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THE GREEK VIEW OF LIFE
BY
G. LOWES DICKINSON, M.A.
SIXTH EDITION
NEW YORK
1909
PREFACE
The following pages are intended to serve as a general introduction to
Greek literature and thought, for those, primarily, who do not know
Greek. Whatever opinions may be held as to the value of translations, it
seems clear that it is only by their means that the majority of modern
readers can attain to any knowledge of Greek culture; and as I believe
that culture to be still, as it has been in the past, the most valuable
element of a liberal education, I have hoped that such an attempt as the
present to give, with the help of quotations from the original authors,
some general idea of the Greek view of life, will not be regarded as
labour thrown away.
It has been essential to my purpose to avoid, as far as may be, all
controversial matter; and if any classical scholar who may come across
this volume should be inclined to complain of omissions or evasions, I
would beg him to remember the object of the book and to judge it
according to its fitness for its own end.
"The Greek View of Life," no doubt, is a question-begging title, but I
believe it to have a quite intelligible meaning; for varied and manifold
as the phases may be that are presented by the Greek civilization, they
do nevertheless group themselves about certain main ideas, to be
distinguished with sufficient clearness from those which have dominated
other nations. It is these ideas that I have endeavoured to bring into
relief; and if I have failed, the blame, I submit, must be ascribed
rather to myself than to the nature of the task I have undertaken.
From permission to make the extracts from translations here printed my
best thanks are due to the following authors and publishers:--Professor
Butcher, Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. E. D. A. Morshead, Mr. B. B. Rogers, Dr.
Verrall, Mr. A. S. Way, Messrs. George Bell and Sons, the Syndics of the
Cambridge University Press, the Delegates of the Clarendon Press,
Oxford, Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Mr. John Murray, and Messrs. Sampson
Low, Marston and Co.--I have also to thank the Master and Fellows of
Balliol College, Oxford, for permission to quote at considerable length
from the late Professor Jowett's translations of Plato and Thucydides.
Appended is a list of the translations from which I have quoted.
LIST OF TRANSLATIONS USED
AESCHYLUS (B.C. 525--456). "The House of Atreus"
(I.E. the "Agamemnon," "Choephorae" and "Eumenides"),
translated by E. D. A. MORSHEAD (Warren and Sons).
The "Eumenides," translated by DR. VERRALL (Cambridge,
1885).
ARISTOPHANES (C. B.C. 444--380). "The Acharnians,
the Knights, and the Birds," translated by JOHN HOOKHAM
FRERE (Morley's Universal Library, Routledge).
[Also the "Frogs" and the "Peace" in his Collected
Works, (Pickering)].
The "Clouds," the "Lysistrata" ["Women in Revolt,"]
the "Peace," and the "Wasps," translated by B. B. ROGERS
ARISTOTLE (B.C. 384--322). The "Ethics," the "Politics,"
and the "Rhetoric," translated by J. E. C. WELLDON
(Macmillan & Co.).
DEMOSTHENES (B.C. 385--322). "Orations," translated by
C. R. KENNEDY (Bell).
EURIPIDES (B.C. 480--406). "Tragedies," translated by
A. S. WAY (Macmillan & Co.).
HERODOTUS (B.C. 484-- ). "The History," translated
by S. R. RAWLINSON (Murray).
HOMER. The "Iliad," translated by LANG, LEAF AND MYERS;
the "Odyssey," translated by BUTCHER & LANG (Macmillan).
PINDAR (B.C. 522--442). "Odes," translated by E. MYERS
(Macmillan & Co.).
PLATO (B.C. 430--347). The "Dialogues," translated by
B. JOWETT (Clarendon Press).
"The Republic," translated by DAVIES AND VAUGHAN
(Macmillan & Co.).
PLUTARCH. "Lives," DRYDEN'S translation, edited by
A. CLOUGH (Sampson Low, Marston & Co.).
SOPHOCLES (B.C. 496--406). Edited and Translated by DR. JEBB
(Cambridge University Press).
THUCYDIDES (B.C. 471-- ), edited and translated by
B. JOWETT (Clarendon Press).
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.--THE GREEK VIEW OF RELIGION
1. Introductory
2. Greek Religion an Interpretation of Nature
3. Greek Religion an Interpretation of the Human Passions
4. Greek Religion the Foundation of Society
5. Religious Festivals
6. The Greek Conception of the Relation of Man to the Gods
7. Divination, Omens, Oracles
8. Sacrifice and Atonement
9. Guilt and Punishment
10. Mysticism
11. The Greek View of Death and a Future Life
12. Critical and Sceptical Opinion in Greece
13. Ethical Criticism
14. Transition to Monotheism
15. Metaphysical Criticism
16. Metaphysical reconstruction--Plato
17. Summary
CHAPTER II.--THE GREEK VIEW OF THE STATE
1. The Greek State a "City"
2. The Relation of the State to the Citizen
3. The Greek View of Law
4. Artisans and Slaves
5. The Greek State primarily Military, not Industrial
6. Forms of Government in the Greek State
7. Faction and Anarchy
8. Property and the Communistic Ideal
9. Sparta
10. Athens
11. Sceptical Criticism of the Basis of the State
12. Summary
CHAPTER III.--THE GREEK VIEW OF THE INDIVIDUAL
1. The Greek View of Manual Labour and Trade
2. Appreciation of External Goods
3. Appreciation of Physical Qualities
4. Greek Athletics
5. Greek Ethics--Identification of the Aesthetic and Ethical Points of View
6. The Greek View of Pleasure
7. Illustrations.--Ischomachus; Socrates
8. The Greek View of Woman
9. Protests against the Common View of Woman
10. Friendship
11. Summary
CHAPTER IV.--THE GREEK VIEW OF ART
1. Greek Art an Expression of National Life
2. Identification of the Aesthetic and Ethical points of View
3. Sculpture and Painting
4. Music and the Dance
5. Poetry
6. Tragedy
7. Comedy
8. Summary
CHAPTER V.--CONCLUSION
THE GREEK VIEW OF LIFE
CHAPTER I
THE GREEK VIEW OF RELIGION
Section 1. Introductory.
In approaching the subject of the religion of the Greeks it is necessary
to dismiss at the outset many of the associations which we are naturally
inclined to connect with that word. What we commonly have in our mind
when we speak of religion is a definite set of doctrines, of a more or
less metaphysical character, formulated in a creed and supported by an
organisation distinct from the state. And the first thing we have to
learn about the religion of the Greeks is that it included nothing of
the kind. There was no church, there was no creed, there were no
articles; there was no doctrine even, unless we are so to call a chaos
of legends orally handed down and in continual process of transformation
by the poets. Priests there were, but they were merely public officials,
appointed to perform certain religious rites. The distinction between
cleric and layman, as we know it, did not exist; the distinction between
poetry and dogma did not exist; and whatever the religion of the Greeks
may have been, one thing at any rate is clear, that it was something
very different from all that we are in the habit of associating with the
word.
What then was it? It is easy to reply that it was the worship of those
gods--of Zeus, Apollo, Athene, and the rest--with whose names and
histories every one is familiar. But the difficulty is to realise what
was implied in the worship of these gods; to understand that the
mythology which we regard merely as a collection of fables was to the
Greeks actually true; or at least that to nine Greeks out of ten it
would never occur that it might be false, might be, as we say, mere
stories. So that though no doubt the histories of the gods were in part
the inventions of the poets, yet the poets would conceive themselves to
be merely putting into form what they and every one believed to be
essentially true.
But such a belief implies a fundamental distinction between the
conception, or rather, perhaps, the feeling of the Greeks about the
world, and our own. And it is this feeling that we want to understand
when we ask ourselves the question, what did a belief in the gods really
mean to the ancient Greeks? To answer it fully and satisfactorily is
perhaps impossible. But some attempt must be made; and it may help us in
our quest if we endeavour to imagine the kind of questionings and doubts
which the conception of the gods would set at rest.