Mosaics of Grecian History by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

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Pleasanter than the hills of Thessaly,
Nearer and dearer to the poet's heart
Than the blue ripple belting Salamis,
Or long grass waving over Marathon,
Fair Academe, most holy Academe,
Thou art, and hast been, and shalt ever be.
I would be numbered now with things that were,
Changing the wasting fever of to-day
For the dear quietness of yesterday:
I would be ashes, underneath the grass,
So I had wandered in thy platane walks
One happy summer twilight--even one.
Was it not grand, and beautiful, and rare,
The music and the wisdom and the shade,
The music of the pebble-paven rills,
And olive boughs, and bowered nightingales,
Chorusing joyously the joyous things
Told by the gray Silenus of the grove,
Low-fronted and large-hearted Socrates!
Oh, to have seen under the olive blossoms
But once--only once in a mortal life,
The marble majesties of ancient gods!
And to have watched the ring of listeners--
The Grecian boys gone mad for love of truth,
The Grecian girls gone pale for love of him
Who taught the truth, who battled for the truth;
And girls and boys, women and bearded men,
Crowding to hear and treasure in their hearts
Matter to make their lives a happiness,
And death a happy ending.

EPICU'RUS AND ZE'NO.

What is known as the Epicure'an school of philosophy was founded
by Epicurus, a native of Samos, born in 342, who went to Athens
in early youth, and, at the age of thirty, established himself
as a philosophical teacher. He met with great success. He did
not believe in the soul's immortality, and taught the pursuit
of mental pleasure and happiness as the highest good. While his
learning was not great, he was a man of unsullied morality,
respected and loved by his followers to a wonderful degree.
Although he wrote books in advocacy of piety, and the reverence
due to the gods on account of the excellence of their nature,
he maintained that they had no concern in human affairs. Hence
the Roman poet LUCRETIUS, who lived when the old belief in the
gods and goddesses of the heathen world had nearly faded away,
attributes to the teachings of Epicurus the triumph of philosophy
over superstition.

On earth in bondage base existence lay,
Bent down by Superstition's iron sway.
She from the heavens disclosed her monstrous head,
And dark with grisly aspect, scowling dread,
Hung o'er the sons of men; but toward the skies
A man of Greece dared lift his mortal eyes,
And first resisting stood. Not him the fame
Of deities, the lightning's forky flame,
Or muttering murmurs of the threat'ning sky
Repressed; but roused his soul's great energy
To break the bars that interposing lay,
And through the gates of nature burst his way.

That vivid force of soul a passage found;
The flaming walls that close the world around
He far o'erleaped; his spirit soared on high
Through the vast whole, the one infinity.
Victor, he brought the tidings from the skies
What things in nature may, or may not, rise;
What stated laws a power finite assign,
And still with bounds impassable confine.
Thus trod beneath our feet the phantom lies;
We mount o'er Superstition to the skies.
--Trans. By ELTON.

The school of the Stoics was founded by Zeno, a native of Cyprus,
who went to Athens about 299 B.C., and opened a school in the
Poi'ki-le Sto'a, or painted porch, whence the name of his sect
arose. As is well known, the chief tenets of the Stoics were
temperance and self-denial, which Zeno himself practiced by living
on uncooked food, wearing very thin garments in winter, and
refusing the comforts of life generally. To the Stoics pleasure
was irrational, and pain a visitation to be borne with ease.
Both Stoicism and Epicureanism flourished among the Romans. The
teachings of Epictetus, the Roman Stoic philosopher, are summed
up in the formula, "Bear and forbear;" and he is said to have
observed that "Man is but a pilot; observe the star, hold the
rudder, and be not distracted on thy way." Both these schools
of philosophy, however, passed into skepticism. Epicureanism
became a material fatalism and a search for pleasure; while
Stoicism ended in spiritual fatalism. But when the Gospel awakened
the human heart to life, it was the Greek mind which gave mankind
a Christian theology.

* * * * *

IV. HISTORY

XENOPHON.

The most distinguished Greek historian of this period was Xenophon,
of whom we have already seen something as the leader of the famous
"Retreat of the Ten Thousand," and as the author of a delightful
and instructive account of that achievement. He was born in Athens
about 443 B.C., and at an early age became the pupil of Socrates,
to whose principles he strictly adhered through life, in practice
as well as in theory. Seemingly on account of his philosophical
views he was banished by the Athenians, before his return from
the expedition into Asia; but the Spartans, with whom he fought
against Athens at Coronea, gave him an estate at Scil'lus, in
Elis, and here he lived, engaging in literary pursuits, that
were diversified by domestic enjoyments and active field-sports.
He died either at Scillus or at Corinth--to which latter place
some authorities think he removed in the later years of his
life--in the ninetieth year of his age.

Among the works of Xenophon is the Anab'asis, considered his
best, descriptive of the advance into Persia and the masterly
retreat; the Hellen'ica, a history of Greece, in seven books,
from the time of Thucydides to the battle of Mantine'a, in 362
B.C.; the Cyropoedi'a, a political romance, based on the history
of Cyrus the Great; a treatise on the horse, and the duties of
a cavalry commander; a treatise on hunting; a picture of an
Athenian banquet, and of the amusement and conversation with
which it was diversified; and, the most pleasing of all, the
Memorabil'ia, devoted to the defence of the life and principles
of Socrates. Concerning the remarkable miscellany of Xenophon,
MR. MITCHELL says: "The writer who has thrown equal interest
into an account of a retreating army and the description of a
scene of coursing; who has described with the same fidelity a
common groom and a perfect pattern of conjugal faithfulness--such
a man had seen life under aspects which taught him to know that
there were things of infinitely more importance than the turn
of a phrase, the music of a cadence, and the other niceties which
are wanted by a luxurious and opulent metropolis. The virtuous
feelings that were necessary in a mind constituted as his was,
took into their comprehensive bosom the welfare of the world."

Although the genius of Xenophon was not of the highest order,
his writings have afforded, to all succeeding ages, one of the
best models of purity, simplicity, and harmony of language: By
some of his contemporaries he has been styled "The Attic Muse;"
by others, "The Athenian Bee;" while his manners and personal
appearance have been described by Diog'enes Laer'tius, in his
Lives of the Philosophers, in the following brief but comprehensive
sentence: "Modest in deportment, and beautiful in person to a
remarkable degree."

POLYB'IUS.

Of the prominent Greek historians, Polybius was the last. Born
about 204 B.C., he lived and wrote in the closing period of Grecian
history. Having been carried a prisoner to Rome with the one
thousand prominent citizens of Achaia, his accomplishments secured
for him the friendship of Scip'io Africa'nus Mi'nor, and of his
father, AEmil'ius Pau'lus, at whose house he resided. He spent
his time in collecting materials for his works, and in giving
instruction to Scipio. In the year 150 B.C. he returned to his
native country with the surviving exiles, and actively exerted
himself to induce the Greeks to keep peace with the Romans, but,
as we know, without success. After the Roman conquest the Greeks
seem to have awakened to the wisdom of his advice, for on a statue
erected to his memory was the inscription, "Hellas would have
been saved had the advice of Polybius been followed." Polybius
wrote a history in forty books, embracing the time between the
commencement of the Second Punic War, in 218 B.C., and the
destruction of Carthage and Corinth by the Romans, in 146 B.C.
It is the most trustworthy history we possess of this period,
and has been closely copied by subsequent writers. A correct
estimate of its character and worth will be found in the following
summary:

"The greater part of the valuable and laborious work of Polybius
has perished. We have only the first five books entire, and
fragments and extracts of the rest. As it is, however, it is
one of the most valuable historical works that has come down
to us. His style, indeed, will not bear a comparison with the
great masters of Greek literature: he is not eloquent, like
Thucydides; nor practical, like Herodotus; nor perspicuous and
elegant, like Xenophon. He lived at a time when the Greek language
had lost much of its purity by an intermixture of foreign elements,
and he did not attempt to imitate the language of the Attic
writers. He wrote as he spoke: he gives us the first rough draft
of his thoughts, and seldom imposes on himself the trouble to
arrange or methodize them; hence, they are often meager and
desultory, and not infrequently deviate entirely from the subject.

"But in the highest quality of an historian--the love of truth--
Polybius has no superior. This always predominates in his writings.
He has judgment to trace effects to their causes, a full knowledge
of his subjects, and an impartiality that forbids him to conceal
it to favor any party or cause. In his geographical descriptions
he is not always clear, but his descriptions of battles have
never been surpassed. 'His writings have been admired by the
warrior, copied by the politician, and imitated by the historian.
Brutus had him ever in his hands, Tully transcribed him, and
many of the finest passages of Livy are the property of the Greek
historian.'"

ART.

I. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE.

After the close of the Peloponnesian war the perfection and
application of the several orders of Grecian architecture were
displayed in the laying out of cities on a grander scale, and
by an increase of splendor in private residences, rather than
by any marked change in the style of public buildings and temples.
Alexandria in Egypt, and Antioch in Syria, were the finest examples
of Grecian genius in this direction, both in the regularity and
size of their public and private buildings, and in their external
and internal adornment. This period was also distinguished for
its splendid sepulchral and other monuments. Of these, probably
the most exquisite gem of architectural taste is the circular
building at Athens, the Cho-rag'ic Monument, or "Lantern of
Demosthenes," erected in honor of a victory gained by the chorus
of Lysic'rates in 334 B.C. "It is the purest specimen of the
Corinthian order," says a writer on architecture, "that has reached
our time, whose minuteness and unobtrusive beauty have preserved
it almost entire among the ruins of the mightiest piles of Athenian
art." Other celebrated monuments of this period were the one
erected at Halicarnas'sus by the Ca'rian queen Artemi'sia to the
memory of her husband Mauso'lus, adorned with sculptural
decorations by Sco'pas and others, and considered one of the
seven wonders of the world; and the octagonal edifice, the
Horolo'gium of Androni'cus Cyrrhes'tes, at Athens.

In sculpture, Athens still asserted its pre-eminence, but the
style and character of its later school were materially different
from those of the preceding one of Phid'ias. "Toward the close
of the Peloponnesian war," says a recent writer, "a change took
place in the habits and feelings of the Athenian people, under
the influence of which a new school of statuary was developed.
The people, spoiled by luxury, and craving the pleasures and
excitements which the prosperity of the age of Pericles had opened
to them, regarded the severe forms of the older masters with
even less patience than the austere virtues of the generation
which had driven the Persians out of Greece. The sculptors, giving
a reflex of the times in their productions, instead of the grand
and sublime cultivated the soft, the graceful, and the flowing,
and aimed at an expression of stronger passion and more dramatic
action. Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the favorite subjects of
the Phidian era, gave place to such deities as Venus, Bacchus,
and Amor; and with the departure of the older gods departed also
the serene and composed majesty which had marked the
representations of them." [Footnote: C. S. Weyman.]

The first great artist of this school was Scopas, born at Paros,
and who flourished in the first half of the fourth century B.C.
Although famous in architectural sculpture, he excelled in single
figures and groups, "combining strength of expression with grace."
The celebrated group of Ni'o-be and her children slain by Ar'temis
and Apollo, a copy of which is preserved in the museum of Florence,
and the statue of the victorious Venus in the Louvre at Paris,
are attributed to Scopas. The most esteemed of his works, according
to Pliny, was a group representing Achilles conducted to the Island
of Leu'ce by sea deities. The only other artist of this school
that we will refer to is Praxit'eles, a contemporary of Scopas.
He excelled in representing the female figure, his masterpiece
being the Cnid'ian Aphrodi'te, a naked statue, in Parian marble,
modeled from life, representing Venus just leaving the bath.
This statue was afterward taken to Constantinople, where it was
burned during the reign of Justinian.

This Athenian school of sculpture was followed, in the time of
Alexander the Great, by what was called the Si-cy-o'ni-an school,
of which Euphra'nor, of Corinth, and Lysip'pus, of Si'cy-on, were
the leading representatives. The former was a painter as well
as sculptor. His statues were executed in bronze and marble, and
were admired for their dignity. Lysippus worked only in bronze,
and was the only sculptor that Alexander the Great permitted
to represent him in statues. His works were very numerous,
including the colossal statue of Jupiter at Tarentum, sixty feet
high, several of Hercules, and many others. The succeeding and
later Greek sculptors made no attempt to open a new path of design,
but they steadily maintained the reputation of the art. Many
works of great excellence were produced in Rhodes, Alexandria,
Ephesus, and elsewhere in the East. Among these was the famous
Colossus, a statue of the sun, designed and executed by Cha'res
of Rhodes, that reared its huge form one hundred and five feet
in height at the entrance to Rhodes harbor; the Farnese Bull,
at Naples, found in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome, also the
work of a Rhodian artist; and the Apollo Belvedere, in the Vatican.

Two works of this late age deserve special mention. One is the
statue of the Dying Gladiator, in the Capitoline Museum at Rome,
supposed to have come from Pergamus. Says LUeBKE, "It undoubtedly
represents a Gaul who, in battle, seeing the foe approach in
overwhelming force, has fallen upon his own sword to escape a
shameful slavery. Overcome by the faintness of approaching death,
he has fallen upon his shield; his right arm with difficulty
prevents his sinking to the ground; his life ebbs rapidly away
with the blood streaming from the deep wound beneath his breast;
his broad head droops heavily forward; the mists of death already
cloud his eyes; his brows are knit with pain; and his lips are
parted in a last sigh. There is, perhaps, no other statue in
which the bitter necessity of death is expressed with such terrible
truth--all the more terrible because the hardy body is so full
of strength."

Supported on his shortened arm he leans,
Prone agonizing; with incumbent fate
Heavy declines his head, yet dark beneath
The suffering feature sullen vengeance lowers,
Shame, indignation, unaccomplished rage;
And still the cheated eye expects his fall.
--THOMSON.

The other statue is that masterpiece of art, the group of the
La-oc'o-on, now in the Vatican at Rome, the work of the three
Rhodian sculptors, Agesan'dros, Polydo'rus, and Athenodo'rus.
It represents a scene, in connection with the fall of Troy, that
Virgil describes in the Second Book of the AEneid. A Trojan priest,
named Laocoon, endeavored to propitiate Neptune by sacrifice,
and to dissuade the Trojans from admitting within the walls the
fatal wooden horse, whereupon the goddess Minerva, ever favorable
to the Greeks, punished him by sending two enormous serpents
from the sea to destroy him and his two sons. The poet THOMSON
well describes the agony and despair that the statue portrays:

Such passion here!
Such agonies! such bitterness of pain
Seem so to tremble through the tortured stone
That the touched heart engrosses all the view.
Almost unmarked the best proportions pass
That ever Greece beheld; and, seen alone,
On the rapt eye the imperious passions seize:
The father's double pangs, both for himself
And sons, convulsed; to Heaven his rueful look,
Imploring aid, and half-accusing, cast;
His fell despair with indignation mixed
As the strong-curling monsters from his side
His full-extended fury cannot tear.
More tender touched, with varied art, his sons
All the soft rage of younger passions show:
In a boy's helpless fate one sinks oppressed,
While, yet unpierced, the frighted other tries
His foot to steal out of the horrid twine.

An American writer thus apostrophizes this grand representation:

Laocoon! thou great embodiment
Of human life and human history!
Thou record of the past, thou prophecy
Of the sad future! thou majestic voice,
Pealing along the ages from old time!
Thou wail of agonized humanity!
There lives no thought in marble like to thee!
Thou hast no kindred in the Vatican,
But standest separate among the dreams
Of old mythologies-alone-alone!
--J. G. HOLLAND.

* * * * *

II. PAINTING.

In painting, the Asiatic school of Zeuxis and Parrhasius was
also followed by a "Si-cy-o'ni-an school"--the third and last
phase of Greek painting, founded by Eupom'pus, of Si'cy-on. The
characteristics of this school were great ease, accuracy, and
refinement. Among its chief masters were Pam'philus, Apel'les,
Protog'enes, Ni'cias, and Aristides. Of these the most famous was
Apelles, a native of Col'ophon, in Ionia, who flourished in the
time of Alexander the Great, with whom he was a great favorite.
Of his many fine productions the finest was his painting of
Venus rising from the Sea, and concerning which ANTIPATER, the
poet of Sidon, wrote the following epigram:

Graceful as from her native sea she springs,
Venus, the labor of Apelles, view:
With pressing hands her humid locks she wrings,
While from her tresses drips the frothy dew:
Ev'n Juno and Minerva now declare,
No longer we contend whose form's most fair.

APELLES AND PROTOGENES.

A very pleasing story is told, by Pliny, of Apelles and his
brother-artist, Protogenes, which DR. ANTHON relates as follows:

"Apelles, having come to Rhodes, where Protogenes was then
residing, paid a visit to the artist, but, not finding him at
home, obtained permission from a domestic in waiting to enter
his studio. Finding here a piece of canvas ready on the frame
for the artist's pencil, Apelles drew upon it a line (according
to some, a figure in outline) with wonderful precision, and then
retired without disclosing his name. Protogenes, on returning
home, and discovering what had been done, exclaimed that Apelles
alone could have executed such a sketch. However, he drew another
himself--a line more nearly perfect than that of Apelles--and
left directions with his domestic that, when the stranger should
call again, he should be shown what had been done by him. Apelles
came, accordingly, and, perceiving that his line had been excelled
by Protogenes, drew a third one, much better than the other two,
and cutting both. Protogenes now confessed himself vanquished;
he ran to the harbor, sought for Apelles, and the two artists
became the warmest friends. The canvas containing this famous
trial of skill became highly prized, and at a later day was placed
in the palace of the Caesars at Rome. Here it was burned in a
conflagration that destroyed the palace itself."

Protogenes was noted for his minute and scrupulous care in the
preparation of his works. He carried this peculiarity to such
excess that Apelles was moved to make the following comparison:
"Protogenes equals or surpasses me in all things but one--the
knowing when to remove his hand from a painting." Protogenes
survived Apelles, and became a very eminent painter. It is stated
that when Demetrius besieged Rhodes, and could have reduced it
by setting fire to a quarter of the city that contained one of
the finest productions of Protogenes, he refused to do so lest
he should destroy the masterpiece of art. It is to this incident
that the poet THOMSON undoubtedly refers when he says,

E'en such enchantment then thy pencil poured,
That cruel-thoughted War the impatient torch
Dashed to the ground; and, rather than destroy
The patriot picture, let the city 'scape.

From the time of Alexander the art of painting rapidly
deteriorated, and at the period of the Roman conquest it had
scarcely an existence. Grecian art, like Grecian liberty, had
lost its spirit and vitality, and the spoliation of public
buildings and galleries, to adorn the porticos and temples of
Rome, hastened its extinction. We have now reached the close
of the history of ancient Greece. But Hellas still lives in her
thousand hallowed associations of historic interest, and in the
numerous ruins of ancient art and splendor which cover her soil--
recalling a glorious Past, upon which we love to dwell as upon
the memory of departed friends or the scenes of a happy childhood--
"sweet, but mournful to the soul." And although the ashes of her
generals, her poets, her scholars, and her artists are scattered
from their urns, and her statuary and her temples are mutilated
and discolored ruins, ancient Greece lives also in the song,
the art, and the research of modern times. In contemplating the
influence of her genius, the mind is naturally fixed upon the
chief repository of her taste and talent--Athens, "the eye of
Greece"--from which have sprung "all the strength, the wisdom,
the freedom, and the glory of the western world."

Within the surface of Time's fleeting river
Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay,
Immovably unquiet, and forever
It trembles, but it cannot pass away!
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder
With an earth-awaking blast
Through the caverns of the past;
Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast;
A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder,
Which soars where Expectation never flew,
Rending the veil of space and time asunder!
One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew;
One sun illumines heaven; one spirit vast
With life and love makes chaos ever new,
As Athens doth the world with her delight renew.
--SHELLEY.

Of the splendid literature of Athens LORD MACAULAY says, "It
is a subject in which I love to forget the accuracy of a judge
in the veneration of a worshipper and the gratitude of a child."
To Hellenic thought, as embodied and exemplified in the great
works of Athenian genius, he rightly ascribes the establishment
of an intellectual empire that is imperishable; and from one of
his valuable historical "Essays" we quote the following graphic
delineation of what may be termed

The Immortal Influence of Athens.

"If we consider merely the subtlety of disquisition, the force
of imagination, the perfect energy and elegance of expression,
which characterize the great works of Athenian genius, we must
pronounce them intrinsically most valuable; but what shall we
say when we reflect that from hence have sprung, directly or
indirectly, all the noblest creations of the human intellect?
That from hence were the vast accomplishments and the brilliant
fancy of Cicero, the withering fire of Juvenal, the plastic
imagination of Dante, the humor of Cervantes, the comprehension
of Bacon, the wit of Butler, the supreme and universal excellence
of Shakspeare? All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice
and power, in every country and in every age, have been the
triumphs of Athens. Whatever a few great minds have made a stand
against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason,
there has been her spirit in the midst of them, inspiring,
encouraging, consoling--the lonely lamp of Erasmus; by the restless
bed of Pascal; in the tribune of Mirabeau; in the cell of Galileo,
and on the scaffold of Sidney. But who shall estimate her influence
on private happiness? Who shall say how many thousands have been
made wiser, happier, and better, by those pursuits in which she
has taught mankind to engage? to how many the studies which took
their rise from her have been wealth in poverty, liberty in bondage,
health in sickness, society in solitude? Her power is indeed
manifested at the bar, in the senate, on the field of battle,
in the schools of philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever
literature consoles sorrow or assuages pain--wherever it brings
gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache
for the dark house and the long sleep--there is exhibited, in
its noblest form, the immortal influence of Athens.

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