Mosaics of Grecian History by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

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ANAC'REON.

The last lyric poet of this period that we shall notice was
Anacreon, a native of Teos, in Ionia, who flourished about 530
B.C. He was a voluptuary, who sang beautifully of love, and wine,
and nature, and who has been called the courtier and laureate of
tyrants, in whose society, and especially in that of Polyc'rates
and Hippar'chus, his days were spent. The poet AKENSIDE thus
characterizes him:

I see Anacreon smile and sing,
His silver tresses breathe perfume;
His cheeks display a second spring,
Of roses taught by wine to bloom.
Away, deceitful cares, away,
And let me listen to his lay;
Let me the wanton pomp enjoy,
While in smooth dance the light-winged hours
Lead round his lyre its patron powers,
Kind laughter and convivial joy.

The following is Cowper's translation of a pretty little poem
by Anacreon on the grasshopper:

Happy songster, perched above,
On the summit of the grove,
Whom a dew-drop cheers to sing
With the freedom of a king,
From thy perch survey the fields,
Where prolific Nature yields
Naught that, willingly as she,
Man surrenders not to thee.
For hostility or hate,
None thy pleasures can create.
Thee it satisfies to sing
Sweetly the return of spring,
Herald of the genial hours,
Harming neither herbs nor flowers.
Therefore man thy voice attends,
Gladly; thou and he are friends.
Nor thy never-ceasing strains
Phoebus and the Muse disdains
As too simple or too long,
For themselves inspire the song.
Earth-born, bloodless; undecaying,
Ever singing, sporting, playing,
What has Nature else to show
Godlike in its kind as thou?

* * * * *

III. EARLY GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.

We now enter upon a new phase of Greek literature. While the
first use of prose in writing may be assigned to a date earlier
than 700 B.C., it was not until the early part of the sixth
century B.C. that use was made of prose for literary purposes;
and even then prose compositions were either mythological, or
collections of local legends, whether sacred or profane. The
importance and the practical uses of genuine history were neither
known nor suspected until after the Persian wars. But Grecian
philosophy had an earlier dawn, and was coeval with the poetical
compositions of Hesiod, although it was in the sixth century that
it began to be separated from poetry and religion, and to be
cultivated by men who were neither bards, priests, nor seers.
This is the era when the practical maxims and precepts of the
Seven Grecian sages began to be collected by the chroniclers,
and disseminated among the people.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

Concerning these sages, otherwise called the "Seven Wise Men
of Greece," the accounts are confused and contradictory, and
their names are variously given; but those most generally admitted
to the honor are Solon (the Athenian legislator); Bias, of Ionia;
Chi'lo (Ephor of Sparta); Cleobu'lus (despot of Lindos, in the
Island of Rhodes); Perian'der (despot of Corinth); Pit'tacus
(ruler of Mityle'ne); and Tha'les, of Mile'tus, in accordance
with the following enumeration:

"First Solon, who made the Athenian laws;
While Chilo, in Sparta, was famed for his saws;
In Miletus did Thales astronomy teach;
Bias used in Prie'ne his morals to preach;
Cleobulus of Lindus was handsome and wise;
Mitylene 'gainst thraldom saw Pittacus rise;
Periander is said to have gained, through his court,
The title that Myson, the Chenian, ought."
[Footnote: It is Plato who says that Periander,
tyrant of Corinth; should give place to Myson.]

The seven wise men were distinguished for their witty sayings,
many of which have grown into maxims that are in current use
even at the present day. Out of the number the following seven
were inscribed as mottoes, in later days, in the temple at Delphi:
"Know thyself," Solon; "Consider the end," Chilo; "Suretyship is
the forerunner of ruin" (He that hateth suretyship is sure; Prov.
xi. 15), Thales; "Most men are bad" (There is none that doeth
good, no, not one, Psalm xiv. 3), Bias; "Avoid extremes" (the
golden mean), Cleobulus; "Know thy opportunity" (Seize time by
the forelock), Pittacus; "Nothing is impossible to industry"
(Patience and perseverance overcome mountains), Periander. GROTE
says of the seven sages: "Their appearance forms an epoch in
Grecian history, inasmuch as they are the first persons who ever
acquired an Hellenic reputation grounded on mental competency
apart from poetical genius or effect--a proof that political
and social prudence was beginning to be appreciated and admired
on its own account."

The eldest school of Greek philosophy, called the Ionian, was
founded by Thales of Miletus, about the middle of the sixth
century B.C. In the investigation of natural causes and effects
he taught, as a distinguishing tenet of his philosophy, that
water, or some other fluid, is the primary element of all things
--a theory which probably arose from observations on the uses of
moisture in the nourishment of animal and vegetable life. A
similar process of reasoning led Anaxim'enes, of Miletus, half
a century later, to substitute air for water; and by analogous
reasoning Heracli'tus, of Ephesus, surnamed "the naturalist,"
was led to regard the basis of fire or flame as the fundamental
principle of all things, both spiritual and material. Diog'enes,
the Cretan, was led to regard the universe as issuing from an
intelligent principle--a rational as well as sensitive soul--but
without recognizing any distinction between mind and matter;
while Anaximan'der conceived the primitive state of the universe
to have been a vast chaos or infinity, containing the elements
from which the world was constructed by inherent or self-moving
processes of separation and combination. This doctrine was revived
by Anaxag'oras, an Ionian, a century later, who combined it with
the philosophy of Diogenes, and taught the existence of one supreme
mind.

XENOPH'ANES AND PYTHAG'ORAS.

Two widely different schools of philosophy now arose in the western
Greek colonies of lower Italy. Xenophanes, a native of Ionia, who
had fled to E'lea, was the founder of one, and Pythagoras, of
Samos, of the other. The former, known as the Eleat'ic philosophy,
admitted a supreme intelligence, eternal and incorporeal, pervading
all things, and, like the universe itself, spherical in form. This
system was developed in the following century by Parmen'ides and
Zeno, who exercised a great influence upon the Greek mind.
Pythagoras was the first Grecian to assume the title of philosopher,
although he was more of a religious teacher. Having traveled
extensively in the East, he returned to Samos about 540 B.C.;
but, finding the condition of his country, which was then ruled
by the despot Polycrates, unfavorable to the progress of his
doctrines, he moved to Croto'na, in Italy, and established his
school of philosophy there.

Pythagoras,
Vexed with the Samian despot's lawless sway
(For tyrants ne'er loved wisdom), crossed the seas,
And found a home on the Hesperian shore,
Time when the Tarquin arched the infant Rome
With vaults, the germ of Caesar's golden hall.
There, in Crotona's state, he held a school
Of wisdom and of virtue, teaching men
The harmony of aptly portioned powers,
And of well-numbered days: whence, as a god,
Men honored him; and, from his wells refreshed,
The master-builder of pure intellect,
Imperial Plato, piled the palace where
All great, true thoughts have found a home forever.
--J. STUART BLACKIE.

Pythagoras made some important discoveries in geometry, music,
and astronomy. The demonstration of the forty-seventh proposition
of Euclid is attributed to him. He also discovered the chords in
music, which led him to conceive that the planets, striking upon
the ether through which they move in their celestial orbits;
produce harmonious sounds, varying according to the differences
of the magnitudes, velocities, and relative distances of the
planets, in a manner corresponding to the proportion of the notes
in a musical scale. Hence the "music of the spheres." From what
can be gathered of the astronomical doctrine of Pythagoras, it
has been inferred that he was possessed of the true idea of the
solar system, which was revived by Coper'nicus and fully
established by Newton. With respect to God, Pythagoras appears
to have taught that he is the universal, ever-existent mind,
the first principle of the universe, the source and cause of all
animal life and motion, in substance similar to light, in nature
like truth, incapable of pain, invisible, incorruptible, and only
to be comprehended by the mind. His philosophy and teachings are
thus pictured by the poet THOMSON:

Here dwelt the Samian sage; to him belongs
The brightest witness of recording fame.
He sought Crotona's pure, salubrious air,
And through great Greece his gentle wisdom taught.
His mental eye first launched into the deeps
Of boundless ether; where unnumbered orbs,
Myriads on myriads, through the pathless sky
Unerring roll, and wind their steady way.
There he the full consenting choir beheld;
There first discerned the secret band of love,
The kind attraction, that to central suns
Binds circling earths, and world with world unites.
Instructed thence, he great ideas formed
Of the whole-moving, all-informing God,
The Sun of Beings! beaming unconfined--
Light, life, and love, and ever active power:
Whom naught can image, and who best approves
The silent worship of the moral heart,
That joys in bounteous Heaven and spreads the joy.

Pythagoras also taught the doctrine of the transmigration of
souls, which he probably derived from the Egyptians; and he
professed to preserve a distinct remembrance of several states
of existence through which his soul had passed. It is related
of him that on one occasion, seeing a dog beaten, he interceded
in its behalf, saying, "It is the soul of a friend of mine, whom
I recognize by its voice." It would seem as if the poet COLERIDGE
had at times been dimly conscious of the reality of this
Pythagorean doctrine, for he says:

Oft o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll
Which makes the present (while the flash doth last)
Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,
Mixed with such feelings as perplex the soul
Self-questioned in her sleep: and some have said
We lived ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.

One of our favorite American poets; LOWELL, indulges in a like
fancy in the following lines from that dream, like, exquisite
fantasy, "In the Twilight," found in the Biglow Papers:

Sometimes a breath floats by me,
An odor from Dream-land sent,
That makes the ghost seem nigh me
Of a splendor that came and went,
Of a life lived somewhere, I know not
In what diviner sphere--
Of memories that stay not and go not,
Like music once heard by an ear
That cannot forget or reclaim it--
A something so shy, it would shame it
To make it a show--
A something too vague, could I name it,
For others to know,
As if I had lived it or dreamed it,
As if I had acted or schemed it,
Long ago!

And yet, could I live it over,
This life that stirs in my brain--
Could I be both maiden and lover,
Moon and tide, bee and clover,
As I seem to have been, once again--
Could I but speak and show it,
This pleasure, more sharp than pain,
That baffles and lures me so,
The world should not lack a poet,
Such as it had
In the ages glad
Long ago.

On the whole, the system of Pythagoras, with many excellencies,
contained some gross absurdities and superstitions, which were
dignified with the name of philosophy, and which exerted a
pernicious influence over the opinions of many succeeding
generations.

THE ELEUSIN'IAN MYSTERIES,

Closely connected with the public and private instruction that
the philosophers gave in their various systems, were certain
national institutions of a secret character, which combined the
mysteries of both philosophy and religion. The most celebrated
of these, the great festival of Eleusinia, sacred to Ce'res and
Pros'erpine, was observed every fourth year in different parts
of Greece, but more particularly by the people of Athens every
fifth year, at Eleu'sis, in Attica.

What is known of the rites performed at Eleusis has been gathered
from occasional incidental allusions found in the pages of nearly
all the classical authorities; and although the penalty of a
sudden and ignominious death impended over anyone who divulged
these symbolic ceremonies, yet enough is now known to describe
them with much minuteness of detail. We have not the space to
give that detailed description here, but the ceremonies occupied
nine days, from the 15th to the 23d of September, inclusive. The
first day was that on which the worshippers merely assembled; the
second, that on which they purified themselves by bathing in the
sea; the third, the day of sacrifices; the fourth, the day of
offerings to the goddess; the fifth, the day of torches, when
the multitude roamed over the meadows at nightfall carrying
flambeaus, in imitation of Ceres searching for her daughter;
the sixth, the day of Bacchus, the god of Vintage; the seventh,
the day of athletic pastimes; the eighth, the day devoted to
the lesser mysteries and celestial revelations; and the ninth,
the day of libations.

The language that Virgil puts into the mouth of Anchi'ses, in
the Sixth Book of the AEneid, is regarded as a condensed definition
of the secrets of Eleusis and the creed of Pythagoras. The same
book, moreover, is believed to represent several of the scenes
of the mysteries. In the following words the shade of Anchises
answers the inquiries of "his godlike son:"

"Know, first, that heav'n, and earth's contracted frame,
And flowing waters, and the starry flame,
And both the radiant lights, one common soul
Inspires and feeds--and animates the whole.
This active mind, infused through all the space,
Unites and mingles with the mighty mass.
Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain,
And birds of air, and monsters of the main.
Th' ethereal vigor is in all the same;
And ev'ry soul is fill'd with equal flame--
As much as earthy limbs, and gross allay
Of mortal members subject to decay,
Blunt not the beams of heav'n and edge of day.
From this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts,
Desire and fear by turns possess their hearts,
And grief and joy: nor can the grovelling mind,
In the dark dungeon of the limbs confined,
Assert the native skies, or own its heav'nly kind:
Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains;
But long-contracted filth ev'n in the soul remains.

"The relics of invet'rate vice they wear
And spots of sin obscene in ev'ry face appear.
For this are various penances enjoin'd;
And some are hung to bleach upon the wind,
Some plunged in waters, others purged in fires,
Till all the dregs are drain'd, and all the rust expires.
All have their ma'nes, and those manes bear:
The few, so cleansed, to these abodes repair,
And breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air.
Then are they happy, when by length of time
The scurf is worn away of each committed crime;
No speck is left of their habitual stains,
But the pure ether of the soul remains.
But, when a thousand rolling years are past
(So long their punishments and penance last),
Whole droves of minds are, by the driving god,
Compell'd to drink the deep Lethe'an flood,
In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares
Of their past labors and their irksome years,
That, unrememb'ring of its former pain,
The soul may suffer mortal flesh again."
--Trans. by DRYDEN.

* * * * *

IV. ARCHITECTURE.

In architecture and sculpture Greece stands pre-eminently above
all other nations. The first evidences of the former art that
we discover are in the gigantic walls of Tiryns, Mycenae, and
other Greek cities, constructed for purposes of defence in the
very earliest periods of Greek history, and generally known by
the name of Cyclo'pean, because supposed by the early Greeks to
have been built by those fabled giants, the Cyclo'pes.

Ye cliffs of masonry, enormous piles,
Which no rude censure of familiar time
Nor record of our puny race defiles,
In dateless mystery ye stand sublime,
Memorials of an age of which we see
Only the types in things that once were ye.

Whether ye rest upon some bosky knoll,
Your feet by ancient myrtles beautified,
Or seem, like fabled dragons, to unroll
Your swarthy grandeurs down a bleak hill-side,
Still on your savage features is a spell
That makes ye half divine, ineffable.

With joy upon your height I stand alone,
As on a precipice, or lie within
Your shadow wide, or leap from stone to stone,
Pointing my steps with careful discipline,
And think of those grand limbs whose nerve could bear
These masses to their places in mid-air:

Of Anakim, and Titans, and of days
Saturnian, when the spirit of man was knit
So close to Nature that his best essays
At Art were but in all to follow it,
In all--dimension, dignity, degree;
And thus these mighty things were made to be.
--LORD HOUGHTON.

It was in the erection of the temples of the gods, however, that
Grecian architecture had its ornamental origin, and also made
its most rapid progress. The primeval altar, differing but little
from a common hearth, was supplanted by the wooden habitation
of the god, and the latter in turn gave way to the temple of
stone. Then rapidly rose the three famed orders of architecture
--the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian--the first solemn,
massive, and imposing, while the others exhibit, in their ornamental
features, a gradual advance to perfection.

First, unadorned,
And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose;
The Ionic then, with decent matron grace,
Her airy pillar heaved; luxuriant last,
The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath.
--THOMSON,

Passing over the earlier structures devoted to purposes of worship,
we find at the beginning of the sixth century several magnificent
temples in course of erection. Among these the most celebrated
were the Temple of He'ra (Juno), at Samos, and the Temple of
Ar'temis (Diana), at Ephesus. The order of architecture adopted
in the first was Doric, and in the second Ionic. Both were built
of white marble. The former was 346 feet in length and 189 feet
in breadth; while the latter was 425 feet long and 220 feet broad.
Its columns were 127 in number, and 60 feet in height; and the
blocks of marble composing the architrave, or chief beams resting
immediately on the columns, were 30 feet in length.

CHER'SIPHRON, AND THE TEMPLE OF DIANA.

The great Temple of Diana was commenced under the supervision
of Chersiphron, an architect of Crete, but it occupied over two
hundred years in building. It is related of Chersiphron that,
having erected the jambs of the great door to the temple, he
failed, after repeated efforts, continued for many days, to bring
the massive lintel to its place in line with the jambs. He finally
sank down in despair, and fell asleep. In his dreams he saw the
divine form of the goddess, who assured him that those who labored
for the gods should not go unrewarded. On awaking he beheld the
massive lintel in its proper place, laid there by the hand of the
goddess herself. An American sculptor and poet relates the incident,
and gives its moral in the following poem:

When to the utmost we have tasked our powers,
And Nem'esis still frowns and shakes her head;
When, wearied out and baffled, we confess
Our utter weakness, and the tired hand drops,
And Hope flees from us, and in blank despair
We sink to earth, the face, so stern before,
August will smile--the hand before withdrawn
Reach out the help we vainly pleaded for,
Take up our task, and in a moment do
What all our strength was powerless to achieve.

Unless the gods smile, human toil is vain.
The crowning blessing of all work is drawn
Not from ourselves, but from the powers above.
And this none better knew than Chersiphron,
When on the plains of Ephesus he reared
The splendid temple built to Artemis.
With patient labor he had placed at last
The solid jambs on either side the door,
And now for many a weary day he strove
With many a plan and many a fresh device,
Still seeking and still failing, on the jambs
Level to lay the lintel's massive weight:
Still it defied him; and, worn out at last,
Along the steps he laid him down at night.
Sleep would not come. With dull distracting pain
The problem hunted through his feverish thoughts,
Till in his dark despair he longed for death,
And threatened his own life with his own hand.

Peace came at last upon him, and he slept;
And in his sleep, before his dreaming eyes
He saw the form divine of Artemis:
O'er him she bent and smiled, and softly said,
"Live, Chersiphron! Who labor for the gods
The gods reward. Behold, your work is done!"
Then, like a mist that melts into the sky,
She vanished; and awaking, he beheld,
Laid by her hand above the entrance-door,
The ponderous lintel level on the jambs.
--W. W. STORY.

Another celebrated temple of this period was that of Delphi,
which was rebuilt, after its destruction by fire in 548 B.C.,
at a cost equivalent to more than half a million of dollars.
It was in the Doric style, and was faced with Parian marble.
About the same time the Temple of Olympian Jove was commenced
or restored at Athens by Pisistratus. All the temples mentioned
have nearly disappeared. That of Diana, at Ephesus, was burned
by Heros'tratus, in order to immortalize his name, on the night
that Alexander the Great was born (356 B.C.). It was subsequently
rebuilt with greater magnificence, and enriched by the genius of
Sco'pas, Praxit'eles, Parrha'sius, Apel'les, and other celebrated
sculptors and painters. A few of its columns support the dome
of the Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople, two of its pillars
are in the great church at Pi'sa, and recent excavations have
brought to light portions of its foundation. Other temples, however,
erected as far back as the fourth and fifth centuries, have more
successfully resisted the ravages of time. Among these are the
six, of the Doric order, whose ruins appear at Selinus, in Sicily;
while at Paestum, in Southern Italy, are the celebrated ruins of
two temples, which, with the exception of the temple of Corinth,
are the most massive examples of Doric architecture extant. "It
was in the larger of these two temples," says a visitor, "during
the moonlight of a troubled sky, that we experienced the emotions
of the awful and sublime, such as impress a testimony, never to
be forgotten, of the power of art over the affections."

There, down Salerno's bay,
In deserts far away,
Over whose solitudes
The dread malaria broods,
No labor tills the land--
Only the fierce brigand,
Or shepherd, wan and lean,
O'er the wide plains is seen.
Yet there, a lovely dream,
There Grecian temples gleam,
Whose form and mellowed tone
Rival the Parthenon.
The Sybarite no more
Comes hither to adore,
With perfumed offering,
The ocean god and king.
The deity is fled
Long-since, but, in his stead,
The smiling sea is seen,
The Doric shafts between;
And round the time-worn base
Climb vines of tender grace,
And Paestum's roses still
The air with fragrance fill.
--CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH.

* * * * *

V. SCULPTURE.

Like architecture, sculpture, or, more properly speaking, statuary,
owed its origin to religion, and was introduced into Greece from
Egypt. With the Egyptians the art never advanced beyond the types
established at its birth; but the Greeks, led on, as a recent
writer well says, "by an intuitive sense of beauty which was with
them almost a religious principle, aimed at an ideal perfection,
and, by making Nature in her most perfect forms their model,
acquired a facility and a power of representing every class of
form unattained by any other people, and which have rendered the
terms Greek and perfection, with reference to art, almost
synonymous." The first specimens of Greek sculpture were rough,
unhewn wooden representations of the gods. These were followed,
a little later, by wooden images having some resemblance to life,
and clothed and decorated with ornaments of various kinds. While
this branch of the art long remained in a rude state, sculptured
figures on architectural monuments were executed in a superior
style as early as the age of Homer.

Long before the period of authentic history, other materials
than wood were used in making statues; and as early as 700 B.C.
a statue was executed of Zeus, or Jupiter, in bronze. The art
of soldering metals is attributed to Glaucus of Chios, about
690 B.C.; while to Rhoe'cus and his son Theodo'rus, of Samos,
is ascribed the invention of modeling and casting figures of
bronze in a mould. The use of marble, also, for statues, was
introduced in the early part of the sixth century by Dipoe'nus
and Scyl'lis of Crete, who are the first artists celebrated for
works in this material. But, while these improvements were
important, they did not necessarily involve any change in style;
and it was the removal of the restraints imposed by religion and
hereditary cultivation that laid the foundation for the rapid
progress of the art and its subsequent perfection. These changes,
and the results produced by them, are well summed up in the
following extract from THIRLWALL:

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