SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO
THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
The Greeks possessed two large collections of epic poetry. The one
comprised poems relating to the great events and enterprises of the
Heroic age, and characterised by a certain poetical unity; the other
included works tamer in character and more desultory in their mode of
treatment, containing the genealogies of men and gods, narratives of
the exploits of separate heroes, and descriptions of the ordinary
pursuits of life. The poems of the former class passed under the name
of Homer; while those of the latter were in the same general way
ascribed to Hesiod. The former were the productions of the Ionic and
AEolic minstrels in Asia Minor, among whom Homer stood pre-eminent and
eclipsed the brightness of the rest: the latter were the compositions
of a school of bards in the neighbourhood of Mount Helicon in Boeotia,
among whom in like manner Hesiod enjoyed the greatest celebrity. The
poems of both schools were composed in the hexameter metre and in a
similar dialect; but they differed widely in almost every other feature.
Of the Homeric poems the Iliad and the Odyssey were the most
distinguished and have alone come down to us. The subject of the Iliad
was the exploits of Achilles and of the other Grecian heroes before
Ilium or Troy; that of the Odyssey was the wanderings and adventures of
Odysseus or Ulysses after the capture of Troy on his return to his
native island. Throughout the flourishing period of Greek literature
these unrivalled works were universally regarded as the productions of
a single mind; but there was very little agreement respecting the place
of the poet's birth the details of his life, or the time in which he
lived. Seven cities laid claim to Homer's birth, and most of them had
legends to tell respecting his romantic parentage, his alleged
blindness, and his life of an itinerant bard acquainted with poverty
and sorrow. It cannot be disputed that he was an Asiatic Greek; but
this is the only fact in his life which can be regarded as certain.
Several of the best writers of antiquity supposed him to have been a
native of the island of Chios; but most modern scholars believe Smyrna
to have been his birthplace. His most probable date is about B.C. 850.
The mode in which these poems were preserved has occasioned great
controversy in modern times. Even if they were committed to writing by
the poet himself, and were handed down to posterity in this manner, it
is certain that they were rarely read. We must endeavour to realise
the difference between ancient Greece and our own times. During the
most flourishing period of Athenian literature manuscripts were
indifferently written, without division into parts, and without marks
of punctuation. They were scarce and costly, could be obtained only by
the wealthy, and read only by those who had had considerable literary
training. Under these circumstances the Greeks could never become a
reading people; and thus the great mass even of the Athenians became
acquainted with the productions of the leading poets of Greece only by
hearing them recited at their solemn festivals and on other public
occasions. This was more strikingly the case at an earlier period.
The Iliad and the Odyssey were not read by individuals in private, but
were sung or recited at festivals or to assembled companies. The bard
originally sung his own lays to the accompaniment of his lyre. He was
succeeded by a body of professional reciters, called Rhapsodists, who
rehearsed the poems of others, and who appear at early times to have
had exclusive possession of the Homeric poems. But in the seventh
century before the Christian era literary culture began to prevail
among the Greeks; and men of education and wealth were naturally
desirous of obtaining copies of the great poet of the nation. From
this cause copies came to be circulated among the Greeks; but most of
them contained only separate portions of the poems, or single
rhapsodes, as they were called. Pisistratus, the tyrant or despot of
Athens, is said to have been the first person who collected and
arranged the poems in their present form, in order that they might be
recited at the great Panathenaic festival at Athens.
Three works have come down to us bearing the name of Hesiod--the 'Works
and Days,' the 'Theogony,' and a description of the 'Shield of
Hercules.' Many ancient critics believed the 'Works and Days' to be the
only genuine work of Hesiod, and their opinion has been adopted by most
modern scholars. We learn from this work that Hesiod was a native of
Ascra, a village at the foot of Mount Helicon, to which his father had
migrated from the AEolian Cyme in Asia Minor. He further tells us that
he gained the prize at Chalcis in a poetical contest; and that he was
robbed of a fair share of his heritage by the unrighteous decision of
judges who had been bribed by his brother Perses. The latter became
afterwards reduced in circumstances, and applied to his brother for
relief; and it is to him that Hesiod addresses his didactic poem of the
'Works and Days,' in which he lays down various moral and social maxims
for the regulation of his conduct and his life. It contains an
interesting representation of the feelings, habits, and superstitions
of the rural population of Greece in the earlier ages. Respecting the
date of Hesiod nothing certain can be affirmed. Modern writers usually
suppose him to have flourished two or three generations later than
Homer.
The commencement of Greek lyric poetry as a cultivated species of
composition dates from the middle of the seventh century before the
Christian era. No important event either in the public or private life
of a Greek could dispense with this accompaniment; and the lyric song
was equally needed to solemnize the worship of the gods, to cheer the
march to battle, or to enliven the festive board. The lyric poetry,
with the exception of that of Pindar, has almost entirely perished, and
all that we possess of it; consists of a few songs and isolated
fragments.
The great satirist ARCHILOCHUS was one of the earliest and most
celebrated of all the lyric poets. He was a native of the island of
Paros, and flourished about the year 700 B.C. His fame rests chiefly
on his terrible satires, composed in the Iambic metre, in which he gave
vent to the bitterness of a disappointed man.
TYRTAEUS and ALCMAN were the two great lyric poets of Sparta, though
neither of them was a native of Lacedaemon. The personal history of
Tyrtaeus, and his warlike songs which roused the fainting courage of
the Spartans during the second Messenian war, have already been
mentioned. Alcman was originally a Lydian slave in a Spartan family,
and was emancipated by his master. He lived shortly after the second
Messenian war. His poems partake of the character of this period,
which was one of repose and enjoyment after the fatigues and perils of
war. Many of his songs celebrate the pleasures of good eating and
drinking; but the more important were intended to be sung by a chorus
at the public festivals of Sparta.
ARION was a native of Methymna in Lesbos, and lived some time at the
court of Periander, tyrant of Corinth, who began to reign B.C. 625.
Nothing is known of his life beyond the beautiful story of his escape
from the sailors with whom he sailed from Sicily to Corinth. On one
occasion, thus runs the story, Arion went to Sicily to take part in a
musical contest. He won the prize, and, laden with presents, he
embarked in a Corinthian ship to return to his friend Periander. The
rude sailors coveted his treasures, and meditated his murder. After
imploring them in vain to spare his life, he obtained permission to
play for the last time on his beloved lyre. In festal attire he placed
himself on the prow of the vessel, invoked the gods in inspired
strains, and then threw himself into the sea. But many song-loving
dolphins had assembled round the vessel, and one of them now took the
bard on its back, and carried him to Taenarum, from whence he returned
to Corinth in safety, and related his adventure to Periander. Upon the
arrival of the Corinthian vessel, Periander inquired of the sailors
after Arion, who replied that he had remained behind at Tarentum; but
when Arion, at the bidding of Periander, came forward, the sailors
owned their guilt, and were punished according to their desert. The
great improvement in lyric poetry ascribed to Arion is the invention of
the Dithyramb. This was a choral song and dance in honour of the god
Dionysus, and is of great interest in the history of poetry, since it
was the germ from which sprung at a later time the magnificent
productions of the tragic Muse at Athens.
ALCAEUS and SAPPHO were both natives of Mytilene in the island of
Lesbos, and flourished about B.C. 610-580. Their songs were composed
for a single voice, and not for the chorus, and they were each the
inventor of a new metre, which bears their name, and is familiar to us
by the well-known odes of Horace. Their poetry was the warm outpouring
of the writers' inmost feelings, and present the lyric poetry of the
AEolians at its highest point.
Alcaeus took an active part in the civil dissensions of his native
state, and warmly espoused the cause of the aristocratical party, to
which he belonged by birth. When the nobles were driven into exile, he
endeavoured to cheer their spirits by a number of most animated odes,
full of invectives against the popular party and its leaders.
Of the events of Sappho's life we have scarcely any information; and
the common story that, being in love with Phaon and finding her love
unrequited, she leaped down from the Leucadian rock, seems to have been
an invention of later times.
ANACREON was a native of the Ionian city of Teos. He spent part of his
life at Samos, under the patronage of Polycrates; and after the death
of this despot he went to Athens at the invitation of Hipparchus. The
universal tradition of antiquity represents Anacreon as a consummate
voluptuary; and his poems prove the truth of the tradition. His death
was worthy of his life, if we may believe the account that he was
choked by a grape-stone.
SIMONIDES, of the island of Ceos, was born B.C. 556, and reached a
great age. He lived many years at Athens, both at the court of
Hipparchus, together with Anacreon, and subsequently under the
democracy during the Persian wars. The struggles of Greece for her
independence furnished him with a noble subject for his muse. He
carried away the prize from AEschylus with an elegy upon the warriors
who had fallen at the battle of Marathon. Subsequently we find him
celebrating the heroes of Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, and
Plataea. He was upwards of 80 when his long poetical career at Athens
was closed with the victory which he gained with the dithyrambic chorus
in B.C. 477, making the 56th prize that he had carried off. Shortly
after this event he repaired to Syracuse at the invitation of Hiero.
Here he spent the remaining ten years of his life, not only
entertaining Hiero with his poetry, but instructing him by his wisdom;
for Simonides was a philosopher as well as a poet, and is reckoned
amongst the sophists.
PINDAR, though the contemporary of Simonides, was considerably his
junior: He was born either at, or in the neighbourhood of, Thebes in
Boeotia, about the year 522 B.C. Later writers tell us that his future
glory as a poet was miraculously foreshadowed by a swarm of bees which
rested upon his lips while he was asleep, and that this miracle first
led him to compose poetry. He commenced his professional career at an
early age, and soon acquired so great a reputation, that he was
employed by various states and princes of the Hellenic race to compose
choral songs. He was courted especially by Alexander, king of
Macedonia, and by Hiero, despot of Syracuse. The praises which he
bestowed upon Alexander are said to have been the chief reason which
led his descendant, Alexander the Great, to spare the house of the poet
when he destroyed the rest of Thebes. The estimation in which Pindar
was held is also shown by the honours conferred upon him by the free
states of Greece. Although a Theban, he was always a great favourite
with the Athenians, whom he frequently praised in his poems, and who
testified their gratitude by making him their public guest, and by
giving him 10,000 drachmas. The only poems of Pindar which have come
down to us entire are his Epinicia or triumphal odes, composed in
commemoration of victories gained in the great public games. But these
were only a small portion of his works. He also wrote hymns, paeans,
dithyrambs, odes for processions, songs of maidens, mimic dancing
songs, drinking songs, dirges and encomia, or panegyrics on princes.
The Greeks had arrived at a high pitch of civilization before they can
be said to have possessed a HISTORY. The first essays in literary
prose cannot be placed earlier than the sixth century before the
Christian aera; but the first writer who deserves the name of an
historian is HERODOTUS, hence called the Father of History. Herodotus
was born in the Dorian colony of Halicarnassus in Caria, in the year
484 B.C., and accordingly about the time of the Persian expeditions
into Greece. He resided some years in Samos, and also undertook
extensive travels, of which he speaks in his work. There was scarcely
a town in Greece or on the coasts of Asia Minor with which he was not
acquainted; he had explored Thrace and the coasts of the Black Sea; in
Egypt he had penetrated as far south as Elephantine; and in Asia he had
visited the cities of Babylon, Ecbatana, and Susa. The latter part of
his life was spent at Thurii, a colony founded by the Athenians in
Italy in B.C. 443. According to a well-known story in Lucian,
Herodotus, when he had completed his work, recited it publicly at the
great Olympic festival, as the best means of procuring for it that
celebrity to which he felt that it was entitled. The effect is
described as immediate and complete. The delighted audience at once
assigned the names of the nine Muses to the nine books into which it is
divided. A still later author (Suidas) adds, that Thucydides, then a
boy, was present at the festival with his father Olorus, and was so
affected by the recital as to shed tears; upon which Herodotus
congratulated Olorus on having a son who possessed so early such a zeal
for knowledge. But there are many objections to the probability of
these tales.
Herodotus interwove into his history all the varied and extensive
knowledge acquired in his travels, and by big own personal researches.
But the real subject of the work is the conflict between the Greek
race, in the widest sense of the term, and including the Greeks of Asia
Minor, with the Asiatics. Thus the historian had a vast epic subject
presented to him, which was brought to a natural and glorious
termination by the defeat of the Persians in their attempts upon
Greece. The work concludes with the reduction of Sestos by the
Athenians, B.C. 478. Herodotus wrote in the Ionic dialect, and his
style is marked by an ease and simplicity which lend it an
indescribable charm.
THUCYDIDES, the greatest of the Greek historians, was an Athenian, and
was born in the year 471 B.C. His family was connected with that of
Miltiades and Cimon. He possessed gold-mines in Thrace, and enjoyed
great influence in that country. He commanded an Athenian squadron of
seven ships at Thasos, in 424 B.C., at the time when Brasidas was
besieging Amphipolis; and having failed to relieve that city in time,
he went into a voluntary exile, in order probably to avoid the
punishment of death. He appears to have spent 20 years in banishment,
principally in the Peloponnesus, or in places under the dominion or
influence of Sparta. He perhaps returned to Athens in B.C. 403, the
date of its liberation by Thrasybulus. According to the unanimous
testimony of antiquity he met with a violent end, and it seems probable
that he was assassinated at Athens, since it cannot be doubted that his
tomb existed there. From the beginning of the Peloponnesian war he had
designed to write its history, and he employed himself in collecting
materials for that purpose during its continuance; but it is most
likely that the work was not actually composed till after the
conclusion of the war, and that he was engaged upon it at the time of
his death. The first book of his History is introductory, and contains
a rapid sketch of Grecian history from the remotest times to the
breaking out of the war. The remaining seven books are filled with the
details of the war, related according to the division into summers and
winters, into which all campaigns naturally fall; and the work breaks
off abruptly in the middle of the 21st year of the war (B.C. 411). The
materials of Thucydides were collected with the most scrupulous care;
the events are related with the strictest impartiality; and the work
probably offers a more exact account of a long and eventful period than
any other contemporary history, whether ancient or modern, of an
equally long and important aera. The style of Thucydides is brief and
sententious, and whether in moral or political reasoning, or in
description, gains wonderful force from its condensation. But this
characteristic is sometimes carried to a faulty extent, so as to render
his style harsh, and his meaning obscure.
XENOPHON, the son of Gryllus, was also an Athenian, and was probably
born about B.C. 444. He was a pupil of Socrates, who saved his life at
the battle of Delium (B.C. 424). His accompanying Cyrus the younger in
his expedition against his brother Artaxerxes, king of Persia, formed a
striking episode in his life, and has been recorded by himself in his
ANABASIS. He seems to have been still in Asia at the time of the death
of Socrates in 399 B.C., and was probably banished from Athens soon
after that period, in consequence of his close connexion with the
Lacedaemonians. He accompanied Agesilaus, the Spartan king, on the
return of the latter from Asia to Greece; and he fought along with the
Lacedaemonians against his own countrymen at the battle of Coronea in
394 B.C. After this battle he went with Agesilaus to Sparta, and soon
afterwards settled at Scillus in Elis, near Olympia. He is said to
have lived to more than 90 years of age, and he mentions an event which
occurred as late as 357 B.C.
Probably all the works of Xenophon are still extant. The ANABASIS is
the work on which his fame as an historian chiefly rests. It is
written in a simple and agreeable style, and conveys much curious and
striking information. The HELLENICA is a continuation of the history
of Thucydides, and comprehends in seven books a space of about 48
years; namely, from the time when Thucydides breaks off, B.C. 411, to
the battle of Mantinea in 362. The subject is treated in a very dry
and uninteresting style; and his evident partiality to Sparta, and
dislike of Athens, have frequently warped his judgment, and must cause
his statements to be received with some suspicion. The CYROPAEDIA, one
of the most pleasing and popular of his works, professes to be a
history of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian monarchy, but is in
reality a kind of political romance, and possesses no authority
whatever as an historical work. The design of the author seems to have
been to draw a picture of a perfect state; and though the scene is laid
in Persia, the materials of the work are derived from his own
philosophical notions and the usages of Sparta engrafted on the
popularly current stories respecting Cyrus. Xenophon displays in this
work his dislike of democratic institutions like those of Athens, and
his preference for an aristocracy, or even a monarchy. Xenophon was
also the author of several minor works; but the only other treatise
which we need mention is the MEMORABILIA of Socrates, in four books,
intended as a defence of his master against the charges which
occasioned his death, and which undoubtedly contains a genuine picture
of Socrates and his philosophy. The genius of Xenophon was not of the
highest order; it was practical rather than speculative; but he is
distinguished for his good sense, his moderate views, his humane
temper, and his earnest piety.
The DRAMA pre-eminently distinguished Athenian literature. The
democracy demanded a literature of a popular kind, the vivacity of the
people a literature that made a lively impression; and both these
conditions were fulfilled by the drama. But though brought to
perfection among the Athenians, tragedy and comedy, in their rude and
early origin, were Dorian inventions. Both arose out of the worship of
Dionysus. There was at first but little distinction between these two
species of the drama, except that comedy belonged more to the rural
celebration of the Dionysiac festivals, and tragedy to that in cities.
The name of TRAGEDY was far from signifying any thing mournful, being
derived from the goat-like appearance of those who, disguised as
Satyrs, performed the old Dionysiac songs and dances. In like manner,
COMEDY was called after the song of the band of revellers who
celebrated the vintage festivals of Dionysus, and vented the rude
merriment inspired by the occasion in jibes and extempore witticisms
levelled at the spectators. Tragedy, in its more perfect form, was the
offspring of the dithyrambic odes with which that worship was
celebrated. These were not always of a joyous cast. Some of them
expressed the sufferings of Dionysus; and it was from this more
mournful species of dithyramb that tragedy, properly so called, arose.
The dithyrambic odes formed a kind of lyrical tragedy, and were sung by
a chorus of fifty men, dancing round the altar of Dionysus. The
improvements in the dithyramb were introduced by Arion at Corinth; and
it was chiefly among the Dorian states of the Peloponnesus that these
choral dithyrambic songs prevailed. Hence, even in attic tragedy, the
chorus, which was the foundation of the drama, was written in the Doric
dialect, thus clearly betraying the source from which the Athenians
derived it.
In Attica an important alteration was made in the old tragedy in the
time of Pisistratus, in consequence of which it obtained a new and
dramatic character. This innovation is ascribed to THESPIS, a native
of the Attic village of Icaria, B.C. 535. It consisted in the
introduction of an actor for the purpose of giving rest to the chorus.
Thespis was succeeded by Choerilus and Phrynichus, the latter of whom
gained his first prize in the dramatic contests in 511 B.C. The Dorian
Pratinas, a native of Philius, but who exhibited his tragedies at
Athens, introduced an improvement in tragedy by separating the Satyric
from the tragic drama. As neither the popular taste nor the ancient
religious associations connected with the festivals of Dionysus would
have permitted the chorus of Satyrs to be entirely banished from the
tragic representations, Pratinas avoided this by the invention of what
is called the Satyric drama; that is, a species of play in which the
ordinary subjects of tragedy were treated in a lively and farcical
manner, and in which the chorus consisted of a band of Satyrs in
appropriate dresses and masks. After this period it became customary
to exhibit dramas in TETRALOGIES, or sets of four; namely, a tragic
trilogy, or series of three tragedies, followed by a Satyric play.
These were often on connected subjects; and the Satyric drama at the
end served like a merry after-piece to relieve the minds of the
spectators.
The subjects of Greek tragedy were taken, with few exceptions, from the
national mythology. Hence the plot and story were of necessity known
to the spectators, a circumstance which strongly distinguished the
ancient tragedy from the modern. It must also be recollected that the
representation of tragedies did not take place every day, but only,
after certain fixed intervals, at the festivals of Dionysus, of which
they formed one of the greatest attractions. During the whole day the
Athenian public sat in the theatre witnessing tragedy after tragedy;
and a prize was awarded by judges appointed for the purpose to the poet
who produced the best set of dramas.
Such was Attic tragedy when it came into the hands of AESCHYLUS, who,
from the great improvements which he introduced, was regarded by the
Athenians as its father or founder, just as Homer was of Epic poetry,
and Herodotus of History. AEschylus was born at Eleusis in Attica in
B.C. 525, and was thus contemporary with Simonides and Pindar. He
fought with his brother Cynaegirus at the battle of Marathon, and also
at those of Artemisium, Salamis, and Plataea. In B.C. 484 he gained
his first tragic prize. In 468 he was defeated in a tragic contest by
his younger rival Sophocles; shortly afterwards he retired to the court
of king Hiero, at Syracuse, He died at Gela, in Sicily, in 456, in the
69th year of his age. It is unanimously related that an eagle,
mistaking the poet's bald head for a stone, let a tortoise fall upon it
in order to break the shell, thus fulfilling an oracle predicting that
he was to die by a blow from heaven. The improvements introduced into
tragedy by AEschylus concerned both its form and composition, and its
manner of representation. In the former his principal innovation was
the introduction of a second actor; whence arose the dialogue, properly
so called, and the limitation of the choral parts, which now became
subsidiary. His improvements in the manner of representing tragedy
consisted in the introduction of painted scenes, drawn according to the
rules of perspective. He furnished the actors with more appropriate
and more magnificent dresses, invented for them more various and
expressive masks, and raised their stature to the heroic size by
providing them with thick-soled cothurni or buskins. AEschylus excels
in representing the superhuman, in depicting demigods and heroes, and
in tracing the irresistible march of fate. His style resembles the
ideas which it clothes: it is bold, sublime, and full of gorgeous
imagery, but sometimes borders on the turgid.
SOPHOCLES, the younger rival and immediate successor of Aeschylus in
the tragic art, was born at Colonus, a village about a mile from
Athens, in B.C. 495. We have already adverted to his wresting the
tragic prize from AEschylus in 468, from which time he seems to have
retained the almost undisputed possession of the Athenian stage, until
a young but formidable rival arose in the person of Euripides. The
close of his life was troubled with family dissensions. Iophon, his
son by an Athenian wife, and therefore his legitimate heir, was jealous
of the affection manifested by his father for his grandson Sophocles,
the offspring of another son, Ariston, whom he had had by a Sicyonian
woman. Fearing lest his father should bestow a great part of his
property upon his favourite, Iophon summoned him before the Phratores,
or tribesmen, on the ground that his mind was affected. The old man's
only reply was--"If I am Sophocles I am not beside myself; and if I am
beside myself I am not Sophocles." Then taking up his OEDIPUS AT
COLONUS, which he had lately written, but had not yet brought out, he
read from it a beautiful passage, with which the judges were so struck
that they at once dismissed the case. He died shortly afterwards, in
B.C. 406, in his 90th year. As a poet Sophocles is universally allowed
to have brought the drama to the greatest perfection of which it is
susceptible. His plays stand in the just medium between the sublime
but unregulated flights of AEschylus, and the too familiar scenes and
rhetorical declamations of Euripides. His plots are worked up with
more skill and care than the plots of either of his great rivals.
Sophocles added the last improvement to the form of the drama by the
introduction of a third actor; a change which greatly enlarged the
scope of the action. The improvement was so obvious that it was
adopted by AEschylus in his later plays; but the number of three actors
seems to have been seldom or never exceeded.
EURIPIDES was born in the island of Salamis, in B.C. 480 his parents
having been among those who fled thither at the time of the invasion of
Attics by Xerxes. He studied rhetoric under Prodicus, and physics
under Anaxagoras and he also lived on intimate terms with Socrates. In
441 he gained his first prize, and he continued to exhibit plays until
408, the date of his Orestes. Soon after this he repaired to the court
of Macedonia, at the invitation of king Archelaus, where he died two
years afterwards at the age of 74 (B.C. 406). Common report relates
that he was torn to pieces by the king's dogs, which, according to some
accounts, were set upon him by two rival poets out of envy. In
treating his characters and subjects Euripides often arbitrarily
departed from the received legends, and diminished the dignity of
tragedy by depriving it of its ideal character, and by bringing it down
to the level of every-day life. His dialogue was garrulous and
colloquial, wanting in heroic dignity, and frequently frigid through
misplaced philosophical disquisitions. Yet in spite of all these
faults Euripides has many beauties, and is particularly remarkable for
pathos, so that Aristotle calls him "the most tragic of poets."
Comedy received its full development at Athens from Cratinus, who lived
in the age of Pericles. Cratinus, and his younger contemporaries
Eupolis and Aristophanes, were the three great poets of what is called
the Old Attic Comedy. The comedies of Cratinus and Eupolis are lost;
but of Aristophanes, who was the greatest of the three, we have eleven
dramas extant. ARISTOPHANES was born about 444 B.C. Of his private
life we know positively nothing. He exhibited his first comedy in 427,
and from that time till near his death, which probably happened about
380, he was a frequent contributor to the Attic stage. The OLD ATTIC
COMEDY was a powerful vehicle for the expression of opinion; and most
of the comedies of Aristophanes turned either upon political
occurrences, or upon some subject which excited the interest of the
Athenian public. Their chief object was to excite laughter by the
boldest and most ludicrous caricature; and provided that end was
attained the poet seems to have cared but little about the justice of
the picture. Towards the end of the career of Aristophanes the
unrestricted licence and libellous personality of comedy began
gradually to disappear. The chorus was first curtailed and then
entirely suppressed, and thus made way for what is called the Middle
Comedy, which had no chorus at all. The latter still continued to be
in some degree political; but persons were no longer introduced upon
the stage under their real names, and the office of the chorus was very
much curtailed. It was, in fact, the connecting link between the Old
Comedy and the New, or the Comedy of Manners. The NEW COMEDY arose
after Athens had become subject to the Macedonians. Politics were now
excluded from the stage, and the materials of the dramatic poet were
derived entirely from the fictitious adventures of persons in private
life. The two most distinguished writers of this school were PHILEMON
and MENANDER. Philemon was probably born about the year 360 B.C., and
was either a Cilician or Syracusan, but came at an early age to Athens.
He is considered as the founder of the New Comedy, which was soon
afterwards brought to perfection by his younger contemporary Menander.
The latter was an Athenian, and was born in B.C. 312. He was drowned
at the age of 52, whilst swimming in the harbour of Piraeus. He wrote
upwards of 100 comedies, of which only fragments remain; and the
unanimous praise of posterity awakens our regret for the loss of one of
the most elegant writers of antiquity. The comedies, indeed, of
Plautus and Terence may give us a general notion of the New Comedy of
the Greeks, from which they were confessedly drawn; but there is good
reason to suppose that the works even of the latter Roman writer fell
far short of the wit and elegance of Menander.
The latter days of literary Athens were chiefly distinguished by the
genius of her ORATORS and PHILOSOPHERS. There were ten Attic orators,
whose works were collected by the Greek grammarians, and many of whose
orations have come down to us. Their names are Antiphon, Andocides,
Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, AEschines, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Hyperides
and Dinarchus. ANTIPHON, the earliest of the ten was born B.C. 480.
He opened a school of rhetoric, and numbered among his pupils the
historian Thucydides. Antiphon was put to death in 411 B.C. for the
part which he took in establishing the oligarchy of the Four Hundred.
ANDOCIDES, who was concerned with Alcibiades in the affair of the
Hermae, was born at Athens in B.C. 467, tend died probably about 391.
LYSIAS, also born at Athens in 458, was much superior to Andocides as
an orator, but being a METIC or resident alien, he was not allowed to
speak in the assemblies or courts of justice, and therefore wrote
orations for others to deliver.
ISOCRATES was born in 436. After receiving the instructions of some of
the most celebrated sophists of the day, he became himself a
speech-writer and professor of rhetoric; his weakly constitution and
natural timidity preventing him from taking a part in public life. He
made away with himself in 338, after the fatal battle of Chaeronea, in
despair, it is said, of his country's fate. He took great pains with
his compositions, and is reported to have spent ten, or, according to
others, fifteen years over his Panegyric oration.
ISAEUS flourished between the end of the Peloponnesian war and the
accession of Philip of Macedon. He opened a school of rhetoric at
Athens, and is said to have numbered Demosthenes among his pupils. The
orations of Isaeus were exclusively judicial, and the whole of the
eleven which have come down to us turn on the subject of inheritances.
AESCHINES was born in the year 389, and he was at first a violent
anti-Macedonian; but after his embassy along with Demosthenes and
others to Philip's court, he was the constant advocate of peace,
Demosthenes and AEschines now became the leading speakers on their
respective sides, and the heat of political animosity soon degenerated
into personal hatred. In 343 Demosthenes charged AEschines with having
received bribes from Philip during a second embassy; and the speech in
which he brought forward this accusation was answered in another by
AEschines. The result of this charge is unknown, but it seems to have
detracted from the popularity of AEschines. We have already adverted
to his impeachment of Ctesiphon, and the celebrated reply of
Demosthenes in his speech DE CORONA. After the banishment of AEschines
on this occasion (B.C. 330), he employed himself in teaching rhetoric
at Rhodes. He died in Samos in 314. As an orator he was second only
to Demosthenes.
Of the life of his great rival, DEMOSTHENES, we have already given some
account. The verdict of his contemporaries, ratified by posterity, has
pronounced Demosthenes the greatest; orator that ever lived. The
principal element of his success must be traced in his purity of
purpose, which gave to his arguments all the force of conscientious
conviction. The effect of his speeches was still further heightened by
a wonderful and almost magic force of diction. The grace and vivacity
of his delivery are attested by the well-known anecdote of AEschines,
when he read at Rhodes his speech against Ctesiphon. His audience
having expressed their surprise that he should have been defeated after
such an oration "You would cease to wonder," he remarked, "if you had
heard Demosthenes."
The remaining three Attic orators, viz. LYCURGUS, HYPERIDES, and
DINARCHUS, were contemporaries of Demosthenes. Lycurgus and Hyperides
both belonged to the anti-Macedonian party, and were warm supporters of
the policy of Demosthenes. Dinarchus, who is the least important of
the Attic orators, survived Demosthenes, and was a friend of Demetrius
Phalereus.
The history of Greek PHILOSOPHY, like that of Greek poetry and history,
began in Asia Minor. The earliest philosopher of distinction was
THALES of Miletus, who was born about B.C. 640, and died in 554 at the
age of 90. He was the founder of the IONIC school of philosophy, and
to him were traced the first beginnings of geometry and astronomy. The
main doctrine of his philosophical system was, that water, or fluid
substance was the single original element from which everything came
and into which everything returned. ANAXIMANDER, the successor of
Thales in the Ionic school, lived from B.C. 610 to 547. He was
distinguished for his knowledge of astronomy and geography, and is said
to have been the first to introduce the use of the sun-dial into
Greece. ANAXIMENES, the third in the series of the Ionian philosophers,
lived a little later than Anaximander. He endeavoured, like Thales, to
derive the origin of all material things from a single element; and,
according to his theory, air was the source of life.
A new path was struck out by ANAXAGORAS Of Clazomenae, the most
illustrious of the Ionic philosophers. He came to Athens in 480 B.C.,
where he continued to teach for thirty years, numbering among his
hearers Pericles, Socrates, and Euripides. He abandoned the system of
his predecessors, and, instead of regarding some elementary form of
matter as the origin of all things, he conceived a supreme mind or
intelligence, distinct from the visible world, to have imparted form
and order to the chaos of nature. These innovations afforded the
Athenians a pretext for indicting Anaxagoras of impiety, though it is
probable that his connexion with Pericles was the real cause of that
proceeding (see Ch. IX). It was only through the influence and
eloquence of Pericles that he was not put to death; but he was
sentenced to pay a fine of five talents and quit Athens. The
philosopher retired to Lampsacus, where he died at the age of 72.
The second school of Greek philosophy was the ELEATIC which derived its
name from Elea or Velia, a Greek colony on the western coast of
Southern Italy. It was founded by XENOPHANES of Colophon, who fled to
Elea on the conquest of his native land by the Persians. He conceived
the whole of nature to be God.
The third school of philosophy was the PYTHAGOREAN, founded by
PYTHAGORAS. He was a native of Samos and was born about B.C. 580. His
father was an opulent merchant, and Pythagoras himself travelled
extensively in the East. He believed in the transmigration of souls;
and later writers relate that Pythagoras asserted that his own soul had
formerly dwelt in the body of the Trojan Euphorbus, the son of
Panthous, who was slain by Menelaus, and that in proof of his assertion
he took down, at first sight, the shield of Euphorbus from the temple
of Hera (Juno) at Argos, where it had been dedicated by Menelaus.
Pythagoras was distinguished by his knowledge of geometry and
arithmetic; and it was probably from his teaching that the Pythagoreans
were led to regard numbers in some mysterious manner as the basis and
essence of all things. He was however more of the religious teacher
than of the philosopher; and he looked upon himself as a being destined
by the gods to reveal to his disciples a new and a purer mode of life.
He founded at Croton in Italy a kind of religious brotherhood, the
members of which were bound together by peculiar rites and observances.
Everything done and taught in the fraternity was kept a profound secret
from all without its pale. It appears that the members had some private
signs, like Freemasons, by which they could recognise each other, even
if they had never met before. His doctrines spread rapidly over Magna
Graecia, and clubs of a similar character were established at Sybaris,
Metapontum, Tarentum, and other cities.
At Athens a new direction was given to the study of philosophy by
Socrates, of whom an account has been already given. To his teaching
either directly of indirectly may be traced the origin of the four
principal Grecian schools: the ACADEMICIANS, established by Plato; the
PERIPATETICS, founded by his pupil Aristotle; the EPICUREANS, so named
from their master Epicurus; and the STOICS, founded by Zeno.
PLATO was born at Athens in 429 B.C., the year in which Pericles died.
His first literary attempts were in poetry; but his attention was soon
turned to philosophy by the teaching of Socrates, whose lectures he
began to frequent at about the age of twenty. From that time till the
death of Socrates he appears to have lived in the closest intimacy with
that philosopher. After that event Plato withdrew to Megara, and
subsequently undertook some extensive travels, in the course of which
he visited Cyrene, Egypt, Sicily, and Magna Graecia. His intercourse
with the elder and the younger Dionysius at Syracuse has been already
related His absence from Athens lasted about twelve years; on his
return, being then upwards of forty, he began to teach in the gymnasium
of the Academy. His doctrines were too recondite for the popular ear,
and his lectures were not very numerously attended. But he had a
narrower circle of devoted admirers and disciples, consisting of about
twenty-eight persons, who met in his private house; over the vestibule
of which was inscribed--"Let no one enter who is ignorant of geometry."
The most distinguished of this little band of auditors were Speusippus,
his nephew and successor, and Aristotle. He died in 347, at the age of
81 or 82, and bequeathed his garden to his school.
ARISTOTLE was born in 381 B.C., at Stagira, a seaport town of
Chalcidice, whence he is frequently called THE STAGIRITE. At the age
of 17, Aristotle, who had then lost both father and mother, repaired to
Athens. Plato considered him his best scholar, and called him "the
intellect of his school." Aristotle spent twenty years at Athens,
during the last ten of which he established a school of his own. In
342 he accepted the invitation of Philip of Macedon to undertake the
instruction of his son Alexander. In 335, after Alexander had ascended
the throne, Aristotle quitted Macedonia, to which he never returned.
He again took up his abode at Athens, where the Athenians assigned him
the gymnasium called the Lyceum; and from his habit of delivering his
lectures whilst walking up and down in the shady walks of this place,
his school was called the PERIPATETIC. In the morning he lectured only
to a select class of pupils, called ESOTERIC. His afternoon lectures
were delivered to a wider circle, and were therefore called EXOTERIC.
It was during the thirteen years in which he presided over the Lyceum
that he composed the greater part of his works, and prosecuted his
researches in natural history, in which he was most liberally assisted
by the munificence of Alexander. The latter portion of Aristotle's life
was unfortunate. He appears to have lost from some unknown cause the
friendship of Alexander; and, after the death of that monarch, the
disturbances which ensued in Greece proved unfavourable to his peace
and security. Being threatened with a prosecution for impiety, he
escaped from Athens and retired to Chalcis; but he was condemned to
death in his absence, and deprived of all the rights and honours which
he had previously enjoyed. He died at Chalcis in 322, in the 63rd year
of his age.
Of all the philosophical systems of antiquity, that of Aristotle was
best adapted to the practical wants of mankind. It was founded on a
close and accurate observation of human nature and of the external
world; but whilst it sought the practical and useful, it did not
neglect the beautiful and noble. His works consisted of treatises on
natural, moral and political philosophy, history, rhetoric, criticism,
&c.; indeed there is scarcely a branch of knowledge which his vast and
comprehensive genius did not embrace.
EPICURUS was born at Samos in 342, and settled at Athens at about the
age of 35. Here he purchased a garden, where he established his
philosophical school. He taught that pleasure is the highest good; a
tenet, however, which he explained and dignified by showing that it was
mental pleasure that he intended. The ideas of atheism and sensual
degradation with which the name of Epicurus has been so frequently
coupled are founded on ignorance of his real teaching. But as he
denied the immortality of the soul, and the interference of the gods in
human affairs,--though he held their existence,--his tenets were very
liable to be abused by those who had not sufficient elevation of mind
to love virtue for its own sake.
ZENO was a native of Citium in the island of Cyprus, and settled at
Athens about B.C. 299. Here he opened a school in the Poecile Stoa, or
painted porch, whence the name of his sect. He inculcated temperance
and self-denial, and his practice was in accordance with his precept.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Smaller History of Greece, by William Smith