Mosaics of Grecian History by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

M >> Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson >> Mosaics of Grecian History

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38

The Athenians had no hopes of effectual resistance, and only
delayed the surrender of their city to plead for the best terms
that could be obtained. Compelled at last to submit to whatever
terms were dictated to them, they agreed to destroy their long
walls and fortifications; to surrender all their ships but twelve;
to restore their exiles; to relinquish their conquests; to become
a member of the Peloponnesian Confederacy; and to serve Sparta
in all her expeditions, whether by land or by sea. Thus fell
imperial Athens (404 B.C. ), in the seventy-third year after
the formation of the Confederacy of Delos, the origin of her
subsequent empire. Soon after this event, and in the same year,
Alcibiades, who had been honored by both Athens and Sparta, and
was now the dread of both, met his fate in a foreign land. While
living in Phrygia he was murdered by the Persian satrap at the
instance of Sparta. It has been said of him that, "with qualities
which, if properly applied, might have rendered him the greatest
benefactor of Athens, he contrived to attain the infamous
distinction of being that citizen who had inflicted upon her the
most signal amount of damage."

The war just closed was characterized by many instances of cruelty
and heartlessness, in marked contrast with the boasted clemency
and culture of the age, of which two prominent illustrations
may be given. The first occurred at Plataea in the year 427, soon
after the execution by the Athenians of the Mitylene'an prisoners.
After a long and heroic defence against the Spartans under King
Archida'mus himself, and after a solemn promise had been given
that no harm should be illegally done to any person within its
walls, Plataea surrendered. But a Spartan court soon after decreed
that the Plataean alliance with Athens was a treasonable offence,
and punishable, of course, with death. Thereupon all those who
had surrendered (two hundred Plataeans and twenty-five Athenians)
were barbarously murdered. The other instance occurred at Lamp'sacus,
where the three thousand prisoners taken by Lysander at AEgospotami
were tried by court-martial and put to death.

Referring to these barbarities, MAHAFFY observes, in his Social
Life in Greece, that, "though seldom paralleled in human history,
they appear to have called forth no cry of horror in Greece.
Phil'ocles, the unfortunate Athenian general at AEgospotami,
according to Theophrastus, submitted with dignified resignation
to a fate which he confessed would have attended the Lacedaemonians
had they been vanquished. [Footnote: Plutarch relates that when
Lysander asked Philocles what punishment he thought he deserved,
undismayed by his misfortunes, he answered, "Do not start a
question where there is no judge to decide it; but, now you are
a conqueror, proceed as you would have been proceeded with had
you been conquered." After this he bathed, dressed himself in a
rich robe, and then led his countrymen to execution, being the
first to offer his neck to the axe.] The barbarity of the Greeks
is but one evidence out of a thousand that, hitherto in the world's
history, no culture, no education, no political training, has
been able to rival the mature and ultimate effects of Christianity
in humanizing society."

CHANGES IN GOVERNMENT AT ATHENS.

The change of government which followed the Spartan occupation
of Athens conformed to the aristocratic character of the Spartan
institutions. All authority was placed by Lysander in the hands
of thirty archons, who became known as the Thirty Tyrants, and
whose power was supported by a Spartan garrison. Their cruelty
and rapacity knew no bounds, and filled Athens with universal
dismay. The streets of Athens flowed with blood, and while many
of the best men of the city fell, others more fortunate succeeded
in escaping to the territory of the friendly Thebans, who, groaning
under Spartan supremacy, sympathized with Athens, and regarded
the Thirty as mere instruments for maintaining the Spartan
dominion. A large band of exiles soon assembled, and choosing
one Thrasybu'lus for their leader, they resolved to strike a
blow for the deliverance of their country.

They first seized a small fortress on the frontier of Attica,
when, their numbers rapidly increasing, they were able to seize
the Piraeus, where they entrenched themselves and defeated the
force that was brought against them, killing, among others,
Cri'ti-as, the chief of the tyrants. The loss of Critias threw
the majority into the hands of a party who resolved to depose
the Thirty and constitute a new oligarchy of Ten. The rule of
the Thirty was overthrown; but the change in government was
simply a reduction in the number of tyrants, as the Ten emulated
the wickedness of their predecessors, and when the populace
turned against them, applied to Sparta for assistance. Lysander
again entered Athens at the head of a large force; but the Spartan
councils became divided, Lysander was deposed from command, and
eventually, by the aid of Sparta herself, the Ten were overthrown.
The Spartans now withdrew their forces from Attica, and Athens
again became a democracy (403 B.C.). Freed from foreign domination,
she soon obtained internal peace; but her empire had vanished.

CHAPTER XII.

GRECIAN LITERATURE AND ART I FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE PERSIAN
TO THE CLOSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS. (500-403 B.C.)

LITERATURE.

In a former chapter we briefly traced the growth of Grecian
literature and art from their beginnings down to the time of
the Persian wars. Within this period, as we noticed, their progress
was the greatest in the Grecian colonies, while, of the cities
of central Greece, the one destined to become pre-eminent in
literature and the fine arts--Athens--contributed less than several
others to intellectual advancement. "She produced no artists to
be compared with those of Argos, Corinth, Si'cy-on, and of many
other cities, while she could boast of no poets as celebrated
as those of the Ionian and AEolian schools." But at the opening
of the Persian wars the artistic and literary talent of Greece
began to center in Athens, and with the close of that contest
properly begins the era of Athenian greatness. Athens, hitherto
inferior in magnitude and political importance, having borne
the brunt and won the highest martial honor of the conflict with
Persia, now took the lead, as well in intellectual progress as
in political ascendancy. To this era PROFESSOR SYMONDS refers,
as follows:

"It was the struggle with Xerxes which developed all the latent
energies of the Greeks, which intensified their national existence,
and which secured for Athens, as the central power on which the
scattered forces of the race converged, the intellectual
dictatorship of Hellas. It was a struggle of spiritual energy
against brute force, of liberty against oppression, of intellectual
freedom against superstitious ignorance, of civilization against
barbarism; and Athens, who had fought and won this battle of the
Spirit--by spirit we mean the greatness of the soul, liberty,
intelligence, and everything which raises men above brutes and
slaves, and makes them free beneath the arch of heaven--became
immediately the recognized impersonation of the spirit itself.
Whatever was superb in human nature found its natural home and
sphere in Athens. We hear no more of the colonies. All great
works of art and literature are now produced in Athens, and it
is to Athens that the sages come to teach and to be taught."
[Footnote: "The Greek Poets." First Series, p. 19.]

* * * * *

I. LYRIC POETRY.

SIMON'IDES AND PINDAR.

The rapid progress made in the cultivation of lyric poetry
preceding the Persian wars found its culmination, during those
wars, in Simonides of Ceos, the most brilliant period of whose
life was spent at Athens; and in Pindar, a native of Thebes,
who is considered the greatest lyric poet of all ages. The life
of Simonides was a long one, reaching from 556 to 469 B.C.
"Coming forward at a time," says MAHAFFY, "when the tyrants had
made poetry a matter of culture, and dissociated it from politics,
we find him a professional artist, free from all party struggles,
alike welcome at the courts of tyrants and among the citizens of
free states; he was respected throughout all the Greek world,
and knew well how to suit himself, socially and artistically,
to his patrons. The great national struggle with Persia gave
him the opportunity of becoming the spokesman of the nation in
celebrating the glories of the victors and the heroism of the
fallen patriots; and this exceptional opportunity made him quite
the foremost poet of his day, and decidedly better known and
more admired than Pindar, who has so completely eclipsed him
in the attention of posterity." [Footnote: "Classical Greek
Literature," vol. i., p. 207.]

Simonides was the intimate friend of Miltiades and Themistocles
at Athens, of Pausanias at Sparta, and of the tyrants of Sicily.
In the first named city he composed his epigrams on Marathon,
Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea--"poems not destined to be merely
sung or consigned to parchment, but to be carved in marble or
engraved in letters of imperishable bronze upon the works of
the noblest architects and statuaries." In his elegy upon Marathon
he carried away the prize from AEschylus. He was a most prolific
poet, and his writings, comprising all the subjects that human
life, with its joys and sorrows, its hopes and disappointments,
could furnish, are noted for their sweetness and pure and exquisite
polish. He particularly excelled in the pathetic; and the most
celebrated of the existing fragments of his muse, the "Lamentation
of Dan'a-e," is a piece of this character. The poem is based
upon a tradition concerning Danae, the daughter of Acris'ius,
King of Argos, and her infant son, the offspring of Jove.
Acrisius had been told by the oracle that his life would be taken
by a son that his daughter should bear, and, for his own
preservation, when the boy had reached the age of four years,
Acrisius threw both him and his mother into a chest and set them
adrift on the sea. But they were rescued by Dictys, a fisherman
of the Island of Seri'phus, whose brother Polydec'tes, king of
the country, received and protected them. The boy grew up to
manhood, and became the famous hero Per'seus, who accidentally
killed Acrisius at the funeral games of Polydectes. The following
is the

Lamentation of Dan'a-e.

While, around her lone ark sweeping,
Wailed the winds and waters wild,
Her young cheeks all wan with weeping,
Danae clasped her sleeping child;
And "Alas!" cried she, "my dearest,
What deep wrongs, what woes are mine;
But nor wrongs nor woes thou fearest
In that sinless rest of thine.
Faint the moonbeams break above thee,
And within here all is gloom;
But, fast wrapped in arms that love thee,
Little reck'st thou of our doom.
Not the rude spray, round thee flying,
Has e'en damped thy clustering hair;
On thy purple mantlet lying,
O mine Innocent, my Fair!
Yet, to thee were sorrow sorrow,
Thou wouldst lend thy little ear;
And this heart of thine might borrow,
Haply, yet a moment's cheer.
But no: slumber on, babe, slumber;
Slumber, ocean's waves; and you,
My dark troubles, without number--
Oh, that ye would slumber too!
Though with wrongs they've brimmed my chalice,
Grant, Jove, that, in future years,
This boy may defeat their malice,
And avenge his mother's tears!"
--Trans. by W. PETER.

Simonides was nearly eighty years old when he gained his last
poetical prize at Athens, making the fiftieth that he had won.
He then retired to Syracuse, at the invitation of Hi'ero, where
he spent the remaining ten years of his life. He was a philosopher
as well as poet, and his wise sayings made him a special favorite
with the accomplished Hiero. When inquired of by that monarch
concerning the nature of God, Simonides requested one day for
deliberating on the subject; and when Hiero repeated the question
the next day, the poet asked for two days more. As he still went
on doubling the number of days, the monarch, lost in wonder,
asked him why he did so. "Because," replied Simonides, "the longer
I reflect on the subject, the more obscure does it appear to
me to be."

Pindar, the most celebrated of all the lyric poets of Greece,
was born about 520 B.C. At an early age he was sent to Athens
to receive instruction in the art of poetry: returning to Thebes
at twenty, his youthful genius was quickened and guided by the
influence of Myr'tis and Corin'na, two poetesses who then enjoyed
great celebrity in Boeotia. At a later period "he undoubtedly
experienced," says THIRLWALL, "the animating influence of that
joyful and stirring time which followed the defeat of the barbarian
invader, though, as a Theban patriot, he could not heartily enjoy
a triumph by which Thebes as well as Persia was humbled." But
his enthusiasm for Athens, which he calls "the buttress of Hellas,"
is apparent in one of his compositions; and the Athenians specially
honored him with a valuable present, and, after his death, erected
a bronze statue to his memory. It is probable, however, that
while he was sincerely anxious for the success of Greece in the
great contest, he avoided as much as possible offending his own
people, whose sympathies and hopes lay the other way.

The reputation of Pindar early became so great that he was employed,
by various states and princes, to compose choral songs for special
occasions. Like Simonides, he "loved to bask in the sunshine
of courts;" but he was frank, sincere, and manly, assuming a
lofty and dignified position toward princes and others in authority
with whom he came in contact. He was especially courted by Hiero,
despot of Syracuse, but remained with him only a few years, his
manly disposition creating a love for an independent life that
the courtly arts of his patron could not furnish. As his poems
show, he was a reserved man, learned in the myths and ceremonies
of the times, and specially devoted to the worship of the gods.
"The old myths," says a Greek biographer, "were for the most part
realities to him, and he accepted them with implicit credence,
except when they exhibited the gods in a point of view which
was repugnant to his moral feelings; and he accordingly rejects
some tales, and changes others, because they are inconsistent
with his moral conceptions." As a poet correctly describes him,
using one of the names commonly applied to him,

Pindar, that eagle, mounts the skies,
While virtue leads the noble way.
--PRIOR.

The poems of Pindar were numerous, and comprised triumphal odes,
hymns to the gods, paeans, dirges, and songs of various kinds.
His triumphal odes alone have come down to us entire; but of
some of his other compositions there are a few sublime and beautiful
fragments. The poet and his writings cannot be better described
than in the following general characterization by SYMONDS:

"By the force of his originality Pindar gave lyrical poetry a
wholly new direction, and, coming last of the great Dorian lyrists,
taught posterity what sort of thing an ode should be. His grand
pre-eminence as an artist was due, in great measure, to his
personality. Frigid, austere, and splendid; not genial like that
of Simonides, not passionate like that of Sappho, not acrid like
that of Archil'ochus; hard as adamant, rigid in moral firmness,
glittering with the strong, keen light of snow; haughty,
aristocratic, magnificent--the unique personality of the man
Pindar, so irresistible in its influence, so hard to characterize,
is felt in every strophe of his odes. In his isolation and elevation
Pindar stands like some fabled heaven-aspiring peak, conspicuous
from afar, girdled at the base with ice and snow, beaten by winds,
wreathed round with steam and vapor, jutting a sharp and dazzling
outline into cold blue ether. Few things that have life dare
to visit him at his grand altitude. Glorious with sunlight and
with stars, touched by rise and set of day with splendor, he
shines when other lesser lights are dulled. Pindar among his
peers is solitary. He had no communion with the poets of his
day. He is the eagle; Simonides and Bacchyl'ides are jackdaws.
He soars to the empyrean; they haunt the valley mists. Noticing
this rocky, barren, severe, glittering solitude of Pindar's soul,
critics have not infrequently complained that his poems are devoid
of individual interest. Possibly they have failed to comprehend
and appreciate the nature of this sublime and distant genius,
whose character, in truth, is just as marked as that of Dante
or of Michael Angelo."

After giving some illustrations of the impression produced upon
the imagination by a study of Pindar's odes, the writer proceeds
with his characterization, in the following language: "He who
has watched a sunset attended by the passing of a thunder-storm
in the outskirts of the Alps--who has seen the distant ranges
of the mountains alternately obscured by cloud and blazing with
the concentrated brightness of the sinking sun, while drifting
scuds of hail and rain, tawny with sunlight, glistening with
broken rainbows, clothe peak and precipice and forest in the
golden veil of flame-irradiated vapor--he who has heard the thunder
bellow in the thwarting folds of hills, and watched the lightning,
like a snakes tongue, flicker at intervals amid gloom and glory
--knows, in Nature's language, what Pindar teaches with the voice
of Art. It is only by a metaphor like this that any attempt to
realize the Sturm and Drang of Pindar's style can be communicated.
As an artist he combines the strong flight of the eagle, the
irresistible force of the torrent, the richness of Greek wine,
and the majestic pageantry of Nature in one of her sublimer
moods." [Footnote: "The Greek Poets." First Series, pp. 171, 174.]

Pindar, as we have seen, was compared to an eagle, because of
the daring flights and lofty character of his poetry--a simile
which has been beautifully expressed in the following lines by
GRAY:

The pride and ample pinion
That the Theban eagle bare,
Sailing with supreme dominion,
Through the azure deeps of air.

Another image, also, has been employed to show these features
of his poetry. The poet POPE represents him riding in a gorgeous
chariot sustained by four swans:

Four swans sustain a car of silver bright,
With heads advanced and pinions stretched for flight;
Here, like some furious prophet, Pindar rode,
And seemed to labor with th' inspiring god.

A third image, given to us by HORACE, represents another
characteristic of Pindar, which may be called "the stormy violence
of his song:"

As when a river, swollen by sudden showers,
O'er its known banks from some steep mountain pours;
So, in profound, unmeasurable song,
The deep-mouthed Pindar, foaming, pours along.
--Trans. by FRANCIS.

As a sample of the religious sentiment of Pindar we give the
following fragment of a threnos translated by MR. SYMONDS, which,
he says, "sounds like a trumpet blast for immortality, and,
trampling underfoot the glories of this world, reveals the gladness
of the souls that have attained Elysium:"

For them, the night all through,
In that broad realm below,
The splendor of the sun spreads endless light;
'Mid rosy meadows bright,
Their city of the tombs, with incense-trees
And golden chalices
Of flowers, and fruitage fair,
Scenting the breezy air,
Is laden. There, with horses and with play,
With games and lyres, they while the hours away.

On every side around
Pure happiness is found,
With all the blooming beauty of the world;
There fragrant smoke, upcurled
From altars where the blazing fire is dense
With perfumed frankincense,
Burned unto gods in heaven,
Through all the land is driven,
Making its pleasant place odorous
With scented gales, and sweet airs amorous.

* * * * *

II. THE DRAMA.

One of the most striking proofs that we possess of the rapid
growth and expansion of the Greek mind, is found in the rise
of the Drama, a new kind of poetical composition, which united
the leading features of every species before cultivated, in a
new whole "breathing a rhetorical, dialectical, and ethical spirit"
--a branch of literature that peculiarly characterized the era
of Athenian greatness. Its elements were found in the religious
festivals celebrated in Greece from the earliest ages, and
especially in the feast of Bacchus, where sacred odes of a grave
and serious character, intermixed with episodes of mythological
story recited by an actor, were sung by a chorus that danced
around the altar. A goat was either the principal sacrifice on
these occasions, or the participants, disguised as Satyrs, had
a goat-like appearance; and from the two Greek words representing
"goat" and "song" we get our word tragedy, [Footnote: From the
Greek tragos, "a goat," and o'de, "a song."] or goat-song. At
some of the more rustic festivals in honor of the same god the
performance was of a more jocose or satirical character; and
hence arose the term comedy, [Footnote: From the Greek ko'me,
"a village," and o'de, "a song."] from the two Greek words
signifying "village" and "song"--village-song. In the teller of
mythological legends we find the first germ of dialogue, as the
chorus soon came to assist him by occasional question and remark.
This feature was introduced by Thespis, a native of Ica'ria,
in 535 B.C., under whose direction, and that of Phryn'icus, his
pupil, the first feeble rudiments of the drama were established.
In this condition it was found by AEschylus, in 500 B.C., who
brought a second actor upon the scene; whence arose the increased
prominence of the dialogue, and the limitation and subsidiary
character of the chorus. AEschylus also added more expressive
masks, and various machinery and scenes calculated to improve
and enlarge dramatic representation. Of the effect of this new
creation upon all kinds of poetical genius we have the following
fine illustration from the pen of BULWER:

"It was in the very nature of the Athenian drama that, when once
established, it should concentrate and absorb almost every variety
of poetical genius. The old lyrical poetry, never much cultivated
in Athens, ceased in a great measure when tragedy arose; or,
rather, tragedy was the complete development, the new and perfected
consummation, of the dithyrambic ode. Lyrical poetry transmigrated
into the choral song as the epic merged into the dialogue and
plot of the drama. Thus, when we speak of Athenian poetry we
speak of dramatic poetry--they were one and the same. In Athens,
where audiences were numerous and readers few, every man who
felt within himself the inspiration of the poet would necessarily
desire to see his poetry put into action--assisted with all the
pomp of spectacle and music, hallowed by the solemnity of a
religious festival, and breathed by artists elaborately trained
to heighten the eloquence of words into the reverent ear of
assembled Greece. Hence the multitude of dramatic poets; hence
the mighty fertility of each; hence the life and activity of
this--the comparative torpor and barrenness of every other--
species of poetry."

1. TRAGEDY.

MELPOM'ENE, one of the nine Muses, whose name signifies "To
represent in song," is said to have been the inventress of tragedy,
over which she presided, always veiled, bearing in one hand the
lyre, as the emblem of her vocation, and in the other a tragic
mask. As queen of the lyre, every poet was supposed to proclaim
the marvels of her song, and to invoke her aid.

Queen of the lyre, in thy retreat
The fairest flowers of Pindus glow,
The vine aspires to crown thy seat,
And myrtles round thy laurel grow:
Thy strings adapt their varied strain
To every pleasure, every pain,
Which mortal tribes were born to prove;
And straight our passions rise or fall,
As, at the wind's imperious call,
The ocean swells, the billows move.

When midnight listens o'er the slumbering earth,
Let me, O Muse, thy solemn whispers hear:
When morning sends her fragrant breezes forth,
With airy murmurs touch my opening ear,
--AKENSIDE.

AESCHYLUS.

AEschylus, the first poet who rendered the drama illustrious,
and into whose character and writings the severe and ascetic
doctrines of Pythagoras entered largely, was born at Eleu'sis,
in Attica, in 525 B.C. He fought, as will be remembered, in the
combats of Marathon and Salamis, and also in the battle of Plataea.
He therefore flourished at the time when the freedom of Greece,
rescued from foreign enemies, was exulting in its first strength;
and his writings are characteristic of the boldness and vigor
of the age. In his works we find the fundamental idea of the
Greek drama--retributive justice. The sterner passions alone
are appealed to, and the language is replete with bold metaphor
and gigantic hyperbole. Venus and her inspirations are excluded;
the charms of love are unknown: but the gods--vast, majestic,
in shadowy outline, and in the awful sublimity of power-pass
before and awe the beholder. [Footnote: see Grote's "History
of Greece," Chap. lxvii.] Says a prominent reviewer: "The
conceptions of the imagination of AEschylus are remarkable for
a sort of colossal sublimity and power, resembling the poetry of
the Book of Job; and those poems of his which embody a connected
story may be said to resemble the stupendous avenues of the
Temple of Elora, [See Index.] with the vast scenes and vistas;
its strange, daring, though rude sculptures; its awful, shadowy,
impending horrors. Like the architecture, the poems, too, seem
hewn out of some massy region of mountain rock. AEschylus appears
as an austere poet-soul, brooding among the grand, awful, and
terrible myths which have floated from a primeval world, in which
traditions of the Deluge, of the early, rudimental struggle between
barbaric power and nascent civilization, were still vital."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38