says Herodotus, _befell him as I shall tell. He had two sons by
Melissa, one seventeen years of age and the other eighteen. Their
mother’s father Prokles, tyrant of Epidaurus, sent for them to his
castle and kindly entreated them, as was natural, for they were his
daughter’s children. But when he was bidding them farewell, he said,
“Know ye, my children, who slew your mother?” This saying the elder
regarded not, but the younger, whose name was Lykophron, when he heard
it was so moved_—the poor young man—_that when he came to Corinth, he
spake no word to his father, accounting him his mother’s murderer,
neither would he converse with him nor answer any question. And at last
Periandros in great anger drave him from the house. And after he had
expelled him, he questioned the elder son, what discourse their uncle
had held with them. And he told his father that Prokles had received
them kindly, but made no mention of that speech of Prokles, which he
uttered at their departing, for he had not marked it. But Periandros
declared that it was in no way possible but that he had given them
some counsel, and closely questioned the lad, till he remembered and
told this also. And Periandros, understanding the matter and resolved
not to yield weakly in any thing, sent a messenger to those with whom
the son whom he had driven forth was living, and forbade them to take
him in. And whenever the wanderer came to another house, he would be
driven from this also, Periandros threatening those who received him
and commanding them to thrust him forth. And he went wandering from
house to house of his friends, who, for all their fear, used to receive
him, seeing that he was the son of Periandros. But at last Periandros
caused proclamation to be made, that whosoever should receive him in
his house or speak to him, the same must pay such and such a sacred
penalty to Apollo. Therefore because of this proclamation no man was
willing to speak to the lad or to give him shelter. Moreover neither
would he himself try to obtain that which was forbidden him, but
endured all, haunting the public porticos. On the fourth day Periandros
saw him all unwashen and emaciated for lack of food, and was moved to
pity, and remitting somewhat of his anger he approached and said, “My
son, whether is better, to fare as now thou farest, or to take over my
lordship and the good things that are mine, reconciled to thy father?
But thou, my son and prince of wealthy Corinth, hast chosen a vagrant
life, opposing and showing anger against him whom thou oughtest least
to hate. If there has been a mishap in that matter, the same hath
befallen me also, and I have the larger share therein, as mine was the
deed. But apprehending how far better it is to be envied than pitied,
and at the same time what manner of thing it is to be wroth with them
that begat thee and are stronger than thou, come back home.” With these
words Periandros sought to constrain his son, but he made no other
answer but only this, that his father had incurred the sacred penalty
to the god by entering into speech with him. And Periandros, perceiving
that there was no dealing with nor overcoming of the enmity of his son,
sends him away out of his sight on board a ship to Corcyra, for he was
master of Corcyra also. But after he had dispatched him, Periandros
made an expedition against Prokles his father-in-law, blaming him
chiefly for what had happened, and took Epidaurus, and took Prokles
himself alive._
_But in course of time Periandros came to be old, and knew himself no
longer capable of watching over and administering affairs. Wherefore
he sent to Corcyra and recalled Lykophron to the tyranny; for he saw
nothing in his elder son, but looked upon him as somewhat dull of wit.
But Lykophron would not even answer the messenger. But Periandros, who
was bound up in the young man, made a second attempt, sending his own
daughter, Lykophron’s sister, thinking he would most readily listen to
her. And when she had come she said, “Dear Lykophron, is it your desire
that our lordship should fall to others and thy father’s substance be
scattered abroad, rather than come away and have it thyself? Come home;
cease punishing thyself. A proud heart is poor profit. Do not cure
one evil with another. Many prefer mercy to justice; and many ere now
in seeking what was their mother’s have lost what their father had. A
tyranny is a slippery thing, and many there be that long for it; and
he is now an old man and past his prime. Give not away what is thine
own to others.” These were her words, which her father had taught to
her as the most persuasive. But Lykophron answered that he would on no
account come to Corinth so long as he knew his father was alive. When
she had brought back this answer, Periandros sends a third messenger,
a herald, to propose that he should go himself to Corcyra, and bidding
Lykophron come to Corinth to succeed him in the tyranny. The young man
agreed to these terms, and Periandros was setting out for Corcyra and
the prince to Corinth, when the Corcyraeans, becoming aware of all
this, in order that Periandros might not come to their land, put the
lad to death. Therefore Periandros took vengeance on the Corcyraeans_.
The revenge of the old man was to send three hundred boys of the chief
Corcyraean families to the great Lydian king, Alyattes, to be made
eunuchs.... He was cheated of his revenge by a humane stratagem of the
Samians. The lonely old man, with that touch of original nobleness
all gone now, black frustrate rage in his heart, love turned to an
inhuman hate of all the world, wearing this Nessus shirt of remorse and
despair! _Such is tyranny_, says Sosikles at the end of his speech,
_Such is tyranny, O Lacedaemonians, and such its consequences._
Periandros, you see, has already become a type. There is a curious
fitness in the application to these old “tyrants” of the worn quotation
from _The Vanity of Human Wishes_—they do very specially point a
moral and adorn a tale. The moral they point is the danger of losing
_Sophrosyne_. There is a wonderful description in Plato’s _Republic_
of the tyrant’s genesis, a description which may startle us by the
intensity of feeling which one touches in it. It is a story of the
gradual loss of Sophrosyne, ending in perfect degeneration and the loss
of all the other virtues as well. This Sophrosyne (one of the cardinal
Greek virtues and the most characteristic of all) confronts us at the
outset of any study of the Hellenic temperament. To understand the
one is to understand the other. Complete understanding is of course
impossible, but we may get nearer and nearer to the secret.
Sophrosyne is the “saving” virtue. That means little—or nothing—until
it is steeped in the colours of the Greek temperament, and viewed in
the Greek attitude to life. Well then, the Greek attitude to life—how
shall we describe that? I am going to describe it in a phrase which
is at least accurate enough to help on our discussion greatly: it
looks upon life as an _Agon_, and by an Agon is meant the whole range
of activities from the most to the least heroic, from the most to
the least spiritual, contest or competition. The reader will forgive
an appearance of pedantry in this, since the word needs careful
translation. Now my suggestion is that this _agonistic_ view of
life, if I may so call it, pervades and characterizes all Classical
antiquity. To understand clearly the nature of an Agon we must keep
firmly in mind its origin. It would be misleading surely to call its
origin religious—as if men needed to be religious to fight!—but it is
undeniable that its roots are embedded in that primitive life which is
so largely mastered by religion and magic. In consequence an ancient
Agon was nearly always a religious ceremony. That seems curious enough
to a modern mind, yet nothing is more certain. The great national Games
like the Olympic, the rhapsodic and musical contests, the Attic Drama
(which was specifically an Agon)—all had this religious or supernatural
_aura_ investing them. And when one looks into Greek religion itself,
one finds everywhere as its characteristic expression a choric dance,
which normally takes the form of an actual or mimic contest between two
sides or “semi-choruses.”
The motive then of an Agon differed from that of an ordinary modern
contest. It was normally a _ritual_ contest, and its motive a
_religious_ motive. It was not held for its own sake, like a football
match, but for a definite object. This object the Greeks called
_Nikê_, which we translate—inadequately enough, as is plain from the
facts we have been considering—as “victory.” It was felt to be not so
much a personal distinction as a blessing upon the whole community.
It possessed a magical virtue. There was even a sense in which in an
ancient Agon everybody won. Nor does it seem extravagant to say that
Greek society, like a primitive society, only in a far richer, more
complex, more significant and spiritual way, was organized for the
production of Nikê.
That is a large matter. There is, to be sure, no need of accumulated
detail to prove that the Agon was the most characteristic institution
of ancient life; it only requires to be pointed out; everywhere we find
these competitions. What may chiefly interest us for the moment is
that the Agon was simply the outward expression of the characteristic
Greek outlook upon life and upon the whole human scene. For the
Greek looked upon life itself as a struggle, an Agon, an opportunity
for the production of Nikê. Mr. Wells gives to one of his essays the
title of “The Human Adventure.” Life as the Human Adventure very well
expresses the Greek feeling about it. Only let us not forget that the
Nikê which is the object and justification of every Agon is—I have
already remarked it—something utterly, qualitatively different from
mere success. It is the triumph of the Cause. “Success”—“the successful
business man”—not that kind of success.
The most successful man in Greece, every one remembers, was rewarded
with a little garland of wild olive. _God help us, Mardonios_, said a
noble Persian when he heard this, _what men are these thou hast brought
us to fight against!—men that contend not for money but for merit_. The
individual Greek could want money badly enough, as may be gathered from
the amusing, but satirical, _Characters_ of Theophrastus. Yet in the
soul of Hellas, for all its strong sense of reality and despite some
inclination to avarice, one finds at last something you might almost
call quixotic. Is there not some element of quixotry in every high
adventure? And what adventure could be higher than to fight for “the
beautiful things,” _Ta Kala_, against the outnumbering Barbarian?
Sophrosyne is the virtue that “saves” in this battle. Understand it
so, and you must share some part of the ardour this word inspired. It
means the steady control and direction of the total energy of a man.
It means discipline. It means concentration. It is the angel riding
the whirlwind, the charioteer driving the wild horses. There is no
word for it in English, and we must coldly translate “moderation,”
“temperance,” “self-restraint.” “Moderation” as a name for this
strong-pulsed, triumphant thing! Why even the late-born, unromantic
Aristotle, even while he is describing Sophrosyne as a “mean” between
excessive and deficient emotionality, turns aside to remark, as a thing
almost too obvious to need pointing out, that “there is a sense in
which Sophrosyne is an _extreme_.” This is She whom Dante beheld on the
Mountain of Purgatory such that “never were seen in furnace glasses or
metals so glowing and red”:
_giammai non si videro in fornace
vetri o metalli sì lucenti e rossi_.
VI
GODS AND TITANS
It was an ancient hypothesis that the Gods are only deified men. A
certain Euêmeros suggested this. His favourite illustration was Zeus;
that greatest of the Gods, he said, was a prehistoric king in Crete, as
the Cretan legends about him proved. This theory has received a fresh
life from the investigations of modern scholars. Historically, it seems
to be largely true; psychologically, it explains nothing at all. _All
men have need of the Gods_, says Homer; the religious instinct, that is
the important thing, or rather (since the other is important too) that
is the fundamental thing. It is also the prior thing, the spring of the
religious act. If I want to know why primitive men make a god of one of
their number, it seems no answer to assure me that they do so. Yet the
historical inquiry has great interest too, and throws a dim and rather
lurid light on the development of religion and religious thought. And
I could not leave untouched an aspect of the old Greek life so vital
as its belief about the gods without illustrating how here also the
conflict of Greek and Barbarian worked itself out.
It is almost the other day that we rediscovered the old Aegean
religion—the immemorially ancient religion of the non-Greek peoples,
the Barbarians, who lived about the Aegean Sea. It is now clear that
the Hittites, the Phrygians, the ancient peoples of Anatolia generally,
worshipped a kind of triad or trinity of Father, Son and Consort.
Sometimes, as in the Hittite sculptures, the Father and the Son seem
the important members of the group; sometimes, as in the Phrygian
religion, the emphasis is chiefly on the Mother and Consort, and the
Son. But the third member can always be discovered too, standing pretty
obviously in the background. In prehistoric Crete (which, of course,
became Greek in historical times) we again recognize the divine Three
in the persons of those native divinities whom the Greeks learned to
call Kronos, Rhea and Zeus. That is the skeleton of the old religion;
the living flesh in which it was clothed was begotten in tribal custom.
Primitive peoples fashion their gods after their own image. Their chief
god they think of as a greater and more worshipful “king,” swayed by
the passions, observing the etiquette, and wearing the regalia of their
earthly rulers. Now the primitive king held his place by force or craft
or the terror of his rages (his _menos_)—and by no other tenure. He
lived in constant dread of the rival who, younger and stronger, would
one day rise against him and seize his throne. The rival might be a
stranger, but more frequently he was the king’s own son, who, for one
thing, would be thought likely to inherit the magical virtue of his
sire. Accordingly, when the Young King was born, the Old King would
seek his life. But there he would be apt to meet the opposition of the
Queen, who would seek to convey the child to a safe retreat. Then,
grown at last to manhood, suddenly the Prince would return to challenge
the Old King to mortal combat. The Gods behave exactly like that.
The chief depositary in ancient Greece of popular beliefs about the
Gods is the curious poem attributed to Hesiod, called the _Theogony_.
Along with certain parts of Homer, it formed what might be called
the handbook of orthodoxy, and it tells us with an incomparable
authoritativeness what the sacred tradition was. Eldest of all, says
the _Theogony_, was Gaia or Mother Earth, a goddess. Now she _bare
first starry Ouranos, equal to herself, that he might cover her on
every side ... and afterward she lay with him, and bare the deep coil
of Okeanos, and Koios, and Krios, and Hyperîon, and Iapetos, and Thea,
and Rhea, and Themis, and Mnemosyne, and Phoibe with the gold upon her
head, and lovely Tethys. And, after these, youngest was born Kronos
the Crooked-Thinker, most dangerous of her sons, who loathed his lusty
begetter._ There is a fuller account in another place. _Next, of Gaia
and Ouranos were born three sons, huge and violent, ill to name, Kottos
and Briareos and Gyes, the haughty ones. From their shoulders swang
an hundred arms invincible, and on their shoulders, upon their rude
bodies, grew heads a fifty upon each; irresistible strength crowned the
giant forms. Of all the children of Gaia and Ouranos most to be feared
were these, and they were hated of their Sire from the first; yea, soon
as one was born, he would not let them into the light, but would hide
them all away in a hiding-place of Earth, and Ouranos gloried in the
bad work. And, being straitened, huge Gaia groaned inwardly; and she
thought of a cruel device. Hastily she created the grey flint, and of
it fashioned a mighty Sickle, and expounded her thought to her Sons,
speaking burning words from an anguished heart. “Sons of me and of an
unrighteous Father, if ye will hearken to me, on your Father ye may
take vengeance for his sinful outrage, for it was He began the devising
of shameful deeds!”_
_So spake she, but fear seized them all, I ween, neither did one of
them utter a word. But mighty Kronos the Cunning took heart of grace,
and made answer again to his good Mother. “Mother, I will undertake and
will perform this thing, since of our Father (‘Father!’) I reck not;
for it was He began the devising of shameful deeds!” So spake he, and
mighty Gaia rejoiced greatly in her heart, and hid him in an ambush,
and put in his hands the sharp-fanged Sickle, and taught him all the
plot._
_Great Ouranos came with falling night and cast him broadly over Gaia,
desiring her, and outstretched him at large upon her. But that other,
his Son, reached out with his left hand from the place of his hiding
... and with his right grasping the monstrous fanged Sickle, he swiftly
reaped the privy parts of his Father and cast them to fall behind him._
In calling this story Barbarian, I feel as if I ought to apologize
to the Barbarians. Nevertheless it is clearly more in their way than
in the way of the Greeks. It excellently illustrates the kind of
stuff from which Greek religion refined itself. You will see that
it is the old savage stuff of the battle between the Kings. On this
occasion it is the Young King who prevails and pushes the Old King
from his throne—not to die (for he was a God), but to live a shadowy,
elemental life. But neither was Kronos able to escape his destiny. For
_Rhea, subdued unto Kronos, bare shining children, even Hestia, and
Demeter, and gold-shod Hera, and strong Hades, that pitiless heart,
dwelling under ground, and the roaring Earth-Shaker, and Zeus the
Many-Counselled, the Father of Gods and men, by whose thunder the broad
earth is shaken. They also—great Kronos was used to swallow them down,
as each came from the womb to his holy Mother’s knees, with intent
that none other of the proud race of Ouranos should hold the lordship
among the Everliving. For he knew from Gaia and starry Ouranos that
he was fated to be overcome of his own child.... Therefore no blind
man’s watch he kept, but looked for his children and swallowed them;
but Rhea grieved and would not be comforted. But when she was at point
to bring forth Zeus, then she prayed her own dear parents, Gaia and
starry Ouranos, to devise a plan whereby she might bear her Son in
secret, and retribution be paid by Kronos the Crafty Thinker for his
father’s sake and his children that he gorged. And they truly gave ear
to their daughter and obeyed her, and told her all things that were
fated to befall concerning Kronos the King and his strong-hearted Son.
And they conveyed her to Luktos in the fat land of Crete, when she was
about to bring forth the youngest of her sons, great Zeus. Him gigantic
Gaia received from her in broad Crete to nurture and to nurse. Thither
came Gaia bearing him through the swift black night, to Luktos first;
and she took him in her arms and hid him in a lonely cave, withdrawn
beneath the goodly land, there where the wild-wood is thick upon the
hills of Aigaion. But she wrapped a great Stone in swaddlingclouts,
and gave it to the Son of Ouranos so mightily ruling, the Old King of
the Gods. And Kronos seized it then with his hands, and put it down
in his belly without ruth, nor knew in his own mind that for a Stone
his Son was left to him unvanquished and unharmed, that was soon to
overcome him by main strength of his hands, and drive him from the
sovranty, and be King himself among the Everliving._
_For swiftly thereafter mightiness was increased to the Young King and
his shining limbs waxed greater, and, as the seasons rounded to their
close, great Kronos the Cunning was beguiled by the subtile suggestions
of Gaia, and cast up again his offspring; and first he spewed forth the
Stone, that he had swallowed last. Zeus planted it where meet the roads
of the world in goodly Pytho under the rock-wall of Parnassus, to be a
sign and to be a marvel to men in the days to come._
The Stone was there all right, for the French excavators have found
it, looking highly indigestible. But it is unfair to treat Hesiod in
this spirit. In fact, to read in him such passages as I have quoted is
to give oneself quite a different emotion. There is the most curious
conflict between one’s moral and one’s æsthetic reactions to them. You
have a matter which it is poor to call savage, which is more like some
atavistic resurrection of the beast in man; and you find it told in a
style which is like some obsolescent litany full of half-understood
words and immemorial refrains. The most primitive-minded is also the
most literary poet in Greek, if by “literary” one means influenced by
a tradition in style. He is full of the epic _clichés_, and he repeats
them in a helpless, joyless way, as if he had no choice in the matter.
If you wish to be unkind, you may describe his style as the epic
jargon. But you will be unjust if you do not admit a certain grandeur
arising (it would almost seem) out of its very formalism. Even in its
decay the epic style is a magnificent thing. The singing-robes of Homer
have faded and stiffened, but they are still dimly gorgeous, and it
is with gold that they are stiff. The poet of the _Theogony_—I call
him Hesiod without prejudice—wears them almost like a priest. But if
you have to tell a story like those I have quoted, what other manner
is possible than just such a conventional, half-ritualistic style,
which acts like a spell to move the religious emotions and suspend the
critical judgment? I am not quite finished with Hesiod, and I want the
reader to have a little more patience with him and with me.
Before he was cast out of his throne, Ouranos, having conceived a
hatred of his Sons, Briareos and Kottos and Gyes, _strongly bound
them, being jealous of their overbearing valour, their beauty and
stature, and fixed their habitation under the wide-wayed earth, where
they were seated at the world’s end and utmost marge, in great grief
and indignation of mind. Natheless the Son of Kronos, and the rest of
the immortal Gods that deep-haired Rhea bare in wedlock with Kronos,
brought them up to the light again by the counsels of Gaia, who
told them all the tale, how they would gain the victory and bright
glory with the aid of those._ In another place we read that Briareos
and Kottos and Gyes _were grateful for that good service, and gave
Zeus the thunder and the burning bolt and the lightning-flash, that
aforetime vast Gaia concealed; in them he puts his trust as he rules
over mortals and immortals_. He required them almost at once in his
battle with the Titans. The word “Titans” seems to mean nothing more
or less than “Kings.” They were the Old Kings at war with the Young
Kings (who, because they lived on Mount Olympus in Thessaly, came to
be called the “Olympians”) with Zeus at their head. Naturally the Old
Kings took the side of Kronos, but after a ten years’ war they were
beaten in a terrific battle, and Zeus reigned supreme. And then how do
we find him behaving? Like this. _And Zeus King of the Gods took to
wife first Metis, that was wisest of Gods and men. And when indeed she
was about to bring forth the blue-eyed Goddess Athena, he beguiled her
with cunning words, and put her down into his belly, by the counsels
of Gaia and starry Ouranos, who counselled him so, lest some other of
the ever-living Gods should hold the sovranty in the stead of Zeus, for
of her it was fated that most wise children should be born, first the
bright-eyed Maid Tritogeneia, of equal might with her Sire and of a
wise understanding, and after her I ween she was to bear a high-hearted
Son, that would be King of Gods and men. So he clutched her and put her
down in his belly, in fear that she would bear a stronger thing than
the Thunderbolt._