|
First mentioned in 1263, the site anciently occupied by a temple
of
Apollo.]
as the rites of Eleusis and the Olympian games.” These two
institutions
may be said to have been in some respects the counterpart of
one
another, the one being the celebration of what is commonly called
life,
the other of what is known as death; the one sacred to the god who
rules
in heaven, the other to the infernal or Chthonian deities.
Of
the myth on which the Eleusinian rites were based the earliest
account is to
be found in what is called the Homeric hymn to Demeter,
though it is known to
be the work of a later writer. According to this
tale, Cora, the daughter of
Zeus and Demeter (“Earth-Mother”)--otherwise
called Persephone or
Proserpine--was carried off by Hades while she was
playing with her
companions in a flowery meadow. Her mother sought her
for nine days and
nights with the aid of torches, but without success.
Overcome with grief and
deeply offended that Zeus should have permitted
such an outrage, she withdrew
from the society of the gods of Olympus.
In her wanderings she came, in the
guise of an old woman, to Eleusis,
where she was kindly received by the ruler
Celeus and his family. For a
time she acted as nurse to his infant son
Demophoon, and would have
conferred upon him immortality, had not his mother,
Metaneira, been
terrified one night to see her plunging him in fire, as she
was in the
habit of doing to purify him from the elements of corruption.
The
goddess, incensed at the mother’s interference, revealed her
divine
rank, and commanded the family to build a temple for her on the
hill,
which they did; and there she dwelt for a year, during which the
earth
was visited with barrenness. At length Zeus consented to restore Cora
to
her mother, on condition that she should return to Hades every year
and
remain with her husband in the underworld for four months while the
seed
was in the ground. Before leaving Eleusis, Demeter revealed to
Celeus
and three others, in whose families they were to remain, the
secret
rites which she wished to be celebrated every year in her
temple.
According to a later addition to the tale, the goddess also
taught
Triptolemus how to grow corn, an art which had hitherto been
unknown
among men, and was first practised in the Thriasian plain. This
version
was current among the Athenians, who, although not mentioned in
the
hymn, ultimately assumed the chief responsibility for the celebration
of
the rites, and introduced various modifications, in which Dionysus
and
Iacchus had a prominent place. For hundreds of years before,
the
“Mysteries” were entirely in the hands of the people of Eleusis,
which
was then as independent of Athens on the east as it was of Megara on
the
west.
The rites were of a mystical nature, and consisted largely
of a dramatic
representation of the myth above referred to. They grew in
popularity
and importance as faith in the traditional theology declined; and
even
the philosopher found in them an aid to natural religion. So
great,
indeed, was the importance attached to them that, at a later time,
the
Christian apologists (to whom we are chiefly indebted for
information
[Illustration: SACRED WAY FROM ATHENS TO ELEUSIS LOOKING
TOWARDS SALAMIS
On the right are the remains of a temple of Aphrodite.
The Island of
Salamis is on the left--middle distance--looking over the Bay
of
Eleusis.]
regarding them) felt it necessary to combat the idea that
they embodied
the essential truths of Christianity.
After Eleusis was
incorporated with Attica the Mysteries were celebrated
with a pomp and
splendour unknown in any other religious service in the
Hellenic
world--music, painting, sculpture, architecture, and dancing
being all laid
under tribute for the purpose of rendering them
attractive and imposing. To
heighten the expectations and deepen the
impressions of the worshippers there
was a preliminary initiation into
the Lesser Mysteries in February at Agræ, a
suburb of Athens, before the
chief celebration in autumn at Eleusis; and a
year had to elapse after
participation in the latter before one could be
admitted to full
communion. On the first day there was a great assembly at
Athens; next
day they bathed in the sea; the third day they offered
sacrifice; the
fourth day they marched in procession along the Sacred Way to
Eleusis,
which they reached at sunset. During the night they wandered about
the
shore with torches, looking for the lost Persephone. At length they
were
admitted in a state of excitement, intensified by their long fast,
into
a brilliantly lighted hall called the Telesterium, which has
been
recently excavated. In this hall the strange events which had for
some
days absorbed their attention were dramatically exhibited before them
on
two nights, amid profound silence, the divinities concerned
being
personally represented in appropriate costume. Certain sacred
relics
which Demeter had shown to the daughters of Celeus were produced, to
be
handled and kissed by the worshippers, who repeated the solemn
formula
of initiation. Everything was fitted to awaken feelings of reverence
and
awe, and the whole celebration seems to have held a similar place in
the
religion of the Greeks to what the Mass has among Roman Catholics,
the
Communion among Protestants, and the Easter Eve ceremonial among
the
members of the Greek Church. While the sorrows of bereavement, the
pangs
of inevitable death, and the mysterious gloom of the underworld
could
hardly fail to be impressed on the minds of the celebrants, the
return
of Persephone to her mother in spring seems to have inspired a hope
of
immortality, for we are told that the culminating point in the
service
in the Telesterium was the mowing down of a ripe ear of corn.
It
requires no stretch of imagination to believe that it conveyed to
the
devout worshipper something of the thought which Jesus Christ
expressed
on the eve of His death to certain Greeks who came desiring to see
Him,
when He said, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die,
it
abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” The
same
thought is echoed by St. Paul in writing to the Corinthians on
the
subject of the Resurrection, when he says, “Thou fool, that which
thou
sowest is not quickened, except it die.” This view of the Mysteries
is
confirmed by the statement made by Cicero, who had himself
been
initiated, that they taught men “not only to live happily but also
to
die with a fairer hope.”
Like all symbolic rites, however, they
depended for
[Illustration: THE GREAT TEMPLE OF THE MYSTERIES, ELEUSIS.
LOOKING
NORTH-EAST
On the left, in the immediate foreground, is part
of the early girdle
wall of the sacred precincts, above which is the edge of
the Acropolis
rock, with a chapel of the Panagia, and belfry above. To the
right are
bases of votive offerings. In the distance are the mountains
of
Attica.]
their efficacy on the susceptibilities of the worshipper.
Plutarch says
that it required a philosophical training and a religious frame
of mind
to comprehend them, and Galen maintained that “the study of Nature,
if
prosecuted with the concentrated attention given to the Mysteries,
is
even more fitted than they are to reveal the power and wisdom of God,
as
these truths are less clearly expressed in the Mysteries than
in
Nature.”
There is no evidence that metempsychosis or transmigration
of souls had
any place in the rites, and they appear to have been free from
the
grossness of the Orphic and Phrygian Mysteries, as well as from
the
superstition associated with Pythagoreanism. It has been suggested
that
they may have been of Egyptian origin, and recently this theory
has
derived some support from the discovery of three Egyptian scarabs in
the
grave of a woman, who appears to have been a priestess, as more
than
sixty vases of various kinds were found buried with her, besides a
great
quantity of female jewellery, in gold and silver and bronze and
iron.
The Eleusinian rites breathed quite a different spirit from the
ordinary
religion of the Greek, and as soon as they were over he resumed
his
enjoyment of the present world. There were games and
theatrical
performances on the last day before leaving Eleusis, and on the
way back
to Athens there were many ebullitions of mirth and wit, owing to
the
reaction from the unwonted solemnity and gloom.
We have a token of
the sacredness attaching to the rites in the fact
that one of the most solemn
oaths which could be taken was in the name
of Demeter and her daughter. It
was regarded as an extreme aggravation
of the guilt of Calippus, the
Syracusan, who compassed the death of
Dion, Plato’s friend, that, when he was
suspected of a hostile design
and challenged by Arete, Dion’s wife, he denied
with an oath and went
into the sacred grove, touching the purple robe of the
goddess, and
taking a lighted torch in his hand. To make the crime still
worse, it
was perpetrated on the very day sacred to these goddesses when
the
Coreia were celebrated, and it was through their initiation into
the
Eleusinian Mysteries that the two men had become acquainted--showing
how
little impression may be made on some minds by the most solemn rites
of
religion. The Mysteries were open to women as well as to men, but not
to
slaves or Persians, or infamous persons such as murderers whose
guilt
had not been expiated.
[Illustration: THE HALL OF THE GREAT
TEMPLE OF THE MYSTERIES, ELEUSIS
In the distance is the island of
Salamis, looking on the Bay of Eleusis.
In the foreground are remains of
shafts of columns which supported an
upper story over the Great
Hall.]
CHAPTER XI
ATHENS AND ITS
DEMOCRACY
THE history of Athens is scarcely less interesting from a
political than
from an artistic and architectural point of view. It affords
the first
example of a thoroughly organised democracy, and as such it has
much to
teach the nations of modern Europe, both in the way of encouragement
and
warning.
Reference has already been made to what was done by Solon
in the
beginning of the sixth century B.C. to establish a constitutional
form
of government, in which all classes of the population, slaves
only
excepted, should have some degree of representation. The form
of
government which Solon introduced has been called
a
_timocracy_--property, not birth or rank, being the standard
of
political power. He divided the population into four classes,
the
highest consisting of citizens who possessed 500 medimni of corn. It
was
from this last class alone that the nine archons--Ministers of State
in
a restricted sense--and the _strategoi_ or generals had to be
chosen.
All other offices were open to the whole population--the lowest class
or
_Thetes_ alone excepted, whose eligibility was confined to serving
as
_dicasts_ or jurymen, and who were exempted from the
graduated
income-tax imposed on the three higher classes. All citizens had a
right
of membership in the _Ecclesia_ or popular assembly, to which
the
_Boule_ or Council of 400, selected by lot, had to submit any
proposals
of a legislative character. A special benefit was at the same
time
conferred upon the distressed agriculturists by a measure
called
_Seisachtheia_, for relieving them more or less from the burdens
which
their costly mortgages had entailed upon them.
Still more
democratic measures were introduced, nearly a century later,
by Cleisthenes,
a member of the Alcmæonid family. He abolished all class
distinctions, with
the single exception that the office of archon was
still confined to the
highest of the four classes recognised by Solon.
He also divided the
community into ten tribes; increased the number of
the _Boule_ to 500, 50
being chosen from each tribe; and gave to the
general Assembly, of which all
citizens above eighteen years of age were
members, a more definite and secure
place in the constitution. No one
was eligible for public office till he was
thirty years of age. From
each of the ten tribes 600 _dicasts_ were annually
appointed by lot,
5000 of the total number being required for service in the
law courts,
and the remaining 1000 for revision of the laws. It was also
with
Cleisthenes that the measure known as _Ostracism_ originated. It
gave
the assembly power in any political emergency to banish from the
country
for ten years (later the period was changed to five
years)
[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS FROM THE BASE OF THE PHILOPAPPUS
HILL
Over the talus of the debris from the excavations on the south side
of
the Acropolis we see the front of the Theatre of Herodes Atticus,
with
the long portico connecting it with the Theatre of Dionysos. On
the
Acropolis itself, if we proceed from left to right, are Beule’s
gate,
the Propylæa and neighbouring remains, the Erechtheum and the
Parthenon.
Towering above the east end of the Acropolis is Lycabettos, with
the
chapel on its summit catching the sunlight. This drawing is intended
to
convey some idea of the glitter of sunlight upon the splendid series
of
marble temples and monuments of the Athenian Acropolis.]
any one
whose presence seemed to endanger the safety of the state. When
a vote of
this nature was taken, each of the citizens could nominate for
banishment any
one he chose; but unless 6000 votes were recorded the
whole proceedings fell
to the ground. The measure seems a strange one,
but it provided a
safety-valve for political feeling on critical
occasions before the
institutions of the country had become firmly
established. In the course of
the fifth century ten politicians were
ostracised, the first being
Cleisthenes himself, and the last (417 B.C.)
Hyperbolus, who was made a
scape-goat for Alcibiades and Nicias, the two
rival leaders of the day. By
another singular enactment, directed
against movements of a factious or
seditious character, it was
obligatory on every citizen, when civil
commotions arose, to range
himself either on one side or the
other--neutrality in such
circumstances being regarded as treason to the
state.
The constitution established by Cleisthenes remained in force as
long as
Athens continued to be a free state, with a few additional
reforms,
which gave it a still more democratic character. The restriction of
the
archonship to men of wealth was abolished, and the power of
the
Areopagus, the oldest and most venerable body in Athens, embracing
in
its membership all who had previously held the office of archon,
was
reduced to little more than the right of adjudicating in cases
of
alleged homicide. In the days of Pericles provision was made for
the
payment of citizens officiating as _dicasts_ or jurymen, and a
“Theoric
Fund” was also created for the purpose of defraying the expenses
of
public festivals, and bestowing on each citizen the price of
admission
to the theatre on such occasions. In course of time this was
followed by
the payment of citizens for attendance at the meetings of the
general
assembly.
In the age of Pericles the greatness of Athens
reached its culminating
point, and never before had democracy been so
justified by its results.
In the funeral oration delivered by Pericles on one
occasion (p. 168) we
have an attractive picture of the state whose fortunes
he was guiding:--
“From the magnitude of our city, the products of
the whole earth
are brought to us, so that our enjoyment of foreign
luxuries is as
much our own and assured as those which we grow at
home.... We
combine elegance of taste with simplicity of life, and we
pursue
knowledge without being enervated: we employ wealth not for
talking
and ostentation, but as a real help in the proper season.
The
magistrates who discharge public trusts fulfil their
domestic
duties also--the private citizen, while engaged in
professional
business, has competent knowledge on public affairs: for we
stand
alone in regarding the man who keeps aloof from these latter not
as
harmless but as useless. In fine, I affirm that our city,
considered as a whole, is the schoolmistress of Greece.”--Thuc. ii.
40.
The continuity of the Athenian democracy was rudely broken by
the
Spartans the year after the fateful battle of Ægospotami.
Having
demolished the walls of the city (which was starved into surrender)
amid
the flute-playing and dancing of women crowned with wreaths,
the
Spartans set up the tyranny of the “Thirty,” which gave the Athenians
a
more bitter experience of injustice, oppression and cruelty than
they
had experienced even in the closing years of the Peisistratid dynasty.
A
remarkable proof of the intense hatred of political tyranny
which
prevailed at Athens nearly half a century later was afforded by
the
reception given to two young Thracian Greeks, who had at one
time
studied under Plato, when they repaired to Athens after
assassinating
Cotys, the tyrant of their country. Partly on general grounds,
partly
because Cotys had been a dangerous enemy of Athens, they were
received
with the greatest honour, being admitted to the freedom of the city
and
presented with golden wreaths. So glowing were the eulogies passed
upon
them in the Assembly that one of the two felt constrained to
declare,
“It was a god who did the deed; we only lent our hands.” The
feeling
against despotic power was scarcely less strong in Magna Græcia,
where
the iron entered into the soul of many communities under the
usurpation
of Dionysius of Syracuse, about the beginning of the fourth
century B.C.
His request for a wife from the city of Rhegium, which was
accompanied
with a promise of benefactions to the city, was rejected; and in
the
public discussion of the subject one of the speakers remarked that
the
daughter of the public executioner would be the only suitable wife
for
him. Dionysius fared better at Locri, where he obtained the hand of
a
lady named Doris, the daughter of an eminent citizen, but not till
after
another citizen, a friend of Plato, had refused his daughter,
saying
that he would rather see her dead than wedded to a despot. Doris, it
is
interesting to learn, made her voyage to Syracuse in a magnificent
new
ship with five banks of oars, and on landing was conveyed to
the
tyrant’s house in a beautiful chariot drawn by four white horses.
The
same day Dionysius also married one of his own subjects, and, strange
to
say, the two ladies were treated with equal respect, and sat
with
dignity at the same table.
At Athens the drama was one of the
most powerful educative influences in
the community. The remains of what was
no doubt in its time the chief
Dionysiac theatre may be seen in the
neighbourhood of the
Acropolis--part of the southern face of the rock having
been scarped to
form the back of the theatre. Plato speaks of it as
accommodating 30,000
people, but this is probably an exaggeration, 20,000
being nearer the
mark. The front seats running round part of the orchestra
are in the
form of marble thrones, adorned with reliefs on their fronts and
sides,
and bearing the names of priests and other dignitaries for whom
they
were intended. These seats probably formed part of the original
stone
theatre, but the latest inscriptions date from the time of Hadrian.
The
Emperor’s throne seems to have stood on an elevation (still to be
seen)
in a central position behind the front row of seats, and images of
him
were set up in various parts of the theatre--a departure from
the
example of Lycurgus, who set up statues of the great dramatists,
the
bases of some of which are still in
[Illustration: THE LOWER PART
OF THE AUDITORIUM OF THE THEATRE OF
DIONYSOS AT ATHENS
Beginning at
the left hand below, we notice first the breast-wall
dividing the orchestra
from the auditorium, and below it again the
partially covered channel for
rain-water. In the foremost row of marble
seats or thrones, the third seat to
the right is that of the Priest of
Dionysos, distinguished by the exquisite
relief, on the arm of the
throne, of Eros engaged in cock-fighting. Higher up
in the auditorium
are pedestals for honorary statues.]
existence.
Immediately in front of the seats is a circular wall, which
appears to have
been erected as a protection from wild beasts in the
time of the Roman
gladiatorial exhibitions. On the other side of the
orchestra, facing the
auditorium, are the remains of a stage with
figures in relief, representing
the birth of Dionysus and other cognate
subjects, and a crouching Silenus
supporting the stage. These were
probably not set up in their present form
before the third century A.D.,
though the marbles themselves may date from
the time of Nero. Farther
back there are the foundations of other stages of
an earlier date, with
a _stoa_ or colonnade, intended as a shelter for the
people in case of
rain. Traces have also been found, partly beneath the
present orchestra,
of the primitive enclosure which served as an orchestra
before the
construction of the theatre. It was probably here that the most
famous
Greek tragedies were exhibited, though it appears to have been at
a
different spot, in the _Agora_, that the first play of Æschylus
was
enacted, when the scaffolding on which the people sat gave
way,
rendering it necessary that some new arrangement should be provided.
At
first a cart or table is said to have served as a stage for the actor,
a
booth being provided at a later time as a background and
dressing-room,
with some kind of platform for a stage, in the neighbourhood
of a spot
suitable for dancing and overlooked by a rising ground from which
the
spectators might be able to hear and see what was going on. It
was
probably not till about 330 B.C., in the days of Lycurgus, that
the
elaborately constructed theatre was erected, whose ruins still
excite
so much interest and admiration. Immediately to the west of the
theatre
are the remains of a colonnade--the _Stoa_ of Eumenes--which led
from
the theatre to the Odeum of Herodes Atticus, one of the most
munificent
of the Roman benefactors of Athens in the second century _A.D._
The
Odeum was built in memory of his wife Regilla, and though
the
marble-covered seats and cedar roof are gone, its arches form
an
imposing ruin.
Historically speaking, Greek tragedy, the flower and
crown of Greek
poetry, had a very humble origin. It was developed from the
dithyramb, a
lyric hymn in honour of Dionysus (Bacchus), which seems to have
been
derived from Thrace, and was of a wild, impassioned,
semi-oriental
character. Hence the theatre stood within the precincts sacred
to
Dionysus: and the foundations of a shrine, as well as of a larger
temple
in which the image of the god in gold and ivory was preserved, have
been
discovered in the immediate neighbourhood of the theatre. About 600
B.C.
the dithyramb entered on a new phase in the hands of Arion of
Methymna
in Lesbos, who found Corinth a congenial scene for such revelry.
He
organised a chorus of fifty members in the form of satyrs[7] (whence
the
name of
[Illustration: THE CAVERN CHAPEL (PANAGIA SPELIOTISSA) ON
THE SOUTH SIDE
OF THE ACROPOLIS
This is the site of the Choragic
monument of Thrasyllus. The square
opening is cut in the scarped face of the
Acropolis rock at the top of
the Theatre of Dionysos. Above stand two
columns, which supported
tripods dedicated to the god.]
tragedy or
“goat song”), who danced around the altar or image of the
wine-god. Half a
century later this performance was introduced at
Athens, and became a feature
of the greater Dionysia which were
instituted by the “Tyrant” Peisistratus.
By and by, at one of these
celebrations, Thespis, in order to give a rest to
the chorus, came
forward as a reciter of poetry, which he seems to have
addressed not to
the chorus, but to a person who was described as
_hypocritēs_
(“answerer”), which became the name for an actor. The dramatic
element
thus introduced was strengthened a few years later by Æschylus,
who
provided employment for two actors and gave dialogue a more
important
place, though the entertainment was still largely of a
lyrical
character. A farther step was taken by Sophocles (who gained a
victory
over the great founder of Greek tragedy in 468 B.C.) by the addition
of
a third actor and the adoption of scene-painting. Sophocles arranged
his
plays in trilogies or sets of three, frequently choosing subjects
that
had no connection with each other, instead of the tetralogy (set
of
four), which had formerly been the fashion. As a result of this
change
the number of the chorus was increased to fifteen instead of
twelve,
which had been approximately the fourth part of Arion’s chorus of
fifty.
What strikes a western mind as the most remarkable thing about
Greek
tragedy is its high moral and religious character, notwithstanding
its
association with the worship of Bacchus and the prominence assigned
to
dancing. Its subjects were almost always of a heroic nature, drawn
from
the national mythology, and the problems of human sin and suffering
were
treated from a deeply religious point of view. As Prof. J. S.
Blackie
says in his translation of Æschylus (vol. i. pp.
xxxviii-xxxix):--
“Our modern Puritans, who look upon the door of a
theatre
(according to the phrase of a famous Edinburgh preacher) as
the
gate of hell, might take any one of these seven plays which
are
here presented in an English dress, and, with the simple
substitution of a few Bible designations for heathen ones, find, so
far
as moral and religious doctrine is concerned, that, with the
smallest
possible exercise of the pruning-knife, they might be
exhibited in a
Christian church, and be made to subserve the
purposes of practical
piety as usefully as many a sermon. The
following passage from the
_Agamemnon_ is not a solitary gem from a
heap of rubbish, but the very
soul and significance of the
Æschylean drama:--
For Jove doth
teach men wisdom, sternly wins
To virtue by the tutoring of their
sins;
Yea! drops of torturing recollection chill
The sleeper’s
heart; ’gainst man’s rebellious will
Jove works the wise
remorse:
Dread Powers, on awful seats enthroned, compel
Our
hearts with gracious force.”
And again (p. xlviii):--
“The lyrical tragedy of the Greeks presents, in a combination
elsewhere
unexampled, the best elements of our serious drama, our
opera, our
oratorio, our public worship, and our festal
recreations. The people who
prepared and enjoyed such an
intellectual banquet were not base-minded.
Had their stability been
equal to their susceptibility, the world had
never seen their
equal.”
The religious element is not so
prominent in the poetry of Sophocles,
who brought his compositions to the
highest perfection of art; and the
rationalising element is still more
apparent in Euripides, with whom
philosophy may be said to have gained the
ascendency. In his hands the
Athenian drama lost to a large extent its ideal
and heroic character,
becoming realistic in its mode of thought, and showing
the same
speculative tendencies as the Sophists had begun to indulge
in.
Euripides represents a period of decline; but for intellectual
keenness
and subtlety, for humane sentiment and tender pathos, he is
generally
regarded as the greatest of the three. It gives us some idea of
the
marvellous intellectual wealth of Athens at this period in her
history
when we remember that the great poets we have mentioned were
sometimes
defeated by competitors, whose writings have unfortunately
perished.
Side by side with the later developments of Greek tragedy,
Attic comedy
reached its culminating point in the writings of Aristophanes,
whose
plays, eleven in number (dating from 427 B.C. onwards), are all
that
exist of the comic literature of this period. It originated in the
droll
procession, with merry song and rude comments on public affairs,
which
formed one of the features of the “Greater Dionysia”--borrowed no
doubt
from the rustic celebrations at vintage and harvest which are
usually
attributed to the Dorian genius. At first voluntary, the
procession
afterwards became a recognised part of the Athenian festival, and
was
subsidised by the state, the result being that it assumed a
dramatic
character in the hands of the poet Cratinus. While fun and laughter
were
the primary objects it was intended to serve, it found room for
an
infusion of beautiful lyric poetry; and the chorus became
the
mouth-piece of the poet for expressing his mind on the questions of
the
day, and satirising the vices and follies of politicians and
other
public men. Unfortunately Aristophanes did not spare even such
a
salutary teacher as Socrates, whom we find caricatured in the
_Clouds_.
Though the comic poets were generally conservative in their
instincts
and bitterly opposed to philosophic radicalism, they owed their
right of
criticism very largely to the free spirit of the Athenian democracy;
and
they soon gave up their scathing personalities when power passed out
of
the hands of the people. Moreover the revelry associated with
the
worship of Dionysus seemed to justify the licence which they
claimed;
and when the old religion lost its hold on the mind of the nation
they
lost their courage and independence as public censors. In Menander
and
others the “New Comedy” became little more than an amusing reflection
of
the social life of the day.
The plays in the theatre were only part
of the Dionysiac festival, which
was celebrated with great magnificence by a
public procession and
sacrifices. During the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.,
when the Greek
drama was at its best, the responsibility
of
[Illustration: THE CHORAGIC MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES
Behind it
rises the grand mass of the eastern end of the Acropolis rock;
along the
southern front of the Acropolis walls are seen the two votive
columns which
bore votive tripods, similar to the one for which the
“Monument of
Lysicrates” served as a support.]
producing a play was generally
undertaken by some rich man who was
called the _choregus_, it being his duty
to provide the chorus and
furnish its members with suitable dresses. In the
event of the play
being successful in the competition, the _choregus_
received a prize in
the form of a tripod, which it was customary for him to
set up in the
precincts of Dionysus’ temple, or in an adjoining street.
Fortunately
one such monument has been preserved, which had been erected (as
the
inscription tells) by Lysicrates in 335 B.C.--surmounted by a
bronze
tripod, which has disappeared. Apart from its historical interest
the
monument has considerable value from an architectural point of view,
as
it is one of the earliest and finest specimens of the Corinthian
order.
It is in the form of a small circular temple of Pentelic marble,
fully
20 feet high, standing on a high square pediment of Piræic limestone
13
feet high, with a cornice of Hymettus marble. It is
beautifully
decorated in a chaste and delicate style, the roof consisting of
a
single leaf-shaped block of marble, and the frieze being ornamented
with
scenes in the mythological history of Dionysus. For many years it
served
as the library of a Capuchin convent which was built round it.
The
convent was a favourite residence for Englishmen at Athens, and
Lord
Byron is said to have used the interior of the monument for a
study.
The theatre was often used for public meetings. It was there that
it was
proposed to honour Demosthenes with a golden wreath in acknowledgment
of
the signal service he had rendered to his countrymen in reviving
their
courage and persuading the Thebans to join with them in resisting
the
victorious advance of Philip. It was a great contrast to the
treatment
he had experienced in the same place many years before, when a
wealthy
Hipparch named Meidias attacked him with his fists at the very time
he
was acting as _choregus_ for his tribe Pandionis. In general,
great
decorum was observed in the theatre. It was not even permitted to
the
officials who were responsible for maintaining order to inflict a
blow
on any disorderly person, though it might be their duty to remove him
by
force. That same year Demosthenes and some other leading Athenians
paid
a visit to the court of Philip at Pella. Among other
entertainments
which the king provided for them, his son Alexander, then a
boy of ten
years of age, recited a dialogue, along with a companion, from one
of
the great tragic poets of Athens. The taste for this kind of
literature
never left the great prince, though his interest in natural
science was
also shown by a grant of 800 talents to his former tutor,
Aristotle, for
the purpose of carrying on zoological researches. When he
asked Harpalus
to send him something to read during his stay in Upper Asia,
the works
of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were among the few books
selected.
Again, when he returned from the conquest of Egypt to Phœnicia,
after
he had been saluted as the son of Zeus by the priest of Jupiter-Ammon
in
the Libyan desert, dramatic representations formed an important part
of
the festivals which were got up in his honour; and the princes of
Cyprus
were conspicuous for the zeal and liberality with which they acted
the
part of _choregi_ in competitions modelled on those of Athens. Of
the
popularity of the tragic poets with Greek soldiers we have a
remarkable
evidence in the fact that when, a century before, the Athenian
army
which had been sent for the invasion of Sicily was utterly destroyed,
a
number of men who escaped capture and wandered about the country,
and
also some of those who had been reduced to slavery, won the hearts
of
their conquerors by reciting passages of Euripides which they
happened
to know by heart. In this connection it may be mentioned that
all
free-born children in Athens were taught to read and write, while
the
recitation of selected passages from great authors, and the practice
of
music on the lyre or flute, along with gymnastics for the training
of
the body, were always included in a liberal education.
Another
great educative influence in democratic Athens was the practice
and the love
of oratory. In the beginning of the sixth century B.C. we
find Solon
employing verses on political subjects for the persuasion of
his countrymen,
while at the same time condemning the incipient drama of
Thespis, when he saw
him acting, as tending to falsehood--emphasising
his opinion, we are told, by
striking his stick on the ground. It was
not till nearly a century later that
the cultivation of prose rhetoric
became common in Greece. The Ionic
philosophers of Asia Minor, and their
successors in Magna Græcia, who had
tried to grapple with the problems
of the universe, gave place to the
sophists who abandoned the quest for
abstract truth and devoted themselves to
studies which had a direct
bearing on the practical interests of life. They
naturally gravitated to
Athens as the intellectual capital of Greece, and
found many young men
who were eager to acquire the arts and accomplishments
they professed to
impart. Socrates has been called the greatest of the
sophists, but,
apart from deeper points of difference, he was distinguished
from them
by the facts that he gave no instruction in public speaking (for
which
he had no taste), and that he accepted no fee from his disciples. On
the
latter point, however, the sophists do not seem to have been
so
mercenary as is sometimes alleged, if we may judge from the example
of
Protagoras, who is represented by Plato as stating that he made
no
bargain with his pupils beforehand, and that if they thought on
leaving
that he was asking too much he allowed them to name a smaller figure,
on
condition that they went into a temple and declared on oath that
they
considered it a more just remuneration.
The fact that every
citizen who had a case in the law courts of Athens
was obliged to plead his
cause in person before a court consisting of
about 500 jurors, gave a great
impetus to the cultivation of oratory.
Not only was the preparation of the
speeches often entrusted to
professional rhetoricians, but their services as
teachers of elocution
were also called into requisition by those who were
anxious to do
justice to their cause by means of an effective delivery. The
general
Assembly offered a still larger field for the practice
of
[Illustration: THE PNYX; OR, PLACE OF ASSEMBLY OF THE ATHENIAN
PEOPLE
At the junction of the converging lines of scarped rock is the
_bēma_,
or altar, of the Pnyx, with a platform in front, from which, it
is
believed, the orators addressed the people. It will be seen that
the
steps, at the side of the cubical mass of rock, which has been called
an
altar, ascend right up to the top of it; and it seems probable that
we
have here rather the basis of the altar than the altar itself.
The
latter may very well have been movable. Above the _bēma_ will be
seen
the remains of a semicircular row of seats, apparently the seats of
the
Prytanes, facing the people. In the middle distance of the drawing
the
Acropolis rises majestically, and is finely opposed by the long line
of
Mount Hymettos.]
eloquence, on the part of those who were ambitious
of a political
career, and it was open to all citizens who chose to attend.
The result
was that the Athenians became as pre-eminent in their power
of
expression in language as in the visible forms of art. One of the
most
interesting spots in Athens is the Pnyx, where the Assembly
usually
met--“that angry, waspish, intractable, little old man, Demos
of
Pnyx”--to quote the words of Aristophanes. The place of meeting was
a
semicircular space on the face of a low rocky hill, a quarter of a
mile
west of the Acropolis. Where the diameter of the circle would be,
but
forming an obtuse angle, is a wall of hewn rock, fifteen feet high
at
its central part, but getting lower towards the sides. In front of
this
wall, about where the centre of the circle would be, there is a block
of
stone eleven feet long and as many broad, resting on a platform of
three
steps about thirty feet wide at its front base, cut out of the
natural
rock. This is believed to have been the _bēma_ (“stone in the
Pnyx”)
from which the speakers in the Assembly sometimes addressed 6000 or
7000
citizens chiefly resident in Athens or the immediate neighbourhood
and
belonging to the middle or lower classes. Round part of the
semicircle,
retaining-walls can still be traced, which appear to have
been
originally much higher, so that the enclosure would slope down
towards
the _bema_ or platform, and thus bring the speaker within sight
and
hearing of the whole Assembly.
It was in the Pnyx that the great
debates took place which determined
the policy of Athens and influenced the
destiny of all Greece. Here
might be heard the demagogue Cleon, who knew how
to play on the passions
and prejudices of the mob. By the strange working of
the Athenian
constitution, he found himself on two important occasions at the
head of
the army, first at Sphacteria, when the forces under his
command
inflicted on Sparta one of the greatest humiliations which it
ever
suffered at the hands of Athens, and again at Amphipolis, when
the
Spartan general Brasidas gained the victory, though at the cost of
his
own life, Cleon also being slain by a spear-wound in the back when
he
was fleeing from the field. Here too Phocion delivered his opinions,
the
plain, blunt, warm-hearted soldier who studied brevity and candour
in
all his utterances, never condescending to flatter or even to please
his
audience. On one occasion, when some remark he had made was
loudly
applauded, he turned round to a neighbour and inquired whether he
had
said anything very much amiss! His wisdom was not always equal to
his
honesty and courage, but his career was long and honourable, as he
was
forty-five times elected general for a year, and on many
occasions
rendered signal service to his country. The conduct of the
citizens,
assembled in the theatre, in refusing him a hearing (an old man
of
eighty-four years) before condemning him to death as a traitor,
will
always be a blot on the history of the Athenian democracy.
In the
Pnyx, as well as in the law courts, might be heard the consummate
orator,
whose extant speeches are pronounced by general consent to be
the finest
specimens of parliamentary and forensic eloquence in ancient
or in modern
times. The power of Demosthenes in delivery seems to have
been equal to his
skill in argument and his clearness and felicity of
expression--the result of
marvellous patience and perseverance in the
face of difficulties which would
have seemed to most men to be
insuperable, arising from defective
articulation, a weak voice, short
breath and an awkward manner. His devotion
to his country was equal to
his enthusiasm as an orator; and if it had been
still possible to teach
the democracy wisdom and preserve the liberties of
Athens, Demosthenes
would have been the man to do so. But his lot fell in
evil times, and
fate was against him. His end, like that of many of the great
men of
antiquity, was a very sad one. In 324 B.C., six years after
delivering
his great speech _De Corona_, which has been fitly called “the
funeral
oration of Greek liberty,” he was thrown into prison on a charge
of
conspiring against the Macedonian authority. He made his escape and
took
refuge in the Peloponnesus, where he was living at the time of the
death
of Alexander the Great--an event which kindled in the breasts
of
patriotic Greeks a fresh hope of regaining their liberties.
Demosthenes
took the lead in the movement for liberation and secured for
his
countrymen the help of Peloponnesian allies in a last effort to
throw
off the Macedonian yoke. On landing at Piræus he received a
magnificent
welcome from all classes of his fellow-citizens. But the rising
was soon
suppressed. Antipater compelled the city to surrender at
discretion;
and within a year Demosthenes was again a fugitive under sentence
of
death, passed against him by the remnant of citizens who were
still
permitted to abide at Athens. In his extremity he took refuge in
a
temple of Poseidon at Calauria, which had been an inviolable asylum
from
time immemorial. The Athenian who was at the head of the Thracian
force
sent by Antipater to take him was afraid to desecrate the sanctuary,
and
tried to entice him beyond its precincts by promising that his
life
would be spared. But Demosthenes knew how little faith was to be put
in
such a promise. He knew that even if his life were spared he might
have
his tongue cut out, like other orators who had done what they could
to
warn their countrymen against Macedonian aggression. Despairing of
being
able to render any further service to his country he resolved to put
an
end to his life by swallowing the poison which he had secreted about
his
person to meet such an emergency. As soon as he felt the poison begin
to
work he arose and walked slowly out of the sanctuary, calling
for
support to his tottering steps, in order to save the temple from
being
desecrated by his death.
A few words may be added regarding
another aspect of Athenian greatness
during the period of the democracy,
which has already been incidentally
mentioned. The latter half of the fifth
century B.C., which was the
golden age of the sophists, also saw the rise of
a new intellectual
movement, which was destined to secure for Athens a
position of
supremacy in the department
[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS,
WITH KALLIRRHOE IN THE FOREGROUND
The worn and polished bed of the
Ilissus, down which trickles the water
of the fountain of Kallirrhoe, is
richly coloured with blue and purple,
owing to reflected light from the blue
sky of a brilliant early morning
in summer. The Acropolis, with the Parthenon
(divided into two masses
from this point of view), is relieved against the
sky. To the right are
some of the lofty columns of the Temple of Olympian
Zeus, the little
cafe or refreshment house giving scale to them.]
of
philosophy for hundreds of years after it had sunk into
political
insignificance, and even after the sceptre in the realm of
literature
had passed to Alexandria. The man to whom this new departure was
chiefly
due was Socrates, a brave soldier, a genial friend, and an
incorruptible
citizen, as well as an original thinker. Greatly to his
own
astonishment, he was declared by the Delphian oracle to be the wisest
of
men--a statement which he could only credit in the sense that he
was
wiser than others inasmuch as he was aware of his own ignorance. He
not
only imparted a higher moral tone to the teaching of Greek
philosophy
than it ever had before, but also laid the foundation of the Logic
of
Definition, and anticipated in the sphere of ethics the principle
of
Induction on which Aristotle acted in the next century in
various
departments of his encyclopædic studies, and which was to be
fully
applied by Lord Bacon in the natural world nearly 2000 years
afterwards.
Before the days of Socrates the greatest, or at least the
most
ambitious, thinkers had made vain attempts to unveil the secrets of
the
physical universe, and in doing so had either ignored the
traditional
theology, or else explained it away, like Xenophanes, who held
that the
gods were the creation of human imagination, and that if oxen or
lions
were to become religious they would likewise make for themselves gods
in
their own image. With such impiety Socrates could have no sympathy,
as
we may judge from the fact that he even condemned the presumption
of
Anaxagoras in treating _Helios_ and _Selene_ (sun and moon) as if
they
were material bodies, whose motions and magnitudes could be
ascertained
by the intellect of man.
In Plato, the disciple and
exponent of Socrates, Greek speculation may
be said to have reached its
culminating point. How greatly his thoughts
have influenced the course of
philosophy in subsequent times, even to
our own day, may be judged from the
following words of the late
Professor Jowett in his introduction to the
_Republic_, which is
generally acknowledged to be the greatest and most
suggestive of the
numerous works of Plato:--
“He (Plato) was the
greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has
seen; and in him, more
than in any other ancient thinker, the germs
of future knowledge are
contained. The sciences of logic and
psychology, which have supplied so
many instruments of thought to
after-ages, are based on the analyses of
Socrates and Plato. The
principles of definition, the law of
contradiction, the fallacy of
arguing in a circle, the distinction
between the essence and
accidents of a thing or notion, between means
and ends, between
causes and conditions; also the division of the mind
into the
rational, concupiscent and irascible elements, or of pleasures
and
desires into necessary and unnecessary--these and other great
forms
of thought are all of them to be found in the _Republic_, and
were
probably first invented by Plato. The greatest of all
logical
truths, and the one of which writers on philosophy are most apt
to
lose sight, the difference between words and things, has been
most
strenuously insisted on by him.... In the _Republic_ is to be
found
the original of Cicero’s _De Republica_, of St. Augustine’s
_City
of God_, of the _Utopia_ of Sir Thomas More, and of the
numerous
other States which are framed upon the same model....
The
_Republic_ of Plato is also the first treatise upon education,
of
which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul,
and
Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he
has
a revelation of another life; like Bacon, he is profoundly
impressed with the unity of knowledge; in the early Church he
exercised
a real influence on theology, and at the revival of
literature on
politics.... He is the father of idealism in
philosophy, in politics, in
literature; and many of the latest
conceptions of modern thinkers and
statesmen, such as the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of
the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by
him.” |
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