LITERATURE AND ART AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.
LITERATURE.
I. THE DRAMA.
As we have seen in a former chapter, Greek tragedy attained its
zenith with the three great masters--Æschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides. As MAHAFFY well says, "Its later annals are but a
history of decay; and of the vast herd of latter tragedians two
only, and two of the earliest--Ion of Chi'os, and Ag'athon--can
be called living figures in a history of Greek literature." Even
these, it seems, wrote before Sophocles and Euripides had closed
their careers. But few fragments of their genius have come down
to us. Longi'nus said of Ion, that he was fluent and polished,
rather than bold or sublime; while Agathon has been characterized
as "the creator of a new tragic style, combining the verbal
elegancies and ethical niceties of the Sophists with artistic
claims of a luxurious kind."
While tragedy declined, with comedy the case was different, for
its changes were progressive. Most writers divide Greek comedy
into the Old, the Middle, and the New; and although the boundary
lines between the three orders are very indistinct, each has
certain well-defined characteristics. It is asserted, as we have
elsewhere noted, that the chief subjects of the first were the
politics of the day and the characters and deeds of leading persons;
that the chief peculiarity of the second, in which the action
of the chorus was much curtailed, was the exclusion of personal
and political criticism, and the adoption of parodies of the
gods and ridicule of certain types of character; and that the
New Comedy, in which the chorus disappeared, aimed to paint scenes
and characters of domestic life. The Middle Comedy, however,
still continued to be in some degree personal and political,
and even in the New Comedy these features of the Old are frequently
apparent.
Aristoph'anes, the leader of the Old Comedy, toward the close
of his life produced The Frogs--a work that signalized the
transition from the Old to the Middle Comedy. The latter school,
however, took its rise in Sicily, and its most distinguished
authors were Antiph'anes, probably of Athens, born in 404, and
Alex'is of Thu'rii, born about 394. The New Comedy arose after
Athens had fallen under Macedonian supremacy, and as many as
sixty-four poets belong to this period, the later of whom composed
their plays in Alexandria, in the time of Alexander's successors.
The founder of this school was Phile'mon of Soli, in Cilicia,
born about 360 B.C. Of his ninety plays fragments of fifty-six
remain. The majority of these have been described as "elegant
but not profound reflections on the 'changes and chances of this
mortal life.'" A late critic chooses the following fragment as
illustrative of Philemon, and at the same time favorable to his
reputation:
Have faith in God, and fear; seek not to know him;
For thou wilt gain naught else beyond thy search;
Whether he is or is not, shun to ask:
As one who is, and sees thee, always fear him.
--Trans. by J. A. SYMONDS.
MENANDER.
The acknowledged master and representative of this period, however,
and the last of the classical poets of Greece, was Menan'der,
an Athenian, son of Diopi'thes, the general whom Demosthenes
defended in his speech "On the Chersonese," and a nephew of the
poet Alexis. Menander was born in 342 B.C.; and although only
fragments of his writings exist, he was so closely copied or
imitated by the Roman comic poets that his style and character
can be very clearly traced. MR. SYMONDS thus describes him: "His
personal beauty, the love of refined pleasure that distinguished
him in life, the serene and genial temper of his wisdom, the
polish of his verse, and the harmony of parts he observed in
composition, justify us in calling Menander the Sophocles of
comedy. If we were to judge by the fragments transmitted to us, we
should have to say that Menander's comedy was ethical philosophy
in verse; so mature is its wisdom, so weighty its language, so
grave its tone. The brightness of the beautiful Greek spirit
is sobered down in him almost to sadness. Yet the fact that
Stobæ'us found him a fruitful source of sententious quotations,
and that alphabetical anthologies were made of his proverbial
sayings, ought not to obscure his fame for drollery and humor.
If old men appreciated his genial or pungent worldly wisdom,
boys and girls read him, we are told, for his love-stories."
Menander was an intimate friend of Epicu'rus, the philosopher,
and is supposed to have adopted his teachings. On this point,
however, MR. SYMONDS thus remarks: "Speaking broadly, the
philosophy in vogue at Athens during the period of the New Comedy
was what in modern days is known as Epicureanism. Yet it would be
unjust to confound the grave and genial wisdom of Menander with
so trivial a philosophy as that which may be summed up in the
sentence 'eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' A fragment from
an unknown play of his expresses the pathos of human existence
with a depth of feeling that is inconsistent with mere
pleasure-seeking:
"'When thou would'st know thyself, what man thou art,
Look at the tombstones as thou passest by:
Within those monuments lie bones and dust
Of monarchs, tyrants, sages, men whose pride
Rose high because of wealth, or noble blood,
Or haughty soul, or loveliness of limb;
Yet none of these things strove for them 'gainst time;
One common death hath ta'en all mortal men.
See thou to this, and know thee who thou art.'"
As EUGENE LAWRENCE says: "Most modern comedies are founded on
those of Menander. They revive their characters, repeat their
jokes, transplant their humor; and the wit of Molière, Shakspeare,
or Sheridan is often the same that once awoke shouts of laughter
on the Attic stage."
* * * * *
II. ORATORY.
Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democracy,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.
--MILTON.
Eloquence, or oratory, which Cicero calls "the friend of peace
and the companion of tranquillity, requiring for her cradle a
commonwealth already well-established and flourishing," was
fostered and developed in Greece by the democratic character
of her institutions. It was scarcely known there until the time
of Themistocles, the first orator of note; and in the time of
Pericles it suddenly rose, in Athens, to a great height of
perfection. Pericles himself, whose great aim was to sway the
assemblies of the people to his will, cultivated oratory with
such application and success, that the poets of his day said
of him that on some occasions the goddess of persuasion, with
all her charms, seemed to dwell on his lips; and that, at other
times, his discourse had all the vehemence of thunder to move
the souls of his hearers. The golden age of Grecian eloquence
is embraced in a period of one hundred and thirty years from
the time of Pericles, and during this period Athens bore the
palm alone.
Of the many Athenian orators the most distinguished were Lys'ias,
Isoc'rates, Æschines, and Demosthenes. The first was born about
435 B.C., and was admired for the perspicuity, purity, sweetness,
and delicacy of his style. Having become a resident of Thurii
in early life, on his return to Athens he was not allowed to
speak in the assemblies, or courts of justice, and therefore
wrote orations for others to deliver. Many of these are
characterized by great energy and power. Dionysius, the Roman
historian and critic, praises Lysias for his grace; Cicero commends
him for his subtlety; and Quintilian esteems him for his
truthfulness. Isocrates was born at Athens in 436. Having received
the instructions of some of the most celebrated Sophists of his
time, he opened a school of rhetoric, and was equally esteemed
for the excellence of his compositions--mostly political
orations--and for his success in teaching. His style was more
philosophic, smooth, and elegant than that of Lysias. "Cicero,"
says a modern critic, "whose style is exceedingly like that of
Isocrates, appears to have especially used him as a model--as
indeed did Demosthenes; and through these two orators he has
moulded all the prose of modern Europe." Isocrates lived to the
advanced age of ninety-eight, and then died, it is said, by
voluntary starvation, in grief for the fatal battle of Chæronea.
"That dishonest victory.
At Chæronea, fatal to liberty,
Killed with report that old man eloquent."
ÆSCHINES AND DEMOSTHENES.
The orator Æschines was born in 398 B.C. He is regarded as the
father of extemporaneous speaking among the Greeks, but is chiefly
distinguished as the rival of Demosthenes, rather than for his
few orations (but three in number) that have come down to us,
although he was endowed by nature with extraordinary rhetorical
powers, and his orations are characterized by ease, order,
clearness, and precision. "The eloquence of Æschines," says an
American scholar and statesman, [Footnote: Hugh S. Legaré, of
Charleston, South Carolina, in an article on "Demosthenes" in
the New York Review.] "is of a brilliant and showy character,
running occasionally, though very rarely, into a Ciceronean
declamation. In general his taste is unexceptionable; he is clear
in statement, close and cogent in argument, lucid in arrangement,
remarkably graphic and animated in style, and full of spirit
and pleasantry, without the least appearance of emphasis or effort.
He is particularly successful in description and the portraiture
of character. That his powers were appreciated by his great rival
is evident from the latter's frequent admonitions to the assembly
to remember that their debates are no theatrical exhibitions
of voice and oratory, but deliberations involving the safety
of their country."
On leaving Athens, after his defeat in the celebrated contest
with Demosthenes, Æschines went to Rhodes, where he established
a school of rhetoric. It is stated that on one occasion he began
his instruction by reading the two orations that had been the
cause of his banishment. His hearers loudly applauded his own
speech, but when he read that of Demosthenes they were wild with
delight. "If you thus praise it from my reading it," exclaimed
Æschines, "what would you have said if you had heard Demosthenes
himself deliver it?"
By the common consent of ancient and modern times, Demosthenes
stands pre-eminent for his eloquence, his patriotism, and his
influence over the Athenian people. He was born about 383 B.C.
On attaining his majority, his first speech was directed against
a cousin to whom his inheritance had been intrusted, and who
refused to surrender to him what was left of it. Demosthenes
won his case, and his victory brought him into such prominent
notice that he was soon engaged to write pleadings for litigants
in the courts. He devoted himself to incessant study and practice
in oratory, and, overcoming by various means a weakly body and
an impediment in his speech, he became the chief of orators.
Of his public life we have already seen something in the history
of Athens. With all his moral and intellectual force, the closing
years of his life were shaded with misery and disgrace. Fifty
years after his death the Athenians erected a bronze statue to
his memory, and upon the pedestal placed this inscription:
Divine in speech, in judgment, too, divine,
Had valor's wreath, Demosthenes, been thine,
Fair Greece had still her freedom's ensign borne,
And held the scourge of Macedon in scorn!
With regard to the character of the orations of Demosthenes,
it must be confessed that somewhat conflicting views have been
entertained by the moderns. LORD BROUGHAM, while admitting that
Demosthenes "never wanders from the subject, that each remark
tells upon the matter in hand, that all his illustrations are
brought to bear upon the point, and that he is never found making
a step in any direction which does not advance his main object,
and lead toward the conclusion to which he is striving to bring
his hearers," still denies that he is distinguished for those
"chains of reasoning," and that "fine argumentation" which are
the chief merit of our greatest modern orators. While he admits
that Demosthenes abounds in the most "appropriate topics, and
such happy hits--to use a homely but expressive phrase--as have
a magical effect upon a popular assembly, and that he clothes
them in the choicest language, arranges them in the most perfect
order, and captivates the ear with a music that is fitted, at
his will, to provoke or to soothe, and even to charm the sense,"
he regards all this as better suited to great popular assemblies
than to a more refined, and a more select audience--such as one
composed of learned senators and judges. But this is admitting
that he adapted himself, with admirable tact and judgment, to
the subject and the occasion. But while the character thus
attributed to the orations of the great Athenian orator may be
the true one, as regards the Philippics, the speech against
Æschines, and the one on the Crown, it is not thought to be
applicable to the many pleas which he made on occasions more
strictly judicial.
"That which distinguishes the eloquence of Demosthenes above
all others, ancient or modern," says the American writer already
quoted, "is earnestness, conviction, and the power to persuade
that belongs to a strong and deep persuasion felt by the speaker.
It is what Milton defines true eloquence to be, 'none but the
serious and hearty love of truth'--or, more properly, what the
speaker believes to be truth. This advantage Demosthenes had
over Æschines. He had faith in his country, faith in her people
(if they could be roused up), faith in her institutions. He is
mad at the bare thought that a man of Macedon, a barbarian, should
be beating Athenians in the field, and giving laws to Greece.
The Roman historian and critic, Dionysius, said of his oratory,
that its highest attribute was the spirit of life that pervades
it. Other remarkable features were its amazing flexibility and
variety, its condensation and perfect logical unity, its elaborate
and exquisite finish of details, to which must be added that
polished harmony and rhythm which cannot be attained, to a like
degree, in any modern language. Moreover, however elaborately
composed these speeches were, they were still speeches, and had
the appearance of being the spontaneous effusions of the moment.
No extemporaneous harangues were ever more free and natural."
The historian HUME says of the style of Demosthenes: "It was
rapid harmony adjusted to the sense; vehement reasoning without
any appearance of art; disdain, anger, boldness, and freedom,
involved in a continued strain of argument." Another writer says:
"It was his undeviating firmness, his disdain of all compromise,
that made him the first of statesmen and orators; in this lay
the substance of his power, the primary foundation of his
superiority; the rest was merely secondary. The mystery of his
mighty influence, then, lay in his honesty; and it is this that
gave warmth and tone to his feelings, an energy to his language,
and an impression to his manner before which every imputation
of insincerity must have immediately vanished."
* * * * *
III. PHILOSOPHY.
PLATO.
While oratory was thus attaining perfection in Greece, philosophy
was making equal progress in the direction marked out by Socrates.
Among the philosophers of the brighter period of Grecian history
are the names of Plato and Aristotle, names that will ever be
cherished and venerated while genius and worth continue to be
held in admiration. Of the pupils of Socrates, Plato, born in
Athens in 429 B.C., was by far the most distinguished, and the
only one who fully appreciated the intellectual greatness and
seized the profound conceptions of his master. In fact, he came
to surpass Socrates in the profoundness of his views, and in
the correctness and eloquence with which he expressed them. On
the death of his teacher, Plato left Athens and passed twelve
years in visiting different countries, engaged in philosophic
investigation. Returning to Athens, he founded his school of
philosophy in the Acade'mia, a beautiful spot in the suburbs
of the city, adorned with groves, walks, and fountains, and
which his name has immortalized.
Here Philosophy
With Plato dwelt, and burst the chains of mind;
Here, with his stole across his shoulders flung,
His homely garments with a leathern zone
Confined, his snowy beard low clust'ring down
Upon his ample chest, his keen dark eye
Glancing from underneath the arched brow,
He fixed his sandaled foot, and on his staff
Leaned, while to his disciples he declared
How all creation's mighty fabric rose
From the abyss of chaos: next he traced
The bounds of virtue and of vice; the source
Of good and evil; sketched the ideal form
Of beauty, and unfolded all the powers
Of mind by which it ranges uncontrolled,
And soars from earth to immortality.
--HAYGARTH.
To Plato, as the poet intimates in his closing lines, we owe
the first formal development of the Socratic doctrine of the
spirituality of the soul, and the first attempt toward
demonstrating its immortality. As a late writer has well said,
"It is the genius of Socrates that fills all Plato's philosophy,
and their two minds have flowed out over the world together."
Of his doctrine on this subject, as expressed in the Phoe'do,
LORD BROUGHAM thus wrote: "The whole tenor of it refers to a
renewal or continuation of the soul as a separate and individual
existence after the dissolution of the body, and with a complete
consciousness of personal identity: in short, to a continuance of
the same rational being's existence after death. The liberation
from the body is treated as the beginning of a new and more perfect
life." Plato's only work on physical science is the Timoe'us.
His works are all called "Dialogues," which the critics divide
into two classes--those of search, and those of exposition. Among
the latter, the Republic and the Laws give us the author's
political views; and, on the former, More's Uto'pia and other
works of like character in modern times are founded.
"Plato, of all authors," says DR. A. C. KENDRICK, [Footnote:
Article "Plato," in Appleton's American Cyclipoedia.] "is the
one to whom the least justice can be done by any formal analysis.
In the spirit which pervades his writings, in their untiring
freshness, in their purity, love of truth and of virtue, their
perpetual aspiring to the loftiest height of knowledge and of
excellence, much more than in their positive doctrines, lies
the secret of their charm and of their unfailing power. Plato is
often styled an idealist. But this is true of the spirit rather
than of the form of his doctrine; for strictly he is an intense
realist, and differs from his great pupil, Aristotle, far less
in his mere philosophical method than in his lofty moral and
religious aspirations, which were perpetually winging his spirit
toward the beautiful and the good. His formal errors are abundant;
but even in his errors the truth is often deeper than the error;
and when that has been discredited, the language adjusts itself
to the deeper truth of which it was rather an inadequate expression
than a direct contradiction." Concerning the style of Plato's
writings, a distinguished English scholar and translator observes
as follows: "Nor is the language in which his thoughts are conveyed
less remarkable than the thoughts themselves. In his more elevated
passages he rises, like his own Prometheus, to heaven, and brings
down from thence the noblest of all thefts, [Footnote: See the
story of Prometheus.] Wisdom with Fire; but, in general, calm,
pure, and unaffected, his style flows like a stream which gurgles
its own music as it runs; and his works rise, like the great
fabric of Grecian literature, of which they are the best model,
in calm and noiseless majesty." [Footnote: Thomas Mitchell.]
Plato died at the advanced age of eighty-one, his mental powers
unimpaired, and he was buried in the Academe. On his tomb was
placed the following inscription:
Here, first of all men for pure justice famed,
Aris'tocles, the moral teacher, lies:
[Footnote: The proper name of Plato was Aristocles:
but in his youth he was surnamed Plato by his companions
in the gymnasium, on account of his broad shoulders.
(From the Greek word platus, "broad.")]
And if there ere has lived one truly wise,
This man was wiser still: too great for envy.
ARISTOTLE.
Aristotle was born in 384 B.C., at Stagi'ra, in Macedonia. Hence
he is frequently called the "Stag'i-rite;" as POPE calls him
in the following tribute found in his Temple of Fame:
Here, in a shrine that cast a dazzing light,
Sat, fixed in thought, the mighty Stagirite;
His sacred head a radiant zodiac crowned,
And various animals his sides surround;
His piercing eyes, erect, appear to view
Superior worlds, and look all nature through.
He repaired to Athens at the age of seventeen, and soon after
became a pupil of Plato. His uncommon acuteness of apprehension,
and his indefatigable industry, early won the notice and applause
of his master, who called him the "mind" of the school, and said,
when he was absent, "Intellect is not here." On the death of
Plato, Aristotle left Athens, and in 343 he repaired to Macedonia,
on the invitation of Philip, and became the instructor of the
young prince Alexander. In after years Alexander aided him in his
scientific pursuits by sending to him many objects of natural
history, and giving him large sums of money, estimated in all
at two millions of dollars.
In the year 335 Aristotle returned to Athens, and opened his
school in the Lyce'um. He walked with his scholars up and down
the shady avenues, conversing on philosophy, and hence his school
was called the peripatetic. Aristotle nowhere exhibits the merits
of Plato in the service of metaphysics, yet he was the most learned
and most productive of the writers of Greece. He had neither
the poetical imagination nor the genius of his teacher, but he
mastered the whole philosophical and historical science of his
age, and, more than Plato, his intellect has influenced the course
of modern civilization. He was eminently a practical philosopher--a
cold inquirer, whose mind did not reach the high and lofty teaching
of Plato, concerning Deity and the destiny of mankind. We find
the following just estimate of him in BROWNE'S Greek Classical
Literature: "One cannot set too high a value on the practical
nature of Aristotle's mind. He never forgot the bearing of all
philosophy upon the happiness of man, and he never lost sight
of man's wants and requirements. He saw the inadequacy of all
knowledge, unless he could trace in it a visible practical
tendency. But, beyond this one single point, he falls grievously
short of his great master, Plato. All his ideas of man's good
are limited to the consideration of this life alone. It is
impossible to trace in his writings any belief in a future state
or immortality."
For many centuries succeeding the Middle Ages, especially from
the eleventh to the fifteenth, the metaphysical teachings of
Aristotle held a tyrannic sway over the public mind; but they
have been gradually yielding to the more lofty and sublime
teachings of Plato. His investigations in natural science, however,
and his work as a logician and political philosopher, constitute
his greatness, and create the enormous influence that he has
wielded in the world. "Science owes to him its earliest impulse,"
says MR. LAWRENCE. "He perfected and brought into form," says
DR. WILLIAM SMITH, "those elements of the dialectic art which
had been struck out by Socrates and Plato, and wrought them by
his additions into so complete a system that he may be regarded
as at once the founder and perfecter of logic as an art." Says
MAHAFFY, "He has built his politics upon so sound a philosophic
basis, and upon the evidence of so large and varied a political
experience, that his lessons on the rise and fall of governments
will never grow old, and will be perpetually receiving fresh
corroborations, so long as human nature remains the same."
Aristotle was a friend of the Macedonians, and, on the death
of Alexander, he fled, from Athens to Chal'cis, in Euboea, to
escape a trial for impiety. There he died in 322 B.C. In the
lives of the three great philosophers of Greece--Socrates, Plato,
and Aristotle--is embraced what is commonly called "The
Philosophical Era of Athens." To this era MILTON has beautifully
alluded in his well-known description of the famous city; and
for the Academe, or Academia, the beautiful garden that was the
resort of the philosophers, EDWIN ARNOLD expresses these sentiments
of veneration:
Pleasanter than the hills of Thessaly,
Nearer and dearer to the poet's heart
Than the blue ripple belting Salamis,
Or long grass waving over Marathon,
Fair Academe, most holy Academe,
Thou art, and hast been, and shalt ever be.
I would be numbered now with things that were,
Changing the wasting fever of to-day
For the dear quietness of yesterday:
I would be ashes, underneath the grass,
So I had wandered in thy platane walks
One happy summer twilight--even one.
Was it not grand, and beautiful, and rare,
The music and the wisdom and the shade,
The music of the pebble-paven rills,
And olive boughs, and bowered nightingales,
Chorusing joyously the joyous things
Told by the gray Silenus of the grove,
Low-fronted and large-hearted Socrates!
Oh, to have seen under the olive blossoms
But once--only once in a mortal life,
The marble majesties of ancient gods!
And to have watched the ring of listeners--
The Grecian boys gone mad for love of truth,
The Grecian girls gone pale for love of him
Who taught the truth, who battled for the truth;
And girls and boys, women and bearded men,
Crowding to hear and treasure in their hearts
Matter to make their lives a happiness,
And death a happy ending.
EPICU'RUS AND ZE'NO.
What is known as the Epicure'an school of philosophy was founded
by Epicurus, a native of Samos, born in 342, who went to Athens
in early youth, and, at the age of thirty, established himself
as a philosophical teacher. He met with great success. He did
not believe in the soul's immortality, and taught the pursuit
of mental pleasure and happiness as the highest good. While his
learning was not great, he was a man of unsullied morality,
respected and loved by his followers to a wonderful degree.
Although he wrote books in advocacy of piety, and the reverence
due to the gods on account of the excellence of their nature,
he maintained that they had no concern in human affairs. Hence
the Roman poet LUCRETIUS, who lived when the old belief in the
gods and goddesses of the heathen world had nearly faded away,
attributes to the teachings of Epicurus the triumph of philosophy
over superstition.
On earth in bondage base existence lay,
Bent down by Superstition's iron sway.
She from the heavens disclosed her monstrous head,
And dark with grisly aspect, scowling dread,
Hung o'er the sons of men; but toward the skies
A man of Greece dared lift his mortal eyes,
And first resisting stood. Not him the fame
Of deities, the lightning's forky flame,
Or muttering murmurs of the threat'ning sky
Repressed; but roused his soul's great energy
To break the bars that interposing lay,
And through the gates of nature burst his way.
That vivid force of soul a passage found;
The flaming walls that close the world around
He far o'erleaped; his spirit soared on high
Through the vast whole, the one infinity.
Victor, he brought the tidings from the skies
What things in nature may, or may not, rise;
What stated laws a power finite assign,
And still with bounds impassable confine.
Thus trod beneath our feet the phantom lies;
We mount o'er Superstition to the skies.
--Trans. By ELTON.
The school of the Stoics was founded by Zeno, a native of Cyprus,
who went to Athens about 299 B.C., and opened a school in the
Poi'ki-le Sto'a, or painted porch, whence the name of his sect
arose. As is well known, the chief tenets of the Stoics were
temperance and self-denial, which Zeno himself practiced by living
on uncooked food, wearing very thin garments in winter, and
refusing the comforts of life generally. To the Stoics pleasure
was irrational, and pain a visitation to be borne with ease.
Both Stoicism and Epicureanism flourished among the Romans. The
teachings of Epictetus, the Roman Stoic philosopher, are summed
up in the formula, "Bear and forbear;" and he is said to have
observed that "Man is but a pilot; observe the star, hold the
rudder, and be not distracted on thy way." Both these schools
of philosophy, however, passed into skepticism. Epicureanism
became a material fatalism and a search for pleasure; while
Stoicism ended in spiritual fatalism. But when the Gospel awakened
the human heart to life, it was the Greek mind which gave mankind
a Christian theology.
* * * * *
IV. HISTORY
XENOPHON.
The most distinguished Greek historian of this period was Xenophon,
of whom we have already seen something as the leader of the famous
"Retreat of the Ten Thousand," and as the author of a delightful
and instructive account of that achievement. He was born in Athens
about 443 B.C., and at an early age became the pupil of Socrates,
to whose principles he strictly adhered through life, in practice
as well as in theory. Seemingly on account of his philosophical
views he was banished by the Athenians, before his return from
the expedition into Asia; but the Spartans, with whom he fought
against Athens at Coronea, gave him an estate at Scil'lus, in
Elis, and here he lived, engaging in literary pursuits, that
were diversified by domestic enjoyments and active field-sports.
He died either at Scillus or at Corinth--to which latter place
some authorities think he removed in the later years of his
life--in the ninetieth year of his age.
Among the works of Xenophon is the Anab'asis, considered his
best, descriptive of the advance into Persia and the masterly
retreat; the Hellen'ica, a history of Greece, in seven books,
from the time of Thucydides to the battle of Mantine'a, in 362
B.C.; the Cyropoedi'a, a political romance, based on the history
of Cyrus the Great; a treatise on the horse, and the duties of
a cavalry commander; a treatise on hunting; a picture of an
Athenian banquet, and of the amusement and conversation with
which it was diversified; and, the most pleasing of all, the
Memorabil'ia, devoted to the defence of the life and principles
of Socrates. Concerning the remarkable miscellany of Xenophon,
MR. MITCHELL says: "The writer who has thrown equal interest
into an account of a retreating army and the description of a
scene of coursing; who has described with the same fidelity a
common groom and a perfect pattern of conjugal faithfulness--such
a man had seen life under aspects which taught him to know that
there were things of infinitely more importance than the turn
of a phrase, the music of a cadence, and the other niceties which
are wanted by a luxurious and opulent metropolis. The virtuous
feelings that were necessary in a mind constituted as his was,
took into their comprehensive bosom the welfare of the world."
Although the genius of Xenophon was not of the highest order,
his writings have afforded, to all succeeding ages, one of the
best models of purity, simplicity, and harmony of language: By
some of his contemporaries he has been styled "The Attic Muse;"
by others, "The Athenian Bee;" while his manners and personal
appearance have been described by Diog'enes Laer'tius, in his
Lives of the Philosophers, in the following brief but comprehensive
sentence: "Modest in deportment, and beautiful in person to a
remarkable degree."
POLYB'IUS.
Of the prominent Greek historians, Polybius was the last. Born
about 204 B.C., he lived and wrote in the closing period of Grecian
history. Having been carried a prisoner to Rome with the one
thousand prominent citizens of Achaia, his accomplishments secured
for him the friendship of Scip'io Africa'nus Mi'nor, and of his
father, Æmil'ius Pau'lus, at whose house he resided. He spent
his time in collecting materials for his works, and in giving
instruction to Scipio. In the year 150 B.C. he returned to his
native country with the surviving exiles, and actively exerted
himself to induce the Greeks to keep peace with the Romans, but,
as we know, without success. After the Roman conquest the Greeks
seem to have awakened to the wisdom of his advice, for on a statue
erected to his memory was the inscription, "Hellas would have
been saved had the advice of Polybius been followed." Polybius
wrote a history in forty books, embracing the time between the
commencement of the Second Punic War, in 218 B.C., and the
destruction of Carthage and Corinth by the Romans, in 146 B.C.
It is the most trustworthy history we possess of this period,
and has been closely copied by subsequent writers. A correct
estimate of its character and worth will be found in the following
summary:
"The greater part of the valuable and laborious work of Polybius
has perished. We have only the first five books entire, and
fragments and extracts of the rest. As it is, however, it is
one of the most valuable historical works that has come down
to us. His style, indeed, will not bear a comparison with the
great masters of Greek literature: he is not eloquent, like
Thucydides; nor practical, like Herodotus; nor perspicuous and
elegant, like Xenophon. He lived at a time when the Greek language
had lost much of its purity by an intermixture of foreign elements,
and he did not attempt to imitate the language of the Attic
writers. He wrote as he spoke: he gives us the first rough draft
of his thoughts, and seldom imposes on himself the trouble to
arrange or methodize them; hence, they are often meager and
desultory, and not infrequently deviate entirely from the subject.
"But in the highest quality of an historian--the love of truth--
Polybius has no superior. This always predominates in his writings.
He has judgment to trace effects to their causes, a full knowledge
of his subjects, and an impartiality that forbids him to conceal
it to favor any party or cause. In his geographical descriptions
he is not always clear, but his descriptions of battles have
never been surpassed. 'His writings have been admired by the
warrior, copied by the politician, and imitated by the historian.
Brutus had him ever in his hands, Tully transcribed him, and
many of the finest passages of Livy are the property of the Greek
historian.'"
ART.
I. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE.
After the close of the Peloponnesian war the perfection and
application of the several orders of Grecian architecture were
displayed in the laying out of cities on a grander scale, and
by an increase of splendor in private residences, rather than
by any marked change in the style of public buildings and temples.
Alexandria in Egypt, and Antioch in Syria, were the finest examples
of Grecian genius in this direction, both in the regularity and
size of their public and private buildings, and in their external
and internal adornment. This period was also distinguished for
its splendid sepulchral and other monuments. Of these, probably
the most exquisite gem of architectural taste is the circular
building at Athens, the Cho-rag'ic Monument, or "Lantern of
Demosthenes," erected in honor of a victory gained by the chorus
of Lysic'rates in 334 B.C. "It is the purest specimen of the
Corinthian order," says a writer on architecture, "that has reached
our time, whose minuteness and unobtrusive beauty have preserved
it almost entire among the ruins of the mightiest piles of Athenian
art." Other celebrated monuments of this period were the one
erected at Halicarnas'sus by the Ca'rian queen Artemi'sia to the
memory of her husband Mauso'lus, adorned with sculptural
decorations by Sco'pas and others, and considered one of the
seven wonders of the world; and the octagonal edifice, the
Horolo'gium of Androni'cus Cyrrhes'tes, at Athens.
In sculpture, Athens still asserted its pre-eminence, but the
style and character of its later school were materially different
from those of the preceding one of Phid'ias. "Toward the close
of the Peloponnesian war," says a recent writer, "a change took
place in the habits and feelings of the Athenian people, under
the influence of which a new school of statuary was developed.
The people, spoiled by luxury, and craving the pleasures and
excitements which the prosperity of the age of Pericles had opened
to them, regarded the severe forms of the older masters with
even less patience than the austere virtues of the generation
which had driven the Persians out of Greece. The sculptors, giving
a reflex of the times in their productions, instead of the grand
and sublime cultivated the soft, the graceful, and the flowing,
and aimed at an expression of stronger passion and more dramatic
action. Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the favorite subjects of
the Phidian era, gave place to such deities as Venus, Bacchus,
and Amor; and with the departure of the older gods departed also
the serene and composed majesty which had marked the
representations of them." [Footnote: C. S. Weyman.]
The first great artist of this school was Scopas, born at Paros,
and who flourished in the first half of the fourth century B.C.
Although famous in architectural sculpture, he excelled in single
figures and groups, "combining strength of expression with grace."
The celebrated group of Ni'o-be and her children slain by Ar'temis
and Apollo, a copy of which is preserved in the museum of Florence,
and the statue of the victorious Venus in the Louvre at Paris,
are attributed to Scopas. The most esteemed of his works, according
to Pliny, was a group representing Achilles conducted to the Island
of Leu'ce by sea deities. The only other artist of this school
that we will refer to is Praxit'eles, a contemporary of Scopas.
He excelled in representing the female figure, his masterpiece
being the Cnid'ian Aphrodi'te, a naked statue, in Parian marble,
modeled from life, representing Venus just leaving the bath.
This statue was afterward taken to Constantinople, where it was
burned during the reign of Justinian.
This Athenian school of sculpture was followed, in the time of
Alexander the Great, by what was called the Si-çy-o'ni-an school,
of which Euphra'nor, of Corinth, and Lysip'pus, of Si'çy-on, were
the leading representatives. The former was a painter as well
as sculptor. His statues were executed in bronze and marble, and
were admired for their dignity. Lysippus worked only in bronze,
and was the only sculptor that Alexander the Great permitted
to represent him in statues. His works were very numerous,
including the colossal statue of Jupiter at Tarentum, sixty feet
high, several of Hercules, and many others. The succeeding and
later Greek sculptors made no attempt to open a new path of design,
but they steadily maintained the reputation of the art. Many
works of great excellence were produced in Rhodes, Alexandria,
Ephesus, and elsewhere in the East. Among these was the famous
Colossus, a statue of the sun, designed and executed by Cha'res
of Rhodes, that reared its huge form one hundred and five feet
in height at the entrance to Rhodes harbor; the Farnese Bull,
at Naples, found in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome, also the
work of a Rhodian artist; and the Apollo Belvedere, in the Vatican.
Two works of this late age deserve special mention. One is the
statue of the Dying Gladiator, in the Capitoline Museum at Rome,
supposed to have come from Pergamus. Says LÜBKE, "It undoubtedly
represents a Gaul who, in battle, seeing the foe approach in
overwhelming force, has fallen upon his own sword to escape a
shameful slavery. Overcome by the faintness of approaching death,
he has fallen upon his shield; his right arm with difficulty
prevents his sinking to the ground; his life ebbs rapidly away
with the blood streaming from the deep wound beneath his breast;
his broad head droops heavily forward; the mists of death already
cloud his eyes; his brows are knit with pain; and his lips are
parted in a last sigh. There is, perhaps, no other statue in
which the bitter necessity of death is expressed with such terrible
truth--all the more terrible because the hardy body is so full
of strength."
Supported on his shortened arm he leans,
Prone agonizing; with incumbent fate
Heavy declines his head, yet dark beneath
The suffering feature sullen vengeance lowers,
Shame, indignation, unaccomplished rage;
And still the cheated eye expects his fall.
--THOMSON.
The other statue is that masterpiece of art, the group of the
La-oc'o-on, now in the Vatican at Rome, the work of the three
Rhodian sculptors, Agesan'dros, Polydo'rus, and Athenodo'rus.
It represents a scene, in connection with the fall of Troy, that
Virgil describes in the Second Book of the Æneid. A Trojan priest,
named Laocoon, endeavored to propitiate Neptune by sacrifice,
and to dissuade the Trojans from admitting within the walls the
fatal wooden horse, whereupon the goddess Minerva, ever favorable
to the Greeks, punished him by sending two enormous serpents
from the sea to destroy him and his two sons. The poet THOMSON
well describes the agony and despair that the statue portrays:
Such passion here!
Such agonies! such bitterness of pain
Seem so to tremble through the tortured stone
That the touched heart engrosses all the view.
Almost unmarked the best proportions pass
That ever Greece beheld; and, seen alone,
On the rapt eye the imperious passions seize:
The father's double pangs, both for himself
And sons, convulsed; to Heaven his rueful look,
Imploring aid, and half-accusing, cast;
His fell despair with indignation mixed
As the strong-curling monsters from his side
His full-extended fury cannot tear.
More tender touched, with varied art, his sons
All the soft rage of younger passions show:
In a boy's helpless fate one sinks oppressed,
While, yet unpierced, the frighted other tries
His foot to steal out of the horrid twine.
An American writer thus apostrophizes this grand representation:
Laocoon! thou great embodiment
Of human life and human history!
Thou record of the past, thou prophecy
Of the sad future! thou majestic voice,
Pealing along the ages from old time!
Thou wail of agonized humanity!
There lives no thought in marble like to thee!
Thou hast no kindred in the Vatican,
But standest separate among the dreams
Of old mythologies-alone-alone!
--J. G. HOLLAND.
* * * * *
II. PAINTING.
In painting, the Asiatic school of Zeuxis and Parrhasius was
also followed by a "Si-çy-o'ni-an school"--the third and last
phase of Greek painting, founded by Eupom'pus, of Si'çy-on. The
characteristics of this school were great ease, accuracy, and
refinement. Among its chief masters were Pam'philus, Apel'les,
Protog'enes, Ni'cias, and Aristides. Of these the most famous was
Apelles, a native of Col'ophon, in Ionia, who flourished in the
time of Alexander the Great, with whom he was a great favorite.
Of his many fine productions the finest was his painting of
Venus rising from the Sea, and concerning which ANTIPATER, the
poet of Sidon, wrote the following epigram:
Graceful as from her native sea she springs,
Venus, the labor of Apelles, view:
With pressing hands her humid locks she wrings,
While from her tresses drips the frothy dew:
Ev'n Juno and Minerva now declare,
No longer we contend whose form's most fair.
APELLES AND PROTOGENES.
A very pleasing story is told, by Pliny, of Apelles and his
brother-artist, Protogenes, which DR. ANTHON relates as follows:
"Apelles, having come to Rhodes, where Protogenes was then
residing, paid a visit to the artist, but, not finding him at
home, obtained permission from a domestic in waiting to enter
his studio. Finding here a piece of canvas ready on the frame
for the artist's pencil, Apelles drew upon it a line (according
to some, a figure in outline) with wonderful precision, and then
retired without disclosing his name. Protogenes, on returning
home, and discovering what had been done, exclaimed that Apelles
alone could have executed such a sketch. However, he drew another
himself--a line more nearly perfect than that of Apelles--and
left directions with his domestic that, when the stranger should
call again, he should be shown what had been done by him. Apelles
came, accordingly, and, perceiving that his line had been excelled
by Protogenes, drew a third one, much better than the other two,
and cutting both. Protogenes now confessed himself vanquished;
he ran to the harbor, sought for Apelles, and the two artists
became the warmest friends. The canvas containing this famous
trial of skill became highly prized, and at a later day was placed
in the palace of the Cæsars at Rome. Here it was burned in a
conflagration that destroyed the palace itself."
Protogenes was noted for his minute and scrupulous care in the
preparation of his works. He carried this peculiarity to such
excess that Apelles was moved to make the following comparison:
"Protogenes equals or surpasses me in all things but one--the
knowing when to remove his hand from a painting." Protogenes
survived Apelles, and became a very eminent painter. It is stated
that when Demetrius besieged Rhodes, and could have reduced it
by setting fire to a quarter of the city that contained one of
the finest productions of Protogenes, he refused to do so lest
he should destroy the masterpiece of art. It is to this incident
that the poet THOMSON undoubtedly refers when he says,
E'en such enchantment then thy pencil poured,
That cruel-thoughted War the impatient torch
Dashed to the ground; and, rather than destroy
The patriot picture, let the city 'scape.
From the time of Alexander the art of painting rapidly
deteriorated, and at the period of the Roman conquest it had
scarcely an existence. Grecian art, like Grecian liberty, had
lost its spirit and vitality, and the spoliation of public
buildings and galleries, to adorn the porticos and temples of
Rome, hastened its extinction. We have now reached the close
of the history of ancient Greece. But Hellas still lives in her
thousand hallowed associations of historic interest, and in the
numerous ruins of ancient art and splendor which cover her soil--
recalling a glorious Past, upon which we love to dwell as upon
the memory of departed friends or the scenes of a happy childhood--
"sweet, but mournful to the soul." And although the ashes of her
generals, her poets, her scholars, and her artists are scattered
from their urns, and her statuary and her temples are mutilated
and discolored ruins, ancient Greece lives also in the song,
the art, and the research of modern times. In contemplating the
influence of her genius, the mind is naturally fixed upon the
chief repository of her taste and talent--Athens, "the eye of
Greece"--from which have sprung "all the strength, the wisdom,
the freedom, and the glory of the western world."
Within the surface of Time's fleeting river
Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay,
Immovably unquiet, and forever
It trembles, but it cannot pass away!
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder
With an earth-awaking blast
Through the caverns of the past;
Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast;
A wingèd sound of joy, and love, and wonder,
Which soars where Expectation never flew,
Rending the veil of space and time asunder!
One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew;
One sun illumines heaven; one spirit vast
With life and love makes chaos ever new,
As Athens doth the world with her delight renew.
--SHELLEY.
Of the splendid literature of Athens LORD MACAULAY says, "It
is a subject in which I love to forget the accuracy of a judge
in the veneration of a worshipper and the gratitude of a child."
To Hellenic thought, as embodied and exemplified in the great
works of Athenian genius, he rightly ascribes the establishment
of an intellectual empire that is imperishable; and from one of
his valuable historical "Essays" we quote the following graphic
delineation of what may be termed
The Immortal Influence of Athens.
"If we consider merely the subtlety of disquisition, the force
of imagination, the perfect energy and elegance of expression,
which characterize the great works of Athenian genius, we must
pronounce them intrinsically most valuable; but what shall we
say when we reflect that from hence have sprung, directly or
indirectly, all the noblest creations of the human intellect?
That from hence were the vast accomplishments and the brilliant
fancy of Cicero, the withering fire of Juvenal, the plastic
imagination of Dante, the humor of Cervantes, the comprehension
of Bacon, the wit of Butler, the supreme and universal excellence
of Shakspeare? All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice
and power, in every country and in every age, have been the
triumphs of Athens. Whatever a few great minds have made a stand
against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason,
there has been her spirit in the midst of them, inspiring,
encouraging, consoling--the lonely lamp of Erasmus; by the restless
bed of Pascal; in the tribune of Mirabeau; in the cell of Galileo,
and on the scaffold of Sidney. But who shall estimate her influence
on private happiness? Who shall say how many thousands have been
made wiser, happier, and better, by those pursuits in which she
has taught mankind to engage? to how many the studies which took
their rise from her have been wealth in poverty, liberty in bondage,
health in sickness, society in solitude? Her power is indeed
manifested at the bar, in the senate, on the field of battle,
in the schools of philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever
literature consoles sorrow or assuages pain--wherever it brings
gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache
for the dark house and the long sleep--there is exhibited, in
its noblest form, the immortal influence of Athens.
"The dervis, in the Arabian tale, did not hesitate to abandon to
his comrade the camels with their load of jewels and gold, while
he retained the casket of that mysterious juice which enabled him
to behold at one glance all the hidden riches of the universe.
Surely it is no exaggeration to say that no external advantage
is to be compared with that purification of the intellectual
eye which gives us to contemplate the infinite wealth of the
mental world; all the hoarded treasures of the primeval dynasties,
and all the shapeless ore of its yet unexplored mines. This is
the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her power have been
annihilated for more than twenty centuries; her people have
degenerated into timid slaves; [Footnote: But this is not the
character of the Athenians of the present day.] her language
into a barbarous jargon; her temples have been given up to the
successive depredations of Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen; but
her intellectual empire is imperishable. And, when those who
have rivaled her greatness shall have shared her fate; when
civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant
continents; when the sceptre shall have passed away from England;
when, perhaps, travelers from distant regions shall in vain labor
to decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest
chief--shall hear savage hymns chanted to some misshapen idol
over the ruined dome of our proudest temple, and shall see a
single naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of the ten
thousand masts--the influence and glory of Athens will still
survive, fresh in eternal youth, exempt from mutability and decay,
immortal as the intellectual principle from which they derived
their origin, and over which they exercise their control."
Genius of Greece! thou livest; though thy domes
Are fallen; here, in this thy loved abode,
Thine Athens, as I breathe the clear pure air
Which thou hast breathed, climb the dark mountain's side
Which thou hast trod, or in the temple's porch
Pause on the sculptured beauties which thine eye
Has often viewed delighted, I confess
Thy nearer influence; I feel thy power
Exalting every wish to virtuous hope;
I hear thy solemn voice amid the crash
Of fanes hurled prostrate by barbarian hands,
Calling me forth to tread with thee the paths
Of wisdom, or to listen to thy harp
Hymning immortal strains.
Greece! though deserted are thy ports, and all
Thy pomp and thy magnificence are shrunk
Into a narrow circuit; though thy gates
Pour forth no more thy crested sons to war;
Though thy capacious theatres resound
No longer with the replicated shouts
Of multitudes; although Philosophy
Is silent 'mid thy porticos and groves;
Though Commerce heaves no more the pond'rous load,
Or, thund'ring with her thousand cars, imprints
Her footsteps on thy rocks; though near thy fanes
And marble monuments the peasant's hut
Rears its low roof in bitter mockery
Of faded splendor--yet shalt thou survive,
Nor yield till time yields to eternity.
--HAYGARTH.