PROGRESS OF LITERATURE AND THE ARTS.
I. THE POEMS OF HE'SIOD.
The rapid development of literature and the arts is one of the
most pleasing and striking features of Grecian history. As one
writer has well said, "There was an uninterrupted progress in
the development of the Grecian mind from the earliest dawn of
the history of the people to the downfall of their political
independence; and each succeeding age saw the production of some
of those master-works of genius which have been the models and
the admiration of all subsequent time." The first period of Grecian
literature, ending about 776 B.C., may be termed the period of epic
poetry. Its chief monuments are the epics of Homer and of Hesiod.
The former are essentially heroic, concerning the deeds of warriors
and demi-gods; while the latter present to us the different phases
of domestic life, and are more of an ethical and religious
character. Homer represents the poetry, or school of poetry,
belonging chiefly to Ionia, in Asia Minor. Of his poems we have
already given some account, and, passing over the minor intervening
poets, called Cyclic, of whose works we have scarcely any knowledge,
we will here give a brief sketch of the poems ascribed to Hesiod.
Hesiod is the representative of a school of bards which first
developed in Bœotia, and then spread over Phocis and Euboea.
The works purporting to be his, that have come down to us, are
three in number--the Works and Days, the Theogony, and the
Shield of Hercules. The latter, however, is now generally
considered the production of some other poet. From DR. FELTON
we have the following general characterization of these poems:
"Aside from their intrinsic merit as poetical compositions, these
poems are of high value for the light they throw on the mythological
conceptions of those early times, and for the vivid pictures
presented, by the "Works and Days", of the hardships and pleasures
of daily life, the superstitious observances, the homely wisdom
of common experience, and the proverbial philosophy into which
that experience had been wrought. For the truthfulness of the
delineation generally all antiquity vouched; and there is in
the style of expression and tone of thought a racy freshness
redolent of the native soil." Of the poet himself we learn, from
his writings, that he was a native of As'cra, a village at the
foot of Mount Hel'icon, in Bœotia. Of the time of his birth
we have no account, but it is probable that he flourished from
half a century to a century later than Homer. But few incidents
of his life are related, and these he gives us in his works, from
which we learn that be was engaged in pastoral pursuits, and that
he was deprived of the greater part of his inheritance by the
decision of judges whom his brother Per'ses had bribed. This
brother subsequently became much reduced in circumstances, and
applied to Hesiod for relief. The poet assisted him, and then
addressed to him the "Works and Days", in which he lays down
certain rules for the regulation and conduct of his life.
The design of Hesiod, as a prominent writer observes, was "to
communicate to his brother in emphatic language, and in the order,
or it might be the disorder, which his excited feelings suggested,
his opinions or counsels on a variety of matters of deep interest
to both, and to the social circle in which they moved. The Works
and Days may be more appropriately entitled 'A Letter of
Remonstrance or Advice' to a brother; of remonstrance on the
folly of his past conduct, of advice as to the future. Upon these
two fundamental data every fact, doctrine, and illustration of
the poem depends, as essentially as the plot of the Iliad on
the anger of Achilles." [Footnote: Mure's "Language and Literature
of Ancient Greece," vol. ii., p.384.] The whole work has been
well characterized by another writer as "the most ancient specimen
of didactic poetry, consisting of ethical, political, and minute
economical precepts. It is in a homely and unimaginative style,
but is impressed throughout with a lofty and solemn feeling,
founded on the idea that the gods have ordained justice among
men, have made labor the only road to prosperity, and have so
ordered the year that every work has its appointed season, the
sign of which may be discerned."
There are three remarkable episodes in the Works and Days. The
first is the tale of Prome'theus, which is continued in the
Theogony; and the second is that of the Four Ages of Man. Both
of these are types of certain stages or vicissitudes of human
destiny. The third episode is a description of Winter, a poem
not so much in keeping with the spirit of the work, but "one in
which there is much fine and vigorous painting." The following
extract from it furnishes a specimen of the poet's descriptive
powers:
Winter.
Beware the January month, beware
Those hurtful days, that keenly-piercing air
Which flays the herds; when icicles are cast
O'er frozen earth, and sheathe the nipping blast.
From courser-breeding Thrace comes rushing forth
O'er the broad sea the whirlwind of the north,
And moves it with his breath: the ocean floods
Heave, and earth bellows through her wild of woods.
Full many an oak of lofty leaf he fells,
And strews with thick-branch'd pines the mountain dells:
He stoops to earth; the crash is heard around;
The depth of forest rolls the roar of sound.
The beasts their cowering tails with trembling fold,
And shrink and shudder at the gusty cold;
Thick is the hairy coat, the shaggy skin,
But that all-chilling breath shall pierce within.
Not his rough hide can then the ox avail;
The long-hair'd goat, defenceless, feels the gale:
Yet vain the north wind's rushing strength to wound
The flock with sheltering fleeces fenced around.
He bows the old man crook'd beneath the storm,
But spares the soft-skinn'd virgin's tender form.
Screened by her mother's roof on wintry nights,
And strange to golden Venus' mystic rites,
The suppling waters of the bath she swims,
With shiny ointment sleeks her dainty limbs;
Within her chamber laid on downy bed,
While winter howls in tempest o'er her head.
Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet,
Starved 'midst bleak rocks, his desolate retreat;
For now no more the sun, with gleaming ray,
Through seas transparent lights him to his prey.
And now the hornéd and unhornéd kind,
Whose lair is in the wood, sore-famished, grind
Their sounding jaws, and, chilled and quaking, fly
Where oaks the mountain dells embranch on high:
They seek to conch in thickets of the glen,
Or lurk, deep sheltered, in some rocky den.
Like aged men, who, propp'd on crutches, tread
Tottering, with broken strength and stooping head,
So move the beasts of earth, and, creeping low,
Shun the white flakes and dread the drifting snow.
--Trans. by ELTON.
The Theogony embraces subjects of a higher order than the Works
and Days. "It ascends," says THIRLWALL, "to the birth of the gods
and the origin of nature, and unfolds the whole order of the
world in a series of genealogies, which personify the beings of
every kind contained in it." A late writer of prominence says
that "it was of greater value to the Greeks than the Works and
Days, as it contained an authorized version of the genealogy of
their gods and heroes--an inspired dictionary of mythology--from
which to deviate was hazardous." [Footnote: "The Greek Poets,"
by John Addington Symonds.] This work, however, has not the
poetical merit of the other, although there are some passages in
it of fascinating power and beauty. "The famous passage describing
the Styx," says PROFESSOR MAHAFFY, "shows the poet to have known
and appreciated the wild scenery of the river Styx in Arcadia;
and the description of Sleep and Death, which immediately precedes
it, is likewise of great beauty. The conflict of the gods and
Titans has a splendid crash and thunder about it, and is far
superior in conception, though inferior in execution, to the
battle of the gods in the Iliad." [Footnote: Mahaffy's "History
of Classical Greek Literature," vol. i., p. 111.] The poems of
Hesiod early became popular with the country population of Greece;
but in the cities, and especially in Sparta, where war was
considered the only worthy pursuit, they were long cast aside
for the more heroic lines of Homer.
* * * * *
II. LYRIC POETRY.
From the time of Homer, down to about 560 B.C., many kinds of
composition for which the Greeks were subsequently distinguished
were practically unknown. We are told that the drama was in its
infancy, and that prose writing, although more or less practiced
during this period for purposes of utility or necessity, was not
cultivated as a branch of popular literature. There was another
kind of composition, however, which was carried to its highest
perfection in the last stage of the epic period, and that was
lyric poetry. But of the masterpieces of lyric poetry only a few
fragments remain.
CALLI'NUS.
The first representative of this school that we may mention was
Callinus, an Ephesian of the latter part of the eighth century
B.C., to whom the invention of the elegiac distich, the
characteristic form of the Ionian poetry, is attributed. Among
the few fragments from this poet is the following fine war
elegy, occasioned, probably, by a Persian invasion of Asia Minor:
How long will ye slumber! when will ye take heart,
And fear the reproach of your neighbors at hand?
Fie! comrades, to think ye have peace for your part,
While the sword and the arrow are wasting our land!
Shame! Grasp the shield close! cover well the bold breast!
Aloft raise the spear as ye march on the foe!
With no thought of retreat, with no terror confessed,
Hurl your last dart in dying, or strike your last blow.
Oh, 'tis noble and glorious to fight for our all--
For our country, our children, the wife of our love!
Death comes not the sooner; no soldier shall fall
Ere his thread is spun out by the sisters above.
Once to die is man's doom: rush, rush to the fight!
He cannot escape though his blood were Jove's own.
For a while let him cheat the shrill arrow by flight;
Fate will catch him at last in his chamber alone.
Unlamented he dies--unregretted? Not so
When, the tower of his country, in death falls the brave;
Thrice hallowed his name among all, high or low,
As with blessings alive, so with tears in the grave.
--Trans. by H. N. COLERIDGE.
[Footnote: The "sisters" here alluded to were the
Par'coe, or Fates--three goddesses who presided over
the destinies of mortals: 1st, Clo'tho, who held the
distaff; 2d, Lach'esis, who spun each one's portion
of the thread of life; and, 3d, At'ropos, who cut off
the thread with her scissors.
Clotho and Lachesis, whose boundless sway,
With Atropos, both men and gods obey. --HESIOD.]
ARCHIL'OCHUS.
Next in point of time comes Archilochus of Pa'ros, a satirist
who flourished between 714 and 676 B.C. He is generally considered
to be the first Greek poet who wrote in the Iambic measure; but
there are evidences that this measure existed before his time.
This poet was betrothed to the daughter of a noble of Paros; but
the father, probably tempted by the alluring offers of a richer
suitor, forbade the nuptials. Archilochus thereupon composed so
bitter a lampoon upon the family that the daughters of the nobleman
are said to have hanged themselves. Says SYMONDS, "He made Iambic
metre his own, and sharpened it into a terrible weapon of attack.
Each verse he wrote was polished, and pointed like an arrow-head.
Each line was steeped in the poison of hideous charges against
his sweetheart, her sisters, and her father." [Footnote: "The
Greek Poets;" First Series, p. 108.]
Thenceforth Archilochus led a wandering life, full of vicissitudes,
but replete with evidences of his merit. "While Hesiod was in
the poor and backward parts of central Greece, modifying with
timid hand the tone and style of epic poetry, without abandoning
its form, Archilochus, storm-tossed amid wealth and poverty,
amid commerce and war, amid love and hate, ever in exile and
yet everywhere at home--Archilochus broke altogether with the
traditions of literature, and colonized new territories with his
genius." [Footnote: "Classical Greek Literature," vol. i., p.157.]
He is said to have returned to Paros a short time before his
death, where, on account of a victory he had won at the Olympic
festival, the resentment and hatred formerly entertained against
him were turned into gratitude and admiration. His death, which
occurred on the field of battle, could not extinguish his fame,
and his memory was celebrated by a festival established by his
countrymen, during which his verses were sung alternately with
the poems of Homer. "Thus," says an old historian, "by a fatality
frequently attending men of genius, he spent a life of misery,
and acquired honor after death. Reproach, ignominy, contempt,
poverty, and persecution were the ordinary companions of his
person; admiration, glory, respect, splendor, and magnificence
were the attendants of his shade." With the exception of Homer,
no poet of classical antiquity acquired so high a celebrity.
Among the Greeks and Romans he was equally esteemed. Cicero
classed him with Sophocles, Pindar, and even Homer; Plato called
him the "wisest of poets;" and Longinus "speaks with rapture of
the torrent of his divine inspiration."
ALC'MAN.
Passing over Simonides of Amorgos, who is chiefly celebrated for
a very ungallant but ingenious and smooth satire on women, and
over Tyrtæ'us, whose animating and patriotic odes, as we have
seen, proved the safety of Sparta in one of the Messenian wars,
we come to the first truly lyric poet of Greece--Alcman--
originally a Lydian slave in a Spartan family, but emancipated
by his master on account of his genius. He flourished after the
second Messenian war, and his poems partake of the character of
this period, which was one of pleasure and peace. They are chiefly
erotic, or amatory, or in celebration of the enjoyments of social
life. He successfully cultivated choral poetry, and his Parthenia,
made up of a variety of subjects, was composed to be sung by the
maidens of Tayge'tus. "His excellence," says MURE, "appears to
have lain in his descriptive powers. The best, and one of the
longest extant passages of his works is a description of sleep,
or rather of night; a description unsurpassed, perhaps unrivalled,
by any similar passage in the Greek or any other language, and
which has been imitated or paraphrased by many distinguished
poets." [Footnote: "History of Greek Literature," vol. iii., p.
205.] The following is this author's translation of it:
Now o'er the drowsy earth still night prevails.
Calm sleep the mountain tops and shady vales,
The rugged cliffs and hollow glens;
The wild beasts slumber in their dens,
The cattle on the hill. Deep in the sea
The countless finny race and monster brood
Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee
Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood
No more with noisy hum of insect rings;
And all the feathered tribes, by gentle sleep subdued,
Roost in the glade and hang their drooping wings.
ARI'ON AND STESICH'ORUS.
Arion, the greater part of whose life was spent at the court of
Periander, despot of Corinth, and Stesichorus, of Himera, in
Sicily, who flourished about 608 B.C., were two Greek poets
especially noted for the improvements they made in choral poetry.
The former invented the wild, irregular, and impetuous
dithyramb, [Footnote: From Dithyrambus, one of the appellations
of Bacchus.] originally a species of lyric poetry in honor of
Bacchus; but of his works there is not a single fragment extant.
The latter's original name was Tis'ias, and he was called
Stesichorus, which signifies a "leader of choruses." A late
historian characterizes him as "the first to break the monotony
of the choral song, which had consisted previously of nothing
more than one uniform stanza, by dividing it into the Strophe,
the Antistrophe, and the Epodus--the turn, the return, and the
rest." PROFESSOR MAHAFFY observes of him as follows: "Finding
the taste for epic recitation decaying, he undertook to reproduce
epic stories in lyric dress, and present the substance of the old
epics in rich and varied metres, and with the measured movements
of a trained chorus. This was a direct step to the drama, for
when anyone member of the chorus came to stand apart and address
the rest of the choir, we have already the essence of Greek tragedy
before us." [Footnote: "Classical Greek Literature," vol. i., p.
203.] The works of Stesichorus comprised hymns in honor of the
gods and in praise of heroes, love-songs, and songs of revelry.
ALCÆ'US.
Among the lyric poets of Greece some writers assign the very
first place to Alcæus, a native of Lesbos, who flourished about
610 B.C., and who has been styled the ardent friend and defender
of liberty, more because he talked so well of patriotism than
because of his deeds in its behalf. The poet AKENSIDE, however,
calls him "the Lesbian patriot," and thus contrasts his style
with that of Anac'reon:
Broke from the fetters of his native land,
Devoting shame and vengeance to her lords,
With louder impulse and a threat'ning hand
The Lesbian patriot smites the sounding chords:
"Ye wretches, ye perfidious train!
Ye cursed of gods and free-born men!
Ye murderers of the laws!
Though now ye glory in your lust,
Though now ye tread the feeble neck in dust,
Yet Time and righteous Jove will judge your dreadful cause."
The poems of Alcæus were principally war and drinking songs of
great beauty, and it is said that they furnished to the Latin
poet Horace "not only a metrical model, but also the subject-matter
of some of his most beautiful odes." The poet fought in the war
between Athens and Mityle'ne (606 B.C.), and enjoyed the reputation
of being a brave and skilful warrior, although on one occasion
he is said to have fled from the field of battle leaving his
arms behind him. Of his warlike odes we have a specimen in the
following description of the martial embellishment of his own house:
The Spoils of War.
Glitters with brass my mansion wide;
The roof is decked on every side,
In martial pride,
With helmets ranged in order bright,
And plumes of horse-hair nodding white,
A gallant sight!
Fit ornament for warrior's brow--
And round the walls in goodly row
Refulgent glow
Stout greaves of brass, like burnished gold,
And corselets there in many a fold
Of linen foiled;
And shields that, in the battle fray,
The routed losers of the day
Have cast away.
Euboean falchions too are seen,
With rich-embroidered belts between
Of dazzling sheen:
And gaudy surcoats piled around,
The spoils of chiefs in war renowned,
May there be found:
These, and all else that here you see,
Are fruits of glorious victory
Achieved by me.
--Trans. By MERIVALE.
SAPPHO.
Contemporary with Alcæus was the poetess Sappho, the only female
of Greece who ever ranked with the illustrious poets of the other
sex, and whom Alcæus called "the dark-haired, spotless, sweetly
smiling Sappho." Lesbos was the center of Æolian culture, and
Sappho was the center of a society of Lesbian ladies who applied
themselves successfully to literature. Says SYMONDS: "They formed
clubs for the cultivation of poetry and music. They studied the
arts of beauty, and sought to refine metrical forms and diction.
Nor did they confine themselves to the scientific side of art.
Unrestrained by public opinion, and passionate for the beautiful,
they cultivated their senses and emotions, and indulged their
wildest passions." Sappho devoted her whole genius to the subject
of Love, and her poems express her feelings with great freedom.
Hence arose the charges of a later age, that were made against
her character. But whatever difference of view may exist on this
point, there is only one opinion as to her poetic genius. She was
undoubtedly the greatest erotic poet of antiquity. Plato called
her the tenth Muse, and Solon, hearing one of her poems, prayed
that he might not die until he had committed it to memory. We cannot
forbear introducing the following eloquent characterization of her
writings:
"Nowhere is a hint whispered that the poetry of Sappho is aught
but perfect. Of all the poets of the world, of all the illustrious
artists of all literatures, Sappho is the one whose every word
has a peculiar and unmistakable perfume, a seal of absolute
perfection and inimitable grace. In her art she was unerring.
Even Archilochus seems commonplace when compared with her
exquisite rarity of phrase. Whether addressing the maidens whom,
even in Elysium, as Horace says, Sappho could not forget, or
embodying the profounder yearnings of an intense soul after beauty
which has never on earth existed, but which inflames the hearts of
noblest poets, robbing the eyes of sleep and giving them the
bitterness of tears to drink--these dazzling fragments,
'Which still, like sparkles of Greek fire,
Burn on through time and ne'er expire,'
are the ultimate and finished forms of passionate utterance
--diamonds, topazes, and blazing rubies--in which the fire of
the soul is crystallized forever." [Footnote: Symond's "Greek
Poets," First Series, p. 189.]
It is related that an associate of Sappho once derided her talents,
or stigmatized her poetical labors as unsuited to her sex and
condition. The poetess, burning with indignation, thus replied
to her traducer:
Whenever Death shall seize thy mortal frame,
Oblivion's pen shall blot thy worthless name;
For thy rude hand ne'er plucked the beauteous rose
That on Pie'ria's sky-clad summit blows:
[Symond's "Greek Poets," First Series, p. 139.]
Thy paltry soul with vilest souls shall go
To Pluto's kingdom--scenes of endless woe;
While I on golden wings ascend to fame,
And leave behind a muse-enamored, deathless name.
The memory of this poetess of Love rouses the following strain
of celebration in ANTIP'ATER of Sidon:
Does Sappho, then, beneath thy bosom rest,
Æolian earth? that mortal Muse confessed
Inferior only to the choir above,
That foster-child of Venus and of Love;
Warm from whose lips divine Persuasion came,
Greece to delight, and raise the Lesbian name?
O ye, who ever twine the threefold thread,
Ye Fates, why number with the silent dead
That mighty songstress, whose unrivalled powers
Weave for the Muse a crown of deathless flowers?
--Trans. by FRANCIS HODGSON.
ANAC'REON.
The last lyric poet of this period that we shall notice was
Anacreon, a native of Teos, in Ionia, who flourished about 530
B.C. He was a voluptuary, who sang beautifully of love, and wine,
and nature, and who has been called the courtier and laureate of
tyrants, in whose society, and especially in that of Polyc'rates
and Hippar'chus, his days were spent. The poet AKENSIDE thus
characterizes him:
I see Anacreon smile and sing,
His silver tresses breathe perfume;
His cheeks display a second spring,
Of roses taught by wine to bloom.
Away, deceitful cares, away,
And let me listen to his lay;
Let me the wanton pomp enjoy,
While in smooth dance the light-winged hours
Lead round his lyre its patron powers,
Kind laughter and convivial joy.
The following is Cowper's translation of a pretty little poem
by Anacreon on the grasshopper:
Happy songster, perched above,
On the summit of the grove,
Whom a dew-drop cheers to sing
With the freedom of a king,
From thy perch survey the fields,
Where prolific Nature yields
Naught that, willingly as she,
Man surrenders not to thee.
For hostility or hate,
None thy pleasures can create.
Thee it satisfies to sing
Sweetly the return of spring,
Herald of the genial hours,
Harming neither herbs nor flowers.
Therefore man thy voice attends,
Gladly; thou and he are friends.
Nor thy never-ceasing strains
Phoebus and the Muse disdains
As too simple or too long,
For themselves inspire the song.
Earth-born, bloodless; undecaying,
Ever singing, sporting, playing,
What has Nature else to show
Godlike in its kind as thou?
* * * * *
III. EARLY GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
We now enter upon a new phase of Greek literature. While the
first use of prose in writing may be assigned to a date earlier
than 700 B.C., it was not until the early part of the sixth
century B.C. that use was made of prose for literary purposes;
and even then prose compositions were either mythological, or
collections of local legends, whether sacred or profane. The
importance and the practical uses of genuine history were neither
known nor suspected until after the Persian wars. But Grecian
philosophy had an earlier dawn, and was coeval with the poetical
compositions of Hesiod, although it was in the sixth century that
it began to be separated from poetry and religion, and to be
cultivated by men who were neither bards, priests, nor seers.
This is the era when the practical maxims and precepts of the
Seven Grecian sages began to be collected by the chroniclers,
and disseminated among the people.
THE SEVEN SAGES.
Concerning these sages, otherwise called the "Seven Wise Men
of Greece," the accounts are confused and contradictory, and
their names are variously given; but those most generally admitted
to the honor are Solon (the Athenian legislator); Bias, of Ionia;
Chi'lo (Ephor of Sparta); Cleobu'lus (despot of Lindos, in the
Island of Rhodes); Perian'der (despot of Corinth); Pit'tacus
(ruler of Mityle'ne); and Tha'les, of Mile'tus, in accordance
with the following enumeration:
"First Solon, who made the Athenian laws;
While Chilo, in Sparta, was famed for his saws;
In Miletus did Thales astronomy teach;
Bias used in Prie'ne his morals to preach;
Cleobulus of Lindus was handsome and wise;
Mitylene 'gainst thraldom saw Pittacus rise;
Periander is said to have gained, through his court,
The title that Myson, the Chenian, ought."
[Footnote: It is Plato who says that Periander,
tyrant of Corinth; should give place to Myson.]
The seven wise men were distinguished for their witty sayings,
many of which have grown into maxims that are in current use
even at the present day. Out of the number the following seven
were inscribed as mottoes, in later days, in the temple at Delphi:
"Know thyself," Solon; "Consider the end," Chilo; "Suretyship is
the forerunner of ruin" (He that hateth suretyship is sure; Prov.
xi. 15), Thales; "Most men are bad" (There is none that doeth
good, no, not one, Psalm xiv. 3), Bias; "Avoid extremes" (the
golden mean), Cleobulus; "Know thy opportunity" (Seize time by
the forelock), Pittacus; "Nothing is impossible to industry"
(Patience and perseverance overcome mountains), Periander. GROTE
says of the seven sages: "Their appearance forms an epoch in
Grecian history, inasmuch as they are the first persons who ever
acquired an Hellenic reputation grounded on mental competency
apart from poetical genius or effect--a proof that political
and social prudence was beginning to be appreciated and admired
on its own account."
The eldest school of Greek philosophy, called the Ionian, was
founded by Thales of Miletus, about the middle of the sixth
century B.C. In the investigation of natural causes and effects
he taught, as a distinguishing tenet of his philosophy, that
water, or some other fluid, is the primary element of all things
--a theory which probably arose from observations on the uses of
moisture in the nourishment of animal and vegetable life. A
similar process of reasoning led Anaxim'enes, of Miletus, half
a century later, to substitute air for water; and by analogous
reasoning Heracli'tus, of Ephesus, surnamed "the naturalist,"
was led to regard the basis of fire or flame as the fundamental
principle of all things, both spiritual and material. Diog'enes,
the Cretan, was led to regard the universe as issuing from an
intelligent principle--a rational as well as sensitive soul--but
without recognizing any distinction between mind and matter;
while Anaximan'der conceived the primitive state of the universe
to have been a vast chaos or infinity, containing the elements
from which the world was constructed by inherent or self-moving
processes of separation and combination. This doctrine was revived
by Anaxag'oras, an Ionian, a century later, who combined it with
the philosophy of Diogenes, and taught the existence of one supreme
mind.
XENOPH'ANES AND PYTHAG'ORAS.
Two widely different schools of philosophy now arose in the western
Greek colonies of lower Italy. Xenophanes, a native of Ionia, who
had fled to E'lea, was the founder of one, and Pythagoras, of
Samos, of the other. The former, known as the Eleat'ic philosophy,
admitted a supreme intelligence, eternal and incorporeal, pervading
all things, and, like the universe itself, spherical in form. This
system was developed in the following century by Parmen'ides and
Zeno, who exercised a great influence upon the Greek mind.
Pythagoras was the first Grecian to assume the title of philosopher,
although he was more of a religious teacher. Having traveled
extensively in the East, he returned to Samos about 540 B.C.;
but, finding the condition of his country, which was then ruled
by the despot Polycrates, unfavorable to the progress of his
doctrines, he moved to Croto'na, in Italy, and established his
school of philosophy there.
Pythagoras,
Vexed with the Samian despot's lawless sway
(For tyrants ne'er loved wisdom), crossed the seas,
And found a home on the Hesperian shore,
Time when the Tarquin arched the infant Rome
With vaults, the germ of Cæsar's golden hall.
There, in Crotona's state, he held a school
Of wisdom and of virtue, teaching men
The harmony of aptly portioned powers,
And of well-numbered days: whence, as a god,
Men honored him; and, from his wells refreshed,
The master-builder of pure intellect,
Imperial Plato, piled the palace where
All great, true thoughts have found a home forever.
--J. STUART BLACKIE.
Pythagoras made some important discoveries in geometry, music,
and astronomy. The demonstration of the forty-seventh proposition
of Euclid is attributed to him. He also discovered the chords in
music, which led him to conceive that the planets, striking upon
the ether through which they move in their celestial orbits;
produce harmonious sounds, varying according to the differences
of the magnitudes, velocities, and relative distances of the
planets, in a manner corresponding to the proportion of the notes
in a musical scale. Hence the "music of the spheres." From what
can be gathered of the astronomical doctrine of Pythagoras, it
has been inferred that he was possessed of the true idea of the
solar system, which was revived by Coper'nicus and fully
established by Newton. With respect to God, Pythagoras appears
to have taught that he is the universal, ever-existent mind,
the first principle of the universe, the source and cause of all
animal life and motion, in substance similar to light, in nature
like truth, incapable of pain, invisible, incorruptible, and only
to be comprehended by the mind. His philosophy and teachings are
thus pictured by the poet THOMSON:
Here dwelt the Samian sage; to him belongs
The brightest witness of recording fame.
He sought Crotona's pure, salubrious air,
And through great Greece his gentle wisdom taught.
His mental eye first launched into the deeps
Of boundless ether; where unnumbered orbs,
Myriads on myriads, through the pathless sky
Unerring roll, and wind their steady way.
There he the full consenting choir beheld;
There first discerned the secret band of love,
The kind attraction, that to central suns
Binds circling earths, and world with world unites.
Instructed thence, he great ideas formed
Of the whole-moving, all-informing God,
The Sun of Beings! beaming unconfined--
Light, life, and love, and ever active power:
Whom naught can image, and who best approves
The silent worship of the moral heart,
That joys in bounteous Heaven and spreads the joy.
Pythagoras also taught the doctrine of the transmigration of
souls, which he probably derived from the Egyptians; and he
professed to preserve a distinct remembrance of several states
of existence through which his soul had passed. It is related
of him that on one occasion, seeing a dog beaten, he interceded
in its behalf, saying, "It is the soul of a friend of mine, whom
I recognize by its voice." It would seem as if the poet COLERIDGE
had at times been dimly conscious of the reality of this
Pythagorean doctrine, for he says:
Oft o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll
Which makes the present (while the flash doth last)
Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,
Mixed with such feelings as perplex the soul
Self-questioned in her sleep: and some have said
We lived ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.
One of our favorite American poets; LOWELL, indulges in a like
fancy in the following lines from that dream, like, exquisite
fantasy, "In the Twilight," found in the Biglow Papers:
Sometimes a breath floats by me,
An odor from Dream-land sent,
That makes the ghost seem nigh me
Of a splendor that came and went,
Of a life lived somewhere, I know not
In what diviner sphere--
Of memories that stay not and go not,
Like music once heard by an ear
That cannot forget or reclaim it--
A something so shy, it would shame it
To make it a show--
A something too vague, could I name it,
For others to know,
As if I had lived it or dreamed it,
As if I had acted or schemed it,
Long ago!
And yet, could I live it over,
This life that stirs in my brain--
Could I be both maiden and lover,
Moon and tide, bee and clover,
As I seem to have been, once again--
Could I but speak and show it,
This pleasure, more sharp than pain,
That baffles and lures me so,
The world should not lack a poet,
Such as it had
In the ages glad
Long ago.
On the whole, the system of Pythagoras, with many excellencies,
contained some gross absurdities and superstitions, which were
dignified with the name of philosophy, and which exerted a
pernicious influence over the opinions of many succeeding
generations.
THE ELEUSIN'IAN MYSTERIES,
Closely connected with the public and private instruction that
the philosophers gave in their various systems, were certain
national institutions of a secret character, which combined the
mysteries of both philosophy and religion. The most celebrated
of these, the great festival of Eleusinia, sacred to Ce'res and
Pros'erpine, was observed every fourth year in different parts
of Greece, but more particularly by the people of Athens every
fifth year, at Eleu'sis, in Attica.
What is known of the rites performed at Eleusis has been gathered
from occasional incidental allusions found in the pages of nearly
all the classical authorities; and although the penalty of a
sudden and ignominious death impended over anyone who divulged
these symbolic ceremonies, yet enough is now known to describe
them with much minuteness of detail. We have not the space to
give that detailed description here, but the ceremonies occupied
nine days, from the 15th to the 23d of September, inclusive. The
first day was that on which the worshippers merely assembled; the
second, that on which they purified themselves by bathing in the
sea; the third, the day of sacrifices; the fourth, the day of
offerings to the goddess; the fifth, the day of torches, when
the multitude roamed over the meadows at nightfall carrying
flambeaus, in imitation of Ceres searching for her daughter;
the sixth, the day of Bacchus, the god of Vintage; the seventh,
the day of athletic pastimes; the eighth, the day devoted to
the lesser mysteries and celestial revelations; and the ninth,
the day of libations.
The language that Virgil puts into the mouth of Anchi'ses, in
the Sixth Book of the Æneid, is regarded as a condensed definition
of the secrets of Eleusis and the creed of Pythagoras. The same
book, moreover, is believed to represent several of the scenes
of the mysteries. In the following words the shade of Anchises
answers the inquiries of "his godlike son:"
"Know, first, that heav'n, and earth's contracted frame,
And flowing waters, and the starry flame,
And both the radiant lights, one common soul
Inspires and feeds--and animates the whole.
This active mind, infused through all the space,
Unites and mingles with the mighty mass.
Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain,
And birds of air, and monsters of the main.
Th' ethereal vigor is in all the same;
And ev'ry soul is fill'd with equal flame--
As much as earthy limbs, and gross allay
Of mortal members subject to decay,
Blunt not the beams of heav'n and edge of day.
From this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts,
Desire and fear by turns possess their hearts,
And grief and joy: nor can the grovelling mind,
In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined,
Assert the native skies, or own its heav'nly kind:
Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains;
But long-contracted filth ev'n in the soul remains.
"The relics of invet'rate vice they wear
And spots of sin obscene in ev'ry face appear.
For this are various penances enjoin'd;
And some are hung to bleach upon the wind,
Some plunged in waters, others purged in fires,
Till all the dregs are drain'd, and all the rust expires.
All have their ma'nes, and those manes bear:
The few, so cleansed, to these abodes repair,
And breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air.
Then are they happy, when by length of time
The scurf is worn away of each committed crime;
No speck is left of their habitual stains,
But the pure ether of the soul remains.
But, when a thousand rolling years are past
(So long their punishments and penance last),
Whole droves of minds are, by the driving god,
Compell'd to drink the deep Lethe'an flood,
In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares
Of their past labors and their irksome years,
That, unrememb'ring of its former pain,
The soul may suffer mortal flesh again."
--Trans. by DRYDEN.
* * * * *
IV. ARCHITECTURE.
In architecture and sculpture Greece stands pre-eminently above
all other nations. The first evidences of the former art that
we discover are in the gigantic walls of Tiryns, Mycenæ, and
other Greek cities, constructed for purposes of defence in the
very earliest periods of Greek history, and generally known by
the name of Cyclo'pean, because supposed by the early Greeks to
have been built by those fabled giants, the Cyclo'pes.
Ye cliffs of masonry, enormous piles,
Which no rude censure of familiar time
Nor record of our puny race defiles,
In dateless mystery ye stand sublime,
Memorials of an age of which we see
Only the types in things that once were ye.
Whether ye rest upon some bosky knoll,
Your feet by ancient myrtles beautified,
Or seem, like fabled dragons, to unroll
Your swarthy grandeurs down a bleak hill-side,
Still on your savage features is a spell
That makes ye half divine, ineffable.
With joy upon your height I stand alone,
As on a precipice, or lie within
Your shadow wide, or leap from stone to stone,
Pointing my steps with careful discipline,
And think of those grand limbs whose nerve could bear
These masses to their places in mid-air:
Of Anakim, and Titans, and of days
Saturnian, when the spirit of man was knit
So close to Nature that his best essays
At Art were but in all to follow it,
In all--dimension, dignity, degree;
And thus these mighty things were made to be.
--LORD HOUGHTON.
It was in the erection of the temples of the gods, however, that
Grecian architecture had its ornamental origin, and also made
its most rapid progress. The primeval altar, differing but little
from a common hearth, was supplanted by the wooden habitation
of the god, and the latter in turn gave way to the temple of
stone. Then rapidly rose the three famed orders of architecture
--the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian--the first solemn,
massive, and imposing, while the others exhibit, in their ornamental
features, a gradual advance to perfection.
First, unadorned,
And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose;
The Ionic then, with decent matron grace,
Her airy pillar heaved; luxuriant last,
The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath.
--THOMSON,
Passing over the earlier structures devoted to purposes of worship,
we find at the beginning of the sixth century several magnificent
temples in course of erection. Among these the most celebrated
were the Temple of He'ra (Juno), at Samos, and the Temple of
Ar'temis (Diana), at Ephesus. The order of architecture adopted
in the first was Doric, and in the second Ionic. Both were built
of white marble. The former was 346 feet in length and 189 feet
in breadth; while the latter was 425 feet long and 220 feet broad.
Its columns were 127 in number, and 60 feet in height; and the
blocks of marble composing the architrave, or chief beams resting
immediately on the columns, were 30 feet in length.
CHER'SIPHRON, AND THE TEMPLE OF DIANA.
The great Temple of Diana was commenced under the supervision
of Chersiphron, an architect of Crete, but it occupied over two
hundred years in building. It is related of Chersiphron that,
having erected the jambs of the great door to the temple, he
failed, after repeated efforts, continued for many days, to bring
the massive lintel to its place in line with the jambs. He finally
sank down in despair, and fell asleep. In his dreams he saw the
divine form of the goddess, who assured him that those who labored
for the gods should not go unrewarded. On awaking he beheld the
massive lintel in its proper place, laid there by the hand of the
goddess herself. An American sculptor and poet relates the incident,
and gives its moral in the following poem:
When to the utmost we have tasked our powers,
And Nem'esis still frowns and shakes her head;
When, wearied out and baffled, we confess
Our utter weakness, and the tired hand drops,
And Hope flees from us, and in blank despair
We sink to earth, the face, so stern before,
August will smile--the hand before withdrawn
Reach out the help we vainly pleaded for,
Take up our task, and in a moment do
What all our strength was powerless to achieve.
Unless the gods smile, human toil is vain.
The crowning blessing of all work is drawn
Not from ourselves, but from the powers above.
And this none better knew than Chersiphron,
When on the plains of Ephesus he reared
The splendid temple built to Artemis.
With patient labor he had placed at last
The solid jambs on either side the door,
And now for many a weary day he strove
With many a plan and many a fresh device,
Still seeking and still failing, on the jambs
Level to lay the lintel's massive weight:
Still it defied him; and, worn out at last,
Along the steps he laid him down at night.
Sleep would not come. With dull distracting pain
The problem hunted through his feverish thoughts,
Till in his dark despair he longed for death,
And threatened his own life with his own hand.
Peace came at last upon him, and he slept;
And in his sleep, before his dreaming eyes
He saw the form divine of Artemis:
O'er him she bent and smiled, and softly said,
"Live, Chersiphron! Who labor for the gods
The gods reward. Behold, your work is done!"
Then, like a mist that melts into the sky,
She vanished; and awaking, he beheld,
Laid by her hand above the entrance-door,
The ponderous lintel level on the jambs.
--W. W. STORY.
Another celebrated temple of this period was that of Delphi,
which was rebuilt, after its destruction by fire in 548 B.C.,
at a cost equivalent to more than half a million of dollars.
It was in the Doric style, and was faced with Parian marble.
About the same time the Temple of Olympian Jove was commenced
or restored at Athens by Pisistratus. All the temples mentioned
have nearly disappeared. That of Diana, at Ephesus, was burned
by Heros'tratus, in order to immortalize his name, on the night
that Alexander the Great was born (356 B.C.). It was subsequently
rebuilt with greater magnificence, and enriched by the genius of
Sco'pas, Praxit'eles, Parrha'sius, Apel'les, and other celebrated
sculptors and painters. A few of its columns support the dome
of the Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople, two of its pillars
are in the great church at Pi'sa, and recent excavations have
brought to light portions of its foundation. Other temples, however,
erected as far back as the fourth and fifth centuries, have more
successfully resisted the ravages of time. Among these are the
six, of the Doric order, whose ruins appear at Selinus, in Sicily;
while at Pæstum, in Southern Italy, are the celebrated ruins of
two temples, which, with the exception of the temple of Corinth,
are the most massive examples of Doric architecture extant. "It
was in the larger of these two temples," says a visitor, "during
the moonlight of a troubled sky, that we experienced the emotions
of the awful and sublime, such as impress a testimony, never to
be forgotten, of the power of art over the affections."
There, down Salerno's bay,
In deserts far away,
Over whose solitudes
The dread malaria broods,
No labor tills the land--
Only the fierce brigand,
Or shepherd, wan and lean,
O'er the wide plains is seen.
Yet there, a lovely dream,
There Grecian temples gleam,
Whose form and mellowed tone
Rival the Parthenon.
The Sybarite no more
Comes hither to adore,
With perfumed offering,
The ocean god and king.
The deity is fled
Long-since, but, in his stead,
The smiling sea is seen,
The Doric shafts between;
And round the time-worn base
Climb vines of tender grace,
And Pæstum's roses still
The air with fragrance fill.
--CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH.
* * * * *
V. SCULPTURE.
Like architecture, sculpture, or, more properly speaking, statuary,
owed its origin to religion, and was introduced into Greece from
Egypt. With the Egyptians the art never advanced beyond the types
established at its birth; but the Greeks, led on, as a recent
writer well says, "by an intuitive sense of beauty which was with
them almost a religious principle, aimed at an ideal perfection,
and, by making Nature in her most perfect forms their model,
acquired a facility and a power of representing every class of
form unattained by any other people, and which have rendered the
terms Greek and perfection, with reference to art, almost
synonymous." The first specimens of Greek sculpture were rough,
unhewn wooden representations of the gods. These were followed,
a little later, by wooden images having some resemblance to life,
and clothed and decorated with ornaments of various kinds. While
this branch of the art long remained in a rude state, sculptured
figures on architectural monuments were executed in a superior
style as early as the age of Homer.
Long before the period of authentic history, other materials
than wood were used in making statues; and as early as 700 B.C.
a statue was executed of Zeus, or Jupiter, in bronze. The art
of soldering metals is attributed to Glaucus of Chios, about
690 B.C.; while to Rhoe'cus and his son Theodo'rus, of Samos,
is ascribed the invention of modeling and casting figures of
bronze in a mould. The use of marble, also, for statues, was
introduced in the early part of the sixth century by Dipoe'nus
and Scyl'lis of Crete, who are the first artists celebrated for
works in this material. But, while these improvements were
important, they did not necessarily involve any change in style;
and it was the removal of the restraints imposed by religion and
hereditary cultivation that laid the foundation for the rapid
progress of the art and its subsequent perfection. These changes,
and the results produced by them, are well summed up in the
following extract from THIRLWALL:
"The principal cause of the progress of sculpture was the
enlargement which it experienced in the range of its subjects,
and the consequent multiplicity of its productions. As long as
statues were confined to the interior of the temples, and no
more were seen in each sanctuary than the idol of its worship,
there was little room and motive for innovation; and, on the
other hand, there were strong inducements for adhering to the
practice of antiquity. But, insensibly, piety or ostentation
began to fill the temples with groups of gods and heroes, strangers
to the place, and guests of the power who was properly invoked
there. The deep recesses of their pediments were peopled with
colossal forms, exhibiting some legendary scene appropriate to
the place or the occasion of the building. The custom of honoring
the victors at the public games with a statue--an honor afterward
extended to other distinguished persons--contributed, perhaps,
still more to the same effect; for, whatever restraints may have
been imposed on the artists in the representation of sacred subjects,
either by usage or by a religious scruple, these were removed when
the artists were employed in exhibiting the images of mere mortals.
As the field of the art was widened to embrace new objects, the
number of masters increased; they were no longer limited, where
this had before been the case, to families or guilds; their
industry was sharpened by a more active competition and by richer
rewards. As the study of nature became more earnest, the sense
of beauty grew quicker and steadier; and so rapid was the march
of the art, that the last vestiges of the arbitrary forms which
had been hallowed by time or religion had not yet everywhere
disappeared when the final union of truth and beauty, which we
sometimes endeavor to express by the term ideal, was accomplished
in the school of Phid'ias." [Footnote: Thirlwall's "History of
Greece," vol. i., p. 206.]
We cannot attempt to give here the names of the masters of
sculpture who flourished prior to 500 B.C., or trace the still
extant remains of their genius; but their works were numerous,
and the beauty and grandeur of many of them caused them to be
highly valued in all succeeding ages. In fact, before the Persian
wars had commenced, the branch of sculpture termed statuary had
attained nearly the summit of its perfection.