Mosaics of Grecian History by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

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"Silent and soon
Like a broadened moon
It passes in sheen Aso'pus green,
And bursts in Cithae'ron gray.
The warden wakes to the signal rays,
And it swoops from the hills with a broader blaze:
On--on the fiery glory rode--
Thy lonely lake, Gorgo'pis, glowed--
To Meg'ara's mount it came;
They feed it again,
And it streams amain--
A giant beard of flame!
The headland cliffs that darkly down
O'er the Saron'ic waters frown,
Are passed with the swift one's lurid stride,
And the huge rock glares on the glaring tide.
With mightier march and fiercer power
It gained Arach'ne's neighboring tower--
Thence on our Ar'give roof its rest it won,
Of Ida's fire the long-descended son!
Bright harbinger of glory and of joy!
So first and last with equal honor crowned,
In solemn feasts the race-torch circles round.
And these my heralds, this my sign of Peace!
Lo! while we breathe, the victor lords of Greece
Stalk, in stern tumult through the halls of Troy."
--Trans. by BULWER.

Such, in brief, is the commonly received account of the Trojan
war, as we find it in Homer and other ancient writers. Concerning
it the historian THIRLWALL remarks: "We consider it necessary
to admit the reality of the Trojan war as a general fact, but
beyond this we scarcely venture to proceed a single step. We
find it impossible to adopt the poetical story of Helen, partly
on account of its inherent improbability, and partly because we
are convinced that Helen is a merely mythological person." GROTE
says:[Footnote: "History of Greece." Chap. XV.] "In the eyes of
modern inquiry the Trojan war is essentially a legend and nothing
more. If we are asked if it be not a legend embodying portions
of historical matter, and raised upon a basis of truth--whether
there may not really have occurred at the foot of the hill of
Ilium a war purely human and political, without gods, without
heroes, without Helen, without Amazons, without Ethiopians under
the beautiful son of Eos, without the wooden horse, without the
characteristic and expressive features of the old epic war--if
we are asked if there was not really some such historical Trojan
war as this, our answer must be, that as the possibility of it
cannot be denied, so neither can the reality of it be affirmed."
In this connection it is interesting to note that the discoveries
of the German explorer, Schliemann, upon the site of ancient Troy,
indicate that Homer "followed actual occurrences more closely
than an over-skeptical historical criticism was once willing to
allow."

FATE OF THE CHIEF ACTORS IN THE CONFLICT.

Of the fate of some of the principal actors in the Trojan war
it may be stated that, of the prominent Trojans, AEneas alone
escaped. After many years of wanderings he landed in Italy with
a small company of Trojans; and the Roman writers trace to him
the origin of their nation. Priam was killed by Pyrrhus, the
son of Achilles, during the burning of Troy; while Achilles
himself fell some time before, shot with an arrow in the heel
by Paris, as Hector had prophesied would be the manner of his
death. Ajax, after the death of Achilles, had a contest with
Ulysses for the armor of the dead hero, but was unsuccessful,
and died by his own hand. The poet EN'NIUS ascribes the following
declaration to Tel'amon, the father of Ajax, when he heard of his
son's death:

I knew, when I begat him, he must die,
And trained him to no other destiny--
Knew, when I sent him to the Trojan shore,
'Twas not to halls of feast, but fields of gore.
--Trans. by PETERS.

Agamemnon, on his return to Greece, was barbarously murdered by
his unfaithful queen, Clytemnestra. Diomed was driven from Greece,
and barely escaped with his life. It is uncertain where or how
he died. Ulysses, after almost innumerable troubles and hardships
by sea and land, at last returned in safety to Ithaca. His
wanderings are the subject of Homer's Odyssey.

But it may be asked, what became of Helen, the primary cause
of the Trojan war, disastrous alike to victors and vanquished?
According to Virgil, [Footnote: AEneid, B. VI.] after the death
of Paris she married the Trojan hero, De-iph'o-bus, and on the
night after the city was taken betrayed him to Menela'us, to
whom she became reconciled, and whom she accompanied, as Homer
relates, [Footnote: Odyssey B. IV.] during the eight years of
his wandering, on his return to Greece. LANDOR, in one of his
Hellen'ics, represents Menelaus, after the fall of Troy, as
pursuing Helen up the steps of the palace, and threatening her
with death. He thus addresses her:

"Stand, traitress, on that stair--
Thou mountest not another, by the gods!
Now take the death thou meritest, the death,
Zeus, who presides over hospitality--
And every other god whom thou has left,
And every other who abandons thee
In this accursed city--sends at last.
Turn, vilest of vile slaves! turn, paramour
Of what all other women hate, of cowards;
Turn, lest this hand wrench back thy head, and toss
It and its odors to the dust and flames."

Helen penitently receives his reproaches, and welcomes the
threatened death; and when he speaks of their daughter, Hermi'o-ne,
whom, an infant, she had so cruelly deserted, she exclaims:

"O my child!
My only one! thou livest: 'tis enough;
Hate me, abhor me, curse me--these are duties--
Call me but mother in the shades of death!
She now is twelve years old, when the bud swells,
And the first colors of uncertain life
Begin to tinge it."

Menelaus turns aside to say,

"Can she think of home?
Hers once, mine yet, and sweet Hermione's!
Is there one spark that cheered my hearth, one left
For thee, my last of love?"

When she beseeches him to delay not her merited fate, her words
greatly move him, and he exclaims (aside),

"Her voice is musical
As the young maids who sing to Artemis:
How glossy is that yellow braid my grasp
Seized and let loose! Ah, can ten years have passed
Since--but the children of the gods, like them,
Suffer not age.[Footnote: Jupiter was fabled to be
the father of Helen.]
(Then turning to Helen.) Helen! speak honestly,
And thus escape my vengeance--was it force
That bore thee off?"

Her words and grief move him to pity, if not to love, and he
again turns aside to say,

"The true alone and loving sob like her.
Come, Helen!" (He takes her hand.)
(Helen.) Oh, let never Greek see this!
Hide me from Argos, from Amy'clae [Footnote: A town
of Laconia, where was a temple of Apollo. It was a
short distance to the south-west of Sparta.] hide me,
Hide me from all.
(Menelaus.) Thy anguish is too strong
For me to strive with.
(Helen.) Leave it all to me.
(Menelaus.) Peace! peace! The wind, I hope, is fair for Sparta.

The intimation, by Landor and others who have sought to exculpate
Helen, that she was unwillingly borne away by Paris, has been
amplified, with much poetic skill and beauty, by a recent
poet,[Footnote: A. Lang, in his "Helen of Troy."] into the story
that the goddess Venus appeared to her, and, while Helen was
shrinking with apprehension and fear of her power, told her that
she should fall into a deep slumber, and on awaking should be
oblivious of her past life, "ignorant of shame, and blameless of
those evil deeds that the goddess should thrust upon her." Venus
declares to her:

"Thou art the toy of gods, an instrument
Wherewith all mortals shall be plagued or blest,
Even at my pleasure; yea, thou shalt be bent
This way and that, howe'er it like me best:
And following thee, as tides the moon, the West
Shall flood the Eastern coasts with waves of war,
And thy vexed soul shall scarcely be at rest,
Even in the havens where the deathless are.

"The instruments of men are blind and dumb,
And this one gift I give thee, to be blind
And heedless of the thing that is to come,
And ignorant of that which is behind;
Bearing an innocent, forgetful mind
In each new fortune till I visit thee
And stir thy heart, as lightning and the wind
Bear fire and tumult through a sleeping sea.

"Thou shalt forget Hermione! forget,
Forget thy lord, thy lofty palace, and thy kin;
Thy hand within a stranger's shalt thou set,
And follow him, nor deem it any sin;
And many a strange land wand'ring shalt thou win;
And thou shalt come to an unhappy town,
And twenty long years shalt thou dwell therein,
Before the Argives mar its towery crown.

"And of thine end I speak not, but thy name--
Thy name which thou lamentest--that shall be
A song in all men's speech, a tongue of flame
Between the burning lips of Poesy;
And the nine daughters of Mnemos'y-ne,
With Prince Apollo, leader of the nine,
Shall make thee deathless in their minstrelsy!
Yea, for thou shalt outlive the race divine."

As the goddess had declared, so it came to pass, for when Helen
awoke from her long slumber,

She had no memory of unhappy things,
She knew not of the evil days to come,
Forgotten were her ancient wanderings;
And as Lethae'an waters wholly numb
The sense of spirits in Elysium,
That no remembrance may their bliss alloy,
Even so the rumor of her days was dumb,
And all her heart was ready for new joy.

The reconciliation of Menelaus with Helen is easily effected by
the same kind of artifice; for when, on the taking of Troy, he
meets her and draws his sword to slay her, the goddess, again
appearing, throws her witching spell over him also:

Then fell the ruthless sword that never fell
When spear bit harness in the battle din,
For Aphrodi'te spake, and like a spell
Wrought her sweet voice persuasive, till within
His heart there lived no memory of sin;
No thirst for vengeance more, but all grew plain,
And wrath was molten in desire to win
The golden heart of Helen once again.

It is said that after the death of Menelaus Helen was driven
from the Peloponnesus by the indignant Spartans.

* * * * *

IV. ARTS AND CIVILIZATION IN THE HEROIC AGE.

Although but little confidence can be placed in the reality of
the persons and events mentioned in the poems of Homer, yet there
is one kind of truth from which the poet can hardly have deviated,
or his writings would not have been so acceptable as they evidently
were to his contemporaries--and that is, a faithful portraiture
of the government, usages, institutions, manners, and general
condition of the Greeks during the age in which he lived, and
which undoubtedly differed little from the manners and customs
of the Heroic Age. The pictures of life and character that he
had drawn must have had a reality of existence, and they
unquestionably give us, to a considerable extent, a true insight
into the condition of Grecian society at that early period of
the world's history.

And yet we must bear in mind that epics such as those of Homer,
describing the manners and customs of a half-barbarous age, and
intended to honor chieftains by extolling the deeds and lives
of their ancestors, and to be recited in the courts of kings and
princes, would, very naturally, be accommodated to the wishes,
partialities, and prejudices of their noble hearers. And this
leads us to consider how far even the great epic of Homer is to
be relied on for a faithful picture of the political life of the
Greeks during the Heroic Age. We quote the following suggestive
remarks on this subject from a recent writer and able Greek critic:

THE POLITICAL LIFE OF THE GREEKS, AS REPRESENTED IN THEIR GREAT EPICS.

"Although, in the Greek epics, the rank and file of the army
are to be marshaled by the kings, and to raise the shout of battle,
they actually disappear from the action, and leave the field
perfectly clear for the chiefs to perform their deeds of valor.
There is not, perhaps, an example in all the Iliad of a chief
falling, or even being wounded, by an ignoble hand. Amid the
cloud of missiles that were flying on the plains of Troy, amid
the crowd of chiefs and kings that were marshaled on either side,
we never hear how a 'certain man drew a bow at a venture, and
smote a king between the joints of the harness.' Yet this must
necessarily have occurred in any prolonged combats such as those
about the walls of Troy.

"Here, then, is a plain departure from truth, and even from
reasonable probability. It is indeed a mere omission which does
not offend the reader; but such inaccuracies suggest serious
reflections. If the epic poets ignore the importance of the
masses on the battlefield, is it not likely that they underrate
it in the public assemblies? Is it not possible that here too,
to please their patrons, they describe the glorious ages of the
past as the days when the assembled people would not question
the superior wisdom of their betters, but merely assembled to be
taught and to applaud? I cannot, therefore, as Mr. Grote does,
accept the political condition of things in the Homeric poems,
especially in the Iliad, as a safe guide to the political life
of Greece in the poet's own day.

"The figure of Thersites seems drawn with special spite and venom,
as a satire upon the first critics that rose up among the assembled
people to question the divine right of kings to do wrong. We may
be sure the real Thersites, from whom the poet drew his picture,
was a very different and a far more serious power in debate than
the misshapen buffoon of the Iliad. But the king who had been
thwarted and exposed by him in the day would, over his cups in
the evening, enjoy the poet's travesty, and long for the good old
times when he could put down all impertinent criticism by the
stroke of his knotty sceptre. The Homeric Agora could hardly have
existed had it been so idle a form as the poets represent. But as
the lower classes were carefully marshaled on the battle-field,
from a full sense of the importance which the poet denies them, so
they were marshaled in the public assembly, where we may be sure
their weight told with equal effect, though the poet neglected it
for the greater glory of the counseling chiefs." [Footnote: "Social
Life in Greece, from Homer to Menander," by Rev. J. P. Mahaffy.]
Notwithstanding all this, as HEEREN says, "Homer is the best source
of information that we possess respecting the Heroic Age."

The form of government that prevailed among the early Greeks,
especially after the Pelasgic race had yielded to the more
warlike and adventurous Hellenes, was evidently that of the
kingly order, on a democratic basis, although it is difficult
to ascertain the precise extent of the royal prerogatives. In
all the Grecian states there appears to have been an hereditary
class of chiefs or nobles, distinguished from the common freemen
or people by titles of honor, superior wealth, dignity, valor,
and noble birth; which latter implied no less than a descent from
the gods themselves, to whom every princely house seems to have
traced its origin.

But the kings, although generally hereditary, were not always so,
nor were they absolute monarchs; they were rather the most eminent
of the nobility, having the command in war, and the chief seat
in the administration of justice; and their authority was more or
less extended in proportion to the noble qualities they possessed,
and particularly to their valor in battle. Unless distinguished
by courage and strength, kings could not even command in time of
war; and during peace they were bound to consult the people in all
important matters. Among their pecuniary advantages were the
profits of an extensive domain which seems to have been attached
to the royal office, and not to have been the private property of
the individual. Thus, Homer represents Telem'achus as in danger
not only of losing his throne by the adverse choice of the people,
but also, among the rights of the crown, the domains of Ulysses,
his father, should he not be permitted to succeed him.[Footnote:
See the Odyssey (Cowper's Trans.), xi., 207-223.]

During the Heroic Age the Greeks appear to have had no fixed laws
established by legislation. Public opinion and usage, confirmed
and expounded by judicial decisions, were the only sources to
which the weak and injured could look for protection and redress.
Private differences were most often settled by private means, and
in these cases the weak and deserving were generally plundered
and maltreated by the powerful and guilty; but in quarrels that
threatened to disturb the peace of the community the public
compelled the injured party to accept, and the aggressor to pay,
a stipulated compensation. As among the savage tribes of America,
and even among our early Saxon ancestors, the murderer was often
allowed to pay a stipulated compensation, which stayed the spirit
of revenge, and was received as a full expiation of his guilt. The
mutual dealings of the several independent Grecian states with one
another were regulated by no established principles, and
international law had no existence at this early period.

DOMESTIC LIFE AND CHARACTER.

In the domestic relations of life there was much in the conduct
of the Greeks that was meritorious. Children were treated with
affection, and much care was bestowed on their education; and,
on the other hand, the respect which they showed their parents,
even after the period of youth and dependence, approached almost
to veneration. As evidence of a rude age, however, the father
disposed of his daughter's hand in marriage with absolute
authority; and although we meet with many models of conjugal
affection, as in the noble characters of Andromache and Penelope,
yet the story of Helen, and other similar ones, suggest too
plainly that the faithlessness of the wife was not regarded as
a very great offence. The wife, however, occupied a station of
as much, if not more influence in the family than was the case
in the historical period; but she was not the equal of her
husband, and even Homer portrays none of those feelings of love
which result from a higher regard for the female sex.

We gather from Homer that there was a low sense of truth among
the Greeks of the Homeric Age, but that the people were better
than might be expected from the examples set them by the gods
in whom they professed to believe. Says MAHAFFY: "At no period
did the nation attain to that high standard which is the great
feature in Germanic civilization. Even the Romans, with all their
coarseness and vulgarity, stood higher in this respect. But
neither in the Iliad nor the Odyssey is there, except in phrases,
any reprobation of deceit as such. To deceive an enemy is
meritorious; to deceive a stranger, innocent; to deceive even a
friend, perfectly unobjectionable, if any object is to be gained.
So it is remarked of Menelaus--as it were, exceptionally--that
he will tell the truth if you press him, for he is very
considerate. But the really leading characters in the Odyssey
and Iliad (except Achilles) do not hesitate at all manner of
lying. Ulysses is perpetually inventing, and so is his patroness,
Pallas Athe'ne; and she actually mentions this quality of wily
deceit as her special ground of love and affection for him."
Thus, we read in the Odyssey that when Ulysses, in response to
what the goddess--then disguised and unknown to him--had said,

With unembarrassed readiness returned
Not truth, but figments to truth opposite,
For guile, in him, stood never at a pause--

the goddess, seemingly well pleased with his "tricks of speech
delusive," thus replied:

"Who passes thee in artifice well-framed;
And in impostures various, need shall find
Of all his policy, although a god.
Canst thou not cease, inventive as thou art
And subtle, from the wiles which thou hast loved
Since thou wast infant, and from tricks of speech
Delusive, even in thy native land?
But come; dismiss we these ingenious shifts
From our discourse, in which we both excel;
For thou of all men in expedients most
Abound'st and eloquence, and I throughout
All heaven have praise for wisdom and for art."
--COWPER'S Trans.

To the foregoing it may be added that "Zeus deceives both gods
and men; the other gods deceive Zeus; in fact, the whole Homeric
society is full of guile and falsehood. There is still, however,
an expectation that if the gods are called to witness a
transaction by means of an oath, they will punish deceit. The
poets clearly held that the gods, if they were under no restraint
or fear of punishment from Zeus, were at liberty to deceive as
they liked. One safeguard yet remained--the oath by the Styx,
[Footnote: see the index at the end of the volume.] the penalties
of violating which are enumerated in Hesiod's Theogony, and
consist of nine years' transportation, with solitary confinement
and hard labor. As for oaths, the Hymn to Hermes shows that in
succeeding generations their solemnity was openly ridiculed.
Among the Homeric gods, as well as among the heroes, there were,
indeed, old-fashioned characters who adhered to probity. The
character of Apollo is unstained by deceit. So is that of
Menelaus."

The Greeks in the Heroic Age were divided into the three classes
--nobles, freemen, and slaves. Of the first we have already
spoken. The condition of the freemen it is difficult to fully
ascertain; but the majority possessed portions of land which
they cultivated. There was another class of freemen who possessed
no property, and who worked for hire on the property of others.
"Among the freemen," says one writer, "we find certain
professional persons whose acquirements and knowledge raised
them above their class, and procured for them the respect and
society of the nobles. Such were the seer, the bard, the herald,
and likewise the smith and the carpenter." The slaves were owned
by the nobles alone, and were treated with far more kindness and
consideration than were the slaves of republican Greece.

During this period the Greeks had but little knowledge of
geography beyond the confines of Greece and its islands and the
coasts of the AEgean Sea. The habitable world was supposed to be
surrounded by an ocean-like river, like that which Homer describes
as bordering the shield of Achilles, beyond which were realms of
darkness, dreams, and death. Legitimate commerce appears to have
been deemed of little importance. The largest ships were slender,
half-decked row-boats, capable of carrying, at most, only about
a hundred men, and having a movable mast, which was hoisted, and
a sail attached, only to take advantage of a favorable wind. Most
of the navigation at this early period was undertaken for the
purposes of plunder, and piracy was not deemed dishonorable. When
Mentor and Telemachus came to the court of Nestor, that prince,
after entertaining them kindly, asked them, as a matter of
curiosity, whether they were travelers or robbers!

But the Heroic Age was not one essentially rude and barbarous.
Greece was then a populous and well-cultivated country, with
numerous and large cities surrounded by walls and adorned with
palaces and temples. Homer describes the different branches of
agriculture, and the various labors of farming, the culture of
the grape, and the duties of the herdsmen. The weaving of woolen
and of linen fabrics was the chief occupation of the women, and
was carried to a high degree of perfection. While Homer may have
drawn largely upon his imagination for his brilliant pictures,
still their main features were undoubtedly taken from life, and
many ancient remains of Grecian art attest the general fidelity
of his representations: In the wonderful description of the shield
of Achilles we get some insight into the progress which the arts
of metallurgy and engraving had made, and in the following
description, in the Fifth Book of the Odyssey, of the raft of
Ulysses, on which this wandering hero floated after leaving
Calypso's isle, we learn to what degree the art of ship-building
had attained in the Heroic Age. Calypso furnishes him the
material for constructing his raft.

The Raft of Ulysses.

She gave him, fitted to the grasp, an axe
Of iron, ponderous, double-edged, with haft
Of olive-wood inserted firm, and wrought
With curious art. Then placing in his hand
A polished adze, she led herself the way
To her isle's utmost verge, where loftiest stood
The alder, poplar, and cloud-piercing fir,
Though sapless, sound, and fittest for his use,
As buoyant most. To that most verdant grove
His steps the beauteous nymph Calypso led,
And sought her home again. Then slept not he,
But, swinging with both hands the axe, his task
Soon finished; trees full twenty to the ground
He cast; which, dexterous, with his adze he smoothed,
The knotted surface chipping by a line.
Meantime the lovely goddess to his aid
Sharp augers brought, with which he bored the beams,
Then placed them side by side, adapting each
To other, and the seams with wadding closed.

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