antecedent worth, lived on the

capital amassed by unskillful predecessors, and with innate facility

wrought it into the continuous chain of human improvement. Not in the

colossal and impracticable shapes which float in the mists of the hoary

North, was this majestic style of literature produced; nor in the

florid barbarism of the effete East and South, but with that profound

feeling and piercing expression, elegant and forcible as an arrow from

the bow of Ulysses, was it inspired with that lofty spirit of endeavor

which leaps evermore towards the azure tent of the stars. If the car of

the hero sometimes kindled its axle to a flame, as it neared the goal,

his eye was yet undazzled, his hand faltered not on the curb, but the

greater the momentum, the firmer was his grasp. So with the Greek poet,

every thing was solid and refined, harmoniously fitted in the several

parts, and superbly burnished as a whole. Though from the day of their

becoming nationalized, the Greeks possessed vast stores of unwrought

material, yet was nothing needlessly employed. They enhanced the value

of their products by condensing their worth. What Corinna said to

Pindar, who, in his youth, showed some inclination to extravagance,

"That one must sow with the hand, not with a full sack," illustrates

the national taste, and exemplifies a principle which pervades their

entire literature. While always earnest, they never violate decorum,

but in the greatest extremes of joy or grief, their heroes, like

Polyxena, even in death, fall with dignity. It was most natural for the

Greeks to symbolize imagination under the image of Pegasus, who bore

reins as well as wings. The severity of their taste was yet further

indicated by the legend that when borne by this power, Perseus with

indecorous temerity flew too near Olympus, he was precipitated by the

angry gods, though himself one of their sons.

The drama was the youngest and most perfect of Attic creations, and

that great cycle of the arts which had an epic origin, naturally

returned into itself by means of this. Tragedy was the purest

elimination, and its progress may be easily traced. First, a whole

populace assembled in some market-place the miscellaneous chorus, or

dance; then the recreation was limited to men capable of bearing arms;

and, finally, the people were separated into spectators and trained

performers. The lyric hymn of Apollo blended with dithyrambic odes to

Bacchus; the strophe was distinguished from the antistrophe, and the

epode was added; the dialogue between choragoi and exarchi followed;

and, finally, came the separation of the chorus into these speakers

and the choreutæ, a distinction as important as the previous one into

chorus and spectators. Thus were all the component parts of tragedy

completed, before the Persian war, when every thing the Greeks did

was great and fascinating, as if created by magic, and their dramatic

compositions were the most beautiful of all.

The finest genius of a great era always turns toward the highest sphere

for exercise, and thus preserves an equilibrium between popular taste

and the direction of its talent. When lyrical poetry had transmigrated

into choral song, and epic history merged into a dramatic plot and

dialogue, the greatest of tragedians extant was appointed to consecrate

the union and preserve its worth. Æschylus was born at Eleusis, B.C.

525, about the time Phrynichus elevated the Thespian romance into

dramatic personation, and his advent was opportune to impress upon

this department of letters a deep and enduring stamp. With an ardent

temperament, early exalted by the fervid strains of Homer, he imbibed,

in maturity, the ambrosial influence of the above-named precursor, in

company with his senior associate, Pindar, and with him wove thoughts

to the lofty music of the dithyrambic ode. Passing through this order

of excellence to a still higher range, in the same year Athenian valor

lighted the flames of the Persian war at the conflagration of Sardis,

the son of Euphorion produced his first tragedy. Pratinas and Chœrilus

were for a season his competitors; but he soon distanced them all, and

won the ivy chaplet, then first bestowed, instead of the goat and ox,

as the most glorious literary crown.

At this period the structural skill of the Athenians had greatly

improved, and as the celebrity of their drama increased, immense

theatres arose on the hill-side, and were thronged by thousands, tier

above tier, open to the wonders of expanding nature, embellished by

the living sun. The Ægean on one hand, and vast mountains on the

other, fanned by the breeze and relieved against brilliant skies,

were harmonious features which nature accumulated round the scene.

The gigantic proportions of the theatre, and the mighty range of

the audience, were fully equaled by the performance itself, when

Themistocles felt honored in appearing as choragus, and through

kindred interpreters Æschylus unfolded the mysteries of the thrilling

plot. Advancing intellect demanded grand ideal personifications; and,

to meet the cravings of an age which even the perfect epic could no

longer satisfy, philosophy passed into poetry, and what Homer had done

for more material thought, Æschylus achieved for mind. All the vague

mysteries and symbolical ethics of the East were measurably purged from

alloy, while their substance was melted into the tortured immortality

of Prometheus, and bound to that mount of all literary beauty, the

Acropolis.

As Æschylus expressed the race and period from which emerged

Themistocles and Aristides, Sophocles was the correlative of Phidias,

and the great Olympian who was the patron of them both. Indeed, from

the majesty of his mien, and the symmetrical grandeur of his genius, he

was called the Pericles of poetry. Supreme power lurked in his repose,

and his thunders startled all the more because they broke upon the

multitude from cloudless skies.

Of all the great originals at Athens, the drama was the most

indigenous, and under the culture of Sophocles perfected its growth.

Imagination had fulmined with broader and brighter flashes on the

preceding generation; but the works of his hand, though equally fresh

from the fountains of nature, were more imbued with reason, and the

solidity of manly strength. The age of Pericles was peculiarly the age

of art; and Sophocles was but one of many who, to excel in his own

department, mastered every cognate secret of wisdom or beauty, and

brought all into subordination to his own absorbing design. He lived

at a time when the trophies of Miltiades, the ambition of Alcibiades,

the extravagance of Cimon, and the taste of Pericles, not less than the

science and art, erudition and enthusiasm, philosophy and eloquence,

diffused through all classes of the general populace, rendered the

Athenians at once the most competent to appreciate, and the most

difficult to please. Recondite disquisition was a pastime, the Agora

itself but a genial academe; so elevated and yet so delicate were the

soul and sensibilities of the excited mass, that the wisest of their

sages was justified in asserting that the common people were the most

accurate judges of whatever was graceful, harmonious, or sublime.

In the growth of a flower there is continued development, visibly

marked by successive mutations, but indivisibly connected from

beginning to end. Simultaneous with complete maturity glows the instant

of consummate bloom, the highest point of fullness, fragrance, and

fascination. That splendid culmination in the progressive refinement

which adorned and made fruitful the garden of Greece, was signalized by

the faultless forms and transparent language left us by Sophocles. The

lucid beauty of his works was the chosen mirror of Athens, to reflect

internal harmony, and the greatest beauty of soul. The dazzling glories

of Greece in general, and of Athens in particular, imbued the great

writers with corresponding ideas of the greatness of human nature,

which they endeavored to represent in its struggles with fate and the

gods. In the Prometheus of Æschylus especially, the wilderness and

other natural horrors are made to relieve the statuesque severity of

the scene, and are employed, like the chains and wedge, as instruments

by which Jupiter seeks to intimidate the benefactor of mankind. But

in such delineations as Edipus at Colonus, Ajax, and Philoctetes,

Sophocles, in his glorious art, showed a great advancement beyond his

predecessors, by intermingling the emotions of human love, and causing

the more cheerful sentiments, inspired by lovelier natural scenes, to

become important elements, not merely in the imaginative adornment,

but also in the dramatic plan. If the Ionic epic was a tranquil lake,

mirroring a serene sky in its bosom, and transfiguring diversified

charms along its smiling shores; the Attic drama became a mighty stream

which calmly yet resistlessly courses within its stedfast banks,

is impeded by no obstacle, diverted by no attraction, salutes with

equal dignity the sunny mead and gloomy mountain shadow, and, after a

majestic sweep from its far-off source, mingles its strength at last in

the omnipotence of the sea. Thus the highest wealth of refined poetry

was preserved in the pure casket of the richest tongue, and the Attic

drama was left to man as the masterpiece of linguistic art. Sophocles,

like the fabled Theban, seems to have built up his elegant fabric with

the charms of music; and if Æschylus first elevated tragedy to heroic

dignity, he softened its rugged strength into harmonious sweetness,

and stamped upon the precious treasure the signet of immortal worth.

Euripides, like his predecessors, was a proficient in a great variety

of arts, but neither sublime in conception, nor severe in style, as

Æschylus and Sophocles had been. But his spirit teemed with splendid

and amiable qualities, whose captivating power was highly relished by

the age it came to decorate and complete. The energetic dignity of

the first great master, and the chaste sweetness of his still greater

rival, had passed; now appeared one who was indeed worthy of much

admiration, but the least divine of the noble triad, whose natural

course declined from the elevated cothurnus toward level ground.

When Euripides clothed Pentheus in female dress, and exhibited Hercules

as a glutton, he showed himself to be the precursor of comedy, that

first symptom of literary decline, and thus won the praise of Menander,

as he deserved the lash of Aristophanes. The latter, who was his

cotemporary, unceasingly castigated his effeminate prettiness, but

never attacked the manly elegance of Sophocles, or the gigantic vigor

of Æschylus. Agathon, with others of some note, continued for a season

to write for the stage; but in Euripides the forcible and refined

tragedy of Greece came to an end. As the nine Muses wept at the funeral

of Achilles, so grieved the nations at that mighty fall.

There was the wisdom of a deep moral in that Athenian law, which

interdicted a judge of the Areopagus from writing a comedy. Until a

grosser age supervened, the Greeks were not inclined to scrutinize

the ludicrous side of things. The goddess of the Iliad, who warded

off the dart from her favorite, was an apt symbol of the Genius of

Civilization, throned on the Acropolis, where Beauty, mother of

Excellence, threw down her mantle and intercepted the arrows of every

foe. Greek farce was often insolent, but never utterly vicious. While

Aristophanes portrayed the foibles of town-life with a caustic hand, he

ceased not to keep in view a healthful suburb of gardens in redeeming

bloom. As Minerva, with precious elixir, concealed the wrinkles of

Ulysses, the age of Pericles performed well its mission of investing

every thing venerable and instructive with the most elaborate charms.

All the gentler shapes of fancy that, in the preparatory time, bloomed

in the lyrics of Greece, were only flowers unfolding round the aspiring

trunk of tragedy, attracted by its superior strength, and sheltered by

the majesty of its shade. Æschylus, however triumphant in the field

of martial prowess one day, was the next not less ambitious of poetic

garlands at the Olympic games. And Thebes was not more gloriously

embalmed in the melody of Pindar, than was Colonos through the art of

Sophocles, as her melodious thrush in his verse enjoys a perpetual May.

A marked peculiarity of Greek civilization consists in the fact that

literature there led all excellence, illustrated and sustained by the

harmonious accompaniment of the sister arts. In the East, each work,

whatever its kind, stood imperfect and independent of all beside. But

in the best age of the best works in the first literary metropolis

of the West, it would be nearly, if not quite, impossible to point

out a single production that did not refer to the written book, thus

furnishing the means of just appreciation, by a comparison with the

particular myth or action it was designed to personate. What the

writer expressed in words, the correlative artist chanted, painted,

sculptured, or built in more material, but not less beautiful forms.

The drama most impressively exemplified this fact, using words as a

poet, but adding the simultaneous commentary of melody, statuesque

motion, pictorial resemblance, and architectural grandeur. This was

the absorption of the lyric, the personation of the epic, and the

consummation of transcendant dramatic art.

Athens was the inventress of learning, and the first great foundation

of republican law. Like the motion of a serpent, which the Egyptians

made the emblem of intellectual power, or like the path of lightning

through murky air, at each actual advance humanity may seem to recede,

but every such retrogressive movement really accumulates force to carry

itself in advance. True, patriotism loves its object to such a degree,

that it is ready to incur any sacrifice in favor of those it would

benefit, but ceases to be a virtue when it selfishly reclines enamored

of its own visage. Narcissus was not the type of national benefactors,

but the great law-givers of Sparta and Athens were, when they traveled

far, and at great hazards, to gather knowledge for the education of

their countrymen.

The illustrious son of Eumonius was the great law-giver of the Doric

race, whose institutions have excited much curiosity, but which are

involved in an obscurity too dense to be easily removed. He was one of

the very few great spirits of Sparta, and like his co-patriot Leonidas,

passed through a dubious path from an obscure birth to everlasting

fame. In the light of history, the whole life of the latter,

especially, lies in a single action, and we can learn nothing authentic

of him until the last few days of his career. In the annals of renown,

only one proud page is dedicated to the memory of such men, and that

contains nothing but an epitaph.

Solon, on the contrary, stands out clearly in the effulgence which

under more auspicious influences poured on Attica. He was the second

and more successful law-giver of his race, and also stood pre-eminent

among the sages of his land. Success first attended him in poetry, and

it was the opinion of Plato, that if he had elaborated his compositions

with maturer care, they would have equaled the most celebrated

productions of the ancients. But the prospective good of nations

required him to apply the great endowments he possessed to moral and

political purposes; and, according to Plutarch, "he cultivated chiefly

that part of philosophy which treats of civil obligations." He pursued

commerce, traveled widely, and, in patient research, accumulated those

stores of observation and erudition which rendered him an honor to

Athens, and a great benefactor to mankind.

History, properly so called, originated with the Greeks, and in

natural clearness and vivacity, portraiture of diversified incidents

and profound observation of man, eminent success was first by that

people attained. The great coryphæus in the prosaic chorus, Herodotus,

has been compared to Homer, on account of his manifold charms and

transparency of narrative. The depth and comprehensiveness of his

knowledge, inquiries, attainments, and commentaries on antiquities in

general, excite in competent judges the profoundest astonishment. He is

called the father of history, as he was the first to pass from the mere

traditions which furnished themes to the poets, and gave dignity to

didactic prose as an independent branch of literature.

Human reason is progressive chiefly by virtue of remembrance and

language; hence were the Muses beautifully represented as being the

daughters of Memory, the only power through which, in the infancy of

letters, the harvests of thought could be garnered and preserved. The

first national annals were cast under the patronage of the fair Nine,

but the Muses of the great Dorian turned to the Ionic dialect as their

most fitting vernacular. The civilization of Greece was the first that

was unfolded by a natural growth, and its crowning bloom appeared only

when every other portion of the wondrous plant had become perfectly

matured. It awoke like a joyous infant, under the fairest heavens,

and was nourished by all beautifying and ennobling influences. Its

life was led apart from exhausting drudgery and effeminate ease, among

fair festivals and solemn assemblies, full of healthful exhilaration,

innocent curiosity, and confiding faith. Pindar preferred the Doric

dialect to his native Æolic, in which many had sung. Like the other

leaders of his race, he imitated his predecessors in nothing, but by

inventing; he employed the form demanded by the nature of his art, and

chose the language with certainty and care, which refused submission

to the yoke of authority. The principle, that in each realm of art,

whatever is accidental should be excluded, was thoroughly recognized

in Greece, where even what fell in by accident, as the chorus of the

drama, soon became entirely fused into the chief parts of the action,

like an organic member of the whole. The singer of the Iliad was born

under the sky of Ionia, and he molded his native dialect forever to

epic poetry. The thoughtful Herodotus preferred the same language

to the Doric, his native tongue, and employed the Ionic, which was

just then putting forth its fairest buds of promise. Thus, the epos

of history was twin-born with the epos of poetry. The wanderings of

Ulysses, the Argonauts, and primitive heroes, embrace the whole extent

of the then known or imagined world, the various manners, countries,

and cities included. All these the great annalist works into the rich

and variegated picture, which, like a moving panorama, he unfolds to

the enraptured gaze. Minuteness, likeness, and strength were requisite

as the medium of expression, and not in the old Doric, but in the new

Ionic, were these found happily combined. Hence, in historical writing

with the Greeks, as in every other department of art, we see that

wonderful concord between the substance and the form, that harmony of

inward and outward music, which is the first and most indispensable

condition of beauty.

Up to this period, history had been composed expressly for recital at

the national games, and was couched in a rhetorical transition from the

preceding poetical form. The minstrel of the Homeric banquet became

the eulogist of his countrymen before applauding thousands at Olympia;

but now arose another master who foresaw that his work would survive

the forms of society then existing, and he aimed not so much for a

transient hearing, as to be perpetually read. The Attic Thucydides had

listened to Herodotus in the great presence of the nation, and became

inspired with an enthusiasm which bore him to the height of superior

excellence. He was cotemporary with Socrates, and under Anaxagoras and

Antiphon, matured that compressed eloquence which was to commemorate an

age then dawning full of stirring incident. He renounced the episodic

movement common to his great predecessor, and instead of supplying

a pastime for the present, aspired to portray universal man, and

inculcate profound lessons respecting the Providence that rules the

world.

Thucydides perfected that form of historical writing which is

peculiarly Greek, and was succeeded by Xenophon, whose third remove was

clearly beyond the culminating point. Polybius developed the idea of

universal disquisition, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, was honored as

the first of historic critics; but after the fall of freedom, there was

little worthy for one either to portray or appreciate.

It was in the day of Themistocles especially, the Greeks appear to

have been sensible that they were instruments in the hands of destiny,

and that their greatness was greatly to sway the generations of all

coming time. This national consciousness, increasingly intensified in

description and illustration, is strongly impressed on the sententious

pages of Thucydides. The theme of Herodotus was a particular war,

the Persian, and he treated it as an epical artist. But his acuter

successor added philosophical composition to the densest power of

combination, and was the first to attempt the analysis and portraiture

of character. Thus, as in every other literary walk, the march of

historical excellence became most extended and regular at the mighty

heart of intelligence; on the spot where its origin was indigenous,

its perfection was most splendidly evolved.

Though fortune for the moment gave the Spartan, Eurybiades, the nominal

command at Salamis, genius predestined the Athenian, Themistocles, to

actual pre-eminence over his age, that he might command the remotest

sequences of events. Certainly he was the greatest of his own age, and

was not soon surpassed. Pisistratus, Cimon, Aristides, and Pericles,

were of noble birth; but Themistocles was the first, and, except

Demosthenes, the greatest of those who rose from the humblest ranks,

but none the less ennobled himself, while he elevated the common

fortunes in his own ascent. His genius alone was the architect of all

his grandeur, and drew from Diodorus the exclamation, "What other man

could, in the same time, have placed Greece at the head of nations,

Athens at the head of Greece, himself at the head of Athens? In the

most illustrious age the most illustrious man."

But the age of warlike glory ended with the occasion for its use,

and an appropriate link was required between the ostentation of

Themistocles and the intellectual sovereignty of Pericles. This was

supplied in Cimon, who fostered popular spectacles, and invested them

with increased magnificence; built the Theseion, embellished the public

buildings before extant, and originated those classic colonnades,

beneath which, sheltered from sun or rain, the inquisitive citizens

were accustomed to hold civil, literary, or artistic debate. The Agora,

adorned with oriental planes; and the palm-groves of Academe, the

immortal school of Plato, were his work. His hand formed the secluded

walks, fashioned the foliaged alcoves, adorned each nook with its

relevant bust or statue, and poured through the green retreats the

melodious waters of the Ilissus, in sparkling fountains, or eddying

pools, to rest the weary, and exhilarate the sad. Thus he more fully

realized the social policy, commenced by Pisistratus, who was the first

to elicit diversified talents from the recesses of private life, with

the intention of causing all to merge into one animated, multifarious,

and invincible public life. The works now written, and the sublime

creations of art at this time multiplied, were the first foundation of

culture for the futurity of the human mind. It was an age that gave to

the world what can nowhere else be obtained. The priceless legacy was

produced by that wonderful people during the brief period of freedom

and undiminished greatness, when their literature was made to fulmine

on the capacities of man, and reflect the brightest glory on the

principles of democratic polity.

Pericles was not less ambitious to aggrandize Athens, than were his

more martial or plebeian precursors; but he well understood the

destiny of his race, and knew on what surer foundations to build than

aristocratic or regal titles, which, if he had the power to possess,

he always affected to despise. The wider extension of national domain

was to yield to the loftier cultivation of the national mind. Obedient

to his behest, and in harmony with the popular will, all superior

proficients gathered round the Acropolis, a spot too sacred for human

habitations, and, by their united labors, soon rendered it the central

glory of "a city of the gods."

In his youth, Pericles had known Pindar and Empedocles. He had seen

the prison of Miltiades, and turned from a music lesson to gaze after

Aristides driven into exile. Æschylus he early loved, and exercised

maturer thought with Sophocles, in debates on eloquence. By Euripides

had he been instructed in ethical philosophy; and Protagorus and

Democritus, Anaxagoras and Meton, did he question as to the best rules

of state polity. Herodotus and Thucydides initiated him into history.

Acron and Hippocrates imbued him with a beneficent philosophy; Ictinus

built to his order, the Parthenon, worthy of Polygnotus to paint;

while Phidias set up under the same auspices the tutelary deity of the

land, in ivory and gold. Thus trained among a people susceptible and

fastidious, that had itself become a Pericles, competent to appreciate,

in every department the high excellence they inspired and recompensed,

he was the first to mirror to themselves fully, the exalted models

after which universal poetry prompted them to aspire. Themistocles

had led them to deeds of daring and enterprise, but the adroit son of

Xanthippus soon eclipsed every competitor, even that mighty Cimon,

whose extraordinary qualities had prepared the way for his supremacy.

The grave aspect of Pericles, his composed gait, the decorous

arrangement of his robe, and the subdued modulation of his voice, are

dwelt upon by his eulogists, just as if his posthumous statue had

been the subject of their comments. It was this close and constant

attention to the inner spirit and external expression of all thought,

art, and manners, that distinguished the memorable period when the

grand style characterized every thing. To use the words of Plutarch:

"Pericles gave to the study of philosophy the color of rhetoric. The

most brilliant imagination seconded all the powers of logic. Sometimes

he thundered with vehemence, and set all Greece in flames; at other

times the goddess of persuasion, with all her allurements, dwelt upon

his tongue, and no one could defend himself from the solidity of his

argument, and the sweetness of his discourse."

This was the era of great orators, such as Lysias, Eschines, and

Isocrates. Like the shout of Stentor, rousing the prowess of comrades,

who, single-handed, rushed upon embattled armies, clad in iron,

so awoke mighty eloquence, which shook impassioned democracies,

annihilated tyrannies, and fostered all ennobling arts. But the age of

criticism came after the age of invention; Aristotle after Sophocles,

Longinus after Homer, the Sophists after Pericles. Demosthenes was the

last great writer whose works were addressed to the Greeks as a nation.

His was the genius of industry, always luminous and constantly at work;

like that Indian bird which could not only enjoy the sunshine all day,

but secured no ignoble resemblance at night, by hanging glow-worms on

the boughs about its nest. Demosthenes was a great orator, and nothing

more. He represented a period of civilization which had passed, and

therefore his downfall was inevitable. So long as the democratic spirit

pervaded the masses he performed prodigies in the tribune; but when the

empire of beauty was about to be displaced by the empire of force, he

ran away at Cherronea, and without dignity. The eloquence of a great

nation, expressed in Pericles, was succeeded by the Phillipics of a

great partizan, and when this was silenced, the age of its origin had

closed.

Pericles was the first to commit his speeches to writing before they

were delivered; and, in his pride of universal accomplishment, he

signalized the zenith of his country's glory and its decline. In

all the progress of Greece up to the splendor of her culmination,

originality was sought and exemplified only in some one grand pursuit.

The epic bard was not ambitious of rending the ivy destined to adorn

the brows of lyric poets; nor did the master of tragedy, with unlaced

buskin, stride carelessly over Thalia's stage, to lay irreverent hands

on Homer's harp. The historian, studious in private to portray the

annals of his country, came not to the Agora to contest honors with

the public orator; nor did the latter, with foolish ambition, endeavor

to excel the sages who, in the Portico, at the Lyceum, or under

plane-trees on the banks of the Ilissus, explained the problems of the

universe; but each one made some exalted endeavor the speciality of his

life, on it concentrated all the rays of his intellect, and scorned

no measure of time or toil requisite to insure absolute perfection

in his work. Thoughts so elaborated became never setting stars, to

cheer the world, and point unerringly through the cycles of a corrupt

taste to ideal excellence. As each growth, minute or majestic, was

equally perfect of its kind, though differenced by peculiarity of

form and tints, the whole was charmingly blended in that wreath of

consummate beauty, which, in the age of Pericles, Greece hung round

the constitution of the state, high on the central shrine of the most

magnificent temple of her gods.

CHAPTER II.

ART.

Architecture is the metaphysics of the fine arts, and should be made

the basis of all researches in this department, since it is the oldest

and bears the most comprehensive type. It teems with the oracular

inscriptions of entombed empires, and either affords information where

other testimonies are silent, or confirms the facts which more dubious

history asserts. Within its ruined temples yet linger the echoes of

cycles long since departed, and which symbolized on their track the

mightiest impulses of emulative nations in those monuments which

inventive genius, coalescing with constructive skill, stamped with the

attractions of beauty and strength.

Egyptian civilization was thoroughly exclusive, and possessed no

disposition to diffuse itself. On the contrary, the Indo-Germanic

race rapidly assimilated surrounding nations to itself, and with that

energetic spirit of propagandism which was its primary element, made

the reservoir of its accumulated worth the fountain of all subsequent

culture. The great Surya people of northern India are supposed to be

the original Cyclopœans who reared the gloomy grandeur of Egyptian

Thebes, and the magnificence of Solomon's temple, who constructed the

Catabothra of Bœotia, drained the valleys of Thessaly, constructed

the canals of Ceylon, and left the venerable walls of Mycenæ on their

westward course.

The monuments of the East attest the unreasoning submission of

thousands to despotic power, and teem with the reminiscences of gloomy

superstition, but both in outline and execution, the spirit of the

beautiful is wanting. Vestiges of Assyria, like an earlier Pompeii,

have lately been disinterred, and we are permitted to look upon,

perhaps, the identical figures on which the prophets gazed, and

which so moved Aholibah, when "she saw men portrayed upon the wall,

the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, girdled with

girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads,

all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of

Chaldea, the land of their nativity." Ezek. xxiii. 14, 15. Persian art,

judging from what has recently been brought to light, combined much of

Egypt and Assyria in its manner. The types of wisdom and power, and

even the Persian alphabet, were of Assyrian character.

The temple which the monarch of Israel dedicated, and his devotion

enriched, owed its artistic attractions to Tyrian skill. The

descriptions of these preserved in the archives of Judea, clearly

vindicate the justness of Homer's representations respecting the

precious metals of the East, and the progress there made in ornamental

art. Even females could divide the prey: "To Sisera, a prey of colors

of needle work on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the

spoil." Judg. v. 30. Of such, the treasury of Priam was replenished,

and Sidonian artists were not less expert. Helen embroiders a picture

of a battle between the Greeks and Trojans; Andromache transfers

flowers to a transparent vail; and Penelope weaves a web of pensive

beauty, honorable to the hand of filial piety, to grace the funeral of

Laertes. Many evidences demonstrate that the whole of Greece, from the

era of the supposed godships of Poseidon and Zeus, down to the close of

the Trojan war, was Indian not only in language and religion, but in

all the arts of war and peace.

The discovery and use of metals hold the first place in the history of

human progress, and in the momentous origin of the murderous sword, we

have the first of inventions. The fratricide Cain fled to central Asia,

the cradle of ambitious conquest, and there hereditary classes, trades,

and arts arose. Thence descended eastward, the nomadic tribes who

still wander amid the vast remains of the primitive mining operations

of the oriental world. From the more amiable Seth, the patriarchs of

peace emigrated in another direction to people cities, foster science,

promote writing, and transmit sacred traditions on durable monuments of

stone. The struggle of contrasted races is the leading subject of all

history, and its primary development lies between the passion shown by

one for war, and by the other for more peaceful arts. Moab, Ammon, and

Bashan, the giants of barbarism, have ever moved westward in advance of

the vanguard of civilization, and been vanquished thereby.

The infancy of Greek art was the infancy of a Hercules, who strangled

serpents in his cradle. However superior as to intrinsic worth, it must

be acknowledged to be an offspring of Egypt. As we have seen in western

literature, a kind of hereditary lineage connects it with the East,

and this is attested by evidence too palpable to be denied. Native

elements appear to have combined with foreign art in Assyria; but

Nimroud and Karsabad prove that the style of that intermediate region,

at a certain period of its development, was directly derived from the

valley of the Nile. The Assyrian types of art furnished Lydia and

Caria, probably, with improved elements, from whom the Asiatic Greeks

obtained the means of advancing toward that high excellence which the

most refined race was destined to achieve. The earliest proofs of their

skill come to us on coins, and that the Lydians were the first on earth

to excel in that kind of work, Homer distinctly asserts. But while an

Asiatic origin must be assigned to all the arts of Greece, it should

not be forgotten that the Hellenic organization alone perfected each

and every department with that exquisite refinement which no other

people has ever been able to attain. Their wonderful originality is

indicated by the fact, that their very earliest coins, possess in their

embryo state, the germs of that beauty and sublimity which afterward

were realized by the greatest artists in their grandest works. In the

smallest seal, as in the most colossal form, the charming simplicity

and repose prevail, which forever mark the leading traits of the

Attic mind. Coins made of gold in Asia, preceded the silver coinage

of Athens, but even in this earliest imprint of archaic skill, we see

rudely executed all that which subsequently characterized those groups

of Centaurs and Amazons that enriched the metopes and pediments of the

Parthenon.

When compared with Indian and Egyptian remains, the Persian column

must be considered as presenting an approximation to the perfect form,

and yet it lacks that purity of taste, that refined and chastened

intellect, which distinguishes the works of Greece. The lotus and

palm, were indeed imitated at Carnak and Persepolis, but Athens saw

the acanthus and honeysuckle surmount shafts of manly strength with

amarynths of beauty such as the East never knew. India excavated the

cell, and Egypt quarried the column; then came Greece to perfect

the entablature system, and add that crowning glory, the triangular

pediment. The three orders in their succession, exhausted every realm

of invention, and perfected structural types unsurpassed by human

powers; and while the mechanical principles remained identified with

the most unadorned Cyclopean gateway, or rudest cromlech, an exquisite

system of ornament embraced every feature, and refined all into

consummate dignity and elegance.

All the institutions of Greece bore the impressive signet of national

character. In government, dialect, and invention, despite minor

differences, there was a general uniformity which rendered them

distinct, not only from Phœnicians or Egyptians, but also from the

kindred inhabitants of Lydia, Italy, and Macedonia. Though at the

beginning germs were derived from the East, it is not less true that at

the time of ripest maturity not the least tinge of foreign influence

was discernible in their literature, politics, religion or art. Grecian

architecture, especially, like their poetry, was the natural expression

of the national mind. It was influenced by the peculiarity of the land

in which it originated, and was more than national; it was local, born

under the sky of Hellas only, and in no colony did it ever attain the

comprehensive beauty which signalized the city of its birth. Sparta

might boast of the hard bones and muscles of well-trained athletes,

but grace and beauty never entered her walls. The Athenians borrowed

materials and suggestions from diverse sources, but their skill was

entirely their own. They invented all the component parts of classic

architecture, the proportions, characters, and distinctions, with a

corresponding nomenclature by which each order and every ornament is

still designated. Symmetry, proportion, and decoration; the solidity

and gracefulness of nature, relieved by historical sculpture, and

illuminated by chromatic splendor, with the perfection of reason

interpenetrating and presiding over all, constituted that perfect model

of noble simplicity which always attracts and never offends.

The Dorians produced the first pure architectural style, and carried

it to the highest perfection, without any assistance from the fallen

palaces of the Atreidæ. The Æschylean majesty was the highest

conception of even that extraordinary people. The Parthenon was the

noblest production of the noblest masters, and should be accepted as

the highest exemplification of the national skill.

The order of columns at Persepolis seems to be the proto-Ionic, as

certain pillars have been supposed to be proto-Dorics, but neither, in

fact, deserve, in the slightest degree, that admiration which belongs

legitimately to those honored names. The temple of the Ilissus was the

most ancient monument of the true middle order, and was a significant

prelude to those more glorious works destined to immortalize the

administration of Pericles when freed from the rivalry of Cimon, the

restraints of the Areopagus, and the opposing aristocrats. Within

twenty years all the grandest works were executed, and then the point

of culmination in that lovely land was forever passed.

Of the three orders perfected by the Greeks, the Corinthian would

appear to be the most entirely original, and, at the time of its

invention, the exactest symbol of their mind. The flower had fully

bloomed, and decrepitude was already begun. They could no longer

adequately execute the Doric order, with its integral sculpture and

painting, and had ceased to be satisfied with the chaste gracefulness

of Asiatic volutes. They began by raising the honeysuckle from around

the necking of the Ionic capital, and extended it over a vase-form

under a light abacus, intermingled with a few rosettes, but omitting

altogether the volutes. To this was after ward added the Persepolitan

water-leaf, and finally the crisp acanthus of Attica gave a rich

variety to the order, which constitutes its crowning charm. The

choragic monument of Lysicrates is the only pure type of this style;

and if sculpture and painting must be banished from architecture, this

is, doubtless, the most beautiful order extant.

Architecture expresses the difference among races, as language does

the variety of dialects. The Dorians built in the same style that was

employed by Pindar, Æschylus, and Thucydides in speech. The simplicity

and elegance of the Ionians are exemplified in their temple graces,

not less than in Homer's matchless verse, and the smooth rhythm of

Herodotus. The Corinthians, refined to effeminacy, were the last

architectural inventors in the old world, and they stamped upon their

production the delicate luxuriance which characterizes the language of

Isocrates. The opposing principles of Dorism and Ionism which prevailed

in all the institutions of Greece, politics, literature, customs, and

art, were boldly embodied in sculpture and architecture. The former

came from Egypt, and the latter from Asia; but both were alike indebted

to western genius for the refined symmetry which their respective

orders finally assumed. The zenith of perfection was not reached until

the Doric influence was impregnated by the Ionic, the material by the

spiritual, and Corinthian delicacy was born to perish in the grave of

its exhausted parents.

Egyptian sculpture was the archaic state of Greek sculpture, as is

clearly indicated by specimens yet extant. The types of the Nile,

which remained unchanged through many centuries, were no sooner

transferred to the Ilissus than a wonderful improvement succeeded.

The remains of the temple of Jupiter in Ægina show the metamorphosis

of the uncouth East into the refinement of the West in the very act

of taking place. The heads of the figures are Egyptian, according to

the prescriptive sanctity of priestly rule, heavy and immobile; but

the limbs are detached, and move with the natural freedom of Greek

taste. The conservative East regarded innovation as destructive of the

divine, while the progressive West sought for near approach to divinity

in increased perfection. Hence the figure of Minerva on this edifice,

the central one of the pediment, is more oriental than the rest, as if

less liberty should be taken with the personal image of a being fully

divine; but this hereditary scruple was soon overcome, and, in direct

contrast with Egypt, Grecian deities became most celestial in form.

The progress of perfected sculpture was striking and continuous.

The Herma was the first step in true statuesque art, when the Greek

placed a human head on a pillar by the wayside, fashioned after the

proportions of the human form. Then the resemblance of life extended

to the loins, preparatory to that further realization when the bust

spread vital beauty and activity throughout every speaking feature

or graceful limb, rendering the statue complete. Last of all came

the associated group, simultaneous with architectonic perfection, to

which it added manifold charms. Then was the memorable era when the

images of gods and heroes possessed not less truth and majesty than if

the divinities had themselves sat for their pictured or sculptured

portraits; and all this resulted because art had become the greatest

national activity, and the entire nation was merely a transcendant

artist. In a chronological review, the ancient monuments of Asia and

Egypt must be considered before those of Greece; but the true history

of art, in its continuous development, as in every other civilizing

power, began alone with that sagacious people. To the last, the East

retained in its sculpture those symbolical images which are utterly

destructive of elegance in imitative representations; but the West

soon emancipated itself, and came step by step to elicit from marble

perfected human features under the attitude and aspect of divinity.

Therein is most clearly traced the mysterious symbolism of the inner

mind of that people. The reason and imagination of Greece were poured

with profusion and power into artistic creations, and the faculties

from which these works sprang are in turn most forcibly addressed.

Like excites like; and if ancient sculpture shines on, through all

time, with inextinguishable beams, it is simply because the original

creation transpired under the transmuting and glorifying influence of

impassioned thought. Supremacy in art among that people was not an

accidental inspiration of a few artists, but the predominant spirit

of the age and great heritage of a race. Their language was the first

organ of speech thoroughly eliminated, and art, its correlative, was

the highest material medium of mind. The mystery of the human form was

accurately conceived by the Hellenic genius, and thus the mythological

Sphinx, whose motto is Man, which had ever been inaccessible to the

race of Shem, was by Japhetic intellect clearly revealed. In her most

glorious days, the sumptuous temples of Athens, amid the elaborate

graces of their moldings, the living foliage of their capitals, and

the multiform friezes whereon Lapithæ and Centaurs exhibited the most

impressive action, did yet preserve the same outline of simplicity with

which the wooden hut of Pelasgus was marked.

In consequence of the excitement, surprise, joy, and glory of their

first conquest over the Persians, the Greeks developed all their

energies, and the brief period of their highest excellence terminated

soon after the final triumph over that great foe, so inseparable is

national enthusiasm from exalted perfection in art. The Parthenon

and Propylæa were trophies of Marathon and Salamis, monuments of

past success, and pledges of future progress. Then supreme homage

was paid to superior talent; and popular admiration, as profound

as it was general, gave birth to those masterly productions its

paintings deserved. The same combination of boldness and gentleness

which constitutes the very essence of classic literature, imparted

its peculiar expression to the plastic art of Greece. Both, in their

best days, were equally imbued with that lofty impulse which antique

traditions excited, and the national genius was most ambitious to

perpetuate. The Persians brought marble with them, intending to

erect a memorial of the anticipated victory, which their conquerors

appropriated, and commissioned Phidias to cut it into a statue of

Nemesis. Such was the destiny of all oriental elements, and the use

made of them by the valiant genius of occidental republicans. When the

first great battle of opinion had been won, and the Persian, like the

Mede, was overthrown, a few years of active freedom produced more of

civilizing art, than had been generated under the pressure of whole

centuries of despotic repose.

The art of the first Pharaohs, as well as that of the last Ptolemies,

is brought down to us in well preserved relics, and by means of these,

at a single glance, we can survey a boundless historic period, during

which, in the first progressive land, civilization had passed from the

lowest to the highest point; from the Pelasgi to the Parthenon, from

the wooden works of Dædalus to the marble glories of Phidias; from the

fabulous Orpheus, and mythological Amphion, to Homer and Sophocles;

in a word, from Cecrops to Pericles. But on the Nile, beyond certain

ignoble and arbitrary types, sculpture never advanced. Dædalus is

reputed to have been the first statuary in Greece, but he was more

of a mechanist than sculptor, the architect of labyrinths, carver of

wood, and inventor of wings. He was the countryman and cotemporary

of Theseus, equal to that hero in the adventures of his life, born

of a royal race, admired for his works while living, and honored by

the Egyptians with a special chapel after death. About two centuries

later, appeared Dipœmus and Scyllis. They were born in Crete, under the

Median empire, but worked at Sicyon, and made statues of Apollo, Diana,

Minerva, and Hercules. They were the first to use the white marble of

Paros, and gave to each divinity a peculiar personal appearance so

entirely distinct, as to cause the offensive symbolism of preceding

art to be laid aside. The slow progress of sculpture may be further

traced, until a single mighty master raised his profession to a height,

of which the world had entertained no previous conception. The Greeks

could produce beauty without meretricious ornament, delicacy without

affectation, strength without coarseness, and the highest degree of

action without the slightest disturbance of equilibrium. Proud only

of progressive invention, they preserved their first rude monuments

side by side with their later masterpieces, and appealed to this

aggregate as the true archives of nobility, their highest credentials

to glory. The plastic sense, which usually disappears with the infancy

of nations, was fostered to the fullness of adult perfection among

this people. Whatever of beauty real objects supplied to their hands,

the inspiration of fervid genius transfigured into the most beautiful

idealized forms. As was said by one of their number, the higher

nature of the divinities passed into the arts; and we have reason

to believe that sculpture especially, did wear a celestial aspect

in its representation of glorified heroes and the highest gods. The

law which Plato long after prescribed to artists, seems to have been

instinctively observed from the earliest era, "that they should create

nothing illiberal or deformed, as well as nothing immoral and loose,

but should everywhere strive to attain to the nature of the beautiful

and the becoming." Latent worth doubtless lay imprisoned in the uncouth

sculpture of the East, but it was only when moved westward, that the

fair prisoner was set free; like Aphrodite, born without a pang, in the

enfranchisement of the sea, and landed on the blooming shore of Paphos,

redolent of spontaneous charms.

Homer, and the other poets, as they were the fountains of all other

elements of culture, nourished also the plastic sense in the common

mind. From the tragic writers, especially, emanated a world of

sculpture, so that nearly all the great spirits generated in the

regions of fable, were happily embodied in substantial art. Hipparchus,

a few years before the birth of Phidias, formed the first public

library at Athens, and placed therein the complete works of Homer,

Hesiod, Sappho, Anacreon, and Simonides. The public games were not less

favorable in their influence on plastic art. They were great artistic

congresses, wherein each department was exhibited for the special

benefit of itself, and in regular succession; just like various pieces

of music at a modern concert, without discord between them. Not only in

the popular poetry, but in the public manners as well, was manifested

that refined grace and equanimity between excessive freedom and coarse

formality, which was embodied in sculpture as its highest form. The

second desire of Simonides, was, that he might possess a handsome

figure, and the gymnastic exercises customary in the healthful serenity

of his native land, did much to realize the wish. The most eminent men

in their youth, sought renown in the development of natural qualities,

and thereby laid a substantial basis for the magnificence of acquired

accomplishments. Each successful competitor was honored with a statue

of the highest order and most perfect resemblance. Hieratic models were

utterly discarded, and not only was the real portrait preserved, but

also the very attitude in which the victory was gained. Even horses

which had borne off prizes, were reproduced by the exactest imitative

skill, and all the most natural forms were elevated to that ideal of

perfection which constituted the models of excellence, and the best

incentive to yet higher improvement of surpassing worth.

We have observed that Hermes were the first sculptured productions of

Greece. These most abounded at Athens, where, for a long time, the

word Hermoglyph was the only term in use to designate a sculptor of

any kind. But soon after the Persians had despoiled that city of her

ancient monuments, she acquired immense resources, by which, under the

guidance of superlative taste, she soon arose to be the head of the

national confederacy, and most splendid abode of art. Architects and

sculptors, painters, lapidaries, and workers in precious metals vied

with each other in adorning the lettered empress of earth and sea.

The monuments of Ictinus, Phidias, Callicrates, and Mnesicles arose,

surrounded with kindred glories, thenceforth to become masterpieces for

the emulation of mankind. What was especially needed, was something

that would mold all surrounding elements of beauty into one perfect

and homogeneous whole, like the unity of diversified expressions in

the opera, and this was gloriously realized in the perfected temple.

Appropriate material was quarried from Paros and Pentelicus, which when

wrought into graceful and sublime forms, stood on the terraced height

in serene majesty, and glowed through the sparkling atmosphere with

enhanced splendor borrowed from harmonized colors and burnished gold.

In Greece, history and art from the beginning, were closely allied.

The breastplates, helmets, and shields, as well as altars, temples,

and tombs, were all made to glorify an honored ancestry, through the

blandishments of material art. Homer and Hesiod brightened the dawn of

national renown, as they sang the artistic triumphs of Vulcan, embossed

on the weapons which Hercules and Achilles bore. The arcades of nature,

and the canopied walks which architecture so magnificently provided,

were transformed into vast galleries, all aglow with brilliantly

harmonized tints; and a wanderer the most remote from the metropolis,

still found the annals of his country embodied in marble, and each

great personage strongly characterized by the sculptor's chisel. Every

subordinate democracy had its Prytancum, Odeon, Pnyx, Gymnasium, and

Theatres; and when Athens usurped pre-eminent control, her citizens

were proud to erect public monuments worthy of her ambition, and

whose dazzling magnificence should reconcile the other states to her

supremacy. So greatly was this the passion of the people themselves,

that when Pericles proposed to exonerate them from debts incurred by

the immense works of his administration, if he might be permitted to

inscribe them with his own name, the proposition was rejected at once,

and every responsibility was cheerfully accepted as their own.

Phidias was an Athenian, the son of Charmidas, and cousin to the

distinguished painter, Panænus, whose associated skill he employed

on several of his works. Doubtless this fact should explain much of

his grace of outline, and power of relief. He proved himself equally

successful in the sublime and minute, by turning from the awful majesty

of his marble Jupiter to stamp like perfection on the grasshopper or

bee of bronze. This Æschylus of sculpture began with works in ivory,

continued to develop his power through statues of metal, and finally

attained the highest excellence in colossal marble groups. He was born

under the full blaze of Grecian freedom, and carried his profession to

the loftiest height of excellence, through a knowledge of all the arts

and sciences that could enhance its attraction, or dignify its pursuit.

He was not only a painter and poet, but was also familiar with the

gorgeous fictions of mythology, and the more sober records of history,

the knowledge of optics, and the severest discipline of geometric

science. It is probable that Phidias planned all the works about the

Parthenon, and that Callicrates and Ictinus executed the architectural

portions, while Alcamenes and other pupils wrought nearly to the

surface most of the sculptural forms. But as his genius outlined the

general plan, so his hand imparted the finishing touch to the varied

parts.

The most marked characteristic of the first half of the Periclean age

was placid majesty. Jupiter sat in supreme quietude, with thunderbolts

resting in his lap; Juno reposed on her own feminine dignity; and

Minerva showed supreme power, less through outward impulse than by

sovereign self-control, and inward intent. When the highest period

of calm beauty was passed, and another cycle drew near, full of

force, greater excitement is exhibited in corresponding art, and with

increased harmony with the changed spirit it portrayed. Such was

Niobe and her children, pursued by Apollo and Diana, Gladiators in

mortal struggle, and the passionate group of Laocoon. But at the best

period no Greek artist would ever introduce in sculpture grim Pluto

and sad Proserpine, or the monster Cerberus. He loved every thing

that was beautiful; and, instead of damaging the uniform placidity

of his works with such images of terror and aversion, he represented

even the Furies as bearing a serene countenance. This calmness is

the prevailing charm of Greek art. Its great depth, like that of the

sea, remains undisturbed, however much the tempests may rage; and so,

in their artistic figures: under every billow of passion reposes a

great, self-collected soul. We may often be called to contemplate the

struggling of brave heroes, but they are never altogether overcome by

their pangs. The strongest emotions do not repel the spectator, but

attract him rather; as in the dying Gladiator, or tortured Laocoon.

While the misery we contemplate pierces to the very soul, it yet

inspires us with a wish that we could endure with a fortitude like that

we see. Beauty was latent in Periclean Greeks, like fire in crystal,

which, however brilliant when excited, habitually rests in quiet, and

robs not its abode of either purity or strength. They were as full of

emotion as of heroism, and, as Agamemnon, after the victory, poured

tears on the funeral pyre, they were never braver than at the very time

they wept. Winkleman suggests, that beauty with the ancients was the

balance of expression, and, in this respect, the groups of Niobe and

Laocoon are the best examples; the one in the sublime and serious, the

other in the learned and ornamental style.

But the glory of Athens, as a single figure, and marking the highest

culmination, was Minerva, of the Parthenon. Above all others she

bore the charms of celestial youth, under the expression of severest

virtue. Doubtless no more glorious contrast could be found to the

stiff and conventional uncouthness of the Memnonian statues, than was

produced in that fine realization of cultivated intellect invested

with invincible power. The spirit of the beautiful was embodied in her

whose masculine wisdom was tempered with feminine grace, the severity

of dominion softened into elegance, and the sedateness of philosophy

dissolved in the fervor of patriotic enthusiasm. Her majestic form of

ivory rose forty feet in the dazzled air, draped in robes and ornaments

of gold. At her feet lay a shield, covered with exquisite sculpture,

representing, on the convex side, the Amazonian war, the Athenian

leader being the portrait of Pericles, and on the concave side were

giants warring against heaven. On her golden sandals were depicted the

battle of the Centaurs. By special decree the Athenians forbade Phidias

from inscribing his name on this, the divinest Pallas of his creation,

in order that they might share equally among themselves the honor of an

undertaking which the people in common had conceived and sustained.

The grandest inspiration came from Marathon, and was exemplified in

that glorious art which best expressed the manliness of the Grecian

race, and rose highest in the republic in its freest hour. From the

battle of Salamis to Pericles, scarcely fifty years elapsed, in which

brief period art had advanced from eastern archaism to the most

refined western excellence, from the rude carving of Selinus to the

consummate sculptures of the Parthenon. The finest group of antiquity

is preserved to us from the western front of that magnificent temple.

Notwithstanding the variety of the figures, there is not one which is

inert, or which represents a perpendicular line. In the centre are

Neptune, with the trident in his left hand, and Minerva, with the

spear in her right, with their chariots and attendants. The goddess of

wisdom wields the strongest hand, and the sculptor has so adroitly

managed the composition, as to place Neptune in the way of his own

horses, while Minerva is allowed free passage in her nobler career.

This pediment, looking down upon the mighty metropolis, and the

Ægean bathing its western brim, bore a record and prophecy of high

significance to him who approached by land or sea.

Cimon ornamented the public squares of Athens from his private fortune;

and Pericles added markets, halls, gymnasia, and temples, all of which

he caused to be adorned with innumerable statues by superior masters.

The crowded wonders of the Acropolis, in particular, seemed to the

astonished visitor, one great offering, the aggregate of national

enthusiasms expressed in transcendant art. Toward this subordinate

Olympus, a gigantic flight of steps conducted through the Propylæa,

which opened its fivefold gates of bronze to a world of men and gods in

precious forms, peopling marble halls, and adorning brilliant shrines.

Here, for the temple of Polias, Phidias erected that statue of Minerva

whose brazen helmet gleamed far off to greet the mariner as he doubled

the Sunian promontory; and that other Pallas, named the Lemnian beauty;

and a third, the "immortal maid," and protectress of the Parthenon,

to whose colossal fascinations of ivory and gold allusion has already

been made. So much were that democratic people animated with the

passion of Pericles, which themselves had mainly inspired, that when

Phidias recommended marble as being a cheaper material than ivory for

the gigantic figure required, it was for that very reason that ivory

was unanimously preferred. Miracles indeed abounded on every hand,

and as the great patron and perfecter of them all, stood there the

incarnation of his age, each masterpiece attested the culmination of

that glorious star which blazed in tranquil beauty while he lived,

and paled in tempest when he died. The outward decline of Greece was

strangely sudden, and left a blank which has never been filled; but the

empire of her inner spirit can never perish, so long as heroism may

arouse, poetry enrapture, art embellish, or wisdom instruct the nations

in their predestined progress. The epitaph--_Here is the heart; the

spirit is everywhere_--most appropriately belongs to the capital

of Attica. From her gates went forth colonies of beautiful intellect

throughout the civilized world; and the light of her genius, lingering

around the ruins of her skill, still serves to model all the masterly

productions of earth. Like the venerable Nestor's cap of sculptured

gold, the material may have perished, but the power which conceived and

executed it has proved itself immortal.

Proficiency in sculpture was at one time widely diffused; it rose

rapidly to the highest excellence, and as rapidly descended to a

corresponding depth. The great Socrates was himself a statuary.

Pausanias saw, at the entrance of the Athenian Acropolis, a group of

Graces draped, which was executed by the philosopher. Praxiteles,

at a later period, was distinguished for delicate grace and most

careful finish. When Nicomedes, of Bythinia, wished to purchase of

the Cnidians the Aphrodite by this artist, with the condition of

discharging the city of its oppressive debt, they preferred to endure

any hardship rather than suffer such a loss. This tender solicitude

for the preservation of the beautiful was utterly unlike a mere mania

for museum collections, and was not limited to plastic art; it grew

up in common with all Grecian culture, and is to be found in all the

phenomena of exalted Hellenic life. Art was indigenous to that prolific

soil, and graced the maturest fruit, as well as nourished the deepest

roots, of existence. While the auspices of freedom remained, she

constantly derived fresh vigor, as Antæus gained strength from contact

with mother earth, borrowing radiance from Olympus, and growing in

conscious companionship with heroes and gods.

Critias, Nestœlis, and Hegias succeeded each other with some

distinction, but not much was added to plastic art until Polycletus was

born to raise alto-relievo to perfection, and won the proud renown of

being the Sophocles of sculpture. He excelled in exquisite symmetry and

superlative polish. The statue he made of a Persian life-guard was so

exact in its proportions, and careful in its finish, that it was called

the Rule. But the highest excellence in art had passed, and Myron,

and Scopas, in their works which commemorated war, the chase, or the

terrors of a violent death, foretokened the tempestuous age about to

break in desolation all over earth.

Having thus briefly sketched the progress and character of both

architecture and sculpture, let us now glance at the painting of the

Periclean age.

As we have before said, architecture was the first of the fine arts,

and the pursuit of the beautiful in this paved the way for all

the rest. Color, as an artistic element, was first used to define

hieroglyphics, and afterward was largely employed in mural decorations.

The most characteristic production of Egypt was its obelisks, and these

have made the world best acquainted with the spirit of the East by

being transported without mutilation to the great cities of the West.

Artificial tints on these are not common, but masses of wall are still

seen, with pictorial representations of great variety, almost as vivid

as they were three thousand years ago. But the type and form of her

mummies was all that ever belonged to the land of the Pharaohs in the

history of art. Every thing which contained life, growth, and power,

from the simplest wayside Herma to Jupiter Olympus on his resplendent

throne, sprang exclusively from the inventive and executive genius of

Greece.

There is no proof that the art of Mosaics was indigenous in Africa.

That it existed in Persia as early as the age of Ahasuerus is recorded

in the first chapter of Esther, where it is mentioned that in the royal

palace of Shushan "the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement

of red and blue and white marble." In this and many other respects,

the spoils of war taken from the Persian invaders, conveyed to their

victors important lessons in the arts of peace. The excellence which

this kind of art eventually attained, and the profusion of its use, is

quaintly indicated by the incident referred to by Claudius Galenus as

follows: "Diogenes, the cynic, having entered a mansion in which all

the Olympian deities were figured in chaste Mosaics, spat in the face

of the host, saying it was the least noble spot he saw." Athenæus also

mentions a work, formed of many colored stones, in small fragments,

which represented the whole story of the Iliad.

The Graces rocked the cradle of Greek art, Admiration taught her to

speak, and painting was her most phonetic idiom. A legend not unworthy

of belief tells us that a Corinthian maid, by means of a secret lamp,

traced the shadow of her departing lover, and thus outlined portrait

was formed. As Love made the first essay in this department of art,

so he never ceased to guide the hands which beautified the age of

Pericles. A wise law prohibited the choice of an ugly subject, and the

popular sentiment so generally limited pictorial representation to

the realm of elegance, that Pyricus, who ventured to depict apes and

kitchen herbs, was surnamed Rhypographer, or "Dirt Painter."

The etymology of the word used by the Greeks to express painting

was the same which they employed for writing, and this renders the

affinity of method and materials certain. Their first efforts were

striagrams, simple outlines of a shade; thence they advanced to the

monogram, or form without light or shade; from this they arose to the

monochrom, or design with a single pigment, on a waxed tablet; and in

the end, by means of the pencil, then first used, they invented the

polychrom, and thus raised the stained drawing to a legitimate picture,

glowing through all the magic scale of rainbow tints. The progressive

steps in the attainment of excellence in this art are distinctly

marked by the terms employed by Quinctilian, when he says that Zeuxis

discovered light and shade; Pamphilus was exquisite for subtlety of

line; Protogenes, for finish; Apelles, for grace; Theon, for poetical

conceptions; Polygnotus, for simplicity of color and form; Aristides,

for expression; and Amphion, for composition.

When Neptune and Minerva disputed as to who should name the capital of

Cecropia, the Olympian hierarchy decided that the right should be given

to the one who bestowed the greatest benefit on man. Neptune smote the

earth with his trident, from whence sprang a war-horse; while Minerva

produced an olive-tree. Thenceforth, as the greatest glory of the age,

the arts of peace prevailed, and the product and proof of the noblest

fame was set forth in mighty sculpture along the western pediment of

the Parthenon. This was of pure Attic origin, and worthily crowned the

reminiscences of oriental skill beneath. Egypt gathered the palm and

lotus, the papyrus and date-leaves together, and produced the column,

that symbol of strength, fastened like a bundle of sticks, the binding

together of which probably suggested elegant flutings to the Greeks.

But, while mechanical execution absolutely perfect, and great exactness

in copyism of ignoble types, were imported from the East, in vain do

we there seek, from Moses to Ptolemy, for the least approximation

to natural forms. In the land of its growth, the lotus-leaf never

alters, nor do the owl and ibis borrow one truthful characteristic

from the models which abounded in the valley of the Nile. According

to Herodotus, a heroic mythology, that great lever of Greek art,

was altogether wanting in Egypt; and for this reason, doubtless, of

their individual poets, sculptors, and painters, we do not possess the

slightest record. On the contrary, in the great western metropolis,

infant art was progressively nourished by the refined spirit of both

natural and ideal excellence; the permanent traces of which perpetually

remain on the painted vases and delicate basso-relievos which in the

temples of Theseus and Minerva adorned the councils of the supreme gods.

By means of polychromy, the Greeks endeavored to add elegance to

their buildings, without detracting from their majesty, knowing well

that this exquisite system of coloring, when applied under their pure

sky, illuminated by brilliant sunshine, and encompassed by gorgeous

vegetation, would bring artificial beauty into complete unison

with the richness of nature. Thus colored statuary harmonized with

mural historic painting, and this looked out from broad panels of

beauty through tinted colonnades upon the sky, the groves, fields,

and sparkling seas. By this combination, Athenian structures were

rendered most worthy of admiration, because in them works which, taken

separately, might move through single attractions, or approach the

sublime, were so happily combined, as instantly to evoke a sentiment

of perfection and delight such as no other monuments ever possessed.

Colors were so graduated that the temple they vitalized was made to

resemble and reflect the charming vicissitudes of a lovely Grecian day:

cool in the morning, dazzling at noon, and at evening burned with all

the glowing gorgeousness of the setting sun. Euphranor and Micon, to

excite the emulation of compatriots, depicted the exploits of heroes in

the Porticoes; Protogenes and Olbiades drew the portraits of renowned

legislators in the Curia; the Odeia were decorated with the pictorial

forms of poets, and with the Graces, their inseparable companions; the

Gymnasia exhibited the godlike champions in the contests of Mars and

the Muses; and even the Propylæa became more famous for the precious

works of the painters than for the marbles out of which its structural

grandeur was formed. But Phidias alone excepted, Polygnotus was

perhaps the greatest public genius in the greatest artistic age. The

pictures painted by him as votive offerings of the Cnidians were much

admired, and the whole nation honored him for other monumental works.

The Lesche, filled with the splendors of his skill, was the grand

glyptothek of Athens, and first picture-gallery of the Grecian world.

In the Periclean age, art was held as a glory, not as a luxury. Private

life was frugal and modest, while the public monuments were soaring in

proudest display. Socrates, the cotemporary of Pericles, according to

his own testimony preserved by Xenophon, occupied a house which, with

all it contained, was valued at five minæ, or about ninety dollars.

The dwellings of Miltiades, Aristides, Themistocles, and Cimon were

contracted and devoid of all decoration. Alcibiades was the first who

introduced painting as an ornament to his living apartments. But a

passion for art actuated all classes, and was most prominent in the

highest. Thus the beautiful Elpinice, sister of Cimon, took a pride

in being a model to Polygnotus, at the same time her potent brother,

at the head of the republic, triumphed over the mighty king. With

kindred zeal, the populace of Croton gathered all the fairest damsels

before Zeuxis, in order that from them he might select the best

features with which to execute their commission to paint Helen. The

astonishing progress made at that period in sculpture and painting was

seen in the contrast which existed between an Indian idol, or Egyptian

Isis, and the Jupiter of Phidias; between the infantile fancies of a

Chinese designer, and the ineffable charms of a picture by Apelles.

While Socrates employed the language of Homer as the medium of moral

discourse, and Plato thence derived images and reasoning to convey the

theologies of Orpheus and Pythagoras, Agatharcus invented dramatic

painting, and drew for Æschylus the first scene that ever agreed with

the rules of linear perspective. A picture of the battle of Marathon,

representing Miltiades erect in the foreground, was solemnly guarded

by the public, and deemed an adequate reward by that great captain.

A pendant to this is said to have been one representing Aristides

watching at night over the bloody field, in sight of the blue sea, no

longer crowded by the barbarian fleet, and the white columns of the

temple of Hercules, near which the Athenians had pitched their tents.

But when freedom ceased to preside over the public fortunes of Greece,

grandeur and beauty withdrew from her private minds. As Philip of

Macedon drew near, the propitious gods of Olympia migrated to Pella,

and all the fair heritage assumed a sickly hue in the deepening

shade. As rhetoric vainly mimicked the deep thunders of eloquence

which had passed, and metaphysical sophistry was substituted for that

lofty philosophy which had guided honorable destinies, so the grand

taste which at first dictated to art the monumental style, degenerated

into mere prettiness, or expanded into the heaviness of an unhealthy

growth. But soon even the portion which yet retained some elegance

ceased altogether, and what remained was rapidly transformed into the

type of an age already gaining the ascendancy--colossal might. Phidias

excelled in graphic as in plastic art. According to Pliny, his Medusa's

head was a wonderful picture. Alcamenes, the Athenian, continued for a

while the style of that great master, as did Agoracritus and Scopas of

Paros. But the latter, like Lysippus, were transitional to Praxiteles

of Cnidos, in whom great art expired. Original genius ceased to produce

models of its own, and only expert imitators of mighty predecessors

succeeded. Pamphilus was the Perugino, and Zeuxis, of Crotona, the

Raphael, of Periclean painters. Apelles seems to have been the Titian

of his age, and Protogenes, of Rhodes, a Greek Leonardo, whose picture

of Temperance, his cotemporary Apelles declared, was worthy of being

carried to heaven by the Graces. But with these masters pictorial art

declined, and, like architectural and plastic art, was marked with the

grossness of a coming age.

Cheronea was the grave of Grecian excellence, as Marathon had been the

glorious scene of its birth. The principle of despotism there came into

collision with that of democracy, and with fearful odds in favor of the

former; but the result first demonstrated, as was afterward repeated

at Thermopylæ, Salamis, and Platæa, the difference between the man

who fights for another and him who contends for his own rights. From

the days of Themistocles to the present hour, no writer has discussed

the nature and influence of free institutions without drawing largely

from this portion of Grecian heroism. It is impossible to estimate

the influence of those battles on the destinies of mankind, as in all

succeeding ages they have constituted the staple of patriotic appeal,

the battle-cry of desperate struggles, and thrilling key-notes of

triumphant songs. Thus consecrated to free government by martyred

patriots, they are the universal watchwords of independence throughout

the world. The calm fortitude of that invincible age was expressed in

every department of art, even its melody. Music was an accomplishment

in which the Greeks generally excelled. Alcibiades, however,

surrendered the use of the flute, because it deranged the beauty of his

features; and Themistocles, also, rejected its instruments, saying,

"It is true I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute,

but I know how to raise a small city to glory and greatness." Perhaps

the best instance and symbol of all was Achilles. He was fed on the

marrow of lions, and trained for conflict by the centaur Chiron, who

was not less skillful in music than in the art of war. Resting from the

chase of wild beasts in the desert, or, after the victorious fight with

Trojans, sitting alone by the sea-shore, the lyre was the companion

of his leisure, and, playing with its chords, he could control inward

wrath by his own melody.

If architecture is the most significant and enduring portion of the

history of a people, a sure index of their mental state and social

progress, plastic and graphic art are also striking exponents of their

national character. The beautiful marble which forms the cliffs and

coasts of Greece, notwithstanding its homogeneous transformation,

betrays by veins and fossils its sedimentary formation. And so

Hellenism, although it may be homogeneous, nevertheless betrays its

secondary origin, and the sedimentary material which constitutes its

groundwork. The rudimentary vestiges bear the same impress in Assyria,

Egypt, and even among savage races; but the Greeks ignored the origin

of these, rose above their hieratical meanings, and stamped all

creations with their own peculiar manner. Their system of polychromy

was the richest in antiquity, combining the lapidary style brought

by the Dorians from Egypt, and the more brilliant tints which were

attained when the Ionic mind penetrated Doric matter, and transfigured

it with all the glories of Asiatic color. As Homer describes only

progressive actions, so his great race executed nothing but what was

bounded by the delicate lines of grace. The Parthenon has generally

been regarded as being exactly rectilinear; but Penrose has recently

demonstrated, by careful admeasurements, that probably there is not

a straight line in the building. All is embraced within mathematical

curves, accurately calculated, and designed to correct the disagreeable

effect produced on a practiced eye by perfectly straight lines. Taken

as a whole, this work is sublimely grand, and, in its minutest

details, it is perfectly wonderful. When unmutilated, it was the

aggregate of all artistic worth, and yet remains, of its age, the chief

emblem of intellectual majesty.

The Greek sculptor invested his work with an inexpressible serenity,

as if it were a spirit without a passion, as appears in the Apollo

and Antinous. Pride and scorn are strongly marked in these, yet over

the whole figure is thrown a heavenly calm and placidness; there is

no swelling vein, no contorted muscle, but a general smoothness and

unperturbed dignity. The same subdued air and tone prevailed in the

paintings of the best age. Achilles appears grieved at having slain

Penthesilea; the brave beauty, bathed in her own blood so heroically

shed, demands the esteem of her mightier antagonist, and elicits the

exclamations of both compassion and love. The Greeks never painted a

Fury, nor did extravagant rage or frightful despair degrade any of

their productions. Indignant Jupiter hurled his lightnings with a

serene brow; and Timanthes, in painting the sacrifice of Iphigenia,

rather than over-pass the limits within which the Graces moved, when he

knew that the grief of Agamemnon, the father, would spread contortions

over the face of the hero, concealed the extreme of distress, and

perfected at once the merit of the picture and the purity of his

taste. The Philoctetes of Pythagoras of Leontini, appeared to impart

his pain to the beholder; but this was telegraphed to the soul by the

magnetic sympathy latent in all the work, and not by means of ugly

features. Hercules in the poisoned garment, depicted by an unknown

master of that age, was not the Hercules whom Sophocles described,

shrieking so horridly that the rocks of Locris and headlands of Eubœa

resounded therewith. What was truthful and appropriate in language,

was not attempted to be adequately expressed through the distortions

of inappropriate art. Zeuxis derived his inspiration from Homer, and

when he had painted his Helen, he had the courage to write at her feet

the renowned verses, in which the enraptured elders confess their

admiration. This contest between poetry and painting was so remarkable,

that the victory remained undecided, as both the poet and painter

were deemed worthy of a crown. The Diana of Apelles also followed

Homer closely, with the Graces mingling in the accompanying train of

her Nymphs. In these instances, as with Phidias in his own loftier

sphere, the imagination of the artist was fired by the exalted image

of the poet, and thus became more capable of just and captivating

representation.

But perhaps the grandest combination of glorious arts it is possible

to conceive, was that which existed when Demosthenes addressed six

thousand of his countrymen at the Pnyx. In the presence of this vast

multitude, he ascended the bema, and saw beneath him the Agora, filled

with statues and altars to heroes and gods. To the north lay the olive

groves of wisdom, and sunny villages along the fruitful plains beneath

the craggy heights of Parnes and Cithæron; while to the south sparkled

the blue Ægean, whitened by many a sail. Before him was the Hill of

Mars, seat of that most venerable tribunal, the Areopagus. Above him

towered the Acropolis, with its temples glittering in the air; on the

left, stood the lofty statue of Minerva Promachus, with helmet and

spear ready to repel all who dared to invade her pride of place; and

on the right, rising in supreme and stately splendor, was the marble

Parthenon, glowing with chromatic legends spread behind the colonnades,

and relieved with sculpture tipped with gold.

The splendid noon of Grecian greatness was succeeded by a splendid

evening, divinely prolonged. Mental pre-eminence survived long after

her political supremacy was overthrown; and even when trampled in the

dust, she still won reverence from her brutal foe.

CHAPTER III

SCIENCE.

If we trace the march of scientific knowledge through the dense strata

of departed ages to its root, it will doubtless be found in the remote

East, while all prolific growth is toward the West. As often as the

storms of conquest have passed over the plains of India, the arts of

production continue to be practiced in the very places of their first

endeavors. Hindoos of the present day, with no other auxiliaries than

their hatchets and hands, can smelt iron, which they will convert

into steel, equal to the best prepared in Europe. It is believed that

the tools with which the Egyptians covered their obelisks and temples

of porphyry and syenite with hieroglyphics, were made of Indian

steel. Bailly refers the origin of the arts and sciences, astronomy,

the old lunar zodiac, and the discovery of the planets, to northern

Asia. Doubtless that was the source of the progressive race, of which

science was the chief instrument, and Greek culture the first adequate

expression.

As criticism comes naturally after poetry, so science succeeds a great

exhibition of art. A close and profound analogy exists between them,

and in this order. Genius spontaneously executes great, curious, and

beautiful works, before scientific reason pauses to sit in judgment

upon the principles according to which the artistic processes were

conducted. Expert workers in brass and iron existed long before

the chemistry of metals was known, as wine sparkled in crystal

and golden goblets before vinous fermentation formed a chapter of

science. Pyramids and cromlechs were raised into the air in cyclopian

massiveness, before a theory of mechanical powers had been defined.

Dyeing was early in use with the Hindoos, from whom the Egyptians

learned the art, as they did that of calico printing. That was one of

the many varieties of practical science which certainly came from the

remote East. Paper making was first known in India, where, for a long

time, it was formed of cotton and other substitutes for hemp and flax.

In the Himalayas, it is still manufactured of the inner bark of trees,

and in sheets of immense size. The invention of a loom, and the common

mode of weaving, is alluded to in the Rig Veda, B.C. 1200 years. The

Institutes of Manu, say: "Let a weaver who has received ten palas of

cotton thread, give them back, increased to eleven by rice-water and

the like used in weaving."

But the nurses of infant science on the banks of the Ganges, the

Euphrates, and the Nile, enslaved it to their own superstitions, and

forever arrested its growth at the immutable boundary of their own

contracted technicalities. So little real skill did the Egyptians

possess, that it was necessary for Thales to show them how to find the

height of the pyramids by the length of their shadows. Osiris was a

king of that mummified land, and the historical course of science was

foretokened by the fabulous account respecting him. Diodorus states

that he passed through Ethiopia, Arabia, India, and Asia; crossed the

Hellespont into Europe, and went from Thrace to western Greece, and the

nations beyond, teaching them agriculture, and the cultivation of the

vine. This was unquestionably invented after the Egyptian priesthood

had received much information from the Greeks, and had become ashamed

of their own gods, who had always confined their beneficent acts

entirely to the borders of the Nile. Nevertheless, the statement is

interesting, as it indicates the natural course of improvement.

True scientific progress primarily appeared in those mathematical ideas

which first escaped from theological jurisdiction, and have ever since

increasingly dispersed the gloom of superstition. The East was all

eyes and no sight, when reason was most requisite for practical use;

like Argus, whose hundred eyes were found napping when work was to be

done. The West was much more effective, because its executive skill was

fully equal to its speculative; like Cyclops, whose rugged two hands,

co-operative with his vigilant one eye, forged for Neptune the trident

which insured him the empire of the sea. The study of natural forces

increased in proportion to the necessity for their use as correlatives

to manual toil. They were thus made greatly to increase the power

of man, at the same time they materially economized his time. It

was impossible even to the enduring energies of Hercules, unassisted

to cleanse the Augean stables; but by the co-operation of a natural

force, in the waters of the Alpheus, the needful end was speedily and

effectually obtained. A legend describes how Arachne, proud of her

proficiency in needle-work, presumed to challenge Minerva to a trial

of skill. But the contest was most unequal, because the latter added

science to natural handicraft, and this combination was too powerful

for any one to withstand. The discomfited Arachne was degraded from

her high position among mortals, and, transformed into a spider, was

thenceforth compelled to spin the same web in the same way, alike in

summer zephyrs and wintry blasts.

Science exists in the mind; it is nature seen by the reason, and

not merely by the senses. The sciences are necessarily progressive

in the outward world, because of their internal connection. When a

particular fundamental principle is in the process of discovery, it is

objective, that is the object contemplated; but when once eliminated

it becomes subjective, a new light to act as guide and evolver of

kindred principles which lie beyond it, and are of more comprehensive

use. The development of man as a race is the unfolding of this inherent

dependence of one science upon another, the continuous revelation

of that great patrimony of knowledge which is predestined to insure

progress, emancipate reason, and entail the highest improvement

consistent with a mortal state. When the Greek passed from the outer

world of nature in search of wisdom, and descended to the depths of

human consciousness, he was no longer traditional; his thought was

science, and we can see both its birth and progressiveness. Then only

might the world expect that, as Plato says his master once desired,

that "Nature should have interpretation according to reason." With

Socrates, and the scientific thinkers of his school, philosophy

advanced from the realm of nature into the realm of man, and became

a moral science. But its early cultivators were copious in abstract

principles rather than in practical applications. As Canning said, they

were the horses of the chariot of industry, and, going in advance of

systemizers, they searched for truth for its own dear sake. Science was

indeed beautiful in that serene height of abstract theory it was her

first aim to secure, resources so copious and elevated that they might

irrigate all lands in their descending flow; as the dove that brought

the olive-branch to the ark of man's hopes needed to take a higher and

longer flight than the one measured by the tree whence she came.

Strange elements of civilization were gathered by the Greeks on every

side, all of which were rapidly assimilated to a lofty type, and

subordinated to the noblest use. Providence, with the wisest intent,

did not permit them to advance far in the right track of scientific

discovery. The time had not yet arrived for that, and their fine

endowments were made subordinate to human happiness in more auspicious

modes than through the accumulation of physical knowledge. They were

fitted rather to self-scrutiny, guided by the mind alone, than to

explore the grosser world of sense. To regulate and define common

conceptions under the law of observation was not their forte; but they

were prompt and facile to analyze and expand them through generalized

reflection. The refined children of Hellas were subjective rather than

objective in all their habits of thought; and the Good, the Beautiful,

and the Perfect, were their favorite speculative themes. Nevertheless,

the earliest waking of science was in their schools; with them the

speculative faculty in physical inquiries was first unfolded. During

the protracted prelude during which practical knowledge was becoming

separated from metaphysical, the more sagacious of their leaders were

called sophoi, or wise men. Afterward this term was changed, as we

shall have occasion to note in the succeeding chapter. The physical

sciences, as treated by the early Italic and Ionic schools, embraced

numerous great questions, and comprehended the widest field of

universal erudition that was ever attempted. But proceeding according

to a method radically wrong, they were unsuccessful. Greek scholarship

in science, as in every other department, at the outset aimed at

universality. Untamed by toil, and undismayed by reverses, they went

bravely to their task, and strove to read the entire volume of nature

at one glance. To discover the origin and principle of the universe,

expressed in a single word, was their vain endeavor. Thales declared

water to be the original of all; and Anaximenes, air; while Heraclitus

pronounced fire to be the essential principle of the universe. The

poetical theogonies and cosmogonies of preceding ages gave tone to

speculation in the dawn of science, and a physical cosmogony was the

primary result. Preceding nations, as the Egyptians, had no cosmal

theories, and felt the need of none; not so the Greeks, they were

born with a craving to discover the reasons of things, and to explain

somehow the mysteries which duller races had little capacity, and less

desire to comprehend.

Astrology bore a high antiquity in the East, and contained within

itself some rays of light, but never rose above a degraded astronomy.

It prepared the way for science, by leading to the habit of grouping

phenomena under the pictorial and mythological relations which were

supposed to exist among the stars. Actual truths are gradually

approximated, but when once really attained, they forever remain

the fundamental treasure of man, and may be traced in all the

superadditions of brighter days. Thus, in the dim light of speculative

suggestion, the Copernican system was anticipated by Aristarchus,

the resolution of the heavenly appearances into circular motions was

intimated by Plato, and the numerical relations of musical intervals is

to be ascribed to Pythagoras. But so completely at fault as to method

were even the latest natural philosophers, that no physical doctrine as

now received, can be traced so far back as Aristotle.

Astronomy is undoubtedly the most ancient and remarkable science.

Chaldea and Egypt probably gave to it somewhat of a scientific

form, before the age of intellectuality represented by the Greeks.

The Egyptians advanced one step in the right direction, when they

determined the path of the sun; and Thales, who, like Moses, was

learned in all the science of that Pharaonic people, introduced what he

had gleaned into his own land, and became the father of astronomy. The

great advance which he made is indicated by the fact that he was the

first to predict an eclipse. This science, moreover, profited by the

authority with which Plato taught the supremacy of mathematical order;

and the truths of harmonics which gave rise to the Pythagorean passion

for numbers, were cultivated with great care in that school. But after

these first impulses, in the opinion of Dr. Whewell, the sciences

owed nothing to the philosophical sects; and the vast and complex

accumulations and apparatus of the Stagirite, do not appear to have led

to any theoretical physical truths.

As intimated before, Thales of Miletus, was the father of mathematical

science, as of Grecian philosophy in general. The discoveries of that

early period were of the most elementary kind, but of sufficient

importance to give impulse to more dignified researches. His pupil,

Pythagoras, made great advancement, and introduced music into his

explanations of scientific phenomena. Democritus and Anaxagoras,

the friend of Pericles, improved upon the attainments of their

predecessors. The latter employed himself in his prison on the

quadrature of the circle. Hippocrates, originally a merchant of Chio,

became a geometer at Athens, and was the first to solve the problem

of a double cube. Archylas, the teacher of Plato, and Eudoxus, one of

that great man's scholars, measured cylindrical surfaces, and attained

important results by means of conic sections. Thales is reputed to have

introduced the sun-dial into Greece, to have observed the obliquity

of the ecliptic, and taught that the earth was spherical, and in the

centre of the universe. The cycle of nineteen years, called the golden

number, invented for the purpose of making the solar and lunar year

coincide, was the most important practical result which the astronomy

of the Periclean age attained. Meton and Euctemon proposed it for the

adoption of the Athenians, by whom it was adopted B.C. 433 years, and

is still in use to determine movable feasts.

Pythagoras, the cotemporary of Anaxagoras, greatly improved every

branch of science. He is said to have been taken prisoner by Cambyses,

and thus to have become acquainted with all the mysteries of the

Persian Magi. He settled at Crotona, in Italy, and founded the Italian

sect. The physical sciences, particularly natural history, and the

science of medicine, were created by the Greeks. The writings of

Hippocrates and Galen instructed the age of Pericles in the science

of anatomy, which, with geometry and numbers, enabled the greatest of

the artists to determine his drawing, proportions, and motion. It was

genius guided by science that enabled the master to endow his work with

life, action, and sentiment.

Science in Greece, like life itself, was thoroughly republican and

expansive, so long as vital growth was permitted. Their navigation

extended even to the Baltic, as the voyage of Pytheas is a proof; they

rather surpassed than yielded to the Phœnicians in the activity of

their trade, and the wealth as well as extent of their colonies. It

was in their superiority of scientific attainments that the Grecian

colonists mainly excelled. Carthage, for instance, was at the same time

powerful in conquest and commerce, but despite all her intellectual

culture, she was inferior to smaller cities planted on the opposite

coasts.

In the time of Homer, all Italy was "an unknown country." Phocean

navigators discovered the Tyrrhenian sea, west of Sicily, and yet more

daring adventurers from Tartessus sailed to the Pillars of Hercules.

In due time, Colæus of Samos, clearing for Egypt, was driven by

easterly winds (Herodotus adds significantly, "not without divine

intervention,") through the straits into the ocean. Thus was the

remotest border of the known world unwillingly passed, and a nearer

approach made to the divinely attested Hesperides of the West.

In contemplating the sublime and immortal rank which Greece held in

the designs of Providence, the relation of her commerce to science

should not be overlooked. The fable respecting the flight of Dædalus

from Crete, is supposed to signify that he escaped by means of a vessel

with sails, the first use of which, in that primitive age, might well

be regarded as a description of wings. Inland and maritime navigation,

were made to contribute much to that prolific race. Ivory, ebony,

indigo, the purple dye mentioned by Ctesias, and gum-resins were

imported from Arabia and Africa, together with pearls and cotton from

the Persian Gulf. Caravans of camels richly ladened crossed Arabia to

Egypt, and the great rivers Euphrates and Tigris conveyed vast stores

of raw material to western Asia and Greece. Not only were the shrines

of many a deity enriched with vessels and decorations wrought out of

"barbaric gold," but every department of productive art and science was

kept active through the demands of a wide and untrammeled commerce.

The great intelligences of the age struggled with laudable intent, to

embody the conceptions, and diffuse the effulgence they possessed. As

in that national game so significant of the master-passion and glorious

mission of the Greeks, they threw onward the blazing torch from one

to the other, until light kindled in every eye, and the flying symbol

exhilarated every breast. No man then professed to teach, and was paid

for teaching, who yet had nothing to communicate.

For ten centuries the Greeks marched at the head of humanity,

while Athens remained the centre to which the winds and the waves

bore germs of civilization from the East, and whence, by the same

instrumentalities, the seeds of yet richer harvests were scattered

toward a more distant West. Hesiod, in his Works and Days, gave many

practical lessons on agriculture, and more prosaic, but not less useful

proficients arose on every hand to impart the most valuable instruction

to each aspirant. The last effort of Grecian science was to mingle and

combine in one system, all that the nations of the earth up to that era

had produced. Diversified ideas of every shape and degree of worth were

gathered around the torch of intense national enthusiasm, were made to

comprehend and modify one another, and, in their sublimated union, gave

birth to the first cultivated world. Plato was nearly cotemporary with

Phidias, and, considering the great influence of his philosophic theory

concerning the power of the soul to mold the outward person into its

own pattern of virtue or vice, we can little doubt that the artist in

his studio was greatly influenced by the sage of the Academy, both as

to the choice of subjects and mode of treating them. But when the age

of consummate art had passed, the Greeks perfected another great legacy

to their successors, by making the last generation of her national

industry the successful devotees of science.

When every other department of literature and art in Athens were at

their greatest splendor, the mathematics also flourished most; the

former soon began to decline, but the sciences continued in power long

after beauty in art had been eclipsed. Aristotle wrote nine books on

animals. He may be fixed upon as representing the highest stage of

knowledge and system the Greeks ever attained. Athenæus states, that

Alexander gave him large sums of money, and several thousands of men,

to hunt, fish, and otherwise aid in furnishing a vast collection in

natural history, under the supervision of the philosopher. He was

not only the first, but the only one of the ancients, who treated of

separate species in the animal kingdom. But, although his system of

physics accumulated numerous facts, Aristotle deduced not one general

law to explain them. He knew the property of the lever as well, and

many other correlative truths, but there was no correct theory of

mechanical powers in the world, before Archimedes struck upon a

generic principle of science. Before him, no one had arranged the facts

of space, body, and motion, under the idea of mechanical cause, which

is force.

The civilization of Greece is borne to us, not upon the shields of

her warriors, though they were such as Epaminondas, Miltiades, or

Theseus. But in her inventive skill and artistic taste, in her ships

and argosies, in her industrial prowess and the freedom consequent

thereupon, were the power and wealth which made her the Panopticon

of the nations. Freedom of production, and freedom of barter, were

the guiding commercial principles under which science and fame grew

together and matured the greatest strength. Athens was indebted to

the enterprise of her citizens, and not to martial conquest, for her

glory. The ships that crowded the gulf of Salamis, were built of wood,

purchased from Thrace and Macedonia, and choice material for the

furniture of their halls and palaces, from Byzantium. Phrygia supplied

them with wool, and imports from Miletus were woven in their looms.

The choicest products of Pontus, Cyprus, and the Peloponnesus, did the

Athenians obtain; while, for them, from Britain, overland through Gaul,

the Carthagenians exported tin, and exchanged with them diversified

commodities. Spain yielded them its iron, and the quarries of Hymettus

and Pentelicus furnished marble for the adornment of their own lands,

and for copious export. As is shown in McCullagh's "Industrial History

of Free Nations," they never had an idea that population could outstrip

production, or production over supply the population. "If a man were in

debt, they did not confine him between stone-walls, useless to himself

and his creditors: they provided that he should labor until he had paid

back the amount of the debt. It was upon the seas of commercial treaty

they learned their lessons of freedom; and thence, too, did those gems

of art, which have since been the wonder and the worship of the world,

increase and delight. The beauty of their heavens shed an influence

over their soul; the tenderness of their scenes, we know, enwove

themselves into even the tables, chairs, couches, and drinking vessels.

The Grecian moved amid a perpetual retinue of beauties; the painting,

the statue, the vase, the temple, all assumed novel forms of elegance.

In all this it is not the splendor of Athens which attracts us most,

it is that indefatigable genius of enterprise and industry which, from

the caves of the Morea, plucked the laurel, and made the wild waves of

the Ægean tributary to her wants and her valor." So prevalent was this

spirit of free trade and personal enterprise, that ordinary mechanics

often gained great power in the republic; as in the person of Cleon,

the tanner, who became a worthy successor of Pericles. The port of the

great artistic, manufacturing, and commercial emporium, was so thronged

with ships from every clime, as to justify the saying of Xenophon,

that the dominion of the sea secured to the Athenians the sweets of

the world. Nor were their own craft insignificant in size, or any way

unworthy of the great people they served. Demosthenes refers to one

ship which carried three hundred men, a full cargo, numerous slaves,

and the ordinary crew.

It is granted that art was the parent of science; the genial and comely

mother of a daughter possessing a yet loftier and serener beauty

than herself. It is equally true that Doric columns, and decorated

entablatures, were perfected like the integral parts of the Attic

drama, before professional critics vouchsafed to apply rules for the

three unities, or canons of monumental forms. What creative spirit in

their age actually did, scientific judges afterward patronized with

frigid nomenclatures, and learnedly demonstrated that it might by

certain rules be done.

Under the Ptolemies, neither poets nor artists were produced; but the

mathematical school of Alexandria exhibited an extraordinary succession

of remarkable men. Within the secluded halls and ample libraries of

that central college, the exact sciences were assiduously cultivated,

and for more than a thousand years immense resources of learning were

stored, in due time to be dispersed over the prepared West. The works

of Euclid, Apollonius, and Archimedes, contain a valuable treasure of

the mathematical knowledge of antiquity; but at the early period when

they lived, science was so immature, and the amount of observations so

limited, they could only lay the foundation of that excellence to which

posterity has since arrived. At the conclusion of the Aristotelian

treatises the exploration of this realm subsided, and the human mind

remained, in appearance, stationary for nearly two thousand years.

CHAPTER IV.

PHILOSOPHY.

The term philosopher, or lover of wisdom, is an appellation which was

first applied by Pythagoras, of Samos. He was the originator of the

Italic, as Thales, his predecessor, one of the sophoi or wise men, was

of the Ionic school, about B.C. 640 years. Philosophy means a search

after wisdom. When this is looked for among the things that are seen

and handled, weighed and measured, it is physical philosophy. But he

who seeks for an object which is not of this material kind, is called a

metaphysical philosopher.

All philosophical elements are in the East, but enveloped in one

another, needing a distinct and matured growth. As the roots of the

modern world are in classic antiquity, so those of classic antiquity

are on the coasts of Egypt, in the vales of Persia, and on the heights

of Asia. The oriental world preceded Greece, but has left no legible

record of her past. In the progressive West alone does authentic

history begin, and this is embodied in history, as in every other

branch of human improvement. The world of humanity was seen to take

a step forward, when civilization descended through Asia Minor, and

traversed the Mediterranean to rest on the coasts of Attica. Then all

the elements of human nature came under a new condition, and soon

adopted the permanent order of an independent march.

The earliest philosophy of Greece had an Asiatic origin, and was

received through Ionia. Many fragments from that source were

incorporated in the works of Homer and Hesiod, and others are quoted

by the primitive annalists from the still more ancient oracular

poetry. Sir William Jones was of the opinion that the six leading

schools, whose principles are explained in the Dersana Sastra, comprise

all the metaphysics of the old Academy, the Stoa, and the Lyceum.

"Nor," continues he, "is it possible to read the Vedasta, or the many

compositions in illustration of it, without believing that Pythagoras

and Plato derived their sublime theories from the same fountain with

the sages of India." In the mathematical sciences, the Hindoos were

acquainted with the decimal notation by nine digits and zero. In

algebra, Mr. Colebrooke found reason to conclude that the Greeks were

far behind the Hindoos; but it is possible that the latter was obtained

from the Morea at a later period through the Arabs. But on the question

of philosophy, there can be no doubt that incipient notions existed in

Hindoostan, compared with which the antiquity of Pythagoras is but of

yesterday; and in point of daring, the boldest flights of Plato were

tame and commonplace.

Grecian art, which rose to absolute perfection, ended also with itself,

and presents a striking exemplification of the perishable nature of

merely instinctive greatness. But the philosophy of that wonderful

people was more immutably founded, and has never ceased to show

that the human race, unlike an unbroken circle constantly revolving

upon itself, progressively advances into the infinite, and shines

unremittingly with inborn ardor to attain the highest and noblest ends.

Humanity, that is, thought, art, science, philosophy, and religion,

the powers which are represented in history, embraces all, profits by

all, advances continually through all, and never retrogrades. A given

system may perish, and this may be a misfortune to itself, but not

to the general weal. If it possessed real life, that life is still

realized in some higher manifestation, but perhaps so modified by

co-operative elements as to appear lost. It may indeed be obscured,

but can never be obliterated. Vicissitudes and revolutions may rapidly

succeed, and in great confusion; but human destiny is higher and better

than these, it accepts all, assimilates all, and subordinates all to

its own supreme behests. Every epoch, in retiring from the stage of

the world, leaves after it a long heritage of contrary interests; but

these only wait for a sufficient accumulation of other like elements,

that with them a homogeneous amalgam may be formed as the basis of yet

worthier superadditions. The Hellenic mind invented the art of deducing

truth from principles by the dialectical process, and this divinest

of Japhetic discoveries has exerted the most auspicious influence on

subsequent philosophy and religion. The world had already learned much

when the Greek first demonstrated that reasoning might often err, but

reason never. That is the only medium through which truth is conveyed,

and Greek philosophy was truly precious when it became to mankind the

translation of the instinctive consciousness of God into reasoning.

This was first applied to fathom the depths of physical speculation;

and, then, in the consecrated soul of Socrates, it labored to possess

the bosom of universal humanity, that thereby it might unfold to all

the highest science. Shem transformed figurative signs into simple

letters, and invented the Alphabet; but that greater prophet of the

human race, Japhet, did vastly more, by translating the hieroglyphics

of thought into simple elements, thereby inventing dialectical

philosophy. This changed myths, legends, and visions, as well as more

authentic annals into the heirloom of mankind by reason, and became

at once and for all time the great organon for dealing with both

conception and existence of all kinds everywhere.

There was military activity enough among the Greeks to preserve them

from intellectual and moral torpor, but fortunately it did not exist in

sufficient force to engross the faculties of superior minds. Therefore,

energies of the highest order were thrown back upon intellectual

pursuits; and the masses, so led, were also inclined to like culture,

especially in the direction of æsthetics and philosophy. The bold

writers of the Republic shrunk not from propounding all those problems

in science and morals most interesting to man; and, whatever may have

been their skill in solving them, they certainly were the first to

point the way to true greatness. But for the restless spirit of inquiry

which was awakened by Greek philosophers, the western nations might

still have been slumbering in barbarian ignorance. Ancient dialectics

prepared the way for modern progress, by teaching intellect to

discipline and comprehend itself, in order that it may accurately scan

nature and bind her forces to the car of human welfare. Such was the

idea expressed by Aristotle, when he said: "The order of the universe

is like that of a family, of which each member has its part not

arbitrarily or capriciously enforced, but prefixed and appointed; all

in their diversified functions conspiring to the harmony of the whole."

Philosophy, like the literature, art, and science of the ancients,

had its origin among the Asiatic Greeks. The same region that gave

existence and character to Homer and Herodotus, produced also Thales,

Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, founders of the Ionic school.

They belonged to the same region, studied under like auspices, and

formed continuous links in the great chain of perpetual progress.

To the same source is to be accredited those who extended the Ionic

doctrines to Magna Grecia and southern Italy, such as the poet

Zenophanes, and that mighty founder of the most erudite confederacy,

Pythagoras.

Anaxagoras, successor of Anaximenes, was born B.C. 500 years. After

giving great distinction to the Ionic school, he came to reside at

Athens, where he taught Pericles and Euripides, at the same time he was

opening the source from which Socrates derived his knowledge of natural

philosophy.

Parmenides, Zeus, and Leucippus, natives of Elea, enhanced the

reputation of the Eleatic school, founded by Zenophanes, about B.C. 500

years. Democritus, a disciple of Leucippus, increased its fame still

more, but modified its doctrines extensively.

Socrates, according to Cicero, "brought down philosophy from heaven to

dwell upon earth, who made her even an inmate of our habitations." His

discomfiture of the Sophists, whose futile logic inflicted much injury

on the Athenian mind, was a great blessing to his country, but one

which cost the benefactor his life. His doctrines were never committed

to writing by himself, but have been preserved in substance by his

distinguished pupils Plato and Xenophon.

The Cyrenaic sect was founded by Aristippus, a disciple of Socrates.

It degenerated through the varied succession of Theodorus, Hegesias,

and Anniceris, to merge finally in the kindred doctrines on happiness

inculcated by Epicurus.

Antisthenes was the first of the Cynics, and was succeeded by the more

notorious Diogenes. This school was composed of disciplinarians, rather

than doctrinists, whose whole business was the endeavor to arrange the

circumstances of life, that they may produce the maximum of pleasure

and the minimum of pain. The caustic wit of Diogenes was directed

against more refined teachers, especially his great cotemporary, Plato.

The latter, in terms which implied respect for the evident talents of a

rival whom he had so much reason to despise, called him "a Socrates run

mad."

Archelaus succeeded Diogenes, and was called, by way of eminence, "the

natural philosopher." Before him, Anaxagoras had taught occasional

disciples in Athens; but it is probable that Archelaus was the first

to open a regular school there. He transferred the chair of philosophy

from Ionia to the metropolis of Minerva 450 years before Christ.

The Megaric sect of Sophists was the last and worst. It was founded by

Euclides, and produced Eubulides, Alexinus, Eleensis, Diodorus, and

Stilpo. Cotemporary criticism applied to some of these such epithets as

the Wrangler, or the Driveler, which, doubtless, were well deserved.

Stilpo was the last gleam of philosophic worth in Greece.

Of the religious views of Socrates, we shall treat in the succeeding

chapter. Under the present head, it is sufficient to say, that his

moral worth illustrated the age in which he lived; and his admiring

disciples branched into so many distinguished families or schools,

that he is justly called the great patriarch of philosophy. Socrates

was the first philosophic thinker who demanded of himself and of all

others a reason for their thoughts. He roused the spirit, and rendered

it fruitful by rugged husbandry. He insisted that men should understand

themselves, and so express their reason as to be understood by him.

Thus he produced all he desired, movement, advancement in reflection;

and leaving successors to arrange systems, it was enough for him to

supervise the birth and growth of living thoughts. As the Pythagoreans

were the authors of mathematics and cosmology, Socrates consummated

the scientific endeavor, and added psychology. Thus the dignity and

importance of human personality stood revealed, the crowning light

most needed to complete the age of Pericles. Around this fundamental

idea created by psychology was gathered the idea of personal grandeur,

in heaven as upon earth, in literature, art, science, philosophy,

and religion. As soon as philosophic genius proclaimed the supreme

importance of the study of human personality, the higher divinities

became personal, and the representations of art no longer fell into

exaggerated forms, but were definite, expressive, and refined.

Moreover, as this principle prevailed and was acutely felt, legislation

became liberal, and the social polity was necessarily democratic.

Plato, the great glory of Athenian philosophy, was born in Ægina,

about B.C. 430 years. Descending from Codrus and Solon, his lineage

was most distinguished; but his genius was much more illustrious

than any ancestral fame. He learned dialectics from Euclides the

Megaric; studied the Pythagorean system under Phitolaus and Archytas;

and traveled into Egypt to accomplish himself in all that which the

geometry and other learning of that country could impart. Returning

to Greece, he became the most characteristic and renowned teacher of

philosophy in the Periclean age. Demosthenes, Isocrates, and Aristotle

were among his disciples, and continuators of his immense mental and

moral worth. Plato also visited Italy, where he gathered the noble

germs which he grafted on the doctrines of Socrates, and which are

not accounted for in Xenophon. On his final return to Athens, he

took possession of a modest apartment adjacent to the groves and

grounds which had been bequeathed by Academus to the public, wherein

he lectured to the public on sublime themes. He divided philosophy

into three parts--Morals, Physics, and Dialectics. The first

division included politics, and under the second, that science which

afterward came to be distinguished by the name of metaphysics. In

his Commonwealth, the object of Plato was to project a perfect model

to which human institutions might in some remote degree approximate.

He seems even at that early day to have had a presentiment of the

ennobling republicanism which human progress would necessitate and

attain. His writings form a mass of literary and moral wisdom,

inculcated with the highest charm of thought and manner, which had

ever appeared to exalt the imagination and affect the heart. He was,

doubtless, the best prose writer of antiquity; in the form and force

of his composition, he stands at the highest point of refinement Attic

genius ever attained. He died at Athens, eighty-one years old, and was

honored with a monument in the Academy, upon which his famous pupil,

Aristotle, inscribed an epitaph in terms of reverence and gratitude.

The philosophy to which Plato gives his name, recalls at once all

that is most profound in thought and pleasing in imagination. But

no isolated genius can be correctly appreciated. His predecessors,

Socrates and Anaxagoras, as well as his successors, the Neoplatonists,

must be taken into joint consideration, or the great master in

whom philosophic grandeur culminated will not himself be properly

understood. Neither is the Sceptic school of Pyrrho, nor the Stoic

school of Zeus; Democritus, of Abdera, radiant with smiles, or

Heraclitus, of Ephesus, bathed in tears, to be discarded from the

view, when we would sum up the aggregated worth of that philosophic

age. But the hour has come when the god of philosophy, a son of Metis,

or Wisdom, realized the menace put into the mouth of Prometheus by

Æschylus, and Zeus with his compeers is driven into the caverns of the

West to share the exile of Cronus. Who was the predestined instrument

of all this?

Stagirus, the birthplace of Aristotle, was situated on the western

side of the Strymonic gulf; a region which, in soil and appearance,

resembles much the southern part of the bay of Naples. When seventeen

years old, he came to Athens, the centre of all civilization, and

the focus of every thing that was brilliant in action or thought.

Plato fired his mind, and fortified that wonderful industry in his

hardy pupil, which enabled him, first among men, to acquire almost

encyclopædic knowledge in collecting, criticizing, and digesting

the most comprehensive mass of materials. So extraordinary was the

application of Aristotle, that Plato called his residence "the house of

the reader."

How wonderful is Providence! While Aristotle was exiled in Mytilene,

and when the auspices of human progress were most foreboding, he was

invited to undertake the training of one who, in the world of action,

was destined to achieve an empire which only that of his master in

the world of thought could ever surpass. In the conjunction of two

such spirits, according to the predetermined mode and moment, the

invaluable accumulation of Periclean wealth was to be distributed

westward without the slightest loss. The great transition hero needed

to be trained in a way befitting his mission, and this required that

he should be imbued with something better than the austerity of

Leonidas, or the flattery of Lysimachus, so that his character might

command respect, and his judgment preserve it. Through the influence

of Aristotle on Alexander, this conservative result was attained. The

rude and intemperate barbarian became ameliorated, and soon manifested

that love for philosophy and elegant letters, which were the fairest

traits of his life. So strong did this elevating passion become, even

amid the ignoble pursuits of war, that being at the extremity of

Asia, in a letter to Harpalus, he desired the works of Philestris, the

historian, the tragedies of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and the

dithyrambs of Telestis and Philoxenus, to be sent to him. Homer was his

constant traveling companion; a copy of whom was often in his hands,

and deposited by the side of his dagger under his nightly pillow. Thus

did the beautiful age of Pericles blend with the martial force about to

succeed.

When Aristotle returned to Athens to close the great era of philosophic

vigor, being near the temple of Apollo Lyceus, his school was known as

the Lyceum, and here every morning and evening he addressed a numerous

body of scholars. Among the acute and impressible Greeks nearly all

objects, however ideal in their original treatment, subsequently

received a practical form. As the imaginative sublimities of their

poets became embodied in glorious sculptures, so the theories of

their early philosophy were wrought out politically, or gave way

to cumulative mathematical demonstration. Plato, in dialogues and

dissertations, philosophized with all the fervor of an artist; while

the method of Aristotle was strictly scientific in the minute as

well as enlarged sense of the word. To the first, philosophy was a

speciality which engrossed a protracted life; but the latter treated

not only of natural science, and natural history as well, but he also

wrote on politics, general history, and criticism, so that it may be

said truly that he epitomized the entire knowledge of the Greeks. The

age of Plato was an age of ideals; but with Aristotle the realistic age

had dawned. Pericles had begun to take part in public affairs one year

before the birth of Socrates; Olynthus was taken by Philip of Macedon

the very year in which Plato died. This intermediate period of one

hundred and twenty years was all occupied with some ideal of beauty,

wisdom, or freedom, in the persons of poets, architects, sculptors,

painters, statesmen, who were striving to realize it, dreaming of it,

or sporting with it to amaze and bewilder their fellow-men. But the

name of Aristotle, as that of Philip, is a signal that concentrated

organizing power has appeared in the realms of thought and action, and

that the coming age requires a philosophical expounder who shall in his

own career govern the old and represent the new. It was at Athens that

Aristotle collected all the treasures of scientific facts the conquered

nations could contribute, and wrote there the great works which were

still young in their influence when the Macedonian madman had long

since crumbled into dust.

To the followers of Plato in the Academy, of Aristotle in the Lyceum,

the Cynics of the Cynosargus, and Stoics of the Portico, Epicurus came

in the decrepid effeminacy of the age at the moment of its lowest

degradation, and, amid the parterres of prettiness which, with the

pittance of eighty minæ, he purchased for the purpose, established

the so-called philosophy of the Garden. Such was the last expression

of that Ionian school which shared somewhat of the Hindoo national

character, wherein it originated, and so far resembled a hot-house

seed. Opening with gorgeous colors and rich perfume, it grew rapidly,

and produced precocious and abundant fruit. But the more western

growth was like the oak, hardened by wind and weather, striking its

roots into solid earth, and stretching its branches in free air toward

both sun and stars. In the Ionic school the human soul performed but

a feeble part. The Italic school, on the contrary, was mathematic

and astronomic, and at the same time idealistic; it was at once the

brain and heart of Grecian progress and power. The former regarded the

relations of phenomena as simple modifications of the same, and founded

the abstract upon the concrete; whereas, the latter neglected the

phenomena themselves for their relations, founding thus the concrete

upon the abstract. To the Ionic school the centre of the world's system

is the earth; but the centre of the universal system, according to

conscious reason in the Italic school, is the sun. Ten fundamental

numbers therein formed the decadal astronomy, the harmonious kosmos,

whose laws of movement around the great central luminary produced the

sweet music of the spheres.

Empedocles, of Agrigentum, B.C. 455, presents the most western phase of

Greek character, and the one which in the clearest manner anticipated

the age to come. He noted the great changes which transpired in

society, and believed he saw their counterpart in the convulsions

going on within and upon the earth. The war of disorganized humanity,

passions against nature, and the conflict of enraged elements among

themselves, were closely considered, but doubtless with a confusion of

physics and ethics in his mind. Love, hatred, friendship, treason,

were all recognized mixed up in the fearful warfare of earth, air,

fire, and water. Great nature was no imaginary battle-field to the mind

of Empedocles; the hosts which Homer had portrayed fighting for Greeks

and Trojans, were still in deadly struggle, and his vivid speculations

soon after became actual history. Cotemporaries called him the

enchanter; because, as a zealous student of the outer world, he could

not disengage himself from the perplexities which he found within his

own constitution, but followed out with fervor the greatest question

of our being. He not only won at the chariot race, as his father did

before him, and fought for the liberties of his native Agrigentum, that

last hold of freedom in the West, but as poet, as well as philosopher,

he forms a curious link between Homer, Pindar, and his Roman admirer,

Lucretius.

As often as the historian and philosopher speak of heroic virtues,

they will mention Lycurgus, and the influence of his legislation.

But when they glance at the higher objects man was made to attain,

the harmonious development and adornment of all the powers in his

possession, they must look to the laws of a nobler culture in Attic

climes. It was there only, that all ennobling influences were blended

and subordinated to the highest use by the best minds. Plato frequented

the studios of artists, to acquire correct ideas of beauty; and

Aristotle, in his Politics, says, that "all were taught literature,

gymnastics, and music; and many also, the art of design, as being

useful and abundantly available for the purposes of life." But not

one beautiful flower of intellect or art sprang in Laconian soil,

to acquire thereon either healthful vigor or attractive growth. No

gladdening voice of the poet has thence descended, nor were the

obscurities of nature, and the depths of immortal consciousness either

investigated or enlightened by any of her sons.

Thus from the sublime terrace of the Acropolis, have we cast another

glance over that glorious land where Homer breathed forth those songs

for six and twenty centuries unexcelled; where Phidias, like his own

Jupiter, sat serene on the loftiest throne of art; where Pericles ruled

with sovereign grandeur in the first of cities, not by mercenary arms,

but by the magic influence of mind; where Socrates first scanned the

human heart, and learned to analyze its deep and mighty workings; and

whence the royal pupil of Aristotle, the last and greatest of universal

victors, went forth on the mission of conquest, not designedly to

plunder and destroy, but to spread the literature, arts, science,

philosophy, and religion of immortal Greece throughout the civilized

world.

CHAPTER V.

RELIGION.

The East is the native land of religion, whence a perpetual exodus has

continually advanced toward the West. As the sun in the beginning,

so truth and life first shone from the orient; and the march of

civilization has ever since been in the direction of that great orb.

The Assyrians were not monotheistic, but they were far from being

so polytheistic as the Egyptians, who were imbued with an African

fetichism such as never debased the Asiatic race. Hence, their

symbolism was much simpler and less repulsive than that of the

Egyptians. The ancient Persians were less superstitious than the

Assyrians, and presented their paraphrase of Te Deum first among

intellectual nations without temples. They have left nothing that

pertains to sacred art, not even tombs. With them God was omnipresent,

fire his symbol, the firmament his throne, the sun and stars his

representatives, the elements his ministers, and the most acceptable

worship a holy life. But a belief in the existence and exercise of

supernatural powers is older than the magism or magic, whose origin

belongs to that indefinite antiquity which witnessed the feuds of

Ninus and Zoroaster, when the gods instructed the Indian devotee how

to subordinate them to his purposes, or when Odin discovered the

Runes, which could chain the elements and awake the dead. Earlier than

Assyrian Chaldeans, Israelitish Levites, or Median and Persian Magi,

religious sentiments were native to man, and magician and priest were

synonymous terms. Then was the arbiter of weal and woe, of blessings

and curses, invested with the awful privilege of invoking the gods and

performing religious services. Aided by popular credulity, the inspired

seer could move mountains, stir up Leviathan, govern disease, or, like

Balaam, destroy foes by imprecations.

It would be a hopeless task to trace with accuracy the theology of

the earliest periods, buried as it is under a mass of allegory and

fable which can not now be removed. Yet there are indications of a

purer morality, and a more worthy faith, than is portrayed in the

anthropomorphic mythology of the Hesiodic and Homeric poems. Inachus

is supposed to have migrated from the Asian shore about the same time

the Israelites entered Egypt. Then, the worship prevalent among the

Nomadic tribes of Asia, according to Job, was that of one almighty

Creator, typified by, and already half confounded with light, either

the sun or other celestial bodies. Plato speaks vaguely of the divine

unity, and Aristotle more distinctly avers, that "it was an ancient

saying received by all from their ancestors, that all things exist by

and through the power of God, who being one, was known by many names

according to his modes of manifestation."

In the opening chapter of this work, allusion was made to the Kylas

mountain in Asia, from the lofty terraces of which the ancestors of

the Greeks descended, bringing with them to Hellas a memento of their

origin in the word _koilon_, which they used to designate heaven,

and illustrating their hereditary theology by going for congenial

worship to the loftiest shrines. The best authority tells us that they

were exceedingly religious, a fact which even their grossest errors

confirm. Endowed with the most acute and active sensibilities, the

Greek sought to satisfy the ardent aspirations of his devout spirit;

he even yearned to be himself enrolled among the deified heroes whom

his valor or imagination had exalted to the dazzling halls of Olympus.

This general impulse may be illustrated by particular examples, as in

the subtle Themistocles and majestic Pericles, who placidly hailed

in worship traditions discarded by the historic mind as transparent

fictions. So powerful and all pervading was the religiousness of

the cultivated Greeks, that the same judgment which so profoundly

harmonized with the severe grandeur of the Olympian Jove, enthroned by

Phidias amid the marshaled columns of the national temple, bowed to the

legend of Aphrodite, the foam-born queen of Love. Heroism and piety

were perpetually invigorated at costly fanes; and how deeply the spirit

of worship and belief in retribution, were impressed upon the most

powerful intellect, is shown by the awful apostrophe of Demosthenes

to the heroes who fell at Marathon, and the breathless attention which

then absorbed the very soul of the Athenian.

In the land of Ham nothing was nobler than a few dull emblems of

thought, sitting on a lotus leaf, immersed in the contemplation

of their own divinity, or fierce warrior-deities, Molochs, Baals,

or Saturns, while the classic West deified the sentiments of the

human mind; and, though steeped in viciousness, yet represented as

beings presiding over nature in beautiful and commanding forms. A

potent spell of fascination dwelt in the mere abstractions of pagan

thought embodied in a Hebe, Venus, or Minerva; and false as were the

spiritual views of their authors, they exercised a charm of imagination

which still speaks to more enlightened intellects, and evokes sad

regrets from holier hearts. The province of Shem was faith and not

philosophy. His descendants were never successful in dialectics, and

the best of them under the old dispensation only stated the matter

of their belief, but never undertook to prove it. When Job attempted

religious argumentation, and would justify the ways of God to man

by a process of theodicean philosophy, he acknowledged his failure

by avowing the incomprehensibility of human destinies. And when the

pious and philosophic Ecclesiastes attempted to argue on rationalistic

principles, he fell into inextricable doubt, and could resist despair

only by implicit submission to the word vouchsafed from heaven: "Fear

God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." Such

was the last dictum of Hebraism in the fifth century before Christ,

at the moment when the daring speculation of Japhet had passed its

culminating point. This, too, was the age of Haggai and Malachi, in

whom sacred truth is announced in purely didactic and not argumentative

forms. Without anticipating the designs of Providence, we think with

inexpressible delight of the last and best expression of Jewish

faith united to Japhetic reason, and happily blended together in the

splendors of an infinitely loftier wisdom to enlighten mankind.

The functions of humanity are of a social nature; they merge in the

whole species, and have religion for their foundation and centre. If

absolute isolation were possible to man, it would virtually nullify his

existence. Only societies act in and upon the world, with religion for

their bond and protection. Among the nations which have shared in the

work of progress accomplished hitherto, each has exerted an influence

by some characteristic feature, some special function in the general

advance. In addition to the literature, art, science, and philosophy of

the Greeks, we should carefully note the great civilizing might which

dwelt in their religion. This was felt by them to be an infinite and

universal necessity. Without it, the social state is impossible, since

the nature of man demands active progress under a moral law too exalted

to emanate from human will. It must be divinely ordained, and in a way

which clearly indicates the means and end of human perfection. That

alone can create and proclaim the legitimate end of human activity, at

the same time it becomes synonymous with religious morality.

The ideas which obtain among different nations respecting their own

creation, are usually much like themselves. Scandinavians suppose

that they sprang from dense forests on their hills, the Libyans from

the sands of their native deserts, while the Egyptians conceived

themselves to have arisen from the mud of the Nile. But the cheerful

and active Greek associated his origin with the grasshopper, and went

singing on his agile way. A kindred diversity exists in the choice

made by nations as to the objects to be adored. The Egyptians deified

water, the Phrygians earth, the Assyrians air, and the Persians fire.

But the Greek, impelled by nobler instincts, went beyond grosser

natures and deified himself. The mighty conclave shining round the

resplendent heights of Olympus, was only the counterpart of a vast

congregation worshiping below. As Amon or Osiris presides among the

deities of a lower grade, Pan, with the music of his pipe, directs the

chorus of the constellations, and Zeus leads the solemn procession of

celestial troops in the astronomical theology of the Pythagoreans. The

apotheosis of Orpheus, with his harp, in their scientific heavens, is

a starry record of oriental worship sublimated by the devout intellect

of Greece. The nations of antiquity believed that their ancestors

dwelt closely allied to the gods, or were gods themselves. Cadmus

and Cecrops were half human, half divine. The Greeks inherited many

cosmogonical legends from the Hindoos, out of which was composed the

theogony of Hesiod. Thebes rising to the sound of Amphion's lyre, was

the world awakening at the music of the shell of Vishnou. Conflicting

Centaurs and Lapithæ, Titans and giants, are supposed to represent

the elemental discord out of which arose the stability and harmony of

nature.

The great heroes of India became the chief gods of Greece; so that

their mythology was not a pure invention, but rested on a historical

basis. The introduction of the Lamaic worship into north-eastern

Hellas, is distinctly preserved in the earliest religious annals.

The famous moralist Pythagoras was the special devotee and professor

of eastern doctrines, and, under their inspiration, established a

brotherhood strictly devotional, and with observances of monastic

sanctity. Grote speaks of this great preacher to the Grecian race in

the following terms: "In his prominent vocation, analogous to that of

Epimenides, Orpheus, or Melampus, he appears as the revealer of a mode

of life calculated to raise his disciples above the level of mankind,

and to recommend them to the favor of the gods; the Pythagorean life,

like the Orphic life, being intended as the exclusive prerogative

of the brotherhood, approached only by probation and initiatory

ceremonies, which were adapted to select enthusiasts rather than to

an indiscriminate crowd, and exacting active mental devotion to the

master." Traditionary history commemorates a wonderful reformation

produced by this stern religionist in different lands. The effect

produced among the Crotoniates by the illustrious missionary of

morality is indicated by the recorded fact, that two thousand persons

were converted under his first discourse. The Supreme Council were

so penetrated with the noble powers of the Lamaic apostle that they

offered him the exalted post of their President, and placed at the head

of the religious female processions his wife and daughter.

The religion of the Greeks was the deification of the faculties and

affections of man. Human character and personality preponderated

therein, but it was neither inert nor wanting in intellect. The

passionless, immovable deities of Egypt and Persia were superseded by

the active and powerful hierarchy of Olympus. Free and independent,

they were presided over by the great conqueror of those blind and deaf

gods of necessity, who had reigned absolutely over all the ancient

East. Under this new dispensation, the various forces of nature were

emancipated and endowed with the affections, and subjected to the

weaknesses, of mortal beings. Fountains, rivers, trees, forests,

mountains, rose into objects of adoration under the form of nymphs,

goddesses, and gods. Social existence was elevated to a corresponding

degree, by the removal of castes, and the sacerdotal despotisms which

had so long impeded the progress of democratic principles in individual

and social life. Preceding nations, of lively sensibility, had

reverenced as deities single rays of the Divine Being separated from

their great centre; but the polytheism which prevailed over adolescent

men, appeared in Hellas invested with a purer majesty. Oriental

polytheism desecrated its altars and temples with images of deformity;

but the West conceived a nobler symbol of divinity, when the Greek

created God in his own image, and seemed to inhale life-giving breath

while he worshiped in the midst of every phenomenon that could refine

his taste or stimulate his imagination. This was utterly inadequate

to the attainment of the great end of spiritual existence; but one

important step in paganism was gained; natural religion, which had

before been absorbed in the immeasurableness of the formless infinite,

became fixed to the eye under the limitations of a cognizable form,

eminently human, but suggestive of the divine. Thus, religion produced

ideality in art, and art fostered enthusiasm in religion. The beauty

and dignity of many altar-statues appeared to have descended from a

higher sphere, and commanded the reverence due to beings of celestial

birth. The earthly was so blended with the heavenly, and visibly

presented, that Plato looked upon the harmony as something complete,

and most ennobling in its power of assimilation. In all the public

enterprises and festal assemblies of the Greeks, a high religious tone

was present which paid homage only to the exalted and the beautiful.

They were of the earth, earthy; but it is impossible not to look back

with respect upon that people whose whole civilization was imbued

with a spirit of renunciation, sublime self-sacrifice, and beneficent

deeds. The magical splendor which yet pours about them, in the depths

of that old world, after so many centuries, is nothing else than the

reflection of their purer worship and nobler stamp of character. Of

all the states, Athens, in this regard, as in every other, was by far

the noblest. Sparta, it is true, appreciated highly the blessings of

liberty, and was not only content by a joyless existence to purchase

this, but delighted even to sacrifice life for its preservation. But

the refined capital of Minerva went beyond the severe law which makes

a useful slave, as one would harden a growth of oak; she elicited

perfume from the fairest bloom of the soul, wherein the moral man was

made to unfold in the development of a higher freedom. The genius of

the Greek was as profoundly devotional as it was emulative. To his

sensitive imagination, the fair objects of nature became invested with

a living personality; day and night presented engrossing deities, while

he adored the golden-haired Phœbus, or the silvery Artemis. Actuated

by a glowing fancy, material creation seemed spiritualized, and each

agreeable retreat was the habitation of a god. Naiads in the fountains;

Dryads in the groves; Fauns, Satyrs, and Oreads on the mountains,

indissolubly associated sublunary scenes with intelligent beings, and

kindled the starry heavens with the effulgence of supreme divinities.

The dawn of civilization has ever been confined to those who were

intrusted with the care of sacred ceremonies, and who devoted their

exclusive knowledge to the support of their religion. In the beginning

all contemplation was religious; the whole universe was esteemed

divine, and it was to the solving of this problem that the first

efforts of mind were given. "Whence, and who am I?" are the first

questions which occur to Brahma, as represented in Hindoo theology,

when he awakens to conscious being amid the expanse of waters. But the

early Greek sages surveyed nature with the more penetrating glance

of a Lynceus, or Atlas, who saw down into the ocean depths. There

was no distinct astronomy, history, philosophy, or theology; there

was but one mental exercise, whose results were called "Wisdom." It

was this personification that Solomon saw standing alone with God

before the creation. All mythologies may in one sense claim to rank as

truths, inasmuch as they in fact represent what once existed as mental

conceptions. On this principle the Grecian dogmas, though in reality

absurdities, are most worthy of attention, because they are expressed

in the purest forms. Their conceptions of super-human beings were

products of the devotional sentiment. Nature was to them a perpetually

flowing fountain, whose pellucid waters mirrored earth and sky; like

the stream in which Narcissus was dazzled by the reflection of his own

image, and beneath whose surface he bent in sadness, and was melted

into its transparent depths.

Efforts to deify the beautiful existed among the Hindoos and Hebrews,

as well as among the Greeks; but in the former races, a wish to blend

in one expression a great variety of theological ideas obliterated

elegance, and rendered the idols of Egypt and India elaborate

metaphysical enigmas, a sculptured library of symbols, instead of an

attractive gallery of religious art. But in Greece, the development of

sacred imagery fell into the hands of masters in whom the character of

priest was subordinate to that of artist; from the servant art became

the mistress, the teacher, even the institutor of the religion in whose

aid she had been employed, and the works so produced were received as

fresh revelations from heaven.

Poets gave a local habitation to the gods, and were the first teachers

of religion. With the eye of taste, and impelled by sentimental

reverence, they people the hills and groves, glens and rivers,

with imaginary beings. Much of the Homeric theology is of Egyptian

parentage, but in his hands all borrowed material was greatly improved.

Mere personification of natural powers became moral agents; and,

instead of being represented under disgusting images, they became

models of human beauty, elegance, and majesty. The inspired bards,

though blind without, were full of eyes within, and Acteon-like, gazed

on nature's naked loveliness through the light of their illumined

souls. To these poet-priests of nature, like Orpheus, or Eumolpus,

was ascribed the first religious establishment, as well as the first

practical compositions. The commencement of literature was not a scheme

contrived to win the savage to civilization: it was the wild and

spontaneous outburst of religious enthusiasm. If powerful institutions

are always ascribed to distinguished men only, it is simply because

that the full light of common thoughts is never condensed and vividly

set forth but by that exalted order of genius which is the rarest

of gifts. Minds of the finest tone express the most comprehensive

doctrines, as the lyre of Orpheus, and the pipe of Silenus, sung how

heaven and earth rose out of chaos. Atlas taught respecting men and

beasts, tempestuous elements, and the eclipses and irregularities

of the heavenly bodies. The laws of Menu, like those of Moses,

begin with cosmogony; and Niebuhr has shown that the history of the

Etruscans, like that of the Brahmins and Chaldeans, is contained in an

astronomico-theological outline embracing the whole course of time.

Evidently the first colonizers of Greece brought with them much of the

simple faith and worship recorded in the Hebrew writings. A stone,

or the trunk of a tree, was set up for a memorial, and, according

to the alarm that had been felt, or the deliverance experienced,

on some spot thereby sanctified, worship was offered to that great

Being whose rule all acknowledged, but whose name none ventured to

pronounce. Doubtless the excess of awe, if no more mundane influence,

generated superstition; as the vow of Jephtha had its parallel in the

almost cotemporaneous sacrifice of Iphigenia, and of Polyxena. It was

this barbarous race that the polished and erudite traveler, Orpheus,

endeavored to civilize. Perhaps, as in later times, he imagined that

hidden doctrines would best improve the higher classes; while the minds

of the vulgar would be easier won by fables, and weaned from gloomy

superstitions by the worship of divine benevolence, manifested in the

varied products and powers of nature. The attempt, however, failed,

and the grossness of depraved perceptions converted those different

manifestations into separate deities, so that different localities

and cities came to have their tutelary stone, or wooden idol, or

marble statue. The temple was built on the spot hallowed by devotion,

as at Bethel; but in a subsequent age the impulse of the original

consecration was no longer felt, and its intent was forgotten. The

gorgeous fane, and the fascinating image therein, became objects of

degenerate worship; the source of profit to a mercenary priesthood, and

of deterioration to the most intellectual and moral of mankind.

Monuments were early erected in grateful commemoration of religious

events, as the hill of stones by Jacob and Laban; or to gratify secular

ambition, as was exemplified in the tower of Babel. In Greece, when

the pioneers were feeble, the first settlers chose some hill readily

defensible, and having fortified the summit as the first space to be

occupied, they proceeded to build a taphos, or temple for the divinity.

Such was the origin of Athens. The inclosed city was called Cecropia,

from Cecrops, it is said, who first founded the state, and his was the

first place of worship for the original inhabitants. Others interpret

Acropolis to mean "Height of the City," which, in this instance, was

accessible only on the western side, through the Propylæa, and was

crowned by that shrine of Truth and Wisdom, the Parthenon. Religious

instincts have ever sought the vast solitudes of untainted nature, or

the open heights of the mighty temple of the great God, whereon the

pure spirit of love reigns and smiles over all. Pilgrimages were made

to the oaks of Mamre, near Hebron, from the days of Abraham; and the

nations surrounding the divinely favored tribes conspired to attach

the idea of veneration to rivers and fountains, and were accustomed

not only to dedicate trees and groves to their deities, but even to

sacrifice on high mountains; customs which were practiced by the Jews

themselves, previous to the building of Solomon's temple. The beginning

of wisdom was in the wilds of Asia, and it was there that the God of

nature implanted grand ideas in the minds of shepherds, meditating on

those antique eminences, teaching them to wonder and adore. As the

loftiest mountains are surmounted with the most unsullied snow, so the

purest sentiments crowned their elevated souls, and forever rendered

them the chief source of fertilizing streams to all lands, through

every region of thought.

In Greece, there was no hereditary priesthood, as in Egypt. The

right of presiding at public sacrifices pertained to the highest

civil office, and probably the head of each family was also its

ecclesiastic; but there was no priestly combination with secular

power, and no national creed. Nestor, at home, conducts religious

service, aided by his sons, and Achilles offers sacrifice to the

manes of Patroclus. Pausanias informs us that early in Arcadia, the

twelve gods were worshiped under the forms of rude stones; and before

Dædalus, the statues had eyes nearly shut, legs close together, and

the arms scarcely detached from the body; but as the correlative arts

and sciences improved, sculpture, like the civilization it expressed,

acquired freedom, proportion, and natural action. Altars were commonly

erected in the open air, and propitiatory offerings most frequently

smoked before Zeus, Poseidon, Athene, and Apollo. The first three of

these are better known under their Latin designations of Jupiter,

Neptune, and Minerva. The supremacy of the first over all inferior

deities is decisively marked. His own declaration, according to Homer,

is at the same time the most affirmative on this point, and a curious

indication of the social condition of the gods. Says the supreme, "If

I catch any one of you helping the Trojans or the Greeks, he shall

either make his escape to Olympus disgraced and bruised, or else I

will seize him, and throw him into Tartarus. Then you shall know my

supremacy in power. Come, now, make the trial; hang a gold chain from

heaven, and fasten yourselves at the end of it, all of you, gods and

goddesses; you can not pull Zeus down, but, whenever I please, I can

pull you up with the earth and the sea, wind the chain round Olympus,

and there you would all dangle in the air."

According to Herodotus, the Egyptians invented twelve gods, which

were imported into Greece. These were, doubtless, of the lowest

order of merit, but of sufficient importance to justify the report

that the worship of stone images originated in the East. Venus was

first adored at Paphos under the form of an ærolite fallen from

heaven. It was by such circumstances that a special sanctity was

conferred upon particular localities. The artistic merit of the

idols was vastly improved, but still the theology of the Greeks

remained purely anthropomorphous, the human form being to them the

paragon of excellence. But to his whole intellectual being this was

a representative, the embodiment and very identity of divinity. All

the susceptibilities of his immortal nature, full of the endless

enthusiasms respecting every thing splendid, so that in the estimation

of an apostle, he was "very religious," were exercised to refine this

image and exalt it. Living, he did this, and dying, he looked beyond

the grave but to a world of men, sublimated, indeed, but still with

human passions, and capable of human enjoyments. He turned with fond

desire toward the radiance of the descending sun, which with genial

glories seemed wooing him to another and purer earth. The great ocean

stream severed the world of debasing toil from the bright sphere of

not less active but nobler pursuits, and on that western shore he

anticipated fairer as well as more abundant fruits than the East might

behold. The great national altar on the Acropolis was exterior to the

temple, and fronted the setting sun.

Egyptian worship was so closely allied to that of India, that when

the sepoys in Sir Ralph Abercrombie's expedition entered the ancient

temples in the valley of the Nile, they immediately asserted that their

own divinities were discovered upon the walls, and worshiped them

accordingly. But no such identity ever existed with the purer forms

of the West. All the gods of Hellenic Greeks, from Jupiter down to

Hercules, were the ancestors of the primitive Pelasgic tribes which

existed in Asia Minor, Crete, and the islands of the Archipelago, but

seldom in Greece itself. At its intellectual and moral centre, Egyptian

fetichism had some influence on the one hand, and Indo-Germanic

metaphysics a good deal on the other; still the chief element in Greek

mythology was hero-worship, made as unexceptionable as it could be by

a people whose religion mainly consisted in ancestral adoration. True,

their whole system was a fable and an absurdity; but the puerilities

which defaced its beauty were the remnant of a more barbarous state of

things upon which they improved, and we may wonder most that they so

for emancipated themselves.

Orpheus is said to have come from Thrace, a region of indefinite extent

in the estimation of the Greek, and one which was a chief source of

the Hellenic sacred rites. Both the Orphic and Pythagorean doctrines

Herodotus believed to have emanated from Egypt, which would appear to

support the fact of a double current of emigration, clearly proved on

other grounds. This great religionist was older than Homer, and seems

to have exerted a great influence on the civilization of Greece. It is

said he accompanied Jason and the other Argonauts on their piratical

expedition, that he visited Egypt, and brought thence the doctrine

which greatly corrupted the rude but simple theology of primitive

times. Many hymns attributed to him are probably spurious; but enough

was authentic to the ancients to justify the conclusion that he taught

the doctrine of one self-existing God, the maker of all things, and

who is present to us in all His works. But this great truth was always

somewhat disguised, and grew increasingly fabulous. Cudworth preserves

the following specimen: "The origin of the earth was ocean; when the

water subsided, mud remained, and from both of these sprang a living

creature--a dragon having the head of a lion growing from it, and in

the midst, the face of God; by name Hercules, or Chronos." By him an

immense egg was produced, which being split into two parts, one became

the heavens the other the earth. Heaven and earth mingled, and produced

Titans or giants.

The Delphic oracle occupied a high position in the political and

religious government of mankind. It had a powerful influence in molding

the first national confederacy, and was its presiding centre. Both

Strabo and Pausanias specially refer to the Amphictyonic league, as

being formed for the maintenance of harmony and union among the states

which composed it. The original confederacy was greatly enlarged by

the Dorian accession; oracular control was thus extended throughout

the Peloponnesus, and soon embraced within its influence the entire

Grecian world. By this central assimilative and directing power the

mighty republic was happily consummated, and its citizens first

termed Hellenes. It was by the peculiarity of its oracular system,

even more than by the other traits we have noticed, that the Greek

religion was distinguished from that which prevailed in Egypt, and

the yet remoter East. Based as it was on delusion, it still was a

great improvement upon the preceding, inasmuch as it was presented in

a higher character than the mere constitution of nature. According

to the Delphic teaching, the supreme Deity was a moral and personal

being, actively interesting himself in human affairs, and claiming

authority over human volitions. Hence, while the oriental systems

displayed only a crowd of mere personifications of natural powers,

without moral character or substantial being, the system of the

Greeks presented a divine reality for the human mind to embrace; an

actual course of Providence, and deities palpably real to religious

feelings. Amidst a multitude of deformities, the most marked feature

of the Greek religion stood forth in enhancing, if not with ennobling

beauty. The Egyptians worshiped animals, but the Greeks never sank

lower than the worship of idealized man. The former were superstitious

upon physical objects, their system resting upon a physical deity; but

the latter adored a moral deity, and, however disastrous superstition

ever is, hero-worship was not entirely void of redeeming qualities.

It held up ancient worthies for the imitation of successors, rendered

their memories motives to excellence, and, by the sublimating power

of oracular canonization, exerted a mighty influence in the spheres

of political and moral life. Lessons of respect for antiquity, and

submission to authority, were constantly inculcated, the effect of

which shines clearly in the Grecian character, exemplified in all the

tumultuous growth and varied grandeur of her democracy. It was a lofty

hero-worship, fostered by their sacred system, which fortified the

sentiments of reverence and subordination in the popular mind, and

supplied at once motive and restraint in every sphere of secular and

religious life. Their approximation to truth took the boldest form of

superstition, and indicates the working of a higher order of mind than

had yet appeared. The Greeks were a nation of poets and philosophers

as acutely refined in understanding as they were tender of heart, and,

since we still turn their writings to a moral account, our sympathy

for the worth they attained should furnish some degree of apology for

the errors which they unfortunately embraced. The reality and firmness

of their belief in divination was tested, for example, at Platæa, when

the Greeks sustained the charge of the Persian cavalry, and "because

the victims were not favorable, there fell of them at that time very

many, and far more were wounded." And whether the national fleet should

risk a battle at Salamis was determined in council by the appearance

of an owl. How strange that when courage and wisdom had failed to

persuade, superstition saved the liberties of the world! It is painful

to contemplate the human mind debased by such childish absurdities,

commingled with traits so fair, and excellences so great. Still,

despite all its fraud and folly, the religion of Greece contained much

that was both admirable in morality and profound in speculation. Hooker

remarks, "The right conceit that they had, that to perjury vengeance

is due, was not without good effect, as touching the course of their

lives."

The tragic genius of Æschylus was imbued with religious sentiment,

and found its fittest material in the simple and sublime traditions

of his forefathers. He has handed down to our days clear memorials

of the still popular faith, in his noble drama of Prometheus Bound;

wherein he represents Jupiter as sending to beg from the tortured

prophet a revelation of the yet future decrees of destiny. This

mythical benefactor, the most significant of ancient religious fables,

was a Japhetite, who brought his celestial fire from the remote East

to man. Prometheus indignantly refuses to gratify the curiosity of

his oppressor, and utters severe invectives against the _new_

power of Jove. He alludes to wars in which he had himself assisted

him, leads us back to the first colonization of Greece, and leaves us

justly to conclude that the nature-worship of Orpheus had been mixed

up with hero-worship also, and that the Jupiter of the poets was little

better than a Cretan pirate, who, with his associates, drove out the

Asian chief already beginning to civilize the people, and banished

him to the wild regions of the Caucasus. The several centuries which

transpired between Prometheus and Hesiod was a period long enough in

legendary times to invest heroes, or benefactors of the human race,

with supernatural attributes. Æschylus set forth a yet sublimer article

of Athenian belief, when he represented the two Powers, immovable

destiny and human consciousness, weighing the motives of the son of

Agamemnon, and, under the presiding auspices of the goddess of Wisdom,

leaving the ultimate decision to the Areopagus. God-conscious reason

was thus called upon to sit in judgment upon the past, and to proclaim

the eternal ways of infinite justice to coming generations. Herodotus,

also, in the clear light of Hellenic freedom, recapitulated lapsed

centuries, and foretold future destinies, through the prophetic mirror

of Nemesis, that clearest reflection of Greek religiousness; and,

like his predecessor, pictured the divine drama of eternal law and

retribution. Thucydides followed, and became the final prophet of the

great struggle of his nation, and her influence in the developments of

future time.

Sophocles, of all the dramatists, was the most religious; his whole

life was said to be one continual worship, and his writings are

redolent of his tender spirit. The Œdipus Colonæus was a marked

consecration after death; the gods conferred that honor, to show

that in the terrible example they made of him, it was not personal

vengeance, but a salutary admonition designed for the whole human race.

That the self-condemned criminal should at last find peace in the grove

of the Furies, the very spot from which guilt would instinctively

shrink with acutest horror, bears a moral of profound and tranquilizing

significancy.

The moral charms of domestic affection in antiquity are depicted by

Homer, in what is undoubtedly an embellished, but may have been a real,

scene. The manly beauty of Hector, the feminine graces of Andromache,

and the budding charms of the babe Astyanax, live before us in vivid

representation. Such a blending of gentleness and strength is not often

seen on earth, as was manifested by him who set aside his burnished

armor lest its strange dazzling should frighten his child. Paternal

affection indeed sits gracefully on the plumed helmet of this bravest

hero of Troy, but not even that can dissuade him from the conscientious

discharge of a most comprehensive duty. Neither the entreaties of a

wife, the prayers of a father, the tears of a mother, nor his own

fondest parental hopes, could divert him from his devotion to country

and religion. He knows and feels that inexorable fate has declared

against him, but he bows to the will of the gods with a heroism equaled

only by the placid self-denial which silences both inclination and

interest in his bosom.

The ancient games were moral in their purpose and influence. Of

the great number of athletes who gained prizes thereat, very few

became famous in warlike pursuits. Their enthusiasm flowed from a

higher and purer source. The vigorous, disinterested, salutary, and

heaven-appointed contest was to the Greeks a thrilling symbol of an

exalted life, the struggle through an emulative career of exhausting

duties, in order to attain and enjoy, at the goal of consummate glory,

the reward of a blissful immortality.

All the stray sybilline leaves of ancient history and legendary faith

are inscribed with indications of a moral order of the universe, and

encourage the expectation of perpetual progress. Pindar believed that

the beginning and end of man were divinely ordained; and while many

erudite teachers held to the supremacy of fate, none were ever so

foolish as to suppose that accident governed the world.

Socrates was the first to turn speculation from physical nature to man;

and his celebrated "demon" announced the birth of conscience into the

Grecian world. It was a divine teacher ever present, taking cognizance

of the most secret movements of mind and will, and who reproved,

restrained, warned him as to all things everywhere. So far from

wondering at his martyrdom, in view of the purity and boldness of his

teaching, Mr. Grote very reasonably wonders how such a man should have

been allowed to go on teaching so long. No state, he adds, ever showed

so much tolerance for differences of opinion as Athens. According to

his various writings, we infer that the god of Plato was not an idea

simply, but a real being, endowed with supreme intelligence, movement,

and life. He was beauty without mixture, and went out of himself

to produce man and the world by the effusion of his own goodness.

This great pupil of Socratic wisdom was profoundly imbued with that

religious sentiment which is the lofty distinction of humanity,

and which neither superstition can utterly debase, nor worldliness

extinguish. But a feeling alone, however refined, can never constitute

safety in religion. The Republic terminates with a noble discussion

on immortality, and if it has been less popular than the Phœdo, it is

because the scenery of it is less startling; but for intrinsic worth,

it is doubtless entitled to the greatest consideration.

Gross polytheism was the creed of the multitude, but this was much

refined by the moralists. The graces and perfections of the great

intelligences that rule the world, under the controlling wisdom and

care of the one omnipotent, were so described in the dialogues of

Plato, and by Pythagoreans, as to furnish not only models of perfect

beauty to art, but also the most attractive traits of person and

character to the various orders of the Grecian hierarchy.

The Greeks felt that the origin of art was divine, since it was the

offspring of religion. The first rhythmical expression was a hymn, and

the first creations of plastic genius were dedicated to the worship

of the Godhead. Jupiter, whose awful nod shook the poles, was yet

benignant in his majesty, and could smile with bewitching fascination

on his daughter Venus. Beauty was universally expressed, whether in

the gorgeous sanctuary of their religious worship, or the simplest

implement of ordinary use; the heart-rending anguish of the priest

Laocoon and his sons, or in the sculptured deity of day himself. In

the opinion of Visconti, the Apollo Belvidere is the Deliverer from

Evil as well as God of Light, and was made by Calamis, to be set up at

Athens in memory of a plague which had desolated that city. In life,

the consecrated champion was greeted with the praises of appreciative

countrymen, and divine honors followed his decease.

The idea of divine omniscience seems to have profoundly actuated the

Greeks in the execution of all their great religious works. It gave

perfection to every part of their edifices, essential and ornamental,

and impressed upon each part alike a feeling purely devotional. What

escaped the human eye, the Deity beheld, and therefore every mass

and molding, frieze and pediment, bas-relief and statue, should be

rendered equally worthy of that immortal Being to whom the edifice was

consecrated. As fine a finish was bestowed upon the hidden portions

as upon the exposed, as is proved by the fragmentary masterpieces we

still possess, the most elaborated features of which were never seen

from below when in their original positions. The material which Athens

employed to eternize her mental conceptions was happily adapted in

texture and tone to the end desired. On one side lay the quarries

of sparkling Phenolic and veined Carystian, and, on the other side,

the pearl-like beauty of Megarean; all of which, impregnated by the

creative genius of the poets, and obedient to the talismanic touch of

the sculptors, came forth from the marble tomb of Attica a new-born

progeny stamped with all the lineaments of their noble parent. Thus,

as the thought of Homer coalesced with the executive might of Phidias

and his associates, the awful gods of his country spread an invincible

palladium over the patriotic citizen, and rendered their terror ever

present to the eyes of treachery and guilt. If the Sphinx, the Centaur,

and Satyr were sometimes demanded by the legendary element of the

ancestral East yet lingering in the national faith, the effort to

subjugate the grotesque to the laws of beauty was no less successful

than it was difficult, and twenty centuries have admired the result.

The corporate religious crafts of India and Egypt were abandoned,

but the divinest element therein was still preserved, and made to

cast a hallowed spell over country and home, making each father the

high priest of his domestic temple, and planting household gods round

every hearth. An all-pervading religious influence was stamped on

every rank of character, every region of nature, every type of art,

and every department of enterprise. It exalted the dauntless courage

of Miltiades, and added energy to the lofty daring of Themistocles,

as they were conscious that the gods from Olympus gazed upon them in

the fight, and were their guardians, as of old they had been to their

ancestors on the plains of Troy.

With a very few exceptional cases, the art of the Greeks is never

voluptuous, even in its earthly matter and shape. Under the pious

feelings of the maker, as he breathed into it the soul of a lofty

enthusiasm, dead material shaped itself into a nature as elevated as

the source from which its strength was derived. And this moral dignity

and grace which were born from the artist in his process of creation,

communicated themselves in turn to the beholder; and the consecrated

feeling in which the godlike conception was developed, generated an

atmosphere of sanctity around it, as manifested divinity is supposed

to drive demons away. It was fitting that in the groves of Delphi,

Lycurgus should conceive the idea of his laws, and from the mouth of

Apollo receive their ratification. All the great and wise legislators

of antiquity cultivated an intercourse with the gods, and continued

to covet the privilege of their society. The excellence of great

works of religious art consists in the principle, that the purity and

nobleness with which they were imbued pass into their admirers; and

thus the serene repose and celestial fervor in which they are conceived

are perpetually reproduced so long as the original qualities endure.

The earliest poetry was religious, and its spirit migrated through

succeeding generations; and, even down to the most degenerate age,

perpetuated a delicate moral sense in the judgment, and mostly, also,

in the works of the Greek nation. The refined taste, for which they

have always been extolled, was produced entirely by this. Even the

wit-intoxicated muse of Aristophanes perpetually maintains a chaste

demeanor, and shows on her earnest countenance the moral meaning of her

gayety.

Although the system of Athenian life was deformed by many

imperfections, yet never at an earlier period had so much energy,

virtue, and beauty, been developed; never was blind force and obdurate

will so disciplined and ennobled, as during the century which preceded

the death of Socrates. If the early Pythian and Dodonean oracles

tended to consolidate national union, the improved wisdom of later

philosophers did much to cultivate the citizens. Many a Grecian,

engarlanded with laurel, then adorned the various walks of secular

and moral life. It is probable that some were self-deceived, when no

unworthy fraud was intended. Vividly conscious of a calling to some

great vocation, and seeking, in the depths of their own imperfect

religiousness, for the means of fulfilling it, they felt what seemed to

be veritable inspiration, and accepted as the voices of supernatural

beings what was in fact only the promptings of their own minds. To this

influence, in great part, must be accredited much of the sublimity of

Homer, patriotism of Tyrtæus, enthusiasm of Pindar, terror of Æschylus,

and tenderness of Sophocles. The presence of divinity was indeed so

palpable and enduring, that many nations, invulnerable to Grecian arms,

received her beautiful system of mythology, and crowded her temples

with eagerness to listen to her sacred instruction. Lightning strikes

only kindred matter, which it seeks and salutes in the vividness of its

own flash; and thus do great and effulgent examples glow into genial

hearts, strengthen their illuminating power as they extend, and burn

with greater splendor the wider they are diffused.

The more reflecting among the ancients seem to have keenly felt that

earth and time are not ample enough to admit the full unfolding of the

human soul. In man, the microcosm, they recognized the universe and its

Maker, but it was by a very imperfect vision. They needed a clearer

light, even that of the true God, to fill the profundity within them,

and to reveal eternity unto them, that they might in reality know the

vastness of their spiritual being. The vital seeds which the Almighty

cast with a bountiful hand into the new-made earth, and which have not

yet produced all their fruits, in Attica sprang up with a wonderful

profusion, but the harvest was that of beauty, and not holiness. The

dew of Hermon, the eternal sunshine of Zion, the transforming and

tempering breath of Jehovah, are ever requisite to develop the higher

capabilities of the soul, and elicit sanctified fruit from those mighty

powers which, for bliss or bane, germinate in every mortal breast, and

can never die. The poetical idolatry of Greece is often invested with

a magical beauty to classical enthusiasts; but the thoughtful reader

of history will often stumble upon most disenchanting facts, such as,

for instance, that Themistocles, the deliverer of his country, offered

up three youths, to propitiate the favor of his gods. A supreme Being

was nominally recognized; and, though this doctrine was practically

destroyed by the admission of subordinate deities to share in the

offices of praise and prayer, still it was better than absolute

atheism. The pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night, clearly

or dimly seen, has never ceased to lead the vanguard of advancing

humanity. It was something that the voice of praise, humiliation, and

prayer, was raised to some object in public worship, and thus the

feelings of religion kept alive in aspiring souls. It is to be deplored

that the most cultivated of ancient nations did not possess and

appreciate purer religious light; and most of all is it a grief and a

warning that, if in the time of Homer, social morality was bad, in the

age of Pericles it was worse. When Athenian life had received the most

exquisite polish, and human intellect the richest discipline, then it

was that public fanes were most abandoned, and private virtue was most

debased.

Nature is most perfect in her forms the higher she ascends; and

man, standing at the apex of her wonders, is appointed to partake

of the divine nature, through the homogeneous medium who bends from

a celestial height for his relief; when so reached and renovated,

the godlike part of the redeemed is molded to a whole of the purest,

holiest, and, therefore, most enchanting harmony. The Greeks had their

idealization of beneficence and atonement set forth in Hercules and

Prometheus. The genealogy of the first was connected with Egypt and

Persia. He was lineally descended from Perseus, whose mortal mother

claimed connection with an Egyptian emigrant. He was the great epic

subject of the poets before Homer, the model chief of those who fought

at Thebes or Troy, and, at a later period, was the allegory of human

effort ascending through rugged valor to the highest virtue. He was

the ideal perfection of the ordinary life of the Greeks, as the higher

exaggeration of heroes, invested with immortality, became gods. Every

pagan nation has had such a mythical being, whose strength or weakness,

victories or defeats, measurably describe the career of the sun through

the seasons. A Scythian, an Etruscan, and a Lydian Hercules existed,

whose legends all became tributary to those of the Greek hero. His name

is supposed to mean _rover_ and _perambulator_ of earth, as

well as _hyperion of the sky_, and he was the patronizing model

of those famous navigators who spread his altars from coast to coast

through the Mediterranean, to the extreme West, where _Arkaleus_

built the city of Gades (Cadiz), on which perpetual fire burned at

his shrine. So deep and pervading were religious sentiments in that

wonderful people at the best epoch, that not only in lowland towns,

and on metropolitan eminences, were temples erected to the national

deities, but also on lofty promontories; near the sea, beneficent

zeal provided fanes exclusively for the casual worship of the passing

mariner. The notion of a suffering deity, of one who, tortured,

blinded, or imprisoned, might represent the earthly speculations of

his worshipers, and, as a penitent, their religious emotions, was

widely spread, from India westward, and by the Greeks was fixed forever

in Prometheus, the ever dying and yet deathless Titan. Ancient sages

taught that the discord of stormy elements would be dissolved and

reduced to peace by the power of love, and the magic of beauty in the

renovated soul would eventually curb its passions with a gentle rein;

but how the infinite should coalesce with the finite, God with man,

and thus transform the soul by planting therein the germ of almighty

blessedness, they never by uninspired wisdom could comprehend. A

mediator of unearthly excellence was indeed requisite; one who would

realize in his person the loftiest ideas of beauty and sublimity, whose

wisdom would be competent to elevate beyond mere morality, and whose

grace would forever unfold the revelation of heavenly life. Not only,

like the son of Tydeus, ought that luminary to come forth, with glory

blazing round it, and kindling admiration, as well as emulous delight,

in the outward world, but his beauty must specially pervade within, and

transfigure every secret impulse with the splendors of his imparted

Godhead.

Such a divine need was generally felt, and this was the cause of

that high estimation in the common mind which the devout moralists

enjoyed. Homer inculcated the idea that life is a contest; and

Plato directed his hearers to the search after unity as the source

of truth and beauty; Æschylus to power; Euripides to the law of

expiation. The contempt of life and pleasure, the superiority of the

intellectual over the physical nature, are expressed by these and

kindred writers in great thoughts which are almost identical with the

light of faith. Heraclitus taught Hesiod, Pythagoras, Zenophanes, and

Hecateus, that the sole wisdom consists in knowing the will according

to which all things in the world are governed. Marsilius Ficinus

says that Socrates was raised up by heaven to pacify minds; and St.

John Chrysostom proposes him as an example of Christian poverty and

monastic profession. St. Augustine entertained equal admiration for

one who preferred eternal to temporal things, fearing to act unjustly

more than death, and for conscience sake was ready to undergo labor,

penury, insult, and death. In the Enthypro of Platonician wisdom,

Socrates disengages ideas from words; in the Apology, he shows that

the wisest are the most humble, and that we must bear our witness to

truth, even at the risk of our lives; in the Laws, that the soul has

need of a celestial light to be able to see; in the Crito, that the

least duty is to be preferred to the greatest advantage; in the Phædo,

that life should be employed in elevating the soul--that there is a

future existence--and that the soul should be disengaged from the body;

in the Theætetus, that, the germ of truth resides in all men, but that

no individual has the full measure of truth; in the Gorgias, that it

is better to suffer than to commit injustice; that it is useful to the

soul to be chastised, and that he who suffers punishment is delivered

from the evil of his soul; in the Euthydemus, that the science of the

Sophists is empty and vain; in the second Alcibiades, that it is better

to be ignorant than to have false knowledge; in the Theages, that the

only true wisdom is love; in the Phædrus, that it is love, or, as

Socrates defines it, the desire of something that is wanting, which

gives wings to the soul, and enables it to mount to heaven; in the

Meno, that virtue is the gift of God, not of nature, but an infusion by

a divine influence; in the Banquet, that love leads us to contemplate

the supreme beauty, the universal type, the Creator, from which vision

we derive virtue and immortality. In view of such focal beamings at

the heart of pagan night, we need not wonder that Thomas of Villanova

should exclaim with enthusiasm, "Let philosophers know, that faith

is not without wisdom; the evangelist does not Platonize, but Plato

evangelized."

The mythical beings of Grecian theology display in their beautiful

but ineffectual imagery the first efforts of cultivated minds to

communicate with nature and her God. They resemble the flowers which

fancy strewed before the youthful steps of Psyche when she first set

out in pursuit of the immortal object of her love. The parable of the

Syrens teems with valuable moral instruction. They dwelt in fair and

lovely islands, full of beauty, and through whose leafy alcoves moved a

perpetual loveliness. On the tops of tall rocks sat the enchantresses,

pouring their tender and ravishing music on the ears of passing

mortals, till they turned their prows thitherward, and rushed into the

destruction to which the deceitful song was a fatal prelude. Two by

their wisdom and piety escaped. Ulysses caused his arms to be bound

to the mast, and the ears of his company to be filled with wax, with

special orders to his mariners that they should not loose him even

though he desired it. But Orpheus, disdaining to be so bound, with

sweet melody went by, singing praises to the gods, thus outsounding the

melody of the Syrens, and so escaped.

The most influential teachers among the Greeks declared the inutility

of profuse legislation, and taught that "the halls should not be filled

with legal tablets, but the soul with the image of righteousness." They

sought less to guard the citizen by force and fear than to fortify

him with a sense of his duty and its dignity. Parental authority was

sustained by legislative sanction, as well as by popular customs, and

even up to the first steps of public life was constantly guarded by

the elders; but the principal intent was ever to kindle filial esteem

into the potency of living law, to illuminate progressive youth in the

path of virtue and of fame. Sound morals were recognized as the only

sure foundation of republican freedom, and the general watchfulness

over this constituted the spirit of ancient religion, and the origin

of free states. To such an extent did parental influence and pious

example, rather than arbitrary statutes and severe punishments, prevail

at Athens, that the youth generally were moral and temperate; despite

their national inflammability, the most authentic records affirm, that

both in domestic and public life they remained sober and moral, until

broken down by the interference of hostile power. Following the defeat

of Cheronea, the change in the Greek character was rapid. The guiding

stars of literature and art were lost in clouds; and morals, which had

attained a splendid maturity, lost both strength and hue.

Sacred ceremonies at Athens were the most luminous that prevailed in

Greece, and were most characteristic of the city of intelligence. In

the great Panathenean rites, there was carried in solemn procession

to the Acropolis a symbolical vessel covered with a vail upon which

were figured the triumph of Pallas over the Titans, children of

earth who undertook to scale Olympus and dethrone Jove. The conflict

between physical and moral force was therein represented, that triumph

above mere natural religion which exists in mental supremacy and the

civilization of law. Moreover, Athenian coins preserve to us allusions

to impressive rites which were performed three times a year in honor

of Vulcan and Prometheus. The votaries assembled at night, and at the

altar of the deity, upon which a fire continually burned, at a given

signal lighted a torch and ran with the blazing symbol to the city's

outer bound. If the lights of some became extinguished, the more

fortunate still pursued with greater zeal, and he was most honored who

first reached the goal with his torch a-light. But the religion of

Greece was not characterized by ritual splendor only; on the contrary,

their public worship was marked by the simplicity of devout fervor, as

well as by the chasteness of fine taste and that unadorned solemnity

which had been inherited from the patriarchal ages. They were much less

inclined to pomp and finery connected with their devotion, than are the

moderns. Rude emblems were sometimes borne at sacred solemnities, but

they were in the hands of honorable women, and all offense to religious

feeling was arrested in their being first hallowed by the dignity of

the festival.

It was a doctrine of immemorial antiquity, that death is far better

than life; that the worst mortality belongs to those who are immersed

in the Lethe passions and fascinations of earth, and that the true life

begins only when the soul is emancipated for its return. All initiation

was but introductory to the great change at death. Many regarded water

as the source and purifier of all things--efficacious to renew both

body and mind, as the virginity of Juno was restored when she bathed

in the fountain Parthenion. Baptism, anointing, embalming, burying,

or burning, were preparatory symbols, like the initiation of Hercules

before descending to the shades, pointing out the moral change which

should precede the renewal of existence. The funeral ceremonies of the

Greeks were in harmony with that feeling which through all antiquity

paid marked respect to the dead, whose eyes were closed by relatives

most nearly allied. The funeral robe was often woven by the prospective

piety of filial hands, as the web of Penelope was destined to shroud

her husband's father. The body, washed, anointed, and swathed, was

placed with its feet toward the door, and as the train of mourners

went forth, women and bards raised a funeral chant, interrupted by

nearest kindred, who eulogized the departed, and bewailed their own

loss. Reaching the pyre of wood, the corpse was burned and the ashes

collected in a golden vase. While the body lay in state, the chief

mourners supported the head. Dark garments, and long abstinence from

convivial gatherings, were the outward signs of sorrow. The excessive

grief of Achilles showed itself by his throwing dust on his head; torn

habiliments and lacerated cheeks were the offerings made to Agamemnon;

and a single lock of hair was the touching tribute to his memory by

the filial affection of Orestes. The lifeless form was covered and

crowned with flowers, a piece of money placed in its mouth, as a fee

to Charon for being ferried over the Styx, and a cake of honeyed

flour to appease Cerberus. Bust, statue, and mausoleum, grassy mound,

inscribed marble, and monumental brass, attested the universal desire

of sepulchral honors. The immortality of affectionate remembrances

and of public renown was a profound aspiration in their breasts. If

the dead were ever insulted, it was the rare instance of momentary

rage toward a stubborn foe, and soon gave place to worthier emotions.

Achilles dragged behind his chariot the corpse of Hector thrice round

the tomb of his beloved Patroclus; but, after the first burst of

passion, he ordered his own slaves to wash and anoint the mutilated

remains, himself assisting to raise them to a litter, swathed in costly

garments, that the eye of a broken-hearted father might bear the sight.

The statesmen of Greece, superior as they were in universality of

accomplishment, were incomplete personages compared with the pure

theocratic natures of antiquity, of whom Moses is the most familiar

and accurate type. Many of them were not only priest and magistrate,

but also philosopher, artist, engineer, and physician; such a

combination for intensity, regularity, and permanence of human power,

never was found elsewhere. Pericles, through the whole tenor of his

administration, seemed to have had the permanent welfare of his

fellow-countrymen at heart, and is said to have boasted, with the

benevolence of a true patriot, that he never caused a citizen to put on

mourning.

The Greek was by no means insensible to high destinies, as he

majestically assumed the moral dominion on earth to which he was born;

but he formed no idea of future happiness, nor of intellectual dignity

vaster than his own. He girded himself for the fearful contest which

was his inheritance, bravely struggling against the terrible powers of

destiny and the certainty of death. Amazed at his temerity, the sun

started back in his course; opposing deities, wounded by his spear,

fled howling to Olympus; and the dread abodes of Tartarus yielded up

the departed to his triumphant call. Concentrating in the present the

intensity of immortal aspirations, he sought to link them forever

to the perishable body. Earthly as was his spirit, he yet supremely

coveted eternal life, and labored through transcendent genius and

fortitude to unite himself immediately with the gods, and ultimately

soar amid the splendid hierarchy of the upper skies.

The worship of Greece was the Beautiful, and Athens was its most

magnificent Shrine. One of her latest and fairest altars was dedicated

to the Unknown God. Would that the plinth of artistic beauty had also

been the memento of spiritual prayer. Alas! that after all the fine

imaginings and glorious achievements of the wondrous Greeks, we must

still feel that their loftiest conceptions of divine worship were

really as void of true consolation as the empty urn which Electra

washed with her tears.

AUGUSTUS;

OR,

THE AGE OF MARTIAL FORCE.

PROLOGUE OF MOTTOES.

"Thy foot will not stumble, if thou ascribest every thing good and

noble to Providence, whether it takes place among the Greeks or

ourselves, for God is everywhere the author of all that is good. Some

things, indeed, originate immediately with Him, as the Scriptures of

the Old and New Testament, others again mediately, as philosophy. And

even this, he appears to have imparted immediately to the Greeks, until

they were called by the Lord; for philosophy led the Greeks to Christ,

as the law did the Jews."--Clemens _of Alexandria_.

"In the history of a war, we speak only of the generals, and those

who performed actions of distinction. In like manner the battles

of the human mind, if I may use the expression, have been won by a

few intellectual heroes. The history of the development of art and

its various forms may be therefore exhibited in the characteristic

view of a number, by no means considerable, of elevated and creative

minds."--Augustus William Schlegel.

"These individual lives, running like so many colored threads, through

our record, may impart to it that personal interest and dramatic unity

which otherwise it would lack."--Doctor Arnold.

"I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that

no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could

deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became

great."--Daniel, viii. 4.

PART SECOND.

AUGUSTUS.--AGE OF MARTIAL FORCE.

CHAPTER I

LITERATURE.

Civilization in Greece was beautiful, in Rome invincible. As this

latter empire spread, it invaded savage races on every hand, and

gave birth to a new world, still more vast, the world of commercial

progress, stretching along the Mediterranean and Baltic shores into

the unbounded ocean of the West. While Providence was concentrating

its conservative forces in Alexander, for the execution of gracious

designs, the future heiress of Greece was slumbering in her cradle

on the Sicilian and Italian coasts, near where the new centre was

preparing, which was to draw around it the barbarous nations of earth.

That the graceful progeny of Athene should have migrated with facility

from the serene clime of their native home to the stormy wilds of

Etruscan Rome was not strange, since naturalists assert that birds of

Paradise fly best against the wind; it drifts their gorgeous plumage

behind them, which only impedes when before the gale.

The most careful consideration of ancient history leads to the belief

that many of the nations which flourished in Italy, long before

the Roman empire attained its height of power and splendor, were

distinguished by a harmony of culture, an exuberance of being, a

diversity of manifestation, and originality of genius, which Rome

in her best days never exceeded. They each contained an important

element of civilization, but only in an incipient degree; they were of

co-operative capacity, and when the predominant quality of the new

cycle arose with complete development to its culminating point, martial

Rome executed the most fulminating and comprehensive of primordial

missions. Had not Greece preceded them with the humanizing influences

of the beautiful, the great nation would have been nothing but a

remorseless slayer of men, furnishing no compensation for the thralldom

which was imposed from land to land by her fiery and bloody arms. The

former caused Beauty to dwell as a divinity in the midst of men; the

latter erected the god of war as the national deity, and compelled all

peoples to the ignoble worship.

Rome was destined, through force, to show the world, despite the

greatest obstacles, what energetic will, unity, earnestness, and

pertinacity of purpose, could do. She was doubtless superior to most

nations in military skill, and this gave her great advantage; but her

unique peculiarity consisted in the fact, that, till her co-operative

work was done, she never despaired, and this attribute of fortitude

alone conquered the world. Ruin as often threatened the Romans as it

did other champions, and they would have fallen as others fell, had not

internal resources increased, and heroical resolution been confirmed,

in proportion as outward support failed them. The spectacle of physical

force which they presented was the grandest of earth; but it was moral

force, something grander still, which fortified the physical force,

and rendered it such a mighty agent of civilization. War has numerous

advantages which are overruled for good, and the misfortunes of some

nations are made to supply prosperity to others. The most fruitful

fields have been fertilized by wholesale carnage, that scourge and

civilizer of mankind. As the sea retires in one quarter at the same

time it advances in another, swallows up the productiveness of this

shore to augment the territory and richness of that, so do great

natural fluctuations transpire under the control of that sovereign law

by which all things are changed but nothing destroyed. The invasion of

Persia was virtually the creation of Greece, and the overthrow of the

latter enriched the world. When the fair continent had fully emerged

from the flood of Pelasgic barbarism, afar in the West, on Latian

plains, the infant state of Rome was obscurely struggling into power

against the neighboring confederacies in which the old Etruscan culture

was rapidly sinking into decay. While the gloomy wilds of Gaul and

Germany yet lay scarcely known, Gela, in the Greek colony at Syracuse,

maintained the splendor of a Grecian name, and by a single defeat in

Sicily the pride of Carthage was subdued. Nations, like individuals,

have each a special mission on earth. Many are either co-operative

only or secondary, and but a few are manifestly primordial. Thus the

mission of Greece was beauty, that of Rome, force. In those special

spheres they manifested the natural attributes of humanity in a

fashion and to a degree never before reached by any nation. But as

all secondary nations co-operated to execute the mission given to

each great primordial power, so these two predominant branches of the

Japhetic race co-operated, in subordination to the one leading purpose

of Providence, to perpetuate progress and improve mankind.

The rude elements of the Indo-European stock were early scattered from

Caucasus to the Alpine North. The Hellenic family were the first raised

to a high degree of refinement, and they planted their offspring even

to the extremity of the Italian peninsula. When other kindred branches,

like the Oscans and Sabines, superseded these, they gave a composite

character to the new language thus formed, an amalgamation of Attic

flexibility with Latin strength. But the body was more ponderous than

the soul; the plastic property so prominent in the Greek tongue was

lost in the harder and stiffer enunciation of unpolished Rome. The

former, like a lucid substance, seemed to crystallize spontaneously

into the most beautiful forms; but the latter, like granite, could be

rendered attractive only by artificial polish, and that of the most

laborious kind. It was the language of solidity, gravity, and energy;

the fit medium for expressing the dictum of imperial might, but was

not adapted to convey either the sentiments of love or the products

of meditation. The great orator, in his defense of the poet Archias,

informs us that Greek literature was read by almost all nations of the

world, while Latin was still confined within very narrow boundaries.

Such was the wonderful vitality of Greek in its ancient form, and

yet it lived only with such as spoke it as their vernacular in the

fatherland or its provinces. Like all true and original creations of

genius, it never survived the fostering care of devotees, but sank back

with their decay, and again became limited within the boundaries of its

first home. In the end, as in the beginning, Athens was the University

of the whole classic world. On the contrary, Latin was propagated

chiefly by conquest, absorbing all barbarous dialects into itself, and,

like the dominion of its masters, becoming the stronger the further

west it was spread. Under the auspices of the Republic, it became

united with the Celtic and Iberian in Spain, and was planted by Julius

Cæsar in Britain, as well as Gaul. Greek is still spoken at Athens; but

Latin, when it had been engrafted on the rest of Europe, and gave birth

to all modern tongues, became again grossly barbarized and died.

By what route the progenitors of the Oscans, Sabines, Itali, and

Umbrians came from the original cradle of the human race, is not

clearly known. They were evidently kindred to the Pelasgi of the Morea,

and used the Phœnician alphabet. Their dress and national symbol, the

eagle, were Lydian, and their theology, like the more refined system

of the Greeks, was derived from the remotest East. The Romans were

composite from the first, and in every thing. The septi-montium upon

which their primitive city stood, was occupied by different tribes. If

we may trust mythical tradition, a Latin tribe had their settlement

on mount Palatine, and a Sabine community occupied the adjacent

Quirinal and Capitoline heights. Mutual jealousy kept them a long time

separate, but at length the privilege of intermarriage was conceded,

and the different tribes became one people. The Etruscans were of

purest Pelasgian origin, and for a long period possessed the greatest

civilizing power in the West. When subdued politically, they still left

the most indelible stamp on the arts and fortunes of the Roman people.

These ethnical affinities are correlative to the linguistic affinities

of the great martial cycle, and best indicate out of what elements its

language was composed.

The ancient Latin alphabet was an offshoot from primitive Greek, and

evidently came from the same source. Its later departure from the

original current, and modifications of its forms, are all traceable

through the means of inscriptions on funereal urns, coins, and

historical monuments. The alphabets of Gaul, Germany, Etruria, and

Spain, were formed from the Greek; and even the Latin letters may be

termed the universal alphabet, for it was the immediate parent of all

the present modes of writing. But this mother-tongue did not, like

its nobler parent, proceed from a single germ, and gradually unfold

by a natural growth. It merged in the bosom of foreign elements,

and presented great and striking contrasts in its progress. In the

Republic it was like the people, high-minded, and competent for the

debate of mighty interests; under regal or imperial sway, it became

the fitting medium of an extravagant court, cramped and debauched by

foreign manners. At the epoch of Livius Andronicus, B.C. 240, or the

first Punic war, the language was elicited from various dialects,

and consolidated into the vernacular of a whole people. The Oscan,

Sabine, and Etrurian, or Tuscan, were the leading native elements; but

the primitive Greek, or Pelasgic, was early blended with the Latin,

greatly enriching it, and imparting to it the chief basis of its forms.

From the first Punic to the first civil war, B.C. 88, was a period of

marked improvement. Increased intercourse with the Greeks, after the

second Punic war, greatly improved their native literature, aroused

and directed all their energies to practical life, and the affairs

of state. Greek models were held up to the enthusiasm of those who

emulated at first, and afterward imitated, the masters whom they could

never hope to excel. Thus the language of the Romans did not originate

in the rules of art, but in the free outflowings of national character.

Hence, Quintilian compares the writings of Ennius to an ancient sacred

grove of primeval trees, with their stately trunks. Something of Greek

pliancy was imparted, while the tongue was becoming harmonized, by the

translations of the Odyssey made by Titus Andronicus, and by Nævius

from Æschylus and Euripides. The progress of improvement continued,

and by the time of Augustus the Roman language was formed. Then,

in distinction from the Latin, or provincial speech, it was said

to be "the refined language of the city, containing nothing which

could offend, nothing which could displease, nothing which could be

reprehended, nothing of foreign sound or odor."

Much of the original material employed in early Roman literature was

doubtless furnished by the subjugation of Etruria to her arms; but

gross indigenous elements needed to be quickened into symmetrical

growth, and the greater conquest of Greece itself was alone equal

to that miracle. The beautiful captive wound her charms around the

barbarous captor, and held him in subjection to a vassalage infinitely

more glorious than all his boasted freedom and universal mastery in

arms.

How wise is Providence! The south of Italy had for many centuries been

peopled with colonists from Greece, who retained and cultivated the

arts and literature of the mother country. When sufficient substance

had been collected on the seven rugged hills, to form a basis of

national literature, Tarentum was subjugated, and all that was valuable

in that interesting country was removed to nourish the first literary

pursuits at Rome. Two years after this arose the first Punic war, the

result of which was the conquest of Sicily, that charming land whereon

the flowers of Grecian poesy had blossomed with even fairer charms

than on the neighboring continent. When we come to consider bucolic

poetry, the most healthful and original growth of Roman letters, we

should remember that this was the spot of its birth. It was in Sicily

that the pastoral and comic muses prompted Stersichorus first to reduce

lyrical compositions to the regular division of strophe, antistrophe,

and epode. It was here that Empedocles "married to immortal verse"

the "illustrious discoveries" of his "divine mind." Here Epicharmus

invented comedy, which was cultivated by Philemon, Apollodorus,

Carcinus, Sophron, and various others. Tragedy also found successful

votaries in Empedocles, Sosicles, and Achæus. It was in Sicily, too,

that the Mīme was invented, or, at least, perfected; Pindar,

Æschylus, and Simonides, had resided at the court of Hiero I., and

Theognis of Megara, committed his precepts to elegiacs in Sicily. The

Dionysii also were authors, as well as patrons of literary men. It

is, moreover, believed that when the Romans came into possession of

Sicily, Theocritus was yet living. Many of the most creative minds

in the conquered provinces now began to reside at Rome, bringing art

and cultivation with them; and from this period literature in the

metropolis assumed somewhat of a regular and connected form.

The great majority of the citizens undervalued and even despised

devotion to sedentary and contemplative pursuits. They were ambitious,

and lived for conquest; but it was the extension of political

domination they strove for, not the enlargement of literary renown. The

old Roman was charmed by the glory of his country abroad, and the wise

administration of her constitution at home. Military prowess was the

foundation and guarantee of both, so that beyond politics and war he

felt little concern. He was susceptible to every thing that related to

success in arms; but exercises of a purer mental cast, even the most

exciting, such as tragedy, never captivated the feelings nor acquired

an influence over the mass of the people, as was universal in Greece.

Amid the dust and destruction of perpetual conflict, learning was but

a sickly plant, and it required all the artificial heat of courtly

patronage to bring any thing to maturity. Accius was patronized by D.

Brutus; Ennius by Lucilius and the Scipios; Terence by Africanus and

Lælius; Lucretius by the Memmii; Tibullus by Messala; Propertius by

Ælius Gallus; Virgil and his friends by Augustus, Mæcenas, and Pollio;

Martial and Quintilian by Domitian.

But, with the utmost adventitious aid, Roman literature, which never

appeared greatly to deserve the epithet national, was of the rudest

and most meagre description, and should be divided into three periods.

The first period was dramatic; the second, prosaic; and the third,

rhetorical. All the acting tragedy ever produced by Romans was limited

to the first period; also the comedies of Plautus and Terence, the

only works which have survived to claim admiration in modern times.

It was the era of life, when all the vigorous germs of after growth

were started. Epic poetry, rugged and monotonous as it was, yet then

had a partial development, simultaneously with the first composition

of national annals, and the foundation of accurate and thoughtful

jurisprudence. It was also in that primary period that C. Gracchus

became the father of Latin prose; but the language of the first great

orator of western democracy under Italian skies was yet very inferior

to the impassioned and noble sentiments it conveyed.

The second period was that of special refinement in prose, and of

increased erudition. Cæsar and Sallust are its exponents as historians,

and Cicero is its chief representative as an orator and philosopher.

In a word, it was the great culmination of the Augustan age, wherein

Lucretius and Catullus were the harbingers of Virgil, Horace, and Ovid,

and the varied treasures of all the great masters of prose and learned

poetry were garnered in the lucid narrative of Livy.

As the first period was redolent of life, and the second teemed with

learning, so the third is known by its excessive embellishment. It was

called "the silver age," and was covered with abundance of filigree.

It produced the only fabulist of Rome, Phædrus; Juvenal, the satirist;

Martial, the epigrammatist; Tacitus, the historian; Quintilian, the

critic; and the elegant letter-writer, Pliny. These are the best names

of the later period of the Augustan age, and these decisively mark the

progress of decline. Fancifulness and formalism ruled supreme, and

whatever of independent thought the earlier periods had known, was now

superseded by servility and decay.

The Romans inherited no legendary stories adapted to the higher

order of dramatic composition. The early traditions which formed the

groundwork of their history were private, and not public, property--the

pedigrees and memorials of separate families, and therefore not

interesting to the people at large. There were no Attic Eumolpidæ

on the seven hills to preserve antique reminiscences as a national

treasure, nor did they, like fragrant plants, twine themselves along

the rocky base of the Roman capitol, as the thrilling traditions of

ancestral Greece did round the chaste altars of that susceptible

people. The Latin poets might sometimes collect withered fictions,

and weave them into their rhythmical records of antiquity; but they

possessed no vital beauty, no talismanic power for awakening national

enthusiasm. Indeed, who could heartily enjoy allusions to the past,

since old Rome had been superseded by a new race. The few veterans

who yet survived the bloody wars of Greece, Africa, Gaul, and Spain,

were settled in remote military colonies, and a careless disregard of

every thing in the metropolis, except luxurious sustenance and shows,

paved the way for a speedy downfall. Rome was peopled with step-sons

only, as Scipio Æmilius designated the populace, and the tragedy most

genial to their taste and ambition was that which was most replete with

fulsome compliments to favorite individuals. In Greece, the poet was

deemed an inspired being, and his tongue was regarded as the divinest

medium for the communion of the visible with the invisible; but at

Rome, poetry was nothing more than a dull recreation, and its author

was no better than a parasite or a slave. At Athens, the impersonation

of a tragedy was an act of worship; the theatre was a temple, and the

altar of a deity was its central, point. With the Romans, the thymele

existed no longer as a memorial of sacred sacrifice, and the stage

deteriorated into the mere arena of disgusting amusement. Pliny, in

his history, and Cicero, in eloquent regrets, have told us how the

bloody combats of gladiators, the miserable captives and malefactors

stretched on crosses, expiring in excruciating agonies, or mangled

by wild beasts, were the real tragedies coveted by the people. The

sham-fights and Naumachiæ, though only imitations, were real dramas,

in which those pursuits which most deeply interested the spectators,

and which constituted their highest glories, were visibly represented.

Gorgeous spectacles fed personal vanity in their national greatness.

The spoil of conquered nations, borne in procession across the stage,

reminded them of their triumphs and their victories. The magnificent

costumes of the actors who attended the model of some captured city,

preceded and followed by artistic spoils, represented in mimic grandeur

the ovation of a successful warrior, whose return from a distant

expedition, laden with plunder, realized the highest aspirations of

Rome; whilst corresponding scenery, glittering with glass, silver,

and gold, intermingled and sustained by variegated pillars of foreign

marbles, told ostentatiously of their mental extravagance and material

wealth. To such a people there was neither attraction nor profit in the

moral woes of tragedy, and one could not expect that a legitimate drama

under such circumstances would be national. Hence, in the popular eye,

the scenic decorations and theatrical dresses became the chief objects

of regard, while the poet's office was entirely subordinate, and plays

became as devoid of intellect as they were debasing to taste.

In reviewing with more detail the three periods of dramatic progress at

Rome, such as it was, we have to consider the origin and character of

their comedy. The Greek works of Menander, Diphilus, and Apollodorus,

formed a rich store of materials for Roman adoption, and were so

employed with as much success as Plautus, Cæilius Statius, and Terence

could command. Their standard was worldly prudence, resting on the

dangerous ground of Epicurean philosophy; and therefore Roman comedy

inculcated no virtue even so salutary as Stoicism, though it sometimes

encouraged the benevolent affections. Creative imagination was a rare

quality in the Roman mind; therefore, literature with them was not of

a spontaneous growth. For a short period, it was the recreation of

a few; but with the many it was never a valued delight. Even Cicero,

the truest literary spirit of his nation, could recognize but one end

and object in all study, namely, those sciences which render a man

useful to his country. External utility and not internal impulse, was

the final cause of Roman literature. In preceding nations poetry was

the original and spontaneous production; but the earliest literary

effort of the Romans was history, a dry record of facts, and not ideas.

The first poetical form ever attempted by them was satire, and it is

characteristic of the rude and coarse people among whom it had its

origin. They loved strife, both physical and mental; with them was

found little or no salutary intellectual exercise, except in legal

conflicts and partisan debates. They were gladiators in the forum, as

in the circus, and with rustic taste took equal delight in bandying

sarcastic words or struggling in a wrestling match. The Romans were a

stern, not an æsthetic people; they had a natural aptitude for satire,

and that was the only literary merit they possessed. Yet even in this

department, as Horace confessed, Lucilius, the founder of Roman satire,

was a disciple of the Greek Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes. But

the cynical humor and prompt extemporaneous gibe native to the progeny

of a she-wolf eminently qualified them to excel in a walk wherein they

were certainly most at home.

Livius Andronicus, the first literary character at Rome, was a native

of the Greek colony at Tarentum, born B.C. 240, and originally a slave.

He probably came into that condition by the fortunes of war, and, like

many others in the same circumstances, was employed as a tutor in the

metropolis. To interest his cotemporaries in the ancient legends of

Italy, he translated the Odyssey, in the old Saturnian measure, and

also divers ancient hymns. By this means, the conquerors of the day

were made to take a lively interest in Circe's fairy abode, within

sight of a promontory of Latium, one of whose sons was Latinus, the

patriarch of the Latin name.

Nævius, if not actually born at Rome, was from the earliest boyhood a

resident in the capital, and was the first poet of real national worth.

Like most subsequent writers, he was a servile imitator, but attained

more than ordinary success in applying Greek taste to the development

of Roman character. A bold republican and brave soldier, he breathed

a martial enthusiasm into his poems, which in no slight measure aided

the battles of his country in the first Punic war. The upright and

inflexible Cato was his fast and enduring friend.

Plautus, unlike his two famous successors, had no patron but the

public. Perhaps the Scipios and Lælii, and their fastidious associates,

could not endure his broad humor and groveling inuendos. But his

coarse fun and audacious action held the not over-critical ears of the

undistinguished mass, whom, Horace says, he hurried on from scene to

scene, from incident to incident, from jest to jest, so that they had

no opportunity of feeling fatigue. Another cause of his popularity was,

that although Greek was the fountain whence he drew his stores, his

wit, mode of thought, and language, were veritably Roman; his style was

not only his own, and Latin in fact, but Latin of the most effective

kind.

P. Terentius Afer, born B.C. 195, was a slave in the family of P.

Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator. It was customary to distinguish

slaves by an ethical name, and thus Afer points to an African origin.

Whether he was a native of Carthage is uncertain, but he doubtless

came into Roman hands through the Carthagenian slave-market, and was

destined to achieve a high renown. Under Lucanus he acquired a refined

and accurate knowledge of the Latin tongue, and, it is probable,

also, soon obtained his freedom. A beautiful story is recorded of

his original success. Having offered his first dramatic sketch for

acceptance to the Curule Ædiles, they referred him to the critical

judgment or Cæcilius Statius, then at the height of his popularity.

Terence, according to the record, in humble garb was introduced to the

poet whilst he was at supper, and, seated on a low stool near the couch

on which Cæcilius was reclining, he commenced reading. He had finished

but a few lines when he was invited to sit by his critic and sup with

him. Before the reading was ended he had won the unqualified admiration

of his hearer. The result was that Terence was immediately sought for

by the distinguished, and became a favorite guest and companion with

those who could appreciate his powers. The great Roman nobility, such

as the Scipiones, the Lælii, the Scavolæ, and the Metelli, had some

taste for literature; and, like the Tyranni of Sicily in later ages,

were accustomed to assemble around them circles of the refined, of

whom the hospitable host was proud to be recognized as the nucleus and

centre. If Terence was inferior to Plautus in vivacity and intrigue,

as well as in the powerful delineation of national character, he was

superior in elegance of language and purity of taste. He was the first

to substitute delicacy of sentiment for vulgarity, and knew how to

touch the heart as well as gratify the intellect.

Cæcilius Statius, the venerable and auspicious friend of Terence,

referred to above, was himself an emancipated slave, born at Milan,

and who rose to the head of comic poetry at Rome. Greece was the

ordinary fountain to him, as to others; but he excelled most of his

fellow-imitators in dignity, pathos, and the conduct of his plot. In

the estimation of Cicero, Statius excelled in comedy, as Ennius did in

epic poetry, and Pacuvius in tragedy.

Roman comedy possessed some claims to originality, though to no exalted

degree; but Roman tragedy was derived from Athens almost entire, and

had not the merit of either literal translation or clever imitation.

Ennius, born B.C. 239, was the transition link between the old school

and the new. Originating in the wild and mountainous Calabria, he began

life in a military career, and rose to the rank of a centurion. It is

said that Cato, in his voyage from Africa to Rome, visited Sardinia,

and finding Ennius in that island, took him home with him. He enjoyed

the esteem of the leading literary societies at Rome; and at his death,

when seventy years old, he was buried in the tomb of the Scipios, at

the request of the great conqueror of Hannibal, whose fame, embalmed in

his verse, he transmitted to posterity. It indicates the progressive

condition of literature in the metropolis, that Ennius, who was

evidently a gentleman, was the first writer of the time who achieved

for himself the enviable privileges of a citizen, to which Livius had

not aspired, and Nævius, the freedman, could never attain. Enjoying the

friendship of Cato the Censor, and Scipio Africanus the elder, when

aristocratic wealth was beginning to be greatly revered, the republican

poet, cleaving to his lowly hut on the Aventine, still lived the life

of the Cincinnati, the Curii, and the Fabricii of the good old heroic

times.

Under the auspices of Pacuvius, and simultaneously with the best

comedy, tragedy reached the highest degree of excellence. He was born

at Brundusium, B.C. 220, and was nearly related to the poet Ennius.

Pacuvius resided at Rome till after his eightieth year, and formed one

of that literary circle of which Lælius was the chief ornament. In the

evening of life he retired to Tarentum, where he died ninety years

old. His tragedies were chiefly adaptations of Greek originals to the

Roman stage; the plots being entirely borrowed, but the treatment and

language were his own.

Attius was born B.C. 170, and became somewhat distinguished while his

senior and master, Pacuvius, was yet alive. They met on friendly terms

to discuss the young rival's tragedy of "Atreus." Pacuvius commended

its good points, but declared it to be somewhat harsh and hard. "You

are right," replied Attius, "but I hope to improve. Fruits which are at

first hard and sour, become soft and mellow, but those which begin by

being soft, end in being rotten." Another fact equally significant of

his conscious dignity is given by Valerius Maximus, who relates that

in the assemblies of the poets, he refused to rise at the entrance

of Julius Cæsar, because he felt that in the republic of letters he

was his superior. The statement is plausible, as the great hero was

then in his youth. The political state of the people was now rapidly

growing worse, and real tragedies were being so violently acted that

there was little room in the popular heart for fictitious woes. The

sanguinary influence of the amphitheatre seemed to have brutalized

the entire nation, the vast area of which was one theatre of dreadful

tragic scenes. Amidst these, the voice of the dramatic muse was hushed.

Native authors then had no literary quarries of their own to work

into original shapes, but they could build up splendid edifices with

materials derived from polished and prolific Greece. The existence

of tragedy was not long at Rome; the dramatic spirit, as a mental

excellence, never belonged to that people, and with Attius, even its

form disappeared.

The history of literature among the Romans is without a parallel.

So prosaic and practical were the people, that they remained five

centuries without an eminent poet. Even when the dazzling glories

of the Grecian muse fell upon them it was only the art of imitation

that they cultivated. True inspiration was foreign to their cast of

mind. The most original of their writers entertained no higher idea

of originality than to make it consist in the importation of a new

form from Greece; and, on the ground of his own practice, affected to

despise those who copied for the second or third time. Indeed, the word

imitation was applied only to Latin authors, it being understood that

borrowing from the Greeks, or conforming to them, implied their chief

excellence. Unkindled by the Grecian torch, Roman intellect was inert;

and unillumined by its formative power, their productions were both

uncouth and void of enduring worth.

The Mīmi were the most indigenous to the Roman mind, and have

left their traces in the modern buffoonery of Pulcinello and Harlequin.

It is believed that the Romans owed their first idea of dramatic

composition to the Etrurians, and the effusions of a sportive humor

to the Oscians; but all matured productions, of a higher order, came

from the Greeks. Curtius, sacrificing every personal inclination to

an absorbing love of country, was a truer exemplification of their

national spirit, than any thing they achieved in elegant letters or

art. They always betrayed that their first founder was not suckled at

the breast of gentle humanity, but of a ferocious beast. Schlegel has

well said of them, "They were the tragedians of the history of the

world, who exhibited many a deep tragedy of kings led in chains, and

pining in dungeons; they were the iron necessity of other nations;

universal destroyers for the sake of rearing at last from the ruins,

the mausoleum of their own dignity and freedom, in the midst of an

obsequious world, reduced to one dull uniformity."

The style in which the Roman theatres were built, and the means

resorted to for the purpose of superficial excitement, indicate that

whatever dramatic taste the people may have once possessed, it had

come to be greatly decayed. The edifice erected by Pompey was so huge

that forty thousand spectators could be seated at once, and must have

depended upon something else than the human voice to instruct or

please. The relation which Pliny gives of the architectural decoration

of the stage erected by Scaurus seems incredible. When magnificence

could be carried no further, they endeavored to surprise by mechanical

inventions; two theatres, placed on pivots, back to back, were so made

that they could be wheeled round and form one vast amphitheatre, thus

sinking legitimate tragedy into the lowest clap-trap of melo-dramatic

show.

It was not to be expected that a people filled with such an unbounded

lust for dominion would excel in the more delicate walks of literature

and art. But the unscrupulous desire of the Romans to extend the power

and glory of the Republic was compatible with vigorous statesmanship,

and all the kindred subjects requisite to the advancement of social

science. Their mother tongue was the language of command, and

proficients therein could much easier produce works in prose, since

these would arise from a practical view to utility only, and would

require a treatment characterized by science rather than by art. But,

as in poetry, so in prose, the Romans were perpetually imitative; they

frequently showed talent, but rarely genius, and aimed at erudition,

not invention. Those who first devoted themselves to historical

research, were also eminent in the public service. Fabius Pictor

belonged to an eminent patrician family, and Cincius Alimentus was of

honorable birth. Such were Roman historians until the time of Sulla,

whose cotemporary, L. Otacilius Pititus, was the first freedman who

began to write history. The primary efforts of these authors and their

associates were devoted to the transfer of poetical records into prose,

the more appropriate vehicle of national annals.

M. Porcius Cato Censorius was born at Tusculum, B.C. 234. He displayed

uncommon versatility of talent, and attained a place among the first

orators, jurists, economists, and historians, of his day. Plautus

and Terence were his cotemporaries. Cato enjoyed the advantage of a

personal acquaintance with Polybius, the Greek historian, and the

philosophers, Carneades, Critolaus, and Diogenes, who were compelled

from Athens to lecture at Rome. At the same time Crates arrived from

Pergamus, and the taste for Greek literature was so quickened, that

the venerable prejudice against it in Cato was overcome, and very late

in his life he sat down to learn the language of a people whom he

had hated and despised. Early in life he became a soldier, served in

the Hannibalian war, was under Fabius Maximus, both in Campania and

Tarentum, and did the state some service in the decisive battle of the

Metaurus. Stern in integrity, and rural in taste, like Carius Dentatus,

and Quintius Cincinnatus, between his campaigns he employed himself in

agricultural pursuits, on his Sabine farm. Valerius Flaccus invited him

to his town-house at Rome, where the rustic pleader almost immediately

became famous in the highest courts, and was soon sent to govern the

province of Spain. This office was happily fitted to his talents,

and on that western field he reaped the richest harvest of fame. The

inherent love of truth and justice in Cato made him detest every

demand for respect that did not rest on personal merit. Adventitious

rank he despised, and was an unrelenting foe to aristocracy, as being

arbitrary, conventional, and oppressive. The most amiable trait

in his character was a burning indignation against wrong. He was

self-educated, and perfectly original in character and genius. His

learning was immense, but all his opinions were his own. Despite the

imperfections of Cato, he was, intellectually and morally, the greatest

man pagan Rome produced. Several inferior historians succeeded, but

none worthy of note, previous to the revival-period of Cicero.

Polybius was carried captive to Rome, where he wrote his history in the

language of his fallen country; and, when his learned co-patriots were

permitted to return, he remained in Rome, greatly respected, and became

both friend and adviser to the younger Scipio. The histories of Lucius

Lucullus, Aulus Albinus, and Scipio Africanus, designed especially for

the educated classes, were written in Greek. The earliest improvements

in Latin were made by the epic and dramatic poets. At a later period,

statesmen and orators exerted a strong popular influence in regard to

prose composition, and thus the common people were gradually fortified

with earnestness and practical intelligence.

Caius Julius Cæsar was born B.C. 101, and was a voluminous writer, as

well as unequaled soldier. A strong man will stamp his individuality on

his pages, as well as exhibit it in his acts. Such was the case with

Cæsar, the first Roman whose expressions were well balanced and full of

literary force. His composition at night was the fitting counterpart of

his conduct by day. Whether he wielded the baton of supreme command on

the battle-field, or quietly inscribed its history while the wounds of

thousands were yet bleeding, his sword and pen alike went directly to

the end desired, and triumph crowned every literary as well as martial

attempt. He was said to know every man in his army by name, and he

appears to have had an equally intimate acquaintance with the language

in which he wrote. Every word, like a mailed soldier, was made to

occupy its appropriate place, and his brief sentences stood in serrated

strength, doing the most efficient service with least waste of time and

space. Nothing could be subtracted from his brevity, or substituted

for his chosen elements and positions of might. Xenophon, several of

Alexander's generals, and Hannibal himself, also wrote annals of their

own achievements; but the great Roman alone was the superlative martial

writer, as he was the unconquered champion in war. The history of

campaigns was a department of composition in which the genius of that

people was best adapted to shine, and the boldest of their conquerors

was also the brightest exponent of their national spirit.

Caius Crispus Sallustius, born fifteen years later than the great

writer just noticed, and much inferior to him in harmony of arrangement

and clearness of expression, yet had few equals among his countrymen as

a writer. The beautiful historians of Greece were more easily copied

than any other department of their letters, and this enabled the Romans

to produce clever imitations. Thucydides was the model followed by

Sallust, whose servility crippled the modicum of genius he originally

possessed.

Titus Livius was born B.C. 17, at Padua, and removed to Rome, where he

enjoyed the protection and regard of Augustus. The gross materialism

of Epicurus was most genial to the national sense, and received at

their hands a general adoption. The same gloomy impress lies upon the

pages of Livy, and we close his work with the feeling that we have

been conducted through "a stately gallery of gay and tragic pictures."

Battles and triumphs are delineated with circumstantial vividness; but

little light is thrown upon the constitution of the immortal mind, nor

is the information thus communicated conducive to healthful order or

energy.

Caius Cornelius Tacitus was born A.D. 57, forty-three years after

the death of Augustus. His father is supposed to have been of the

equestrian order, and Procurator of Belgian Gaul. Better auspices

dawned when Trajan, the last of efficient Cæsars, ascended the throne,

and like the sudden beauty which sometimes adorns the close of a

lowering day, rivalled the greatness of old Rome. As his fitting

co-operative in concluding the historic cycle of the Augustan age,

Tacitus, educated under Vespasian and Titus, and who had learned to

analyze his race under Domitian and Nerva, arose with Trajan to enjoy

the last bright hour of his nation, and to portray the dreadfulness

of the coming night. The depth of his spirit, and pungency of his

expressions, are the last and best exponents of Augustan prose

literature. What began with Cæsar in simple majesty, and was continued

by Livy under the attractions of rhetorical extravagance, was by

Tacitus garnered and uttered in the final expression of invincible

victory and disdain. The historian of despotic cruelty threw the links

of the world's fetters along the iron pages of his masterly Annals,

while the shadows of Teutonic grandeur seem already gathering over his

sad visage as he writes.

Suetonius and Cornelius Nepos need only be named in this connection,

while we pass to a more particular mention of Plutarchus of Chæronea.

He was, probably, a few years senior to Tacitus, and also wrote

under the reign of Trajan. Plutarch is the representative of popular

biography; he stands between the historian, the poet, and the romancer,

to catch the beautiful lights of all. His account of Theseus resembles

a legend from an old chronicle, or a chapter of magic; memoirs as

depicted by his hand are exceedingly picturesque, in the presence of

which reading becomes sight, as some vivid touch lights up the centre

and animates the whole. For instance, the white charger of Sylla,

lashed by a servant who saw his danger, carries the rider with a plunge

between two falling spears. Again, Pyrrhus, wounded and faint, suddenly

opens his eyes on Zopyrus in the act of waving a sword over his neck,

and darts at him so fierce a look, that he springs back in terror,

while his guilty hands tremble. And how startling is the aspect of

Cæsar in the senate house, surrounded by conspirators, and turning his

face in every direction, to meet only the murderous gleamings of steel!

The Roman prose writers excelled the poets in original worth. Their

historical style, however, like their Corinthian order of art, was

founded upon the Greek, but became much more florid than the original.

Livy, for instance, the most perfect master of the Roman tongue as

a national historian, is also the best illustration of this fault.

Though excessively ornate in his emulation of the ancients, he yet

retained something of their merit. Under the later Cæsars, history,

that department of Augustan literature of most sterling worth, grew

increasingly corrupt in matter, and deteriorated in style, until the

fulsome meanness and insipidity of Velleius was reached, the lowest

nadir of historic art. The advancement of the government in despotism

is marked by a corresponding debasement in cotemporary writing. Seneca,

for example, threw himself into the cold embrace of Stoicism, and

becamed resigned as far as possible to the philosophy of endurance and

the literature of despair.

Eloquence is a plant indigenous to a free soil, and was nearly a

stranger to the Romans until it was nurtured in the schools of Tisias

and Corax, when, on the dethronement of the tyrants, the dawn of

freedom brightened upon Sicily. At length the privilege of unfettered

debate which had first found a congenial home in Greece, arose in

republican Rome. The plebeians, in their conflicts with the patricians,

found an efficient advocate in Menenius Agrippa, who led them back from

the sacred mountain with his rustic wisdom. Cases of oppression found

some Icilius or Virginius armed with a panoply of burning indignation,

and many a Siccius Dentatus, unskilled in pedantic terms, could appeal

to his honorable wounds and scars in front received in patriotic

service, and to the vestiges of torture marked by cruelty on his back.

The unwritten literature of active life long preceded the office of

formal history, and efficient oratory gradually arose to counteract

by its antagonistic spirit the warlike fierceness of an utilitarian

people. As when the great soldier, Scipio Africanus Major, was unjustly

accused by a malignant opponent, the necessity of personal defense

unexpectedly developed him into a consummate orator. Livy adorned the

whole speech with his own rhetoric, but A. Gellius has preserved the

peroration intact, which refers to the fortunate anniversary on which

the defense was made: "I call to remembrance, Romans," said he, "that

this is the very day on which I vanquished in a bloody battle on the

plains of Africa the Carthaginian Hannibal, the most formidable enemy

Rome ever encountered. I obtained for you a peace and an unlooked-for

victory. Let us not, then, be ungrateful to heaven, but let us leave

this knave, and at once offer our grateful thanksgivings to Jove,

supremely good and great." The people obeyed his summons, the forum

was deserted, and crowds followed the eloquent hero with acclamations

to the Capitol.

The eloquence of Cato was mentioned, in our general notice of his

versatile talents. He was equally successful as a speaker and a writer.

The father of the Gracchi was distinguished among his cotemporaries for

effective oratory, but no specimens have survived.

Scipio Africanus Minor was admirably qualified to be the link between

the old and new style of eloquence. In his soldier-like character, the

harder outlines of Roman sternness were modified by an ardent love of

learning. His first campaign was in Greece, where he formed a literary

friendship with leading minds, and especially with Polybius, which

ripened into the closest intimacy when that great historian came as

a hostage to Rome. He abhorred the degeneracy of manners, Greek and

Roman, but preserving his own moral nature uncorrupted thereby, he was

faithful in all the active duties of intelligent citizenship. Greek

refinement had not destroyed the frankness, whilst it had humanized the

boldness of the Roman; but prompted him to love the beautiful as well

as the good, and to believe that elegance was by no means incompatible

with strength. Lælius was his friend, and Servius Sulpicius Galba his

successor in the more cultivated style of animated oratory.

But the Gracchi have the strongest claim upon the grateful remembrance

of all who love democratic freedom. They paid the penalty usually

connected with high destinies; but their death was the occasion of a

better life to millions. Political changes which had been advancing

slowly, but surely, for centuries, found in those two brothers

the fitting instruments of a glorious consummation. Under their

direction, the result of a long and obstinate struggle was, that the

old distinction of patrician and plebeian was abolished. Plebeians

held the consulship and censorship, and patricians, like the Gracchi,

stood forward as plebeian tribunes and champions of popular rights.

Such revolutionary periods usually produce extraordinary powers of

eloquence, as in this instance. Lepidus Porcina, greatly imbued with

Attic gentleness, was the model followed by Tiberius Gracchus; and

Papirius Carbo, who united the gift of a delightful voice to verbal

copiousness, was his ultra-liberal colleague; while Æmilius Scaurus,

and Rutilius Rufus, were distinguished for opposing strength.

The Gracchi themselves were distinguished for gentle vigor, aided

by a happy combination of accomplished endowments. Their father

possessed an exalted character, and their mother inherited the strong

mind and energetic genius of Scipio. She was well acquainted with

Greek and Latin literature, with which she early imbued her aspiring

sons. Tiberius was cool and sedate in speech, as in temperament;

free from the storms of passion, he was self-possessed in debate, as

stoical in disasters as was his philosophic creed. Caius, who was

nine years younger, was morally inferior to Tiberius, but greatly

his superior in intellect. He was less unswerving in purpose, but he

was more susceptible of generous impulses, and had a much greater

measure of creative genius. Cicero says that his imagination, lashed

by the violence of his passions, required a strong curb; but for that

very reason it gushed forth as from a natural fountain, and like a

torrent swept all before it. On one occasion, his look, his voice, his

gestures, were so inexpressibly affecting, that even his enemies were

dissolved in tears. His education enabled him to rid himself of the

harshness of the old school, and to gain the reputation of being the

father of Roman prose.

M. Antonius entered public life under brilliant auspices, but he was

greater as a judicial than as a deliberative orator. L. Licinius

Crassus was four years younger than Antony, having been born B.C. 140.

The last and most distinguished of the pre-Ciceronian orators, was Q.

Hortensius, son of L. Hortensius, prætor of Sicily, and was born B.C.

97. When Crassus and Antony were dead, he was left the acknowledged

leader of the forum until the effacing brightness of Rome's culminating

star arose. In the cause of Quintius, the two great orators first came

into direct conflict, when the mightier rival paid the highest possible

compliment to the talents and genius of Hortensius, at the same time

he clearly excelled him. As supreme as was the career of Cicero in the

realm of eloquence, he was yet more influential in the department of

philosophy at Rome, and we reserve a more extended notice of him for

the chapter under that head.

After the battle of Actium, the spirit of faction and tumult subsided

in a measure; and the love of letters, with a better sway, succeeded

to that love of arms which had occupied every Roman mind for seven

hundred years. The empire was at peace, and universal plunder had

immensely enriched the metropolis. Gorgeous embellishment began to

be admired, without producing correct taste; and, as a higher order

of mind endeavored to cultivate a national literature, the language,

like the capital of brick, seemed to have become marble. But never

was Rome able to attain superior distinction in elegant letters, or

diffuse among her citizens a general taste for refinement. An Athenian

of the humblest rank could sit from morning to evening intent upon the

scenes of Æschylus or Sophocles; but the Roman plebeian soon wearied of

mental exhilaration, and turned to the more genial enjoyment of beast

mangled by beast, and man by man. Nor was this peculiar to the lower

classes. Knights and senators would hazard life in forcing their way

into the amphitheatre, where they often struggled on the arena with

their own slaves. Nothing beautiful was ever loved by them for its own

sake, but might be haughtily patronized as an appendage to sensual

delights. Throngs of poets and musicians attended at the public baths

to recite or sing; and at supper, old and young bound their heads with

laurel, not the amaranth of Minerva, but the gory weed of Mars. This

was only an affected love of letters, and was equally gratified when

entertained, at intervals, by wandering sophists, gladiators, jesters,

or conjurors, as was common around the triclinium of the emperor

himself. At the best epoch, a passion for literature and art was not

the enthusiasm of appreciative genius, but only a transient fashion of

the court.

After the death of Brutus, the world of letters shared in the universal

change which transpired in the political world, so that literature

under Augustus soon assumed a new and general tone entirely its own.

The first five centuries of the republic formed the foundation on which

the whole superstructure of the Augustan age was built. Literature was

the last and least thing for that people to produce, and no indications

of valuable fruit appeared until the end of the first Punic war.

About two centuries later, Cicero, who became the representative of

eloquence, philosophy, and sounding prose, was succeeded by Augustus,

under whose auspices passed the golden age of Latin poetry. A hundred

and fifty years later, classical literature died with Hadrian; chilled

by the baleful influence of his tyrannical successors, the literati

who had been patronized by the luxurious court sank into contempt. The

only appropriate epithet which cotemporaries employed to characterize

the age, was "iron," and it must have been both hard and cold. Sensual

enjoyment deteriorated popular taste, and impotent revery took the

place of energetic thought in the higher order of minds. Since Cicero,

the flourishing period of eloquence had disappeared, and insipid

daintiness of language was the only linguistic excellence admired.

Seneca referred to this national degradation in literature, when he

said, "Wherever you perceive that a corrupt taste pleases, be sure that

the morals of the people have degenerated."

Varro, Cæsar, and Cicero contributed most to the perfection of the

Roman dialect. The period of its greatest elegance extended from the

reign of Augustus to that of Claudius, A.D. 54. By that time the

struggle for liberty had been extinguished in those public calamities

which plunged so many leading families into wretchedness, and caused

the national spirit to be completely broken down. The period which

embraced the lives of Cicero and Augustus constituted the best epoch of

both prose and poetry. Dramatic literature, it is true, never recovered

from the trance into which it fell after the days of Attius and

Terence, yet Æsopus and Roscius, the great tragedian and the favorite

comedian in the time of the greatest orator at Rome, amassed great

wealth. But the theatrical entertainments which had now taken the place

of legitimate dramas, were termed mimes, and were ludicrous imitations

of popular customs or persons. The name was Greek, but the composition

was entirely Roman in style and purpose. Their indecent coarseness of

burlesque dialogue gratified the populace, and prepared the way for

modern pantomime.

Decius Laberius, born at Puteoli, B.C. 45, under the dictatorship of

Julius Cæsar, was a Mīme who became distinguished in this sort

of composition, and won even the praise of Horace. Another was C.

Valerius Catullus, born B.C. 86, and who was nine years younger than

the great didactic poet and philosopher, Lucretius, whom we shall

notice under the head of philosophy. Catullus belonged to a respectable

family, residing on the Lago di Garda, near Verona. At an early age

he went to Rome, became very erudite, and plunged into the licentious

excesses of the capital. Catullus possessed captivating talents, but

of a perverted use; satire as vindictive in spirit as it was varied in

power. His poetry was such as might be expected from the tenor of his

life, and a career which began in extravagant debauchery terminated in

hopeless ruin.

P. Virgilius Maro, born B.C. 70, was a citizen of Mantua. Most of

his early training was at Cremona, whence he removed to Milan, and

afterward to Naples, where he studied Greek literature and philosophy

under the direction of Parthenius. Congenial tastes recommended him

to Assinius Pollio, who aided the poet in his pecuniary distress,

and introduced him to the wealthiest patron of literature at Rome.

By that means the favor of Octavius was reached, and bright fortunes

were secured. In the maturity of his faculties, Virgil visited Greece

for the purpose of giving the final polish to his great epic poem. At

Athens he met Augustus, who was on his way back from Samos, and both

returned together. But the beautiful spirit that yet reigned over the

scenes of his recent visit evidently inspired his latest and finest

writing. The favorite haunts of the muses, the time-honored contests of

Olympia, the living and breathing masterpieces which he admired in that

home of art, adorn the opening of the third Georgic. But Virgil had all

his life borrowed so unsparingly from Grecian invention, that we may

infer his intention to have been, not to produce much, if any thing,

new, but skillfully to collect and smoothly repeat in his rougher

tongue what long before had been much more elegantly and vividly

expressed. His Æneid was artificially polished to a high degree, but

can never be taken as a specimen of what great unassisted invention

might effect. If from the structure of its fable, one should deduct

the portions taken from the Iliad and Odyssey, together with what was

appropriated from the Troades of Euripides, and the lost poem of the

lesser Iliad, doubtless but little original matter would remain to

glorify the best specimen of Augustan poetry in its best time.

Had Virgil given more prominence to the old heroic traditions and

rural pursuits of his ancestors, he would have taken a stronger hold

upon cotemporaries, and increased his influence with posterity.

The enlargement of his epic scope would have added freedom to its

treatment, and enhanced the value of its use. But, submitting to court

artificialness, rendered more pernicious by his dependance thereon, the

stiff arrangement of Virgil's greatest poem grows more and more formal

as the plan proceeds. The Æneid opens with a copious use of early Greek

inventions respecting the Trojan period, and the origin of the Romans.

The further we leave these behind, the duller is the prospect; and when

we have finished the greatest national poem of the Augustan age, really

valuable as it is, we do not wonder that the author himself, in view of

the nobler models he had copied, wished his own work were destroyed.

Fine conceptions and careful finish Virgil doubtless possessed, but the

corrupt Ovid was perhaps more of a spontaneous poet, and the careless

Lucretius bore an intenser charm of nationality, impelled as he was

by inspiration more truly Roman. He exhibited less art, and stalked

forth with fewer airs of affected dignity; but whatever of strength and

elegance he did employ, were more decidedly his own.

The specific qualities of Roman writers are clearly marked. In Livy, it

is the manner of telling a story; in Sallust, personal identification

with the character; in Tacitus, the analysis of the deed into its

motive; and in the style of Virgil, the intimation of rank is equally

plain. He who was helped up out of abject dependance, in his pride of

place shrunk from all contact with poverty. In the hut of a herdsman,

or seated with a shepherd in the shade, he still wears the air of

dignity, relaxing with difficulty into bucolics. He accepts a maple

cup from a peasant, with the patronizing mien of a courtier, who is

thinking all the while of the last amphora opened by the princely

Mecænas. Nevertheless Virgil had in him a true and natural love for

rural purity, which was so sadly perverted by the astute formalism of

the imperial court. In the healthful old times of the Republic, the

noblest citizens and most illustrious authors were agriculturists by

habitual pursuit, or chosen recreation. This feeling remained in Virgil

to the last, glowing in the Eclogues, and especially in the Georgics

most happily expressed. If he had given undivided attention to this

species of literature in his riper years, he might have been to a still

higher degree the poet of his nation; but, like all the rest, he was

drawn near the throne of despotic rule, and both lived and died the

poet of the metropolis.

But even less original than the epic was the lyrical poetry of the

Augustan age, the great master of which was Horatius Flaccus, born

B.C. 65. He infused little personal feeling into his writings,

especially the lesser odes; in the place of nature, we have art, and

instead of grand enthusiasm, a plenty of pretty imitation. Sometimes,

however, he leaves the Greeks and draws wholly from himself, which

effusions are the means of a permanent influence, and render their

author, in his way, the best writer of Rome. Most of the poetry of

that age was written to express gratitude to a patron, or court favor

from a prince. As the great portion of readers were of the patrician

rank, the composition was fashioned to patrician taste, and was as

full of sycophancy as the sentiments expressed were undignified.

Popular eloquence was no more, and, when free prose was silenced,

the fulsome epoch of poetic flattery began. The profuse coffers of

Octavius were opened in extravagant rewards to prostituted talents, and

Virgil, Propertius, and Horace, polished their praise, and pocketed

the gold. Of this talented trio, it is believed that Propertius was

best qualified for the execution of an epic worthy of Rome; he,

however, aspired less after fame than to enjoy the morbid sensibility

of disappointed love, and has left only a few writings steeped in

tenderness, but possessing very little worth.

Ovidius Naso, born B.C. 43, lived in a voluptuous age, and his works

are imbued with all its grossness. To the first half of the Augustan

epoch is commonly attributed the chief aggregate of genius and talent

of greatest distinction, but it was only the occasion of their

development, and not the period of their origin. All the really great

of after renown, were the produce of republicanism, and whose youth

had ardently admired the freedom from which their chief strength was

derived. The most rugged of those who were drawn to the capital to

adorn its imperialism with refined letters, were deteriorated by the

frigid subserviency to which they submitted; while those who were

actually born under Augustus, and exemplified the spirit of their time,

like Ovid, were both in sentiment and style, infamously bad.

Least of all were the Romans successful in tragedy, that noblest form

of literary composition, and in which the Greeks most excelled. True,

those specimens which were anciently regarded as the best, such as

the Medea of Ovid, and the Thyestes of Varius, are not now extant;

but all that does remain is stamped with the manners of a people

too frivolous and vitiated to render tragedy either dignified or

interesting. Their taste and talents were fitted only to produce and

relish representations of low comedy. But here, too, as in every other

walk, they were radically defective as to original merit, many of their

comedies being nothing better than free translations from the Greek.

Plautus is infected with all the faults of Aristophanes, and is vastly

inferior in the pungency of his wit; though his plots may be more

natural, and his talents have a less malicious design. The minor epic

poets failed still more egregiously, both as to the sentiments ascribed

to their heroes, and the modes of their expression. Ovid is frequently

puerile to the last degree; and Lucan labors continually after the

happy turn of an epigram, but seldom with success. Claudian and Statius

are habitually bombastic, but never sublime; and their successors sunk

even lower the depressed level of cotemporary worth. The Augustan age,

in its best period, was in some respects like a well-cultivated garden,

full of choice exotics, but containing little of natural growth; an

assemblage of beauties, gathered from various regions, and sometimes

grouped with an approach to elegance.

In the age of Augustus, there were a moderately large number of

literati, but few patrons; Mecænas stood first and alone; even the

emperor himself was second. The Romans possessed the means of greatly

enlarging the field of human knowledge, and the elder Pliny, artificial

as he was, indicated how well those means might have been employed.

But that people were utterly defective as to simplicity of life, and

could not, therefore, excel in the more natural forms of literature.

Theocritus, whose genius was Grecian, infused much beauty into his

pastorals, and left small room for novelty to his successor, Virgil.

The latter gave little attention to the real life of shepherds, and

wrote eclogues, highly finished in manner, but in substance, quite

unnatural. That author, like all his compeers, lived too much in an

artificial world, and was too conversant with corrupt courts, and

splendid dissipations, to admire unadorned beauty, and out of it

to coin literary delights to nourish and exalt the sons of purity

and peace. And yet it was in didactic poetry the Romans were most

successful. The Georgics of Virgil, and the poetical dogmatics of

Lucretius, display the opened treasures of, perhaps, the only original

mine Latins ever worked.

Greeks of the later period were sometimes caustic in their criticisms

on cotemporaries, but the great majority of their writers were too

amiable to employ satire; and this only novelty in literature, of which

they were happily ignorant, it was the equivocal honor of the Romans

to invent. It was this form which comedy assumed among a people who

could not appreciate the legitimate drama. Ennius was the inventor

of the name, Lucilius of its substance. Persius used it for didactic

purposes, and Terence and Juvenal gave increased reputation to this new

form of lettered malice. But Horace alone seems to have understood the

only useful end to which poetic sarcasm might be applied, by making

it the vehicle of amusing narrative, and picturesque description. His

sometimes elegant raillery at popular foibles, and inveterate vices,

doubtless had a better effect than could have been reached by more

serious discourse.

A life of literary or artistic pursuits, was never in high estimation

among the Romans. This is indicated by the frequent occasions Cicero

employs to apologize for occupations which, at Athens, throughout

her glorious career, so far from requiring excuse, would have been

esteemed the strongest claim to popular regard. Virgil, too, in some

of his most exquisite lines of the sixth Æneid, hesitates not to speak

slightingly of the arts, and even of oratory; and to represent no

pursuit as becoming the majesty of a Roman, but to hold the sceptre,

dictate laws, to spare the prostrate, and humble the proud. Horace had

a true feeling for heroic greatness, and would have produced writings

worthy of himself, probably, had the rare gifts of his republican youth

been exercised under the same auspices in their maturity. When the

commonwealth was overthrown, he may have suffered many bitter regrets.

Some charitably believe that the excess of his mirth is only the mask

of unavailing grief. A happier inspiration occasionally emits jets of

patriotic flame, but in general all the native fires of his genius were

subdued to the base office of illuminating a palace he had too much

reason to despise. Inclination, not less than conviction, may have

prompted him to become the defender of free speech in perpetual support

of democratic progress; but policy dictated that he should write as a

royalist, and glorify the empire of force. When the great Cicero was

sacrificed in a fitful effort again to be free, Horace was too cowardly

and recreant to indite one word in his behalf, or even to mention his

name. Imperial tyrants trampled on all the germs of free thought, till

nothing but a barren field remained, and then such creatures as Lucan,

once a professed republican, sank into the hireling's wealth, and

splendidly crouched at Nero's feet. He found nothing near and national

to commend, and so he praised the superseded Cato, with other heroes

yet more remote. Persius pursued the same low trade, and completed the

picture of an age thoroughly corrupt.

Almost the only redeeming fact in the history of Roman literature was,

that the most elevated individuals took an active part in its early

culture, and co-operated with all subordinate endeavors to perfect its

merit. Hence the air of majesty stamped upon their published thought,

and which wears an aspect of greatness in contrast with the preceding

age of beauty. Despite the servility of Roman writers, their works

obtained an appearance of dignity and worth, by forming the great

point of union between the ancient and the modern world. That which

most atones for innumerable defects, is their one great and pervading

idea of Rome itself; Rome so wonderful in her energy and laws, so

colossal in her conquests and crimes. Something of this independent

dignity appears in even the most slavish imitator, and relieves the

otherwise ignoble traits of his character. But this stamp of grandeur

was impressed on her literature only while Rome was extending her

dominion over the world, impelled by an irresistible confidence in

the ascendency of her victorious star. Rough, obdurate, and almost

uncivilized, Rome disdained the practice and despised the advantages

of commerce. The mother-country possessed no arts of refinement to

export to the countries she conquered, or the colonies she planted;

so far from producing an overplus to supply the destitute, she often

dispossessed those who were more refined, and who were in a measure

themselves enriched. When Greece submitted to Roman power, she obtained

a more illustrious triumph over rustic ignorance and military force,

through the influence of literature, science, and the elegant arts.

As western Asia, from the earliest times, was the great highway of

culture to Greece, so the Ægean islands and the western colonies were

the intermediate steps to Roman supremacy, even to the Atlantic coast.

The sphere of civilization was vastly developed by the indefatigable

attempts of Alexander to mix all the eastern nations; but the unity

which he failed to create under the spiritual influence of Greece was

infinitely extended and established through the agency of material

Rome. At the same time their martial influence was rising, the

greatness of their character, strictness of their laws, love of their

country, and high opinion of themselves common to that nation, rose

with correlative might. But these more noble characteristics changed

as soon as universal conquest was reached, and their fall was as

humiliating as their ascent had been sublime. The empire was quickly

dissolved, because, inveterate in national vanity, Rome refused to be

instructed by defeat, but construed fatal disasters into occasions for

vain hope. From the accession of Augustus to Theodosius the Great, A.D.

395, every national incident was a manifestation of apparent decay;

but in reality, at the same time, there was gathering underneath a

deeper and purer tide of civilization, in due time to burst forth with

redeeming power yet further west.

Rome was the second link between the ancient and modern world. In her

career of conquest, she garnered all wealth by force; and when she

fell, it was at the exact moment when her hoarded treasures would best

promote the fortunes of mankind. The eagles of Rome soared with talons

and pinions wet with gore, but the seeds of great institutions were

thus made the more firmly to adhere, and they bore them over Apennines

and the Alps. They were most signally the instruments of Providence

for benefitting succeeding nations in literature and religion. By the

consequences which ensued upon Roman conquests, the way was cleared for

the most auspicious propagation of Christianity; and the suddenness of

her fall, as clearly as the savageness of her ascendancy, proved that

the wisest scheme of selfishness carries within itself the guaranty

of utter dissolution. Into the richness of her ruins were cast the

seeds of intellectual renovation, and posterity was made to reap rich

harvests from fields plowed by chariots of war and fructified with

human blood. That mighty nation was predestined to be a transporter,

and not a producer, of ennobling worth; and it was wisely ordered that

she should possess no native production of sufficient splendor to make

her regardless of those that might come in her way, and whose superior

worth she might appropriate. Cicero and Pliny, with their literary

associates, were not propounders of new theories, but transmitters and

commentators of the old. Thus every age has been conserved, without

accumulating a burden too great; and the mighty aggregate, fused into

an appropriate adaptation to future uses, has come down to us. If a

thousand tributaries, from every direction, were made to pour their

currents into one great central reservoir, it was with the divine

intention, when the fitting epoch arrived, to empty all the mighty tide

towards the western main, and by that means, at a later era, to infuse

into a prolific soil all the wisdom of the ancient world.

Greece carried individual culture to the highest pitch, but never

established social relations on a sufficiently solid basis. It was not

her mission to combine subjugated nations into a consolidated union, as

the terrible Peloponnesian war and the lamentable history of Alexander

and his successors but too sadly proved. To work out the principle of

association on a broad and enduring scale was a task destined for the

Roman race, and sublimely was it performed. Through the protracted

process of conflict between contrasted nations, and their homogeneous

assimilation, the great centre of progressive culture was removed

another step from the East. More skillful in the art of establishing

durable political ties, Rome was soon surrounded by a social net-work

which embraced all the historic races. It was a vast empire which

recombined preceding epochs, and presented the spectacle of the most

brilliant interlacing of universal associations the world has ever seen.

The first extensive library at Rome, was that of Paulus Æmilus, taken

B.C. 167, from Perses, king of Macedon. The next, and the largest

in the world, was collected by the Saracens at Cordova, in Spain.

Books, like every other civilizing element, followed the sun. Before

Carthage perished, Greek was widely known along the Mediterranean

shores. Hannibal wrote the history of his wars in that language, and

through the same luminous medium were the maritime adventures of

Carthaginian navigators described. But as the conquering power of Rome

stamped all nationalities with its image and superscription, so the

superinduction of their language extinguished the living idioms of

many tribes, or absorbed into itself all the sources of expansive and

formative life which they contained. When sufficiently matured, the

Latin language was spread over a much larger surface of the world than

the Grecian, even before the seat of empire was removed to Byzantium.

The diffusion of a tongue so strongly endowed, and imbued with such

prolific means of promoting national union, tended powerfully toward

making mankind human, by furnishing them with a common country. To this

end, Cincinnatus lived in democratic simplicity, tilling his own soil,

and yet nobler than a lord; he was as competent as he was ready for

any public service, but first bound the brightest laurel to the plow.

Splendors multiplied and power increased, while the elder Scipio lay in

the bosom of Ennius, Lælius was flattered by the rumor of his helping

Terence, and Virgil brightened the purple of Rome's great emperor. Then

imperial eagles and mailed legions executed the commands of a single

individual on the seven hills, and the strength which had been created

by the republic enabled a tyrant like Tiberius to rivet the chains of

the world. The era of exalted literary worth, imperfect at the best,

continued only about one century, and thenceforth till the extinction

of the language, the progress of corruption was rapid and fatal. After

the reign of Trajan, all healthful development ceased. In the fourth

century, such works as those of Ammianus Marcellinus, Bœthius Fronto,

Lactantius, and Symmachus, proved that the utmost degradation was not

yet attained, but these were the last vital utterances of the Roman

tongue. A few years after, and the greater part of the language was

either foreign or provincial. Pure Latin was forever dead.

It is painful to contemplate the countless battles and destructive

wars which so becloud and disfigure the Augustan age. But we should

recollect that the annals of past nations, with all their endless and

apparently useless contests, are but motes in the sun compared with the

great whole of human destiny. Amid the thickest gloom, Tacitus, with

searching eye, fathomed the mission of his age, and saw that the great

system of pacification which Octavius Cæsar promised to the nations

was delusive, and that there were yet more desolating revolutions to

transpire before heaven's highest boon of freedom could be enjoyed. The

one, imperishable, ever-progressive, and all-devouring city, Rome, was

to gather all oriental wealth to herself; and then, as she had taken

the sword to reap with, so should the sword become the grand instrument

of distribution, and the great West be sown with the spoils. The first

repulse was at Numantia, in Spain, when Scipio saw Roman invincibility

broken, and the hour sounded when Rome herself must take blows as well

as give. Gaul cost her fifteen stubborn battles and a most costly

effusion of blood, which were afterward repaid by perpetual levies made

on Italian territory and wealth. At this moment, Celts are masters in

her capital. Cimbri and Teutones, with wives and children, descended

upon the prepared field in whole tribes, directly the time had come for

salutary amalgamation in view of prospective destinies; and the knell

of the Augustan age resounded from afar, when Varus was defeated by the

German Arminius in his native woods.

CHAPTER II.

ART.

Roman genius was somewhat inventive, but it was exercised only in

pandering to sensual gratification. There the plow, the pen, and the

chisel were all in the hands of slaves. No free-souled Plato enchanted

appreciative throngs in the umbrageous walks of a Latin Academy, nor

was there a Demosthenes to wave the stormy democracy into a calm from

some sunny hill-side. Very few artists of Roman blood possessed talents

which might have been symbolized by a precious ring on their finger,

such as Pliny says was worn by Pyrrhus, in which nature had produced

the figure of Apollo and the nine muses. At their birth, the gods of

power may have descended to offer gifts, but it is certain the gentler

graces did not attend.

In reviewing the arts of Rome, as in the corresponding chapter on the

productions of Greece, we will first consider their architecture,

and then the subordinate departments of plastic and pictorial

works. Roman, Greek, and Egyptian architecture are to be viewed as

constituting but one vital and continuous trunk; each having grown out

of its predecessor, and the last destined to produce yet another and,

perchance, a nobler growth.

The Romans were not originally an art-loving people, and never did any

thing valuable of that kind for themselves. From the time of their

foundation down to B.C. 167, they were entirely dependent upon the

inhabitants of Etruria, and upon the Greeks from that time till their

dominion was past. They began by conquest, and employed such talents

as they could best subdue. The architecture which the Etruscans are

supposed to have brought with them from Asia Minor, derived thither

from Assyria, was employed as the most powerful principle of support,

and the most facile means of extension. By means of this, the whole

city was undermined by drains, inclosed with cuneiform stones, and

immense fabrics rose on the seven hills. Vastness of size, and the

absence of elegance, characterized their monuments from the first. A

debased type of Doric was their favorite style in the early period,

as in the great temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which was adorned with

figures prepared by the Tuscans in baked clay, or terra-cotta, and,

when finished, sent to Rome. The use of the arch no doubt introduced

a new and valuable principle of construction, and of great utility

when consistently employed. But, unfortunately, the Greek outlines

were still adhered to mainly, and imposture from the very outset ever

characterized monumental art in the hands of the Roman race. False

entablatures were fabricated; the arch, as a constructive element,

was concealed; and as the real formation of the building could not

be shown, sham features and fanciful ornaments were multiplied for

the vile ends of disguise. During the great age of Grecian art, not

a single specimen of concave roofing, scarcely a sloping jamb, was

produced; if any approach to either was found, it was never in the

pure Doric, but only in the semi-Pelasgic Ionic order. It shows how

much more Rome was Etruscan than Greece Pelasgic, that it was left

to that inartistic people to create domical buildings, and to carry

them to the degree of perfection they did in their circular peristylar

temples, and more especially in the Pantheon. That edifice, the great

masterpiece and symbol of its age, and which has never been excelled,

is at the same time the most striking exemplification of the vicious

innovation made by combining rectilinear and circular forms. The Greeks

never built round temples. The choragic monument of Lysicrates, and

tower of the Winds, were mere playthings, produced at the latest period

of architectural excellence; but even these were fine specimens of

original invention and truthful execution. It was not at Athens, but

at Rome, that architects endeavored to enhance their reputation, by

secreting the real features of their work.

But when the arch is made the life of the whole building, standing

out in all its boldness and majesty, the work is infinitely nobler

than when accompanied by the incongruous Grecian mask. The original

Etruscans had the independence so to use the grand principle they were

the first properly to appreciate, and the creations of their hands

are of the greatest intrinsic worth. Their roads and bridges, tombs

and city walls, cloacæ and tunnels are so extraordinary that, after

twenty-five centuries, they remain unsurpassed even by their gigantic

conquerors. They drained marshes, cultivated barren plains, and brought

Italy from a savage state to that degree of civilization which enabled

the Romans to profit by, more than the great originals who prepared

the field of their first occupancy, and then were displaced. Such is

necessarily the history of human progress, when excellence of a given

kind is made to yield to some other superior force, but which in turn

will succumb to the same law, and contribute to the greatest good of

the greatest number in the end.

It is interesting to reflect on the contrast which existed between

the architectural principle of two great primordial people in almost

simultaneous developement. At a time when her existence was scarcely

known to the refined republics of Greece, the barbarian state on

the banks of the Tiber began to employ the mightiest of mechanical

discoveries, through the means of which vast spaces were roofed in

with stone or brick, while, through ignorance or contempt of it, the

most glorious temples of Pentelic marble remained exposed to shower

and sun, or were imperfectly sheltered by a covering of wood. The

sewers of Rome were a vast improvement in practical mechanics over the

structures at Athens; and if Etruscan genius had been permitted to

work out completely its own ideas, a simple, noble, and majestic style

would doubtless have been developed. As it was, their rudest works

announced the fundamental principles of excellence and consistency

which belonged not to edifices of greater ambition; and Rome had the

honor of transmitting a prolific germ under the westering sun, where it

arose and justly claimed to be considered the noblest offspring of the

human mind.

When the principle of mutual support was hit upon, and the arch sprang

self-balanced from impost to impost, the Roman was put in possession

of an immense advantage over the restricted capacities of the Greek

entablature. He was no longer tied to the width or length of quarried

blocks, put in vertical or horizontal positions, but could bend more

pliant materials in yet firmer construction upward and outward to an

illimitable extent. In its use they soon became the best builders

the world had ever seen, and the worst architects. The magnitude of

their great works, and boldness of execution, the vastness of design

and mechanical skill, displayed in their existing monuments, compel

us to admire the constructive talent of Rome, as Greece taught us to

revere inventive genius. Unyielding energy and graceful elegance are

brought into striking contrast. On the one hand, we behold the same

iron greatness, indomitable will, and union of physical with moral

vigor, combined with indifference to intellectual beauty, which bent

alike the material and political world beneath the yoke of old Rome.

On the other hand, in the Grecian temple shines the purest product of

mind, perfect in symmetry, chaste in ornament, and resplendent with

all the attractions of immortal youth. The best and only satisfactory

works of the Romans are those we usually classify under the head of

engineering; such as roads, bridges, aqueducts, and fortifications, and

these are projected on a scale, and executed with a solidity, worthy of

the greatness of their empire. But in architecture properly so called,

nothing of their creation is to be admired but the colossal mass, and

its constructive extravagance.

As the idea of the beautiful is a principle divinely positive in the

arts and life of the Greeks, so greatness defined everything in the

Roman contest for supremacy, and was the central point around which

developed all the historical impressiveness of their character. Of all

arts architecture most admits of artificial beauty, which they could

not confer, and therefore they made it only great. Chaste elegance,

that genuine sense of the artist, was never born in the Roman mind; but

they possessed uncommon force of nature, and best succeeded in stamping

on their fabrics the air of undaunted firmness in the struggle of rude

reality. The Roman style is rugged even to uncouthness, but it has the

redeeming quality of actually speaking the mind of its authors, the

whole course of whose history was indomitable will. The conquest of the

world, and not the perfection of art, was their destiny; not the sudden

achievement of a few assaults, the results of which should perish with

their fortunate leaders, but the gradual advance of a single one,

through many champions, destined through all vicissitudes to universal

empire. From the first moment Rome appears on the political stage,

this one great mission is manifest in all her action and arts. Never

was greatness more truly national, but it was in diametrical contrast

to the glory of the Grecian race. Individuals stood forth among the

latter, in every separate department of intellectual proficiency, which

rendered each a distinct model; but at Rome, with a longer list of

great men than any other nation, their personal being is lost in that

of the state. Camillus, Curius, and Scipio had no aim or aspiration

of their own; they existed but to fortify and extend the commonwealth

in their own generation, and to transmit the like calling to their

successors. Rome only had a personal existence; her bravest children

might perish, but herself the eternal, was unaffected; others, to whose

fortunes she was equally indifferent, would arise to take their places

in the continuous battle of seven centuries to attain the subjugation

of the world. It was for Rome alone of all nations to return thanks

to a vanquished general for not having despaired of the republic. She

never could produce or appreciate mere art and beauty, and whatever of

elegant refinement the Augustan age finally possessed was a borrowed

gift which the holders knew not how to exercise.

Of those states which were grouped around the Mediterranean sea,

Greece was certainly the intellectual mistress; but the Romans, by

situation and race, inherited from them all whatever had before been

accumulated in Asia and Africa, amalgamated the diversified elements

into one empire of brute force, and thus opened the way for a more

glorious progress. As a political phenomenon she stood alone, an empire

aggregated out of discordant materials; not a mere conquest, like that

of Alexander, to fall to pieces at the death of him who created it,

but a coerced combination, substantiated by steadiness of purpose,

and energy in administration, that half awed, half conciliated, its

subjects in their bonds, and which caused the empire, externally,

to cohere long after its heart had become corrupt, and the system

was rotten to the core. The wealth of Rome could purchase, and her

power could compel, the arts of conquered nations; and her political

relations enabled her to accumulate in the metropolis those treasures

which purer hands had created, and which her love of ostentation

rendered it desirable she should possess. But we believe there is not

extant one single passage of a Roman author, that shows a knowledge

of what true art is, or what are its legitimate uses. From the fall

of Carthage to the age of Constantine, not one general effort to

achieve a noble end dignifies the annals of that belligerent people;

but sickening scenes of domineering vice succeed each other, till the

mind shrinks from the revolting picture. As long as they could live in

idleness, or struggle in battle, as long as the streets were filled

with pageants, and amphitheatres reeked with martyr-blood, they cared

not what new tribe was butchered by their master, or how the so-called

liberties of Rome were trampled upon. It is vain to expect beautiful

art to flourish under such auspices. One shudders at the thought that

those servile, bloody hands could fashion forms of representative

excellence, or that minds which revelled in such scenes could admire

its creations when exhibited before them.

In attempting to estimate correctly the architecture of Rome, or any

of her correlative arts, we must apply a mode of criticism which

is entirely inapplicable to those styles of which we have hitherto

treated. In Greece, we can contemplate an artistic work with the same

unmingled delight we feel when studying a work of nature; but, in Rome,

there is no one building on which we look with unqualified pleasure,

none in which imperfections are not obvious to the most uncritical

eye. In every instance, the destroying hand of time has been merciful,

in hiding defects, and concealing vulgarities, so that the chief

attractions that remain are the result of his hallowing touch, and the

halo of association which spreads around excrescences that, in their

nakedness, would shock and disgust us. When their artists attempted an

exalted range of invention, they wandered into exaggerated forms of

Titanic strength, and here their loftiest flight was terminated. They

were blinded to the path of spiritual beauty, and in striving to storm

heaven, and compel divinity, they failed in all their presumptuous

endeavors. That which was born and slowly nurtured on the banks of the

Nile and the Euphrates, suddenly sprang into its manhood of superlative

worth in Greece, and perished at Rome in decrepitude and crime.

Under the reign of the first Tarquin, Rome was fortified, cleansed, and

somewhat embellished. The low grounds about the Forum were drained,

which prepared the way for the second Tarquin to construct that Cloaca

Maxima, which was every way a masterly work. Servius Tullius enlarged

the city, and completed the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, B.C. 508.

As the name imports, it stood on the Mons Capitolinus, and embraced

four acres of ground. It was twice destroyed, and twice rebuilt on

the same foundation, by Vespasian, and Domitian. It is impossible now

to trace the architecture of the Romans during the three hundred and

sixty-three years which transpired between the time of their last king,

and the subjugation of Greece by that people, in the year B.C. 145. But

many of their grandest structures yet remain, and there is no great

difficulty in estimating their comparative value.

The Doric order of the Greeks had degenerated sadly in style and

design, before the Romans began to build; besides, it was utterly

unsuited to their use, since they had neither sculpture nor painting

with which it should be completed and adorned. But it was in keeping

with their inartistic character to adopt what they could not

comprehend, and yet further degrade its already attenuated columns into

a closer resemblance to the wooden posts of their Etruscan teachers. No

specimen of the Ionic order probably existed in Italy, anterior to the

epoch of Roman superiority, and the imitation of it was, therefore, not

attempted till a late period. In the times of imperial voluptuousness,

however, they did use it to some extent, and succeeded in degrading

that delicate type of art more grossly even than they did the sturdy

Doric. Nothing could be more lean and ungraceful than the Ionic order

became in the hands of Roman builders, who, having no skill of their

own as architects, were successful only in defacing what departed

genius had produced.

One of the first things the Romans borrowed from Greece was their

Corinthian order; but we neither know when it was introduced into

Rome, nor can we trace its history from the time it was lost under

Alexander the Great, during the three hundred years that transpired

before its reappearance in the age of Augustus. To the purposes of a

people who were as unable to appreciate as to execute the Doric, or

even the lighter, but not less elegant, Ionic, the richness of the

Corinthian was admirably adapted. The plan of a building, after that

order, required little thought, and its execution necessitated still

less. No delicate spirals, sculpture, or painting, was requisite, but

every thing was purely mechanical, and such as any stone-mason could

execute. The pillars could be lengthened, or shortened, at will, the

intercolumniations made wide or narrow, and be placed at angles, or

used in interiors with equal facility. No wonder, therefore, that this

order became a favorite with the Romans; and though it was brought

from Greece, and at first executed by imported Attic genius, they so

modified its features as to give them a thoroughly Roman aspect, and

in the temple of Jupiter Stator left the most perfect specimen of

monumental art Rome ever produced. From bad to worse they proceeded,

and blended their degraded Ionic, or Corinthian styles, into the

hideousness of their Composite order. For them to make one harmonious

whole out of two realms of artistic excellence, was not to be expected;

they could only combine, without uniting, and join incongruous parts,

while not one joint was concealed. To fit two into one, as the Greeks

had elaborated one out of two, required invention and taste, of which

the Romans had neither; therefore, in all their architecture, they have

left some grand works of talent, but not one monument that attests the

presence of creative and delicate genius.

Rome arrived at the zenith of architectural science, such as it was,

under the reign of Augustus, as Athens attained infinitely superior

honors under Pericles. But, with the single exception of Trajan, not

one epoch after that great exponent of his age was marked by structural

magnificence erected by Romans. When Virgil, Homer, Cicero, and Livy,

were publishing their works, the metropolis was graced with a number of

gorgeous temples; but the decline of letters and arts soon followed,

and architecture, especially, sunk to the last degree.

The Parthenon and the Pantheon, those two great types of their

respective ages, might be compared on the score of magnificence,

but they were utterly devoid of resemblance as masterpieces of art.

The quadrangular portico of the latter may be presumed to have been

intended to signify the union of architectural powers; without some

such reason the rectilinear front would not have been stuck before a

circular edifice, and the egregious anomaly can be accounted for on no

more plausible ground. That Rome bore the arts, as she did the spoils,

and even the gods of conquered nations, to her own haughty abode, is

true; but it is not less evident that she was destitute of all the arts

and elegances of high civilization till she imported them from Greece,

and that she had neither definite principles, nor correct artistic

conceptions, of her own.

The celebrated temple of all the gods to which we have just referred,

is supposed to have been erected in the time of the Republic, and that

the portico was appended A.D. 14, by Agrippa. Of all the temples of the

Romans, the Pantheon is by far the most original and typical, and as

a rotunda it is unmatched in the ancient world. There is a simplicity

about its proportions, the height being exactly equal to the width,

and in the mode by which it is lighted through a single aperture in

the roof, which gives it a character of grandeur that redeems the

clumsiness of detail, which would nearly spoil any edifice less grand

in conception. That majestic dome is the only Roman structure extant

that has power to carry the mind beyond the imperial mass of crime out

of which tower the splendors of the Augustan age, and tells us of that

grand old Republic whose glory elicited the worth and illuminated the

figures of subsequent history.

Vespasian and his son Titus cumbered the city, and astonished the world

by such masses of building in amphitheatres and baths as will probably

never again be reared. The Coliseum, so named, according to some, from

its gigantic dimensions, but in the more probable opinion of others,

from its proximity to a colossal statue of Nero, is said to have seated

109,000 persons at one time, to view at their ease the bloody sports

of the arena. The probability of this astonishing fact will appear not

only from its enormous height and great number of ascending stages, but

especially from the fact that it covers nearly six acres of ground. As

the Pantheon was the type of the first half of the Augustan age, so

does the Coliseum represent the later period, and was a fit arena for

the degenerate progeny of a brute. It is the best type of the Roman

style, containing at once all its beauties and defects. In size and

splendor, it comported with the empire at its culminating height, and

the purpose for which it was built rendered it the favorite building

of the metropolitan city in the days of its greatest glory. Even now

its ruins appear as eternal as the Roman name, and present us a more

adequate picture of the times in which they stood unimpaired than the

pages of Livy or Tacitus. Despite our better judgment, they awe us into

admiration of the greatness of that martial people, though, in fact,

few buildings were ever more tasteless in design, or more faulty in

execution.

Standing within that immense fabric, one cannot but feel that Rome, as

mistress of the world, with unlimited wealth and power, and a proud

feeling of conscious pre-eminence, beyond all other nations had the

greatest means of cultivating the liberal arts. On the foundation laid

in Greece, she might have built models of usefulness for the world to a

boundless extent; but, as it was, she only altered what she had neither

the capacity nor disposition to improve, and advanced only in the path

of degradation till the lowest depth was reached.

The Marmertine prison, begun by Ancus Martius, and completed by

Servius Tullius, yet remains nearly perfect, and is a good example of

primitive masonry. In the time of the Republic, the Appian road, used

to this day, was commenced by Appius Claudius Cæcus. The Forums of

Julius Cæsar, of Augustus, of Nerva, and of Trajan, were adorned by

many of the noblest structures in Rome. But the most useful works were

exterior to the city, such as those wonderful engineering structures,

the aqueducts. Of these, the Appian, Martian, and Claudian were most

celebrated. The last-mentioned, completed by the emperor Claudius,

A.D. 51, and yet in existence, is forty-six miles in length; for

thirty-six, it runs under ground; and a series of lofty arches, six

miles in length, forms a noble feature in the Campagna, still supplying

the city with pure water. That commenced by Quintus Martius, B.C. 145,

was also an astonishing undertaking, upwards of sixty miles in length,

comprising three separate channels conveying water from different

sources, and partly carried on an arcade of seven thousand arches,

seventy feet in height. Neither were these colossal works confined to

the seat of empire alone, but were executed in the remoter West as

well, as at Segovia, Metz, and Nimes. As one sees this vast supply

of pure water still poured from the Sabine hills through the ancient

aqueducts, he feels how superior were the republican contributions to

the true greatness of Rome, compared with all the imperial and later

works.

It should be particularly observed that the Romans emulated only the

pictorial half of Greek design; and this they greatly increased,

regarding the refinements of propriety as virtues too insipid to be

admired. They were evidently pleased with the columnar ordinance of

a Greek temple, but had no affinity with the instinctive sense of

propriety so prominent in Athenian architects, and could not understand

the true purpose of a colonnade. They did not look at pillars,

entablatures, and pediments as expressions, but simply as physical

substances, which in their combinations formed a picturesque object,

which could be used in a scenic display of sensual magnificence.

Impelled by an insane passion for decoration, the architects of the

Augustan age emblazoned the imperial city with a thousand monumental

errors which in due time subsided into effete grossness, and became the

compost to nourish an entirely new and superior type of art. Such is

the wisdom and goodness of Providence!

Another class of national monuments clearly indicate how the Romans

were differenced from the Greeks. The history of the latter speaks of

valor, power, and conquests, as well as that of the former people.

Where are her architectural monuments of conquered countries and

captured spoils? She had them, but they were mere temporary trophies

constructed of wood. With glorious Greece, the day of triumph was the

day of magnanimity, and in the presence of great art, which ought

never to be desecrated in the forms of self glory, she was willing

to let the songs of victory dwindle speedily into silence. But the

Romans were actuated by entirely opposite feelings. In a Greek portico

columns are native to the occasion as the flower to its parent soil;

but in a triumphal arch as constructed by the Romans, the columns

support nothing that is necessary, nor are they in the slightest

degree constructive, but are forced in with every thing else to typify

national ostentation. Outward symbols, and inner panels of bas-relief

cut in precious marbles, as uncouthly executed as the architectural

members, illustrate the triumphal procession of a conqueror, leading

vanquished captives in chains. If you would clearly read the lessons

of art, that most legible commentary on national character, ascend

reverently the Propylæum in presence of the sculptured Parthenon, and

then go scan the monstrous arches of Titus, Septimus Severus, and

Constantine.

The final expression of eastern beauty was embodied in the immense

temple of Diana at Ephesus. Ctesiphon designed it about B.C. 366,

all the Asiatic colonies of Greece contributing to the expense of its

erection. It was four hundred years in progress, and was burned by

Eratostratus, with the object of immortalizing his name, on the same

night that Alexander was born. Then began the age of martial greatness

and artistic deterioration which ended not till Christianity came to

gaze on the desecrated relics of Judea at Rome, and passed yet further

west through the arches of paganism to originate more aspiring and

glorious shines.

The triumphal monuments raised to commemorate the conquests of Titus,

Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Severus, and Constantine, together with

the Trajan, Antonine, and Theodosian columns, bear the principal

compositions of national sculpture; and these, it is believed, were

mostly executed by Greeks. The coerced hand must perform its task,

and the results were made to breathe the spirit of war, conquest, and

universal dominion. But in vain do we search for one graceful figure

or attractive charm. They are mere military bulletins carved in stone,

petrified paragraphs of ostentatious success, gross in conception,

and pernicious in sentiment. They owe no inspiration to the muses,

and can claim neither epic dignity nor dramatic force. The principal

groups are mobs of Romans, as insensible to beauty as the armor they

bear, and dealing death to their equally barbarian foes, or driving

them in chains to the mount Capitoline. Subjects are often chosen

still more unfit for art, such as soldiers felling timber, carrying

rubbish, driving piles, building walls, working battering-rams, or

dragging victims to mortal torture. The expression of their heads is

so ferocious and savage, as to excite the deepest compassion for the

weaker combatants who might fall into their hands.

If we would know the source of all Roman art, plastic as well as

monumental, we must visit the shores of venerable and plundered

Hellas, with Pausanias and Strabo for our guides. Despite desolating

domestic wars, the inroads of barbarian hordes, and the hostilities of

Macedonian and Roman conquerors, innumerable remains of ancient art

are still there to be found. But, as Cicero says, that at Syracuse,

after the temples had been plundered by the hand of Verres, those

who guided travellers showed them not what still existed there, but

enumerated what had been taken away, so the contemplation of what had

been preserved from those times, and what has since been brought

to light, reminds us of the infinitely greater affluence which, in

the age of bloom and vigor, had adorned the plains and glorified

the cities of Greece. Mummius completed the conquest of that land

B.C. 146, the same year that Carthage was razed to the ground, and

plundered more works of art than all his predecessors put together.

He destroyed many works through ignorance, and his soldiers were seen

playing at dice upon one of the most precious pictures of Aristides.

When Octavius won the victory at Actium, he enlarged the temple of

Apollo upon that promontory, and expressed his gratitude by dedicating

the statue of Apollo, by Scopas, in a temple at Rome, on the Palatine

hill. His declaration that he had found Rome of brick, and would leave

it of marble, Augustus probably hoped to realize after that mode of

procedure. Nero threw down the statues of victors in Greece out of

envy, and illustrated his own taste by gilding a statue of Alexander,

by Lysippus. Imperial vanity and infamous extravagance may be further

estimated by his having had his portrait painted one hundred and

twenty feet high, while he wrested five hundred statues from Delphi

alone to adorn his Golden House. The amount of sculpture accumulated

at Rome must have been immense. Marcus Scaurus decorated his temporary

theatre with three thousand statues. Two thousand were taken from the

Volscians; Lucullus captured many; and, after the conquest of Acaia,

Mummius filled the city. Three thousand were added from Rhodes, and

not fewer from Olympia, beside a multitude from Delphi and Athens. The

imperial palaces and baths of Dioclesian and Caracalla, mausolea of

Augustus, and of Hadrian, were stored with vast treasures stolen from

rightful proprietors, or executed by inferior sculptors, beside rows of

plastic art which lined the Flaminian way. But neither their abundance

nor magnificence could produce that vivid impression on the refined

which never failed to result from the study of pure taste and skill in

their native home.

Literature and art were never primary pursuits with the Romans, but

secondary only and subordinate, adopted without fervor, and employed

for their one great intent, the extension and consolidation of a

martial empire. The honors which Greece bestowed on artists and

authors, Rome gave only to soldiers of high or low degree. The former

was forced into a provincial relation to the latter, but Rome was never

more than a mental and artistic colony to the intellectual people

thus reduced to political subjection. Grecian invention continued its

admirable productions under the emperors of the new West, and at the

same time furnished them literature, science, philosophy, religion,

and the arts. Menelaus and Patrocles, Antigone and Hæmon, Pætus and

Arria, Orestes and Electra, the Toro Farnese, and Laocoon, were

sculptured between the middle of the Roman Republic and the last of

the Cæsars. Before the lowest debasement of art had arrived, some few

tolerable basso-relievos were also produced from Homer and the ancient

tragedians, and were among the latest creations of free and legitimate

art. Then came the cumbrous pediments, imperial statues, consular

portraits, gems and coins, wrought by the dependent Greek, to feed the

impious ambition or ignorant vanity of his insolent master during the

latter ferocities of the empire.

When the great depositories of art in Greece and her western colonies

fell under the control of the Romans, the villas of the rich in the

metropolis and chief cities were converted into great halls of art.

Earlier, martial Rome, which, according to the expression of Plutarch,

knew no ornaments but arms and spoils, furnished to the unwarlike and

luxurious spectators no pleasing or unalarming spectacle. "To melt

brass, and breathe into it the soul of art, or to create living forms

in marble," the Roman had not learned. "His art was government and

war." Etrurian artists had furnished him with what religion required,

of wood or clay, sufficient for all the devotional sensibility he

possessed. But after Marcellus had turned the rude minds of the

citizens to the admiration of the works he obtained by conquest over

Syracuse, all military leaders became anxious to add splendor to their

triumphs by trophies of art. Thus, in the course of a century, most

of the finest art extant traveled to Rome, at first a metropolitan

decoration, but anon, an ambitious ornament to private dwellings.

At length, the common soldier learned to despise the temples of the

gods; to confound what was sacred with what was profane; to covet fine

sculptures and rich furniture, and to nourish a mercenary ambition,

which became a new pretext for violence in war, and extravagance

in peace. As in the Republic, Lucullus and others regarded the

masterpieces of the Greeks as the fairest embellishments of their

rural mansions, so the imperial Cæsars grasped at all within reach,

and never had enough. Soon there dwelt in Rome as many statues as men;

and the treasures disinterred in modern times at Tibur and Tusculum,

on the Alban Mount, at Antium, and elsewhere in the neighborhood of

the original seat of power, indicate that the surrounding region was

not less rich than the capital itself. But a profound sense of art

was never created at Rome, and, notwithstanding all the variety of

excellence they brought together from afar, not one distinguished Roman

artist lives on the record of fame.

History testifies that the carrying away works of art appeared as

robbery of sanctuaries in mythological times, as base plundering in the

Persian invasions, and to be excused only on the score of pecuniary

want in the Phocian war. But under the Romans, this became a regular

recompense, which they appropriated on account of their victories. For

instance, when Corinth was destroyed by the army under Lucius Mummius,

its most precious treasure of sculptures and paintings was preserved.

These he resolved to send to Rome; but the orders which he issued on

the occasion curiously illustrate the artistic taste and capacities

of the age. "If any of these spoils," he said to those who were to

transport them, "be lost or injured, you shall repair or replace them

at your own expense." The successors of Augustus sometimes patronized

sculpture, but no native merit was produced. Nero, somewhat educated in

art by his tutor, Seneca, ordered a statue of himself, a hundred and

ten feet high, to be cast by Zenodorus, and virtually stole at one time

five hundred statues from Delphi, among which, as is supposed, were

the Apollo Belvidere and Fighting Gladiator. According to Winklemann,

the encouragement which the Antonines gave to the arts was only that

apparent revivescence which is the precursor of death. Under the brutal

Commodus, the arts, which the school of Adrian had freely nourished,

sunk, like a river which is lost in a subterranean channel, to rise

again further on with a wider and richer flow.

Down even to the reigns of Julian and Theodosius, Greek artists

continued to repair to their mother country to copy the two great

masterpieces of Phidias, his Jupiter at Elis, and his Minerva at

Athens. And it is pleasing to see how Horace entered into the spirit

of ancient art, when he declared to his friend Censorinus that he

would give him all the riches of the world, provided he had but the

chief productions of Parrhasius and Scopas. Cicero also entered into

like feelings, when he desired to collect together the works of Greek

artists, declaring that this was "his greatest delight." He tells his

friend Atticus that if he had but his collection he should exceed

Crassus in riches, and would despise all the villas and territories

that might be offered to him. The real love of art in the vain orator,

however, was very moderate, as he was afraid to be held by the judges

as a connoisseur.

The public games of Greece were peaceful and intellectual, adapted as

much to invigorate moral strength as to develop manly beauty. Those of

Rome were exhibitions, not of mental, but of physical energy, and were

both sanguinary and brutalizing. The former were often theatrical to

an exalted degree, but never amphitheatrical, as was always the case

with the latter. The tragic feeling of Greece is represented by the

sculptured grief of Niobe, that of Rome by the death-struggles which

distort the features and muscles of Laocoon. The latter work, together

with the Tauro Farnese, the Dying Gladiator, the Gladiator of Agesias,

and several kindred works, were all executed in the Augustan age, some

of them at a late period. The Meleager and Mercury of the Vatican, the

Venus of Capua, and the Ludovisi Mars, must also be regarded as the

productions of Greek art, so modified as to please Roman taste. What

a radical change was wrought in sculpture, in its westward progress,

is best exemplified in the colossal Nile and Tiber of the Vatican and

Louvre. It is obvious that these representations of river-gods are

based on that original Greek type which was so nobly embodied in the

Ilissus of the Parthenon; the general reclining attitude is the same,

but the whole motive of the art is altered; new symbols and accessories

are added, to express an inferior idea in more copious but less

eloquent language. The same general statement applies to the numerous

allegorical figures which are preserved in Italian galleries, with the

collateral illustration of Roman coins.

Augustan art was formed from Greek models, in the same time and mode

as Augustan literature, with one important exception. The latter

was engrafted on an original stock of ballad-poetry, the process of

adaptation being their own work; but Greek art was transferred rather

than engrafted, the cultivation of the exotic being entrusted to

strangers and hirelings. Augustan letters were formed by the Romans

themselves, Augustan sculptures by Greek artists working under Roman

dictation. The monuments of Rome afford the best examples on a great

scale of the historic style of sculpture peculiar to that people,

which is valuable in reference to their portrait art, a collateral

department, such as biography is to general history. The series

of busts in the Vatican, the Capitol, the Museo Borbonico, and at

Florence, show how successfully this class of art was cultivated

down to a very late period of the empire. The Roman sarcophagi form

a distinct order of monuments, and are also of the later period. The

bas-reliefs with which they are decorated generally, are borrowed from

Greek myths, such as the story of Niobe, but in treatment, the delicate

wisdom of the original is gradually ignored.

When Greece fell, there were but three superior artists, Lysippus the

sculptor, Apelles the painter, and Pyrgoteles the gem-engraver. The

first introduced a new style of art, which foretokened the age already

begun. He made his figures larger than life, and the huge instead of

the beautiful followed evermore, till the empire of force had in turn

perished. A hundred colossi of the sun arose in the single island of

Rhodes, the most famous of which, by Chares of Lindus, was completed

B.C. 280. The imposing group of Dirce and the Bull, executed by artists

born at Tralles, is another expression of that time. But the most

significant symbol of the Augustan age and its spirit is that famous

work made by three Rhodian sculptors, the Laocoon. It was probably

executed about the time of Titus, as Pliny first saw it in the palace

of that emperor, and referred to it as a novelty. In that group,

violent action and intense suffering are shown in the same instant

simultaneously; we pity the younger son, tremblingly hope for the

elder, and despair of all three as that horrid shriek rings from the

distorted mouth of the father, maddened by agony into a forgetfulness

of his own offspring writhing with him in serpent-folds, and fatally

crushed by the meshes of a living net. What the transcendent statue by

Phidias was to the majestic Jupiter of Homer, the sculptured Laocoon

was to the description by Virgil, but in a very inferior degree. From

the time the haughty dwellers on mount Capitoline had been obliged to

adopt old Etruscan statues to perpetuate their own historical events,

the Romans never excelled in noble art. It was a characteristic fact,

that Clodius, after the banishment of Cicero, on the ruins of his

palace dedicated to Liberty a statue which in its primary use had

represented a Bœotian courtesan. To the end, that rough race never

possessed the enlightened eyes, purged of their blinding film, like

those of Diomed, to discern the fine texture of celestial forms, or to

admire their charms.

Roman painting will require but a brief notice. Early in the Augustan

age, easel-painting was neglected, and wall-decoration came into

special favor, as the handmaid of luxury. In the time of Vespasian,

according to Pliny, painting was a perishing art, and with the most

splendid colors nothing worth speaking of was produced. Scenography,

originally derived from Asia Minor, was cultivated at Rome, by Ludius.

He executed, as room decorations, villas and porticoes, artificial

gardens, parks, streams, canals, and marine views, enlivened with

comical figures in all sorts of rural occupations. The perspective

theatrical paintings, by which the Greek drama was illustrated,

gradually extended the art of landscape, since it increased the demand

for a deceptive imagination of inanimate objects, such as buildings,

woods, and rocks. This was imitated by the Romans, and transferred

from the playhouse to their halls adorned with pillars, where the long

surfaces of the wall were at first covered with pictures in small,

and afterwards with wide prospects of towns, shores of the sea, and

extensive pastures upon which the cattle are feeding. In the time of

the later Cæsars, landscape painting became a distinct branch; but,

according to the specimens preserved to us in Herculaneum, Pompeii, and

Stabiæ, these pictures of nature were more allied to private villas and

artificial gardens, than to broad views of the open country.

In the age of Hadrian, painting flourished to a limited degree. Ætion

made a composition of Alexander and Roxane, with Erotes busied about

him in the king's armor, which Lucian greatly admired. But painting

continued to sink into a mere daubing of colors, and was commonly an

occupation of slaves to adorn walls in the most expeditious manner,

according to the caprice of tasteless tyrants. Foreign artists were

often employed servilely to copy the old masters; while the purity

of native taste was exemplified in one of the annual ceremonies at

Rome, which consisted in fresh painting the statue of Jupiter, in the

capitol, with bright vermilion. The time delighted in tricks of all

kinds. In the golden house of Nero, a Pallas, by Fabullus, was admired,

which looked at every one who directed his eyes toward her; and the

picture of the tyrant himself, one hundred and twenty feet high, on

canvass, is justly reckoned by Pliny as one of the fooleries of the age.

Ancient coins throw much light upon Roman art. They make us feel the

reality of great events connected with the rise and fall of the empire

more vividly than any written records. The annual coinage, bearing the

names and portraits of leading personages, indeed, formed the most

legible and enduring "state gazette," continued without interruption

from Pacuvius, B.C. 200, who was an artist as well as poet, down to

the fifth century. In this department of Roman art, as in every other,

the progress of growth, decline, and decay, is distinctly marked. The

last coins, like the last temples, statues, and pictures, foretokening

Gothic art, were as marked features of transition, as those which were

stamped on Grecian genius as it migrated into Rome. Starting from

the heart of the Etruscan nation, which was partly of an oriental

derivation, art in the Augustan age ran through its second cycle,

correspondant to that of the Periclean, showing that the evolution

which in Greece had been illustrated in consummate statues, was

strictly normal, and the same which in Etruria, at the outset, dawned

in drawings upon vases. The strong influence which Assyria had thrown

over some parts of Lydia, in Asia Minor, was carried far west by the

Etruscans, who quitted that district and settled in the north-west

of Italy. They were celebrated workers in clay and bronze; and the

ornaments and figures wrought by them on these materials are identical

with the figures upon the bronze bowls and plates recently discovered

by Mr. Layard at Nineveh. The Etruscans were well acquainted with

agriculture, as well as many other practical arts, and knew how to work

the iron of Elba. Thus it was that Providence placed the formative

element of the Augustan age at the right time and in the right place to

execute its mission under the wisdom of a divine intent.

When the appropriate field had been cleared, and all fitting agencies

were prepared, the advent of Christianity rendered possible the full

development of the human soul, and a corresponding improvement of noble

art. The preliminary throes of a heavenly birth transpired under the

last decay of paganism, the impressions of which are preserved in the

primitive sculptures, mosaics, and illuminations of the yet persecuted

church. In the catacombs under Rome are numerous works of the late

Augustan period, not to be exceeded in interest by any other remains

of past ages. Many entire days may be well spent in that sanctuary of

antiquity, where Paganism and Christianity confront each other engaged

in mortal conflict. Great numbers of the vestiges of that struggle

and auspicious triumph have been taken from the subterranean chapels

and tombs, and are now affixed to the walls of the Vatican, where

they furnish abundance of enjoyment and reflection to one studious of

the great unfoldings of the divine purpose in human progress. These

"sermons in stones" are addressed to the heart, not to the head; and

possess great value from being the creation of the purest portion of

the "catholic and apostolic church" then extant. In all the Lapidarian

Gallery, there are no prayers for the dead, nor to the apostles or

early saints; and, with the exception of such relics as "eternal

sleep," "eternal home," etc., not one expression contrary to the plain

sense of Scripture. This is the more remarkable when it is known that

the catacombs remained open during half of the fifth century.

That Mosaic should be popular with the Romans was natural, since their

thoughts, mythology, social and philosophical systems, exhibited only

one vast composition made up of precious fragments plundered from

the East, and maintained in a gorgeous form on their grand system of

forcible compact and consolidated union. Pliny states that Scylla

was the first Roman who caused stone-laid work to be produced, about

B.C. 80. Many elegant spoils from Greece were deposited in the temple

of Jupiter Capitolinus, and were probably adopted as decorations,

which created in the minds of luxurious and ostentatious patricians

an anxiety for other magnificent embellishments, and thus occasioned

Mosaic. The most noble specimen of it now extant is the splendid

pavement of the Pantheon, the historical worth of which is commensurate

with its great superficial extent. Porphyry, Giallo Antico, and

Pavonazzetto are the principal marbles employed, and they are arranged

simply in round and square slabs. Fine fragments have been found

in the Baths of Caracalla, and are preserved, with numerous other

specimens, in the great Mosaic depository of the Vatican. The most

generally known, and by far the most exquisite example of this art

still existing, is the picture usually called "Pliny's Doves." It is in

the museum of the Capitol, and represents a metal bason, on the edge

of which four doves are sitting; one of them is stooping to drink, and

not only the shadow cast by it, but even the reflection of part of

the head in the water, is beautifully shown. The vast accumulation of

precious material after each campaign greatly enhanced the passion for

Mosaic decoration, and it was copiously produced till the end of the

second century. The church early adopted this art for sacred symbolic

purposes, and during the mediæval period, carried it to the highest

perfection. The only specimen of primitive work now extant, is the

curious incrustation which lines the vaulting of the Baptistery erected

by Constantine, dedicated to Santa Constanza, and which represents a

vine covering, as it were, the whole roof.

Illuminated books were known to the pagan Romans, and were at a later

period made in a most attractive style by Christian zeal. In the time

of Pliny, written volumes were decorated with pictures; and Dibdin

refers to a collection of seven hundred notices by Varro, of eminent

men, illustrated by portraits. This book appears to have been seen by

Symmachus at the end of the fourth century, who speaks of it in one

of his letters. The Vatican Virgil has but little ornament; and of

enriched initials, or ornamental borders, the early Latin MSS. have

none. In the fifth century, a great improvement began, which will be

noticed in its proper place. The process of laying on and burnishing

gold and silver appears to have been familiar to the oriental nations

from a remote antiquity. There is no instance of its use in the

Egyptian papyri, yet it is not unreasonable to believe that the Greeks

acquired the art from the East, and conveyed it westward with all

other elements of artistic worth. Among the later generations of that

people, the usage became so common that the scribes or artists in gold

constituted a distinct class. The luxury thus introduced to the Romans

was augmented by writing on vellum, stained of a purple or rose color,

the earliest instance of which is recorded by Julius Capitolinus, in

his life of the emperor Maximinus the younger, to whom his mother

made a present of the works of Homer, written on purple vellum, in

letters of gold. This was at the commencement of the third century.

Thence a rapid decline succeeded until, under the auspices of rising

Christianity, this beautiful art rose to the highest point. Before the

fourth century ended, St. Jerome tells us its use was more frequent,

but always applied to copies of the Bible, and devotional books,

written for the libraries of princes, and the service of monasteries.

Thus have we briefly sketched the arts of that people who, at all

periods, and in every form, have built out of ruins. A band of robbers

found on the banks of the Tiber a city abandoned by its builders,

and which they chose to inhabit. But outcasts as they were, they

brought few women with them, and these they took by violence from the

peaceful Etruscans. No attractive house, nor ample temple, was erected

by the Romans for five hundred years, so barbarous was the genius

of the people. Corinth and Syracuse, two most magnificent cities,

left no impression on their conquerors; their drinking vessels were

of gold, while their temples and deities were of uncouth stone, or

brittle clay. Nero built an immense palace, gilded in the most costly

manner throughout. But the masters of the world, trembling to enter

it, commanded its destruction, and removed the works of Phidias and

Praxiteles, of Scopas and Lysippus, of Apelles and Zeuxis, and, in a

fearful conflagration, poured forth torrents of precious metals from

its ceilings, its arches, and its architraves, in order to construct

out of its scathed kitchens and stables a bath and amphitheatre for the

Roman people. They did less in their city than in their colonies, for

the ultimate welfare of humanity. The most majestic and solid specimen

of engineering was the bridge with which they spanned the Danube; and

the grandest of their works was the wall they erected against the

Caledonians. About B.C. 200, the Chinese completed their immense wall,

to fence themselves in; and the Romans would fain ward the northern

barbarians off. But Providence, leaving the effete East to its chosen

isolation, with irresistible movement sweeps outward on the broad

current of progressive civilization, and lifts the curtain of a new act

in the still more glorious West.

CHAPTER III.

SCIENCE.

We are told by Livy that, soon after his disappearance from among men,

the spirit of Romulus revisited the distinguished senator, Proculus

Julius, and addressed him as follows: "Go, tell my countrymen it is

the decree of heaven, that the city I have founded shall become the

mistress of the world. Let her cultivate assiduously the military

art. Then let her be assured, and transmit the assurance from age to

age, that no mortal power can resist the arms of Rome." Strict and

persevering obedience to this counsel eventually caused that colossal

power to extend itself from Siberia to the Great Desert, and from

the Ganges to the Atlantic. But it would be in vain to look to such

a people, actuated by martial ambition only, for the general and

successful cultivation of science. Regal, republican, and imperial

Rome, was undoubtedly a perfect model of a predatory state, but the

last to excel in refined and erudite thought.

The old Romans were much attached to agriculture, as a general

pursuit. It was only at a late period that commerce, literature,

art, and science, were introduced among them, and then only in a

subordinate place. Among the Greeks, most proper names, and almost all

the most distinguished, were derived from gods and heroes, and bore

a significancy both poetical and glorious. Among the Romans, on the

contrary, the names of many of their most distinguished families, such

as Fabius, Lentulus, Piso, Cicero, and many others, were taken from

vegetable productions, and the occupations of agriculture. Others, as

Secundus, Quintus, Septimus, and Octavius, are derived from the numbers

of the old popular reckoning. But mathematics never flourished with

that people, while agriculture was a science in which they first and

chiefly excelled. It was one of the very few departments in which

Rome produced original writers. The language and science of conquered

peoples were generally despised as barbarian, but renderings into the

Latin were sometimes made, as when the writings of the Punic Mago upon

agriculture were translated at the command of the senate of Rome.

The Etruscan race were early subject to the Grecian influence, through

a current of Tyrrhenian Pelasgi, and they continued the westward

development of science thence received, by penetrating the north of

Italy, and across the Alps. The influence which they exerted upon the

political character and scientific progress of the ancient Romans,

was very great. The impression which the latter left upon universal

civilization, vastly extended the scope of thought, but very much of

it grew out of a particular element in primitive Etruscan character.

This consisted in their close intimacy with natural phenomena. Many

of their most sagacious minds were organized into a college, who

gave themselves to divination and the observation of meteorological

occurrences. The Fulgatores, or interpreters of the lightning,

occupied themselves with the direction of the electric fluid, and with

turning it aside, or drawing it down. An account is given by Father

Angelo Cortenovis, perhaps fabulous, that the tomb of Lars Porsena,

described by Varro, was furnished with a brazen helmet, and a brazen

chain appended, which formed a collector of atmospheric electricity,

or a conductor of lightning. If such was the fact, or, as Michaelis

believed, the metallic points upon Solomon's temple were for the like

purpose, they must have been formed at a time when mankind possessed

the remnants of an ante-historical knowledge of natural philosophy,

which was speedily beclouded to be unfolded under fairer auspices.

That the connection between lightning and conducting metals was early

discovered, is clear from the notice taken of it by Ctesias. He said,

"He has two iron swords in his possession, presents from the king

(Artaxerxes Mnemon) and his mother (Parysatis); these swords, if

planted in the earth, turned aside clouds, hail, and lightning. He

has himself seen their effect; for the king had made the experiment

twice before his eyes." Humboldt says, "The close attention paid by

the Tuscans to the meteorological processes of the atmosphere, and to

every thing which varied from the ordinary course of nature, makes it

certainly a subject of regret that none of the lightning-books have

come down to us. The epochs of the appearance of great comets, or the

fall of meteoric stones, and the crowds of falling stars, were, without

doubt, as clearly laid down in them, as in the more ancient Chinese

annals used by Edward Biot." Creuzer, in his Symbols and Mythology of

the Ancient Nations, has attempted to show that the peculiarity of

the country in Etruria produced the characteristic direction of the

mind of its inhabitants. There is a strong analogy between the power

over lightning, attributed to Prometheus, and the wonderful pretended

attraction of the lightning of the Fulgatores. But there was no science

in the operation, which consisted in exorcising only, and possessed

nothing more effective or practical than the carved ass's head, by

means of which, according to their religious customs, they defended

themselves during a thunder-storm. Otfried Mūller states that,

according to the complex Etrurian theory of Auguries, the soft, warming

lightning, which Jupiter sent down, by his own authority and power, was

distinguished from the more violent electrical mode of castigation,

which, according to the constitution of the heavens, he only dared send

down after a previous consultation with all the twelve gods. Lightning

from the higher cloud-region they carefully distinguished from those

flashes which Saturn caused to arise from below, and which they

called terrestrial lightning, a distinction much more intelligently

discriminated by modern science. After an imperfect but continuous

mode, complete registers of the daily condition of the weather were

established.

The Aquileges, those who were specially skilled in drawing forth

springs of water and examining its properties, originated a somewhat

critical investigation of geological phenomena, such as the strata of

rocks and the inequalities of earth-formations. Diodorus extols the

Tuscan race as a people addicted to the study of nature. They were

undoubtedly, in their day, the most efficient promoters of physical

knowledge, and laid the foundation of science for the Augustan age.

The knowledge of a great part of the surface of the eastern world was

first attained by the conquests made by Alexander. These occurred

at a time when the Grecian language and philosophy were so widely

spread, that scientific observation and the systematic arrangement of

general phenomena, could be rendered most lucid to the mind, and most

profitable to the world. By another most providential coincidence, at

the moment when an immense store of new materials was thus gathered

for study and use, the great Stagirite was at hand to direct inquiry

into the facts of natural history, with a comprehensive sagacity never

before known. Having explored every possible depth of speculative

investigation, and spread out all realms in a map of practical

improvement, bounded and defined by definite scientific language,

he gave the immense treasure to the West, then just prepared for

the donation. Anterior to the Augustan age, science had accumulated

many materials, but could hardly be said to exhibit a growing body

of determinate results. The Alexandrian school opened on the eastern

edge of a new cycle, whose unfolding was manifestly one of great

advancement. It was among the Romans that the idea of progressive

science was first conceived and declared as a law. Pliny would not

despair of seeing proficiency perpetually increased. Seneca, also,

felt assured that the time would come when what was now dark would be

luminous, and that which is now most admired would be entirely eclipsed

by infinitely more resplendent discoveries. Such hopeful sentiments

show a confidence of the increase of knowledge, which was not

expressed in earlier times. It is especially to be observed that this

anticipation, both in Pliny and Seneca, was prompted by the discoveries

at that time made in astronomy; which, as Whewell remarks, was "the

only progressive science produced by the ancient world." At a later

period, Ovid, in the chorus to his Medea, expressed a like confidence

in regard to maritime discovery. But the prospect of scientific

progress was not connected with much, if any, general improvement of

mankind, even in the estimation of those who entertained the fondest

expectations. It must, therefore, have afforded some consolation to

those who lived when the old world was decomposing, and when its heart,

mind and soul, all bore tokens of a great and radical change, to gaze

on any bright gleams which science revealed through the clouds of the

future.

The Ptolemies, by their love for the sciences, their splendid

establishments for promoting intellectual development, and their

unwearied endeavors to extend the advantages of commerce, gave an

impulse to the study of nature and the knowledge of geography, such

as had not existed in any preceding nation. Even before the first

Punic war had shaken the power of Carthage, Alexandria had become the

greatest emporium of trade and thought in the world. When martial

force had laid the broad foundations of empire far down the track of

national destinies, Egypt became a province, and all its immensely

valuable attainments in science were transferred to the Romans. As the

companions of Alexander had become acquainted with the monsoon winds,

which render such powerful assistance in voyages between the east coast

of Africa and the west coast of Asia, so the Cæsars, in due time and

order, were put in possession of means by which they might compass

the western shores of Europe. Thus greater portions of the globe have

become accessible, the nations have been drawn together more closely,

and the sphere of human knowledge has been progressively enlarged. This

direction of Greek thought, which was productive of such grand results,

and had been so long in a quiet state of preparation, was manifested

in the noblest way at the era of transition from Pericles to Augustus.

Its extension at the time of the Lagides may be considered as a very

important step in the general knowledge of nature ultimately attained.

Before the appearance of Aristotle, the phenomena of nature had

not been studied by the aid of acute observation, and for their

interpretation they were surrendered to obscure guesses and arbitrary

hypotheses. But in the new age which succeeded, much more careful

attention to empirical analysis was manifested. Facts were sifted,

and synthetical results obtained. The securer road of induction was

opened, and speculations in natural philosophy assumed more and more

the form and worth of practical knowledge. An ardent desire to study

facts succeeded the power and passion to amass them, and a science was

born of nobler aspect than a merely spiritless and empty erudition.

The peculiar character of Ptolemean scholasticism preserved itself

until near the fall of the western empire, and formed an all-prevailing

element in Roman science. Much assistance was derived from the great

collections originally in the museum at Alexandria, and the two

libraries at Bruchium and at Rhacotis. Connected with the first was

a large body of learned men, whose diversified talents and universal

knowledge enabled them to generalize all the elements that had been

agglomerated for the advantage of a yet more critical age. The library

of Bruchium was the oldest, and suffered at the burning of the fleet in

the time of Julius Cæsar. The library of Rhacotis made a part of the

Serapeum, where it was united to the museum. The collection of Pergamus

was, by the generosity of Anthony, incorporated with the library of

Rhacotis.

Doubtless the germ of all subsequent progress in the natural sciences

was to be found in Plato's high regard for the development of a

mathematical mode of thought, and in the system which Aristotle set

forth respecting all organized beings. These were the guiding-stars

which conducted all great masters of learning amid fanatical errors

for many centuries, and prevented the utter loss of a scientific

method. Step by step the progress went forward. Eratosthenes of Cyrene

projected a systematic "Universal Geography;" and, outstripping the

"System of Floodgates," by Strato of Lampsacus, followed the rush of

waters through the Dardanelles, and went forth in thought beyond the

Pillars of Hercules to attempt the solution of the problem concerning

the similarity of the level of the ocean around all the continents.

A corresponding illustration of the intellectual activity of the

age appeared in the attempt to determine, by approximation, the

circumference of the earth. The data arrived at by Bematist, were

indeed incomplete; but the device to raise himself from the narrow

segment of his native land, measure adjacent degrees, and finally

obtain a knowledge of the size of the entire globe, is a striking index

to the Augustan age.

But the splendid progress made in the scientific acquaintance with

the celestial bodies at that time, is most worthy of note. Aristyllus

and Timochares determined the position of fixed stars. Aristarchus of

Samos, the cotemporary of Cleanthes, was acquainted with the ancient

Pythagorean ideas, attempted to explore thoroughly the construction of

the universe, and guessed at the double movement of the earth round

its axis, as well as its progress round a central sun. Seleucus of

Euthræ, a century later attempted to confirm the opinion of the Samian

writer; and Hipparchus, the founder of scientific astronomy, became the

greatest original observer of the stars in the whole of antiquity. He

was the first author of astronomical tables, and the discoverer of the

precession of the equinoxes. His own observations were made at Rhodes,

and upon comparing them with those of Timochares and Aristyllus, he

was led to this great discovery. In the same hands, celestial phenomena

were first employed to determine the geographical position of certain

places. The new map of the world, constructed by Hipparchus, touched

upon eclipses, and the measurement of shadows, for the determination

of the geographical latitudes and longitudes. Improvements cluster,

and a new aid of great value soon appeared, in the hydraulic clock of

Ctesibius, which measured time much more accurately than the Clypsydra,

or water-glasses, formerly in use. For a corresponding improvement

in the determination of space, better instruments were invented from

time to time, dating from the ancient sun-dial and the scaphæ to the

discovery of the Astrolabes, the solstitial rings, and the dioptric

lines. Wider views and keener organs were afforded to increased

scientific skill, which gradually led to a closer acquaintance with

the loftiest planetary movement. But the knowledge of the absolute

size, form, and physical properties of these bodies, made no progress

whatever, that being reserved as the leading glory of a posterior age.

The Augustan period, though it attained not to true astronomical

science in the highest form, was yet remarkable in some departments

of mathematics. Euclid, Appollonius of Perga, and Archimedes, were

geometers of the highest class, who were intermediate between Plato and

the Menæchmean figures and the age of Kepler and Tycho, Galileo and

Laplace.

Archimedes was born B.C. 287, and is said to have been related by blood

to Hiero, king of Syracuse. He was too late to associate with Euclid,

but found a friend and genial companion in Conon, another distinguished

mathematician of that age. In his researches Archimedes used "his

beloved Doric dialect," and contributed much to the improvement of

mathematical science. His first discoveries related to the area of

the parabola, the surface and solidity of the sphere and cylinder,

the properties of spheroids, and of that spiral which is called

indifferently the spiral of Conon or of Archimedes. The speculations

respecting the sphere and cylinder appear to have interested this great

man the most, for he wished to have his grave marked by these solids,

and was the first mathematician who caused his scientific discoveries

to be inscribed on his tomb. Of his astronomical studies, none have

reached our times, excepting the method of determining the sun's

apparent diameter. Cicero speaks of an orrery, as it would be called

in modern times, made by Archimedes, and exhibiting the motion of the

sun, the moon, and the planets; which he uses as an argument against

those who deny a Providence. "Shall we," says he, "attribute more

intelligence to Archimedes for making the imitation, than to nature for

framing the original?"

Perhaps the most remarkable of his discoveries were those he made in

mechanics, and their adaptation by him to practical use. The lever,

the wheel and axle, the polyspact or pulley, the wedge, and the screw

were known to him. He seems to have turned much of his attention to the

construction of powerful machines, and boasted of the unlimited extent

of his art in the well-known expression, "Give me a spot to stand on,

and I will move the earth." He is said to have enabled Hiero, through

a mechanical contrivance, to push a large ship into the sea, by his

individual strength. His application was so intense that he required

to be reminded of the common duties of eating and drinking by those

about him; and while his servants were placing him in his bath, he

would still continue drawing mathematical diagrams with any materials

within his reach. "So that," according to Plutarch, "this abstraction

made people say, and not unreasonably, that he was accompanied by an

invisible siren, to whose song he was listening."

By his proficiency in the "Equilibrium of Bodies in Fluids," he

detected the true weight of Hiero's crown, and exclaimed to the

startled public, "I have found it! I have found it!" So greatly was his

inventive power feared by the often repulsed Romans, that at last the

appearance of a rope or a pole above the wall of a besieged city threw

them into a panic, for fear of some new "infernal machine." His burning

mirrors occasioned Lucian to say that Archimedes, by his mechanical

skill, burnt the Roman ships. Galen refers to the same fact. Archimedes

lent great aid in the final defense of his beloved Syracuse, but the

fortune of Rome was overwhelming at last. It is said that Marcellus

gave strict orders to preserve a person of whose genius he had seen

such extraordinary proofs, but this was forgotten in the license of

war. A ruthless soldier burst upon the venerable philosopher absorbed

over a diagram, and smote him dead. Cicero, traveling in Sicily about

a hundred and fifty years later, had great difficulty in finding his

tomb. "I recollected," he says, "some verses which I had understood to

be inscribed on his monument, which indicated that on the top of it

there was a sphere and a cylinder. On looking over the burying-ground

(for at the gate of the city the tombs are very numerous and crowded),

I saw a small pillar just appearing above the brushwood, with a sphere

and cylinder upon it, and immediately told those who were with me, who

were the principal persons in Syracuse, that I believed that to be what

I was seeking. Workmen were sent in with tools to clear and open the

place, and when it was accessible, we went to the opposite side of the

pedestal; there we found the inscription, with the latter portions of

the lines worn away, so that about half of it was gone. And thus, one

of the most illustrious cities of Greece, and one formerly of the most

literary, would have remained ignorant of the monument of a citizen so

distinguished for his talents, if they had not learnt it from a man of

a small Samnite village."

When the dominion of the Romans supervened upon that of the Greeks,

and bore all irresistibly to the West, much that was glorious appeared

to be obscured, but nothing was lost. All the materials which flowed

into the vast stream of Roman civilization, from the valley of the

Nile, from Phœnicia, the Euphrates, and the Ilissus, arrived by ways

and in times which infinite wisdom saw to be best, and from Octavius to

Constantine were amalgamated, and thenceforth still further removed for

the grandest use. From India to the Atlantic coast, from Libyan borders

to Caledonian hills, not only was the greatest variety in the forms

of earth, its organic productions and physical phenomena presented to

general notice, but also the human race was seen in all the gradations

of civilized and savage life. In the East, effete races existed

still in the possession of ancient knowledge, and in the exercise of

ancient arts; while in the West, over gathering hordes of energetic

barbarians, the fresh dawn of a mightier life was beginning to rise. In

the time of Ælius Gallius and Bulbus, distant scientific expeditions

were undertaken; and under Augustus, a general survey of the entire

empire was commenced by Zenodoxus and Polycletus. The same Grecian

geometricians, or others under their direction, prepared itineraries

and special topographical accounts to be distributed among the rulers

of the several provinces. They were the first statistical works

undertaken in Europe. Roads were divided into miles, and extended to

the remotest boundaries, so that Hadrian, in an uninterrupted journey

which occupied eleven years, traveled with ease from the peninsula of

Iberia to Judea, Egypt, and Mauritania. It might reasonably be expected

that such a vast field, so diversified in climate and productions, and

which might with so much facility be explored by state officers and

their retinues of learned men, would have produced numerous proficients

in science. On the contrary, during the four centuries, when the Romans

held undivided sway over the known world, Dioscorides the Cilician,

and Galenus of Pergamus, were the only natural philosophers. The first

made some approach to botanical science, and increased the number

of species of plants, which had been described. And it was at this

time that Galen, by the care of his dissections, and the extent of

physiological researches, has been declared worthy of being placed

near to Aristotle, and generally above him. Ptolemæus, whom we before

mentioned as a systematic astronomer and geographer, is a third bright

name to be added to the experimental philosophers Dioscorides and

Galen. He measured the refraction of light, and was the first founder

of an important part of optics. All these distinguished masters of such

science as existed among the Romans were Greeks, as we have before seen

was the case with the prime leaders in the departments of literature

and art.

As the soldiers of Alexander of Macedon brought home the jungle-fowl

of India, and domesticated it in Europe; so the agents of Providence,

acting in the realms of science, gathered up and transmitted just

such elements as their successors would most need. As soon as mineral

acids could be obtained, chemistry first began, a powerful means

of decomposing matter; therewith the distillation of sea-water,

described by Alexander of Aphrodisias in the time of Caracalla, became

an invention of great importance. The new solvent was variously

applied, and the scientific mind gradually became acquainted with the

compound nature of matter, its chemical constituents, and their mutual

affinities.

Anatomical knowledge also improved under Roman teachers. Marinus, and

Rufus of Ephesus, dissected monkeys, and distinguished between the

nerves of motion and the nerves of sense. Ælian of Præneste wrote a

history of animals, and Oppianus of Cilicia, a poem upon fishes. These

contained some accurate descriptions, but few facts founded upon their

own examination, or worthy of a standard work on natural history. Great

numbers of elephants, elks, ostriches, crocodiles, panthers, tigers,

and lions, were slaughtered in the Roman amphitheatre during four

centuries, but without any result save that of a brutal enjoyment. In

that great metropolis there was no academy of science, and no general

interest in a high range of intellectual pursuits. Antonius Castor,

the Roman physician, was the only citizen who is reported to have had

a botanical garden, probably made to imitate those of Theophrastus

and Mithridates, but of no more practical use to science than was the

collection of fossil bones made by the emperor Augustus, in the museum

of natural curiosities. Galen, the only anatomist of true scientific

method, flourished under the Antonines, and died about A.D. 203. He

was originally from Pergamus, but went early to Alexandria, where he

perfected his professional skill, and then removed to Rome, the scene

of his great trials and triumphs. His superiority excited the jealous

hatred of the metropolitan physicians; but the reputation he had earned

was superior to their malice. Galen regarded his chief publication as

"a religious hymn in honor of the Creator."

The noble undertaking of a "Description of the World," by Caius Plinius

the Second, was doubtless the greatest contribution to general science

made during the Augustan age. It comprised thirty-seven books, and

was the first great Encyclopedia of Nature and Art. In all antiquity

nothing had ever been attempted in like manner, and for many centuries

it remained perfectly unique. In its dedication to Titus, the author

appropriately applied to his work a Greek expression which signifies

the abstract and compendium of universal knowledge and science.

The "Historia Naturalis" of Pliny includes a description of the heavens

and the earth; the position and course of the celestial bodies, the

meteoric phenomena of the atmosphere, the form of the earth's surface,

and everything relating to its productions, from the plants and the

mollusca of the ocean up to the human race. According to Humboldt, all

these subjects were treated of and applied, in the most varied way,

and brought forth the noblest fruit of descriptive genius. The elements

of general knowledge were copiously employed in this great work, but

without strict order in the arrangement. "The road over which I am

about to travel," says Pliny, with a noble pride, "has been hitherto

untrodden; no one of our nation, or of the Greeks, has alone undertaken

to treat of the entire subject, namely Nature. If my enterprise does

not succeed, it is, nevertheless, a fine and grand thing to have

attempted it." The intelligent author attempted an immense picture, and

did not entirely succeed; but the want of success depended principally

upon a want of capacity to make the description of nature subordinate

to scientific generalizations, and in view of the comprehensive laws

of creation. Eratosthenes and Strabo had referred, not only to a

description of mountains, but to an account of the entire earth; of

their investigations, however, Pliny made but very little use. Not more

did he profit by Aristotle's work on the anatomical history of animals.

As overseer of the fleet in lower Italy, and as governor of Spain,

he had but little time for extended research in natural science, and

was often compelled to commit the execution of large portions of his

designs to inferior hands.

Pliny the younger, in his letters, characterizes the work of his uncle

truly "as a learned book, full of matter, not less manifold in its

subjects than nature herself is." There are many things in Pliny which

are generally objected to as unnecessary and foreign to his subject,

but that most competent critic, Alexander Von Humboldt, is disposed

to speak of the general result in terms of praise. "It appears to me

to be particularly gratifying, that he so frequently, and always with

so much pleasure, alludes to the influence exerted by nature upon the

moral and intellectual development of man. His plan of connecting the

subject is seldom well chosen. For example, the account of mineral and

vegetable matter leads him to a fragment from the history of sculpture;

a fragment which has been of almost more importance for the present

condition of our knowledge than anything referring to descriptive

natural history which can be extracted from the work." Pliny evidently

had a feeling for art, but he seldom betrayed an artistic feeling in

the forms of his scientific disquisition. His data came from books

rather than from nature direct, and a sombre hue invested all he

wrote. As Aristotle had garnered all anterior wealth in the same

department, and passed it over to the Romans, so Pliny, in turn,

gathered up later accumulations, and transmitted the grand aggregate to

the middle ages. Providence always has the man ready for the needful

task.

That the ancients made some powerful applications of the lens is

evident from the account given by Lucian and Galen, that Archimedes

burned the Roman fleet at the siege of Syracuse, by means of glasses,

B.C. 212. But neither the Greeks nor Romans have left us any account

of the lens being applied to increase the stores of discovery in

natural science. The only authentic records we have respecting the

microscope, or its still more powerful correlative, belong to that age

of scientific invention for the advent of which the Augustan age was

appointed to prepare.

Lucullus and Pompeius, by their eastern victories, made the Romans

acquainted with Greek science and philosophy; the consequence of which

was that many accomplished teachers streamed from those erudite regions

to traffic their superior knowledge for Roman wealth. The latter really

enjoyed nothing disconnected with the tumultuous excitement of war,

even in the brief intervals of general peace. A master-passion for the

sensations of battle morbidly existed in every breast, and yearned

for gratification in the combats of gladiators, or the yet wilder

brutality of the circus. The cruel and ostentatious spectacles which

arose with the conquests of the republic, were continued with enhanced

extravagance under the empire, fostered by the wealth, excitement, and

corruption, which those conquests had introduced. There was no affinity

of soul for refined and tranquil pleasure in the Romans; so that, if

the legitimate drama was attempted, the admiring mob felt the keenest

delight on viewing a mimic procession, or could interrupt the plot

by vociferous exclamations for novelties of a yet more exciting and

degrading kind. Civilization advanced perpetually, but from the period

of culmination under Augustus, as before under Pericles, each step of

progress was marked by its decline. As the palaces were enlarged, they

were filled by impoverished dependents. Scipio, Metellus, and others,

form courts around themselves, wherein the arts and sciences are taught

by slaves, while the streets resound with the exulting shouts of those

who conduct thousands of captives to bondage or death. The great

become greater, and the little become less; until the exhausted empire

succumbs to barbarians, and a superseded civilization disappears from

earth.

The elder Gracchus, that truly noble Roman, attempted first to enlarge

the number of landed proprietors, and then to fortify them with the

energy of self-respect, through the dignity of free toil. The extension

of an enlightened yeomanry, happily employed in the avocations of

scientific agriculture, was the ambition of his life, and the occasion

of his martyr-death. The republican tribune fell under patrician clubs,

and not in vain was his corpse dragged through the streets, and thrown

into the Tiber. Says Bancroft, "The deluded nobles raised the full

chorus of victory and joy. They believed that the Senate had routed

the people; but it was the avenging spirit of slavery that had struck

the first deadly wound into the bosom of Rome. When a funeral pyre was

kindled to the manes of Tiberius Gracchus, the retributive Nemesis

lighted the torch, which, though it burned secretly for a while, at

last kindled the furies of social war, and involved the civilized world

in the conflagration."

The first outbreak of righteous indignation was in the West, and

thence the war-cry of freedom spread far and wide. From the plains of

Lombardy, it reached the fields of Campania, and was echoed beyond the

Apennines. A fit leader sprang to the head of outraged thousands, and

pointed to the Alps, telling them that beyond those dazzling heights

was a home and a hope for the free. But in vain. To grace the triumph

of Trajan over the Dacians, a combat of ten thousand gladiators,

and eleven thousand wild beasts, was offered to the metropolitans.

Spartacus, and six thousand of his rebelling associates were crucified,

thus lining the road from Capua to the Capitol with monuments of Roman

refinement and power.

Julius Cæsar, in the capacity of quæstor, came to Gades (Cadiz),

in further Spain, and, not far from the temple of Hercules, beheld

the statue of Alexander the Great. Then and there, in that remotest

West, he was quickened by the most daring resolution, and immediately

returned to Rome, fired with the purpose which soon after leaped

the Rubicon and won the world. History records that he caused one

important practical application to be made of astronomical science,

in the correction of the calendar; this was due to the Alexandrian

school, and was executed by the astronomer Sosigenes, who came from

Egypt to Rome for the purpose. Thus was that age bounded by divine

purpose and human ambition; Cæsar finding his motive to martial

conquest on the same remote boundary where Pliny conceived the design

of encyclopædic science. Moreover, the sagacious warrior found in the

mode of arming and fighting there an improvement which he, with the

greatest advantage, introduced into his own army. It was principally

to his German auxiliaries, and the more effective mode of warfare he

had learned from them, that he believed himself indebted for victory

at Pharsalia, the crowning battle of his fortunes. Augustus formed his

body-guard out of westerners only, and all succeeding emperors sought

more and more to enlist Germans in their armies. The great scale of

human destiny ever weighs heaviest in the West.

But jurisprudence was that department of science in which the Romans

thought with most originality, and have exerted the greatest benefit.

In that they were most at home, and from necessity as well as

temperament, they cultivated their legal system with great care. It had

its foundation in their elder jurisprudence, in which ultra-democratic

principles prevailed; afterward the written code of the primitive

period was a good deal modified, and greatly enlarged. Cæsar had

formed the project of a general digest of Roman laws; but this great

design, like many other kindred ones, fell in his violent death. Under

Augustus, however, great lawyers of opposite schools, arose to mature

a system of scientific jurisprudence which has exerted the mightiest

influence on after ages. The people who outraged every principle of

private rights, social justice, and public law, were the very nation

who most accurately defined the laws they had themselves violated.

The frequency and extent of colossal wrongs in that age necessitated

a corresponding distinctness and majesty in the proclamation of

rights. The Romans were distinguished for a sound judgment, and strong

practical sense, qualities which eminently fitted them to mold the

forms, and establish the titles connected with that equity which

should every where preside over the relations of civil life. In this

department of science alone, the help which they derived from Greece

was very slight. The mere framework, so far as the laws of the twelve

tables are concerned, came to them from Athens; but the grand edifice

was completed by their own hands, a source and model which has affected

the legal systems of the whole civilized world. The Scævolæ, M.

Manilius, and M. Junius Brutus, were eminent legalists of the earlier

period. Ælius Gallus, prefect of Egypt under Augustus, and the friend

of Strabo the geographer, also his namesake, C. Aquilius Gallus, were

distinguished at a later date. The latter was the most erudite lawyer,

previous to the brilliant days of Cicero, and was the greatest reformer

of his profession. Nor does it appear that he was lacking in fees,

since we are told by Pliny that he owned and occupied a splendid palace

on the Viminal hill. He served the office of prætor in company with

Cicero, B.C. 67, and both before and after that he often sat as judge.

It was before him that Cicero defended both Cæcina and Cluentius.

The Forum still awes the visitor, and affects strong minds the

strongliest, because therein Rome was the law-giver of nations, whence

oracles of justice emanated that still are the guides of civil life.

The deep and comprehensive thinker will thrill under the power of an

invisible divinity, as he looks down upon the narrow scene whereon

transpired the entire history of the stupendous empire, from Romulus to

Constantine. By the councils of statesmen, meditations of philosophers,

and enthusiasm of orators, the history of mankind, not only then but

through all time, was projected, rehearsed, and confirmed. On that spot

dwelt a tremendous moral power, which, in moldering Rome, forecast the

fate of the world.

But we are not to forget in this regard that in the dark recesses of

the catacombs the torch of a brighter science has been kindled, which

has already burned in beauty to the surface, and is spreading hope

and life among the barbarous hordes who descend upon the exhausted

East to destroy, but are destined to return laden with the richest

blessings for the West. Even Trajan desired that the feeble and

despised disciples of the Nazarene should be required to sacrifice to

pagan gods, and to be punished if they refused. The same system was

continued under Adrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius. But, under the

command of the latter emperor, a legion wholly composed of Christians,

insured, by its valor, a victory to the Roman army, and a new power

was evidently gaining the ascendency. As a succeeding cycle draws

near, the final struggles of the old grow spasmodic. From A.D. 302, to

311, in every part of the empire, martyr blood was shed in torrents;

and soon after, Christianity, triumphant, ascended the throne of the

Cæsars, with Constantine. From the middle of the second century, the

new faith was contented with issuing the humblest forms of apology to

its persecutors, and trimmed its lamp in meek seclusion, aided mainly

by St. Justin, and Tertullian. But in the third century, Christian

literature became more scientific. It was the beginning of theology,

and the formal construction of dogmas. This work, like all other tides

of progress, began in the remote East, and swept perpetually toward the

West. Alexandria was the first great school, and Clement, Origen, and

Cyprian, the leading masters. They with their associates and successors

worked on silently, but successfully, in their aggressions against

paganism, till they had laid the broad and solid basis of a mightier

civilization to come.

CHAPTER IV.

PHILOSOPHY.

Greek philosophy was early divided into two great systems represented

by Plato and Aristotle. The first gathered the moral beauty of his

age into his teaching, and was the progenitor of moralists; while the

second, who came upon the central highway of civilization at a later

period, expressed the other half of the mental world, and was the

patriarch of natural philosophers. The Platonists and Aristotleians

were perpetuated in continuous but separate lines of disciples, until

both schools had become quite degenerate in the third century before

Christ, when they were mainly displaced during the Augustan age by the

disciples of Zeno and Epicurus. Then began the dismemberment of Greek

speculation, and the founder of the Academy, with his famous pupil and

rival, the first of peripatetics, who in their joint action gave to

philosophy all its parts, and constituted it a science, were virtually

set aside. And yet portions of their several systems continually

re-appeared in the multiform schools which subsequently arose; but so

long as philosophical disquisition obtained in any sect, morals were an

inheritance from Plato, and natural philosophy from Aristotle.

Stoicism and Epicureanism originated at nearly the same time, and were

in violent struggle with each other until about a century before the

Christian era. When at the lowest degree of exhaustion, they passed

into Rome, and were cultivated without any speculative originality,

but became in many instances a favorite recreation with men of might.

The Periclean age had been filled by a philosophy which, without

forgetting the universe and God, had especially a human and moral

character. The age which followed was intensely practical, and borrowed

only such speculative theories as were suited to their martial and

ambitious pursuits. The age of Augustus was characterized throughout by

eclecticism in philosophy, and that not of the noblest kind. But the

three great objects of thought, nature, man, God, were not overlooked;

through the first the culminating point was reached, and as the epoch

closed religious philosophy began to beam with auspicious light.

As in the realm of art, we found the absence of all true grandeur

and simplicity, so will the facts appear in the department now under

consideration. The sublime folly of Stoicism only leads to the baseness

of Epicurean belief. Such will doubtless be observed down to the second

century of Christian truth on earth, when there was no longer any thing

great to think or act under the empire, and the only genial asylum for

aspiring souls was the invisible world.

When Rome had become the centre of civilization, she possessed no

native works adequate to the wants of the age. Greek literature and

philosophy were introduced in systems greatly epitomized, to master

which was deemed an accomplishment not to be hoped for by the common

mind. Very few acquired that more adequate appreciation which Cato

and Scipio, Atticus and Cicero possessed. In the early days of the

Republic there were many illustrious examples of practical Stoicism;

but the system of philosophy known by that name, though best adapted to

the mental structure of that people, attained its highest development

not until a late period under the empire. After the literary stores

of Greece had been introduced, each system had its run, and the hardy

discipline of the Porch was particularly admired.

Antisthenes, the founder of this Cynical sect, was born at Athens, B.C.

420, of a Thracian mother. Hereditary character fitted the appropriate

agent at the outset to mold the destinies of western hordes. From all

accounts, the external conduct of Antisthenes was excessively absurd

and extravagant; but in intellect he was respectable, and as a man,

was in many respects superior to the generality of his followers.

Unlike them, he never decried science and literature, but was himself

an author; and he is said to have left behind him ten volumes of his

works, though they have all now perished. According to Cicero, he

maintained the unity of the supreme Being in opposition to popular

polytheism, and that his writings were valuable, rather as monuments

of his sagacity than of his erudition.

Diogenes, born B.C. 414, was extremely licentious in early life, but at

a later period, as is not uncommon, rushed to the opposite extreme of

morose asceticism and fanatical mortification. All writers represent

his temperament as being fervid and enthusiastic, and his humor as

coarse as it was caustic. The fragmentary sayings of his which have

been preserved exhibit a homely fierceness, in which it is difficult to

say whether the character of sagacity or scurrility most predominates.

Calling out once, "Men, come hither," and numbers flocking about him,

he beat them all away with a stick, saying, "I called for men, and

not varlets." Seeing some women hanged upon an olive tree, "I wish,"

remarked he, "that all trees bore the same fruit!" Such indiscriminate

scoffing tended to repress the nobler impulses of our better nature,

and to chill that enthusiasm without which nothing great or good was

ever accomplished. It was an intrinsically mean spirit, clearly seen

and well rebuked on the occasion referred to in the following anecdote:

When Diogenes trod upon Plato's robe, and exclaimed, "I trample under

foot the pride of Plato," the sage replied, "True, but it is with the

greater pride of Diogenes."

Zeno was born B.C. 362, at Citium, on the coast of Cyprus. His father

was engaged in commerce, and had imported some disquisitions written

by the pupils of Socrates. The sparks from Athens fell where they

kindled, and young Zeno soon devoted himself wholly to philosophy. The

Cynic, Crates, prepared him for still maturer discipline under the

tuition of Xenocrates and of Stilpo. After this protracted preparation,

he opened a school of his own, and selected the Portico, a public

edifice, ornamented with pictorial works by Polygnotus, Myco, and

Pandamus. Hence the descriptive phrase in the history of philosophy of

the Painted Porch, and the philosophers of the Porch. The regularity

of life, severity of doctrine, and keenness of argument common to this

new master, gave him great influence through a long life. He is said

to have been tall in stature, thin in person, and abstemious, with a

countenance by no means attractive. He died at the advanced age of

ninety-eight. In his later period, Epicurus grew apprehensive of his

perpetually growing fame, and was jealous of his moral superiority.

Cleanthes, born B.C. 320, greatly modified the doctrines of the Stoical

school. He was originally a wrestler, and preserved through life much

of that hardy vigor of body which qualified him for the functions of

a gladiator. He was extremely poor, and whilst attending the school

of Zeno by day, he was compelled to work at night to earn a scanty

sustenance. It is related that his robust appearance, whilst apparently

an idler, excited municipal suspicion; and when he was required to

account for his mode of living, a gardener for whom he drew water, and

a woman for whom he ground flour, came forward to attest his honest

industry. He was not quick to invent, but was indefatigable to explore

what others had taught. Fifty-six volumes are said to have been written

by him, but none of them are now extant.

Chrysippus, born in Cilicia, B.C. 280; and Posidonius, who died B.C.

135, were the chief links to extend this chain westward, and connect it

with that great Stoic who arose on the remotest border of the Augustan

age.

Lucius Annæus Seneca was born at Cordova, only eight years before

Christ. His father was an eminent writer on rhetoric, some of whose

productions are still extant. The son was delicate in health, but

nothing could repress his love of research. He first studied the

Peripatetic philosophy under Papirius Fabian, and afterwards, as far as

a master who professed to despise all learning could teach, he learned

the follies of the Cynics from Demetrius. By his father's request,

Seneca then entered upon public life, and became a pleader at the bar.

In this walk he so far distinguished himself as finally to become a

distinguished favorite in the court of Claudius. But in consequence

of some difficulty respecting Julia, the daughter of Germanicus, he

fell into disgrace, and was banished to the island of Corsica. It is

said that Agrippina, the mother of Nero, interceded in his behalf, and

Seneca was recalled. On returning to Rome, he first became the tutor

of Nero, and subsequently his minister. The wretched pupil, in the

exercise of imperial suspicion, as false probably as it was murderous,

caused his teacher and friend to be destroyed. From the exhausted and

emaciated state of his frame, the death of Seneca is reported to have

been a painful one. In the presence of his wife and other friends, he

opened the veins of his arms and legs; and, as the process was too

slow, he ordered a draught of poison to be administered to him. Still

lingering, he desired to be laid in a warm bath, and as he entered, he

sprinkled the standers by, saying, "I offer this libation to Jupiter

the deliverer." His vital blood then gushed forth, and he speedily

expired.

Epictetus, whose living influence extended towards the end of the

second century of the Christian era, was the great ornament of the

Stoic school during the reigns of Domitian and Hadrian. He was born

a slave, and was maimed in person, but obtained his manumission by

excellence of conduct, and proved himself one of the best monitors

of his age. Ten years later, the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

came forth the next in succession to this illustrious slave among

the ornaments of the Stoic school. The reign of this victorious and

philosophic monarch forms part of the happy period in which the vast

extent of the Roman empire has been characterized as having "been

governed by absolute power under the guidance of virtue and wisdom."

Antoninus early profited by the lessons of severe wisdom, and honored

them by an exemplary life. In his palace he preserved the systematic

regularity of a general, and in his camp he composed a great part of

those philosophical meditations which have cast so much renown on

his name. The lives of Cato and Brutus also, the one more formal and

severe, as of a person evidently aiming to support a character, the

other more genial and free, like one who had really caught the spirit

of the old republican time, were molded strongly by the same creed.

Both were true utterances of Roman Stoicism, and have thrown a splendor

around the doctrine which it could never have obtained either from its

first teachers or from Seneca and the rhetoricians who perpetuated its

vitiating existence down to the lowest point of feebleness.

When Greek philosophy was introduced among the Romans, Stoicism was

the most popular, but the creed of Epicurus was adopted by many

distinguished men. The popular poem of Lucretius was a captivating

recommendation of the system to many; and other writers, such as Horace

and Atticus, Pliny the younger, and Lucian of Samosata, are known to

have been of this school.

Epicurus was born in the island of Samos, B.C. 341. When in his

thirty-second year, he first opened a school at Mitylene, where, and

at Lampsacus, he taught for five years. This was at the time when

sophists and sensualists were wanted at Rome, and they were brought

there as part of the spoils of the conqueror, to march, like other

slaves, in his triumph, and furnish an additional luxury. When Rome had

become politically dominant to the largest extent, she yet remained in

arts and letters the humble pupil of Greece. Augustan literature, in

all of its departments, was to a great degree borrowed from the Greek,

but with every kind of derivative process, from servile translation

to the most adroit adaptation. Lucretius, Catullus, Horace, Virgil,

Cicero, were all indebted to Greek models, as well as Terence, Ovid,

and Seneca, but each to a graduated extent. They all borrowed according

to their wants, each one transforming his plunder with more or less

originality, according to the powers of his mind. Philosophy at Rome

emitted many sparks of light, fragments of moral truth, but left

behind no symmetrical and consistent system except that of Epicurus,

a creed formed on a plain so low that no declination could be made

to appear. It has been remarked, that while of the eight teachers in

the Porch, from Zeno to Posidonius, every one modified the doctrines

of his predecessor; and while the beautiful philosophy of Plato had

degenerated into dishonorable scepticism, the Epicurean system remained

unchanged. This has been accounted for on the ground just mentioned,

and also with reference to the power of that mental indolence which

disposes the mind to rest contented with views that are comprehensible

without reflection, and which are not inimical to the indulgence

of lust. The more thoughtful Romans were obliged to take what they

could get, and they adopted the late and degenerated systems of Greek

philosophy for two reasons: first, they had a natural affinity for

them, and secondly, they were incapable of appreciating the earlier and

better schools. The doctrine of Epicurus attracted a crowd of partisans

in the martial metropolis, in consequence of its accommodating

character, and the indulgence it afforded to the most groveling

desires. But very few of the Roman Epicureans distinguished themselves

as philosophers, and not one advanced a step beyond the doctrines of

his master.

Lucretius Carus, born B.C. 95, claims a place among philosophers as

well as poets. In his time, the Epicurean principles obtained the

greatest popularity, and that in no small degree through his own

splendid talents. Consistently with his frigid atheism, and proud

rejection of a superintending Providence, the perverted child of

genius, who had risen on the breath of popular favor to the equestrian

rank, died a wretched suicide when only forty-four years old.

We should not forget that the Epicureans, the Stoics, the Academics,

and other sects, subsequent to the time of Alexander, are not to be

spoken of as the Greek schools. They belong to a later and generally

different age, in which little of philosophic worth was produced, and

still less remains. Of Epicurus three letters are preserved by Diogenes

Laertius; of Zeno, nothing; of Cleanthes, a single hymn to Jupiter; of

the Academics, or New Platonists, a few traditions only.

The device on an old Roman coin, of Julius Cæsar bearing a book in

one hand and a sword in the other, represents the genius of many a

distinguished citizen of the Republic. Of such was Varro, for he was

a soldier, and at the same time the most erudite of his countrymen.

He was born at Rieti, near the celebrated cascade of Terni, in Italy.

Cæsar appreciated the extensive learning of Varro, and entrusted

to him the formation of the great public library. He was a man of

ponderous information and unwearied industry, but without a spark of

literary taste or philosophical genius. No Roman author wrote so much

as he did, and, excepting Pliny, no one probably read so much; yet,

notwithstanding all his learning and diligence, he has left nothing

that is possessed of either superficial polish or substantial worth.

Not so Marcus Tullius Cicero. He was born B.C. 107, and in the realm of

philosophy, as in eloquence, was the noblest Roman of them all. Like

most young men of good family, he was instructed by Greek preceptors,

and early occupied himself with ancient philosophy, directing his

attention principally to the Academic and Stoic systems. Plato,

Aristotle, and Epicurus engrossed his esteem by turns, as he was an

eclectic in taste, and confined himself to no particular school. But

his philosophical works, wrought upon the model of Plato, are the

most valuable collection of interesting discussions on the grandest

themes. In the era of Cicero, scepticism and dogmatism distracted the

schools and destroyed the life of philosophy. As Sir James Mackintosh

has said, "The Sceptics could only perplex, and confute, and destroy.

Their occupation was gone as soon as they succeeded. They had nothing

to substitute for what they overthrew; and they rendered their own art

of no further use. They were no more than venomous animals, who stung

their victims to death, but also breathed their last into the wound."

Cicero speculated after a mode which admitted of great freedom to

his genius, controlled by no particular sect, but was at heart most

interested in the severest principles, and became almost a Stoic.

Doubtless that was the noblest school then extant, the most harmonious

with the spirit of Rome, and which preserved her greatest citizens amid

the dissoluteness and ferocity of her imperial career. The ennobling

influence exerted by that system was exemplified while it exalted the

slave of one of Nero's courtiers to become an efficient moral teacher,

and breathed equity and mercy into the ordinary concerns of every man.

Especially was it honored by the examples of Marcius Portius Cato, and

of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who did much to keep alive a loftier

regard for virtue and truth throughout all time.

The historians of philosophy have often admired the memorable scenes

in which Cæsar mastered a nobility of which Lucullus and Hortensius,

Sulpicius and Catullus, Pompey and Cicero, Brutus and Cato, were

members. From the time of Scipio, they had sought the Greek philosophy

as an amusement or an ornament. The influence of the degenerate Grecian

systems was exerted upon all the leading spirits of Rome during five

centuries, from Carneades to Constantine. Cassius was an Epicurean,

and so was the adroit time-server Atticus, the courtier of each

fortunate tyrant of the hour, who could embrace Cicero in all the

apparent frankness of true friendship, and then abandon him to kiss the

hand of Anthony, imbrued in his blood. Marcus Brutus represented the

nobler school of Plato; and if in a fearful crisis he trampled on all

venerable precedents of justice to guard the sacred principle itself,

it was the result of a direful necessity which he could neither avoid

nor resist.

Krug, in his history of philosophy, admits only two divisions, those

of ancient and modern. He assumes as the line of demarcation, the

decline of government, manners, arts, and sciences, during the first

five centuries of the Christian era. In the above rapid review, we

have already passed the culminating point in pagan philosophy at Rome,

in the age of Augustus and Cicero. When Alexander had annihilated

the republican liberty of Greece, he opened the way for an active

commerce between the East and the West, which greatly contributed to

enlarge the sphere of the new type of dialectic science. From Periclean

excellence, a progressive decline became observable in the spirit of

philosophy, which was continuously directed to humbler objects, of a

more pedantic character, in commentaries, and compilations without

end. Thus Alexandria, from the time of the Ptolemies, became the point

of departure whence all the remnants of ancient wisdom emigrated to

the opening wilds of the West. Every thing was wisely arranged with

this intent. Indian sages came there to meditate, and perceived the

connection between their faith and the old Egyptian mysteries. The

Persian, who had before waged war against those mysteries, at length

declared his belief in the conflict of good and evil powers. Thither

came a powerful colony of Jews, and not only built a temple in Egypt,

but at the command of an Egyptian monarch the Jewish scriptures were

translated into Greek. The same country where speculation began

was destined to accumulate at the most favorable point the latest

productions, amalgamated into a form exactly fitted to prospective

uses, and then, through other agencies as wonderfully prepared be

transmitted to the corresponding field. From Moses to Christ, every

intellectual stream was made to be tributary to that central river;

and from Christ to Constantine, the direction and destination are

identical still. When Egypt became a Roman province, proof was given

that there was something stronger in the world than Greek subtilty,

and which in turn could be equally well subordinate to the ultimate

good of mankind. Three Greeks, masters of the Peripatetic, Academic,

and Stoic doctrines, were sent as hostages of war to Rome, at the

same time that Lucullus and Sylla were enriching the Capitol with

conquered libraries. The latter, after the capture of Athens, B.C.

84, sent thither the collection of Apellicon, which was particularly

rich in the works of Aristotle. It is worthy of special note that then

and there the works of the great founder of later systems were first

published. But simultaneously with the era when Greece had lost her

political existence, and Rome her republican constitution, the spirit

of ancient research was exhausted, and a new philosophy arose from the

decay of effete systems. A fresh dogmatical system was established

by the New Platonists on a broader basis, in order to prop up the

ancient religion, and to oppose a barrier to the rapid progress of the

new, but which ended in the wildest metaphysical dreams. In the mean

time, Christian teachers, who at first rejected and condemned Greek

philosophy, ended by adopting it, in part at least, thus intending to

complete and fortify their religious system. This work of fundamental

preparation continued until the disunion of the eastern and western

empires opened the way for the erection of that grand and romantic

superstructure for which the world was by the above instrumentalities

prepared.

It was well observed by Justin Martyr, "Those persons before the

Christian era, who endeavored by the strength of human understanding

to investigate and ascertain the nature of things, were brought into

the courts of justice as impious and over-curious." But with the

Messiah came more auspicious days, when on all sides schools arose

whose ruling character was religious, and whose processes were no

longer abstraction, but inspiration and illumination. Philo, born some

years before Christ, and Numerius, two centuries after, both leaders

of Jewish cabals; and the leading Gnostics, Simon Magus, Menander the

Samaritan, and Corinthus, of the first century, as well as Saturninus,

Basilides, Carpocrates, and Valentinus, of the second, all had an

important preparatory work to perform. Plotinus and Porphyry, too,

wrought a good work in their day. And when the apostate Julian, as the

incarnated school of Alexandria, became the hero of mysticism, and

ascended the throne of Rome, it was that thus he might more manifestly

extinguish the lingering brilliancy of the East, and occasion a fairer

unfolding in the West. With him and Proclus, sensualism and idealism

ended, and Greek philosophy expired in giving birth to that new

civilization which dates from the sixth century.

Modern scholars have searched through the voluminous commentators upon

Aristotle, which the learned eclecticism of the third, fourth, and

fifth centuries of our era produced, some of them still only existing

in manuscript, but have found but little worthy of preservation.

The time had come when one could no longer hear Plato, in his own

silvery tongue, delivering that allegory which compares the human

soul to a chariot with winged horses and driver, and which resolves

its purest thoughts into reminiscences of a brighter life and nobler

companionship. During the martial sway of imperial Rome, the beautiful

philosophic fabric which the Greeks had fashioned, like the web of

Penelope, was mutilated, defaced, and nearly destroyed.

The Romans were more arbitrary in their ideas than the Greeks, and

much less inventive; they were neither as acute to demonstrate, nor

as methodical to arrange the elements and results of knowledge.

The literary medium of their theories was as declamatory as their

notions were loose, and both their political and moral habits tended

to obscure their dim conceptions of moral truth. The only redeeming

quality amongst them, was national vigor, displayed mainly in warlike

pursuits. From the first, the citizens of the Republic seem to have

anticipated the attainment of universal empire, and they put forth

endeavors commensurate with the presentiment they felt with regard to

their destiny. Though unworthy to claim supremacy of esteem for any

mental or philosophical enterprise of their own, it should be said to

their credit, that they entertained a more vivid and enduring belief

in the dignity and predetermined necessity of human advancement than

was common to the Greeks. But national excellence in the realms of

refined art and thought, was not to be expected while they assigned

these pursuits chiefly to slaves. Virgil made one of his a poet;

and Horace himself, like several inferior authors, was the son of a

freedman. Leading philosophers and coarsest buffoons, the preceptor who

taught, and the physician who healed, the architect who built, and the

undertaker who buried, were all vassals. It has been said by the most

valid authority, that not an avocation, connected with agriculture,

manufactures, or education, can be named, but it was the patrimony of

slaves.

Providence is to be honored by a grateful recognition of the part Rome

performed in human advancement. Perpetual peace is the hypothesis of

absolute immobility. But as progress is necessitated on the part of

imperfect creatures in their perpetual approach towards perfection,

war will be certain sometimes, and may always be profitable. War

is the bloody exchange of ideas, shocks incident to the car of

improvement. The truth which was victorious and absolute yesterday,

becomes relatively false to-day, and will need to be conquered by a

greater and more enduring truth to-morrow. That, in turn, will have

to retreat before some superior good, and thus only can consummate

excellence be attained. Great leaders, whether martial or mental, are

but embodied ideas, actuating and transforming the ages; and every

thing about them, even their death, is but a phenomenon of universal

life. Platea and Salamis, Arbela and Pharsalia, were the great steps of

democracy toward universal mastership. Victory always remains with the

new spirit; and freedom, like truth, never can become old; they are in

God, and thereby the final battle and widest conquest must eventually

be secured. Not one great campaign was ever lost to humanity, nor ever

will be. Every historical nation has had specific seed given it to sow,

from the harvest of which succeeding nations have derived strength to

cultivate a rougher, but richer, field. The scenery changes with each

act performed, but the plot goes steadily on. God is making the tour of

the world, and every new phase of civilization is an additional proof

of a divinely identical plan.

The first great element of humanity which received a full development

was beauty, the nearest in space, and most like in character, to Eden.

The next was force, that which was most requisite to take up and carry

forward the materials of after growth, and this was unfolded in a

position the most central and adapted to its comprehensive design. The

third element was science; the discriminating, purifying, enlarging,

and consolidating power destined to bear the precious aggregation of

lapsed cycles upon the immense stage whereon should be unfolded an

amelioration the most complete, through the richest benefits both

human and divine. It was not possible for these to have a simultaneous

development, but were vouchsafed in their proper order, that they

might best insure the highest result. An epoch is the period required

by a given principle for its matured growth, and will be displaced by

its successor through some form of revolution. When the commission

assigned a timely idea is performed, it will be superseded because the

advent of its superior has come; but the antiquated ever wars against

the necessity of removal, and sees not that progressive destiny has

rendered it obsolete. Hence the need of constraint, sometimes through

arguments, and sometimes through arms. But in every instance, the

successor adds completeness to what went before, and all the diversity

of epochs and arms conduce to but one and the same end. Wait the rising

of the next curtain, if you would better understand the wisdom of the

transpiring plot. If one asks why this or that nation came into the

world, answer by noting what there was to do, what idea to represent,

and what means to be employed. We have seen what Greece existed for,

and there is no more mystery as to the mission of Rome. We give an

explanation of her wars, but have no apology to offer in their behalf.

The evening of Greek philosophy threw a few beautiful rays over the

dark and tempestuous domain of the Augustan age. Its early lessons

taught the Roman generals to appreciate the mental treasures which lay

upon the track of their remote campaigns, and mitigated the savageness

of war with the amenities of moral excellence. The classical tour of

Æmilius, and the more refined pursuits of Africanus, were greatly

superior to the coarseness of the earlier Anitius and the ignorant

Mummius. Still more enlightened was the age and its heroes, when

Sylla enjoyed at Athens the refined conversation of Atticus, his

political opponent, and bore about with him the inestimable writings of

Aristotle. At the brief epoch of culmination, Cæsar, from the remotest

provinces, corresponded with Cicero on philosophical topics; and

Pompey, when he had accepted the submission of both the East and the

West, lowered his fasces in reverence of the wisdom of Posidosius.

Cato deprecated the introduction of Greek philosophy into his country,

because he foresaw that in learning to dispute upon all things, the

Romans would end by believing in nothing. The result verified the

foreboding. Though repeatedly banished from the metropolis, the

degenerate philosophers triumphed over the resistance of laws, the

wisdom of the senate, and the destinies of the eternal city. A few

dreamers, armed with scepticism, accomplished what the world's entire

force was unable to achieve; they conquered with opinions the superb

Republic which had subjugated earth with arms, thus adding another fact

confirmatory of the general truth, that all the empires which history

has recognized as established by time and prudence, sophists have

overthrown. When a false maxim becomes a ruling principle in popular

opinion, the logic of nations, mightier than cannon, bears a fearful

force for evil, as otherwise it is the most powerful agent of good.

An individual may be made to recoil before conclusions, communities

never. A fatal charm more potent than the horror of self-destruction

entices them, and even in perishing they obey a general law, the

inflexible rectitude of which can never be exhausted, whether applied

to error or truth, and by virtue of which the upright are preserved

until their goodness has been most widely and enduringly diffused. As

every doctrine is composed necessarily of truth or error, usually a

mixture of both, there is an influence for good or evil wrought upon

the minds wherein it is received. But while falsehood may in some ages

and places so accumulate as to work ruin to a degree, the mightier

truth is in reserve which in due time will readjust the balance, and

augment the good. False religion presided over the cradle of ancient

nations, and false philosophy attended them to the tomb; nevertheless,

each succeeding birth and death was a fresh ascent toward fairer realms

and brighter hopes. The civilization of Rome was exceedingly imperfect.

Much expense was employed to entertain the populace, but there was

little virtue in their instruction. From all quarters of the known

world crowds gathered in their theatres; literature and art flourished

after a fashion, and extreme courtesy for a while added attractions

to an effeminate and voluptuous philosophy. The people yielded to

the blandishments so congenial to gross tastes, and their history

celebrates a period of happiness such as Romans could enjoy, that

characteristic felicity which began under the Triumvirate, and with

Nero found a fitting end.

Greece developed individuality of the finest type, and Rome created a

social compact on the grandest scale; but it was reserved for a yet

further step in westward civilization to blend these two elements,

personal independence and social loyalty, under the auspices of liberty

governed by law. Neither the Greeks nor Romans had a separate term

for institution, that truest exponent of modern society. But this

grand conservative and redeeming power in due time appeared, when

there arose, amidst the ruins of exhausted imperialism, a society both

young and ardent, united in a firm and fruitful faith, inwardly gifted

with preternatural power, and endowed with an unlimited capacity for

external expansion. This was Christianity, the blessed philosophy

of God on earth. The necessity of replying to heathen adversaries,

and the desire of defining and enforcing the Christian doctrines,

gradually led to the formation of a species of philosophy peculiar

to Christianity, and which successively assumed different aspects,

with respect to its principles and object. The spirit of Grecian

philosophy thus transferred into the writings of the early fathers, in

after times proved the material germ of original speculations. Justin

Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Arnobius, and Lactantius,

first employed philosophy as an auxiliary to assist in winning over

the more cultivated classes to the Christian religion. Subsequently it

was turned to the refutation of heresies, and lastly applied to the

elucidation and formal statement of the prevailing creed.

Most distinguished of his age was Aurelius Augustinus, born A.D. 354,

at Tagaste in Africa. After having studied the scholastic philosophy,

and became an ardent disciple of the Manicheans, he was converted to

the orthodox faith under the preaching of Ambrose, at Milan, A.D.

387, and eighteen years after was made bishop of Hippo. The religious

philosophy of this great writer became the pivot of dogmatical science

in the West, and has swayed the destinies of millions of minds from

the time Justinian closed the classic schools, and the Gothic king

Theodoric put Boethius, the last of the ancient philosophers, to death.

Augustin, who ended the Augustan age of philosophy, while yet far from

the great centre of the succeeding age, now sleeps at Pavia, in the

very bosom of its domain. Such is the grand truth of universal history;

all living greatness, and even the remains of the dead, move only

toward the West.

CHAPTER V.

RELIGION.

The radical imperfection of paganism in the Periclean age consisted in

the fact that all the sublime attributes of intellect but served to

ennoble man in his present being. The strength of the moral affections,

the perfection of beauty, the love of truth, and all that which for

the Christian is to survive the grave and be immortally augmented

when separate from earth, to them had little or no object beyond this

life. To direct and enjoy the present was his chief concern, and in

his view the universe was created only to this end. The god of day

pursued his ceaseless round to cheer his waking toil, and the chaste

queen of night watched over his repose. The universal Jove came down

from Olympus to inspire him; Minerva protected him with her awful

shield of wisdom; the graceful goddess of Love placed her shrine in his

heart; and super-human beings, captivated with his superior charms,

sought on earth a loveliness not to be found in heaven. Even the fates

were subordinate to his welfare, and all existences centred round his

destiny; so that, were he destroyed, all things would dissolve like an

empty pageant, and heaven, earth, and hell, with all their denizens,

would cease to be.

In the Augustan age the condition of paganism was still worse. When

Rome rose, and steadily advanced to the attainment of universal empire,

the religions of all the separate states subjugated were intimately

interwoven with her political law, and that was concentrated in

the metropolis, whither the religions, like all other spoils, were

compelled to follow. Rent from their native soil, these religions, like

so many automatons, were doubly senseless and impotent. The worship of

Isis had a meaning in Egypt, it being a reverence for the powers of

nature; in Rome it became an idolatry which signified only a sign and

evidence of the victorious eagle of the city. The more beautiful and

significant myths of Greece were equally perverted or stupidly ignored.

Mythologies the most diverse and conflicting were brought together only

to contend with and neutralize each other. There was but one power left

that seemed real, the emperor. Temples were erected to his honor, oaths

were taken in his name, sacrifices were offered before him, and his

statues alone offered an asylum. There was no state religion, but power

and religion were identical. Man sacrificing to man sank to the lowest

degradation of spiritual vassalage. Inspiring sentiment and religious

fervor were extinguished, leaving nothing more attractive or exalting

on national shrines than the deification of power, the apotheosis of

might. But when Rome had destroyed the various nationalities of the

world, there was yet a susceptibility in the human heart which she

could not annihilate--something through which men might hold communion

with each other--a bond beyond the mere relation of a citizen to his

state. The auspicious hour had come, in the midst of utter desolation,

when humanity began deeply to feel this, and it was the first dawn of a

glorious day. Christianity arose and called upon men as moral beings,

to the humblest of whom its founder lowered himself. The apsis of the

basilica contained an Augusteum, where the statues of the Cæsars were

divinely worshiped; but these were to be exchanged for holier symbols

and a higher truth.

God never abandons his dependent creatures, but affords them light

according to their destinies here below. Even amidst the darkest

idolatry true adoration was presented by Job in Arabia, Melchisedec

in Syria, and the Queen of Sheba in Æthiopia or India. Orpheus, the

Thracian, older than Homer, living more than sixteen centuries before

Christ, taught many things to be admired respecting God, the word, and

the creation of the world. Justin Martyr, in his first apology to the

Roman senate, says, "Socrates was accused for the same crime as that of

which we are accused, namely, of asserting that there is but one God."

Irenæus says that Plato had sounder views of religion than the heretics

of his own day whom he was refuting. The conformity of his doctrine to

some features of the Hebrew scriptures is well known. Augustin says,

that if Plato could return to the world, he would doubtless become a

Christian, as most of the Platonicians of his time did.

But something more was needed than the aspirations of patriots, or the

sacred suggestions of philosophers, and the world's greatest want was

met in the divine lessons imparted through the elect people of God.

Out of the Abrahamic tribe of faith Moses formed the Jewish nation.

Natural stubbornness and the lingering superstitions contracted from

the sacerdotal caste of Egypt, necessitated the ritual and ceremonial

regulations by which they were first encompassed. Moreover, inspired

prophets, called from the humblest ranks of the people, counteracted

the hierarchical and regal tendencies of the more aristocratic

classes, and by degrees elevated all to the conception and adoption

of comparative republicanism in church and state. Disciplined by

successive revelations, and decimated by death, they gradually became

competent to enjoy unmixed truth and liberty governed by law. The

rule of conscience which the father of the faithful had made the

distinctive law of his particular household, Moses extended throughout

the legislation of the first religious nation; it only remained, in

due time, for the humanly realized God to divinize man by extending

this celestial influence and control over all mankind. It was necessary

that the gross fetichism of the East should be entirely eradicated

from the race destined to plant true religion on earth; and so the

wandering tribes sojourned in the wilderness until the generation,

contaminated by actual contact and intercourse in Egypt, were all dead.

Then prophets more enlightened and progressive arose, who occupied

an intermediate position between the material dispensation of Moses

and the pure spirituality of Christ. External forms are more and more

discarded in the later portions of their writings; and their views

of the old dispensation become increasingly independent of those who

lived near its origin. In the Messianic system toward which they gladly

advance, is evidently expected a clearer light and less cumbrous

service. The Hebraic dispensation was provisional, and appointed to

generate what was necessary for all men; but it was neither designed

nor adapted to continue longer than to do a preparatory work, since

it was circumscribed to a small portion of the human family, and was

unfitted for extension throughout the world. It ended as soon as the

ideas coined in the die prepared by Jehovah were thrown into the hands

of Japhet, whose mission it was to transfer them into all historic

languages, and give them a free circulation co-extensive with the

commerce of the globe.

The fountain of faith was enlarged in Shem simultaneously with the

immense development of admiration in Japhet. Both were equally

aside from Egypt, and its reminiscences of Ham. The Hebrews were

an alphabetic people, and never used a hieroglyphic, but despised

symbolism in all its forms. They were the depository of that pure and

sublime monotheism, which has been the special glory of the Shemitic

races from the earliest time to the present day. The Indo-Germanic

races, to which the Persians were allied closely in antiquity, and of

which the Greeks were the purest exponent, borrowed temple-worship

from over the sea, like every other element of artistic decoration,

and perfected it. So far as the Jews possessed art, they appropriated

it from the banks of the Euphrates, perhaps, but never from the Nile.

In their best days, and under the auspices of two mighty kings, father

and son, they were incapable of erecting a suitable religious edifice

without foreign aid. Had it not been for his fortunate alliance with

Hiram of Tyre, it is probable that Solomon would never have seen

executed the temple which so greatly enhanced his fame. That was of

Tyrian art, fashioned after Phœnician types, and foretokened how, still

further west, the splendor of Shem, and taste of Japhet, would yet more

closely commingle, and be mutually benefitted in the joint works of

faith and love.

While colonization bore the Pelasgic into Italy, and there transmuted

the ancient Shemitic tongue by a mixture of the Etruscan, and other

dialects of that central peninsula, into the Latin, another matchless

source of improvement was laid up in ancient literature. The sepulchre

of human hope seemed to grow dark, but a lamp burned therein, which

was yet to kindle a bright flame on purer altars. Fugitives from the

smoldering ruins of Grecian glory, transported their gods through the

flames, to establish a new worship in more favored climes. In the cause

of mankind, apparent defeat has ever been positive victory; and all its

triumphs have achieved increased benefits for all. When the hour is

darkest, and the air most chill, then expect the first dawn on the edge

of a sky that shall pour increased light upon all nations; the first

lifting of a trumpet that with louder peals shall break up the sleep of

the great tomb of destiny.

The translation of the Scriptures into Greek was begun about B.C.

285. The statement received in the time of Josephus was, that Ptolemy

Philadelphus, desiring to possess a copy for his celebrated library

at Alexandria, sent Aristeas and Andreas, two persons of rank, on a

formal mission to Eleazer, the Jewish High Priest, for the purpose.

It is perfectly natural that a rich and cultivated sovereign should

have wished to possess, even as a literary curiosity, the book of the

laws, history, and poetry of a nation, lying in his vicinity. But

great numbers of Jews were within his own borders, and they must have

constantly appealed to their law in their governmental transactions,

which appeals could not be answered but by reference to an authority

recognized by both parties. Hence, the Pentateuch alone was translated

in the first instance; but the other books followed, at long intervals,

and in other reigns. The important fact is, that the Septuagint was

received as an authority nearly, if not quite, equal to the original,

from the first, and could be read by the Jew in the synagogue, or the

Christian in the church. Then note how striking was the epoch of this

translation. It was exactly between the completion of the Jewish Canon

by the prophecies of Malachi, and the long series of Jewish desolations

which began with the Epiphanes. It was late enough to contain the

entire body of old revelation vouchsafed to Shem, and sufficiently

early to prepare the way for that more glorious unfolding of the divine

purpose which it was reserved for the Japhetic race to execute.

Then followed the other appropriate preparatives for the coming of our

Lord; the rebuilding of that temple which was thus to be more honored

than by the Glory from heaven; the visions and predictions of those who

looked for the great coming, day and night watching in the temple; the

solemn and startling denunciations of the Baptist; the visible presence

of the ETERNAL in the flesh; His mission; His power over nature, the

human heart, and the Evil Spirit; His death for human sin; His rising

again for human justification; His visible ascent to the throne of

Heaven; the overwhelming miracles by which fortitude, knowledge,

faith, and the power of communicating them all, were inspired into the

peasants of Galilee; form an unspeakable display of light and wisdom,

an illustration of Providence, which, through all the clouds of time

and things, still fixes the eye on that spot above, where the Sun

of the Spirit shall break forth at last, and the full aspect of the

heavens be shown to man. Thus it was that the old religion put on a

newer and more perfect form. The seed planted in the day of Abraham

was at first shut up, but in the day of Judah began to grow, and shot

majestically above the earth in the day of Christ. The primal faith,

which long lay buried in weakness, was raised in power, and the mortal

body of the patriarchal dispensation put on immortal glory.

The corresponding preparation, which was attained through secular

power, is equally worthy of special regard. When Christianity was to

be given to the world, the Roman empire had received that form of

government which most fully combined enterprise with solidity; the

daring energy of a Republic, with the comprehensive ambition of a

monarchy. Like all the great leaders of mankind, the genius of the

Cæsars might stand for the representative of the empire. The unequaled

union of the bold, the sagacious, and the indomitable, rendered that

wonderful series of instruments superlatively adapted to cast up a

highway, and gather out the stones from the path of human progress.

When the shadow of the Roman eagle stretched over all nations, and the

mandate of the emperor touched the extreme points of civilization, the

final use of martial force was subordinate to that divine religion

which was destined to spread speedily from Caucasus to Mauritania, and

from the rising to the setting sun. The mighty empire was not to perish

as it fell, but to cast off its pagan wretchedness, and become invested

with the unsullied robe, and starry diadem, of a loftier sovereignty.

The Babylonish, Persian, Grecian, and Roman empires, which successively

constituted civilization, formed the central channel of life to the

earth; they were the spine, whence issued sensation and motion to the

general frame, the meridian, to which all the lines of the chart of

human progress must be referred. These four had exercised an unceasing

influence on Judah, as invaders, or sovereigns, up to the time when

retributive justice opened the way for the immediate incarnation of

infinite Love. The capture of Jerusalem by Titus, was the beginning of

the consummation. A false Messiah was proclaimed to a people already

morally ruined, and the frenzied insurrection under Barchochebas, A.D.

132, closed the existence of Judah. Hadrian completed the terrible

work. He built a theatre with the stones of the Temple, dedicated a

temple to Jupiter on the spot where the altar of God had stood, placed

the image of a swine on the city gates, and thenceforth excluded the

Jews from their beloved metropolis. At that moment the church chose

their chief presbyter from the Gentiles, instead of the race of

Abraham, as was the custom before, and thus the bridge between Judaism

and Christianity was forever broken down.

But the Roman empire was now, in turn, to perish. One of the high ends

for which it was permitted, had been fulfilled in the extirpation of

Judah, and its own final use was the diffusion of a diviner system.

The tokens of coming doom multiplied from the hour the arch of Titus

was completed. Leviathan still dashed the political ocean into foam,

but the ebb was inevitably come, and he must soon be laid dry upon the

shore. Let us briefly review the facts.

Tradition assigns to Numa, a Sabine, the establishment of the laws

and regulations of the Roman polity, both civil and religious; but

in the absence of authentic records, it is difficult to say how far

the statements respecting this regal law-giver are to be relied upon.

The spirit of the Roman religion was originally quite different from

that of the Grecian. The former was plastically flexible, the latter

sacerdotally immutable. After the bloody proscriptions and civil

wars of preceding centuries, Octavius, under the name of Augustus,

appeared as the restorer of general peace, and was the first absolute

monarch of the Roman world. His long and comparatively tranquil reign

was a brilliant period of national history. Under the supremacy of

the Augustan age, innumerable divinities, from Syria, Egypt, Arabia,

Persia, Africa, Spain, Gaul, Germany, and Britain, received Roman

forms and personifications; but in all instances, wherever traces of

grandeur or beauty appeared, they attested that which had been pillaged

and transferred from ancient Greece. The distinguishing character and

leading principle of the Roman state, from the earliest to the latest

period of its history, was political idolatry in its most frightful

shape, the greatest aberration of paganism. The spoils of all nations

were made to flow into the "Eternal City," and the known world wore

her chains. The Orontes and the Ganges, the Nile and the Thames, were

tributary to the Tiber. The invincible legions held every province in

awe, gold and silver were as profuse as iron, and to be a Roman citizen

was the ambition of a life. The Capitol, from its rocky height looked

serenely down on a thousand temples, sacrificial processions went daily

forth, and numberless victims bled at the altars of Neptune and Mars.

The Pontifex ascended with supreme dominion to the loftiest shrine;

while beneath, the Pantheon, and the temple of Apollo of the Palatine,

and of Diana of the Janiculum, and the glorious house of Victory,

were redolent with Sabæan incense. All worldly wisdom, wealth, and

art, waited on the mistress of the world. Popularly considered, the

ancestral deities of Rome had invested her children with such glory,

that they lived in their worship, throve by their favor, and as long

as they served them they were invincible. The pagan religion had a

powerful control over unreflecting devotees. Its temples, priests,

mysteries, sacrifices, and magnificent processions, which called to

their aid the varied attractions of sculpture, painting, and music,

awakened a variety of entrancing emotions, and conspired to work the

most effective delusion. Moreover, the more enlightened took especial

pains to cherish the prejudice that, to the deep popular respect for

the gods of the Republic, the unexampled success of the national arms

was to be attributed. The piety of Romulus and of Numa was believed

to have laid the foundations of their greatness. To use their own

language, "It was by exercising religious discipline in the camp, and

by fortifying the city with sacred rites, with vestal virgins, and

the various degrees of a numerous priesthood, that they had stretched

their dominion beyond the paths of the sun and the limits of the

ocean." So strongly were the Romans attached to their religion, that

Æmilius Paulus, in his consulship, ordered the temples of Isis and

Serapis, gods not legally recognized, to be destroyed, and, observing

the religious fear which checked the people, he himself seized an axe,

and struck the first blow against the portals of the sacred edifice.

On several occasions the senate exerted its power to prevent religious

innovations. Augustus directed his state-policy and energy to the

restoring of the ancient laws, and the maintenance of the primitive

belief. The effort was, however, too late; the impossibility of success

in such an endeavor lay in the fact that old things were passing away,

and all was soon to become new. The emperor strove to effect the

closest union of divine worship with the state; but when a Nero was

clothed with the highest priestly dignity, when a Divus Tiberius, or a

Divus Caligula received divine honors after death, surely redemption,

rather than restoration, was what the world most required. Roman

society was rapidly decaying through excessive vice and the outrageous

inequality of conditions. The palaces of the rich were more like

luxurious cities, while the middle class had totally disappeared,

and the great mass of the population was composed of slaves. Immense

speculations were made upon human beings. Atticus, the friend of

Cicero, had slaves taught and trained, to sell at a higher price. Many

citizens possessed from ten to twenty thousand vassals. They were

decimated by famine, sufferings, and in gladiatorial combats; yet they

formed about three-fourths of the whole population. Increasing fear was

manifested in the murder of Pontius; in the cold-blooded destruction

of all prisoners of distinction at the close of every triumph; in the

ruin of Carthage; in the proscriptions and massacres of Marius and

Sylla, and of the successive triumvirates; and in those of Tiberius,

Nero, and their wretched successors. The greatness of Rome was

exclusively heathen, until men mightier than the Cæsars trod her soil.

The adherents of the old pagan creed might truly say, that when the

altars of Victory ceased to smoke on the Capitol, she herself ceased

to wait on the imperial eagles; the existence of Rome seemed bound up

in the worship of the gods to whom the Tarquins had bowed, and under

whose auspices Camillus and Scipio had marched forth to conquest. It is

long since Æneas found Evander and Pallas celebrating on the supreme

mount those services of religion for which Rome has always been noted,

and through which she became so great. But the preparatory work which

her sword has performed over dominions so immense, has come to an end;

and before she can unfold the infinitely sublimer influence which is

destined for her to employ, she has herself to bend before the Cross.

All things of earth seemed about to perish. The antique civilization

was drawing to a close, and creeds, manners, science, letters, sank to

the lowest degradation, and chaos the most dismal was imminent.

It was then that the last of the prophets found an echo in the first

of the Evangelists, and the new revelation began where the old ended.

The words which Isaiah originally recorded, "Prepare ye the way of the

Lord, make his paths straight," and which announced the mission of

all natural forces ruled by a divine purpose, were repeated by Malachi

at the close of the Hebrew scriptures, and constituted the first

command of the precursor of the true Messiah. These words were written

B.C. 420, at the time when philosophy was enlightening the Greeks

with moral wisdom, and Rome was advancing toward the grandeur of her

republican greatness; and were resounding in the accents of a living

tongue when Darius and Alexander met at Arbela, B.C. 331, and the East

fell into the embrace of the West. While these and such like potsherds

were contending with each other from first to last, the splendor and

omnipotence of the Deity were revealed to the prophet Elias, as he

journeyed forty days toward the holy mountain, and divinely illuminated

his mortal eyes. There came a great and mighty wind, which made havoc

of trees and rocks, but God was not in the wind. There came afterward

a violent earthquake with fire, but he was in neither the earthquake

nor in the fire. Then there arose the soft breath and gentle movement

of tender air; in this was the immediate presence of God, and in awe

and reverence the prophet veiled his face. Such was the origin and

nature of Christianity, compared with the crash and cruelty of war

it came to supersede. In the lifetime of Augustus, Christ was born;

under Tiberius, the foundation of the Christian religion was laid; and

during the reign of Nero the authentic record of that infinite mercy

brightened the first fair page of Roman history.

Of all ancient literatures, the Roman was most insensible to past

beauty, and future progress. The only voice among them, which chimed

with the continuous prophets and evangelists of advancing humanity was

the vague aspiration of Virgil, expressed in his Eclogue to Pollio.

Therein, the blessings of peace are celebrated, and the prospects of a

yet better age are foreshadowed. Notwithstanding the power of prejudice

and imperialism, the better instincts of enlightened man in every

age have anticipated a still fairer golden age, and prepared for its

advent. When the great orient from on high rose over the wilderness of

Roman life, the Gentiles, with prompt gratitude hailed from the East

its long-desired beams. At that time earth afforded nothing better

for the soul to feed upon than the mere dross of religion, which

remains in the crucible of a godless reason, after the evaporation

of all spirit and life. Something positive and inspiring was needed

in palpable manifestation, and the blessedness of Heaven came into

the great middle path of humanity to roll on the ages in brightening

splendors. Says Bunsen, "Judaism died of having given birth to Him

who proclaimed the Spirit of the Law. Hellenism met Christianity by

its innate consciousness of the incarnation, and then died; surviving

only by eternal thought and imperishable art. Romanism taught young

Christianity to regulate the spirit in its application to the concerns

of human society; when, after it became powerful, it taught a religious

corporation to resist a despotic and corrupt court, and to civilize

barbarians."

Jesus came to do his work of salvation, not as a mighty one, nor as

a High Priest, or even as a Jew; he does it simply as the "Son of

Man," an inestimable blessing for all mankind. The material temple was

therefore doomed to be destroyed, never to be rebuilt; for thenceforth

the temple of God is man. This union, which the great Mediator declared

to be the essence of true religion, will be carried on by that Spirit

of God which was in Jesus, and which by his being One with the Father,

made him the very mirror and eternal thought of divine love. As Jesus,

in his progressive life and work glorified the Father, so believing

humanity, in the progressiveness of the truth on earth will glorify God

in heaven. As it was up to the point where universal history culminated

in the advent of Christ, so doubtless will it continue to be. Nations

may perish by the judgment of God, and new nations take their place;

but the truth and righteousness of God will become increasingly

manifest, until all divine purposes are realized, and the whole world

is blessed.

The Romans were distinguished by their keen enjoyment of carnal

pleasures, and their excess in every form of physical and mental

indulgence. Never were a people mightier in strength or more lawless

in action. From the time when Brutus first stained his name with the

blood of assassination, to the darker period when Nero rioted in the

most brutal vices, never were a people more colossal in moral guilt as

well as in martial dominion. The profusion and luxury of a Roman life

were commensurate with their capacity for gross excitement and the

means of gratifying it, both of which were boundless. All that earth

could furnish they commanded, but even this was insufficient to feed

the flames of their lust, and, through grovelling debasement, they

sank to the brink of extinction. The fitting symbol of their volcanic

character and condition was Vesuvius when, B.C. 73, Spartacus, a

fugitive slave, at the head of a hoard of gladiators and fellow-vassals

in revolt, encamped on the summit, where they were blockaded in the

midst of impending flames. The fearful unsatisfied desire to soar

into infinity common to every human breast, in them took no nobler

form than that powerful instinct of patriotism which burned in a few

heroes and patriots. Regulus, who, with eyes cast down, tore himself

from his kindred, quitted Rome, and hurried to the country of his

enemies;--Decius, who, devoting himself to the infernal gods, invoked

their vengeance upon his head, and rushed into the arms of death,

seemed rather demigods than men. But, compared with the glowing

cheerfulness of Leonidas, they were barbarians, since the law they

fulfilled was without love. Even those who died at Thermopylæ can

scarcely be regarded to have been actuated by true patriotism; but in

fulfilling a national vow as they fell, there was something sublimer

manifested than Rome ever knew, when the Spartan leader dictated

that lofty inscription on the mountain-monument, "Stranger, tell at

Lacedæmon, that we died here in obedience to her sacred laws."

Having attained an almost boundless power over the earth, the Romans

neglected the traditional deities of their forefathers, and set

themselves up as gods. The Egyptians deified brutes; the Greeks, ideas;

and the Romans, men. The religion of the latter, or bond which kept

the tumultuous aggregation of conquered nations moving sympathetically

round one centre, was glory and luxury; hence, the monuments which the

Romans have handed down to us as the true chronicles of their times,

are least of all religious, such as the Coliseum, the Baths, Theatres,

and Triumphal Arches. At the darkest and most oppressive hour appeared

Jesus, and a religion was preached which gave to monotheism, until

then a national worship of the Hebrews, a cosmopolitic character. All

men were invited to become Christians by the apostles of that great

founder of this faith, who had abstained not only from touching upon

politics in general, but from any question which does not directly

belong to religion and morality, or is not nearly allied with either.

Nothing was permitted to be an obstacle in the way of his religion

being received at once in all climes and by all classes of mankind. The

spiritual value of the individual was immeasurably raised, and Jehovah

was proclaimed to be the God of all men, high or low, distant or near,

and before whom all are equal. A territory was made known beyond the

state; and every man, slave or citizen, was shown to be a moral agent,

bound under the highest law to fulfill his duties and receive his

reward according to his deeds. Religion was no longer the apotheosis of

might, but the discharge of duty and the worship of love.

By its own unaided wisdom, the ancient world could never comprehend

the mystery of creation. The Mosaic writings were early rendered into

Greek, and many critics, probably, before Longinus, felt and admired

their sublimity; but they knew not what to make of these remarkable

novelties, and the best of the Greeks and Romans never wrote as if

they were at home in them. Nor could it well be otherwise, since

their notions respecting the origin of man, as well as concerning the

purpose of all knowledge, were so absurd. The grosser element of the

human being, earth, occupied the chief consideration, while the spark

of divinity in man was viewed as a theft from heaven, and the reward

of successful knavery. Still less could they comprehend the mystery

of redemption. Their consciousness with respect to God was thoroughly

disorganized, and through thousands of years they oscillated between

the lower and higher life in perpetual restlessness. They dwelt

perpetually between atonement and thanksgiving, without one true and

distinct comprehension of either. The smoke of sacrifice ascended from

innumerable oblations perpetually renewed, but the effective sacrifice

was never found, and the benighted worshiper still felt himself

alienated from God. The heart of humanity bore an enigma which time

and sense could never solve. Bunsen well states the facts as follows:

"Christ put an end to this unhappy discord by the free and loving

surrender of his own will to that of the Father; an act of life and

death, in which Christ and the whole Christian Church throughout the

world with Him, recognize the self-sacrifice of the Deity himself, and

which philosophy (in other words, reason awakened to consciousness,)

demands as an eternal act of God. Through this act of eternal love, the

act of the Incarnate God, as many as believed in it, became recipients

of the new spirit, of a new, divine, inward power. The inward

consciousness of the eternal redeeming love of God (that is faith)

imparted the capacity of feeling at one with God in spite of sin; for

it gave men the power of severing sin, as an evil hostile element,

from their real self, and therefore of freeing their life from that

selfishness, which is the root of all evil in it. A free devotion to

God and our brethren in thankful love now became possible--a devotion

for God's sake, arising from a feeling of gratitude toward Him who

first loved us. In the language of historical revelation this idea is

thus expressed. The great atonement or _sin-offering_ of mankind

was consummated by Christ, by means of his personal sacrifice: the

great _thank-offering_ of mankind became possible through Christ,

by means of the Spirit."

Thus, cotemporaneously with Augustus transpired that central event

of all history. The free personal sacrifice of Christ offered once

for all, gloriously realizing all that of which the whole Levitical

priesthood and sacrifice was nothing but a shadow and a type. Man had

already tenanted the earth thousands of years, when that child was

born whose mission was to produce effects so incalculably great that

even yet probably men are but seeing the beginning of them. As soon

as the way was sufficiently prepared, Christ came to abolish the law

by fulfilling it. He rendered manifest those sacred forms which a

bigoted understanding had as yet failed to understand. From the bosom

of a contracted people, the Son of Man arose to proclaim the Universal

Father--that God who, as the most intelligent of Christians declared to

the Athenians, "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell

on all the face of the earth." For this sublime doctrine the moment had

at length arrived; a race of men existed who were ready to receive its

announcement and appreciate its worth. Says Eusebius, "Like a sunbeam

it streamed over the face of the earth." Mankind had now received

something better than Greek or Roman cultivation, which is nothing but

the varnish of civilization. The doctrines of Christ subdue and save

humanity by making authority a thing inviolable, by making obedience

a thing holy, and by making self-renouncement and charity things

divine. Under the force of law, a Curtius or a Codrus could die for the

salvation of his country, and a Regulus for the superstition of his

oath; but the Christian martyrs made the like sacrifice for conscience,

and the baptism of their blood, falling under the Cross, was the

primary seed of earth's richest harvest. In the hands of Providence new

wine is never put into old bottles. The leaven of Christianity for a

season seemed lost in the lump of human sin; nevertheless, it was doing

its great work with resistless power. Its first progress was marked by

blood and flame, only to be more widely seen and longer remembered. The

ashes of meek heroes sowed the earth with Cadmean germs, powerful in

growth and prolific of good. All adverse winds were let loose, but they

only blew the fires of divine illumination into a loftier and wider

splendor.

During the first three hundred years after the promulgation of

Christianity, it was assailed by the learned, ridiculed by the

sarcastic, opposed by the mighty, and on all sides persecuted and

oppressed. Yet the church grew and prospered. The disciples of Christ

had other lessons to learn and other duties to perform than the schools

of human wisdom could inculcate, but this did not prevent the existence

of many learned Christians. The great Origen was surpassed by none of

his cotemporaries among the Greeks; and Minucius Felix, Tertullian,

and Lactantius stood first in Latin ranks. It was a time when injured

rights and insulted virtue demanded the most exalted oratory, and the

early fathers were not wanting in its divinest use. Chrysostom, for

example, warmed his century like a sun. In good time certain men of

the most despised nation came up to the great city of power and pride.

They were regarded as the scum and offscouring of the lowest ranks,

and their religious rites were declared to be impious. Their God had

been crucified under the Procurator of Judea, and his body had been

stolen from a hidden grave. But the new doctrines continued to spread,

although the magistrates resisted them, and more than ten times the

Augusti raised their swords against the "execrable superstition."

The altars of the great gods were deserted, their temples decayed,

their images were dethroned, and in their stead, in their very place

often, rose the edifices of those who adored the Nazarene, and scorned

the ancient deities of the Quirites. Thenceforth Rome ceased to be

invincible. The East was encroached upon, and the West fell under the

flood of hostile barbarians. The sceptre was removed to another city,

and the huge universal empire was dissolved. Rome was humbled to the

lowest degree, and bowed her neck to her captors.

The adaptation of the primitive apostles to their respective missions

is worthy of especial attention. Peter was the rock of the church,

representing its firmness to endure rather than its aggressive force.

He was the teacher of order, as John was the disciple of love, and Paul

the great champion of spiritual freedom and doctrinal faith. At Joppa

was vouchsafed to Peter the vision that rebuked his Jewish prejudice,

and which at Cæsarea prompted this key-holder of the heavenly kingdom

before Cornelius the Italian, to unfold doors to an empire which soon

threw Rome into the shade, and hung the fragrant amaranths of peace

above the bloody trophies of war. It is probable that he was carried

to the imperial city to suffer martyrdom; but that this apostle was

teaching there when the Epistle to the Romans was written it is

impossible to believe. To prove that fact, or even to admit that he was

a teacher there after his brother apostle's writings were received,

is to annihilate the assumption that Peter was the founder of the

Roman church. He doubtless planted Christianity in oriental Babylon,

but a mightier head and heart were employed to distribute the same

inestimable treasure in the West. The spheres of the two great leaders

were unlike, but in life and death their aims and rewards were one.

The zealous Pharisee who so long and learnedly sat at the feet of

Gamaliel, and whose soul, so like a sea of glass mingled with fire, was

thoroughly imbued with heavenly power on the plains of Damascus, was

the predestined hero of liberty and truth to the progressive races.

Asiatic by birth, but European in mental structure, his faculties were

the best on earth for the work to which they were made subservient,

when at Philippi his hand kindled the torch of salvation on the eastern

edge of Europe, which thenceforth was to burn through all tempests, and

with constantly increasing brightness, westward round the globe. Like

the great law-giver of the old dispensation, this pioneer of the new

was master of all the learning of the Egyptians, and when the completed

accomplishments of Greece were superadded under the transforming power

of divine grace, the mighty aggregate was thrown upon the great deep,

and commerce became a grand instrument of civilization. With the pagan

signal of Castor and Pollux floating at mast-head, and the wealth of

Africa stowed in the hold, this son of Asia bore a message to central

Europe which would soon make every kernel of that seed-wheat to spring

up over a renovated hemisphere, and to shake like Lebanon. His bonds

never restrained his heroic zeal, but continued preaching the Gospel,

and converted many of every rank, even some who were "saints of Cæsar's

household." When set at liberty, he sailed to Syria, rapidly passed

through Asia Minor, and returned through Macedonia and Corinth to

Rome. Britain may have witnessed his devotion, and Spain caught the

inspiration of his heavenly zeal. But his chief anxiety was centred in

that great fountain of influence, Rome, where he had founded a church

containing a "vast multitude," according to the expression of Tacitus,

A.D. 65, and where, according to his own presentiment, he was martyred

the same year.

The confessors who followed the apostles, like them won the approving

testimony of conscience, and the profound esteem of all good men. Their

blood was considered the seed of the church, which said concerning

them: "To each victor is promised now the tree of life and exemption

from the second death, now the hidden manna with the white stone, and

an unknown name: now to be clothed in white, not to be blotted out

of the book of life, and to be made a pillar in the temple of God,

inscribed with the name of his God and Lord of the heavenly Jerusalem:

and now to sit down with the Lord on his throne, once refused to the

sons of Zebedee." About the beginning of the third century arose

a discussion which throws light upon the spirit manifested by the

martyr-victims of those days. Celsus, on the part of the heathen,

reproached his opponents with the fortitude of Anaxarchus, who, when

pounded in a mortar, exclaimed, "Pound the shell of Anaxarchus, himself

you touch not." "What," he asks, "did your Deity say in his sufferings

comparable to this?" Origen returned the appropriate answer, that a

pious submission to God's will, or even a prayer, such as "if it be

possible, let this cup pass from me," is more truly magnanimous than

the affectation of insensibility, so lauded by stoical paganism. The

martyr's surrender of his body to the executioner was esteemed an

act of faith, a baptism unto Christ, and came to be regarded as a

sacrament of certain efficacy, seeing that no subsequent fall could

annul its power. "Be thou faithful unto death," was evermore whispered

in the ear of the confessor, "and I will give thee a crown of life."

Thus pacific and defenceless, the primitive church conquered the proud

array of pagan and imperial power; and the doubting world, forced to

admit a divine interposition in behalf of this new religion, beheld a

testimony from heaven to its truth. Perhaps the strongest confidence

in the resurrection, and the most energetic subscription to the

declaration, "If our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved,

we have a building of God," was expressed by Ignatius, who, knowing

the danger often incurred in obtaining the remains of the martyrs,

expressed a wish to be so entirely devoured by beasts, that no fragment

of his body should be found.

The emperor Julian was ambitious of establishing the old polytheism

on the ruins of Christianity; and, without doubt, Diocletian was

resolved at all hazards to extirpate the new creed. But the cause of

truth was strong, and its strength received imperial protection in the

triumph of Constantine. Under his auspices, a new metropolis arose

on the site of antique Byzantium, and soon left eclipsed the ancient

capital of the world. Thus the old pagan traditions were annihilated,

and its _prestige_, so vivid and powerful in the imagination of

all nations, was no more. The empire underwent a new division, and

Constantine commenced a modification of the superseded institutions,

which, under the law of continuous change, have lasted until our time.

Fatal heresies arose during the fourth and fifth centuries, which

caused much Christian activity to be wasted on purely theological

subjects; still the church exercised the most pre-eminent influence,

presenting the spectacle of a boundless and universal activity

in intellectual labors, and in the progressive development, and

advancement of civilization. Many, doubtless, like Celsus, were bold

to say, "He must be void of understanding who can believe that Greeks

and barbarians, in Asia, Europe, and Lybia, all nations to the ends of

the earth, can unite in the reception of one and the same religious

doctrine." But such happily was proved to be the fact. Such was the

design of Jehovah, in that faith given to change all existing polities,

Jewish as well as Gentile, into nations and states, governed by a law

founded upon justice and charity; and taking its highest inspirations

from the love of God, as the common Father of mankind, declared, in the

words of its great Founder, that "the field is the world."

The Roman bore little noblenesss of soul in life, and found

corresponding gloom at its end. Brutus, whose patriotism was darkened

by despair, and who died a suicide, exclaimed, "O, virtue! thou

art but a name." In reviewing the moral condition of the ancients,

we find something to admire, but much to condemn. All things that

illustrate their religious views and customs, go not only to exemplify

the apostolic declaration, "the world by wisdom knew not God," but

equally attest the same writer's description of the vices common to

the heathen world. Frivolity and mirth generally prevailed, but true

happiness was unknown. A tone of sadness dwelt deepest in the popular

heart, as appears not only in the choral odes of tragedy, but even

in their comic writings; a sadness inseparable from the condition of

gifted minds, conscious of present evils, ignorant of future bliss, and

having no other resource than that insane philosophy, "Let us eat and

drink, for to-morrow we die." Gleams of divine Providence lay amid the

gloomy abodes of polytheism; the great truth of future retribution was

suggested in the poetic follies of Tartarus and Elysium. A few torn

wreaths from the wreck of Paradise seem to have floated to the Italian

shores, elegant to suggest, but impotent to save.

Many of the classic legends indicate a remote and universal

consciousness of the natural and perpetual course of all civilizing

powers. When Ulysses set sail from the isle of Circe, with tears he

launched his dark vessel upon the sea, and, after sailing all day with

a favorable wind, he arrived at sunset at the boundaries of the "deep

flowing Oceanus," and the city of the Cimmerians, whose darkness is

never dispelled. He there evokes the dead; then sails from outer ocean

back into the sea, and when he returns to the Circean isle, whose site

had been so clearly fixed in the West, he finds the gates of morning

and of Aurora. In Læstrygonia, beyond the western horizon, were placed

the herds of the sun, and the gardens of the Hesperides adjoined

Eurythia, ruddy with the setting ray. There lived the aged Cronus, the

three-bodied giant of the West, guarding his oxen, or the years sunk

beneath the wave. But Hercules, in the character of Greek devotion,

warring against Phœnician superstition, slays the dog Orthos, and

the gloomy herdsman Eurythion, and brings back the lost kine to

Argos. Under the guidance of Minerva, or divine wisdom presiding over

nature, he is enabled to wield his arms of light against the prince of

darkness; but these labors have ever to be repeated, that the apples

and the dog may be carefully restored by Minerva to their original and

rightful places. These mythological fables are interesting, so far as

they indicate the glimmerings of great events, but they also remind us

of dark and desperate national characteristics. The Romans, especially,

like the favorite deity, Bacchus, were terrible in war, but voluptuous

and cruel in peace. Their demi-god, Hercules, who turned rivers from

their courses, withdrew the dead from the world of shades, and struck

terror into the powers of Orcus, was yet the slave of his appetites,

and the dupe of his mistress. Mental imbecility was in him, as in his

worshipers, the concomitant of extreme physical force. It was from no

love of humanity that Cæsar led his warriors into Britain; and yet the

circumstance of that conquest at exactly that time, affected the whole

civilization of what is now earth's leading race. It is thus that every

successive improvement rises, phœnix-like, from the ashes of the past.

In all ages, the most thoughtful have regarded religion as the unique

foundation of duties, as, in turn, duties are the unique bond of

society. Public conscience has never been obliterated, however much

it has often been obscured. The legislators of antiquity were not in

a condition well to understand the nature and relations of highest

divinity, but such revelations as were in their possession they

employed to consolidate the social edifice, by placing religion in

the family, and in the state, as a part of the domestic constitution

and general government. In a manner, they caused the laws of heaven

to descend and become attached to all the events of human life, and

every variety of civil compacts. They even submitted inanimate objects,

as woods, waters, and the boundary-stones of their patrimonies, to

celestial supervision; and, it would seem, strove to multiply their

gods to an infinite extent, prompted by that instinctive consciousness

which every where links the finite creature to his eternal Creator.

"Let one attempt to build a city in the air," said Plutarch, "rather

than expect to found and long preserve a state from which the gods

are driven." Instructed by all preceding experience, and universal

tradition, ancient wisdom comprehended thoroughly that there was no

national perpetuity save as religion contributed that divine force,

foreign to the works of men, and indispensable to the creation of

durable institutions. Aristotle recognized in this the common law,

and Cicero declared it to be the source of all obligations, the base,

support, and main regulator, of states constituted according to

nature, and under the direction of supreme intelligence. Plato taught

that in every Republic, the first endeavor should be to establish

true religion, and to place the welfare of all youth under executive

protection. When this was least regarded at Rome, as under the first

Cæsars, all the bonds of society were at once loosened, and the empire

subsequently suffered complete dissolution under the blows of those

barbaric nations who were sent of God to overthrow an atheistic people,

and prepare the way for a diviner faith. It is a sad prudence which,

to obtain a few minutes of false peace, would sacrifice the future of

faith and the life of society.

Jesus Christ changed neither religion, nor laws, nor duties; but by

developing and consummating the primitive law in his own person, and

through his disciples, he elevated a religious society into a body

politic, the first perfect commonwealth, wherein he designed that all

families should ultimately become one family, governed by his own

legislation alone, himself their only chief.

LEO X.:

OR,

THE AGE OF SCIENTIFIC INVENTION.

PROLOGUE OF MOTTOES.

"The entire succession of men, through the whole course of ages,

must be regarded as one man, always living and incessantly

learning."--Blaise Pascal.

"It is hard to find a whole age to imitate, or what century to propose

for our example. Some have been far more approvable than others: but

virtue and vice, panegyrics and satires, scatteringly to be found in

all history, sets down not only things laudable but abominable; things

which should never have been, or never have been known. So that noble

patterns must be fetched here and there from single persons rather than

whole nations, and from whole nations rather than any one."--Sir Thomas

Brown.

"Always with a change of era, there had to be a change of practice and

outward relations brought about, if not peaceably, then by violence,

for brought about it had to be; there could be no rest come till then.

How many eras and epochs not noted at the moment, which, indeed, is

the blessedest condition of epochs, that they come quietly, making no

proclamation of themselves, and are only visible long after. A Cromwell

Rebellion, a French Revolution, striking on the horologe of time, to

tell all mortals what a clock it has become, are too expensive, if one

could help it."--Thomas Carlyle.

"Stand up: I myself also am a man."--Acts x. 26.

PART THIRD.

LEO X.--AGE OF SCIENTIFIC INVENTION.

CHAPTER I.

LITERATURE.

The fall of the western empire was a strange phenomenon. The Roman

people did not only abandon the government in its struggles against the

barbarous invaders, but when left to themselves, did not attempt any

resistance on their own behalf. During the whole protracted conflict,

the nation endured all the scourges of war, devastation, and famine,

and suffered an entire change in its character and condition, without

acting, remonstrating, or even appearing. Their passive submission to

inevitable destiny at the great crisis of changeful progress was most

complete.

We do wrong to regard the middle age as a blank in human history, a

useless void between the refinement of antiquity and the freedom of

modern times. No vital element of civilization actually died, though

all may have fallen into deep sleep, from which they awoke in a

wonderful and sublime manner after a thousand years. The substantial

portion of antique knowledge and civilization never was forgotten, nor

was its better spirit disused, but through subsequent and superior

invention has re-appeared in many of the best and noblest productions

of modern genius. The fullness of creative fancy characterized

the period between the Trojan adventurers and the times of Solon

and Pericles, the fountain-head of that variety, originality, and

beauty, which marked the unrivaled productions of a later era. What

that primary growth was to the richest harvest of Greece, the early

centuries of mediæval literature were to all the diversified wealth

of modern Europe. The frigid tempestuousness of winter essentially

precedes the silent process of vernal vegetation, just as spring must

go before the rich maturity of autumnal fruit. When the sources of life

were drying up in the immense body of Rome, the fountain of northern

energy broke upon the mighty colossus, whose head was still of iron,

though its feet were of clay. It fell for its own good and the welfare

of the human race; for the sap of a loftier development was so to imbue

it, that soon it should be created anew, full of a diviner strength and

nobler life. The two opposing poles thus came into a needful contact

with each other, and, by means of the elemental struggle occasioned by

the civilization of the one, and the barbarism of the other, a happy

equilibrium was established between both. The rugged North has always

redeemed the effete South, and, by a succession of such amalgamations,

secured to humanity perpetual improvement. It is only in this way that

new races are assimilated to the old and raised above their level.

The inert principle of barbarism at least possesses granite strength,

to sustain the active element of civilization and bear it forward. An

armful of green fuel thrown upon a dying fire, seems to quench it in

clouds of smoke; but soon the moisture is evaporated, the fibres kindle

to living flames, and the hearth glows with a purer and more grateful

brightness than before.

The Middle Ages, according to the ordinary use of the term, comprise

a thousand years, and extend from the invasion of France by Clovis,

to that of Naples by Charles VIII. But in the sense of our own

designation, the age of Leo X. includes that period, and just so much

additional time as was requisite to the full expansion of the mediæval

spirit, when it was superseded by another age as unlike its predecessor

as this is different from the two which in succession went before.

We should guard against exaggerating the influence of the Germanic

invasions, lest we assign an accidental character to the temporal

condition of the times under review. The invasions themselves were a

necessary result of the final extinction of Roman domination. In our

late sketch of the progressive greatness of that power, we saw that the

Roman empire was bounded on one side by the great oriental theocracies,

too remote and uncongenial for incorporation; and westward, by hunting

or shepherd hordes, who, not being settled nations, could not be

effectually subdued. The process of invasion was gradual as that of

conquest, though its apparent success could not be permanent till the

vigor of the Roman heart was exhausted. The incorporation of barbarians

in the imperial armies, and the abandonment of certain provinces, on

condition that new invaders should be kept in check, prepared the

way for that radical and marked transition which was consummated in

the fifth century. The age of martial force was superseded by the

age of scientific invention; an age full of military activity in

its first centuries, but which essentially changed its character as

the civilized world assumed its new position. It almost immediately

lost its offensive attitude, and exercised those defensive functions

which so strongly characterized feudal life. Political dispersion

soon prevailed over the preceding system of concentration; and this

afforded both motive and scope for the direct and special participation

of individuals, rather than the thorough subordination of all partial

movements to the absolute direction of centralized authority.

As in the preceding ages, so in this, the East was the source of all

subsequent worth. Italy, in the northern deluge, was the predestined

Mount Ararat; the last reached by the flood, and the first left. The

history of modern Europe must necessarily be referred to Florence, as

the history of all-conquering force has ever been ascribed to Rome.

The great ascendancy of the Medici, and the influence of Italian

genius at that epoch on literature, art, science, philosophy, and

religion of the world, made that fair city the centre of light, the

sovereign of thought, the beautifier of life, and the metropolis of

civilization. The fall of old Rome and the rise of new Italy, were

events as desirable as they were inevitable. The mission of the former

had ceased before any foreign nation ventured across the Alps. With an

animal instinct the superannuated body summoned all the remnants of

vital energy to the heart, only to witness the fatal prostration of

its members, and realize its final doom. Says Mariotti, "The barbarian

invasion had then the effect of an inundation of the Nile. It found

a land exhausted with its own efforts, burning and withering under

the rays of the same tropical sun which had called into action its

productive virtues, and languishing into a slow decay, from which no

reaction could ever redeem it. Then, from the bosom of unexplored

mountains, prepared in the silence of untrodden regions, the flood

roared from above: the overwhelming element washed away the last pale

remnants of a faded vegetation; but the seasons had their own course.

Gardens and fields smiled again on those desolate marshes. Palms and

cedars again waved their crests to the skies in all the pride of youth,

as if singing the praises of the Creator, and attesting that man alone

perishes, and his works--but Nature is immortal."

Until the age of Odoacer and Theodoric, A.D. 493, there was nothing but

ravage and ruin; but then the morning star of a brighter day arose, and

under the auspices of these two monarchs, the foundation was commenced

of the new social edifice. Alboin, king of the Lombards, was crowned in

Italy, about A.D. 568, an epoch in which the great crisis which divided

the ancient from the modern world was passed. This people were in Italy

what the Saxons were in England. They were the bravest, and freest, as

well as most barbarous of the Teutonic races. The conquest of the South

not having cost them a drop of blood, it is said that the whole host,

as they descended from their Alpine fastnesses, settled on the lands of

fair Italy, rather as new tenants than conquerors. They carried along

with them their wives and families, and cherished their adopted home

with ardent enthusiasm. Their martial spirit eventually gave place to

other not less active and laborious habits; and through their love of

home, together with other domestic virtues, the German nations gave

Italy, as well as Europe, that form of government of which our own age

has witnessed the final catastrophe--the feudal system.

The Roman frontier on the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, with its

long line of castles, fortresses, and cities, lay mainly within the

German territory. Here the nations of central Europe saw their brethren

of a kindred race living under the control of laws which the freer

classes sought to repel by force of arms; but they could but observe

the superior advantages of civilization, and desire to penetrate those

beautiful countries whence they were derived. Consequently the Suevi,

the Saxons, and the Goths opposed to the Roman fortifications a living

frontier-wall, and moving westward, not only possessed themselves of,

but soon peopled with new nations and vivifying powers both the South

and North. The protracted contest between the kings of Lombardy and

the Greek Exarchs of Ravenna, provoked the arbitration of the Franks,

and led to the establishment of their protectorate over Italy; as

afterwards they became the head of the great Christian empire throned

in Germany. Thenceforward the Franks constituted the leading state of

the West. In the meantime its rival power in the East, the Byzantine

empire, was sinking even lower in the scale of moral, political, and

intellectual degradation. At the fitting moment, the Saracenic empire

was called into provisional existence, and made to gather under the

tedious uniformity of its despotic protection whatever of civilizing

elements remained in the orient, and plant them where they might unfold

a more salutary life from the fresh soil of the European West.

The Eastern Empire, founded by Constantine, had no ennobling traditions

of any kind, for it was neither Greece nor Rome. It possessed neither

the power nor the energy requisite to discover and appreciate the new

end of activity introduced by Christian ideas. Hence, there was no

progress in the intellectual domain, or in the fine arts; hence, also,

every thing that tended to ameliorate the social state and exalt all

ranks, advanced with languor at Byzantium. It was her office simply to

guard the palladium of human weal during the ten centuries of western

formations, and then to fall to rise no more till a succeeding cycle

shall redeem her in common with the entire old hemisphere.

Greek literature continued to decline under the Greek emperors. A vast

number of books, produced during this period, have been preserved,

but only a very small portion of them inspire much interest. It is a

singular fact, that, even when the Latin language was in its highest

cultivation, no Greek seems to have studied it, much less to have

attempted to write it. But the Latins, on the contrary, so long as any

taste remained among them, did not cease to admire and to cultivate

the language of Greece. Like every other valuable current, taste

and learning move westward only. Placed between Asia and Europe,

Byzantium became the great centre to which learned men could resort,

and stimulate each other by mutual collision. Justinian reigned from

A.D. 527 to 565. He was a talented prince, who, among the noblest

objects of ambition, disdained not the less illustrious name of poet

and philosopher, lawyer and theologian, musician and architect. It

might have been expected that under such auspices literature and art

would not only claim the highest patronage, but produce corresponding

results. Few works, however, of any eminence appeared, except the

laborious compilations on jurisprudence, under the titles of the

Code, the Pandects, and the Institutes, which were partly extracted

from the writings of former civilians, and digested into a complete

system of law, by the great scholar and statesman Tribonian. Justinian

espoused such labors as were connected with his own glory; while in

other respects he has been represented as an enemy to learning, when,

by an edict, he imposed a perpetual silence on the schools of Athens;

and when, from rapacity, or from the real want of money to complete

the expensive edifices on which he was engaged, he confiscated the

stipends, which, in many cities, had been appropriated from a remote

period to support the masters of liberal arts.

As the tide ebbs here, it rises elsewhere. When the Mohammedan

civilization had spread with the rapidity of lightning toward the West,

where it was overpowered by France, Charlemagne created the first real

elements of national organization; he so modified sacred and secular

legislation as to establish civil power on the basis of spiritual

authority. This followed immediately upon that fusion and variety

to which Europe is indebted for all that manifoldness of excellence

which may be traced in modern literature, art, and science. During

ten centuries, a general confusion and fermentation was all that the

superficial might observe; but a deeper investigation revealed an

utility in the decrees of Providence of the sublimest moment, for

it produced a new civilization, the richest and most fertile earth

had borne. Instead of universal ruin, every thing bore the impress

of regeneration. There was darkness, indeed, but it was a gloom out

of which auspicious light arose, a healthy, vigorous barbarism which

contained the latent seed of loftiest culture. Society at large was for

a long time a chaotic mass, not, however, of dead matter, but of living

and moving germs ready to spring into full bloom at the first touch of

creative power. As from the bosom of primeval night, the brightness,

vitality, and order of the universe were gradually unfolded, so the

political and religious institutions of the Teutonic race, the mighty

fabric of mediæval civilization, sprung from the inborn vigor of noble

barbarism. Mind was not less active nor less powerful than that in

earlier ages, but still contained within itself the eternal elements

from which a new creation was to spring. The waters subsided, and

fertile soils again teemed with life; but new trees and plants, and

new races appeared, and but few vestiges remained of the ancient order

of things. It is cheering to contemplate the progressive national

development, the fullness of life, the stir, the activity, manifested

in the commerce and industry, art and science of Italy, Spain, France,

Germany, and England, from the fifth to the fifteenth century, compared

with the mournful monotony which pervaded the Byzantine empire. The

dead treasures of Grecian knowledge were never turned to account till

they were grasped by the vigorous Teutonic intellect in its maturity,

and when, on the destruction of the eastern empire, the seeds of that

immortal literature were scattered over the wide domain of the free

West. The habits of mental exertion, prior to Pericles, which led

to supreme political and intellectual dominion over the East, were

confirmed by the emergencies of a foreign invasion. The genius of the

Augustan age was matured in the civil wars which rocked the cradle of

Rome and nourished her growth. But the restoration of literature and

the arts in western Europe was achieved through an instrumentality

utterly unlike the preceding steps of human advancement; and which, in

vivacity and universality of interest prompted thereby, has no parallel

in the progress of our race. The passionate exhilaration then kindled

by great popular events, such as the attempt to recover the Holy Land,

transformed all susceptible classes too powerfully to admit of a

relapse into apathy or ignorance.

Thus the line of demarcation is clear, and the course of mediæval

progress is not less evident. The tenth year of the fifth century saw

Alaric with his Goths within the walls of Rome. By the year 476 of our

era, Africa obeyed the Vandals; Spain and part of Gaul were subject

to the Goths; the Burgundians and Franks occupied the remainder; and

the Saxons ruled the most of Britain. From the great "Storehouse of

Nations" were poured forth successive swarms of those barbarous tribes

who were our progenitors, and who, in the moral course of things,

pressed on from change to change, as humanity is ever compelled to

ascend the arduous steep of excellence. From the fifth to the tenth

century, the various races mingled without being compounded; but the

collision of mighty nations, and the mixture of diverse mother-tongues,

soon confounded all the dialects, and gave rise to new ones in their

place. During these centuries of confusion which preceded and prepared

the way for modern languages, it was impossible for Europe to possess

any native literature. The talent for writing was small, and, indeed,

the very materials were yet more limited. Parchment was enormously

dear, and paper was not yet invented, or introduced by commerce

into the West. It is said that the most sublime works of antiquity

were sometimes erased, for the purpose of substituting some private

agreement or some legendary tale.

Literature, the immortality of speech, embalms all monarchs of thought,

and guards their repose in the eternal pyramids of fame. "What is

writing?" asked Pepin, the son of Charlemagne. Alcuin replied, "It is

the guardian of history." The sumptuous cities which have lighted the

world since the beginning of time, and all the progressive heroes who

have constituted the vanguard of national improvement, are now seen

only in the light furnished by the great annalists of early triumphs.

The dart that pierced the Persian breast-plate molders in the dust of

Marathon, and the gleam of the battle-axe, wielded by the impassioned

crusader, has passed away; but the arrow of Pindar still quivers with

the life of his bow, and the romantic adventures of mediæval zeal are

perpetuated in the unwasting freshness of new-born letters. When Gothic

night descended, the ancient classics were for a time forgotten; but

in secluded retreats the ritual of genius continued to be solemnized,

and the sacred fire of learning burned upon its shattered shrines,

until torch after torch carried the flame to the remotest quarter in

the track of the sun. That light never sets, but sheds itself upon

succeeding generations in diversified hues of splendor. Homer glows

in the softened beauty of Virgil, and Dantè passed the purified

flambeau to Milton's mightier hand. Literature, like art, suffers

fearful vicissitudes and mutilations; but, unlike her more fragile

sister, she can not be easily destroyed. A casualty may shatter into

dust that statue of Minerva whose limbs seemed to breathe under the

flowing robe, and her lips to move; but the fierceness of the Goth, the

fanaticism of the crusader, and the frenzy of the iconoclast, have not

extirpated Penelope and Electra, nor defaced the calm beauty of sublime

martyr worth.

Poetry is the making of thought, and not the least interesting are the

primitive productions of those who created the vernacular dialects of

modern Europe. They call glorious shadows into the crystal of memory,

as the Charmer of their day peopled his glass with faces of the absent.

Mirrors of magic represent the inventions of the minstrel; and with

the thrill of national affinity in our heart, our eyes perhaps lend a

fascinating brightness to the providential wonders they behold.

The irruption of barbarians above described gradually shut out from

the world the old Roman literature, and a period of general darkness

transpired before the new languages arose to compensate for the loss.

But while the corrupt Latin was retiring, the Italian and German

languages were assuming their native form. The _langue d'oc_

of the south of France was flourishing, closely connected with

the Catalan; and the _langue d'oïl_ of the north was rapidly

becoming the French language. France was then the literary centre

of Europe. Through the Normans, her language was spread from Sicily

to England; her vernacular literature was imitated in Germany, and

became naturalized in both Italy and Spain. The _Troubadours_

of the south and the _Trouvères_ of the north diffused a taste

for letters in every direction, and their _gay science_ was the

partial inspirer and faithful companion of chivalry. The great age

of Leo was commenced when the common people were addressed in their

own native tongue, and it was indignantly, but truthfully, said, that

"all the splendid distinctions of mankind were thereby thrown down;

and the naked shepherd levelled with the knight clad in steel." The

most valuable works were translated into the dialect of each tribe

or nation, and the effect of this circumstance was very great in

multiplying the number of readers and of thinkers, and in giving

stability to the mutable forms of oral speech. Thus the foundations of

the great social movements of European civilization were laid, in those

modern languages which were the result of a slow popular elaboration,

and in which the corresponding civilization is reflected. The Italians

led the way, and lit that torch which was passed over to Switzerland,

and thence to Germany, France, Holland, England, and the still remoter

West. The grave of the old civilization was the cradle of the new; a

more auspicious dispensation, whose divinest apostles, as in preceding

cycles, were requited with crucifixion and martyrdom.

The first period of Leoine literature arose in the scholastico-romantic

epoch, which extended down to the renaissance, or epoch of enthusiasm

for pagan antiquity. The temporal supremacy of this was prepared when

Pepin the Younger undertook to defend "the Holy Church of the Republic

of God" against the Lombards, and compelled them to evacuate the

territory held by the Exarchate. He placed the keys of the conquered

towns on the altar of St. Peter, and in this act he laid the foundation

of the whole temporal power of the popes. Thenceforward the Gallic

archbishops and monarchs received both pallium and crown from Rome,

and all great powers were exercised in the West. The Merovingian race

of kings had perished, and the Carlovingian house ruled with imperial

splendor. While all the East was sinking into one common ruin, and

the whole world appeared about to become the prey of the Moslem, the

founder of this famous family, Pepin of Heristral caused the civil

power to coalesce with ecclesiastical dominion under Gregory the

Second, and presented the first effectual resistance to the Mahometan

conquerors. The alliance between the pope and the emperor which was

thus begun, Charlemagne perfected, and received his reward when, on

Christmas-eve, A.D. 800, the diadem of the western empire was laid upon

his head by the supreme pontiff in the ancient metropolis. Says Guizot,

in his History of Representative Government, "Charlemagne desired

conquests, in order to extend his renown and dominion; the Franks were

unwilling to be without a share in their own government; Charlemagne

held frequent national assemblies, and employed the principal members

of the territorial aristocracy as dukes, counts, _missi-dominici_,

and in other offices. The clergy were anxious to possess consideration,

authority, and wealth. Charlemagne held them in great respect, employed

many bishops in the public service, bestowed on them rich endowments,

and attached them firmly to him, by proving himself a munificent

friend and patron of those studies of which they were almost the only

cultivators. In every direction toward which the active and energetic

minds of the time turned their attention, Charlemagne was always the

first to look; and he proved himself more warlike than the warriors,

more careful of the interests of the church than her most devout

adherents, a greater friend of literature than the most learned men,

always foremost in every career, and thus bringing every thing to a

kind of unity, by the single fact that his genius was every where in

harmony with his age, because he was its most perfect representative,

and that he was capable of ruling it because he was superior to it. But

the men who are thus before their age, in every respect, are the only

men who can gain followers; Charlemagne's personal superiority was the

indispensable condition of the transitory order which he established."

This new and wonderful stage of progress in the social relations of

men, and this transformation of the popular mind under the auspices

of a Christian form of government, marked the seven centuries which

elapsed from the reign of Charlemagne to the discovery of the New

World, and the commencement of the Reformation.

That vast series of emigrations which planted tribes of Gothic blood

over large tracts of Europe, and established that race as sovereigns

in remote regions, came also into the British Islands. But the

Anglo-Saxon invaders, instead of planting stationary garrisons, like

the Romans, merely to overawe, introduced colonies, with an immense

stream of active population. The gloom which long covered this field

of high designs was that which goes before the dawn, and bright rays

were soon observed to shine forth. The fierce savages who fought under

Caractacus, Boadicea, or Galgacus, and those Britons who at a later

period occupied the stately Roman towns in the south and west of the

island, or cultivated the fertile districts that lay around their

walls, were succeeded by a much superior race. Here, as elsewhere,

literature began to be nourished by the consolidation of the new

languages, which were successively developed in all European countries

to such a degree that they were fully adequate as instruments for

recording and using the results of human advancement. It was the age of

Theodoric, Charlemagne, and Alfred, to whose royal influence, probably,

together with the dispersion of the Normans, should be accredited the

principal occasions, if not causes, of revived intellect.

At the accession of Charlemagne, we are told that no means of

education existed in his dominions; but Theodulf of Germany, Alcuin of

England, and Clement of Ireland, were the true Paladins who repaired

to his court. With the help of these masters, schools were established

in all the chief cities; nor was the noble monarch ashamed to be the

disciple of that in his own palace under the care of Alcuin. As early

as the ninth century, Lyons, Fulda, Corvey, Rheims, and other large

towns, enjoyed flourishing establishments of learning. At an earlier

period, Pepin requested some books from the pontiff, Paul I. "I have

sent to you what books I could find," replied his holiness. To such

a benefactor to the apostolic see, the selection, doubtless, was as

munificent as gratitude could make it; but, in fact, only seven works

were sent, all Greek compositions. From the beginning, however, books

fell into the channel common to all progress, and traveled westward

only.

In the sixth century lived Gregory of Tours, whose ten volumes of

original annals entitle him to be called the father of French and

German story. In A.D. 668, Theodore, an Asiatic Greek by birth, was

sent to old England by the pope, through whom and his companion,

Adrian, some knowledge of the classics was diffused among the

Anglo-Saxon race. Early in the eighth century arose the great ornament

of that age and island, the Venerable Bede, who surpassed every other

name in primitive literature of indigenous growth. The central school

of York was established, whence the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin came to be the

great luminary at the court of Charlemagne. But during the long wars

waged by the successors of that great agent of Providence, all seemed

to relapse into utter confusion again, and ignorance stretched its

roots deeper down, to the year one thousand of our era, which has been

considered as the lowest extreme of degradation, the nadir of human

intelligence. It was indeed an iron age, but compared with the seventh

and eighth centuries, the tenth possessed superior illumination as a

whole. Darkness and calamity were still the concomitants of progress,

but the shadows grew fainter as night declined, and the nations

rejoiced in the new twilight which reddened into the lustre of a higher

day. The intellectual energies of mankind might be impeded, but they

were never in an absolutely stationary condition; but nations, as well

as individuals, were born in the fitting time and place to advance the

landmarks of popular improvement and the general weal. At the moment

when the great West lay apparently torpid, in the silent formation of

a powerful amalgamation of all old historical elements, a new nation

was suddenly produced to gather up whatever valuable relics remained

in the East, and bring them across continents to the great fountain of

subsequent improvement. Masters of the country of the Magi, and the

Chaldeans, whence the first light had shone over mankind; of Egypt,

the storehouse of human science; of Asia Minor, that fertile and

beautiful land, where poetry and the fine arts had their origin; and

of the burning plains of Africa, that dark domain of Ham, the country

of impetuous eloquence, and subtle intellect; Arabian adventurers,

the splendid bastard progeny of Shem, in a manner combined within

themselves the advantages of all the nations which they had subjugated,

and laid the invaluable treasures they accumulated at the feet of

Japhet, on the throne of the West.

Of the new languages which were produced at the close of the tenth

century, one appeared to prevail over all others, and became widely

spread. Innumerable writers almost cotemporaneously employed this

recent vernacular, which owed nothing of its originality to what

is usually termed classical literature. They rapidly spread their

reputation from Spain to Italy, and from Germany to England, and as

suddenly disappeared. While the nations were yet listening in wonder,

the voice of the Troubadours became silent, the Provençal dialect was

abandoned, and its productions were ranked among the dead languages.

This, too, was a part of that process in the moral world, as in the

natural, wherein the fresh germ is hidden beneath decay, and that which

we in our short-sightedness deplore, is most essential to the new

life already proceeding from death. The greatest excellence is often

elaborated amid the severest trials, and the calamities we would gladly

avert, have most of all contributed to progress, intellectual and moral.

Simultaneous with the Provençal poetry, chivalry had its rise. It was

the soul of the new literature, and gave to it a character generically

different from any thing in antiquity. Chivalry is not synonymous with

the feudal system; on the contrary, it is the ideal world, such as it

existed in the imagination of the romance writers. Devotion to woman,

and to honor, constituted its essential character. It is difficult to

decide who were the inventors of that chivalric spirit which burned

in the mediæval romances; but no one can fail to be astonished as he