The marvellousness of the stories he collected brought down

upon Herodotus the ridicule of his fellow-citizens; so quitting

Halicarnassus when about thirty-seven years of age, he settled at

Athens. Here, it is related, he read his history, still in the

rough, to the admiring people, who voted him a handsome reward. Here

also he seems to have become intimate with Sophocles and his great

contemporaries; and here, perhaps, his ambition was kindled to add

another star to the galaxy that made Athens the glory of the world.

Not long, however, did Herodotus remain at the capital. As one of a

band of colonists sent out by Pericles in 443 B.C., he crossed to

Italy, and aided in founding the town of Thurii, near the ruins of

Syb’aris (see Map, p. 304). At Thurii he spent his last years in

revising, enlarging, and polishing his history; yet we are not to

believe that he ceased to indulge his passion for travelling when

Sicily and southern Italy lay so invitingly before him. He died at the

age of sixty, leaving the great work of his life unfinished.

The main subject of our author’s work is the Græco-Persian War and the

triumph of his country. His narrative is from time to time relieved by

delightful episodes. Indeed, we owe to him not a few of those romantic

tales that invest ancient history with its peculiar charm; while modern

research has verified many of the wonder-stories that provoked the

derision of his countrymen. Nor do his digressions mar the unity of

his history, which is planned and developed as skilfully as a drama of

Sophocles.

The style of Herodotus is poetical, clear, familiar, fascinating, and

marked by a pleasing variety. “His animation,” says Macaulay, “his

simple-hearted tenderness, his wonderful talent for description and

dialogue, and the pure sweet flow of his language, place him at the

head of narrators.” His history is the first work of its kind that

has descended to us entire. It is divided into nine books, said to

have been read by the author at the Olympic Games, and there to have

received the names of the Nine Muses, which they still bear.[34]

Certainly no names could have been more appropriately connected with a

work that has entitled its author to be called through all time “the

Father of History.”—Extracts follow:—

XERXES AND THE PILOT.

“It is said that Xerxes, leaving Athens, came to a city called Eïon,

on the banks of the Stry’mon. Hence he proceeded no farther by land,

but, intrusting the conduct of his forces to Hydarnes, with orders to

march them to the Hellespont, he went on board a Phœnician vessel to

cross over into Asia. After he had embarked, a heavy and tempestuous

wind set in from the lake; which, on account of the great number

of Persians on board, attendant upon Xerxes, made the situation of

the vessel extremely dangerous. The king, in a transport of terror,

inquired aloud of the pilot if he thought they were safe.

‘By no means,’ was the answer,‘unless we could be rid of some of this

multitude.’

Upon this Xerxes exclaimed,‘Persians, let me now see which of you

loves his prince; my safety, it seems, depends on you.’

As soon as he had spoken, they first bowed themselves before him, and

then leaped into the sea. The vessel being thus lightened, Xerxes was

safely landed in Asia. As soon as he got on shore, he rewarded the

pilot with a golden crown for preserving the life of the king; but, as

he had caused so many Persians to perish, he cut off his head.”—BELOE.

ANECDOTE OF QUEEN NITOCRIS.

“Nitocris had her tomb constructed in the upper part of one of

the principal gateways of the city, high above the heads of the

passers-by, with this inscription cut upon it:—’If there be one among

my successors on the throne of Babylon who is in want of treasure, let

him open my tomb, and take as much as he chooses; not, however, unless

he be truly in want, for it will not be for his good.’

This tomb continued untouched until Darius came to the kingdom. To him

it seemed a monstrous thing that he should be unable to use one of the

gates of the town, and that a sum of money should be lying idle, and

moreover inviting his grasp, and he not seize upon it. Now he could

not use the gate, because, as he drove through, the dead body would

have been over his head.

Accordingly, he opened the tomb; but, instead of money, found only the

dead body, and a writing which said:—’Hadst thou not been insatiate of

pelf, and careless how thou gottest it, thou wouldst not have broken

open the sepulchres of the dead.’”

CUSTOMS OF THE BABYLONIANS.

“Of their customs, whereof I shall now proceed to give an account,

the following is in my judgment the wisest. Once a year, in each

village, the maidens of age to marry were collected all together into

one place; while the men stood round them in a circle. Then a herald

called up the damsels one by one, and offered them for sale. He began

with the most beautiful. When she was sold for no small sum of money,

he offered for sale the one who came next to her in beauty. All of

them were sold to be wives.

The richest of the Babylonians who wished to wed, bid against each

other for the loveliest maidens; while the humbler wife-seekers, who

were indifferent about beauty, took the more homely damsels with

marriage-portions. For the custom was that when the herald had gone

through the whole number of the beautiful damsels, he should then

call up the ugliest—a cripple, if there chanced to be one—and offer

her to the men, asking who would agree to take her with the smallest

marriage-portion. And the man who offered to take the smallest sum,

had her assigned to him. The marriage-portions were furnished by the

money paid for the beautiful damsels, and thus the fairer maidens

portioned out the uglier.

No one was allowed to give his daughter in marriage to the man of his

choice, nor might any one carry away the damsel whom he had purchased

without finding bail really and truly to make her his wife. All who

liked might come, even from distant villages, and bid for the women.

The Babylonians have no physicians; but when a man is ill, they lay

him in the public square, and the passers-by come up to him, and if

they have ever had his disease themselves or have known any one who

has suffered from it, they give him advice, recommending him to do

whatever they found good in their own case, or in the case known to

them. And no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence without

asking him what his ailment is.”—RAWLINSON.

=Thucydides=, on whom the mantle of Herodotus descended, was born in

a village of Attica about 471 B.C. We may believe that he received

a polite education, and became proficient in military science at

an early age. It was in the prime of manhood, if the oft-repeated

story is to be credited, that the history of Herodotus, read before

an assembled throng, brought tears to his eyes and fired him with a

desire to emulate its distinguished author. Greece was then on the eve

of the Peloponnesian War, in which the rival states Athens and Sparta

figured as chief actors. Thucydides anticipated the impending storm,

and discerned his opportunity; this war should be his subject, and even

before it began he was busy collecting preliminary information.

Nor did he serve his country merely in the capacity of historian.

He engaged actively in the contest, and received as his reward the

command of an Athenian squadron. But he committed an unpardonable sin

by failing to save a town, which surrendered to the Spartans before

he could arrive with assistance. Instigated by Cleon, his countrymen

deprived him of his position and cast him forth an exile.

Thucydides retired to Thrace, where he had a valuable interest in

certain gold-mines, and there devoted himself to the preparation of

his history, narrowly watching the progress of events and gathering

intelligence with the utmost care. His exile of twenty years was indeed

“the Muses’ blessing;” it enabled him to pursue his studies without

interruption. Long after his death, the plane-tree in whose shadow he

was accustomed to compose, was pointed out to travellers.

Thucydides traced the Peloponnesian War to the middle of its

twenty-first year (411 B.C.), leaving it to be finished by another. Why

he did not complete it himself, being in possession of the necessary

materials, does not appear. After the Athenian power was broken by

Sparta (404 B.C.), the decree of banishment was revoked; but whether

Thucydides ever returned to Athens is a matter of doubt. According to

one account, he went back to fall the victim of a conspiracy; from

another we are led to infer that he died a natural death in Thrace

about 391 B.C.

The “History of the Peloponnesian War” is remarkable for its accuracy

and impartiality. Truth was the great object of its author, who,

dispassionate and unprejudiced, ignores the ingratitude of his country,

betrays no resentment even when he speaks of Cleon, and does full

justice to his Spartan foes. He intended his work to be an authority,

“a possession for everlasting.” In it we find the first attempts to

treat the philosophy of history, to trace events to their ultimate

causes, and deduce from the past lessons for the future. His style is

nervous, concise, stately, and even rises to the sublime; but lacks

harmony, and is sometimes obscure. About one fourth of his work is

composed of speeches, which indeed make an agreeable variety, but are

often involved, and in parts all but unintelligible. Antithesis is a

frequent figure.

Despite its faults, the history of Thucydides has always been a

favorite. Charles V. was never without a copy when on a campaign, and

the philosopher Hobbes declared that he valued its eight books above

all the rest of Greek historical literature. The extract selected is a

description of the plague which broke out at Athens in the year 430,

while the Lacedæmonians were ravaging Attica, and which the historian

contracted himself, but fortunately survived.

THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS.

“While the nature of this distemper was such as to baffle all

description, and its attacks were almost too grievous for human

nature to endure, it was still in the following circumstance that its

difference from all ordinary disorders was most clearly shown. All the

birds and beasts that prey upon human bodies either abstained from

touching them (though there were many lying unburied), or died after

tasting them. In proof of this, it was noticed that birds of this kind

actually disappeared; they were not about the bodies, or indeed to be

seen at all. But of course the effects which I have mentioned could

best be studied in a domestic animal like the dog.

Meanwhile the town enjoyed an immunity from all the ordinary

disorders; or, if any case occurred, it ended in this. Some died of

neglect, others in the midst of every attention. No remedy was found

that could be used as a specific; for what did good in one case,

did harm in another. Strong and weak constitutions proved equally

incapable of resistance, all alike being swept away, although dieted

with the utmost precaution.

By far the most terrible feature in the malady was the dejection which

ensued when they felt themselves sickening; for the despair into which

they instantly fell took away their power of resistance, and left them

a much easier prey to the disorder. Besides which, there was the awful

spectacle of men dying like sheep, through having caught the infection

in nursing each other. This caused the greatest mortality. On the one

hand, if they were afraid to visit each other, they perished from

neglect: indeed, many houses were emptied of their inmates for want

of a nurse: on the other hand, if they ventured to do so, death was

the consequence. This was especially the case with such as made any

pretensions to goodness: a sense of honor prevented them from sparing

themselves in their attendance at their friends’ houses, where even

the members of the family were at last worn out by the moans of the

dying, and succumbed to the force of the disaster. Yet it was with

those who had recovered from the disease that the sick found most

compassion. These knew what it was from experience, and had now no

fear for themselves; for the same man was never attacked a second

time—never at least fatally. And such persons not only received the

congratulations of others, but themselves also in the elation of the

moment half entertained the vain hope that they were for the future

safe from any disease whatever.

An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the

country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new

arrivals. As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be

lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the

mortality raged without restraint; bodies lay one upon another in the

agonies of thirst, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets

and round all the fountains in their longing for water. The sacred

places, also, in which they had quartered themselves, were full of

corpses of persons that had died there.

All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and they

buried the bodies as best they could. Many from want of the proper

appliances, through so many of their friends having died already, had

recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes getting the start

of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own dead body upon

the stranger’s pile and ignited it; sometimes they tossed the corpse,

which they were carrying, on the top of another which was burning, and

so went off.

Nor was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its

origin to the plague. Men now coolly ventured on what they had

formerly done in a corner, and not just as they pleased, seeing the

rapid transitions produced by persons in prosperity suddenly dying

and those who before had nothing succeeding to their property. So

they resolved to spend quickly and enjoy themselves, regarding their

lives and riches as alike things of a day. Perseverance in what men

called honor was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether they

would be spared to attain the object; but present enjoyment, and all

that contributed to it, was laid down as both honorable and useful.

Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain them. As for the

first, they judged it to be just the same whether they worshipped the

gods or not, as they saw all alike perishing; and for the last, no one

expected to live to be brought to trial for his offences, but felt

that a far severer sentence had been already passed upon them and hung

even over their heads, and before this fell it was only reasonable to

enjoy life a little.

Such was the nature of the calamity, and heavily did it weigh on the

Athenians; death raging within the city and devastation without.

Among other things which they remembered in their distress was, very

naturally, the following verse, which the old men said had long ago

been uttered:

‘A Dorian war shall come, and with it death.’”

RICHARD CRAWLEY.

=Xenophon=, who in his “Hellenica” continued the story of the

Peloponnesian War left unfinished by Thucydides, and carried the

history of Greece as far as the battle of Mantine’a, 362 B.C., was

born at Athens shortly after the middle of the fifth century. Of his

early life we know nothing, save that he was the friend and pupil

of Socrates; who, it is related, prepossessed with his intelligent

countenance, once stopped him in a narrow way and demanded where men

were made good and honest. Confused by the unexpected inquiry from

so great a teacher, the boy hesitated; whereupon, the philosopher

exclaimed, “Follow me and learn.” Xenophon obeyed, and became a

faithful student of his master’s moral and philosophical doctrines.

Together they braved the perils of the Peloponnesian War; and in the

battle of De’lium (424 B.C.), where the flower of Athens’ chivalry

fell, Xenophon’s life is said to have been saved by Socrates.

At the solicitation of his friend, Proxenus the Bœotian, Xenophon

joined as a volunteer the famous Expedition of the Ten Thousand,

made in the interest of Cyrus the Younger against his elder brother

Artaxerxes, who occupied the Persian throne. Feeling the necessity of

securing soldiers superior in bravery and discipline to the barbarian

hordes through which he must cut his way to the capital, Cyrus

supported the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War, in order to secure

their aid in dethroning Artaxerxes. Accordingly, at his summons, about

10,000 Spartans and other Greeks, deceived at first as to the real

object of the campaign, flocked to his standard, and in the spring of

401 B.C., with 100,000 Eastern troops, entered the confines of the

Persian Empire.

On the plain of Cunaxa, ninety miles from Babylon, the decisive battle

took place between the brothers, Artaxerxes having at his back an army

of nearly a million men. Superior numbers, however, availed little

against the superior discipline of the Greeks, who quickly routed the

wing opposed to them; but Cyrus, already hailed as king, imprudently

spurred into the disordered ranks of the foe, and was struck down while

engaged in a furious hand-to-hand conflict with Artaxerxes.

The fall of Cyrus was the signal for his Asiatic troops to disperse,

and the victors found themselves deserted in the heart of the enemy’s

country, more than 1,200 miles from home. Their generals were soon

after seized at a conference and put to death. In this crisis, by the

advice of Xenophon, inspired as he tells us by a dream, new leaders

were chosen, he himself in the place of his friend Proxenus, one

of the murdered chiefs. A retreat was determined upon; and during

fifteen months of indescribable hardships, he was the patient guide,

the sympathetic but vigilant and prudent commander. At last, from a

mountain height, the glittering Euxine broke upon the view of the van,

a glad shout rent the air—“the Sea! the Sea!”—proclaiming that their

sufferings were over, while officers and soldiers wept in each other’s

arms. Here, in the neighborhood of Greek settlements, they were safe,

and the march home was easy. The 8,600 survivors owed their lives to

Xenophon.

This “Retreat” of the Greeks is the subject of Xenophon’s graphic and

interesting history in seven books, the “Anabasis” (_march up_, though

most of the work is occupied with what happened on the march _down_).

The chaste, simple style of the author, who throughout modestly speaks

of himself in the third person, recommends his pages to readers of

every class. He writes to the point; there is no straining for effect.

We extract the passage relating to

XENOPHON’S DREAM.

“After the generals were made prisoners, and such of the captains

and soldiers as had accompanied them were put to death, the Greeks

were in great perplexity, reflecting that they were not far from the

king’s residence; that there were around them, on all sides, many

hostile nations and cities; that no one would any longer afford them

opportunities of purchasing provisions; that they were distant from

Greece not less than ten thousand stadia; that there was no one to

guide them on the way; that impassable rivers would intercept them in

the midst of their course; that the Babylonians who had gone up with

Cyrus had deserted them; and that they were left alone, having no

cavalry to support them.

Reflecting, I say, on these circumstances, and being disheartened at

them, few tasted food that evening, few kindled fires; and many did

not come to the place of arms during the night, but lay down to sleep

where they severally happened to be, unable to sleep for sorrow and

longing for their country, their parents, their wives and children,

whom they never expected to see again. In this state of mind they all

went to their resting-places.

When this perplexity occurred, Xenophon was distressed as well as the

other Greeks, and unable to rest; but having at length got a little

sleep, he had a dream, in which, in the midst of a thunder-storm, a

bolt seemed to him to fall upon his father’s house, and the house in

consequence became all in a blaze. Greatly frightened, he immediately

awoke, and considered his dream as in one respect favorable, inasmuch

as, being in troubles and dangers, he seemed to behold a great light

from Jupiter; but in another respect he was alarmed, because the

dream appeared to him to be from Jupiter, who was a king, and the

fire to blaze all around him, lest he should be unable to escape

from the king’s territories, but should be hemmed in on all sides by

inextricable difficulties.

What it betokens, however, to see such a dream, we may conjecture

from the occurrences that happened after the dream. What immediately

followed was this. As soon as he awoke, the thought that first

occurred to him was,‘Why do I lie here? The night is passing away.

With daylight it is probable that the enemy will come upon us; and,

if we once fall into the hands of the king, what is there to prevent

us from being put to death with ignominy, after witnessing the most

grievous sufferings among our comrades, and enduring every severity

of torture ourselves? Yet no one concerts measures or takes thought

for our defence, but we lie still, as if we were at liberty to enjoy

repose. From what city, then, do I expect a leader to undertake our

defence? What age am I waiting for, to come to myself? Assuredly I

shall never be older, if I give myself up to the enemy to-day.’ After

these reflections he arose, and called together, in the first place,

the captains that were under Proxenus.

When they were assembled, he said,‘For my part, captains, I cannot

sleep, nor, I should think, can you; nor can I lie still any longer,

when I consider in what circumstances we are placed. For it is plain

that the enemy did not openly manifest hostility toward us, until they

thought that they had judiciously arranged their plans; but on our

side no one takes any thought how we may best maintain a contest with

them. Yet if we prove remiss, and fall into the power of the king,

what may we not expect to suffer from a man who cut off the head and

hand of his own brother by the same mother and father, even after he

was dead, and fixed them upon a stake? What may not we, I say, expect

to suffer, who have no relative to take our part, and who have marched

against him to make him a subject instead of a monarch, and to put

him to death if it should lie in our power? Will he not proceed to

every extremity, that by reducing us to the last degree of ignominious

suffering, he may inspire all men with a dread of ever taking the

field against him? We must, therefore, try every expedient not to fall

into his hands.

For myself, I never ceased, while the truce lasted, to consider

ourselves as objects of pity, and to regard the king and his people

as objects of envy; as I contemplated how extensive and valuable a

country they possessed, how great an abundance of provisions, how many

slaves and cattle, and how vast a quantity of gold and raiment. But

since they have put an end to peace, their own haughtiness and our

mistrust seem likewise to be brought to an end; for the advantages

which I have mentioned lie now as prizes between us, for whichsoever

of us shall prove the better men. And the gods are the judges of the

contest, who, as is just, will be on our side; since the enemy have

offended them by perjury, while we, though seeing many good things to

tempt us, have resolutely abstained from all of them through regard to

our oaths; so that, as it seems to me, we may advance to the combat

with much greater confidence than they can feel.

We have bodies, moreover, better able than theirs to endure cold and

toil; and we have, with the help of the gods, more resolute minds;

while the enemy, if the gods, as before, grant us success, will be

found more obnoxious to wounds and death than we are. But possibly

others of you entertain the same thoughts; let us not then, in the

name of Heaven, wait for others to come and exhort us to noble deeds,

but let us be ourselves the first to excite others to exert their

valor. Prove yourselves the bravest of the captains, and more worthy

to lead than those who are now leaders. As for me, if you wish to

take the start, in the course, I am willing to follow you; or, if

you appoint me to be a leader, I shall not make my youth an excuse,

but shall think myself sufficiently mature to defend myself against

harm.’”—WATSON.

For his sympathy with Sparta, and possibly for sharing the opinions of

his beloved teacher Socrates, Xenophon was banished from Athens; but he

was recompensed by the Lacedæmonians with a house and piece of land in

E’lis. Here, amid lovely meadows and woodlands, he built a temple to

the goddess Diana in fulfilment of a vow he had made when encircled by

dangers in Asia. Here, free from the cares of public life, he passed

many years, happy in the society of his wife, children, and friends,

dividing his time among his farm, his hunting-parks, and his study. He

died at the age of ninety.—Of his two sons, one fell on the field of

Mantinea, after dealing the great Epaminondas his death-blow.

Besides the “Anabasis” and “Hellenica,” Xenophon wrote the

“Cy’ropædi’a” (_education of Cyrus_—the elder Cyrus, king of Persia), a

semi-didactic, semi-historical fiction, illustrating a model system of

education and setting forth his ideal of government—a perfect monarchy.

He is also the author of several works written in defence of Socrates

or as expositions of his philosophy, of which the “Memorabilia”

(_memoirs_) is particularly interesting, teeming as it does with

sayings and anecdotes of the sage.

In addition to his merits as an historian, Xenophon may justly claim

the distinction of having been the first essayist: we have from his

pen essays on the Policy of Lacedæmon, on the Chase, Horsemanship, and

Cavalry Tactics, not to mention several political treatises ascribed to

him. A creditable representative of elegant Attic prose, Xenophon has

been called _the Attic Muse_.

=Ctesias=, a Greek physician attached to the Persian court, who dressed

the wounds of Artaxerxes after the battle of Cunaxa, compiled a history

of Persia in twenty-three books, a description of India, and a variety

of other works. Of his writings, which were in the Ionic dialect,

little has survived.

=Theopompus= (probably 378-304 B.C.) is also worthy of mention as an

historian. He wrote a History of Greece from 411 to 394 B.C., and

“Philippica,” in fifty-eight books, in which he sketched the character

of Philip of Macedon. Of the latter work numerous fragments remain.

Ancient critics give him credit for general accuracy, though he took

rather too rose-colored views of his hero Philip as the promoter of

Grecian civilization.

PHILOSOPHY.

The earliest philosophical investigations were made by Ionians, and

THALES of Miletus is recognized as the founder of Greek philosophy. To

him and to Pythagoras the various systems may all be traced.

=The Ionic School= of Thales, devoted to physical science, rapidly

developed, theory after theory being brought forward to explain the

universe and the nature of Deity. One philosopher made the Supreme

Being an all-pervading, divine air; another, Heracli’tus “the Obscure,”

represented God as a subtile flame, and reduced the universe to an

eternal fire.

A notable step in advance was taken by ANAXAGORAS (500-428 B.C.),

who succeeded to the leadership of this school. The first to make the

study of philosophy fashionable at Athens, he became the instructor of

some of her great men, Socrates among the number. He represented God

as a divine _mind_, acting on the material world with intelligence and

design. Well did Aristotle say that Anaxagoras was like a sober man

among stammering drunkards, when compared with earlier philosophers. As

an astronomer, he anticipated some of the discoveries of more recent

times; he correctly explained eclipses, taught that the sun was a

molten ball, that from it the moon borrowed her light, that the lunar

surface was diversified with mountains and valleys, and that the earth

itself had been the scene of terrible convulsions.

=The Italic School= had meanwhile been founded by PYTHAG’ORAS, of

Samos, born about 540 B.C. He settled in Croto’na, a Greek town of

southern Italy, and there imparted to his disciples the philosophical

principles which he had gathered in other lands, particularly Egypt.

Pythagoras modestly styled himself a lover of wisdom (_philosopher_),

not a wise man (_sophist_). Among his doctrines were the mysterious

theory that _number_ is the first principle of all things, the

transmigration of souls, and a system of future rewards and

punishments. He forestalled Copernicus in his discovery of the true

theory of the solar system—that the sun, and not the earth, as was then

believed, is its centre; he taught that the moon was inhabited and

described the heavenly bodies as producing harmonious tones in their

passage through ether, from which his followers were accustomed to say

that to him the gods had revealed “the music of the spheres.”

With such perfect confidence did his disciples regard their master, who

usually gave his instructions from behind a thick curtain, that when

any one called their doctrines in question they deemed it sufficient

to reply, “He said so” (_ipse dixit_). Indeed, they invested him with

supernatural powers, nor, according to his early biographers, did he

deny the soft impeachment. On one occasion, we are told, to convince

his pupils that he was a god, he showed them his thigh, which was of

gold, and declared that he had assumed the form of humanity only the

more readily to impart his lessons to mankind.

Pythagoras was the inventor of the monochord, a one-stringed instrument

designed to measure musical intervals,—and also of the more useful, if

humbler, Multiplication Table. He is the first who practised mesmerism;

at least so we may account for his subduing a fierce Daunian bear, and

taming beasts and birds by gently passing his hands over their bodies.

There are no genuine remnants of this author. The celebrated “Golden

Verses,” long attributed to him, there is reason for supposing to have

been inspired by his teachings, but written by one of his pupils:—

FROM THE GOLDEN VERSES.

“Ne’er suffer sleep thine eyes to close

Before thy mind hath run

O’er every act, and thought, and word,

From dawn to set of sun;

For wrong take shame, but grateful feel,

If just thy course hath been;

Such effort, day by day renewed,

Will ward thy soul from sin.”

As the Ionics made physics everything, so the Pythagoreans regarded

mathematical science as the _summum bonum_. In their master’s eyes the

world was “a living arithmetic,” and virtue a proportion of all the

faculties of the soul. A mystical relation between mathematical and

moral truths was a principle of his philosophy.

Prominent among the followers of Pythagoras was EMPEDOCLES, of

Agrigentum in Sicily (450 B.C.), who combined the previous theories

of nature in his own, viz., that four elements—earth, air, fire, and

water—enter into the constitution of the universe, and that these are

constantly animated by the two opposing forces of Love and Strife. A

peculiar doctrine of his was that like is perceived only by like; thus

our knowledge of other bodies is due to minute emanations from their

substance which enter the pores and impress corresponding elements in

our own frames.

Empedocles is said to have arrogated to himself the importance of

a god, going about in a purple robe confined with a belt of gold,

performing wonderful cures. According to an old legend, he sought to

create the belief that he had been translated to heaven, by secretly

throwing himself into the crater of Mt. Etna; but the volcano, in

a subsequent eruption, cast forth one of his brazen sandals and

so exposed the fraud. He probably lost his life by accident while

examining the crater.

From the Italic School sprung the sects known as Eleatic, Epicurean,

and Skeptic. The Eleatic School was founded by XENOPH’ANES (600-500

B.C.), a contemporary of Pythagoras, and derived its name from the town

of E’lea in southern Italy.

Xenophanes asserted the unity of the Deity. “There is one god,” he

said, “among gods and men the greatest: unlike to mortals in outward

shape, unlike in mind and thoughts.” This was truly a sublime stand to

take in an age of polytheism; he who feared not to face a superstitious

people with such a doctrine, and ridicule even their divine Homer for

his degrading pictures of the deities, deserves to be ranked among the

greatest philosophers of Greece.

FRAGMENTS FROM XENOPHANES.

“If sheep, and swine, and lions strong, and all the bovine crew,

Could paint with cunning hands, and do what clever mortals do,

Depend upon it, every pig with snout so broad and blunt,

Would make a Jove that like himself would thunder with a grunt;

And every lion’s god would roar, and every bull’s would bellow,

And every sheep’s would baa, and every beast his worshipped fellow

Would find in some immortal form, and naught exist divine

But had the gait of lion, sheep, or ox, or grunting swine.”

* * * * *

“Homer and Hesiod, whom we own great doctors of theology,

Said many things of blissful gods that cry for large apology—

That they may cheat, and rail, and lie, and give the rein to passion,

Which were a crime in men who tread the dust in mortal fashion.”

* * * * *

“All eyes, all ears, all thought, is God, the omnipresent soul;

And free from toil, by force of mind, he moves the mighty whole.”

BLACKIE.

The noble conception of Deity entertained by Xenophanes was soon

perverted. We find his pupil PARMEN’IDES “the Great” in the next

century doing away with the personality of God, and confounding the

divine nature with pure being, which he made equivalent to thought.

DEMOC’RITUS, of Abde’ra in Thrace (460-357 B.C.), known as the

laughing philosopher from his constantly deriding the weaknesses of

men, put forth the _atomic theory_,—that the universe is made up of

countless minute, intangible atoms, and that in the motion of such

atoms, round and fiery, consisted the movements of the mind and soul.

God had no place in this philosophy; matter, time, space, and motion,

were eternal. Bodies were formed by the fortuitous concurrence of

atoms; and by the affinities and motions of atoms in the vacuum that

made up the universe, all natural phenomena were produced.

Such was the wisdom of one who laughed at the follies of his fellows,

and is stated to have put out his own eyes that nothing might distract

the current of his thoughts.

=School of Epicurus.=—The materialism of Democritus was at a later day

elaborated by EPICURUS (born on Samos about 340 B.C.) into a system of

philosophy which gained so many converts that we are told whole cities

could not contain the friends and followers of its author. According

to the Epicurean philosophy, chance governed the world of atoms; there

was no life beyond the grave. The gods were immortal, but were mere

figure-heads, enjoying an emotionless inactivity, indifferent alike to

the vices and fortunes of men: most likely Epicurus did not believe in

any gods at all, but allowed their existence, as nonentities, that he

might not shock the prejudices of the Athenians. Pleasure he made the

chief end of life; but with him pleasure was not sensual indulgence;

it lay in freedom from pain, the sober exercise of reason, and the

nobler enjoyments of man’s higher nature. Such a doctrine, it is plain,

was but too easy of perversion. The pure, high-toned “pleasure” of

the moral Epicurus degenerated with the voluptuaries and profligates

that adopted his tenets into the vilest excesses, and the very name

_epicure_ is applied to one unduly addicted to the gratifying of the

appetite.

=The Skeptical Philosophy.=—PYRRHO, who flourished about 300 B.C.,

was the father of the Skeptics. They held that there was no standard of

truth appreciable by the human mind; nothing can therefore be asserted

as true. Pyrrho doubted everything; his disciples used to follow him,

lest, in practically applying his theory, he should be run over in the

streets or walk off a precipice.

=The Socratic School.=—When Socrates (470-399 B.C.) came upon the stage

in the golden period of Athens, it was to denounce the atheistical

philosophy of his predecessors, and take the field against the

Sophists, who made endless disputation, fallacious but specious, the

head and front of their system. “These word-snapping quibblers,” says

Felton, “were prodigious favorites with the Athenians,—men who proved

that right was wrong, and wrong right, and that there was neither

wrong nor right; that knowing one thing is knowing everything, and

that there is no such thing as knowing anything at all; that as the

beautiful exists by the presence of beauty, so a man becomes an ass by

the presence of an ass; and so on, ringing myriads of changes, like the

fools in Shakespeare, upon these quirks of jugglery.”

Socrates had an effective way of dealing with these gentry. By

cunningly contrived questions, which at first seemed to have no bearing

on the point at issue, he led them on from admission to admission,

until he involved them in absurdities and convicted them out of their

own mouths.

For one like Socrates, the mythology of Greece was too gross, the

speculations of the philosophy then current were too unreal and hollow.

He aspired to something better. At length the unity of God, the soul’s

immortality, and the moral responsibility of man, dawned upon his

mind—sublime truths which he might well have drawn from revelation

itself. The practice of virtue he inculcated as indispensable to

happiness and true religion. A _demon_, or secret influence, he said,

constantly attended him, and was his director in the work of social

reform no less than in the every-day affairs of life. Whether he

deceived himself in this belief or strove to deceive others into it

that he might gain credence for his doctrines, certain it is that

his teachings exercised a most wholesome influence. All subsequent

Greek philosophy is stamped with their impress. (_See Blackie’s “Horæ

Hellenicæ.”_)

In his domestic relations, Socrates was not happy. Believing it

incumbent on him to devote every moment to philosophical inquiry or

exhortations of the people to practical morality, he was wont to

neglect his legitimate business of stone-cutting, and leave his family

to provide for its own support. This was too much for his good wife

Xantippe. Something of a shrew even under the best of circumstances, we

may imagine that she made his household rather hot, particularly when

he brought guests home to dinner and there was nothing in the larder.

On one occasion she went so far as to give emphasis to her reproaches

with a shower of dish-water. The dripping philosopher, not in the least

disturbed, calmly remarked, “I thought after so much thunder, we should

have some rain.”

Socrates declined the invitation of a Macedonian prince to live in

luxury at his court, with the characteristic reply, “At Athens meal

is two-pence the measure, and water may be had for nothing.” He clung

to Athens to the last, and so doing won a martyr’s crown. Accused of

impiety in corrupting the religious belief of the young committed to

his charge, he was condemned to drink the fatal hemlock. Surrounded by

sorrowing disciples, who had bribed the jailer and vainly urged him to

fly while there was yet time, he calmly placed the cup to his lips,

and soon after passed away with not a doubt as to “the undiscovered

country.” “I derive confidence,” said he, “from the hope that something

of man remains after death, and that the condition of good men will

then be much better than that of the bad.”

Socrates failed to commit his philosophy to writing; it is from the

pages of Xenophon and Plato, his most devoted admirers, that we have

learned his doctrines.

The principal schools that originated in the Socratic were the

Academic, Peripatetic, Cynic, and Stoic.

=Academic School.—Plato.=—The Academic School was founded by Socrates’

pupil, Plato, and derived its name from the grove of Acade’mus, a

public garden at Athens in which this philosopher was accustomed to

deliver his lectures. Beneath its planes and olives flowed the stream

Cephissus; statues and temples were scattered through its shade, and

solitary paths invited to rest and meditation.

[Illustration: GROVE OF ACADEMUS.]

Plato was noble-born, tracing his descent from King Codrus through one

parent and from Solon through the other. His great genius was early

seen. After mastering the elementary branches, he turned his attention

to painting and poetry; but when he compared an epic on which he had

tried his hand with Homer’s, he threw it into the fire in disgust.

Chancing to hear Socrates discourse, he forthwith resolved to forsake

the ornamental arts and study philosophy. So, when only twenty, Plato

attached himself to Socrates; his admiration quickly ripened into an

abiding affection; and for eight years he sat at the philosopher’s

feet as a pupil, though now and then obtruding new theories of his

own. In the dark days of his master’s trial and condemnation, he was

still faithful; and when the judges silenced his speech in defence of

Socrates, he would have resorted to the money-argument, which then, as

now, seldom failed, had not the high-minded sage refused to secure life

by such ignoble means.

After the execution of Socrates, Plato pursued his studies in foreign

lands. He visited Italy, Sicily, and Egypt, carefully examining

their different systems of philosophy, and possibly even making the

acquaintance of the Hebrew Scriptures. During this tour he is related

to have been sold into slavery at the instigation of Dionysius, tyrant

of Syracuse, whom he had offended by his bold expressions.

On his return to Athens, in accordance with a long-cherished plan,

Plato opened an humble dwelling in the grove of Academus for the

reception of pupils, and founded the famous Academic School. He soon

became the most popular man in Athens. Crowds thronged to his lectures

and dialogues, which were free to all; and even ladies assumed male

attire, that they might mingle unnoticed with the listeners and drink

in the eloquence which flowed from his lips. His fame went abroad also.

Foreign potentates sought his aid in adjusting political difficulties;

and twice, by request, he returned to the Syracusan court to effect a

reform in the government—but in this case, without success.

On his eighty-second birthday, while he was pursuing his accustomed

occupation, the stylus suddenly fell from Plato’s hand, and he expired.

Under the trees so long associated with his kindly instruction, he

found a final resting-place; an admiring country preserved his memory

by altars and statues; and the verdict of succeeding generations has

been that Plato was the greatest philosopher of antiquity.

PLATO’S PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM.—Plato was an enthusiast in the pursuit

of truth. He believed in a personal God, rational, immutable, eternal.

He realized that man could never attain absolute wisdom, possible to

God alone; and looked upon philosophy as “a longing after heavenly

wisdom.” He sought to correct abuses, to elevate humanity; and made

man’s highest duty consist in searching out God and imitating the

perfection of the Almighty as his rule of conduct. The four cardinal

virtues were wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice; but none could

be virtuous without aid from on high. (_Read Bulkley’s “Plato’s Best

Thoughts.”_)

The soul, an emanation from the Supreme Mind, was immortal. It existed

before its union with the body, and all earthly knowledge is but

the recollection of what it possessed in some former state. When,

disembodied, it stood face to face with kindred immaterial essences,

it acquired those _ideas_, or _forms_, which figure so prominently in

the Platonic system—interpreted by some to mean veritable objective

existences too subtile to be discerned by the eye of flesh, and by

others explained as mere intuitions or generalizations having no

objective reality.

Plato regarded men as free agents, to be rewarded or punished in a

future life for their deeds in this. His poetical fancy fixed on some

distant star as the abode of the blessed. The earth he supposed to

occupy the centre of the universe. It was not eternal, but was made

by an intelligent God, who breathed into it a soul; so it was a living

creature, self-active, and gifted with the beautiful form of the sphere.

Nor did the philosopher forget to train the reasoning powers, by the

study of mathematics. The importance he attached to this science may be

inferred from the sign on his school: “Let no one enter here who is a

stranger to geometry.” Plato has the honor of having been the inventor

of geometrical analysis.

PLATO’S WORKS, which have descended to us unimpaired, are in the

form of dialogues—a delightful method of conveying philosophical

instruction, when, as in Plato’s case, the personages introduced

as speakers are salient characters, and their idiosyncrasies are

maintained throughout with discrimination. The dull lessons of

dialectics are thus enlivened by graphic portraitures and happy strokes

of humor. Plato’s language is the perfection of Attic prose, beautified

by a poetical tinge. “If Jupiter should speak Greek,” said ancient

critics, “it would be Plato’s.” What Socrates dreamed on the night

before the young Plato entered his school—that a cygnet came from

the grove of Academus, and, after nestling on his breast for a time,

took its flight heavenward, singing sweetly as it rose—is recorded as

presaging his pupil’s sweet mastery of words.

The Platonic Dialogues, thirty-five in number, discuss various

subjects. One of the finest is “Phædo,” written to prove the immortal

nature of the soul. It derives its name from the beloved disciple of

Socrates, who is here made by Plato, prevented from being present

himself, to describe their master’s death-scene and repeat his last

discourse. Full of sublime and poetical conceptions, the “Phædo” aims

at lifting the mind above the sensual to the spiritual and eternal;

at foreshadowing the joys of the heavenly state, and painting death

as a thing to be desired rather than feared, since it is the portal

of bliss. The philosopher Cleom’brotus, on reading this Dialogue, is

said to have thrown himself into the sea to exchange this life for the

better one pictured by Plato.

EXTRACT FROM PHÆDO.

(Socrates, having proved the immortality of the soul to the

satisfaction of all present in the prison, addresses them as follows.)

“Then, Cebes, beyond question, the soul is immortal and imperishable,

and our souls will truly exist in another world!”

“I am convinced, Socrates,” said Cebes, “and have nothing more to

object; but if my friend Simmias, or any one else, has any further

objection, he had better speak out, and not keep silence, since I do

not know to what other season he can defer the discussion, if there is

anything which he wants to say or have said.”

“I have nothing more to say,” replied Simmias; “nor can I see any

reason for doubt after what has been said. But I still feel and cannot

help feeling uncertain in my own mind, when I think of the greatness

of the subject and the feebleness of man.”

“Yes, Simmias,” replied Socrates, “that is well said; but O my

friends! if the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken of

her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life,

but of eternity! And the danger of neglecting her from this point of

view does indeed appear to be awful. If death had only been the end of

all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying, for they would

have been happily quit not only of their body, but of their own evil

together with their souls. But now, inasmuch as the soul is manifestly

immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the

attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul, when on her

progress to the world below, takes nothing with her but nurture and

education; and these are said greatly to benefit or greatly to injure

the departed, at the very beginning of his pilgrimage in the other

world.

“Wherefore, Simmias, seeing all these things, what ought not we to do

that we may obtain virtue and wisdom in this life? Fair is the prize,

and the hope great!

“A man of sense ought not to say that the description which I have

given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true. But I do say that,

inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to think

that something of the kind is true. The venture is a glorious one, and

he ought to comfort himself with words like these, which is the reason

why I lengthen out the tale.

“Wherefore, I say, let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who has

cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the body as alien to him, and

has followed after the pleasures of knowledge in this life; who has

arrayed the soul in her own proper jewels, which are temperance, and

justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth—thus adorned, she is

ready to go on her journey to the world below when her hour comes.

“You, Simmias and Cebes, and all other men, will depart at some time

or other. Me already, as the tragic poet would say, the voice of fate

calls. Soon I must drink the poison; and I think that I had better

repair to the bath first, in order that the women may not have the

trouble of washing my body after I am dead.”

When he had done speaking, Crito said: “And have you any commands for

us, Socrates? anything to say about your children, or any other matter

in which we can serve you?”

“Nothing particular,” he said: “only, as I have always told you, I

would have you look to yourselves; that is a service which you may

always be doing to me and mine as well as to yourselves.”

“We will do our best,” said Crito; “but in what way would you have us

bury you?”

“In any way that you like; only you must get hold of me, and take care

that I do not walk away from you.”

Then he turned to us, and added with a smile:—“I cannot make Crito

believe that I am the same Socrates who have been talking and

conducting the argument; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom

he will soon see, a dead body—and he asks, How shall he bury me? And

though I have spoken many words in the endeavor to show that when I

have drunk the poison I shall leave you and go to the joys of the

blessed, these words of mine, with which I comforted you and myself,

have had, as I perceive, no effect upon Crito.

“You must be my surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away

and depart; and then he will suffer less at my death, and not be

grieved when he sees my body being burned or buried. I would not

have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial,‘Thus we lay

out Socrates,’ or‘Thus we follow him to the grave or bury him;’ for

false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul

with evil. Be of good cheer then, my dear Crito, and say that you are

burying my body only, and do with that as is usual, and as you think

best.—JOWETT.—(In this connection _read Grote’s “Plato and the Other

Companions of Socrates.”_)

In his “Republic,” Plato indulges in a political dream, sketching an

ideal government and embodying his conception of absolute justice. In

his “Atlantis,” he describes a large island lying west of Europe, which

some have tried to connect with America.

The Academic School long survived its founder; but little if any

advance was made by his successors. Its fundamental tenets outlived

Greece and Rome, to reappear in the schools of modern times. Many of

them are in wonderful harmony with Christian doctrines; and such a

resemblance to the Jewish Scriptures has been detected in the writings

of their author that he has been called “the Attic Moses.”

=Peripatetic School.—Aristotle.=—The Peripatetic was an offshoot from

the Academic School, its founder Aristotle having for twenty years

studied under Plato. Its influence cannot be estimated; for 1,800

years, up to the revival of letters in modern times, its author was

recognized as the supreme authority on every subject, whether by Moslem

or Christian.

ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.) was born at the Thracian town of Stagi’ra.

Inheriting from his father literary tastes as well as the means to

gratify them, he selected Athens as the scene of his labors, and

there, at the age of seventeen, he entered the Academy of Plato. So

energetically did he apply himself, not as a servile follower but often

as a pioneer in new paths of his own, that his master said he required

the bit rather than the spur, and styled him the Intellect of the

school. On one occasion, when none but this ardent pupil was present

to hear his lecture, Plato proceeded as usual, saying that “so long as

he had Aristotle for an audience, he had the better half of Athens.”

His industry was proverbial; he grudged the time needed for repose, and

used to sleep with a ball in his hand, that when it fell from his grasp

by the relaxing of the muscles the noise would awaken him.

When Plato died, Aristotle retired from the Academy; and in 342 B.C. he

received the following letter from Philip of Macedon, whose court he

had visited as an ambassador:—

“PHILIP to ARISTOTLE, wisheth health:

Be informed that I have a son, and that I am thankful to the gods, not

so much for his birth, as that he was born in the same age with you;

for if you will undertake the charge of his education, I assure myself

that he will become worthy of his father, and of the kingdom which he

will inherit.”

There was no declining such an invitation. At Stagira, his native

town, Philip provided a school and the accustomed grove for

instruction, in which the philosopher moulded the mind of Alexander the

future Conqueror. The king of Macedon was more than satisfied with the

results; and the royal pupil owned his indebtedness to his teacher,

exclaiming, “Philip only gave me life, but Aristotle has taught me the

art of living well!”

When, on the assassination of Philip, Alexander mounted the throne and

embarked on that expedition which extended the sway of Macedon over

half the known world, he showed his gratitude by making his instructor

a munificent present equivalent to nearly $1,000,000, and employed

two or three thousand men to fill his cabinets with specimens. Thus

supplied with material and funds, Aristotle, established in Athens

since 335 B.C. as a distinguished teacher despite his traditional lisp

and insignificant appearance, vigorously prosecuted his scientific

labors. At the Lyce’um, Apollo’s temple, he gave instruction to his

disciples, walking up and down in the covered paths (_peripatoi_) about

the building—whence the name of his school, _Peripatetic_. He mastered

all existing knowledge, regarding learning as “an ornament to men in

prosperity, a refuge in adversity;” and for thirteen years divided his

time between his pupils and his literary work.

The news of Alexander’s sudden death was the signal for Aristotle’s

enemies, no longer restrained by fear of his royal friend, to show

their hand. Impiety was alleged against him; but mindful of the fate

of Socrates, and, as he said, to prevent the Athenians from sinning a

second time against philosophy, he retired to Chalcis on the island of

Eubœa, where he died within a year.

PHILOSOPHY AND WRITING OF ARISTOTLE.—While to some extent following

his master, from several of Plato’s doctrines Aristotle felt compelled

to dissent; truth, he said, was dearer to him than any friend.[35]

He did not accept the Ideal theory, but inclined to materialism or to

pantheism, making _reason_ divine and omnipresent. He doubted his own

immortality, holding that the soul could not exist apart from the body,

and that there is “nothing good or bad beyond to the dead.” His style

was dry, elliptical, and full of technicalities; if we compare it with

Plato’s, we have the opposite poles of the magnet.

Plato was all imagination, Aristotle was thoroughly practical. The

inspiration of the one was a passionate love of wisdom; the forte of

the other was power of analysis, a wonderful faculty of systemizing

knowledge. The master captivated the heart; the pupil convinced the

reason. “The philosophy of Plato,” says Dr. Draper, “is a gorgeous

castle in the air; that of Aristotle is a solid structure laboriously

founded on rock.”

Aristotle’s style is devoid of ornament, and his subjects are too

abstruse for the general run of readers; but he was a keen observer

and a close reasoner. A few paragraphs from his Rhetoric, in which he

analyzes the peculiarities of old age, will show how well he understood

human nature.

THE DISPOSITION OF THE OLD.

“Those who are advanced in life, having been deceived in a greater

number of instances, err in everything more on the side of defect than

they ought. And they always _suppose_, but never _know_ certainly;

and, questioning everything, they always subjoin a _perhaps_, or a

_possibly_. And they are apt to view things in an unfavorable light;

for a disposition thus to view things, is the judging of everything on

the worse side.

Moreover, they are apt to be suspicious from distrust, and they are

distrustful from their experience. And on this account they neither

love nor hate with great earnestness; but, conformably to the remark

of Bias, they both love as though about to hate, and hate as though

about to love. And they are pusillanimous, from their having been

humbled by the course of life; for they raise their desires to nothing

great or vast, but to things only which conduce to the support of life.

And they are illiberal; for property is one of the necessaries;

and they are at the same time aware, from their experience, of the

difficulty of its acquisition, and of the ease with which it is lost.

They are timid and apprehensive of everything; for their disposition

is the reverse of that of the young; for they have been chilled by

years, but the young are warm in their temperament; so that their age

has paved the way to timidity; for fear is a certain kind of chill.

And they are attached to life, and particularly at its last closing

day, from the circumstance that desire is of some object which is

absent, and that men more especially desire that of which they stand

in need.

They have self-love more than is fitting; for this too is a kind of

littleness of spirit. And they live in a greater degree than they

ought by the standard of expediency, and not of what is honorable, by

reason of their self-love: for what is expedient is good _relatively_

to one’s self, but what is honorable is good _absolutely_.

Again, they are not easily inspired with hope, on account of their

experience; for the majority of things are but paltry; wherefore the

generality turn out inferior to the expectation; and once more, on

account of their timidity they are apt to despond. And they live more

in memory than in hope; for the remnant of life is brief, but what

has passed is considerable; and hope indeed is of what is to come;

whereas memory is of things gone by. The very reason, this, of their

garrulity; for they never cease talking of that which has taken place,

since they are delighted in awakening the recollections of things.

And their anger is keen, but faint. And some of their desires have

abandoned them. Others are faint; so that neither are they liable

to the influence of desire, nor apt to act in conformity to it, but

with a view to gain; on which account men of this age appear to be

naturally temperate, for both their desires have relaxed, and they are

enslaved to gain.

The old have moreover a tendency to pity, but not on the same

principle with the young; for the latter are thus disposed from

their love of human nature; the former from their imbecility. Whence

they are querulous, and neither facetious nor fond of mirth; for

querulousness is the very reverse of fondness for mirth. Such is the

disposition of those in advanced life.”—THEODORE BUCKLEY.

The writings of Aristotle exhausted the fields of art and science; 400

treatises, most of which have perished, at one time bore his name.

Rhetoric, psychology or mental science, and natural history, owed to

him their origin. In his “Organon” was first presented the method of

_deduction_,—the process by which the mind reasons down from general

propositions to particular cases, by means of the _syllogism_, the

_organ_ or instrument of reasoning. Men had thus arrived at conclusions

for ages, without any knowledge of Aristotle’s formulæ, just as they

had talked correctly though ignorant of analytical grammar. It was

reserved for the Stagirite to discover the laws by which they drew

conclusions, and thus at once to found and perfect LOGIC. This was

the science of _reasoning_, as contrasted with Plato’s _dialectics_ or

method of _discussing_. (_See Benn’s “The Greek Philosophers.”_)

Nor was Aristotle unacquainted with Induction, the great lever

of modern philosophy. This process, which reverses the steps of

deduction,[36] and reasons from particular cases up to general laws,

was employed in his researches, but was not fully developed till twenty

centuries later in the “Novum Organon” of Lord Bacon, opening the way

to a new era in scientific investigation.

Aristotle willed his writings to his disciple Theophrastus, whom

we shall next consider; and for many years they were kept from the

world, while numerous imitations and forgeries gained the popular ear

through the prestige of Aristotle’s name. It was not till 50 B.C.

that a complete edition of the genuine works was published, and then

at Rome. Meanwhile the Lyceum had waned; its later heads were men of

mediocre ability, and the Peripatetic School was superseded in popular

estimation by the Epicurean and the Stoic.

=Theophrastus=, of Lesbos (374-287 B.C.), a pupil of Plato and

afterward of Aristotle, succeeded the latter, by his appointment, as

head of the Lyceum. During his time, he maintained the high reputation

of the school, attracting many to it from all parts of Greece by his

eloquence. That he might address a still larger audience, he wrote

numerous treatises on philosophy and natural history.

His “Moral Characters,” which have descended to us, show up in lively

colors such representative personages as the Gabbler, the Niggard,

the Noodle, the Grumbler, the Swell, the Poltroon, the Slanderer,

the Newsmonger, the Clown, etc., from whom, it seems, that Greek

society was not exempt any more than our own. These were the first

character-sketches ever made; they served as models to La Bruyère in

French, to Sir Thomas Overbury and others in English literature. As

specimens, we cull the most pointed portions of the sections on the

Flatterer and the Unseasonable Man.

THE FLATTERER.

“Flattery may be considered as a mode of companionship, degrading but

profitable to him who flatters.

The Flatterer is a person who will say as he walks with another,‘Do

you observe how people are looking at you? This happens to no man in

Athens but you. A compliment was paid to you yesterday in the Porch.

More than thirty persons were sitting there; the question was started,

Who is our foremost man? Every one mentioned you first, and ended by

coming back to your name.’

Then he will request the company to be silent while the great man

is speaking, and will praise him, too, in his hearing, and mark his

approbation at a pause with‘True;’ or he will laugh at a frigid joke,

and stuff his cloak into his mouth as if he could not repress his

amusement.

He will request those whom he meets to stand still until‘his Honor’

has passed. He will buy apples and pears, and bring them in, and give

to the children in the father’s presence; adding, with kisses,‘Chicks

of a good father.’ Also, when he assists at the purchase of slippers,

he will declare that the foot is more shapely than the shoe. If his

patron is approaching a friend, he will run forward and say,‘He is

coming to you;’ and then, turning back,‘I have announced you.’

He is the first of the guests to praise the wine; and to say, as he

reclines next the host,‘How delicate is your fare! and (taking up

something from the table)‘Now this—how excellent it is!’ He will say

that his patron’s house is well built, that his land is well planted,

and that his portrait is a good likeness.”—JEBB.

MR. MALAPROP.

“Unseasonable behavior is such a manner of conversation as is very

troublesome to those with whom you converse.

A man that acts unseasonably will intrude himself upon his friend,

when he is engaged in earnest business, and consult him about his own

private concerns. When his mistress lies dangerously ill of a fever,

he’ll make her a visit and carry himself gayly. If he stands in need

of a surety, he begs that favor of one who has just smarted for being

bound to another. If he is summoned for a witness in any cause, he

appears in court immediately after judgment has been given.

When he is invited to a wedding, he takes the opportunity to rail

at the fair sex. If he meets a friend who has just come home from a

long journey, he’ll press him to take a walk. He is ever ready and

punctual, as soon as a shop-keeper has sold his goods, to help him to

a customer that would have given more.

If he happens to be in a place where a servant is chastised, all

the comfort he gives him is to tell him that he also had formerly a

boy whom he chastised in the same manner, and that the poor lad so

resented this usage that he immediately made way with himself. If

he is accidentally present at an arbitration, where the contending

parties desire to have the matter in dispute between them amicably

settled, instead of promoting a reconciliation, he sets them together

by the ears, and makes the difference ten times greater than it was

before.”—GALLY.

=The Stoic School= was so called from the Painted Portico (_stoa_) at

Athens, where its founder ZENO, the Cyprian, taught for fifty-eight

years (318-260 B.C.). It was based on high moral principles, but was

not free from errors. Duty was all in this philosophy; virtue alone,

happiness. Mastery of self, contempt alike for pleasure and pain, were

leading doctrines.

Fate governed the world, even God himself. Yet Zeno did not allow

this doctrine to excuse shortcomings or interfere with individual

responsibility. When his slave, detected in theft, besought exemption

from chastisement on the plea that it was fated for him to steal, he

replied, “Yes, and it was also fated for you to be flogged.”

Suicide, in Zeno’s creed, was justifiable when a man had outlived his

usefulness, and the great philosopher practised as he preached; for,

having received a severe fall at the age of ninety-eight, he quietly

remarked, “I obey the summons,” and went and hanged himself.

Zeno enjoyed public confidence at home as well as the respect of

foreign princes; among his disciples were enrolled some of the greatest

men of Greece and Rome. Nothing remains of his writings.

=The Cynics= derived their name from the gymnasium of _Cyn_osarges,

near the Lyceum, where they gathered to listen to Antisthenes, a

pupil of Socrates. This extremist perverted his master’s theory of

virtue, which he made to consist in a comfortless life, a renunciation

of pleasure, and a contemptuous and even shameless independence of

manners. Yet Socrates saw pride even through the holes of Antisthenes’

shabby robe.

Antisthenes was not much in metaphysics. He was puzzled by abstract

generalizations, and to Plato’s Idealism opposed an uncompromising

Realism. “Plato,” he said, “I can see a horse, and I can see a man,

but horsehood and manhood I cannot see.”—“True,” replied Plato, “you

have the eye that can see a horse and a man; but the eye which can see

horsehood and manhood you lack.”

Of the many works of this first Cynic philosopher, scarcely anything

is left. They were probably steeped in gall, for his powers of sarcasm

were unsurpassed; he dealt trenchant blows at what he considered folly,

wherever he found it. He ridiculed the want of judgment displayed at

Athens in the selection of generals, by counselling the Athenians to

vote their asses horses. “That is absurd,” was the reply. “No more

so,” he retorted, “than to think you have made ignoramuses generals, by

simply lifting up the hand. “Once when annoyed at a speaker’s dilating

on the joys of the future state, he abruptly demanded, “Why don’t you

die, then?”

His successor, DIOGENES, carried out the rôle. Soured by the

disgraceful failure of his father, he turned to the ascetic philosophy

of the Cynics, and took a morbid pleasure in outraging society by

his infringements on decency. His satirical remarks, which cut to

the quick, earned him the title of “the Dog” by way of eminence. He

slept wherever he happened to be, on stoops or in a tub; and eschewing

artificial wants, he felt so rebuked when he saw a boy drinking through

his hands and receiving his pottage in a hollowed loaf, that he threw

away his cup and platter.

Into such snarling, insolent, and offensive misanthropes did the Cynics

degenerate, that the name of their sect was popularly traced to the

_dogs_ (in Greek _cynes_) they so much resembled.—To this complexion

did the noble philosophy of Socrates come at last.

ORATORY.

=Political Eloquence=, like the drama, history, and philosophy,

attained perfection in the golden age. Public speaking was a natural

accomplishment of the Greeks; and from the days of Homer down,

soldiers, legislators, and statesmen, had been distinguished as

orators. In Pericles, who made eloquence a study, we are introduced

to one of the world’s most polished speakers. (_Consult Jebb’s “Attic

Orators.”_)

But the cultivation of rhetoric and oratory as an art was first

popularized by Gorgias of Leonti´ni (see Map, p. 304), who about 427

B.C. transplanted it from Sicily and saw it flourish in Athenian

soil as it had never flourished before. Gorgias founded a school of

eloquence at Athens, which was thronged by the great men of the time,

eager to acquire the persuasive arts of the Sicilian teacher. Thus

rhetoric became a fashionable accomplishment; and to such account was

it turned by the taste and genius of the Attic Greeks that they soon

produced the greatest orators of history.

Among these was the graceful and elegant LYSIAS (_lish’e-ăs_—458-378

B.C.), compared by Quintilian to a pure fountain rather than a great

river; and ISÆUS, the leading barrister of Athens and preceptor of

Demosthenes. Greater than either as a teacher and writer of orations

for others, though through timidity he rarely appeared in public

himself, was ISOCRATES, founder of a school from which Cicero said,

“as from the Trojan horse, princes only proceeded;” to use his own

figure, he was a whetstone which imparted the power of cutting to other

things, but cut not itself. Finally, to this category belonged the

great rivals Æschines and Demosthenes, foremost of the Attic orators.

=Demosthenes= (384-322 B.C.—it is worth remembering that his dates

are identical with Aristotle’s) stands alone in the power of his

eloquence. Born in Attica, he was left fatherless at the age of seven,

but inherited a large fortune. The bulk of this his guardians made away

with; although they engaged the best talent in the land to superintend

the education of their ward. When Demosthenes arrived at his majority,

he brought suit against them, and wrote his maiden speeches with such

skill as to obtain a judgment in his favor.

The study of oratory now became the passion of his life. By indomitable

perseverance he overcame what to many would have proved insuperable

difficulties—shortness of breath, a sickly constitution, a weak and

stammering utterance, and awkwardness in gesticulating. He practised on

the sea-shore till his voice rose clear and full above the breakers;

he placed pebbles in his mouth while declaiming to correct his

articulation, and improved his breathing by running up steep hills.

A friendly mirror helped him to make his gestures effective; and he

spent months at a time in a room underground, occupied in study, or

in copying the history of Thucydides to strengthen his style. Thus,

in spite of every natural disadvantage, he placed himself by his own

efforts “at the head of all mighty masters of speech.” He lived to

receive the homage, not only of those Athenians who had hissed the

early performances of “the stammerer,” but of crowds gathered from all

quarters of Greece.

Conciseness, precision, clearness, compact reasoning, power of

invective, and vehemence compared to that of a torrent carrying

everything before it, were characteristic of the orations of

Demosthenes. Sixty-one of these (probably not all genuine) are still

extant, the most famous being the twelve “Philippics,” delivered

against Philip of Macedon, who was insidiously plotting the subversion

of Grecian liberty. Demosthenes penetrated his designs, disdained

his bribes, and for fourteen years struggled nobly against him. His

impassioned utterances at last roused the slumbering patriotism

of his countrymen, and, joined by the Thebans, they met Philip at

Chæronea—but only to be hopelessly defeated. The fate of Greece was

sealed. Demosthenes fled from the field and escaped to Athens, where he

delivered the funeral eulogy on the slain.

The success of Philip strengthened the Macedonian sympathizers in

Athens, at the head of whom was the orator Æschines, accused by

Demosthenes of being in the pay of Macedon. When, therefore, Ctesiphon

proposed that the services of Demosthenes be rewarded with a golden

crown, Æschines opposed the measure. After a delay of six years, during

which we may be sure both orators strained every nerve to prepare for

the decisive struggle, the final contest took place before a vast

and excited concourse. The fiery vigor of Demosthenes, in the most

splendid effort of ancient eloquence, swept away like feathers the

arguments, the wit, the sarcasm, of his opponent; Æschines was utterly

discomfited.

The elaborate speech “On the Crown” is the masterpiece of Demosthenes;

we give parts of the peroration.

FROM DEMOSTHENES’ ORATION ON THE CROWN.

“Do you then, Æschines, ask me for what merit I claim public honors?

I will tell you. It is because, when all the statesmen in Greece had

been corrupted, beginning with yourself, first by Philip and then by

Alexander, I was never induced nor tempted by opportunity, nor by fair

speeches, nor by the magnitude of proffered bribes, nor by hope, nor

by fear, nor by favor, nor by any other consideration, to swerve a

hair’s-breadth from the course which I believed to be right and for

the public good. Never, in weighing my public counsels, have I, like

you, inclined to the scale in which hung my private advantage; but all

that I have done has been done straightforwardly, incorruptly, and

with singleness of purpose. While I have been charged with affairs

of greater magnitude than any of my contemporaries, the whole of my

administration has been pure, honest, disinterested. These are the

grounds on which I claim to be honored.

As for the fortifications and intrenchments which you have sneered

at, I deem myself entitled to thanks and gratitude on that behalf.

Wherefore should I not? But I am far, indeed, from placing such

services in the same category with my general policy. It is not

with stones nor with bricks that I have fortified Athens; it is not

upon such works that I chiefly value myself; but if you would truly

appreciate my fortifications, you will find them in arms, cities,

territories, harbors, ships, and men to avail themselves of these

advantages. These are the outworks which I have thrown up before

Attica, according to the best of human foresight; by these have I

fortified the whole country, not merely the circuit of the Piræus and

the city. Nor was I defeated by the calculations or preparations of

Philip; far from it: but the generals and the forces of our allies

were defeated by Fortune. * * *

If my measures had been successful—O heaven and earth! we must, beyond

all question, have become a first-rate power, as we well deserved to

be. If they have failed, we have left to us our honor. No reproach can

attach to the state or to its policy, but Fortune must bear the blame,

who has so ordered our affairs. Never, never, will the patriotic

citizen desert his country’s cause, and, hiring himself to her foes,

watch his opportunities of injuring her; never will he malign the

statesman who in his utterances and his measures has consistently

maintained his country’s honor; nor will he nurse and treasure up

resentment for private wrongs; nor, lastly, will he maintain a

dishonest and a treacherous silence, as you have often done. * * *

No part, Æschines, have you taken in any measure for strengthening

the country’s resources. What alliance has been ever obtained for the

state through your instrumentality? What succor? What acquisition of

good-will from others, or credit for ourselves? What embassy? What

public service that has added to our national renown? What public

affairs, whether domestic, Hellenic, or foreign, have been brought by

you to a successful issue? What ships have you furnished? What arms?

What dockyards? What fortifications? What cavalry? In what one respect

have you been useful? What pecuniary contribution have you ever made

upon public grounds for the benefit of either the rich or the poor?

None.

You were not deterred by your poverty, but by your anxiety to do

nothing opposed to the interests of those for whose benefit all your

policy has been designed. But what are the occasions of your brilliant

displays, the exhibition of your youthful vigor? When aught is to be

spoken against your countrymen, then is your voice best tuned, then is

your memory most accurate; then you act your part to perfection. * * *

Every well-affected citizen, Athenians, (in such terms I am able

to speak of myself least invidiously) is bound to possess two

qualities: when in authority, the fixed resolve to maintain the

honor and pre-eminence of his country; under all circumstances and

at all times, loyalty. This Nature can command—to another power

belong strength and success. By this spirit you find me to have been

uniformly actuated.

Observe—never when I was demanded for extradition, nor when

Amphictyonic suits were prosecuted against me, nor when threats, nor

when promises were brought to bear upon me, nor when these miscreants

were let loose like wild beasts upon me—never was I induced to abandon

one jot or tittle of my loyalty to you. From first to last I took the

straight and true path of statesmanship—that of complete devotion

to the maintenance and furtherance of the honor, the power, and the

glory of my country. Never was I beheld strutting about the Forum,

radiant with joy and exultation at foreign success, gesticulating

congratulations to those who might be expected to report them

elsewhere. Nor have I heard the tidings of our good fortune with

dismay and lamentations, and prostration to the earth, like these

impious men who inveigh against their country without perceiving that

their invective is directed against themselves, whose eyes are cast

abroad, who felicitate themselves on foreign success purchased by the

calamities of Greece, and avow their anxiety to secure its permanence.

Never, O ye Heavenly Powers! never may such designs obtain favor at

your hands! Rather, if it be possible, inspire even these men with

better thoughts, and turn their hearts; but if their moral plague

be incurable, cut them off from among us, and drive them forth to

destruction, sure and swift, over land and over sea: while to us who

are spared ye vouchsafe the speediest deliverance from our impending

alarms, and abiding security!”—SIR ROBERT COLLIER.

Twice after the reverse of Chæronea Demosthenes succeeded in arraying

his country against Macedon—at the assassination of Philip and on the

death of Alexander. When news of Alexander’s decease reached Greece,

the orator was in exile, having been unjustly convicted of taking

Macedonian treasure; yet he did his utmost to arm the Grecian cities,

and was in consequence recalled to Athens by the fickle people. But it

was all in vain.

At last, marked for destruction by the Macedonian regent Antip’ater,

and doomed to death by his cowardly fellow-citizens whose necks were

now under the tyrant’s heel, he fled to the temple of Neptune on

Calaure’a and there found relief from his troubles in a quill of poison

which he kept ready for an emergency. In Demosthenes, Athens lost an

incorruptible patriot—antiquity, one of her noblest characters. The

Athenians erected to his memory a brazen statue on which was inscribed:—

“Had you for Greece been strong, as wise you were,

The Macedonians had not conquered her.”

=Æschines= (389-314 B.C.), of whose early life little is known, after

his defeat at the hands of Demosthenes, went into exile. We are told

that his victorious rival magnanimously forgave him, and even offered

him money for the journey; which led Æschines to exclaim: “How I regret

leaving a country where I have found an enemy so generous that I must

despair of ever meeting with a friend who shall be like him!”

Æschines afterward established himself as a teacher of oratory in

Rhodes. Here he once repeated to his pupils his famous oration against

Ctesiphon in the contest for the crown, which filled them with wonder

that so able an orator should have been defeated. But when at their

request he read the reply of Demosthenes, his audience rose to their

feet with eager acclamations; and the orator, forgetting all jealousy

in his admiration, cried: “What would you have said, had you heard the

wild beast himself roaring it out?”

The oration against Ctesiphon is one of three familiarly known in

antiquity as “the Three Graces”—a title indicative of the refinement

and easy flow of the author’s style, deficient as it was in the energy

and vehemence of his great rival.

MINOR DRAMATIC AND LYRIC POETS.

ION (flourished 450 B.C.): a history and lyrics, as well as

tragedies; called “the Eastern Star,” from the first words of an ode

he was composing when death overtook him.

ACHÆUS (born 484 B.C.): tragic and satirical pieces.

AG’ATHON the Athenian: received his first tragic prize, 416 B.C.; his

masterpiece was “the Flower.”

CALLIS’TRATUS (flourished 420 B.C.): author of the convivial ode

celebrating the memory of Harmodius and Aristogiton (p. 158).

CRATI’NUS (519-423 B.C.): called the _Cup-lover_ from his excesses;

21 comedies; 9 prizes; with his last comedy, “the Wine-flask,” he

gained the first prize, triumphing over “the Clouds” of Aristophanes.

EU’POLIS: 15 plays; his first comedy was represented 429 B.C.

CRATES (450 B.C.): 14 comedies; the first poet to represent

drunkenness on the Athenian stage.

* * * * *

METON, the Athenian astronomer (flourished 430 B.C.): founder of the

Lunar Cycle of 19 solar years, which he discovered to be nearly equal

to 235 revolutions of the moon round the earth. From the “Metonic

Cycle” the Greeks computed their festivals; it is still used by the

Western churches in fixing Easter.

HIPPOC’RATES (460-357 B.C.), born on the island of Cos, “the Father

of Medicine:” knew little of anatomy; discovered the critical days in

fevers.

NOTES ON GREEK EDUCATION, ETC.

Education recognized as all-important in ancient Greece, and even made

compulsory by the great lawgivers. In Homer’s time, children taught

obedience, respect for the aged, and modesty of deportment; sons

instructed in the use of weapons and gymnastic exercises; daughters,

in domestic economy and virtue. Homer’s epics long the chief

text-books on all subjects.

Reading and writing, accomplishments of the earliest periods. An

ignorant Greek an anomaly. Even among the Spartans, who affected

contempt for literature, reading and writing were practised. The

magistrates and their officers were provided with wooden cylinders

of the same size; when one desired to communicate, he wound a strip

of parchment round his cylinder and wrote his message thereon; then,

removing the strip, he sent it to the other party, who was enabled to

read it by rolling it upon his own cylinder in the same folds.

In the golden age, common schools were the glory of Greece; the

rudiments of education everywhere taught. The importance of grammar

urged by Plato, who was the first to explain the difference between

nouns and verbs; articles and conjunctions distinguished by

Aristotle, and also differences of number and case. The foundation

of scientific grammar laid by the Stoics, who recognized eight parts

of speech. Those who could afford it completed their education at

the Lyceum, Academy, or some other celebrated school, often paying

most extravagantly for instruction in rhetoric and philosophy. Some

teachers charged their pupils as much as $2,000 apiece for a course of

lectures. Foreign languages were never studied by the Greeks.

Many private libraries were established during the golden age, but no

circulating or public libraries. As early as 400 B.C. Athens carried

on quite a trade in manuscripts, one quarter of the market-place being

called “the book-mart.” Books were generally abundant and cheap, being

copied by slaves, but rare works were very costly. Plato paid $1,600

for three books. (_The reader is referred to Becker’s “Charicles; or,

Illustrations of the Private Life of the Ancient Greeks.”_)

Wooden tablets for accounts sold for 18 cts. each about 400 B.C. A

small blank book of two wax tablets was worth less than a penny.

Pencils are said to have been invented 408 B.C. by Apollodorus, the

self-styled “Prince of Painters.”