Mosaics of Grecian History by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

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During the sixth century before the Christian era the Greek cities
in Sicily and Southern Italy were among the most powerful and
flourishing that bore the Hellenic name. Ge'la and Agrigentum,
on the south side of Sicily, had then become the most prominent
of the Sicilian governments; and at the beginning of the fifth
century we find Gelon, a despot of the former city, subjecting
other towns to his authority. Finally obtaining possession of
Syracuse, he made it the seat of his empire (485 B.C.), leaving
Gela to be governed by his brother Hi'ero, the first Sicilian
ruler of that name.

Gelon strengthened the fortifications and greatly enlarged the
limits of Syracuse, while to occupy the enlarged space he
dismantled many of the surrounding towns and transported their
inhabitants to his new capital, which now became not only the
first city in Sicily, but, according to Herodotus, superior to
any other Hellenic power. When, in 480 B.C., a formidable
Carthaginian force under Hamil'-car invaded Sicily at the
instigation of Xerxes, King of Persia, who had overrun Greece
proper and captured Athens, Gelon, at the head of fifty-five
thousand men, engaged the Carthaginians in battle at Himera, and
defeated them with terrible slaughter, Hamilcar himself being
numbered among the slain. The victory at Himera procured for
Sicily immunity from foreign war, while the defeat of Xerxes at
Salamis, on the very same day, dispelled the terrific cloud that
overhung the Greeks in that quarter.

Syracuse continued a flourishing city for several centuries later;
but the subsequent events of interest in her history will be
related in a later chapter. Another Greek colony of importance
was that of Cyre'ne, on the northern coast of Africa, between
the territories of Egypt and Carthage. It was founded about 630
B.C., and, having the advantages of a fertile soil and fine
climate, it rapidly grew in wealth and power. For eight generations
it was governed by kings; but about 460 B.C. royalty was abolished
and a democratic government was established: Cyrene finally fell
under the power of the Carthaginians, and thus remained until
Carthage was destroyed by the Romans. We have mentioned only the
most important of the Grecian colonies, and even the history that
we have of these, the best known, is unconnected and fragmentary.

CHAPTER VIII.

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 Boeotia, 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 Boeotia. 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 horned and unhorned 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 Tyrtae'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.

ALCAE'US.

Among the lyric poets of Greece some writers assign the very
first place to Alcaeus, 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 Alcaeus 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 Alcaeus was the poetess Sappho, the only female
of Greece who ever ranked with the illustrious poets of the other
sex, and whom Alcaeus called "the dark-haired, spotless, sweetly
smiling Sappho." Lesbos was the center of AEolian 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,
AEolian 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.

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