EARLY GREEK LITERATURE, AND GREEK COMMUNITY OF INTERESTS.
The earliest written compositions of the Greeks, of which tradition
or history has preserved any record, were poetical; a circumstance
which, noticed in other nations also, has led to the assertion
that poetry is preeminently the language of Nature. But the first
poetical compositions of the Greeks were not written. The earliest
of them were undoubtedly the religious teachings of the priests
and seers; and these were soon followed by others founded on the
legends and genealogies of the Grecian heroes, which were addressed,
by their authors, to the ear and feelings of a sympathizing
audience, and were then taken up by professional reciters, called
Rhapsodists, who traveled from place to place, rehearsing them
before private companies or at the public festivals.
Of the Greek colonists of Asia the Ionians possessed the highest
culture, and with them we find the first development of Greek
poetry. Drawing from the common language a richer tone and a
clearness and graphic power that their neighbors never equaled,
they early unfolded the ancient legends and genealogies of the
race into new and enlarged forms of poetical beauty. Says DR.
C. C. FELTON,[Footnote: "Lectures on Ancient and Modern Greece,"
vol. i., p. 78.] "In Ionia the popular enthusiasm took a poetical
turn, and the genius of that richly gifted race responded nobly
to the call. The poets--singers as they were first called--found
in the Orally transmitted ballads the richest mines of legendary
lore, which they wrought into new forms of rhythmical beauty and
splendor. Instead of short ballads, pieces of great length, with
more fully developed characters and more of dramatic action, were
required by a beauty loving and pleasure seeking race; and the
leisure of peace and the demands of refined luxury furnished the
occasion and the impelling motive to this more extended species of
epic song." From the highly esteemed work of Dr. Felton we transcribe
some observations on the beauties of the Ionian dialect, and on
the poetical taste and ingenuity that finally developed the immortal
epics of Homer:
Ionian Language and Culture.
"The Ionian dialect, remoulded from the Asiatic forms and elements
which had traveled through the North and recrossed the Ægean Sea,
under the happy influences of a serene and beautiful heaven, amid
the most varied and lovely scenery in nature, by a people of manly
vigor and exquisite mental and physical organization--of the
keenest susceptibility to beauty of sound as well as of form, of
the most vivid and creative imagination, combined with a childlike
impulsiveness and simplicity--this Ionian language, so sprung and
so nurtured, attained a descriptive force, a copiousness and
harmony, which made it the most admirable instrument on which
poet ever played. For every mood of mind, every shade of passion,
every affection of the heart, every form and aspect of the outward
world, it had its graphic phrase, its clear, appropriate, and
rich expression. Its pictured words and sentences placed the
things described, and thoughts that breathe, in living form
before the reader's eye and mind. It was vivid, rich, melodious;
in its general character strikingly concrete and objective; a
charm to the ear, a delight to the imagination; copious and
infinitely flexible; free and graceful in movement and structure,
having at the beginning passed over the chords of the lyre, and
been modulated by the living voice of the singer; obeying the
impulse of thought and feeling, rather than the formal principles
of grammar.
"It expressed the passions of robust manhood with artless and
unconscious truth. Its freedom, its voluble minuteness of
delineation, its rapid changes of construction, its breaks, pauses,
significant and sudden transitions, its easy irregularities,
exhibit the intellectual play of national youth; while in boldness
and splendor it meets the demands of highest invention and the
most majestic sweep of the imagination, and bears the impress
of genius in the full strength of its maturity. Frederic Jacobs
says, fancifully yet truly, that 'the language of Ionia resembles
the smooth mirror of a broad and silent lake, from whose depth
a serene sky, with its soft and sunny vault, and the varied nature
along its smiling shores are reflected in transfigured beauty.'
In Ionia, to borrow the expressions of the same eloquent writer,
the mind of man 'enjoyed a life exempt from drudgery, among fair
festivals and solemn assemblies, full of sensibility and frolic
joy, innocent curiosity and childlike faith. Surrendered to the
outer world, and inclined to all that was attractive by novelty,
beauty, and greatness, it was here that the people listened, with
greatest eagerness, to the history of the men and heroes whose
deeds, adventures, and wanderings filled a former age with their
renown, and, when they were echoed in song, moved to ecstasy the
breasts of the hearers.
"The Ionians had from the beginning a superior natural endowment
for literature and art; and when this most gifted race came into
contact with the antique culture and boundless commercial wealth
of Asia and Africa, the loveliest and most fragrant flowers of
the intellect shot forth in every direction. Carrying with them
the traditions of their race and the war-songs of their bards
to the very scenes where the famous deeds of their forefathers
had been performed, these local circumstances awakened a fresh
interest in the old legends, and epic poetry took a new start,
a bolder character, a loftier sweep, a wider range. A general
expansion of the intellectual powers and the poetical spirit
suddenly took place in the midst of the new prosperity and the
unaccustomed luxuries of the East--in the midst of the gay and
festive life which succeeded the ages of wandering, toil,
hardship, and conflict, like the Sabbath repose following the
weary warfare of the week. The loveliness of nature on the Ionian
shores, and in the isles that crown the Ægean deep, was soon
embellished by the genius of art. Stately processions, hymns
chanted in honor of the gods, graceful dances before the altars,
statues, and shrines, assemblies for festal or solemn purposes
in the open air under the soft sky of Ionia, or within the halls
of princes and nobles--these fill up the moments of the new and
dazzling existence which the excitable Hellenic race are invited
here and now to enjoy.
"Their first and deepest want--that which, in the foregoing
periods of their existence, had been the first supplied--was
the longing of the heart, the demand of the imagination, for
poetry and song; and it would have been surprising if the bright
genius of Ionia, under all these favoring circumstances, had not
broken upon the world with a splendor which outshone all its
former achievements. Poets sprang up, obedient to the call, and
a new school of poetical composition rapidly developed itself,
embodying the Hellenic traditions of the Trojan story, and the
legends handed down by the Trojans themselves. Troops or companies
of these poets--singers, as they were called--were formed, and
their pieces were the delight of the listening multitudes that
thronged around them. At last, among these minstrels who
consecrated the flower of their lives to the service of the
Muses, appeared a man whose genius was to eclipse them all. This
man was Homer."
* * * * *
I. HOMER AND HIS POEMS.
Not only was Homer the greatest of the poets of antiquity, but
he is generally admitted to be distinguished before all
competitors by a clear and even a vast superiority. The
circumstances of his life are but little known, except that he
was a wandering poet, and, in his later years at least, was blind.
He is supposed to have lived nearly one thousand years before the
Christian era; but, strange as it may seem, nothing is known,
with certainty, of his parentage or his birthplace. Although he
was probably a native of the island of Chi'os, yet seven Grecian
cities contended for the honor of his birth. In view of this
controversy, and of the real doubt that hung over the subject,
the poet ANTIP'ATER, of Sidon, who flourished just before the
Christian era, as if he could not give to his great predecessor
too high an exaltation, attributes his birthplace to heaven, and
he ascribes to the goddess Calli'o-pe, one of the Muses, who
presided over epic poetry and eloquence, the distinction of being
his mother.
From Col'ophon some deem thee sprung;
From Smyrna some, and some from Chios;
These noble Sal'amis have sung,
While those proclaim thee born in Ios;
And others cry up Thessaly,
The mother of the Lap'ithæ.
Thus each to Homer has assigned
The birthplace just which suits his mind.
But if I read the volume right,
By Phoebus to his followers given,
I'd say they're all mistaken quite,
And that his real country's heaven;
While, for his mother, she can be
No other than Calliope.
--Trans. by MERIVALE.
The principal works of Homer, and, in fact, the only ones that
have not been declared spurious, are the Iliad and the Odyssey.
The former, as we have seen, relates some of the circumstances
of the closing year of the Trojan war; and the latter tells the
story of the wanderings of the Grecian prince Ulysses after the
fall of Troy. The ancients, to whom the writings of Homer were
so familiar, fully believed that he was the author of the two
great epics attributed to him. It was left to modern critics to
maintain the contrary. In 1795 Professor F. A. Wolf, of Germany,
published his Prolegomena, or prefatory essay to the Iliad, in
which he advanced the hypothesis that both the Iliad and the
Odyssey were a collection of separate lays by different authors,
for the first time reduced to writing and formed into the two
great poems by the despot Pisis'tratus, of Athens, and his
friends. [Footnote: Nearly all the modern German writers follow
the views of Wolf against the Homeric authorship of this poem,
but among the English critics there is more diversity of opinion.
Colonel Mure, Mr. Gladstone, and others oppose the German view,
while Grote, Professor Geddes, Professor Mahaffy and others of
note adopt it, so far at least as to believe that Homer was not
the sole author of the poems.] We cannot here enter into the
details of the controversy to which this theory has given rise,
nor can we undertake to say on which side the weight of authority
is to be found. The following extracts well express the views
of those who adhere to the common theory on the subject. PROFESSOR
FELTON thus remarks, in the preface to his edition of the Iliad:
"For my own part I prefer to consider it, as we have received it
from ancient editors, as one poem--the work of one author, and
that author Homer, the first and greatest of minstrels. As I
understand the Iliad, there is a unity of plan, a harmony of
parts, a consistency among the different situations of the same
character, which mark it as the production of one mind; but of
a mind as versatile as the forms of nature, the aspects of life,
and the combinations of powers, propensities, and passions in
man are various."
On the same subject, the English author and critic, THOMAS NOON
TALFOURD, makes these interesting observations: "The hypothesis
to which the antagonists of Homer's personality must resort,
implies something far more wonderful than the theory which they
impugn. They profess to cherish the deepest veneration for the
genius displayed in the poems. They agree, also, in the antiquity
usually assigned to them, and they make this genius and this
antiquity the arguments to prove that one man could not have
composed them. They suppose, then, that in a barbarous age,
instead of one being marvelously gifted, there were many: a
mighty race of bards, such as the world has never since seen--a
number of miracles instead of one. All experience is against this
opinion. In various periods of the world great men have arisen,
under very different circumstances, to astonish and delight it;
but that the intuitive power should be so strangely diffused, at
any one period, among a great number, who should leave no
successors behind them, is unworthy of credit. And we are requested
to believe this to have occurred in an age which those who maintain
the theory regard as unfavorable to poetic art! The common theory,
independent of other proofs, is the most probable. Since the early
existence of the works cannot be doubted, it is easier to believe
in one than in twenty Homers."
Very numerous and varied are the characterizations of Homer and
the writings ascribed to him. POPE, in his "Temple of Fame", pays
this tribute to the ancient bard:
High on the list the mighty Homer shone;
Eternal adamant composed his throne;
Father of verse! in holy fillets dressed,
His silver beard waved gently o'er his breast;
Though blind, a boldness in his look appears;
In years he seemed, but not impaired by years.
The wars of Troy were round the pillars seen:
Here fierce Tydi'des wounds the Cyprian queen;
Here Hector, glorious from Patro'clus' fall;
Here, dragged in triumph round the Trojan wall.
Motion and life did every part inspire,
Bold was the work, and proud the master's fire:
A strong expression most he seemed to affect,
And here and there disclosed a brave neglect.
It is admitted by all that the Homeric characters are drawn,
each in its way, by a master's hand. "The most pervading merit
of the Iliad," says one, "is its fidelity and vividness as a
mirror of man, and of the visible sphere in which he lived, with
its infinitely varied imagery, both actual and ideal; and the
task which the great poet set for himself was perfectly
accomplished." "The mind of Homer," says another, "is like an
Æolian harp, so finely strung that it answers to the faintest
movement of the air by a proportionate vibration. With every
stronger current its music rises along an almost immeasurable
scale, which begins with the lowest and softest whisper, and
ends in the full swell of the organ."
The "lofty march" of the Iliad is also often spoken of as
characteristic of the style in which that great epic is written.
And yet, as has been said, "though its versification is always
appropriate, and therefore never mean, it only rises into
stateliness, or into a terrible sublimity, when Homer has occasion
to brace his energies for an effort. Thus he ushers in with true
grandeur the marshalling of the Greek army, in the Second Book,
partly by the invocation of the Muses, and partly by an assemblage
of no less than six consecutive similes, which describe,
respectively--1st, the flash of the Greek arms and the splendor
of the Grecian hosts; 2d, the swarming numbers; 3d, the resounding
tramp; 4th, the settling down of the ranks as they form the line;
5th, the busy marshalling by the commanders; 6th, the majesty of
the great chief Agamemnon, 'like Mars or Neptune, such as Jove
ordained him, eminent above all his fellow-chiefs.'"
These similes are brought in with great effect as introductory
to a catalogue of the ships and forces of the Greeks; thus pouring,
from a single point, a broad stream of splendor over the whole;
and although the enumeration which follows is only a plain matter
of business, it is not without its poetical embellishment, and
is occasionally relieved by short legends of the countries and
noted warriors of the different tribes. We introduce these striking
similes here as marked characteristics of the art of Homer, from
whom, it is little exaggeration to say, a very large proportion of
the similes of all subsequent writers have been, more or less
directly, either copied or paraphrased.
When it has been decided to lead the army to battle, the aged
Nestor thus addresses Agamemnon:
"Now bid thy heralds sound the loud alarms,
And call the squadrons sheathed in brazen arms;
Now seize the occasion, now the troops survey,
And lead to war when heaven directs the way."
He said: the monarch issued his commands;
Straight the loud heralds call the gathering bands:
The chiefs enclose their king; the hosts divide,
In tribes and nations ranked on either side.
The appearance of the gathering hosts is then described in the
following
Similes.
(1.) As on some mountain, through the lofty grove,
The crackling flames ascend, and blaze above;
The fires expanding, as the winds arise,
Shoot their long beams, and kindle half the skies;
So from the polished arms and brazen shields
A gleamy splendor flashed along the fields.
(2.) Not less their number than the embodied cranes,
Or milk-white swans on A'sius' watery plains,
That, o'er the windings of Ca-ys'ter's springs,
Stretch their long necks, and clap their rustling wings;
Now tower aloft, and course in airy rounds,
Now light with noise; with noise the field resounds.
(3.) Thus numerous and confused, extending wide,
The legions crowd Scamander's flowery side;
With rushing troops the plains are covered o'er,
And thundering footsteps shake the sounding shore.'
(4.) Along the river's level meads they stand,
Thick as in spring the flowers adorn the land,
Or leaves the trees; or thick as insects play,
The wandering nation of a summer's day,
That, drawn by milky streams, at evening hours,
In gathered swarms surround the rural bowers;
From pail to pail with busy murmur run
The gilded legions, glittering in the sun.
So thronged, so close the Grecian squadrons stood
In radiant arms, athirst for Trojan blood.
(5.) Each leader now his scattered force conjoins
In close array, and forms the deepening lines.
Not with more ease the skilful shepherd swain
Collects his flocks from thousands on the plain.
(6.) The king of kings, majestically tall,
Towers o'er his armies, and outshines them all;
Like some proud bull, that round the pastures leads
His subject herds, the monarch of the meads,
Great as the gods, the exalted chief was seen,
His chest like Neptune, and like Mars his mien;
Jove o'er his eyes celestial glories spread,
And dawning conquest played around his head.
--POPE'S Trans.
Similes abound on nearly every page of the Iliad, and they are
always appropriate to the subject. We select from them the
following additional specimen, in which the brightness and number
of the fires of the Trojans, in their encampment, are likened to
the moon and stars in their glory--when, as Cowper translates the
fourth line, "not a vapor streaks the boundless blue."
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O'er heaven's blue azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellow verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light;
So many fires before proud Ilion blaze,
And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays.
--Iliad, B. VIII. POPE'S Trans.
Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, is said to have declared of the
two great epics of Homer:
Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
For all books else appear so mean, so poor;
Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.
The following characterization, from the pen of HENRY NELSON
COLERIDGE, is both true and pleasing:
"There are many hearts and minds to which one of these matchless
poems will be more delightful than the other; there are many to
which both will give equal pleasure, though of different kinds;
but there can hardly be a person, not utterly averse to the Muses,
who will be quite insensible to the manifold charms of one or the
other. The dramatic action of the Iliad may command attention
where the diffused narrative of the Odyssey would fail to do so;
but how can anyone, who loves poetry under any shape, help
yielding up his soul to the virtuous siren-singing of Genius and
Truth, which is forever resounding from the pages of either of
These marvelous and truly immortal poems? In the Iliad will be
found the sterner lessons of public justice or public expedience,
and the examples are for statesmen and generals; in the Odyssey
we are taught the maxims of private prudence and individual virtue,
and the instances are applicable to all mankind: in both, Honesty,
Veracity, and Fortitude are commended, and set up for imitation;
in both, Treachery, Falsehood, and Cowardice are condemned, and
exposed for our scorn and avoidance.
"Born, like the river of Egypt, in secret light, these poems
yet roll on their great collateral streams, wherein a thousand
poets have bathed their sacred heads, and thence drunk beauty
and truth, and all sweet and noble harmonies. Known to no man
is the time or place of their gushing forth from the earth's
bosom, but their course has been among the fields and by the
dwellings of men, and our children now sport on their banks and
quaff their salutary waters. Of all the Greek poetry, I, for
one, have no hesitation in saying that the Iliad and the Odyssey
are the most delightful, and have been the most instructive works
to me; there is a freshness about them both which never fades, a
truth and sweetness which charmed me as a boy and a youth, and
on which, if I attain to it, I count largely for a soothing
recreation in my old age."
* * * * *
II. SOME CAUSES OF GREEK UNITY.
The natural causes which tended to unite the Greeks as a people
were a common descent, a common language, and a common religion.
Greek genius led the nation to trace its origin, where historical
memory failed, to fabulous persons sprung from the earth or the
gods; and under the legends of primitive and heroic ancestors lie
the actual migrations and conquests of rude bands sprung from
related or allied tribes. These poetical tales, accepted throughout
Hellas as historical, convinced the people of a common origin.
Thus the Greeks had a common share in the renown of their ancient
heroes, upon whose achievements or lineage the claims of families
to hereditary authority, and of states to the leadership of
confederacies, were grounded. The pride or the ambition of political
rivals led to the gradual embellishment of these traditions, and
ended in ancestral worship. Thus Attica had a temple to Theseus,
the Ionian hero; the shrine of Æsculapius at Epidau'rus was famous
throughout the classic world; and the exploits of Hercules were
commemorated by the Dorians at the tomb of a Ne'mean king. When
the bard and the playwright clothed these tales in verse, all
Greece hearkened; and when the painter or the sculptor took these
subjects for his skill, all Greece applauded. Thus was strengthened
the national sense of fraternal blood.
The possession of a common speech is so great a means of union,
that the Romans imposed the Latin tongue on all public business
and official records, even where Greek was the more familiar
language; and the Mediæval Church displayed her unity by the
use of Latin in every bishopric on all occasions of public worship.
A language not only makes the literature embodied in it the
heritage of all who speak it, but it diffuses among them the
subtle genius which has shaped its growth. The lofty regard in
which the Greeks held their own musical and flexible language is
illustrated by an anecdote of Themis'tocles, who put to death
the interpreter of a Persian embassy to Athens because he dared
"to use the Greek tongue to utter the demands of the barbarian
king." From Col'chis to Spain some Grecian dialect attested the
extent and the unity of the Hellenic race.
The Greek institutions of religion were still more powerful
instruments of unity. It was the genius of a race destitute of
an organized priesthood, and not the fancy of the poet, which
animated nature by personifying its forces. Zeus was the
all-embracing heavens, the father of gods and men; Neptune
presided over the seas; Deme'ter gave the harvest; Juno was the
goddess of reproduction, and Aphrodi'te the patroness of Jove;
while Apollo represented the joy-inspiring orb of day. The same
imagination raised the earth to sentient life by assigning Dryads
to the trees, Naiads to the fountains and brooks, O're-ads to
the hills, Ner'e-ids to the seas, and Satyrs to the fields; and
in this many-sided and devout sympathy with nature the imagination
and reverence of all Greece found expression. But Greek religion
in its temples, its oracles, its games, and its councils, provided
more tangible bonds of union than those of sentiment. Each city
had its tutelary deity, whose temple was usually the most beautiful
building in it, and to which any Greek might have access to make
his offering or prayer. The sacred precincts were not to be profaned
by those who were polluted with unexpiated crime, nor by blood,
nor by the presence of the dead: Hence the temples of Greece were
places of refuge for those who would escape from private or judicial
vengeance. The more famous oracles of Greece were at Dodo'na, at
Delphi, at Lebade'a in Bœotia, and at Epidaurus in Ar'golis.
They were consulted by those who wished to penetrate the future.
To this superstition the Greeks were greatly addicted, and they
allowed the gravest business to wait for the omens of the diviner.
A people thus disposed demanded and secured unmolested access to
the oracle. The city in whose custody it was must be inviolable,
and the roads thereto unobstructed. The oracle was a national
possession, and its keepers were national servants.
THE GRECIAN FESTIVALS.
The public games or festivals of the Greeks were probably of
greater efficacy in promoting a spirit of union than any other
outgrowth of the religions sentiment of Greece. The Greeks
exhibited a passionate fondness for festivals and games, which
were occasionally celebrated in every state for the amusement
of the people. These, however, were far less interesting than
the four great public games, sacred to the gods, which were--the
Pythian, at Delphos, sacred to Apollo; the Isth'mian, at Corinth,
to Neptune; the Nemean, at Nemea, to Hercules; and the Olympic,
at Olympia in E'lis, to Jupiter. To these cities flocked the
young and the aged, the private citizen and the statesman, the
trader and the artist, to witness or engage in the spectacles.
The games were open to all citizens who could prove their Hellenic
origin; and prizes were awarded for the best exhibitions of skill
in poetry--and in running, wrestling, boxing, leaping, pitching
the discus, or quoit, throwing the javelin, and chariot-racing.
The most important of these games was the Olympic, though it
involved many principles common to the others. Its origin is
obscure; and, though it appears that during the Heroic Age some
Grecian chiefs celebrated their victories in public games at
Olympia, yet it was not until the time of Lycurgus, in 776 B.C.,
that the games at Olympia were brought under certain rules, and
performed at certain periods. At that time they were revived,
so to speak, and were celebrated at the close of every fourth
year. From their quadrennial occurrence all Hellas computed its
chronology, the interval that elapsed between one celebration
and the next being called an Olympiad. During the month that the
games continued there was a complete suspension of all hostilities,
to enable every Greek to attend them without hindrance or danger.
One of the most popular and celebrated of all the matches held
at these games was chariot-racing, with four horses. The following
description of one of these races is taken from a tragedy of
SOPHOCLES--the Electra--translated by Bulwer. Orestes, son of
Agamemnon, had gained five victories on the first day of the
trial; and on the second, of which the account is here given,
he starts with nine competitors--an Achæan, a Spartan, two Libyans,
an Ætolian, a Magnesian; an Æ'ni-an, an Athenian, and a Bœotian
--and meets his death in the moment of triumph.
The Chariot-race, and the Death of Orestes.
They took their stand where the appointed judges
Had cast their lots and ranged the rival cars.
Rang out the brazen trump! Away they bound!
Cheer the hot steeds and shake the slackened reins;
As with a body the large space is filled
With the huge clangor of the rattling cars;
High whirl aloft the dust-clouds; blent together
Each presses each, and the lash rings, and loud
Snort the wild steeds, and from their fiery breath,
Along their manes, and down the circling wheels,
Scatter the flaking foam.
Orestes still,
Aye, as he swept around the perilous pillar
Last in the course, wheeled in the rushing axle,
The left rein curbed--that on the outer hand
Flung loose. So on erect the chariots rolled!
Sudden the Ænian's fierce and headlong steeds
Broke from the bit, and, as the seventh time now
The course was circled, on the Libyan car
Dashed their wild fronts: then order changed to ruin;
Car dashed on car; the wide Crissæ'an plain
Was, sea-like, strewn with wrecks: the Athenian saw,
Slackened his speed, and, wheeling round the marge,
Unscathed and skilful, in the midmost space,
Left the wild tumult of that tossing storm.
Behind, Orestes, hitherto the last,
Had kept back his coursers for the close;
Now one sole rival left--on, on he flew,
And the sharp sound of the impelling scourge
Rang in the keen ears of the flying steeds.
He nears--he reaches--they are side by side;
Now one--now th' other--by a length the victor.
The courses all are past, the wheels erect--
All safe--when, as the hurrying coursers round
The fatal pillar dashed, the wretched boy
Slackened the left rein. On the column's edge
Crashed the frail axle--headlong from the car,
Caught and all mesh'd within the reins, he fell;
And! masterless, the mad steeds raged along!
Loud from that mighty multitude arose
A shriek--a shout! But yesterday such deeds--
To-day such doom! Now whirled upon the earth,
Now his limbs dashed aloft, they dragged him, those
Wild horses, till, all gory, from the wheels
Released--and no man, not his nearest friends,
Could in that mangled corpse have traced Orestes.
They laid the body on the funeral pyre,
And, while we speak, the Phocian strangers bear,
In a small, brazen, melancholy urn,
That handful of cold ashes to which all
The grandeur of the beautiful hath shrunk.
Within they bore him--in his father's land
To find that heritage, a tomb.
The Pythian games are said to have been established in honor
of the victory that Apollo gained at Delphi over the serpent
Py'thon, on setting out to erect his temple. This monster, said
to have sprung from the stagnant waters of the deluge of
Deucalion, may have been none other than the malaria which laid
waste the surrounding country, and which some early benefactor
of the race overcame by draining the marshes; or, perhaps, as
the English writer, Dodwell, suggests, the true explanation of
the allegorical fiction is that the serpent was the river
Cephis'sus, which, after the deluge had overflowed the plains,
surrounded Parnassus with its serpentine involutions, and was
at length reduced, by the rays of the sun-god, within its due
limits. The poet OVID gives the following relation of the fable:
Apollo's Conflict with Python.
From hence the surface of the ground, with mud
And slime besmeared (the refuse of the flood),
Received the rays of heaven, and sucking in
The seeds of heat, new creatures did begin.
Some were of several sorts produced before;
But, of new monsters, earth created more.
Unwillingly, but yet she brought to light
Thee, Python, too, the wondering world to fright,
And the new nations, with so dire a sight,
So monstrous was his bulk; so large a space
Did his vast body and long train embrace;
Whom Phoebus, basking on a bank, espied.
Ere now the god his arrows had not tried
But on the trembling deer or mountain-goat:
At this new quarry he prepares to shoot.
Though every shaft took place, he spent the store
Of his full quiver; and 'twas long before
The expiring serpent wallowed in his gore.
Then, to preserve the fame of such a deed,
For Python slain he Pythian games decreed,
Where noble youths for mastership should strive--
To quoit, to run, and steeds and chariots drive.
The prize was fame; in witness of renown,
An oaken garland did the victor crown.
The laurel was not yet for triumphs born,
But every green, alike by Phoebus worn,
Did, with promiscuous grace, his flowing locks adorn.
--Metamorphoses. Trans. by DRYDEN.
The victory of Apollo over the Python is represented by a statue
called Apollo Belvedere, perhaps the greatest existing work of
ancient art. It was found in 1503, among the ruins of ancient
Antium, and it derives its name from its position in the belvedere,
or open gallery, of the Vatican at Rome, where it was placed by
Pope Julius II. It shows the conception which the ancients had
of this benign deity, and also the high degree of perfection to
which they had attained in sculpture. A modern writer gives the
following account of it:
"The statue is of heroic size, and shows the very perfection
of manly beauty. The god stands with the left arm extended, still
holding the bow, while the right hand, which has just left the
string, is near his hip. This right hand and part of the right
arm, as well as the left hand, were wanting in the statue when
found, and were restored by Angelo da Montor'soli, a pupil of
Michael Angelo. The figure is nude; only a short cloak hangs over
the left shoulder. The breast is full and dilated; the muscles are
conspicuous, though not exaggerated; the body seems a little thin
about the hips, but is poised with such singular grace as to impart
to the whole a beauty hardly possessed by any other statue. The
sculptor is not known: many attribute the statue to He-ge'si-as,
the Ephesian, others to Praxit'e-les or Cal'amis; but its origin
and date must remain a matter of conjecture."
The following poetical description of this wonderful statue is
given us by THOMSON:
All conquest-flushed, from prostrate Python came
The quivered god. In graceful act he stands,
His arm extended with the slackened bow:
Light flows his easy robe, and fair displays
A manly, softened form. The bloom of gods
Seems youthful o'er the bearded cheek to wave;
His features yet heroic ardor warms;
And, sweet subsiding to a native smile,
Mixed with the joy elating conquest gives,
A scattered frown exalts his matchless air.
THE NATIONAL COUNCILS.
While the elements of union we have been considering produced
a decided effect in forming Greek national character--serving
to strengthen, in the mind of the Greek, the feelings which bound
him to his country by keeping alive his national love and pride,
and exerting an important influence over his physical education
and discipline--they possessed little or no efficacy as a bond
of political union--what Greece so much needed. It was probably
a recognition of this need that led, at an early period, to the
formation of national councils, the primary object of which was
the regulation of mutual intercourse between the several states.
Of these early councils we have an example in the several
associations known as the Amphicty'o-nes, of which the only one
that approached a national senate received the distinctive title
of the "Amphictyon'ic Council." This is said to have been
instituted by Amphic'tyon, a son of Deucalion, King of Thessaly;
but he was probably a fictitious personage, invented to account
for the origin of the institution attributed to him. The council
is said to have been composed, originally, of deputies from
twelve tribes or nations--two from each tribe. But, as independent
states or cities grew up, each of these also was entitled to the
same representation; and no state, however powerful, was entitled
to more. The council met twice every year; in the spring at Delphi,
and in the autumn at Anthe'la, a village near Thermopylæ.
While the objects of this council, so far as they can be learned,
were praiseworthy, and its action tended to produce the happiest
political effects, it was, after all, more especially a religious
association. It had no right of interference in ordinary wars
between the communities represented in it, and could not turn
aside schemes of ambition and conquest, or subdue the jealousies
of rival states. The oath taken by its members ran thus: "We will
not destroy any Amphictyonic town, nor cut it off from running
water in war or peace; if anyone shall do so, we will march
against him and destroy his city. If anyone shall plunder the
property of the god, or shall take treacherous counsel against
the things in his temple at Delphi, we will punish him with foot,
and hand, and voice, and by every means in our power." Its chief
functions, as we see, were to guard the temple of Delphi and the
interests of religion; and it was only in cases of a violation
of these, or under that pretence, that it could call for the
cooperation of all its members. Inefficient as it had proved
to be in many instances, yet Philip of Macedon, by placing himself
at its head, overturned the independence of Greece; but its use
ceased altogether when the Delphic oracle lost its influence, a
considerable time before the reign of Constantine the Great.
Aside from the causes already assigned, the want of political
union among the Greeks may be ascribed to a natural and mutual
jealousy, which, in the language of Mr. Thirlwall, "stifled even
the thought of a confederacy" that might have prevented internal
wars and saved Greece from foreign dominion. This jealousy the
institutions to which we have referred could not remove; and it
was heightened by the great diversity of the forms of government
that existed in the Grecian states. As another writer has well
observed, "The independent sovereignty of each city was a
fundamental notion in the Greek mind. The patriotism of a Greek
was confined to his city, and rarely kindled into any general
love for the welfare of Hellas. So complete was the political
division between the Greek cities, that the citizen of one was
an alien and a stranger in the territory of another. He was not
merely debarred from all share in the government, but he could
not acquire property in land or houses, nor contract a marriage
with a native woman, nor sue in the courts except through the
medium of a friendly citizen. The cities thus repelling each
other, the sympathies and feelings of a Greek became more central
in his own."
In view of these conditions it is not surprising that Greece
never enjoyed political unity; and just here was her great and
suicidal weakness. The Romans reduced various races, in habitual
war with one another and marked by variations of dialect and
customs, into a single government, and kept them there; but the
Greeks, though possessing a common inheritance, a common language,
a common religion, and a common type of character, of manners,
and of aspirations, allowed all these common interests, that
might have created an indissoluble political union, to be
subordinated to mutual jealousies--to an "exclusive patriotism"
that rendered it difficult for them to unite even under
circumstances of common and terrible danger. "It was this
political disunion that always led them to turn their arms
against one another, and eventually subjected them to the power
of Macedon and of Rome."