THE AGE OF PERICLES

A HISTORY OF THE POLITICS AND ARTS OF GREECE

FROM THE

PERSIAN TO THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR

Volume II

By

WILLIAM WATKISS LLOYD

 

 

CHAPTER XXXII. Extension of Athenian power during the Messenian war.—Alliance with Argos and Megara. B.C. 461-460

CHAPTER XXXIII. The Danaid trilogy of Aeschylus.

CHAPTER XXXIV. Ephialtes and Pericles in opposition to the Areopagus.—The Oresteia of Aeschylus. B.C. 459-458

CHAPTER XXXV. War between Sparta and Athens—Battles of Tanagra and Oenophyta. B.C. 457

CHAPTER XXXVI. Fall of Aegina.—Her ruin and her renown BC. 457-456

CHAPTER XXXVII. Lingering warfare of Sparta and Athens.—The five years’ truce. B.C. 455-452

CHAPTER XXXVIII. The five years’ truce of Athens and Sparta.—The peace of Cimon. B.C. 450-445

CHAPTER XXXIX. Athens deprived of power over Boeotia, Megara, and Peloponnesian States.—Conclusion of peace for thirty years. B.C. 447-445

CHAPTER XL. Sparta and Athens.—The conditions and genius of oligarchy and democracy.

CHAPTER XLI. Athenian democracy as administered by Pericles.

CHAPTER XLTI. The administration of Pericles in peace.—Thucydides, son of Melesias. The scrutiny of citizenship. B.C. 445-441

CHAPTER XLIII. The colony of Thurium.—Herodotus and the Antigone of Sophocles. B.C. 443-441.

CHAPTER XLIV. The revolt of Samos. B.C. 441-440.

CHAPTER XLV. Pericles and Aspasia.

CHAPTER XLYI. The Periclean conception of civilization.

CHAPTER XLVII. The Panathenaea.

CHAPTER XLVIII. The problem of politics in relation to religion in Hellas.

CHAPTER XLIX. The Eleusinia.

CHAPTER L. The development of musical theory in Greece.

CHAPTER LI. Music in the age of Pericles.

CHAPTER LII. The Chryselephantine statues.—The Athene of the Parthenon.

CHAPTER LIII.

The Chryselephantine statues.—The Zeus of Olympia.

CHAPTER LIV. The first charges against Pheidias.—Pericles on the defensive.—The founding of Amphipolis. B.C. 438, 437

CHAPTER LV. Ionian philosophy at Athens.—Anaxagoras.

CHAPTER LVI. The commencements of Sophistical and Socratic speculation.

CHAPTER LVII. Renewal of attacks on Pericles. Charges against Pheidias, Aspasia, and Anaxagoras.

CHAPTER LVIII. Approaching crisis in politics.—Temper of Athenian and Pelopon­nesian allies.—Conflict of Corinth and Corcyra, and victory of Cor­cyraeans.—Renewed and formidable armament of Corinth. BC 435. 434

CHAPTER LIX. Agitation and debates at Athens.—The Megarian decrees.—Opposition to policy of Pericles.—Interference of Athenians in sea-fight between Corinthians and Corcyraeans.—Serious breach with Corinth. BC433.432

CHAPTER LX. The revolt of Potidaea.—Athenian expedition and victory.—The city invested.—The Dorian war inevitable. B.C. 432, autumn

CHAPTER LXI. Corinthian agitation.—Policy and preparations of Sparta. B.C. 432

CHAPTER LXII. The Medea of Euripides. B.C. 431

CHAPTER LXIII The Theban attempt on Plataea.—Open war.—The end. B.C. 431

CHAPTER LXIV.

Conclusion.

 

The Age of Pericles.

B.C. 461-431.

CHAPTER XXXII.

EXTENSION OP ATHENIAN POWER DURING THE MESSENIAN WAR.

—ALLIANCE WITH ARGOS AND MEGARA.

B.C. 461-460; 01. 79. 4.

By the ostracism of Cimon, a party was secured in power at Athens which was not only bent on further serious con­stitutional changes, but was prepared to carry through a more important reversal of external policy than had been known in Hellas since the conclusion of the great contest with Persia. This was nothing less than a distinct rupture of friendly relations with Sparta. Events had long been tending in this direction, and inducements were not wanting to precipitate a conclusion that sooner or later must be inevitable.

Neither the allies, who with hearty good will had conceded to Athens the control of defensive operations against Persia, nor the Spartans who had acquiesced in it, had anticipated how unchecked an authority the Athenian demus was des­tined to acquire in consequence, and how resolutely it would be asserted. This was something very different, as now consolidated, from the relation which Sparta was contented with towards her peculiar allies; the partition of control over Hellas had consequently ceased to be on equal terms, and the bitter jealousy revealed in the course of the Messenian incidents was the signal of a crisis. Nothing* but the home-embarrassments of Sparta, it could be plausibly argued, had enabled the Athenian policy to proceed so far unchallenged; the end of these was now approaching, and would certainly be the occasion for the former leading state of Hellas to turn upon a rival, with the full advantages of her recovered territory and secured geographical position, and with all her released and exercised energies. It was already full late for Athens to be oil the alert to make the most of an opportunity that might not speedily reeur, and snatch the last material guarantees which were essential to her grandeur and her safety. The city in all the pleni­tude of its sway did not require to be admonished of the mistrust which it had already awakened, and with what justice; and even calm advisers might deem it futile to seek any longer to parry danger by an assumed semblance of regard for an understanding which was known on all hands to be forfeit or obsolete. The time for prudence in this form had in any ease gone by; it was too late either to affect or to practise moderation; and enemies would be rather encouraged than conciliated by halt or by retirement on the path to empire which must now, even in self-preser­vation, be pursued to its end. The lingering embarrassments of Sparta must therefore be improved without delay; what­ever further acquisitions were desirable must be grasped at onee, and possession confirmed by new alliances contracted irrespectively of considerations which had governed during the Persian peril or immediately thereafter.

This policy could not want zealous advocates in the eity of Themistoeles,—there is every appearanee that it was but an active revival of his own,—and when the auxiliary hoplites returned from Sparta, burning with resentment at an im­puted slight, and with vexation also, it may be, at a lost opportunity, there were leaders who were prompt to fan the flame; the demus was incited to boldly adopt a scheme

which assuredly was not now promulgated for the first time, and to commit the state without delay or doubt­fulness to a positive breach with all its consequences. Under the circumstances it would be unfair to Sparta not to recog­nise that their jealousy may have been very naturally alarmed by signs of sympathy with the insurgents on the part of some at least of their professed Athenian auxiliaries.

That Pericles had at this time already risen into import­ance and influence, is proved by what we have seen of his participation in an earlier prosecution of Cimon; but Ephi- altes still remained chief protagonist of the democratic party and principles, and lofty as his character appears from what scanty notices we have, we gather from these also that his tendency was to the vehement, the extreme, the uncompromising. Such was the character of his opposition to Cimon personally, and such it ever continued to his party and his policy.

He had been untiring and unrelenting in prosecuting aristocratical delinquencies, and in exacting stringent ex­amination of the accounts which functionaries were bound to render on expiry of their term of office ; exposures had ensued which strengthened the authority and nerved the resolution of the popular courts as much as they discredited the aristo­cratical party, and so he prepared the way for that capital restriction of the privileges of the Areopagus which in alliance with Pericles he was to decide against excited opposition within the next three years, if he did not quite survive to carry it through. The same uncompromising spirit had now the opportunity, of which it had been balked before, in external policy; the imputed ungenerousness of his pro­posal to leave Sparta in difficulties which should command the sympathy of all possessors of slaves and rulers of sub­ordinate provinces, was vindicated as common sense and common prudence by the vexatious consequences of giving in to high-flown but delusive sentiment; the peril which

B 2

had excited commiseration for an ally, was now to be re­garded as a possibility nearer home with that insincere ally very heartily disposed, and soon to be at liberty to pro­mote it.

The Athenian expedition then had no sooner returned from It home, than the demus in high indignation distinctly renounced the alliance with Sparta, which had subsisted since the Persian invasion, and concluded at once a treaty with the Argives,—with the Argives who had stood aloof and in equivocal neutrality in the patriotic war, and had since overpowered Mycenae and other towns which had bravely asserted independence by taking part in it, had concentrated their population with the undisguised motive of defying the interference of the Spartans, and within a year or two had been engaged with them in actual hostilities. Athens became a party at the same time and on the same terms to an alli­ance which was apparently already subsisting between Argos and some unspecified section of the Thessalians. By what interests and connections Thessalians were united with the Argives does not appear, unless so for as they had both been committed to sympathy with the Mede. Still less docs there appear, and in result does there prove to be existent, such a tic of common advantage in the case of Athens, as would assure a permanent and zealous co-operation; in the meantime the temptation was great on her side to rely on the inducement of good pay for securing and attaching such an auxiliary force of cavalry as Thessaly alone could furnish, and as was again to be resorted to at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war.

The conclusion of these alliances was followed up by measures in relation to Megara and Aegina that speedily brought on a series of collisions with Corinth, and imper­fectly recorded as these are, they are traceable to momentous consequences. Corinth, as we have seen, had already, anterior to the Athenian expedition to Ithomc, been engaged in the

hostilities against Cleonae and Megara which had then pro­voked animadversion by Cimon. It were vain, however, at such a crisis, to attempt to identify the primary centre of disturbance by the first overt acts of violence; the elements of quarrel are universally diffused, are in the air. In this case as go often precautions for defence are open to misinter­pretation as menaces of aggression, or may be conveniently challenged as such by the stronger or the more prepared; and delivery of the first blow is no proof of the first pro­vocation. The signs of the times were too threatening to be disregarded by the Corinthians with their widespread commercial interests; and though they were usually content to appear as supporters of Sparta when Sparta was ready to bear the brunt of action, they were prepared now, as they were to prove at a future time, when the chief Dorian power was paralysed or torpid, to act independently on their own estimate of the occasion. The oligarchical principles that were dear to them had been steadily losing ground among their immediate neighbours. At Argos, where a bloodstained page of rather later history is to record the deadly rivalry of democracy and oligarchy, the balance of parties was seriously affected at the present conjuncture by sympathy with the marvellous development and achievements of democratic in­stitutions at Athens. Nor was it only that this state, in all the confidence of newly restored population, and agitated by such an example, was beginning to recur to her ever- cherished ever-futile claim to pre-eminence in Peloponnesus as in natural succession to the sway of Agamemnon; in the attitude of Megara there had been for some time a still nearer occasion for disquietude. The later history of Megara bears witness that the same oligarchical spirit which breathes in the elegies of Theognis still survived in vigour and viru­lence. We can discern however by the light of events that were presently to ensue, that years of peaceful and profitable intercourse with Athens had promoted among certain classes

a leaning to democracy and predilection for an Athenian alliance which promised to ripen before long; and such an alliance would involve nothing less than a transfer of com­mand of the isthmus, the very outwork of Corinth and of Peloponnesus generally.

The motives of Corinth therefore to protect herself against the contingencies of such an uncertain situation, are quite sufficient to explain her encroachments on the territory of Megara in one direction, and on Cleonae in the ¹ other. Megara was quite unequal to cope with such a power as Corinth, and under the circumstances it was hopeless to appeal to Sparta ; but the open renunciation by the Athenians of the Dorian alliance, set them free to give active value to the sympathy which had been already expressed by Cimon; in consequence the democratieal party at Megara roused itself still more decidedly than at Argos, secured the upper hand, and not only renounced the Lacedaemonian for the Athenian alliance, but called in immediate Athenian assis­tance. llow great was the need of foreign support against even native opponents by the popular party which snatched a temporary control of this Dorian state, is implied in their present reception of Athenian garrisons, and has plain proof in subsequent events.

Corinth might well regard the occupation of the Megarid by the Athenians as something more than a menace; for Athens it meant the power of impeding if not closing the passage of the isthmus to a hostile army, an object it should appear of such vital importance, that it was inexcusable in her statesmen not to hold themselves bound to secure it, if not by conquest at least by an alliance, whether obtained by conciliation or exacted by whatever means of compulsion were available. The utmost was done at the present time to assure retention of the proffered advantage. The site of

the city of Megara, like that of Athens, was about a hill at some distance from the sea, the position which was con­stantly chosen in earlier times, for the sake of combining access to the coast with some security against sudden piratical incursions. The Athenians now lent their aid to connect this capital with its Eastern port Nisaea, by lines of parallel * walls which would enable them to convey succour to their partisans and their own garrison, independently of interrup­tion by land forces.

These Long Walls were the first of the kind that were actually built, and for anything that is stated were a novel invention for the occasion, but it is probable that the scheme had already been mooted, if not matured, for those which were soon after commenced at Athens on a more stupendous scale.    -

Themistocles had recognised that it was indispensable for Athens to attach the ultimate seat of her power directly to her port and arsenals; but his views are not recorded as postulating more than a sufficiently extensive refuge within the fortified circuit of the Piraeus. We are even without dis­tinct assurance that his scheme extended beyond providing refuge in case of a renewed attack by Persia. We shall however probably do him injustice if we do not credit him with looking still beyond to the very contingency of Hellenic opposition to Athenian power which was now on the point of arising.

The wealth and population of the city had outstripped all precedent in Greece, and even his sanguine anticipations and his plans required to be accordingly enlarged in scale if they were still to be adhered to in principle. The exhi­bition of the value of the expedient on a smaller scale could but aid the promoters of the more important project.

In the meantime, if Corinth was touched by this curb upon her general control of Megara, she was roused to exasperation by the consignment to Athens, to a great

maritime rival, commercial always and political inevitably sooner or later, of the port of Pegae, on the Western Crissaean gulf. Her jealousy and hatred of Athens were excited to the utmost, and nothing¹ but expectation of an opportunity to strike with advantage deferred a serious effort to repel the encroachment. With the isthmus blocked and a hostile fleet in command of the gulf as it soon might be, the Peloponnesians would be finally disabled from co-operating with the states that were best disposed to check the aggrandisement of Athens on her northern frontier.

In the meantime the Athenians in all the confidence of power were committed to a remote and serious enterprise in support of an Egyptian revolt against Persia; their participation in this war lasted for six years, which Thucy­dides by his note of its conclusion enables us to fix satis­factorily as extending from 461-60 to 455 B.C.; but it is probable that in Egypt itself the movement had begun considerably earlier, even if it did not commence as Diodorus intimates, very soon after the death of Xerxes 465-464 B.C., when Persia was in confusion. Inarus, son of Psammetielius, who is styled a Libyan and king of Libyans on the western margin of the delta, at Mareia inland from Pharos, headed the insurrection; the increased severity with which the country had been ruled since Xerxes put down a former rising,—a severity embittered to the sufferers by studied insults to their most cherished superstitions,—could not but contribute to the success which at first attended his appeal, lie speedily made such head that in a battle at Pamprenis, in a district of a military tribe and where the hippopotamus was the especial object of religious awe, he defeated the Persian army of occupation, and killed the commander him­self, Aehaemenes, a son of Darius and uncle of the reigning Artaxerxes. He now applied to Athens for an auxiliary force; the notices which are casually preserved by the

scholiast of Aristophanes, as to the supplies of corn and money that tempted the demus to Egyptian alliance, are more distinctly applicable to a later occasion, which how­ever pretty certainly only repeated the circumstances of this. Inarus, with so much of Egypt at his command, could spare money and stores in abundance in exchange for fighting power, and mere liberality of pay and prospect of booty in a war which promised so favourably, might alone induce the Athenians to avail themselves of an opportunity to keep their fleet in exercise and employment at the charge of the foreigner. Two hundred ships therefore, which as we now incidentally learn were on service in an expedition directed against Cyprus, were despatched to Egypt, where they entered and gained command of the Nile, and helped the insurgents to the conquest and occupation of two-thirds of the vast city of Memphis; the Medes and Persians how­ever and their Egyptian adherents retired to a third fortified section called the White Castle, or fortress, and there maintained themselves against all efforts of their assailants. It is only from Ctesias that we learn the name of the Greek commander Charitimides, of whom however no mention occurs elsewhere.

There is interest in noting the coincidence that the life of Themistocles was prolonged precisely to the time when he might have learnt the final triumph of his schemes for the aggrandisement of his native country. Plutarch gives his age at death as 65, and repeats the tradition known to Thucydides that it occurred most opportunely precisely at a time when revival of conflict between his native and his adopted countries would have placed him in a false position; so opportunely indeed, as to suggest that it was a voluntary retirement from a painful difficulty. Setting aside the confusion which ¹ Plutarch introduces between this

earlier Egyptian expedition and the operations of Cimon some nine years later, we obtain a date which carries back his birth to about 525 B.C. and is quite consistent with his previous history. He had lived long enough to become assured that his interrupted and ill-requited work would lose nothing in the hands of a Pericles; and when he be­queathed his bones—as he was worthily believed to have done — to the earth of Attica, it may have been in the proud confidence that not those of Theseus had better claim to protection by the sacred sway of his own empire city.

As naturally as the enemies of Persia applied to Athens for assistance, did the enemies of Athens, whether barbarian or Greek,—the Persians now as recently the Thasians,— make application, though at present with less success, to the Laccdaemonians;—so notorious had already become the jealousy with which the protagonists of Plataea regarded, and could not but regard, the victors of Salamis. An envoy of the great king, a Persian noble Megabazus, arrived at Sparta well provided with money and instructed to urge the Lacedaemonians to invade Attica, in the hope that such a diversion must cause the withdrawal of the auxiliaries from Egypt. Once again therefore Athens has warning how well known to all her enemies is her vulnerable side, how strong their confidence that on this side she is fatally vulnerable, how absolutely necessary it is that, if she is to maintain her position, she should either establish from her own resources or acquire by an appropriate and firm alliance, a land force competent to cope with the renowned and veteran land forces of the states which she must ultimately contend with; otherwise it would seem inevitable that she must some day content her ambition—as no doubt many would argue well she might—with such sway as it was possible for her to maintain independently of supremacy on land. Her position in adopting the latter alternative would

have been greatly strengthened could she have made her rivals aware how resolutely she would take all consequences. Sparta, however, was not yet prepared, and indeed under existing circumstances could be as little disposed to act; whether the Messenian war was still upon their bands or not—for the date of the application cannot be fixed to a certain year,—the suggestion to relieve the Persian from annoyance by a hostile fleet, in order to bring it upon them­selves was not encouraging. It is possible also that the con­demnation of Pausanias for treason against Hellas in dealings with the Medes was still too fresh in memory for the example to be publicly adopted at present, though such scruples, if they did now have influence at Sparta, were destined to disappear before many years. The envoy in any case made no impression, and went back to Asia ¹ with what money he had left,’ with, in fact, whatever of the subsidy remained over to him after the distribution of sums by which Spartans of position had been found willing to encourage him to believe that he was judiciously furthering his project.      .

The Lacedaemonians appear at the present time (460 B.C.) to have been as little inclined to interpose in a foreign quarrel at the instance of their own accustomed allies as of the Persians. The Corinthians were consequently left in the first instance to take the lead in prosecuting an opposition to the power of Athens, as they were in the best position to note as well as feel its general progress, which touched their interests so nearly by interference at Megara, and which it appears certain was already committed to hostile action against Aegina, of very serious import. We owe to a valuable and celebrated inscription the assignment to a single year of a group of events of which Thucydides only supplies the general sequence. It records the names of some 180 men of the tribe Erechtheis who, within the year, fell in battle in Cyprus, Egypt, Phoenicia, Haliae,

Aegina, and Megara. The sequence of enumeration corre­sponds with the succession of engagements in the several localities, so far as recorded, and therefore presumptively of all. The fleet that was acting against Cyprus proceeded to Egypt, and the casualties in Phoenicia may easily have been incurred by the crews of detached vessels after the arrival of the general fleet at the Nile. The other localities are in their proper order, as we shall see.

From ¹ Thucydides we deduce with certainty the year 460 B.C. as the first of the Egyptian war of the Athenians; and as the inscription includes the Cyprian slain of the first year, the same date is certified for the slaughter at the country of the Ilalieis, at Aegina, and Megara. A portion of the arehonship of Philoeles, under which Diodorus places these events, would fall within the twelvemonth. From the close­ness with which they succeeded each other, we are entitled to infer, (and the brief expression of Thueydides is not incon­sistently so interpreted,) that the intentions of Athens against Aegina were already declared, if hostilities were not, in fact, commenced. We may thus explain what we read of the other­wise unaccountable gathering at this time on the coast opposite to the island of a Peloponnesian force, consisting of Corinthians, Epidaurians, and certain auxiliary lioplites. The design was probably the same that, after some obstruction, w^ras partially carried out a little later, to introduce an addition of strength into the threatened island. For this however the command of the sea was indispensable, or an unguarded opportunity, which the Athenians did not allow them to wait for unmo­lested. With characteristic promptitude they anticipated the mustering of the Peloponnesian fleet, disembarked, and at­tacked them at the seat of apparently a seafaring population,— the Ilalieis, or fishermen on the coast of Troezene. The vic­tory rested indeed with the Corinthians, but in a seafight

¹ Thuc. i. 110.

XXII.]        THE PERIL OF AEGINA.

13

which ensued soon afterwards with the supporting fleet off the adjacent islet Cecryphaleia, the Athenians on their own element were victorious. That this battle was lost by the Athenians, and lost to the Aeginetans, should scarcely be entertained on such authority as Stephanus Byzantinus against the distinct averment of Thucydides. It is much if we may accept the testimony as good for the concern of the Aeginetans in the encounter, in union with the Pelopon­nesians.

Whatever may have been the case previously, there was now no further disguise on the. part of the Athenians, of their resolution to proceed to extremities with Aegina, their ancient foe, and make an end of annoyances, rivalry, and jealousy once for all. Leocrates, son of Stroebus, the same who, with Myronides, was hardly persuaded by Aristides, after the battle of Plataea, to consent to the erection of the certainly well-earned Dorian ¹ trophy, was in command of the fleet which was directed against the only important Dorian fleet in Eastern waters. The severe conflict, in which allies on both sides took part, was decisive ; as many as seventy of the Aeginetan ships were captured by the Athenians,— a final blow to a once formidable maritime power. A de­scent on the island followed, and the siege of the city was pressed with energy that assured its ultimate, if not speedy reduction.

The Peloponnesians succeeded in transferring three hun­dred auxiliary hoplites to the island, but we hear nothing of their services. The Corinthians hastened at the same time to make a strong diversion by seizing the Geraneian heights and invading Megara. They counted upon either recovering the control of this state, or at least of obliging the Athe­nians, weakened as they were by the absence of a portion of their strength in Egypt, to withdraw from Aegina, in order

to oppose them. The object to be gained at Aegina was, however, too much held at heart to be easily renounced ; the army there remained immovable, and Myronides, to oppose the Corinthians, mustered a force at Athens from the men above and below the proper military age, who had been left in charge of, or. rather protected by the walls. The first engagement terminated with such indecisive advantage on either side as to preclude either from claiming a victory, but as the Corinthians were the first to retire, the Athenians had in so far the better, and erected a trophy. Twelve days later the Corinthians reappeared upon the field, and com­menced the erection of a trophy for themselves, incited thereto by the reproaches with which the aged men at home, in primitive Dorian manner, had greeted them on their return, with bitter reference no doubt to the composition of the Athenian force. But the Athenians were not slack in sallying from Megara, killed those who were busied with the trophy, and engaged and defeated their supports. As the vanquished retired, a considerable party pressed in the re­treat, lost the route, and found themselves in an enclosed private plot, surrounded by a vast trench. The Athenians, who were acquainted with the locality, barred the single outlet w^rith their hoplites, and then posted the light-armed all round, and destroyed by their missiles every man who had entered,—it would seem without allowing the option of sur­render. That these were hoplites is implied by the severity with which the loss was felt at ¹ Corinth, though the main body made good its retreat.

This exploit of Myronides and his leading was long one of the favourite glories of the Athenians, and the success that attended their resolute tenacity at Aegina made it a matter of pride with them ² afterwards to persist in every such enterprise, when once undertaken, at whatever collateral

¹ Tliuc. i. 106.

³ ]b. v. hi.

risk. The principle sustained their spirit through many an arduous struggle, but its inflexible maintenance was perhaps questionable policy at Potidaea, and most certainly fatal at Syracuse.

Upon this narrative ensues in Thucydides the ominous notice, ‘ it was at this time also that the Athenians began to build the Long Walls to the sea’: he specifies, in order to distinguish the third intermediate wall to the Piraeus which was added afterwards, ‘that to Phalerum and that to the Piraeus.’ Athens was giving far too serious provocation to the great Dorian confederacy not to bethink herself of every available defence in case of need. By alliance with Argos and Thessaly, by occupation of Megara, which blocked the isthmus, and of the ports which promised command of the Crissaean gulf, and by the destruction of the Aeginetan navy, so many guarantees for security had been acquired—albeit every guarantee was a provocation also,—and yet all were insufficient, while the loss of one great battle on her own territory, one unfortunate conflict with the hoplites of Sparta and Boeotia, that were admitted to be as nearly invincible as warriors could be, might sever communication with the basis of her power,—with her fleet and its arsenals. The growth of the city and of the port also, which had rendered obsolete the notion that Athens might take refuge within the walls of the Piraeus, had been accompanied by a growth in resources that enabled the completion of a single circuit for both to be easy of accomplishment.

The import of such a measure in the present condition of politics could only mean defiance,—no longer to Eastern, but to Hellenic enemies,—and was well understood both at home and abroad. The native enemies of the democracy saw their last and cherished hope of triumph by means of foreign intervention vanishing before their eyes ; the Corinthians, now thoroughly alarmed, did their best to rouse the Spartans, and were instant, and before long not without a certain

effcct, that whatever their difficulties or embarrassments, they must seize the passing opportunity and interpose to prevent what would be the completion of Athenian immunity. Both the temper in which these works were commenced and the temper with which they were watched and challenged by home and foreign aristocracies presaged a maturing conflict both of classes and communities.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE DANAID TRILOGY OF AESCHYLUS.

There is much inducement to refer the Aeschylean drama of the Suppliants to the date of the earliest proposal at Athens of the Egyptian expedition. The one great diffi­culty lies in the style of the play, which as contrasted with, that of the Oresteia, of the known date 459-58 B.C., seems to carry us further back than 461-60B.C. This anomaly may be in some degree relieved by the consideration that we have before us what is but a detached member of a trilogy, and that its characteristic effect may have been intentionally so subdued and moderated iri order to give force to a sequel; that such a consideration is not without value may appear, if we can realise with a slight effort what impression would be produced by ^c the Choephori,’ had it always been read by us without accompaniment of the associated dramas. Certain it is that we do not escape difficulties by throwing ‘the Supplices ’ further back; at no other, certainly at no earlier time, does it appear that an Athenian audience could attend with sympathy to laudations and benedictions upon Argos,— Argos here studiously brought forward as in origin Pelas- gian, as allied, that is, with the recognised root and stock of autochthonous Athenians. The deferential regard which king Pelasgus is made to express for the popular sanction as indispensable, would be a counter-sense, unless Argos at vol. 11.       c

the time were decidedly demoeratieal. The question must 110 doubt at last remain a question, but still it may be stated as a personal impression, which has gained strength after renewed perusal of the drama, that the drift of it harmonises most remarkably with this precise epoch, and challenges the assumption that it was produced when Argive interests were involved in the convulsions in the Delta, and when Athens was under influence to give protection there to her allies.

It seems not impossible to recover from hints in curt fragments of the associated plays, some probable conclusions as to the further treatment by which the poet at least endeavoured to engage the sympathies of* Athenians at this time for an Argive my thus.

The story of the fifty Danaids in its most familiar form tells how they slew their bridegroom cousins, the sons of Aegvptus, on the marriage night, and found place in Hades in consequence among other typical examples of endless punishment, engaged in hopelessly drawing water in broken vessels or pouring it into a perforated cask. Polygnotus, the friend of Cimon, by the inscription on his picture at Delphi, made them representatives moreover of the despisers of the mysteries of Thasian Demeter. But the merits of the Danaids and their relation to the mysteries, were understood very differently at Argos. "We learn from Herodotus that they were actually regarded as having first introduced the Thes- mophorian reXeT7/, or initiation of Demeter, from Egypt into Peloponnesus, where it was adopted by the Pelasgie females and still survived in his time in Arcadia, undisturbed by the Dorian invasion that abolished it elsewhere. As favourable an aspect of their mythus is presented to us by a ¹ vase-paint­ing, on which they appear as a dancing train, each bearing a vase, before the palace of the god of the underworld, thus

¹ Archaeolog. Zeitung 1S44, Taf. xi. xii. xiii.

replacing in the function of purifying festivity, the group of Orpheus and attendants on his lyre in the designs of vases, which are otherwise parallel in subject and distri­bution. So a tradition runs that they were purified from their crime by Hermes and Athene at command of ¹ Zeus ; and Lerna, which was the declared scene of their atrocity, appears also as the sacred passage of their goddess Demeter to seek her daughter in the realm of ² Hades. The original symbolism of the water-jars of the Danaids seems to have been allusive to the relief which was thankfully ascribed to ³ them, of the drought of thirsty Argos, and to have been perverted afterwards by the votaries of rival celebrations; and when we remember the spirit in which Cimon was opposed to the Argive alliance, we may interpret that of the offensive reflection on Argive predilections by his friend Polygnotus.

The extant play has every appearance of being the first of its trilogy, as it postulates no anterior dramatic action. The fifty daughters of Danaus have fled from the hateful suit of their fifty Aegyptid cousins,—wherefore hateful and unholy does not very manifestly appear. One tradition, which is referred to by both ⁴ Diodorus and ⁵ Josephus, coupled this retreat with that of the Israelites, and ascribed both to no voluntary escape, but to the Aegyptian enforcement of a true Xenela-sia, an expulsion of alien and religiously repugnant populations. Other traditions introduce other motives, but we must accept that of the tragedian. The simple action of the play ends with the hospitable reception of the Danaids as not without a local claim by ancient descent from Io, and with notice of the impending arrival of the dreaded suitors. Of the intermediate play * we have only the name, ‘ The Aegyptians,’ but by what is known of the third it is implied, that it covered so much of the story as the conflict between

¹ Apollod. xi. i. 5.        ² Paus. ii. 36. 7.  ³ Strabo viii. 6.

⁴ Diotl. xl. 3.       ⁵ Contra Apion.

C 2

the pursuers and the protectors of the fugitives, of which we read elsewhere, and the compromise by which Danaus con­sented—but with deadly purpose against the bridegrooms —to the marriage of his daughters. A fragment seems to indicate that the Chorus of this play was composed of the artisans, the thalamopoioi, who, as hinted in ‘ The Suppliants/ prepare first the dwellings of the newly received Danaids and then the bridal chambers.

Another fragment indicates that the last play, ‘The Danaids⁵—a title ¹ sometimes employed as collective name of the trilogy,—commenced with the festal rousing of the newly married, and therefore with the discovery of the mur­ders. AVhat treatment may have been conceded by Aeschylus to the forty-nine sisters does not appear, but the story of Hypermnestra, the fiftieth, who spared her husband Lynceus and secured his flight, is significant. Pausanias found the local tradition at x\rgos, that she was brought to trial by her father before the Argives, for her dangerous disobedience, and when acquitted by them dedicated in consequence a Xoanon, or w^rooden statue, of Aphrodite the bearer of victory fNice- phorus), and also a fane to Artemis Peitho, the Suasive Artemis.

A noble fragment preserved among much garbage by Athenaeus, instructs us that Aeschylus availed himself of this Argive tradition to introduce Aphrodite in person on the stage, and with the same function of advocate in favour of Hypermnestra, which he assigns to Athene as protectress of the Argive refugee Orestes—

‘ The sacred skies with love approach the earth And earth the accomplished marriage greets with love;

When rain distilling from the dripping sky

Has kissed the earth, then brings she forth for man

His sheep-flock’s pasture and Demetrian grain;

And from this dewy marriage orchard-fruits

Have growth; and I of all am the great cause.’ (irauatrios.)

¹ As by Strabo and Schol. Pind. Pylh. cxi. 27.

The broken promise of Hypermnestra seems defended in the Aeschylean line—

airaTTjs Sucaias ovk diroffTarcT 0eos—

and the general tone of her exculpation is echoed in the ‘ splendide mendax,’ with which Horace rises from a theme unworthy enough, to something like a noble vein.

The trilogy of the Danaids therefore was directed according to all appearance and probability as pointedly as the Oresteia, to set before the Athenians the divine sanction of forget­fulness of ancient rancour, of tribal enmity, with especial reference to the so long alienated Argos.

Among the titles of the lost plays of Aeschylus is found an ‘ Amymone,⁵ after Amymone the Danaid, who was rescued from a Satyr by Poseidon as his rival; that this may have been the Satyric play completing a Danaid tetralogy remains a conjecture only.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

EPIIIALTES AND PERICLES IN OPPOSITION TO THE AREOPAGUS.   

THE ORESTEIA OF AESCHYLUS.

B.C. 459-458; 01. 80. 2.

It is within the year of the Arclion Phrasyeleides (460­59 B.C.), when the foreign politics of the city were at such a pitch of excitement, that Diodorus dates an event—the murder of the democratic leader E phial tes—which was trace­able too clearly to the sympathy of domestic antagonists of the demus with its enemies abroad. Ephialtes was at this time prosecuting with all his usual vigour, and in con­junction with Pericles, an attack on the powers of the court of the Areopagus, an attack which owed its chief suc­cess to his exertions, though scarcely completed before his catastrophe. The institution had been threatened for some time, and had even been affected to a certain extent by a series of changes of which we cannot determine the precise dates and stages, but which were all in the same direction, and were now on the point of resulting in a remodel which involved a social revolution scarcely less important than the political.

"When the legislation of Aristides conceded to the very poorest class of citizens eligibility to the highest offices of the state, it might seem to the promoters of the innovation that Athens indeed enjoyed the equality of laws for which Ilarmo-

EPHIALTES AND PERICLES.

23

dius and Aristogeiton were believed to have died,—that demo­cracy was not only established, but had achieved its fullest development. The party of repression, on their part, may have hoped that after a sacrifice which in terms was so consider­able they would be left in quiet, and the people only find out by degrees and without excitement how rare and ineffectual was the advantage which accrued to them. But the end did not come for them so easily. The legislation of Cleisthenes had put a stop to the quarrels which disabled the demus from availing itself with the force of union of all the advantages of their Solonian privileges, and the interruption of the Persian wars was now gone by. It is intelligible in consequence that already a series of desultory attacks upon whatever privileges still existed, are found to have made some progress before the great innovation of which we have distinct record, when at last Ephialtes and Pericles came forward, two leaders who fully understood the genius of the movement, could forecast its career and, entertaining the largest ulterior views as to the development of democracy, were possessed of all the qualifications of talents and position, and command of popular confidence and support, to press it to the uttermost.

The admission by Solon of the entire body of freemen •to both legislative and judicial functions included as we have seen an appeal to them from the decisions of the ¹ magistrates; and this involved a power which grew ever more important as the brief and scanty laws proved ever more insufficient to apply to the increasing complication of affairs. It even came to be believed, however absurdly, that Solon had made his laws purposely obscure and contradictory, in order to throw power into the hands of the popular assembly. It was also to the people at large, in their assembly or dicasteries, that the officials whom they had originally elected were bound to render account and apply for certificate at the expiry of their term of office.

These were the powers which Solon could believe, and for his time justly, would be controlled and steadied by the authority of the court of the Areopagus as guard of fundamental laws, and by the elective Council which pre­arranged the business to be submitted to the popular assembly. By these ‘two anchors’ was the state to be safely moored. But the times of Solon, of Cleisthenes, and even of Aristides were now gone by, and the movement had well set in by which, according to both Plutarch and Aristotle, the Dicastery chiefly by the opening thus allowed to it, engrossed by degrees the entire authority of the state and even administrative almost as absolutely as legislative powers.

It was the popular responsibility of functionaries which became, in the hands of Ephialtes, the great instrument for discrediting the previous aristocratic holders of power and preparing the way for his further innovations. The scrutiny of eonduet in administration was pressed with unrelenting rigour, and the abuses which could not but be brought to light by such novel proceedings were exposed to public indignation, and visited with a severity that gave warning of the temper with which opposition would in future have to reckon.

We are reduced to be grateful to such authorities as Valerius Maximus and Aelian for anecdotes of the supe­riority of Ephialtes to private influence and corruption, but they are confirmed by Plutarch, who associates him with Aristides in honourable dealing w^Tith public ² money. This virtue is too much insisted on both in his case and that of Pericles his present colleague, not to have been excep­tional at Athens, and the faet goes far to account for influence with a popular assembly which is never susceptible of more genuine enthusiasm than for the notoriously un­corrupt.

The authority which was thus acquired by the agitators was directed to the reduction of the power of the court of Areopagus, as the first condition for changes of the extent that they contemplated. Some alterations which had already been made in the mode of appointing magistrates, had by this time affected it seriously and favoured further change. It was originally filled up by the Archons, who passed a certain scrutiny on coming out of office. But the quali­fication for Archonship, which Solon found a privilege of the Eupatrid caste and opened to election by the citizens at large, had again been modified ; it was now not restricted even to the richest class of citizens, and the appointment to this as to most other offices, and probably to the Council, was no longer by election but by lot. The chance of the lot blocked the way to Archonship and thence to the Areopa­gus, for many—it was said to have done so for ¹ Pericles—for whom, thanks to birth and influence, the course through election would have been clear. Its position was in conse­quence doubly in peril; the very circumstance that derogated from the characteristic dignity of an Areopagite by the introduction of colleagues of inferior social grade, excited jealousy in powerful opponents and armed them at the same time with arguments for restricting its jurisdiction.

All accounts agree as to the venerable dignity and high authority of the court of Areopagus, and also as to the j oligarchical character of its constitution, composed as it was of approved citizens holding office for life; but information is still very defective and confused as to details of its origin and history, and we have to be content too often with gene­ralities as to the scope of its functions. In its favour was venerable antiquity, for it was earlier than Solon and inter­twined with the mythical traditions of origin which were still so dear to the Greek; it was held to be the depository

of maxims at least, if nut something more, amounting to iindivulged pledges of the safety of the state; and the lofty character which was ever asserted, ever admitted for it, avouches a sterling claim to respect for purity and intelligence in administration ; as a judicial tribunal it was distinguished, in contrast to other Athenian courts, by the rigour with which it confined pleadings to statements of pertinent facts, and excluded the artifices of the sophist and rhetorical appeals to the passions.

It might seem daring indeed or worse to attempt to lay hands on the prerogative of so solemn an institution, and that within but a few years after it had vindicated and enhanced its reputation by its exercise of unusual powers in the crisis of the resistance to the ¹ Mode. Considering also that it must still have comprised many older members who had exercised authority as Archons in an office which was now either crippled or obsolete, and at a time when inherited fortunes were the largest, and the influences of wealth and family went together, the class resistance must ^yhave been strong, and class passions vehemently excited in defence of so main a bulwark against the surging democracy.

The very variety however of its functions gave oppor­tunities for cavil or plausible occasions for redistribution of its powers, under the so changed circumstances of the city. The most celebrated jurisdiction of the court, and that which, as least open to jealousy, remained unchallenged longest and was left to it at last, extended to acts resulting in death,— charges of murder by violence, poison, arson, and so forth ; with this had been originally associated some supervision of administered law, of police, and even of finance. Then it exercised certain censorial powers over life and manners, which had for some time begun to wear an obsolete stamp, as the patriarchal days were felt to be over, and when it

¹ Aristot. Vol. v. 3.

must have been an Athenian tenacious of antiquity indeed, who could parade himself in flowing Ionic costume with golden cicada fastened to top-knot above his forehead, in the guise of dignity of the olden time. Formally, however, the Areopagites could still claim control over delinquencies in piety and morals, with respect to cult and sacrifices, could call to account for luxury, for idleness, for cruelty to animals, and punish upon principles of which their own breasts were the sole depositories. In several respects the body seems to answer to a rational definition of a high court of equity. The political competence of the court, which seems to have been at one time very considerable, would of necessity in the times we have arrived at prove the most galling power of all; our information however respecting this is very defective, partly perhaps because it was so gradually yet system­atically repressed, that at last there remained little definite to specify for formal abrogation. Originally the power of attaching a stigma to an individual seems to have carried political incapacity, and something like a formidable power of veto to have involved still more importantly an authority to limit legislative action by declaration of what was or was not fundamentally legal and constitutional. It is indeed in the admission of such a power wherever it may be lodged, protected in free, and restrained from arbitrary exercise, and secured as effective by whatever sanctions, that Aristotle justly recognised the condition of a democracy, as of any other form of government, that can claim to be a proper polity, and not at the mercy of any occasional psepliism obtained from a popular assembly at any moment by any demagogue; but it is this very power that is first contested in a revolutionary time, and such essentially was the time we are now concerned with.

The reduction of the co-ordinate or controlling powers of the Areopagus was effected partly by transference to new officials with specialised functions, to Sophronistae and

Gynaeeonomi in rospcct of morals, to Nomophylaces as guardians or remembrancers of constitutional order; some reliance was also placed upon forms of oaths for ITeliasts, Pr) taneis, and so forth, as curbs to hastiness and checks upon illegality, and in reinforcement of what after all had chiefly to be trusted, the moral control of the demus itself.

It was before the demus was settled in full security for the newly constituted functions which it was to hold on to so tenaciously, and apparently when the altered status of the Areopagus had not received its last completion, and desperate politicians might still hope, if even by treasonable intrigue with Sparta, to rescue it, that Ephialtes was assassinated. Such a crime was not without precedent at Athens in the days of the Peisistratids, but was startling from its repug­nancy to general Hellenic habits,especially among democracies. It has too many parallels later on, but not till the fall of the state involved disruption of all social, solution of all moral ties. The dagger of the political assassin, even when it takes fatal effect, constantly fails of its purpose, and strikes down the wrong man. It was so now; the worst that could be dreaded from Ephialtes by aristocrat or oligarch he had already done, and only his assassination was required to nerve to more resolute energy the movement of which he seemed to be the heart and soul, but which was already an independent force. Ephialtes was no more: but with his disappearance under such circumstances vanished the last hesitations of his party as to pushing matters to extremities; and his removal uncovered with more impressiveness the majestic and self-collected presence of Pericles. The assassin, Aristodicus of Tanagra, is named on the authority of Aristotle as if a well-known man. According to the same authority he was an instrument of the oligarchical party, the party that in after years resorted to the dagger so unscrupulously to secure their own personal and class authority amidst the ruin of the city. No hint occurs to charge Cimon with

complicity, and we may set aside contemptuously the insinua­tion that Pericles out of bad ambition to rule alone compassed the death of his friend and colleague. Such motives have been acted on, but never so readily as by partisans who are prompt to impute them rashly. The attempt to connect the murder, not to say the assertion of its connection, with past political relations of Athens and Tanagra is surely illustra­tive of historical courage rather than insight.

A year now ensues, 459-8 B.C., which is unmarked by incidents of war, but during which we know that the great work of the Long Walls was advancing, and further occupa­tion would be provided by the progress of the reforms which Ephialtes in conjunction with Pericles had effectively initiated, and Pericles was pressing to completion.

The representation of the Oresteia of Aeschylus dates about the spring of 458 B.C. under the Archon Philocles, and it is from its general purport that we obtain a valuable date and learn that the revision of the powers and constitution also of the Areopagites were even then still under question; the incident of the play directly vindicates only the sanctity of their jurisdiction in trials for acts involving bloodshed—a prerogative which they retained at last—but expressions are introduced of large scope which present the poet as advo­cating, and according to his wont, whether the Athenian audience liked it or not, not only the aristocratical restric­tions of membership but also continuance of powers which involved a certain ultimate political control; these words he assigns to the instituting goddess :—

‘ Hence the rock has name,

The Areopagus; here reverent Awe Of citizens, with kindred Fear, shall wrongs Restrain by day, nor less in stilly night,

Unless themselves bring change into the laws.

If thou bedim by influx vile and mud

The sparkling waters, draught thou shalt have none.

Nor lawlessness nor abject servitude Commend I to my people’s reverence;

X >r yet to expel Dread wholly from the city;

Fur who of men is just who knows not dread ?

Then ju-tly fostering Reverence of such sort,

A bulwark of the state and city safeguard Is yours to have, as have none else of men,—

Neither in Scythia nor in Pelops’ lands;—

This council chamber unassailed by bribes August, swift to recent, for those who sleep A wakeful guard of the state, establish I.’

Allusion occurs twice in these lines to the vigilance of the council as safeguard for sleepers, which no doubt is explicable as expressive of the functions of a body, that unlike many others of the courts, was never in absolute suspense or vaca­tion. The recurrence of the allusion, however, is emphatic, and intimates a special reference, which would be significantly pertinent if the assassination of Ephialtes had already taken place, and so lately as within a year according to the date of Diodorus. This, as we have seen, was charged by Aristotle upon the oligarchical party, whom Aeschylus is prepared and concerned to distinguish from the constitutional supporters of the Areopagus, the peculiar avenger of such deeds of violence.

The political drift of the grand threefold drama, the Oresteia, is no less significant in reference to external events: •since the commentary of C. O. Muller, if not before, it has always been recognised in the stress which the poet lays on a divine sanction for the alliance of Argos and Athens : this must now have been of two or three years’ standing, for by the ordered narration of Thucydides, it preceded the occupation of Megara, and the despatch of the expedition to and these again both preceded the stirring events in connection with this alliauce, which the quoted inscription enables us to date in the same year as the Oresteia, but somewhat later. It was the anticipation of these events, which could not but cast a most threatening shadow before, that would give point and interest to much of the general subject of the drama. The Argive alliance was already equivalent to far more than simple coldness towards Sparta,

and the complications which, had arisen with Corinth re­specting Megara, and were immediately impending with Aegina, so long denounced by Pericles as the ‘ eyesore of the Piraeus/ involved such extensive embroilment with the allies of Sparta as coukl not but be expected to forthwith ripen ill-feeling towards the great head of the Dorian states into an open quarrel. Add to this that the project of securing Athens itself against the peril of a siege, to which all her enemies, Hellenic and Asiatic, recognised and antici­pated her exposure, by the Long Walls extending from the city to the sea, was now in course of actual execution. This necessary confirmation of the power of the ‘ nautical rabble ’ filled the oligarchical party with dismay, and if it were only at their suggestion, the protest of Sparta might well be expected to be renewed. I cannot but recognise then a reflection upon Sparta in the very choice of the leading theme of the great trilogy, the murder of Agamemnon. The disastrous and destructive earthquake, from the con­sequences of which Sparta was still suffering in the Mes- senian war, had been recognised universally as a divine visitation for the sacrilege at Taenaron ; and there was yet another violation of sanctities to their charge still unatoned for, the death of Pausanias,—Pausanias commander of all Hellas in alliance, and like Agamemnon, his predecessor in such position, victorious over the banded forces of Asia. Pausanias, like Agamemnon, victorious abroad, returned home, —returned indeed if the coincidence has any worth, from the Troad,—to meet a miserable fate, a fate which in either case, whatever the errors or the crimes, was dealt by unworthy or unbecoming hands, and under circumstances which were now admitted by the Spartans themselves as of gross impiety. Agamemnon dies entangled in his bath in net-like toils, and struck down by his own adulterous wife—• Pausanias beset by his colleagues in collusion with his most trusted adherents, hemmed in, it was said, not without

32

11IST0U Y OF GREECE.

complicity and suggestion of liis own mother, within a holy precinct, and miserably starved. This deed had already been denounced by the Pythia at Delphi as a sacrilege, and was to furnish the Athenians afterwards with a retort, when the Spartans recalled the much earlier sacrilege of Cylon for the sake of a very indirect implication of Pericles as a collateral of the family. The parallel is brought still closer home by the importance assigned in the play to the presence of the boding prophetess Cassandra as mistress of Agamemnon, which could scarcely but remind of the unhappy Byzantine maiden Cleonice, whose warning shade was believed to have hurried Pausanias to his doom.

In an essay on Pindar’s eleventh Pythian ode which dates in this same ^!year, I some years since endeavoured to set forth, as I still think conclusively, that the lyric poet also could rely and counted on the spontaneous recognition by his auditory of this mythic parallel.

¹ The Classical Museum, part xxvi.

CHAPTER XXXV.

WAR BETWEEN SPARTA AND ATHENS.—BATTLES OF TANAGRA AND OENOPHYTA.

B.C. 457; 01. 80. 3-4.

It was after the victory qf Myronides in the Megarid, and, if we could trust Diodorus, only a few days later, that the Phocians made an attack upon the small towns of Boion, Cytinion, and Erineon in Doris, under Mount Parnassus, and succeeded in capturing one of them ; according to ¹ Plutarch they also assumed the control of Delphi, which involved that of the oracle. Either of these events might at any time have provoked the interference of the Spartans; they were always jealous of their interests at Delphi, and Doris was recognised as the primaeval seat of the Peloponnesian Dorians, with a consequent though shadowy claim to their filial regard. At such a time even a slighter pretext might have served for the despatch to the north of an expedition which was so glaringly disproportionate to the professed object as to invite all the Dorian partisans of adjacent states to anticipate important changes. Nicomedes, son of Cleombrotus, and regent for Pieistoanax the youthful son of Pausanias, appeared there at the head of fifteen hundred hoplites and ten thousand allies, and it was quickly understood that whatever might be

¹ Plut. V. dm. 17.

VOL. II.     D

effected now, was but preparation for a blow which w^Tas meditated against Athens directly, in the course of the ensuing year—a blow which might even yet be in time to unfasten her hold upon the doomed Aegina. Diodorus dates this interference with all its consequences, and probably there­fore the Phocian aggression also, too early; it did not take place till 457 B.C., the year after the production of the Oresteia of Aeschylus.

Although no positive hostilities had yet occurred between Sparta and Athens, it seems more likely that the Pelopon­nesian force was transported across the Crissaean gulf, a route which was under consideration for their return, than that they passed the isthmus unquestioned and unnoticed. The captured town was liberated, as might be expected, without difficulty; the Phocian aggressors retired by a convention and apparently without a battle, and the manage­ment of the Delphic oracle was replaced in the hands of the native Dorian families. For an account of further proceed­ings directed against the influence of Athens, we must have recourse to Diodorus, and may do so with the more confi­dence as the brief summary of Thucydides, by mentioning its subsequent recovery, implies that this influence was now impaired. It seems indeed that Sparta was roused at last to the serious necessity of exertion agaiust Athens; and if she could be roused at all it might surely be by the peril of Aegina, of which the siege was still proceeding, and by the threatening progress of the walls from Athens to Phalerum and Piraeus, that were intended to deprive her of the opportunity which had hitherto been always open, of striking a sudden disabling blow. The time was past for delay if anything was ever to be done ; the oligarchical party among the Athenians themselves were in sympathy with the success of the expedition, if they had not even seconded the efforts of Corinth to promote it, and might be counted on to lend assistance.

Very speedily therefore, and following up the resettlement of affairs at Doris and Delphi, the Spartan design to weaken and hamper Athens by superseding her influence over the inland cities of Dorian relationship or sympathies imme­diately in her rear, before drawing down direct Athenian opposition, was fairly disclosed. The political system of Boeotia was thoroughly revolutionised; the sympathies and antipathies that dated from the Persian war were treated as bygones here, as the Athenians had already treated them at Argos; and Sparta was now engaged in re-establishing in Thebes the power of the oligarchical party,—the party hostile to Athens,—and that of Thebes over the Boeotian towns, as in times previous to the invasion and defeat of Xerxes and Mardonius. The extension of the fortified circuit of Thebes, to which assistance was contributed, was part of this plan, and it was further carried out by strengthening Tanagra in a menacing position on the north-eastern frontier of Attica. No better preparation could be made for enhancing the effectiveness of the proposed invasion of Attica itself in the ensuing year.

It was as impossible for the Athenians to be indifferent to such proceedings as to be blind to their drift and conse­quences ; and when the commander of the expedition was disposed, in Lacedaemonian fashion, to close the campaign promptly, whether from the decline of the season or from regard to important festivals at home, he became aware that his movement homeward might be seriously molested: Athenian forces occupied Pegae and Megara on either side of the road to the Geraneian passes, and the transit by sea was out of the question in the face of a large Athenian fleet which was now cruising in the Crissaean gulf. The Athenians however were by no means at ease or content with the advantages of their position; the loss of their in­fluence over Boeotia, however serious a mischief, might be remedied later, but in the existing condition of party

D 2

animosities within the walls, the prolonged encampment of the enemy at Tanagra excited apprehensions, which Thucy­dides recognises as perfectly,well founded, as to intercourse and intrigue with treacherous citizens of the oligarchical party. The party of the suborners of the murderer of Ephialtes were the same men now that they continued till Athens was ruined and Lysander was demolishing her fortifications to the sound of music, and afterwards. They sanguinely believed that if Nicomedes could but be induced to second their attempt, not only might the completion of the hateful Long Walls be prevented, but with such aid as treason was prepared to render, the democratical constitution of Athens might even yet be dissolved.

Whether prudently therefore 01* in some degree under the influence of the panic which a sense of expectant treason is so fitted to inspire, the Athenian demus resolved to attack Nicomedes while yet in Boeotia, rather than wait till he should at once attempt to force the isthmus and promote other mischief on his way. The fullest Athenian muster, strengthened by a thousand Argives, together with other allies, and a body of Thessalian horse which was present in accordance with the treaty, amounted to fourteen thousand men; with these an advance was made direct upon the Spartan encampment in the lower valle}’^- of that very Asopus of which the upper stream had witnessed Spartans and Athenians in arms together fighting side by side against the common enemy of Hellas. Tisamenus the soothsayer of Pausanias on that occasion, was here again at the side of the Spartan commander: before the battle took place— so at least the tale is told by ¹ Plutarch,—the ostracised Cimon presented himself in arms at the Athenian camp and ap­plied for permission to fight in company with his own Oenid tribe, so proposing and so hoping to make manifest in the

XXXV.]

THE BATTLE OF TANAGRA.

^r37

presence of his fellow citizens how unjustly he had borne the imputation of unpatriotic Laconism. Whatever the dis­position of the generals,—they .are spoken of in the plural, and no chief and even no particular Athenian commander on the occasion is mentioned at all,—the application was made in time to be referred to the Council of the Five Hundred and was refused ; the clamour of his civic enemies prevailing, who professed to believe—if under the existing excitement they did not in truth believe—that he sympathised with the malignant oligarchy, and was capable of seeking to disorder the array, and so to bring the Lacedaemonians upon the city. He retired deeply disappointed, and appealed to his friends, Euthippus the Anaphlystian and others, who had shared in the suspicion that attached to himself, to so acquit themselves as to give proof by deeds of the injustice of the citizens. The battle was most severely contested and the slaughter great on both sides, but the Thessalian cavalry passed over in the very midst of it to the enemy, and the victory remained with the Lacedaemonians and their allies. So Thucydides: Diodorus gives details of still another day’s battle of balanced issue and concluded by a trace ; there is much appearance that he copied the succinct statement of Thucydides first, and then took from another authority, which constantly furnishes him with more indulgent accounts of Athenian disasters, the details of a version of the same engagement, which seemed to him so much at variance as to belong perforce to a second. The Thessalians, after de­serting in the midst of a first battle, bring on a second, we are told, by attacking the convoy of supplies to the Athenian camp; the Athenians alarmed arrive from their camp on one side, the Lacedaemonians from the other, and a general battle ensues. It must be said that this second version has air appearance of having been dressed up first or last with an eye to the Homeric description of the battle over the intercepted herds on the shield of Achilles.

Pausanias however also gives a first day of indecisive fighting.

Victors as they were, the Lacedaemonians took no further advantage from their success than to make good their re­tirement through the opened defiles of the Isthmus, doing what damage they could to the Megarid, as now in Athenian alliance, on their way. For the Athenians, that the last danger of hindrance to the construction of the Long Walls was thus removed would alone have been a fair reward of a victory. One other very important consequence of the circumstances of the battle was a revulsion of feeling that at least prepared for the recall of Cimon. His friends had obeyed his injunctions with an effect that carried not only conviction but some remorse to his fellow citizens; to the number of a hundred they formed a company, with the panoply of their absent leader carried as a standard in the midst, and fighting valiantly around it fell every man. Pericles himself was in the ¹ battle, and exposed himself with unusual desperation, as feeling bound by the point of honour to emulate his political opponents; but happily he escaped the fatal extremity. An ill-recorded inscrip­tion on a votive shield outside the temple at Olympia has been variously and even yet not satisfactorily cor­rected ; but enough of it remains uncorrupted by copyist or commentator to show that it refers not to the later Athenian capture of Tanagra, but to this victory of the Lacedaemonians and their allies over Argives, Athenians, and ² Ionians.

The battle of Tanagra is dated by Diodorus under the archon Mnesitheides, 457-6 B.C.; two months later there still remained a considerable military season; it seems, therefore, that we must date the Lacedaemonian operations in Phocis pretty early in 457 B.C., and their retirement home

l'lut. r. I'crir. 10.

^s Paus. v. 10. 4; cf. i. 29.9

at latest a month after the commencement of the new archon- ship at midsummer.

The celerity and persistence which had already enabled the Athenians so often to gain upon the tardy and inter­mittent energy of Sparta, were peculiarly conspicuous at this crisis. Within sixty-two days— the interval is noted with a preciseness that unhappily is rare—a force comprising both Argive and Ionian allies was reorganised under Myro- nides, and marched forthwith to the very scene of the late disaster. The Boeotian army was engaged at Oenophyta, between the Athenian frontier and Tanagra, and after a very obstinately contested battle, entirely beaten. The testimony of Diodorus may be accepted as to the severity of the con­flict, though again by copying two narratives he makes one battle into two, and then finds occasion to regret that of a battle which was known to be of such importance no writer had left either a sufficient general description or military account. Late as the season must now have been for pro­longed operations, Myronides followed up his success most fully. The Athenians were in expectation that spring would see the long and often threatened invasion of their own territory by the Lacedaemonians, and it was of the utmost importance to secure themselves while it was yet time, from having to contend simultaneously with the ran­corous enmity of Thebes,—of Thebes in command of all the resources of Boeotia. The newly strengthened Tanagra was attacked at once and with success, and paid by the razing of its walls for the zeal with which it had welcomed the Lacedaemonian alliance.

All Boeotia was then overrun, and all the towns recovered for the power of the party that had everywhere been driven into exile. It is one of the many statements of Diodorus that we have to set aside, sometimes without other authority, as so often on the accidental preservation of better, that Thebes was an exception; a fortunate notice by Aristotle

informs us of the re-establishment of the democracy there after the battle of Oenophyta, albeit only soon to forfeit its position very much through its own ill conduct of affairs. By the usual revulsion the opposite faction, a strong party of malcontents, the stronger beeause including the wealthier and more disciplined, went into exile, but only to correspond with sympathisers still left at home, and to await the turn of fortune which should enable them again to strike for restitution and power. The counter-revolution extended to Phocis, where all the dispositions of Nicomedes were re­versed by Myronides; the Phocians were replaced in their influential position relatively to Delphi; and finally the Opuntian Locrians, whose sympathy with Thebes was ap­proved before by fellowship in support of ¹ Xerxes, were forced to surrender a hundred hostages belonging to the wealthiest families.

It seems to have been at this time, and probably by co­operation of their fleet in the Crissaean gulf, which had interfered with the return of the Lacedaemonians, that the Athenians seized Naupactus, a town of the Ozolian Locrians, which is soon after found in their possession. It gave them an important station at the entrance of the Gulf, of all the advantages of which they soon show themselves well aware.

History here parts company and reluctantly with ‘the noble Myronides,’ who is characterised by ² Aristophanes as the very representative of that better time ‘when no man was so shameless as to accept pay for attending to his poli­tical duties, but came to the assembly bringing his own provisions, bread and an onion or two, not as in later days eager for the wage of three obols, as if the business of the commonwealth were a job of mud carting/ The phrase

^J llerod. viii. 66.

³ Ecclcz. 300.

with which the comoedian refers to the rule or leadership of Myronides, appears to imply that like most of the com­manders of his time he had not only a warlike but a political career; of this unfortunately we have no further notice.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

FALL OF AEGINA.    HER RUIN AND HER RENOWN.

B.C. 457-456; 01. 80. 4.

The apprehended invasion of Attica in the spring of 456 B.C. did not take place; the successes of Myronides had frustrated the original combination, and the time had gone by for hindering the completion of those Long Walls, by which, to the deep disgust of every enemy of Athens, of the Corinthians especially, invasion was rendered for all time much less promptly or even certainly coercive.

Within a year the achievements of Myronides were followed up by the success of Leoerates, his former colleague at Pla- taea. The Aeginetans after a final resistance, according to Diodorus of nine months, were forced to surrender. Their walls were levelled, their remaining ships given up, and thenceforward they were included among the tributaries to the treasury of Athens until worse was to befall them.

The hopefulness that springs immortal in the human mind lias a certain tendency, along with others better, to reconcile us somewhat easily to very painful catastrophes when they have once gone by. Averse to admit the utter defencelessness of mankind against any misery whatever, we are apt to find a weak comfort in assuming that the severest sufferers

deserve their fate by crimes, invite it by sloth or by folly, or perhaps after all are not of natures so sensitive as to suffer with the acuteness that might be supposed. It were more charitable and would argue a robuster faith to regard them sometimes as martyrs in a just cause, and to find nobler consolation in sympathy with their consciousness of an heroic compensation.

Assuredly whatever may be our appreciation of the need of the world for the advancement of Athens, it is difficult to witness with either satisfaction or composure the extinction of the nationality of Aegina, when we read the odes in which Pindar celebrates its antique renown and the living sense and emulation of it by his friends and contemporaries, and the words of pathos in which he forebodes the fatal term of a series of glories that extended from before the war with Troy of mythology, down to the historic sea-fight in the bay of Salamis.

There are extant as many as eleven Epinician odes of Pindar composed for Aeginetans. Six of these are for Nemean victories, three for Isthmian, only one for a Pythian, and one for the much-coveted Olympic victory. One Isth­mian ode, the seventh, celebrates a Nemean victory also. As many as seven of the odes are for victories gained by boys; the Olympian, Pythian, and two of the Nemean odes for boy wrestlers, and three Nemean severally, in the pan- cration, pentathlon, and stadium. Of the four victories by adult athletes, all are pancratiast—namely, one at Nemea and three Isthmian. The previous prizes gained by the victors or their relatives, and alluded to incidentally, are exceedingly numerous.

The dates of the victories and the odes that celebrate them are in many instances uncertain within considerable limits, and the notes of the Scholiasts that seem to promise aid are sometimes self-convicted of error.

We have however in some odes direct and in others indirect

allusions to the battle of Salamis and the war with Xerxes, in others more or less direct expressions of anxiety as to the future and independence of Aegina : absence of any such political and historical allusions in an ode is argument for its earlier date; and with these general indications we have no reason to be dissatisfied.

The fifth Nemean may on these grounds be safely placed anterior to the Persian War; it is written for Pytheas, the elder son of Lampo, an Aeginetan of distinction and of a family apparently devoted to these contests, and for whose son Phylacidas, Pindar wrote the fourth and fifth Isthmian odes. Neither do the third and fourth Nemean odes present any hints or intimations that justify our giving them on such grounds an earlier date than the fifth.

The sixth Nemean ode, which may also be regarded on like grounds as anterior to the Medica, supplies remarkable exemplification of the survival to this time of an enthusiasm for gymnic victories which might be thought to be dying out under the influence of altering manners.

The grandsire of Alcimidas the victor, was Praxidamas, the first Aeginetan who gained an Olympic victory, ap­parently as a boxer; this was in the fifty-ninth Olympiad = 544 B.C., or sixteen years after the first usurpation of Peisistratus. Pausanias saw his statue of cypress wood in the Altis at Olympia, and bestows the remark that it was not so highly wrought as one for a Locrian near it. Prax­idamas gained also as many as five Isthmian and three Nemean victories. Ilis father Socleides was undistinguished in the games, and these glories slumbered also with his son Theon, but to be again revived by his grandson. The same law of alternation seemed to recur in the fortune of the grandson, who conquered at Nemea but failed at Olympia, as did also a relative Polytimadas. This hint of correspond­ence gives a leading motive for the ode; it points to the

analogy between successive generations of men or even as­pirations of the same, and the law of general nature, by which fertility has of necessity to be renewed fciy fallow ; and so it is that man however noble in reason, however in action like a god, still fails to be divine. This approximation is at once marked and limited in artfully alternating clauses— ‘ One is the race of men, another that of gods; but still from a single mother breathe we both; a total difference of power however separates us, as one indeed is nought—is mortal— but the gods live on unchanged, as the brazen heaven abides a seat for ever unremoved; nevertheless in somewhat are we likened to immortals, or in mighty intelligence or in form; unknowing though we be by daytime any more than by night towards what manner of goal has Fate marked out for us to run.’

Callias of the same family, the Bassidae, gained a pugilistic crown in the Pythian games, and Creontidas, unless the name is the patronymic of the same person, gained others at the Isthmus and at Nemea.

Of the Isthmian odes, which are for pancratiast victories, the fifth is the earliest, and has the indicated sign of dating before the Medica ; but the fourth distinctly mentions the great sea-fight. The exploits of the sons of Lampo in the games are paralleled by implication with the glories which were won in conflict with Asiatic enemies, by the national heroes, the sons of Aeacus, as allies of Hercules first, and, in a generation later of the Atridae. So of the Aeginetan pedi­ments, we find one assigned to Telamon and Hercules, the other to Ajax and Achilles. ^c From of old the island has been built up as a tower for the ascent of lofty virtues; full many are the shafts of which my truth-telling tongue is in possession for the loud celebration of their praise; and at the present time Salamis, city of Ajax, may bear witness, set erect as she has been by her sailors in the devastating storm

of Zeus, the hailstorm slaughter of men numberless. Sup­press, however, boastfulness by silence; Zeus dispenses now this, now that,—Zeus the lord over ¹all.’

This sudden check of exultation may be due to the reli­gious sense of the peril of boastfulness,—or, not improbably, I think, to the circumstance that the ode was written so shortly after Salamis, that the proximity of the Persian land force still warned that unqualified triumph might be pre­mature.

The seventh Isthmian, for the pancratiast Oleander, gives expression to such a feeling of complete relief from the great peril as would accord with a time eusuing on the victory of Plataea, and therewithal to a depression on the part of the poet, which is as suitable to the patriotic sentiment of a Theban, whose country had been so seriously involved in disaster.

¹        Speed, one of ye, young men, to uplift a glorious recom­pense of toils for Oleander and for his youthfulness, by the bright porch of his father Telesarchus,—a comus song, a meed both for his Isthmian victory, and because he achieved su­periority of force in contests at Nemea. For whom I also, though with a grief in soul, am besought to invoke the golden Muse, llelieved as we are from mighty sorrows, let us not drop into destitution of crowns, nor do thou nurse solicitudes. But now we have come to a cessation of ills too strong for us, let us, albeit after calamity, give public vent to somewhat of sweetness, inasmuch as some god has turned aside for us that stone of Tantalus, which, while over our heads, was an intolerable anxiety for Hellas ; but the passing away of the dread has now put an end to my severe disquietude ; and ever it is better to have regard to what fact lies at the foot. For an insidious age impends over men and diverts the course of life; and yet this too, give but Liberty to boot, is curable by mortals. And a man is

bound to entertain good hope, and bound is one also who was bred at Thebes, seven-gated, to proffer the flower of the graces to Aegina, inasmuch as youngest of the Asopidae, twin- daughters were they born of their sire, and both alike found favour with Zeus the ¹ king.’

No metaphor could be more appropriate than the stone of Tantalus, for the trouble that remained suspended over Hellas, when, after the retreat of Xerxes himself, the army under Mardonius was still wintering in Thessaly, and pre­paring for that campaign which found its catastrophe at Plataea. The ode refers to the death of Nicocles, uncle of the victor, and himself a victorious pugilist, in terms which imply that it was recent, and also give strong presumption that it had occurred in battle. The greatest coherence is given to the tone and topics of the ode, if we understand that Nicocles had perished in fight against the Persians, and thus, as an antagonist of Asiatics, forfeiting life at last in patriotic rescue, merited the parallel in which he is not am­biguously placed to the Aeacid Achilles—who as an Aeacid is held to be claimable as an Aeginetan hero. It is but in due Epinieian course that the poet should blend his own personal feelings with the predominant tone of sentiment of the victor and friends with whom his poetry sympathised,— his own sense of tribal and domestic bereavements with those which were affecting them, and painfully qualified their exultation both at national deliverance and achievement of an Isthmian crown.

In a monograph, ‘ Pindar and Themistocles, Aegina and Athens’ (1862), I have followed out what appear to me clear traces in the eighth Nemean ode of the feelings with which Aeginetans, after the expulsion of the Mede, regarded the policy and purposes of Themistocles. There is no direct evidence for the date of this ode, but the temper which it

exhibits is only fairly accounted for by the circumstances that followed Salamis, and by the probable assumption that Megas, father of the victor who is celebrated, and himself also a victorious athlete, but now dead, was in fact among the number of Aeginetans w^Tho perished in the conflict against Xerxes. At an earlier date Aegina, by yielding earth and water to the great king, albeit under just apprehension of Athens, had assumed a false position towards Hellas. This prejudice was made the most of to her disadvantage by Themistocles in the hostilities between the states, which dragged on until, in the prospect of a new invasion, Aegina, now probably controlled by a different party, joined heartily in the patriotic exertions for defence. Iu the midst of the battle of Salamis, Krius, though son of an advocate of the Medising policy, proudly repudiated it as a calumny in the very teeth of Themistocles, and so taxed him as a false ac­cuser : he succeeded in striking the very Sidonian ship that Themistocles himself was in pursuit of, shouting to him as he swept past, ‘ Thus it is the Aeginetans Medise.⁵

The battle had been fought under the specially invoked and summoned heroes of Aegina,—Acacus, offspring and wor­shipper of Pan-Hellenian Zeus, and the Aeaeidae, Telamon and Ajax, Peleus and Achilles,—and when the Greeks came to the division of spoil and assignment of honours, the claims of Athens and Themistocles, as we have seen, were under one pretext or another postponed to those of the Aeginetans. The triumph—due no doubt to tribal Dorian sympathy and intrigue—was short and of little real worth. The fleet of Athens and the genius of Themistocles were still as indispensable as ever ; even the pride of Sparta bowed to contrive a compensation of unprecedented honour for the slighted Athenian, and soon Aegina had to watch with gloomy forebodings the threatening growth of Athenian power—and with it of Athenian presumption.

Pindar, on the occasion of celebrating the victory of

Demis, son of Megas, in a foot-race of boys at Nemea, laments the difficulties of merit in contention with envy, and when he cites as a mythical example the unfair treatment and fate of Aeginetan Ajax in competition with Ulysses for the aristeia at Troy, is easily to be understood as glancing at the recent rivalry of Athens and Aegina at the Isthmus. He introduces a denouncement of greed and peculation, which in this immediate connection must be taken to indicate Themistocles little less distinctly than the satiric verses of Timocreon, who assailed him on a like charge by name.

‘ Evil Cajolery then existed even of old, path-fellow of guileful glozing tales, a treacherous-minded, evil-dealing opprobrium, — she who does violence upon all brilliancy, but is prompt to put forward the rotten renown of the obscure.

‘ Never be such manner of mine, O father Zeus ; may I attach myself to the simple pathways of life, that when I die

I        may fasten on my children no fame of ill-repute! Gold is the prayer of some ; of others, land without a boundary : but I, keeping myself acceptable to my fellow-citizens, would lay my limbs in earth, praiser of all that is praiseworthy; but besprinkling whatsoever is bad with reprobation.

^£ The flourishing of virtue is as when by the green dews a tree springs upward ; it is lifted among the accomplished of men and among the worthy, like that toward the liquid ^Jsky.’

At the 8oth Olympic festival, Alcimedon, an Aeginetan, gained the victory in the wrestling of boys that is celebrated in Pindar’s eighth Olympic ode. Themistocles was now in exile, but his aggressive policy was in full activity; the Messenian war engaged and hampered Sparta, and Athens was swayed by a party disposed to make the most of the opportunity for action, and once again a boding tone interrupts

the joyfulness which is appropriate to the great national glory of an Olympic victory, won, though it might be, only by a boy.

‘ Beauteous he was to behold ; and not by act belying form, he conquered in the wrestling match, and proclaimed long- oared Aegina as his native country; where among men most chiefly is Themis worshipped, the Guardian, benchfellow of Zeus Protector of strangers. For to determine with right judgment and not inaptly whatsoever affair is vast and of bearings manifold, is matter of hard wrestling; but a certain appointment of the immortals did erect even this sea-girt land to be for strangers of all countries whatever a sacred column,—and may the time that is now uprising not weary of the work,—this land administered by a Dorian people in succession to ^]Aeacus.’

The same chord is struck again at the conclusion of the ode. The father of the victor is dead,—predeceasing the grandfather,—to all appearances has died recently; and another relative also has succumbed, as is intimated, to some acute disorder. The domestic bereavement is chiefly touched in order to glance upon the public peril.

‘ A certain share there is too for the dead, according to customary rite, and Iphion, when he hears it from Angelia (message personified), daughter of Hermes, may tell to Callimachus of this gleaming Olympic adornment which Zeus has assigned to their family. May he will to grant good achievements following upon good, and to ward off acute diseases. I pray that he allow not Nemesis to be cross­purposed for this allotment of honours, but conduct their life exempt from bane, and so exalt both them and their city

²        also.’

In the eighth Pythian foreboding is sharpening rapidly to apprehension—to anguish. It commences with an invocation

Pi ul. oi. s.

² Id. fin.

of kindly-minded Tranquillity, daughter of Justice, who for mightiest cities holds the master-keys both of deliberations and no less of wars, which are the safeguards and the recoverers of Peace and Tranquillity. A power she is, disposed for the reception and requital of all gentleness, and yet only at appropriate season;—as appropriately she knows when to let loose the forces of resistance and destruction. Mythical and poetical examples follow of the quelling of the disturbers and the tyrannical. And as in wars, in gymnic contests also the influence of the gods decides, seconding toil, at times as with accidental good fortune. ‘ These things rest not with man; it is God who is the dispenser, as from time to time he now casts one uppermost, and now depresses another.—A success gives wings to higher and nobler hopes, but as the delights of man spring up in a brief moment, so likewise when they are shaken by adverse decree, drop they to the ground. Ephemeral beings ! What is any one ? What is one not ? Man is a dream of a shadow. But whensoever a divinely-given gleam may come, there arrives for man a brilliant light and a gentle time of life. Aegina, mother dear, take charge of this city with her free navy, together with Zeus, and with the ruler Aeacus, and Peleus, and valiant Telamon, and with ¹ Achilles.’

The expressions of Pindar which have been cited from these odes, and others might be added, are vindication of the tradi­tion as to the vast population and wealth of Aegina, which for such an area appears exaggerated ; they prove incon- testibly the concern and renown of Aeginetan courts as taking cognisance on settled principles of those intricate questions of right, even between natives and foreigners, which characterise large commerce and gradually develop a code of maritime law; it was such a code that Roman jurisprudence at a later date did not disdain to adopt from the practice of Rhodes.

¹ Pyth. 8.

E 2

CHAPTER XXXVII.

LINGERING WARFARE OF SPARTA AND ATHENS.---- T1IE FIVE

YEARS' TRUCE.

B.C. 455-452 ; 01. 81. I—82. 1.

The expression of Thucydides appears to imply that the fleet which impeded the return of the Lacedaemonians by the Crissaean gulf, had circumnavigated Peloponnesus, but even so it no doubt took advantage of the newly acquired har­bour of Pegae; no account whatever is given of its strength, commander or further enterprises on the present occasion. It is during the archonship of Callias in 456-5 B.C., the year succeeding the battles of Tanagra and Oenophyta, that Diodorus dates an important naval expedition under com­mand of Tolmides. This is also noticed, but most succinctly, by Thucydides, whose indication however of a synchrony with a dated event, the fall of Ithome, enables us to assign it to a year later, 455-54 B.C. The only doubt remains whether the numerous and important exploits whieh are ascribed to it, were confined to a single expedition and within a single, year.

The difficulty of the Lacedaemonians with their Messenian war was now eoming to an end; the impending reduction of Ithome would bring it to a conclusion, and if any further advantage of their engagement by this difficulty were to be taken by Athens, any encouragement to be given to the

perseverance of the insurgents, no time was to be lost; it was moreover important to repair the defeat of Tanagra by some marked success against the same opponents, and even to create a diversion which would prevent the expected invasion, as well as show that the confines of Laconia were no less exposed to devastation than the now so often threatened territory of Athens. A fleet then under Tolmides son of Tolmaeus, was despatched round Peloponnesus. He burnt, says Thucydides, the naval arsenal of the Lacedaemo­nians, captured Chalcis, a town of the Corinthians, and dis­embarking gained a victory over the ^icyonians; he drove them, Pausanias says, to take refuge within their ² walls, and we need not hesitate to infer ravaged the open country within reach. According to Diodorus the expedition consisted of fifty triremes carrying four thousand hoplites—a manifest exaggeration; the arsenal he burnt was Gythium, where he ravaged the adjacent country and even occupied the town. Pausanias adds the capture of Boiai and of the opposite island of Cythera which at any rate was not retained, and a descent on the Messenian coast and capture of Methone which he seems to misplace, both in order of time and geography, as effected before the assault on Gythium. Other exploits followed which are far more important than this merely destructive annoyance. The fleet visited Zacynthus and Ce- phallenia (Diodorus seems to be ignorant that the first was a distinct island), and not without applying some compulsion, attached them to the Athenian confederation, and then made for the Crissaean gulf. Diodorus omits mention of the cap­ture of Chalcis on the northern Aetolian coast, just westward of the straits between the outer and inner gulfs, or of the descent upon Sicyon, but records as due to Tolmides the seizure of Naupactus, which Thucydides adverts to as having taken place before this time, and which I have already

conjectured was among* the operations directed against Boeo­tians and Locrians by Myronides. The Ozolian Locrians, by whom it was forfeited, seem to have shared, for all their considerable geographical separation, the obnoxiousness of their Opuntian relatives ; they were dispossessed with as little hesitation as difficulty, under circumstances of which we would gladly know more, and had to make room, certainly within a very short time, for new occupants.

The purpose of Athens in this expedition is apparent enough ; her resolute policy was to secure the means of operating with her fleet in the waters to the westward of Peloponnesus; the islands might be valuable for their assess­ments of tribute, but far more so as affording harbours of refuge and for refitting and ¹ supplies. Naupactus again furnished a commodious port, and held a position which commanded the entrance to the straits, by which a Corinthian navy alone had access to the outer sea, and it was presently committed to a garrison that could be relied on as animated by the bitterest enmity against the Peloponnesians.

According to the chronological dates which are afforded us by the agreement of Thucydides, Plutarch and ² Pausanias, it would be in the course of 455-54 B.C. that the Messenians surrendered Ithome on capitulation. Their revolt began by a certified date in the first year of the 79th Olympiad, thus in 464 b.c. after midsummer, and the surrender was ten years later, which reckoned strictly would bring it at earliest to midsummer 455 B.C., at the commencement of the arehonship of Sosistratus. A Pythian oracle, which at any time carried especial authority with the Spartans, had enjoined them to dismiss the supplicants of Zeus Ithomatas;—they were oppressed by the genuine conviction that sacrilegious violence against supplicants of Poseidon at Taenaron, had been visited upon them by the disastrous earthquake, the proximate cause

¹ Thuc. ii. So.

³ See Clinton under the year 464.

of the war; and the warning had effect on the terms which were conceded to the besieged even at a time when their powers of resistance were exhausted. The vanquished Mes- senians agreed to quit Peloponnesus and never to return to it under penalty of servitude to any captor, and on this con­dition were allowed to depart with their women and children; the like immunity seems scarcely to have been secured for their helot ¹ allies. The Athenians, with no goodwill to the Lacedaemonians, were prompt to give shelter to the re­fugees, and settled them in possession of Naupactus. This in itself was open to interpretation as a threat even if not so intended ; it was from Naupactus, according to accepted tradition, that the Dorian invasion had passed over to effect the conquest of Peloponnesus and the long subjection of the Messenians, who now were seated ominously on the same vantage ground in their turn. Whether more than a coin­cidence is in question must be left uncertain, and also whether the settlement was made, as Diodorus states, by Tolmides. The Athenian policy was justified by results, and the Messenians held their ground long and gallantly, and soon reappear not unimportantly in history.

It was while these successes were in progress that the Athenian expedition in Egypt was verging to a disastrous, an almost complete catastrophe. Artaxerxes, while the White Fort at Memphis still held out, assembled a very large force, which was despatched to Egypt by land; it was commanded by a noble Persian, Megabyzus son of Zopyrus, who gained a battle against the Egyptians and their auxiliaries, drove the Greeks out of Memphis and at last shut them up in an isle,— Prosopitis,—formed by the river. Here they held out for a year and six months, until Megabyzus succeeded in diverting one course of the river, and so laid dry the channel where the Greek ships were moored, and depriving them of this

means of defending the passage stormed what now was no longer an island. Utter ruin thus overtook the Greek enter­prise after it had been persevered in for six years, for very few out of a large number made good a retreat to Cyrene by way of Libya. Nor was this all; fifty triremes of the Athenians and their allies, which had been sent to the relief of the besieged, not only arrived too late, but having entered the Mendesian horn of the Nile before they w^rere aware of the Persian successes, found themselves attacked both from the land and by Phoenician vessels, at such disadvantage that the maj( rity perished, very few being able to escape. Inarus, the Libyan king who organised the insurrection, had in the meantime been betrayed and crucified.

And this was the end, says Thucydides, of the great expedition of the Athenians and their allies to ¹ Egypt.

The story as told by cither Diodorus or Ctcsias concludes with very different details, but with none that seem worthy of analysis or likely to reward an attempt at reduction to consistency.

If any events would make the Athenians recur to the services of the great commander whom they had excluded from Athens, of whom they had deprived Athens for so long, it would be such a catastrophe as this. According to Plutarch, Cimon had already been recalled, and on the motion of Pericles, in consequence of revulsion of popular feeling after the battle of Tanagra; yet there is certainly no trustworthy trace of his renewed political or military action hitherto, nor indeed for several years; still the weight of testimony is in favour of his recall, about the end of 456 B.C., before his exile had lasted quite five ‘² years.

As the expedition of Tolmides dates in the summer of 456 B.C. and the Egyptian catastrophe within the twelve­month, it appears that the next military incidents which

* Thuc. i. 110.

¹ Cf. frag. Theopoinp. and Corn. Nep. ap. Clinton.

are recorded must fall into the ensuing season, from spring onwards, of 455 B.C. The treachery of the Thes­salians at the battle of Tanagra may have disposed the Athenians, who otherwise were still as inclined as ever to wide enterprise, to espouse the cause of an exiled Thes­salian prince, Orestes son of Echecratidas; they associated with their own a force of Boeotians and Phocians as their allies, and marched upon Pharsalus. The commander was probably Tolmides, whom Diodorus mentions gene­rally as operating ‘ about Boeotia’ at this time: nothing whatever was effected; the Thessalian cavalry obliged the invaders to refrain from even the customary ravage of the open country and to keep closely together; they failed in consequence to capture the city, and had only to return, bringing Orestes back with them. Thucydides enables us to place these incidents in their due order of ¹ sequence. Diodorus antedates them and makes them the conclusion of the great campaign of Myronides after the battle of

²        Oenophyta.

^fNo long time after this,’ so to translate a phrase of Thucydides which—Diodorus notwithstanding—may carry us over to the spring of the next year, 454 B.C., the Athenians take further measures to strengthen the hold they have already established on the Crissaean gulf and its outlet westward. With a view to operations on land, a thou­sand hoplites are embarked at Pegae on board a fleet of a hundred triremes under the command now of Pericles son of Xanthippus. A descent is first made in the footsteps of Tolmides upon the territory of the Sicyonian allies of Corinth, who are beaten in an engagement, at some distance inland, if we may trust ³ Plutarch, who even mentions Nemea, as if the movement were in relief of allies in Argolis. Diodorus confines hostilities to the neighbourhood of Sicyon, which

was relieved by an advance of Lacedaemonians. Acbaia was next visited, and here the adoption of the Athenian alliance was promptly obtained (evOvs irapaXafiovT^) and an auxiliary force with which the expedition moved onward to the coast of Acarnania. The influence and interests of Corinth were important in these parts, and an attempt was made upon Oeniadae, a town at the mouth of the Achelous on the we&t or right bank, of which mention occurs at a later date as an ally of Sparta. The position of the town was one of peculiar strength, on an extensive insulated hill sloping southward to the river, while a port on the north communicated with the sea by a deep creek. By the deposits of the river the site is now full ten miles inland, but the entire circuit of the ancient walls still exists; the masonry is polygonal, and Leake observes that most of the polygons are equal to cubes of 2^ and 3 feet, and the beauty and accuracy of the work­manship are admirable. The port, which long since has been choked by alluvial deposits, was in immediate connection with the town, and the adjacent plain and country were exceed­ingly fertile, and the command of such a position would have been an important extension of the footing which Athens had already established westward of the Isthmus, at the islands, at Chaleis and Naupaetus. As the usual preliminary of such attempts the territory was over-run and even some demon­strations were made of undertaking a siege. These were speedily renounced, but a large booty was obtained and ¹ an Athenian interest established in the country which had important consequences. On the return of the fleet the measure of success obtained in comparison with incurred sacrifice, seems to have been regarded as unusually creditable to the prudence of an enterprising ² commander.

The next three years are passed over by Thucydides with­out note of an event; and we have but scanty means of filling in his omissions.

The war on both sides was manifestly languishing; the control of the isthmus by Athens, the connection of her city and ports, and her command of the sea together, would have been obstacles to the Lacedaemonians with the best good will to molest her; otherwise there was at present no manifestation of discontent with Athens,—at least none of discontent sufficiently prepared to act, to encourage Sparta to throw aside what seems almost a constitutional torpor. Apart from her indisposition for foreign wars, which ¹ Thu­cydides observes upon, it is open to conjecture that an explanation of her more than usual inactivity lay in the personal character and relations of her leading men at this time—their sloth or their jealousies—and, it must be added, not impossibly, their corruption. The Athenians on their part had built up a magnificent political structure; they had work before them to consolidate or organise it, pleasure before them to employ and enjoy the extraordinary influx of wealth that tribute and industry together poured in upon them. Thucydides accordingly has only now to add, ‘three years’ after this time—of the expedition of Pericles—the ⁽Athenians and Peloponnesians concluded a truce for five years.’

It is only by a combination of inferences, which are not to be relied on too confidently, that I would place an enter­prise of the newly settled Messenians of Naupactus in the interval between the summer of 454 B.C. and the autumn of 452 B.C.—that is, between the visit of Pericles to Acarnania and his attempt on the very district now attacked, and the conclusion of the five years’ truce. ²Pausanias is our only authority, and he does not name his own, for the circum­stances. It was when the exiles had occupied their new seat long enough to have already organised a ³ fleet, that their military spirit, so long approved and exercised in opposi­tion to Lacedaemon, found a new outlet with a prospect of

increasing' their power and possessions, by an attack on Oeniadae, where Pericles had already made some impression. The district appertaining* to the city was peculiarly valuable from its fertility, the position of the city a-< already described was most commanding, and would render it easily defensible if it could onee be acquired. The hostilities that had already occurred between Oeniadae and the Athenian allies and pro­tectors of Naupactus were quite sufficient pretext for the attack if any were required. The prowess of the Messenians gained the advantage against superior numbers in the open field, the city was invested, and vigorous attempts at once carried on by mining the walls as well as by escalade, to shorten the tedious process of reduction by famine. The de­fenders were overawed by this manifestation of resolution and energy, and preferred to accept the terms of being allowed to evacuate the place, to risking not only their own slaughter but the reduction of their wives and children to slavery.

For a year the Messenians held the captured city and enjoyed the possession of the countiy, and then were in their turn besieged ; the Aearnanians had made a general muster, with the intention in the first instance of assailing Naupactus, which would be weakened by absence of the force in occupation of Oeniadae. But this design had to be re­nounced ; the country of hostile Aetolians lay upon the route, and in any case while the Messenians were in command of the sea, the success of a land force alone was hopeless. It was therefore determined to attack them instead in their new conquest. Every preparation was made on either side to press and to resist a siege; but the Messenians were not out of hope that they could disperse the numerous but very mixed and irregular horde by direct conflict, and were prompt to make the attack before the arrival of expected city con­tingents ; the Athenians had succeeded against still greater odds at Marathon, why then not they, Messenians, who on their native ground had only succumbed at last to fortune

—a phrase of which we should be glad to know the particular reference here—and not to the superior valour of the Lace­daemonians. The battle was engaged, under what circum­stances of provocation we are not told, immediately below the walls, which were manned with defenders who gave effective cover to those without. The Messenian line was thus secured against being surrounded by their more numerous opponents, but they were outflanked nevertheless on every attempt to advance, and, half barbaric mob as they might esteem their enemies to be, they encountered a resistance so steadily methodised, as to give no chance of exciting such a panic terror as had countervailed the odds at Marathon,—the service of the god who so fulfilled his promise to Pheidip- pides on the Arcadian mountain. Wherever the fury of their onset was directed they spread slaughter and confusion, but as certainly this confusion was remedied by timely reliefs and the value of fresh numbers again told. How it was that such troops could be so handled and by whom, we do not hear; the battle was prolonged till evening with equal advantage on either side, and then on the completion of the Acarnanian force by musters from the various cities, the Messenians retired within their walls. We hear of no more than a blockade; but after eight months, stores were exhausted and the situation of the defenders was desperate. Of this however the besiegers had gained no knowledge through deserters; and bravadoes from the wall as to a ten years’ stock of provisions still in store, were as rife as ever, when one night at the first hour of sleep, the camp was in alarm at a sally from the town. The Messenians, in fact, had embraced the resolution to force their way out and through in mass, and for the most part they succeeded: with the loss it is true of three hundred of their number, but not without having inflicted a still greater loss, they gained the friendly Aetolian frontiers, which were probably not very remote, and so reached Naupactus.

Pausanias found at Olympia a statue of Victory on a column, a dedication by the Messenians of Naupaetus on the occasion, as he believed, of the capture of Oeniadae; Messenians averred on the other hand that it commemorated the share which they had at a later date in inflicting¹ on the Lacedaemonians the disaster at Sphaeteria. Pausanias gives no reason for his opinion, but we may plausibly infer its correctness from the fact that the Nike was the work of Paeonius of Monde, the sculptor of one of the pediments of the great Olympian temple, which there can be little doubt were anterior to the Peloponnesian war.

I cannot trace the authority which has been relied on by Curtius for dating the evacuation of Oeniadae by the Mes­senians immediately before the attack by Pericles; this was in autumn of 454 B.C., only two years, at the very farthest, after the settlement of Messenians at Naupaetus,—and the interval is too straitened for settlement there, the capture of Oeniadae, its occupation for a year, and an eight months’ siege.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE FIVE YEARS* TRUCE OF ATHENS AND SPARTA.------ THE PEACE

OF CIMON.

B.C. 450-445 ; 01. 82. 2-83. 2-3.

In the relative position of Athens and Sparta at the present time, the peace which had been concluded for no longer term than five years, could amount to little more than a suspension of the violence of war in favour of unchecked development of some of its still greater evils. It is one of the lesser, because necessarily one of the transitory, mischiefs of war, that it consecrates the slaughter of man by man, making murder a sacrifice and organised pillage a religious duty. As a more miserable consequence, it reverses for unlimited time the fundamental obligation of truthfulness, and gives the natural honours of virtue to imposture and fraud. So long as active warfare continues, the constancy which can en­counter mutilation or death without a tremor asserts itself as heroic virtue, and even dignifies what is often little better than the insurgent instinct of the latent carnivore; but it diverts attention utterly from the baseness of intriguers who are watching in the background for the spoil that is to reward their mischief-making, while it sheds the halo which is known as glory over carnage, and misery, and mire. When peace supervenes, it is too often only for mistrust and decep­tion to have the field of politics entirely to themselves.

Peace to the aggressive and military statesman is no wel­come pause in favour of the recovery of cordiality and oblivion of animosities, -but simply an armistice, for which even the burial of the dead is a mere pretext ; the true motives are reconstruction of array and implements of vio­lence, and the gaining time by the stronger to recommence at a better opportunity with at least all his advantages. In the meantime in such war suppressed, as in war declared, it remains a virtue still to mislead by any falsehood, and now to cajole by solemn professions or courtesy and grimace, the nominal friends who are to be made dupes, if possible, that they may be ultimately victims. By the leaders or by the people who ‘ delight in war,’ war is not entered on for the sake of peace, but peace is only accepted for the sake of and with a view to war. Euripides, who was soon to a.-k, ‘ May not life be in fact death, and are we sure that what we regard n* death is not the true life/ might have suggested on such an occasion as the pnsent with ms pungent significance, is not peace war, and till war breaks out again will Hellas ever be quit of the rankling irritability which is inconsistent in any sense with real peace.

That Cimon was recalled to Athens in 456B.C., immediately after the battle of Tanagra, agrees with the statements of Theopompus and Cornelius Nepos that his absence lasted only five years; but there are still unexplained difficulties. Theopompus and 'Plutarch aver that he succeeded in bringing about a j cace immediately on his recall, for which his known influence at Sparta had been a chief inducement. But two years of active warfare, occupied by the campaigns of Tol- mides and of Pericles, precede even a moderation of hosti­lities ; and then three more intervene before the conclusion of the formal truce of five years between Athens and Sparta early in 450 B.C. Not till after this is concluded does Cimon

reappear in connection with any public transactions whatever. The utmost that is allowed is therefore the conjecture, for what it is worth, that two years of vain endeavours on his part may have contributed somewhat to the first relaxation of violence on either side, before the conclusion three years later of the peace with which his name is constantly associated. Aeschines altogether perverts the ¹ chronology.

Whenever Cimon may really have returned to the city, whether after the battle forthwith, as on general consider­ations is least likely, or much later, after his intervention during slackening hostilities had contributed to a peace that was welcome to his fellow-eitizens, we hear nothing more from this time to the end of his life of his participation in home affairs and legislation, either as governing their course or as a partisan in opposition. There is every appear­ance that he was at last content to act in concert and sym­pathy with Pericles, and to forego his former protest against the large views of authority and independence to which Athens was definitively and irrevocably committed,—which now at the acme of her power she had so magnificently asserted.

Whatever distaste may have been entertained by Cimon for the constitutional changes that had been effected during his exile, he found the new powers of the democracy con­firmed beyond all chance of reversal, unless by treason­able practices of which he was incapable, and the cordial alliance with Sparta—the homaichmia—no less hopelessly at an end. He seems therefore, like Aristides before him, to have at last accepted with patriotic loyalty a state of things which had accrued despite his opposition, and become justified by results too brilliant to be contested. Moreover it is not generally the way of statesmen, who have once tasted of sway and still retain their energies, to persist beyond a

¹ Aesch. de Fals. Legat. li. 23. F

certain time in a discontent that will probably exclude them from power,—not to say that will most manifestly do so, for all time. If the general course of policy defies their control, they are usually w illing to embrace a chance of influencing it, or even of exercising the very secondary function of administration, which may pass with the world, and perhaps with themselves, for positive control.

On the other hand, it is quite possible that Pericles, in a proposal which is ascribed to him, may have had mainly in view to cement his new alliance with Cimon, as, whether likely to prove practicable or not, it was at least in har­mony with the policy which had always been nearest the heart of his former rival.

To no other period than during this lull in Hellenic dis­cord and after the reconciliation with Cimon, does it appear to me that we can assign with such probability the initi­ation of a grand scheme, of which the draught and description are preserved by Plutarch in terms which convey an impres­sion of authenticity, uncorroborated though it be by even an allusion elsewhere. This was nothing less than the periodical assembling .at Athens of a general synod of envoys from all the cities of Hellas, small and great, of Asia as well as Europe, to take counsel respecting common duties and inter­ests. The design declared itself as in some degree upon the model of the Pan-hellenic assembly which on the proposal of Aristides was to have been convened annually at Plataea; this manifestly proved abortive, and a chief business which had been neglected in consequence was now taken advantage of for an appeal to religious sanctions, by putting forward for primary consideration the subject of the temples that had been burnt by the Persians and the quittance of the vows made to the gods during the course of their invasion. That some of these vows had been entirely neglected after the peril had passed over is probable enough ; the resolution to leave the burnt temples in their ruins was observed in some instances, but

glaringly contravened in others, and the necessity for sanc­tioned solution for such difficulties might be plausibly insisted on at a time when the great dedications which we shall presently have to advert to, were under consideration. Other material interests which were proposed for discussion concerned the freedom and security of navigation and the maintenance of general peace. In leading principles therefore this proposed synod coincided with the ancient Amphictionies, —such as that which claimed as its highest function the care of Delphi and its sanctities, but was also a bond of mutual forbearance in war if not of absolute peace among the tribes that were parties to it, and was appealed to, as we have seen in the case of Scyros, in disputes involving charges of piracy. Even on this limited scale however, an Amphi- ctiony ever drooped in insignificance, or, as in the case of the Boeotian, its authority was engrossed by a leading city. Athens assuredly had no further powers to ask for beyond what she was already mistress of, to enable her to clear the seas of pirates or of Phoenico-Persian fleets, or to compel the tranquillity of the minor states; but still it was worth while to seek to legitimate her supremacy by securing a definite recognition if only by her own allies,—still better if by allies of the Lacedaemonians, to say nothing of the Lacedaemonians themselves,—of the relations into which as a matter of fact they had been brought, both severally and collectively, to her policy. There would even be au advantage in the command of a process of recasting such relations, as occasion might arise, without the semblance of arbitrariness. Plutarch avers that the proposal was first mooted when the Lacedaemonians were beginning to take umbrage at Athenian aggrandise­ment, but this would carry it to a time before the great in­fluence of its author ; we may more readily agree to his intimation that the object of Pericles in obtaining the pse- phism was to inspire the Athenians with a grand conception of their dignity and to elevate the pitch of their ambition.

Twenty citizens over fifty years of age, he says, were selected and despatched to recommend the project,—five to the Do­rians and Ionians of Asia and the islands from Lesbos to Rhodes, five to the regions extending from Thrace and the Hellespont to Byzantium, five more to Boeotia, Phoeis, and Peloponnesus, and thence through the Loerian territories as far as Aearnania and Ambraeia,—the remaining five through Euboea to the Oetaeans and the Malian gulf, the Aehaeans of Phthiotis and the Thessalians. The mention of Peloponnesus here leaves it uncertain whether the allies of Lacedaemon,— as Corinth and Elis, Sicyon or Arcadia,—were to be addressed as well as Aehaeans and Argives ; but that the invitation was universal may be inferred if only from the notice that the scheme failed first of all in the trial upon Peloponnesus from the covert opposition of Lacedaemon.

In terms at least this scheme, like that of the Plataean synod, admitted of interpretation that would extend the prin­ciples of a vast Amphictiony to a genuine system of federation with a representative assembly; but the world was not ripe for the requisite delegation of full powers of deliberation and decision to representatives; and moicover representation was not likely to come to trial on this ground alone—that joint deliberations must be futile when a single state was certain by its power and self-will to render all opposition nugatory. Even so, however, if this large conception of common deliber­ation and concert for Hellenic peace and welfare had no other result, the promulgation of it was equivalent to an Athenian manifesto appealing professedly to general Hellenic sympathy and support, while covering an open announcement at the same time of her continued recognition of responsibility for the security of Hellas and her resolution to assert an authority as comprehensive.

In the meantime various enterprises were undertaken which avouched that Athenian activity was equal to operate on the largest scale independently if so it must be, and that

the truce had not been obtained or consented to, to be spent in sloth.

I place here the expedition of Pericles to the Thracian Chersonesus and the Euxine, which was esteemed one of his most successful and salutary exploits. Diodorus mentions rather than dates it inconsistently in the same year as the Sicyonian ¹ campaign. It was an important concern for Athens indeed, but also for all Greece, that navigation through this passage should be secure from the depredations of pirates, who infested the coasts and carried robbery into the heart of a peculiarly fertile and valuable district. To the Chersonesus, where Miltiades and his ancestors had formerly governed, and Cimon his son still seems to have retained a large property, a colony was conducted by Pericles, of a thousand Athenians, which gave an important and welcome infusion of strength to the cities; and he then interposed an obstacle to the in­cursions of the Thracians by land, by carrying a fortified barrier across the neck of the isthmus from sea to sea.

Either on the same occasion or another he led a large and very splendidly equipped fleet into the Euxine, and made a politic display, at the very outskirts of Hellenic settlement, of the power and resolution and enterprise of the ruling Hel­lenic state. He appeared everywhere as the protector of the Greek cities, and took all means to impress on the kings and dynasts of the numerous barbarous tribes, how formidable and vigilant a power was now at the head of Hellas. At Sinope, which was controlled by a tyrant Timesileon, he left a detachment of thirteen ships under Lamachus, a name that now appears for the first time, which effected his expulsion. The lands and houses of the tyrant and his faction were con­fiscated and assigned to six hundred Athenian immigrants introduced by Pericles ;—the accession of needful strength might easily reconcile the native emancipated citizens to such an appropriation.

A large and successful expedition into these waters could not but impose upon the imagination of the Greeks. It is on the return that navigators are still constantly betrayed by the deceptive appearances of the still unbeaconed so-called ‘False Mouth’—the origin of the fable of the Syinplegades (the clasping rocks); but mists and storms are still more dangerous beyond. ¹ Plutarch elsewhere speaks of a colony of ten thousand settlers (cleruchs) as despatched by Pericles to the Chersonesus, of five hundred to Naxos, and half that number to Andros, its former dependency. It seems probable that this representation of another vast colony to the Chersonesus is a mere outgrowth of the former more moderately numbered at a thousand, by inclusion of families, slaves, and dependents. The settlement of cleruchs at Naxos implies dispossession of a certain number of original proprietors of which there is no other record ; but that is quite consistent with the course of Athenian policy in other cases. Thus some years after Aegina has been deprived of its independence, the inha­bitants are not merely deprived and reduced at best to tenantry, but, as the easiest solution of the difficulty of deal­ing with their discontents, are expelled, their places being taken by Athenian proprietors and cultivators. A confused and no doubt corrupt text of ² Diodorus, of which it is not easy to make much, assigns to Tolmides the distribution of the land of the Naxians among a thousand citizens, which so far is not inconsistent with the measure having been adopted on the motion of Pericles ; the obscurity of the passage lies in an unexplained reference to his concurrent action in Euboea. A phrase or two seem to be lost, which might have defined some incidents in that island of which we have broken re­flections elsewhere. ³ Pausanias ascribes to Tolmides the con­duct of cleruehs not only to Naxos but to Euboea, and poor as may be the authority of the oration of Andocides on the

Peace, it preserves at least an independent tradition of hostil­ities in Euboea, anterior to the five years’ truce, that may possibly not be a mere antedate of its later revolt. The evidence, on the whole, seems to point to the extrusion at this time of some refractory Euboeans, who would go to swell the party of exiles which is to be assumed in any case, and was soon to become active with momentous results.

It was a natural complement of this almost ostentatious display of Athenian activity, and as natural a concession to the readmitted influence of the son of Miltiades, that the original justification of Athenian supremacy should be revived by renewal of hostilities against Persia, and even in Egypt, where Athens had so recently incurred a fearful disaster. Amyrtaeus was still holding out there in the fens to the great annoyance and serious danger of the ¹ Persians, and made application to Athens for assistance. It was most probably immediately on the conclusion of the five years* truce that Cimon was placed in command of the large fleet of two hundred vessels, Athenian and confederate, with which, as if to take up again his interrupted enterprise of years gone by, he proceeded to Cyprus, and after detaching thence sixty to the relief of Amyrtaeus, undertook with the remainder the siege of Citium. Of what value this aid may have been to the Egyptian does not appear; instructions or past expe­rience may have enforced cautiousness, and we only read of it further as rejoining when the main fleet returned home from Cyprus upon the death of Cimon. He died before Citium,— some authors say of a wound, but the most in consequence of disease ; Plutarch ascribes to him some previous successes, which need not be disallowed because unmentioned in the succinct summary of Thucydides, but which, on the other hand, gain no confirmation from the particulars—as regards the capture of Citium certainly false—that are offered by

Diodorus. It is probable that he had gained some even important success against a hostile fleet before he was at liberty to settle to the blockade of that city; but Plutarch, by his reference to Themistocles at this time as still alive, betrays a confusion of ideas as to times, and Diodorus also seems to mix up reminiscences of the battles of the Euryme- don and of the Persian preparations for the suppression of ¹ Inarus : it is certain that he ascribes to the commencement of the campaign the events that brought it to a close.

Thucydides certifies the fact of a double victory by sea and land gained by the armament of Cimon after his death, in such curious agreement with his own earlier exploit as to quite account for the confusion which was made by later aud less careful historians. The siege of Citium was abandoned under the further pressure of a failure of supplies ; the phrase employed, ‘ the occurrence of famine,’ seems to intimate a failure of the crops of the country, or at least inability to command them. The arrival of the Egyptian detachment would bring some relief, and assist if it did not stimulate to the exploit that signalised the conclusion of the expedition. Phanodemus is quoted by Plutarch as stating that for thirty days after the death of Cimon the enemy and the allies,—we may believe the enemy, at least,— supposed that he was still in command. The Athenians, re­tiring from the south round the eastern extremity of the island, engaged off Salamis a force of Cilicians and Phoe­nicians, at sea first, and then on land,—it is clearly implied by the word of Thucydides (fi/ua), on the same day, perhaps at the same time,—attacking no doubt the usual marine camp. They were victorious in both engagements—though, if we may take this incident from Diodorus, with the loss of their commander, Anaxierates—and then returned home.

It was after these events,—apparently, but not certainly,

after not only the beginning, but the end of this expedition, and within the period of the five years’ truce with Athens,— that Lacedaemon, in a war which, uneventful as it otherwise was, had a significance that gave it a special title, and was known from its religions pretext as the Sacred war, took military possession of Delphi, and depriving the Pho- cians of the control of the temple, and therefore of the oracle, delivered it over to the Delphian families w^Tho were in their interest; and accepting or assuming the privilege of jproman- teia (the right of precedence in consulting the oracle), recorded it in an inscription on the forehead of the bronze wolf,—some well-known dedication. It seems to have been considered as no infraction of the truce, that Pericles upon their retirement took their places with an Athenian force, superseded the Delphians in favour of the Phocians, and leaving the Lacedaemonian inscription undisturbed, reas­serted the jwomanteia for Athens by another on the right flank of the same wolf.

This incident, brief as it was, might be taken as proof, if such were still wanting, that Lacedaemonian influence had to be reckoned with as hostile, and even fatal, to any hope of reconstructing the Panhellenic confederation on the plan of the psephism of Pericles. The intimate connection of Delphi had been in fact as natural an accompaniment of the hegemony formerly allowed to Lacedaemon, as the asso­ciation of a national mantis or diviner with the general on the field of battle. To surrender the promanteia was to acquiesce in the assumption of the supreme hegemony by Athens, which Sparta was by no means prepared to do even formally, as still less to give up a positive instrument of power in a struggle which may already have had forewarn­ing signs. It is considered by Thirl wall that the Lacedae­monians may have been glad of an excuse of an oracle to give w^Tay so far as they did to the Messenians in Ithome, but it is still more probable that the oracle, especially as it

was at the time under the influence of Athens, did in truth exact more favourable terms ; and Thucydides is our warrant that a Delphic denunciation of sacrilege could still affect the Spartans with disheartening awe.

Hostilities between Persia and Hellas cease suddenly, and for many years, immediately upon the death of Cimon; and this lull was in after times habitually ascribed to arrange­ment under a formal treaty, of which the favourable, the glorious terms, as they were held to be, were ascribed to the impression produced by the persistency of Athens and the exploits of Cimon. The Peace of Cimon, as it was called, was constantly contrasted by Athens and the favourers of Athens with the treaty of Antaleidas, by which, in after days, Lacedacmon distinctly surrendered the Asiatic Greeks. It matters little whether the relations of Greece and Persia at this earlier date were really formulated in articles and rati­fied as a positive treaty ; it is certain that negotiations were proceeding at this time, svhen the most important subjects of difference could not be left out of consideration. The mission is dated by Diodorus,-^Curtius implies but does not give some other authority,—in 449-8 B.C., when the latest operations of Athens had been so successful as to evince her ability and resolution, and so give force to the tone assumed by her envoys, while the death of the son of Miltiades, the very personification of active enmity to Persia, opened the best opportunity for those who on either side were willing to have rest. Persia had interests at stake in Egypt that would reconcile to concessions elsewhere, and Athens—her best states­men certainly—was already beginning to be conscious that her forces might be required nearer home, while the position that, treaty or no treaty, she had secured for the Hellenic cities on the eastern shores of the Aegean, fully vindicated her claim to the allegiance of the confederates. To this occa­sion we may plausibly assign the exertions which ¹ Plutarch ¹ Pint. V. Peric. 20.

avers were made by Pericles to check the eagerness of the Athenians to harass the Persian seaboard or even to embark again in the Egyptian war.

According to Diodorus, the first overtures came from Artaxerxes while the Cyprian contest was still pending, and Persian envoys from Megabyzus and Artabanus opened the business at Athens, where it was so far entertained that Cal- lias, son of Hipponicus, one of the wealthiest Athenians, was sent with others as colleagues to Persia with full powers. The mission of Persian envoys—Persians or not—to Athens, does but repeat the incident which is avouched by Thucydides, of the previous attempt of Artaxerxes to engage concerted action with Sparta through the agency and visit of Megabyzus ; and the mission of Callias to Memnonian Susa is positively certified by the narrative of ¹ Herodotus. Herodotus further informs us that envoys from Argos,—the present allies of Athens,—were at Susa at the same time, when it was reported of them with an invidious intention that they had invited and received assurance of the friendly regard of Artaxerxes for Argos, on the ground of the feelings entertained towards the city by his father Xerxes. According to Diodorus, the terms of the treaty stipulated for the autonomy of the Greek cities of Asia, that the Persian satraps should not assert authority within three days’ journey of the sea—about fifty miles by the reckoning of² Herodotus, who gives a day’s jcurney at 150 stadia=i7{- miles, a distance which may be taken as equivalent to the one day’s course of a horse, the limitation given by Demosthenes,—and that no Persian long or brass-beaked ship of war should pass into the waters between Phaselis at the eastern limit of Lycia, and the Cyanean islands in the Euxine at the entrance of the Thraeian Bosphorus.         •

These assumed terms do certainly express conditions which

were long observed with a degree of exactitude that would be honourable to any co-signataries; and it is hard to believe that this was not due in great part to the fact that they had been discussed and at least preliminarily assented to, whether for­malities of ratification may or may not have been afterwards negleeted. The evidence on this point is contradictory enough, and it is fortunate that the point itself matters little as bearing upon the fact of an established understanding. Plutarch records that a copy of the treaty as accomplished was included in the collection of psephisms made by Cra- terus, and that the Athenians even erected an altar to Peace —Eirene—on the occasion, and conferred distinguished honour on ¹ Callias. Pausanias finds a statue of Callias in honourable place at Athens. In later times Demosthenes and Lycnrgus sou of Lycophron had place beside it. It might be rash, though not unreasonable, to infer that the figure of Peace, bearing Plenty in her arms, had especial reference to Callias who stood close ²by.

An expression interposed by Pausanias indicates that the negotiation of the peace by Callias though ^f asserted by most of the Athenians/ was not uncontested. Callisthenes, accord­ing to Plutarch, averred that the barbarian never made such agreement, but simply kept such distance out of alarm in­spired by the earlier victory of Cimon on the Eurymedon. That ³Theopompus witnesses the fact that the peace was engraved on a column, w^reighs more in favour of the treaty perhaps, than his difficulty at the antedated employment of Ionic letters tells against it.

The exaggerations of later orators and rhetoricians only merit an advocate’s attention, as arguments against the au­thenticity of the transaction. The statement of Demosthenes, that Callias, barely escaping with life, was fined fifty talents on the ground that he allowed himself to be bribed by the

¹ Plut. V. Cim. 13.         ³ Paus. i. 8. 3.

³ Theopomp. ap. Harpocration, 'Attikois ypdfifxaai.

Persians, is perhaps not quite so certainly true as it has been assumed to be, but seems at least to recognise that his negotiations were not absolutely without result; nor, con­sidering to what revulsions Athenian feeling was subject, is it necessarily inconsistent with a vote of honour some time previously, or with the fact that but a few years will elapse before we shall meet with him again employed in another critical negotiation.

The Athenians in after years break off negotiations with Tissaphernes, upon a claim for the Persian to build what ships and navigate what waters he pleased, and there does not appear any reason why such a privilege should be ex­pressly stipulated for, if it had never been questioned before and never been made a matter of agreed and definite ¹ restric­tion. That when the Athenian power was crumbling after the Syracusan disaster, the Great King chose to summon the satraps of Asia Minor to pay up arrears of tribute from the revolted cities, might be “Consistent with either a previous informal moclus vivendi, or with terms originally contrived to save Persian dignity.

Thuc. viii. 56.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

ATHENS DEPRIVED OF POWER OVER BOEOTIA, MEGARA, AND

PELOPONNESIAN STATES.       CONCLUSION OF PEACE FOR THIRTY

YEARS.

B.C. 447-445*

If national grandeur were invariably measured by extent of territorial control, the culmination of Athenian glory and power would be marked in the present years, but power and the glory that follows with it owe more to concentration than to diffusion of energy, and history cannot teach more usefully than by an example how the moral energy of a nation can surmount a deprivation of dependencies or provinces.

As the five years’ truce between Athens and Sparta was approaching its end, which by due efflux of time would fall in 447-6 B.C., the opponents of Athens generally regained spirits; the rivals of the administrations especially, which her protectorate had sustained in power among the inland cities and tribes beyond her northern frontier, were agitated by projects of counter revolution. The conduct of the de­mocracy, which rested upon her support at Thebes especially, had been such as could only prepare a desperate ¹ reaction. At last, at a certain interval after the Athenian interference at ² Delphi, the Boeotian exiles, excitcd as it seems by some­what premature impatience or a tempting opportunity, seized

¹ Arist. Pol. v. 3.

² Thuc. i. 113.

upon various positions at the north-western extremity of Boeotia, amongst others upon Chaeronea and Orchomenus, the latter especially a place of considerable strength. Established here, they received an accession of force in a body of Euboean exiles, were in communication with all who sympathised with their party and cause throughout the country, and were within reach of aid from the adjacent Locrians, of whose adherence the Athenians had only been able to assure themselves by holding a hundred hostages of their best families in pledge.

This outbreak, of which the consequences were destined to be as serious as sudden, threw Athens at once into intense excitement, and an expedition was organised to suppress it with a haste which was afterwards ascribed to the rash eager­ness of the commander Tolmides. According to Thucydides his force consisted of a thousand Athenian hoplites together with quotas of the allies ;—which allies and in what numbers were available at so short a notice is not specified. Plutarch gives the same number for the Athenian force, which he says included the youth of the noblest and most distinguished families, who responded to an invitation by Tolmides to volunteer without regard to their turn on the muster-rolls. This incident in itself may be held to be verified by ¹ Diodorus, though he relates it as the commander's scheme for obtaining a force more numerous than was granted to him on another occasion. There is much appearance that the eagerness of Tolmides was stimulated by a spirit of rivalry with Pericles, to whose expeditions his own run so parallel both in military and colonising enterprise, as to challenge a comparison that may not have been always or often in his favour. But with Pericles it was a maxim to leave as little as possible in the conduct of war to the turn of fortune, especially never to engage in battle voluntarily, unless with a considerable balance

of favourable chances, and to prefer secure to dashing results, with such consideration for economy of lives as justified his vaunt to the Athenians that, as far as depended on himself, they might all be immortal. From this point of view the expedition which was being despatched in such hot haste appeared to him insufficient for its purpose, and he exerted himself to the utmost to gain delay for the association ‘of other ¹ force; if the demus would not trust the judgment of Pericles, let them at any rate, he said, take advantage of the discreetest of all counsellors—Time.’ The self-confidence of the demus however seconded in this instance the pre­cipitancy of the general, and the expedition started; the only result of the reclamations of the democratic leader having been to swell the numbers of aristocratic volunteers who were in high hope of an independent triumph; this is recorded as the single, the disastrous instance in which Pericles failed after great efforts to traverse a rival ² policy.

"What was the nature of the force of which it was urged to await the accession is not indicated. In a suspected oration of ³Andocides—which, w^Thether spurious or not, is ancient, and contains some genuine, however misjoined, historical notes—we read that Athens took advantage of one pause of hostilities with Sparta to organise a native body of three hundred cavalry and to hire—not to say ‘purchase’—as many Scythian bowmen; the battle of Plataea might have taught them the value of these arms against cavalry, and the recent desertion of the Thessalian horse at the battle of Tanagra, and its consequences, enforced the lesson of their special weakness. Occasional assistance had in fact been sought—though even so too intermittently or insufficiently—by employment of more mobile force and missile weapons; but the Athenian difficulty was and remained, to cope on land with the heavy-armed Boeotian or Spartan ; the decisive innovation in tactics that

¹ Plut. 1 . Pcric. 18.       ² lb. Comp. Peric. c. Fab. iii.

Andocides, de Pace.

was to countervail Spartan tenacity in line by well distributed form of attack was for a later time.

Tolmides traversed Boeotia, recovered Chaeronea on the borders of Phocis, apparently without difficulty, and then putting a force in occupation turned south again with the main body, leaving Orchomenos unattempted on the left. If he had by this time become aware that his strength was not sufficient for pushing the work to completion, he was at least unapprehensive of molestation as he retired. The exiles however, under their leader ¹ Sparton, had formed a well-eoneerted plan for intercepting him, and took him com­pletely by surprise by a vigorous attack as he moved along the direct road through Coroneia towards Thebes. The battle that ensued is referred to in connection with both ²Lebadea and ³ Haliartia, localities at some distance on either side of Coroneia which gave it its name,—an indication probably of the loose and scattered order of the Athenians on the march. Their defeat, though not effected without severe Boeotian ⁴ loss, was disastrous and decisive; Tolmides himself fell fighting, together with a large number of the hoplites— among them Cleinias the father of Alcibiades, who thirty years before was a combatant at Artemisium; a considerable number of others were taken prisoners—men belonging to families of the first position and influence at Athens, the volunteers of-Tolmides; and there can be little doubt that this important capture—to which may probably be added the now isolated garrison of Chaeronea—was a main object in the plan of attack, and anticipated as a most valuable result of victory. The trophy of the victors was standing long after on a portion of the battle-field between Coroneia and Alalcomene, near the temple of Athene Ifconia, the con­secrated centre of ancient Boeotian unity, the proximity of

¹ Diod. xii. 6; Plut. V. Ages. ² Xen. Mem. Soc. iii. 5. 4.

³ Paus. i. 27. 6.   ⁴ Thuc. iii. 67.

which may well have given enthusiasm to the assail­ants.

The dismay that reigned at Athens on the news of this catastrophe may be measured by the sacrifices which were submitted to in order to repair it so far as possible. As a condition of the restoration of the prisoners the city w^Tas required and submitted perforce to renounce control over the whole of Boeotia; democracy was in consequence superseded at Thebes by the return of the exiled party; all the cities resumed autonomy, and by natural reaction an impulse was given to the reconstitution of the Boeotian system of alliance u liich the religious sanction of an Amphictiony had helped aforetime to many of the purposes of a political confederation. That the Locrians recovered their hostages, of whom they had risked the forfeiture by assisting the Boeotians, may be taken for granted.

Such was the disastrous end of Tolmides son of Tolmaeus, whose very patronymic seems to bespeak a certain ostentation of audacity that would easily lapse to rashness; his removal alone, and still more its attendant circumstances, left Pericles in a more powerful position than ever, and with a great opportunity before him of displaying capacity to deal with a momentous crisis; of this not the least difficulty must have been to reconcile the demus to the humiliating terms of the peace which it became necessary to submit to. And this was not all; a series of new public disasters ensued forthwith, to minister occasion for the exercise of his great qualities, and finally establish public confidence in his in­corruptibility, prudence, dexterity and vigour.

Befugees from Euboea had contributed to the defeat of the Athenians at Coroneia, but so far do not appear as sharing in the fruits of the victory; a movement however was already maturing in the island itself, the more formid­able as concerted with another at Mcgara and with promised

support from the Lacedaemonians, who were now free, or held themselves to be so, from the expiring truce.

The outbreak in Euboea declared itself very shortly after the conclusion of the Boeotian difficulty, and Pericles had scarcely passed over into the island when it was announced that Megara was in revolt behind him, supported by the Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians; that the Athenian garrison at Megara was cut off, except so many as had taken refuge in the port Nisaea; and that moreover Attica itself was threatened with a Lacedaemonian invasion. He turned instantly and brought back his army to confront the greater danger. The Lacedaemonians and their allies, under the young king Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, had already crossed the borders, and, laying waste the country round them, were advanced as far as Eleusis and the Thriasian plain. The magnitude of the enemies’ force, and the memory and con­sequences of a recent catastrophe, might alike confirm the habitual caution of Pericles in engaging ; it was not, how­ever, to be so put to the test; for, to the inexpressible relief of Athens, the army of Pleistoanax very ¹ soon disappeared. He had, in fact, dismissed the allies and withdrawn home to answer as he might for what he had done and what left even unattempted. Thus .set free, Pericles turned again upon Euboea and speedily reduced opposition throughout the entire island,—his force of fifty ships and five thousand hoplites easily overbearing all resistance.

The command of Euboea and its resources was of the utmost importance to Athens; the island had ports which in hostile occupation would afford opportunity for intercepting the commerce of Athens as it converged to the Piraeus; and, on the other hand, it presented an extensive fertile territory which, as close at hand and defensible by the navy, would relieve the contingency, which could not now be overlooked,

of the occupation of Attica itself by an enemy. The hostility of the Euboean exiles, who had importantly aided the Boeo­tians, appears to imply that the island had been for some time under democratic ascendency, but this had evidently piven place, after the great battle of Coroneia, to a reaction which culminated in the revolt, and the penalties of the re­settlement fell in consequence upon the aristocracy. Pericles re-established Athenian control over the island from end to end. The Histiaeans at the north-west extremity w^rere very severely dealt with, on the ground of their slaughter of the crew of a captured Athenian vessel; expelled from their city they retired by convention to some part of¹ Macedonia ; their forfeited lands were distributed among two thousand Athe­nians, whether as settlers, or probably in many cases as clcruc/is, allottees or owners of outlying ² properties.

The treatment of Chalcis on the Euripus, w’here the island most nearly approaches the continent, brings to an end a history which, could it be recovered in detail, would in many respects exceed in interest even that which was closed by the reduction of Aegina. In the unrecorded centuries that succeeded the great revolution known as the Return of the Ileracleids, Euboean Chalcis had been a centre of colonising spirit scarccly inferior, if indeed inferior, in energy and success to that of Athens. A fertile territory and great mineral wealth in copper and iron gave early support to population and encouragement to commerce; and faction in due time and ordinary course led to dispersion upon the tracks which commerce had made familiar. The peninsulas between the Strymonian and Thermaic gulfs became studded with Chalcidic cities, which flourished and sent forth colonies again ; and Cumae westward was the earliest of a series of noble Chalcidic settlements in Italy and on the coasts of Sicily, beyond the sea which retained from the multitude of

adventurers who so boldly traversed it, the name of tbe Ionian. Thucydides adverts to an early war between Chalcis and the neighbouring Eretria as having importantly involved the rest of Greece. We find its origin referred to a quarrel respecting the adjacent Lelantian plain; but that the people of Miletus aided Eretria against their neighbours the Samians as allies of Chalcis, implies that such remote interests were at stake as would easily come into collision between the colonies so closely planted by the two Euboean cities in the Thracian ¹ penin­sulas. Too little is known of the course and consequences of this war; but Aristotle is the voucher that the internal dis­putes of Chalcis terminated in establishing the power of the Hippobatai—the Horsekeepers—an aristocracy of wealth. These Hippobatai, at a much later date, lent support to the kindred faction of Isagoras at Athens, and suffered in con­sequence. The Athenians, with the new-born energy which Herodotus hails as the proper characteristic of recovered freedom, defeated them; and as they distributed their lands among four thousand cleruchs, who were still in possession when Datis and Artaphernes attacked Eretria, might be supposed to have reduced the class to powerlessness or to have expelled them utterly. If we may trust Plutarch, however, they had re-established themselves in wealth and influence by the time which we now treat of, perhaps by their share in promoting the revolt, and were finally ex­pelled by Pericles to appear in history no more.

If the recovery of Euboea was important, and even vital for Athens, the command of the Megarid was but little if in any degree less so. Scarcely any sacrifice, it might seem, should have been too great to save this; but if foregone it must be, the mere possession of the port of Nisaea alone was in itself of little advantage, though it might tell upon the interchange of terms in negotiation. The Lacedae-.

¹ Herod, v. 99, Thuc. i. 15, iv. 120-123; Strabo x. 688.

monians had retired with unexpected and inexplicable haste it is true, but there were significant notices that the retire­ment could not be safely counted on as final. Pleistoanax on his return home was charged with corruption, and Cleandridas, who had been associated with him by the ephors as guide of his inexperience, was included in the accusation. Cleandridas fled, and was condemned to death in his absence—he is heard of afterwards in Italy; his son Gylippus remained at Sparta, and was destined, after a glorious career against the Athe­nians at Syracuse, to follow his father into exile upon the usual charge, whether in his case justified or not, of peculation. The young king was condemned in a fine which he was un­able to pay, and he too left Sparta and took refuge, for an exile which was to last for nineteen years, in the precinct — in a divided-off portion in fact—of the temple of Lycaean Zeus in ¹ Arcadia. From Lacedaemonians in this temper as to the failure of their first expedition, forbearance in a second was not to be expected; that in this instance at least they were not indignant without real cause was shrewdly confirmed, when on the passing of the accounts of Pericles at Athens a large sum appeared as expended, with no further explana­tion of its disposal than, ‘ for a necessary purpose ’ (els to hiov), and the item was allowed by the demus without murmur or enquiry.

Bitter then as the alternative which prudence now dictated to the Athenians might be, there was no escape from it,— to renounce attempts to recover lost ground and ground virtually lost, at present, and conclude peace upon the best terms circumstances admitted. It still remained open there-* after to look forward either to reasserting what now was surrendered, under more favourable circumstances and after preparation, or, what seems more in accordance with the views of ¹ Pericles, to renounce the surrendered acquisitions

once for all for others even more tempting, and to rely on such growth of the maritime confederacy in power and wealth as would at some future day enable Athens, in case of quarrel, to deal with Sparta and all her adherents on terms of absolute superiority.

Peace was accordingly negotiated between Athens and the Peloponnesians through the medium of Callias and Chares in the course of the winter of 446 B.C., and concluded in April following, for thirty years,—an estimated generation. Athens gave up what, like Megara, she had already lost beyond recovery, or was least concerned or could no longer hope to hold after loss of command of the isthmus,—the ports of the Megarid on either sea, Nisaea and Pegae, and control over Troezene and Achaia. By these terms she was excluded from all positive footing and even influence in Peloponnesus, except what might still be derived from an alliance with Argos; and thus a few years beheld her shorn of what appears to be a large proportion of her empire, and that to the advantage of rivals who obtained it without having themselves inflicted upon her a single defeat. The Lace­daemonians, on the other hand, reclaimed nothing for their confederacy that they might not reasonably hope to maintain ; Euboea, as insular, was left to Athens, and it does not appear that even a word was wasted on the fate of the island of the Doric Aeginetans; states not enumerated in the treaty were to be allowed to attach themselves to whichever alliance they might ¹ please. Neither party to the treaty was to extend its alliances at the expense of the other, and it was a consequence which was at least understood that each claimed the right to constrain its own ² dependents. The withdrawal of Athenian control from Achaia on the one side and Troe­zene on the other, as well as from Megara, left Argos in isola­tion with an extended frontier towards Sicyon, Corinth and

Epidaurus, exposed to any annoyance with which they might choose to sceond the resentment or ambition of Lacedaemon; and with this prospect before them, the Argives may readily enough have concluded on their own part a thirty years’ peace, which, unlike that of the Athenians, was destined to run its full ¹ course. The future relations of Athens and Argos were matter for separate arrangement; this was distinctly stated in the Athenian and Lacedaemonian treaty which was engraved on a bronze stele set up at Olympia, where Pausanias still read it; it stood before a memorial of the last most important Hellenic compact, the statue of Zeus by Anaxagoras of Aegina, which had been dedicated by all the Greek cities that sent troops to Plataea, and bore their names upon its basis. From the manner in which Pausanias passes off to notice which of these cities had since been destroyed, we might almost infer that along with the in­scribed catalogue he read also the terms of the alliance that contained the engagement to mutually forbear from such extremities.

The general basis of the present treaty was therefore the undisturbed retention by the several parties to it of whatever power it found each possessed of and best capablc of ² main­taining ; but this was in fact equivalent to a division of Hellas between them by diplomatic recognition of the legi­timacy of the control which either exercised over its allies. It is the very convention for ruling over Hellas jointly that Aristophanes urged, after it had come to an end, as so much more reasonable than to go on trying which belligerent state would by fortune of war have most to be sorry ³ for. The Argives alone amongst the allies of Athens were in a position of exceptional independence, as compared with members of the general Ionian confederacy, and hence the reservation in the treaty.

¹ Time, v 14.

² II). i. 140.

³ Pcncc, v. 1080.

The formal sanction which was thus conceded to Athens on the part of Lacedaemon, so long* the admitted head of the Hellenic world, was no slight advantage, and told with effect in consolidating the position which she had gradually assumed. As compared with a recognition of the right to deal as she had already been dealing, not only with subjects, but with allies much the same as subjects, her own reciprocal admission of the supremacy of the Lacedaemonians over the states of Peloponnesus from which they drew no regular contributions towards a state ¹ treasure, involved no concession of importance. Fourteen years later the Aeginetans are found protesting that their autonomy was guaranteed by the ² treaty, but we must allow more weight to the positive contradiction of Pericles. At the utmost they can only have appealed not to the text of the treaty, but to the assurances by which high contracting powers are wont to lull the uneasiness of the subordinate while negotiations are pending, or to put them off at last as having their interests cared for constructively. The treaty contained the usual clause that any differences which might arise should be settled, not by violence but in the way of equity or ³ arbitration—bUrj. Whether any such scheme was laid down as the Corcyraeans proposed for the settlement of their quarrel with ⁴ Corinth, by reference to independent cities or to the Delphic oracle, does not appear. Whatever the pro­vision,—and it would be curious indeed to know what plan could be thought operative,—we even read at this time of references of national disputes to an individual arbitration, —it proved as futile as is usual where interests are concerned of states too powerful for any coercive sanction to control the resolute contumacy of either one or the other.

This treaty only ran for half its stipulated time, but even that was a measure of success unexampled in Greek diplomacy, and attests the wisdom of the negotiators in excluding terms

¹ Arist. Pol. ii. 6. ² Thuc. i. 67. ^s lb. i. 78. ⁴ lb. i. 28.

whicli would only make the conclusion of hostilities the immediate source of more embittered animosity.

The unfortunate expedition of Tolmides, then, had con­tributed by its consequences to raise still higher the repute of Pericles both as statesman and commander, while it removed his only competitor in military distinction. There is no evidence that Tolmides had ever exercised direct influ­ence over the assembly, and Thucydides son of Melesias, from whom chiefly opposition there was still to be expected, is equally unheard of in the field. Against this rival the success of Pericles could not long be doubtful : it was not to be secured without a struggle; but as the trusted leader of democracy, he was on the advancing flood which no aristocratical skill and combination could long withstand.

Even in the absence of direct testimony we can scarcely err in associating with Pericles in the merit of this grand convention the name of king Archidamus on the part of Sparta; he was united with him by ties of hospitality,—is attested by Thucydides as a man of good sense and mode­ration, and his conduct after the earthquake and during the Messenian war had raised him to the height of influence. Even when his voice in favour of peace was at last over­borne by the peremptory ephorate, he postponed, when com­manding in the field, the fatal recommencement of hostilities as long as possible and hoping against hope.

In the meantime a breathing space of fourteen years was now gained for Hellas with a reversion of priceless advantage for the world, for therein were achieved under the admin­istration of Pericles, the noblest triumphs of Attic genius. Then passion and greed, as they have so often since, were again to commit nations pretending to be examples to man­kind, to the brutalising vulgarity of deciding differences by a hand-to-hand scuffle and personal violence, — by the de­grading and delusive lottery of war.

CHAPTER XL.

SPARTA AND ATHENS.—THE CONDITIONS AND GENIUS OF OLIGARCHY AND DEMOCRACY.

The position and influence of Sparta had received from of old an acceptance in Hellas which was due to recognition of her stability and vastly predominant power. The basis of these was secured by conditions of social organisation that could not be adopted elsewhere, as indeed no other state of Hellas would under any inducement have consented to submit to ¹ them, and then by some special if accidental advantages. Among the latter geographical position is pre-eminent; the southernmost of the Greek states, Lacedaemon, was guarded by an extended but most inhospitable seaboard, which no­where afforded easy access to the interior, and even least of all at the entrance to her chief valley at the embouchure of the Eurotas. The steep mountain ranges of Parnon and Taygetus fence this valley on either side, and are prolonged like bastions in rocky promontories. Inland again to the north, the frontier towards Arcadia and Argos was peculiarly defensible, especially after it was contracted by the conquest of the district Cynuria to the east of Parnon. Under these circumstances the dispensing with walls to Sparta,—which was seated moreover in a carefully selected strong position,— was in truth a matter less of bravado than of brag.

¹ Xen. Laced. E. x. 8.

The confirmed acquisition of the fertile and more open Messenia was all-important as providing a broader area for population and supply, and this too, covered as the country mainly was by the consecrated neutrality of the adjacent Elis, with no additional frontier difficulty; a terri­tory was thus rounded off which was equivalent in extent to any three or four other states of Peloponnesus together, especially as these were for the most part weakened by further political subdivisions. When the government of which Sparta itself was the immediate seat, had extin­guished all political power among the provincial towns over such an appropriated area, it achieved oligarchically the same force of concentration which an Athenian legis­lator had compassed in another spirit by making the civic franchise of Athens co-extensive with Attica.

Such was the position which made the Lyeurgean institutions possible in the first instance, and augmented their force when established. In these we need have no hesitation in tracing, even apart from traditions, the dealings of a tribe of warlike conquerors with dangerous subjects, whose obstinacy had compelled to constant watchfulness and repression, and then the tightening of discipline within that tribe again by an interior oligarchy. That the final definition was given to these institutions by the resolute will and influence of a single statesman, can as little be reasonably called in question; the tradition also that the Delphic oracle aided him collusively, is in harmony w^Tith the authority which it exercises at Sparta in far later times, and particularly with the help which was expected from it, to a plot for remodelling the constitution, by a politician of the stamp of Lysander.

The realised schcme as it is known to us, with all its unsparing contravention of human inclinations and most universal, not to say most admirable, instincts, betrays as decided a confidence in the power of stringent institution

when abetted by superstition, to mould submissive humanity into any form however extravagant, monstrous and repugnant, as ever was entertained by an Ignatius Loyola.

That the monarchical authority was resident in families of Achaian not Dorian origin, was in favour of the coherence of the strictly national oligarchy, while the concurrent kingship of members of two branches weakened the oppor­tunities of a power which was never destined to receive reinforcement from exceptional personal endowments. The master-keys of the state remained therefore with an exclusive class, which possessing all the jealous acuteness and un­scrupulousness of the Venetian nobles, was as successful in maintaining a permanent political constitution; the success was purchased however in either case at the cost of almost all that politicians, who are better interested for the better interests of national life, hold dear. Of that healthy constitutional permanence which resident within gives not merely supporting framework to a state, but a vital energy which enables it to pass from one stage of truly progressive development to another, the Lacedaemonian constitution shows no trace. Stability was gained by the condition of immobility, and hence when such a government was brought into entirely novel relations, and had to maintain itself against the discontents and restlessness encouraged by altered circumstances, no other help was resorted to than deeds and treacheries which in cold-blooded systematised cruelty, like the policy of Venice or the Roman papacy, cast the doubtless deplorable but comparatively passionate and inconsistent atrocities of rivals into the shade.

If the legislation of Sparta deliberately put a strain on human nature to the utmost limit of endurance, at Athens the experiment was pursued with a daring and originality even more striking, to prove that social order and an effi­ciently administered government are compatible with the very frankest concession of liberty. Among the numberless

constitutional experiments of the numberless independent Hellenic cities,—experiments of which the practical side was already very frequently affected by speculation,—the aspi­ration for liberty was ever a motive power, and gradually hovered around an ideal of perfect democracy. The claim of the Hellenic citizen as free and equal, was to feel himself habitually independent of all control whatever, or certainly of all that he was not himself entitled to exercise in duly recur­ring turn over others. Every office was therefore to be open to every citizen, with the fewest possible exceptions of those for which special qualifications were manifestly indispensable; and the distribution of offices by lot, and the attachment of pay to public duties went far to countervail the influence and opportunities of the wealthy. Consistently with this primary conception, which moved on rapidly at Athens to its realisation, it was the function of true liberty which con­sisted with democracy alone, to ensure to every freeman not only exemption from personal constraint and the right to live as he pleased, but participation and a direct voice in all public business—in the most important chiefly and above all.

These principles were pushed to the extreme when the ecclesia or public assembly of free citizens arrogated the power of initiating public measures and deciding on public policy by vote, independently of the authorisation of any preconcerting Council, and of subsequent confirmation by another body.

The arbitrary exercise of such powers, in the absence of control of a healthy public spirit or under the stimulus of eloquent ignorance or unprincipled talent, would evidently amount to the abrogation of all constitutional restraint what­ever. Democracy when it arrives at this pitch, says Aris­totle, is equivalent to a tyranny, and what sycophants are to individual tyrants, demagogues,—factious orators,—become to the tyrannous multitude.

It is after having already laid down that true equality, the admitted essence of democracy, demands that no class should J be allowed to deal unfairly by another, that Aristotle opens the enquiry whether this might not be attained by the con­signment of supreme authority,—which in the hands of the rich becomes tyranny, in those of the poor ends in confis­cation or in oppression of the still more defenceless,—to the preponderance of collective property instead of to a simple numerical majority. On this system the property of the fewer rich and of the more numerous poor being taken into account together, the result would effect the assignment of political power in the combined ratio of wealth or taxation, and numbers. The principle is the same that is applied systematically when taxpayers are classed as in Prussia, and a small wealthy college chooses as many electors as another more numerous but poorer; and it has been by no means dis­regarded in the distribution of representation between England and Ireland at the Union, or among boroughs and counties by successive Reform Acts. Some such principle of adjust­ment must needs be resorted to, whether avowedly and candidly or not, but it is obvious how inevitable adjustments in application may wisely or unwisely affect the ultimate outcome. The distributions of wealth and the groupings of population may of themselves be such as to hamper the wisest, or may give inviting opportunity to sinister intentions. It is but with words of deep despondency that Aristotle con­cludes, ‘ Difficult however as it may be to discover the truth respecting Justice and Equality in politics, it would still be easier to succeed in doing so than to influence those who can take what course they choose ; for while the weak are alw^Tays clamorous for equality and justice, those who happen to have power in possession as constantly disregard them entirely/ The philosopher, therefore, is not more sanguine as to the practicability of his theoretically best expedient for social order, than the historian Thucydides as to the cessation of the

atrocities of war and faction, ‘ so long as lmman nature must continue what it is/

AVe can scarcely be surprised that the speculative politician, who owns himself foiled by the problem in the simpler form, does not, even after a valuable extension of experience, enter­tain the question of framing a political system which would have met the difficulties of an Athenian statesman in the posi­tion of Pericles; the task in this case was certainly burdensome enough; it was nothing less than to harmonise the largest conception of municipal liberty and equality with the adminis­tration of a confederacy that—spontaneously 01* otherwise— had declined into an empire ; but he had still farther to reconcile as he might, or take the eonscquences of failure, the uncompromising aspiration for liberty which pervaded all the cities under Athenian control with the arbitrary au­thority which was claimed, no less uncompromisingly, as an attribute of their own liberty by the Athenians themselves.

The qualifications of Sparta for empire were far more hope­less than those of Athens. Once more she had held fast by the traditional guarantees of her power, and acted in prudent accordance with Lyeurgean maxims in not pressing advan­tages over-far, in husbanding force, declining protracted and remote warfare, and withdrawing her citizens from foreign sympathies and contact with foreign manners.

These maxims could only come violently into collision with the necessities of a series of ever extending campaigns ; and if Sparta were to accept such challenge it was inevitable that she must soon retire in the interest of her institutions, or persevere only at the expense of their ruin, whether under the simple strain or through the enterprise of such patriotic spirits as Brasidas or Agesilaus, not to say the treason of a Pausanias or Lysander.

I11 the nature of things, therefore, the success of Sparta in conflict with the projects of Athens was certain to con­summate the ruin of both.

CHAPTEK XLI.

With the administration of Athenian democracy by Peri­cles history opens its most resplendent page, the page which should be most resplendent if the historian were competent to do justice to what records of its incidents — unhappily too scanty—have been preserved and recovered. Essentially by birth and by predilections a Eupatrid, Pericles was the chosen and trusted guide of at once the most pure and the most important democratic government the world had ever,—nay has ever seen, and which owed this qualifica­tion at last, very importantly, to himself. What it achieved under his guidance, what he achieved by command of its councils and resources, it has taxed the best powers of the best critics and the best historians, both of politics and of the arts, to tell. What failure such a career and such a system were liable to is a more painful but not less instruc­tive story.

The murder of Ephialtes was more likely to give aid than hindrance to him in carrying through his great measure of the payment of the citizens for their attendance at public duties. According to ¹ Plutarch, quoting the authority of Aristotle from a lost treatise, it was with the aid of a certain Demonides, of the deme Oea, that he instituted both the

¹ Plut. V. Perie. 9. H

Theoric allowance on occasions of public festivity, and the Dicastica or payments for service as juror. The extant political treatise of Aristotle gives the valuable information that it was independently of Ephialtes, and therefore no doubt after his death, that he originated the ¹ latter, very possibly by aid of the reaction promoted by that atrocity; the term employed—the Dicastica—applies in strictness only to pay­ment for attendance of jurors on trials, but it seems highly probable that we are to understand it here as the due for attendances on all public duties, including and especially the ceclesia. In a previous ² passage he ascribes the reduced au­thority of the Areopagus and elective magistracies, to the en­croachment of the dicasteries, without mention of the ecclesia, which certainly assumed a large share of transferred autho­rity. The inference appears to be that he, at least occasion­ally, applies the term clicasterion to the whole body of free citizens, as inclusive of the large proportion of them who might happen to be dicasts for the year, but who were equally entitled to take part in the general and legislative business of the ecclesia. The matter must probably remain uncertain, but the only consequence of assuming that the ecclesiasticon,— the proper payment for attendance at the ecclesia,—originated at a different time, would be to leave us in the uncertainty whether this was a little earlier or a little later.

The distribution of the surplus revenues of the state among the citizens was not without precedent at Athens ; as early as the commencement of the career of Themistocles the balance of proceeds of the Laurian silver mines had been so disposed of, and the same principle was applied in drawing on the public treasury for the expenses of public spectaclcs, the distribution of meat at public sacrifices, the expenditure on sacred processions and on dramatic entertainments that were recognised as pertaining to sacred celebrations, the appropriate

enjoyments of all. The demus was now not slack to regard the treasure of the confederation as liable to bear its part even in like charges, as well as in others more connected with the conduct of public business. The command of this fund was the remuneration to Athens for services in past rescue and insurance of continued security. It was fitting that those who had borne the heat and burden of the day should have their solid reward; these were the men of Salamis, — the men of Salamis who, in contrast to the Ionians and islanders, had preferred giving up their city to desolation to saving it by a submission that involved lending assistance towards the enslavement of nobler ¹ compatriots, who were as indefatigable as ever, and might be relied on as equal to any new emer­gency. As regarded the diversion of the fund to remuneration of the dicasts, in this was to be recognised a novel extension of the patriotic precedent which had been set by Themistocles; and as he had diverted a surplus from the mere enhancement of private ease or pleasure to a public purpose,—the construc­tion of a fleet which was the saving of Hellas,—so Pericles appropriated a portion to the benefit of the demus indeed, but to their benefit in return for the devotion of their time to public service.

The demus thus supported made good a gradual extension of its power. That the return to the public service was really and largely beneficial is highly probable; but otherwise the measure doubtless had a truly revolutionary aspect,—revo­lutionary, in one sense, as modifying importantly the pre­vious distribution of power in the state, though in another sense the reverse, as introducing a constitutional settlement which long asserted itself with efficiency and vigour. It was by its operation chiefly that the legislative and judicial, and even to a considerable extent the ordinary administrative proceedings of the state, were gradually engrossed by the

citizens in assembly, including even the poorest who by the state payments became enabled, and were even more ready than other classes, to give attendance and vote. Solon long ago had admitted the demus to both ecclesia and dicasteries, and they had since secured several advances; but the use made of such privilege would depend upon what average class was most assiduous in attendance. The poorest citizens would necessarily grudge time that they could so ill spare from their occupations ; the dwellers in the country would find attendance inconvenient; the rich might have large private interests to engross them, but they had stronger motives to concern themselves with public business, and many means, as in the case of Cimon, of strengthening the votes of their partisans. Aristotle admits us into the secret of the strata­gems of some aristocracies for making concessions like those of Solon and Cleisthenes ¹ nugatory. By ostensible indulgence to the needy, the rich were fined more heavily, or even ex­clusively, for non-attendance; office-holding, with its inci­dental burdens and sacrifices, was made obligatory on the rich but not on the poor; and the poor were further induced to forfeit all the value of their political privilege by an oppor­tunity of escaping obligation to serve and consequent liability to fine, by omitting to register, The institution of payment for attendance on such public duties was therefore a leading stroke of democratical counter-policy, which told with extra­ordinary effect.

It is difficult and probably impossible to disentangle all the testimonies respecting the forms and functions of the dicastery in the larger sense, or to fill up even plausibly the sequence of their modifications.

The constitution of the Council and the Courts however as they were fixed about this time, may be traced in broad outline. Every year six thousand citizens of those over thirty years of age—the same age that originally admitted to the

¹        Ariet. Polit. iv. 11.

ecclesia,—were drawn by lot, six hundred from each phyle or tribe, but from all classes indifferently. These were the jurymen — dicasts or Heliasts, by an ancient title derived from the assembling in the open air. One thousand of the number were in reserve as substitutes in cases of death or absence from any cause; the rest were divided again by lot and without regard to tribes into ten divisions, dicasteria, of five hundred each. The lot determined also the distribution of suits to be tried, and assigned the several dicasts for each, a manifest security for litigants. The juries varied in numbers, scarcely were ever less than two hundred, and on important occasions we read of as many as two thousand, or even the entire number of six thousand.

It is manifest that such numbers could not be spared from their private concerns even occasionally without remuneration, and, as the pressure of business increased, the demand upon them occupied whatever time was left free by the interruption of the numerous festivals. The occupation fell in wonderfully with the humour of the Athenian; it was not only that the emolument satisfied and suited him, but he delighted in excitement, in the intellectual exercise, and sometimes only with too great a relish, in the sense of power. Aristophanes in the ‘Wasps⁵ gives what is no doubt a studiously exaggerated picture of whatever was absurd or weak or wrong in the average dicast, but his satire is con­firmed in too many points by the tenor of many of the ex­tant appeals which were addressed to them. It is perfectly intelligible, even from the history of the Courts at West­minster competing rapaciously for business, how willingly the dicasteries and the permanent officials of the courts grasped at wide and ever wider jurisdiction. By degrees political jealousy of the independence of the allies, combined with some admixture of well-founded jealousy as to the treatment of Athenian partisans in provincial courts, led to a general exaction of the reference of suits to Athens for settlement,

and so ultimately to accumulations of arrears in business, and to that discontent with the law’s delay which sinks deeper, as it is frequently more costly, even than injustice, and inflicts anxiety and loss on both the litigants.

But though ¹ Aristotle confirms the charge of Aristo­phanes that the sweetness of the first fee of tw^ro obols whetted the appetites of the most numerous class of the sovereign people which at last became inordinate, it must not be supposed that confirmation of demagogic influence was the sole motive, or the grasp of public moneys by the dicasts the sole result of these changes. There is every appearance, and in fact a positive testimony by an un­friendly critic, .that their numerousness conduced to more independent, uninfluenced, and therefore juster ² decisions ; shorter trials and prompter decisions were probably favoured at first, before the press of business became unmanageable, by the competence of the courts to deal with cases once for nil; while the comparative fewness and brevity of the laws gave free opening for common sense and common honesty, which often have but poor chances in the interlacing jungle of systems of procedure and conflicting jurisdictions and pedantic limitations of evidence. That injustice was not sometimes suffered through undue precipitancy is not to be supposed, but even so it would be the occasional price paid for escape from scandalously clumsy processes of eliciting truth which even when successful involve a virtual penalty and lingering misery. Of old, as now, of course the aver­age dicast had passions and prejudices of his own which litigants had to make the best or tried to make the worst of, and of old as now no ingenuity of organisation or pro­cedure could make up for lack of purity in the moral, or elevation in the intellectual standard.

So it was that by the vast social change that was con-

sequent on the policy of which Pericles was the leading spirit, the life of the Athenian citizen of even the poorest station was one of constant activity and excitement, was crowded with occupations of business relieved at intervals by amusements that only gave less exercise to his intellect because chiefly appealing to his imagination, his sense of the sublime, the beautiful, the witty, and the humorous. And so it was, says Plutarch, that Pericles contrived to make the public money available in substitution of the private munificence of Cimon. But Cimon and his party appear thus to be at least as responsible as Pericles for any mischiefs that were inherent in the new system. The payment of a citizen’s expenses, the compensation for his loss of time, when given by a private person was inevitably a bribe, and for the public to undertake the charge was really the only means of emancipating dicasts in the public interest and escaping the abuses of a packed assembly. The franchise had been conceded on the widest terms and was clearly irrevocable, and the choice lay between a majority bought beforehand and the chance of a majority that had at least the opportunity and it might be fairly hoped the sense, of independence. Peculiar advantages would no doubt attach to assemblies composed of citizens who had leisure to spare from the occupations either of poverty or property, or were willing to make a sacrifice out' of public spirit, but the days of such, if they ever existed, had gone by, and the problem of the present day was dealt with in the best, in perhaps the only, way available.

For a complete understanding of how it was that a con­stitution which included so many elements of irregularity as the Athenian, went on working even as long as it did with such a measure of smoothness and efficiency, we should require far more details than can be learned either directly or by inference from the histories and historic notices that remain. The popular assembly—the ecclesia—was open not

only to whatever citizens might be on the lists of sworn dicasts for the year, but of all indiscriminately who found it convenient to attend. As time went on and the passion for direct control of public affairs increased, it engrossed more and more power, exercised control more and more immediately and irresponsibly. The Council still subsisted, still was to an even important extent a pre-considering body, and had other important functions, but it never appears as able or attempting to hamper the general assembly. This Council of five hundred consisted of fifty members from each of the ten tribes, above thirty years old, elected by lot independently of property qualifications. It was paid for attendance; and its sittings, which were almost daily, were with few exceptions public. Seclusion of a Council so numerous would obviously have made little difference. The ten tribes took turns through the year in an order determined by lot for their fifty members of the council to exercise for rather more than a month the functions of Prytanes. During this term they were the members more especially on duty, very probably in respect of the peculiar business of the council. Otherwise we have little specified except that they summoned meetings of the Council and demus, and seem to have had some control of the police of the city. One of their number was elected daily by lot as Epistates or president of the assembly, and was for so long custodian of the keys of the treasury and the archives. The Prytanes would thus be the proper channel of communication between the Council and the ecclesia.

To the Council so constituted—drawn by lot and changing annually—was committed the important duty of checking and controlling all financial matters, the receipt of the public revenue from whatever sources, and its expenditure. It was to the Council that despatches of generals and ambassadors were presented, in the first instance, and that foreign ambas­sadors addressed themselves, and it was natural and necessary, in pursuance of this primary cognizance of the most important

affairs of state, that the Council should arrange what busi­ness, at least what business primarily, was brought before the assembly and in what form.

These functions as described in such general terms, seem to imply something approaching to supreme direction of public business, and that as much by the faculty of shaping beforehand what was submitted for approval or rejection by the assembly, as by the prerogative of using discretion to withhold some altogether. But in the times we have arrived at, the privileges of the Council were but shells or shadows of those of the institution which Solon looked to as one of his mooring anchors. The changes which had since been introduced into its constitution, whatever their nature, had certainly and uniformly contracted its powers and favoured the constant encroachment upon them by the frequent assembling of the ecclesia. Under ordinary circumstances it is clear that the Council was competent not to decide, but only to digest business for the consideration and decision of the great council of the demus. The casual appointment of the members and their constant changes and successions effectually precluded the exceptional talent of an individual from recovering and sustaining its importance. The oppor­tunity however of temporary conspicuousness and dignity which membership distributed so widely through the com­munity, was no doubt highly valued, and occasional admission to personal contact with the very arcana of state proceedings and policy had great interest; but in effect both Council and Prytanes were responsible committees of the ecclesia, and only touched the most important public business to reduce it to a form in which it could be summarily discussed and dealt with by the all-powerful demus. To the ecclesia they even introduced ambassadors in person, to the ecclesia communicated despatches textually; and it may be assumed as certain, that the demus was as jealous of any important independent action or decision on their part, as the House

of Commons of any tampering with a money bill by the House of Lords.

For the machinery of a government so constituted to work with ease and efficiency,—for the conduct both of general policy and of administration with its infinity of details, to march with even moderate harmony and energy, it seems necessary that two chief supplementary conditions should be present, of which the first is an establishment of permanent officials from clerks even to chiefs of considerable departments, who by familiarity with the course of extensive transactions in all their details and interdependence, by knowledge of individuals, and special experience, are necessary to superiors with transitory tenure of office, and in fact indispensable for the very guidance of those to whom in name they are absolutely responsible.

In the second place, it would appear that neither the decision, nor the sustained conduct of a large policy of principle, was to be hoped for, unless opportunity was afforded by the effective, if not the designed adjustment of institutions, for the retention of consistent governing power by some leading mind. This was provided in a limited degree by the existence of certain offices, which were re­cognised as demanding peculiar and exceptional qualifica­tions, such especially as that of Strategus or General, which therefore were filled by direct appointment, inde­pendently of the lot, and to which repeated re-election was admissible. It is known also that on certain occasions the jealous restriction of the powers of the Council was relaxed, whether independently, or in conjunction with per­manent and specially appointed officials. At the very com­mencement of the Peloponnesian war we find that Pericles, in virtue of his office of Strategus, exercises his discretion as to calling together the public assembly; and it is probable that even in peace there were some offices—even that of Strategus amongst them—which gave the holder influence

or command in the appointment of colleagues or subordinates, through which the demus delegated a proportion of its cherished power to trusted ministers, of which the tampering with the lists of conscription adverted to by Aristophanes, was but a moderate abuse. Only by the commanding in­fluence of an individual character, better still as supported by a class in sympathy, can any degree of steadiness in conduct and policy be attained in a state in which the ulti- ^ mate power lies with a numerous and popular assembly. The leader or chief may be recognised as such only indis­tinctly,—may be marked out by no official title, may be superseded from time to time and more or less frequently, but to the leader for the time being must necessarily be conceded, as such a leader indeed constantly knows how to exact, considerable freedom of action and—quite as impor­tant—the right. and precedence of initiation. Intelligence and consistency of purpose in the appointing or supporting assembly may countervail the disturbing effects of many changes, may even go far to make up by judiciousness in changes for the shortcomings of the individuals from whom it is reduced to select; but this judiciousness is rather to be looked for from an aristocratical body like a Roman senate, than from a democracy like the Athenian, which is ever much more at the mercy of the clever incapacity and un­principled fluency of which Nicias was so fatally in ¹ dread, unless a mind of higher order is vouchsafed to arrest its con­fidence and save it from its sycophants and from itself.

In republican Athens not only was the autocratical difficulty of hereditary monarchy long gone by, forgotten, but the still not quite unsubstantial form of privileged power in the influence of noble birth, was rapidly on the decline; the choice of leaders was therefore open to the ^ demus, and the merit must not be entirely ascribed even to

the skill and genius of Pericles, if he retained his position so long as their trusted guide and adviser. But it was proved too soon and even before his departure, how large a share of the glory was due to the unreplaced endowments of the individual. His power is ascribed by Thucydides as much to his moral as to his supreme intellectual qualifications. We hear unfortunately but little of his coadjutors, so scanty is our information as to the details of his administration; except in the case of Ephialtes we have only representative names, and of those but few; it is much if the notice occurs how seriously he suffered by the ravages among them through the pestilence. Coadjutors of no ordinary ability and of de­votion he must have had; still, so mainly by his own genius did he shape the policy of the country, digest the business for the approval of the demus, and conduct administration, that as Thucydides remarks, what nominally was a democracy was in fact a government by the head man of it, a govern­ment not acquired by assentation, but based on thoroughly merited respect for independence, dignity, and foresight.

It is as futile as it is unfair to seek in the miseries of the ensuing period for an unqualified indictment against either the democracy which Pericles ordered and organised, or the aristocracy that still hoped to recover its ancient predomi­nance; it is something worse to palliate or slur over the crimes either of one party or another in the interest of an argument. ^Athens was great by the genius and energy of its people, which could only have had free scope for develop­' ment under the conditions of their unlimited political free­dom, and under the condition also of happily possessing and appreciating a leader in Pericles, who was capable of sympathising with the best qualities of democracy, while himself imbued with the refined tastes, the lofty aspirations and the superiority to corruption that characterise an ideal aristocracy/ It was the failure of a succession of such men that was fatal to Athens. Thucydides is constantly cited,

and fairly enough, as a witness against the demus, but his repugnance can scarcely on a general view be said to counter­vail his admiration. And his most serious denouncement at last is not of the people at large but of a class. He distinctly ascribes all the mischiefs of unscrupulous and embittered faction to the greed and ambition of the leading men in the several cities, whether professedly democratic or oligarchic, —he makes no distinction. It was the pretence of one set to assert the political equality of the multitude, of the other the privilege or pre-eminence of a mild and moderate aristocracy, but both in fact made the public a prize and a prey, became more and more contentious, more fierce and cruel towards each other, and whenever they succeeded in seizing power, whether violently or by a furtive vote, set no limits to vindictive animosity. With these men considerations of reverence or piety were none. The very best reputation that was aspired to pretended to no more than having at any rate employed a fair-sounding pretext in compassing a sinister end. The intermediate orders of citizens were harried by both sides, if not as partisans in the quarrel, then out of grudge that any should stand apart indifferent and have a chance to escape ¹ scot-free.

The contrast between Herodotus and Thucydides, contem­poraries as they were, is scarcely less and in some important points not much other than between Froissart and David Hume; but both discern with equal clearness that in the selfish blindness of the chief leaders of policy in her cities lay the peril of² Hellas.

It was in consequence of the rancour which was infused by the worst promoters of this fundamental class-antagonism, that the difficulty of the problem for Athens in her newly admitted and accepted position, was so seriously exaggerated by the attitude of Sparta. Notwithstanding the turn of

recent events, Sparta still retained the feeling’s of a power unduly overshadowed and superseded, and was not only looked up to by the Dorian cities, but also, throughout the length and breadth of Hellas, regarded as the natural ulti­mate refuge of oligarchy. The Hellenic race, for all its com­mon genius, common language, and common festivals, was very far from homogeneous, and in addition to the deeply seated tribal and traditional difference of Dorian and Ionian, there was this still deeper and more diffusive principle of disruption permeating society itself, and ever threatening unsettlement of the most equally advantageous treaties.

The only issue that a Homan, standing in place of either Spartan or Athenian, would have contemplated for sueh a hampering opposition, would have been absolute conquest, and if necessary or even if not so, the merciless extirpation of the rival. But the wars between the Greeks at last were civil wars, and civil wars, though they have horrors all their own, have also ever some redeeming clemencies. There is still a difference between a contest to disable or even dis­member, and a fight to the death. If it was due to this difference, however, that the conquered were never left with­out hope of recovery, it was also due that every compromise was precarious in duration and could only be maintained by very exceptional wisdom, cither in the form of just moder­ation or by creating an impression perhaps more or less fac­titious, of the resistless resources and energy with which any infraction of terms would without fail be visited.

CHAPTER XLII.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF PERICLES IN PEACE.----- THUCYDIDES

SON OF MELESIAS.—'THE SCRUTINY OF CITIZENSHIP.

B.C. 445-441.

Diodorus notes, under the archon Diphilus (442-41 B.C.), that the world was in the enjoyment of universal peace. The Persians were under treaty with Athens with respect to the Hellenic cities in Asia; the peace for thirty years was sub­sisting between Athens and Sparta; Western Hellas was equally at rest by the pacification of Syracuse and Agri- gentum, of Sicily and Carthage; Italy, Gaul, and Spain were quiet. The records of the human race at large were free for a time from tales of war and bloodshed; an interval occurred when it remained for peace to furnish happier inci­dents of varied and often dignified importance,—the festive assemblages for competitions in arts and the contests in public games, periodical solemnities and sacrifices to the merciful gods, the extension of intercourse by travel and commerce, vicissitudes of taste, advance of knowledge, and whatever pertains and conduces to the truer nobleness and happiness of mankind.

The suspension of hostilities between Sparta and Athens was destined to last only for fourteen out of the stipulated thirty years, but these fourteen years of peace, preceded as

they had been by eight of comparative tranquillity, form one of the most important periods in the history of civilisation; within limits even so narrow of exemption from disturbance, were comprised a development of art and a progressive eleva­tion of the most refined faculties of mind up to a pitch that has set a mark to be emulated by all future ages. By the Athenians in these years, it may be quite as just to say, as also to the Athenians and amongst them, examples were displayed of which the beneficial influence is moulding our being at this day, and would have done so in some degree effectively by virtual transmission of power, though the works themselves had perished ; surviving as these do—fragmentary, mutilated, but still how abundantly,—in literature, in marble, in de­scription, they remain most potent agencies to kindle and rekindle the disinterested enthusiasm for truth and beauty that more or less should be the light for every man who comes into the world.

From this point of view as well as politically, a most important result of the peace for Athens was the decided establishment of the authority of Pericles; and his adminis­tration of the peace goes far to explain how he could have emerged with even enhanced power from such a sea of trou­bles as had swept over his country, at a time when he was among the chief at the head of its affairs. That he did so is almost the only, but in itself sufficient, proof how little the disasters had been brought on through his advice and faulty guidance; while the rescue of Attica and the reconquest of Euboea were his work entirely. The checked but still vigorous ambition of Athens was now disposed, was recon­ciled, to rely on a prudent rather than a rash adviser, and well inclined to make the best of a position which was soon discovered to have been only reduced in extent to be more secure and more absolute than ever ; it was soon found that no check of importance had been given by these reverses to the march of events by which Athens was already rising above

all the multitudinous cities of Hellas,—of the world,—as an example to the nations how to live, a demonstration for the first time of the height of excellence that human life in society is capable of attaining to. Wealth, and the materials for the very best enjoyments that wealth can conduce to, had been rapidly accumulating in Hellas under protection of the security and peace which were due to Athenian supremacy, and had poured with greatest abundance into the city that was the very heart of the energetic organism; and now it was that painting, sculpture and architecture developed into such rapid and brilliant bloom that no expenditure could be lavished on the outburst of creative genius unworthily, while all the arts were united with the poetic drama on the stage of Aeschylus and Sophocles, of Crates and Cratinus.

Pericles himself, though no mean commander—in the course of his career he raised nine trophies for victories by sea and ¹ land—was also a statesman of the highest class; and by the happiest, by indeed the very rarest of all coin­cidences, although a soldier, statesman and politician, he was endowed with more than a respect, with even more than a sincere love for the arts—in fact with a taste as correct and elevated as it was enthusiastic,— the apanage of a nature that could retain sensibility for original truth and beauty, undeadened by the usually vulgarising influences of the eager pursuit and practical exercise of political power. Even at Athens so exquisite a combination of qualities did not gain unembarrassed opportunities without contest and difficulty. An attempt was made after the death of Cimon to reconstruct the aristocratical party, and politicians too obstinate to resign their cherished maxims as hopelessly obsolete, made biddings for support from the lingering pre­judice for archaism in art, to strengthen the attack. The alliance failed, as we shall see, and Pericles, though destined

to suffer at a later time from a renewed political assault envenomed by artistic jealousy, went on and went far to reduce to actuality his ideal of a state; by his guidance and management the world beheld for a time a community inspired through every class, with intelligence and energy, together with lively unaffected sentiment for style in art the most refined and lofty, the most varied and elaborate; with passionate love for the beautiful, and, at the same time, with public spirit unrelaxed and temperate amena­bility to reason and to discipline.

Pericles survived the peace, which was concluded about April 445 B.C., until the autumn of 429 B.C., or about sixteen years and a half, of which period we read, that during fifteen years he was without a rival to contest the supreme direction of Athenian 'affairs. Athens, nominally and in form a democracy, was in fact wielded at will for this term, by the energy and genius of a single statesman, who commanded confidence by superiority to corruption and deference, by his dignity and independent ² self-respect. The last opponent by whom his position was seriously threatened or modified, now the days of Tolmides, of Cimon, of Myronides and Leocrates were past, was Thucydides, son of Melesias. He was a relative and adherent of Cimon, but escapes mention until the death of Cimon, though, apparently, he was then already of advanced ³ years. Possessing no share of military or naval distinction, he was a home-keeping politician, but exceedingly formidable by his power as an orator, to which his high character gave value, though, even so, and on his own exclusive ground, he was no match at last for Pericles ; of whom he complained as a wrestler who, however manifestly thrown, could always convince the bystanders to the contrary, against the evidence of all their senses. But the power of Thucydides was not exercised solely on the bema; he had

remarkable skill in uniting and organising a party, and in giving effect to its operations during debate. He brought all the kaloi W agathoi into communication, and instructed and induced them to act upon system and in concert, in countervailing the democracy. No unimportant part of the tactics that he instituted seems to have had reference to assiduity of attendance as well as to united voting; he arranged for the prompt and persistent following up of opponents with speeches in reply, and systematised even the clamours and interruptions, which in a numerous public meet­ing often give waverers a false impression of the prevailing feeling of the auditory at large, and sometimes disconcert an unwary orator.

The leading, or at least the ostensible, principle of the party of Thucydides, was the revival of the policy of Cimon, again in opposition and contrast to that of Pericles, which there was some opportunity of connecting with the humiliations and the odium that the city had recently incurred. The experience of the recently indicated tendency among nominal allies to disintegrate, and so ultimately ruin, empire, was not to be thrown away. The Athenian demus, so it was asserted, was in ill repute all over Hellas, as giving in to all the insolence and malversation that are characteristic of tyrannies. The beginning of the mischief—of the in­justice—had been the removal of the common treasure of the confederation from Delos to Athens, under pretext of security, but to the effect of misappropriation; aggressive 'war against the Mede was now virtually suspended,—this was the burden of complaint of the Lesbians at a later ^Tdate,—and the common fund was being unfairly applied to the amuse­ments and decorations of Athens; and what decorations ? Money, willingly contributed by the allies for support of war when hostilities against Persia were a necessity and

a fact, is now, it was said, only exacted to be squandered on gold and bedizenments which are giving to the city the semblance of a tawdry over-dressed woman, hung about with jewels and trinkets,—is lavished and wasted on statues and temples costing a thousand talents ¹ each.

A famine, or at least a scarcity that had ensued upon the peace and perhaps helped to its conclusion, was not in itself calculated to bring composure to the public mind, when the grievousness of its conditions became more irritating as con­gratulations at escape from a worse fate lost their consolatory power by habit; a large present of corn which opportunely arrived from Psammetiehus, who still maintained himself against Persia on the borders of Libya, was no doubt accom­panied, whether it had been ² solicited or not, by application for renewed assistance; and so the question was directly reopened, whether the enterprise cut short by the death of Cimon should again be prosecuted in his spirit.

Against such distant enterprises, whether to Egypt or, as others w^rere already urging, towards Italy and Sicily, Pericles argued with all his force and ³ authority. He could not but forbode that a Dorian war w^rould sooner or later have to be encountered,—he declared that he saw the stormclouds gathering over Peloponnesus. In the meantime, remoter acquisitions must be foregone, for the sake of consolidation and development of the power in hand and the ‘taking advantage of the noble position which Athens still held to strengthen influence, to brace vigour, to accumulate resources and appliances for a war, which was certainly threatened, if still remote, and of vital importance. As regards the allies, their carping and their querulousness, Athens had undertaken to give them protection against the barbarian, without calling upon them for horse, or ship, or hoplite, but money payment only; the protection bargained for was fully

given, and this responsibility acquitted, the further disposal of the money was no affair of the contributories ; it was at the discretion of Athens, and of Athens alone. A treasure was a necessary element in a state of preparation for war, no less than a provision of stores and arms, of ships and arsenals, and crews trained and exercised,—crews which must be paid, of course, and deserved to be so liberally. And beyond this, Athens, and all classes of her citizens, was entitled to reward for the benefits which had been secured to Hellas at large, by her patriotism and energy. The expenditure of the city again, on art and works of art, was not waste in any sense; the renown of these was some­thing that was not to be treated as futile or transitory; and if the garrisons, the sailors, the fighting population had their share of the well-earned national wealth, another flowed as fairly to the population at large. The leading artists were themselves like the generals, whose emoluments were exempt from cavil, and in the execution of their great works were each at the head of a numerous army of artificers of various grades, and diversified skill and occupation; in this manner no age was left idle, no accomplishment or natural endowment without its opportunity and employment, no talent without a career; and so the advantages derivable from these great works permeated, as freely as justifiably, the entire community.

When we consider the marvellous outburst of genius that at this time distinguished Athens, and brought arts suddenly not alone to a great advance but in fact to absolute per­fection,—perfection at least never since surpassed,—we cannot but be grateful even to this day that the passion and the power should so have united in Pericles, that he resolved to take all risks, rather than they should be starved at the eve of maturity. Nations of excessive wealth in later days, have dissipated far greater resources in extravagant con­sumption or vulgar elaboration of commonplace comforts,

—in idle amusements and sports when not in sensuality,— in unintelleetual or clumsy when not in tawdry and offensive ostentation—on anything* at any time but real science and genuine art, if not on miscreations w^Thich make what pre­tends to be art and intercepts its due resources and rewards, a burden and an abomination to its witnesses and a byword throughout the world.

And if the Athenian empire became, before the death of Pericles, as Thucydides admits, intolerably irritating and odious throughout Hellas, it was on other grounds than the mere diverting of a taxation, which with the advance of wealth in secured peace, was constantly becoming lighter. The first condition of empire is the existence of such preponderant power in the central state, as to enable it to compel obedience, and this Pericles fully believed that he had been able to secure, even against foreign aids. The second is the prevalence in the administration of this state, of such sagacity and moral control, as in the first instance sccures the state itself from fatal discord and parting in the midst, and then the subjects or allies from oppression that withers, or anno}^Tances that fret and vex to desperation. It was by failure in the latter conditions—hard conditions no doubt from the peculiar constitution and tendencies of Hellas, —that Athenian sway was destined to break down. Con­ciliation and compulsion failed alike, and it may be of necessity; the enthusiasm for the conservation of the demo­cracy, was a true power that nerved the Athenian people to the greatest efforts, the greatest sacrifices, but the conduct that should guide sueh well-strung resolution was destined to be soon unsustained not to say grievously wanting; it was wanting chiefly by the failure in natural succession of other statesmen of the commanding genius and consum­mate self-control of Pericles, to give steadiness to the action of the state by repressing vain pretenders; wanting from the liability of the demus to give way, when not so con­

trolled, it was well if not even in spite of such control, to passion, to ignorance, and lastly to superstition, that combination of the most helpless ignorance and the most deleterious perversion of the passions.

What then is to be said, but that a happy combination of circumstances for a brief period brought forth the genius of mankind into transitory bloom,—circumstances on the whole far too precariously developed for the phenomenon to be hoped for as permanent, when so frailly existent as to depend for its best continuance on the life-breath of a single individual. The growth was forced at last, it may be, but the world has seen in consequence by proof, what humanity can be justified in aspiring to, and is so encouraged to apply to the enquiry how it may be possible at least to favour the happy manifestation hereafter, with broader basis and sounder general constitution. And after all it is not even for Pericles to engross all our praises; a mighty meed of admiration can never be refused to the Athenian demus, whatever our sense of, and indignation at, its shortcomings and its sins; when we consider how absolutely it was master of its vast income and accumulated treasure, we must admire the self-control with which it submitted to the diversion of so much of its wealth to the production of works of art, and the general diffusion of fine appreciation that could acquiesce in expenditure on art of such an exalted type. That an outcry of economists was not wanting might be taken for granted, and also that their protest produced considerable impression on the assembly; the works that were executed prove that it was foiled, and the enthusiasm that sanctioned the projects of Pericles is illustrated by an anecdote of Plutarch which we may accept as historical, if we limit the occasion to the voting of some particular work. A demur to a large outlay was renounced at once on his proposing to defray the expense from his own fortune and take the glory of the dedication for himself.

Aristotle, as quoted by ¹ Plutarch, characterised Thucydides, Nicias, and Theramenes as the three Athenian politicians who though belonging to the aristocratieal class,—the Eupatrids,—had a true paternal regard and kindly feeling to the demus; and we may take this as implying, what we might otherwise infer from the ‘ Politica,’ an approval of the views of the son of Melesias as to the relations of Athens and her allies. These views however had little chance of success against the appeal of Pericles to the interests and passions, —nay also to the most rational consideration—of the crow^Td assembled in ecclesia. The systematic opposition of the party that took signal from the son of Melesias, had the effect of exhibiting more clearly and familiarly even to the eye, the distinction between the majority, and the grouped minority of the wealthier and more aristocratic. They became marked out by the current and the, at Athens especially, obnoxious designation of the Few (oAtyoi), in contradistinc­tion to the ² demus; and a snatched victory or two obtained by their party discipline went for little when their scheme of operation had become patent and notorious.

There is some appearance that it was this party of the Few who at last most imprudently persuaded themselves that the old instrument of ostracism might be applied to get rid of Pericles, whoso power had already taken a form that could be not implausibly represented as dangerous. The cry of the democracy in danger from excessive power of an individual, was a potent one, and the old following of Cimon, as usual more inflexible than their leader himself had proved, was considerable still and from the classes of which it was made up, exercised a w^ride influence; even the prospect of carrying a renewed Egyptian expedition may have exercised a charm over many who were not convinced by the objections urged against it. The friends of Pericles were alarmed and not

unnaturally, for what benefactor of Athens of equal eminence had escaped ostracism at last ? Not Cimon, not Themistocles, not Aristides, not Miltiades.

Some lines of Cratinus appear to connect the escape of Pericles from ostracism with his parade of the Odeum, as if the quarrel with Thucydides came ultimately to a head on the question of expenditure for this novel Structure. By what means the close contest was at last decided might be clearer were we certain of the exact relative date of the ostracism and a scrutiny of citizenship under new limits of stringency, which must have fallen about the same time, and manifestly would affect most materially the balance of parties on the voting lists. This scrutiny was certainly a measure of Pericles; it immediately affected participation in the supply of corn received from Egypt, but also other far more important privileges and immunities, and appa­rently was adopted in a spirit of offensive retaliation for the pressure to which Athens had been so stringently subjected. Lacedaemon might be indifferent to such consequences, but they touched some of her allies and their connections very severely. War was at an end and peace established, but animosities may survive in peace with a virulence which qualifies the most advantageous terms of a treaty by annoy­ances which no clauses can provide against. The merciless greed of a victor who forfeits all chance of a moral for the sake of a material guarantee, may thus easily overreach itself; such case has been, and the mischief to humanity is double when the vanquished, in their unquenched spite at power­lessness against external foes, turn to wreak unexpended venom on aliens resident within their proper boundaries.

So long as there had been hope that Athens might succeed in maintaining a headship over not only the Ionian but a large section of Dorian and Aeolian Hellas, it is conceivable

that the privileges of her citizenship which were constantly becoming more valuable, if not conceded with open liberality, might at least not be guarded with the strictest jealousy. Commerce, the arts, society, had already made Athens the true metropolis of Hellas, and life was there to be enjoyed and acquisition of the means of enjoyment to be pursued, under advantages that were unapproachable elsewhere. The active intercourse and free circulation of members of all Hellenic tribes during the eight years of at least compara­tive peace, had brought in numerous foreign settlers of whom many had become allied to native families, or 011 the ground of previous relationship had come to be accepted as Athenian citizens. But now a revulsion of feeling set in among the majority; repudiated, as she had been by aliens, with insult, injury, ingratitude, was Athens to endure to see aliens or even the children of aliens in her midst in the enjoyment of benefits which had been won without their aid and recently placed in jeopardy with their covert sympathy? The regu­lation which gave effect to the popular feeling, was adopted on the motion of Pericles,—unconscious of the bearing it was one day to have on his own domestic relations; a stricter definition was given to citizenship and especially by the condition of purity of descent on the side of both parents, to the severe exclusion therefore of even the children of an Athenian citizen by an alien mother as well as of the naturally less regarded offspring of alien fathers and Athenian mothers. A scrutiny was instituted and carried through with unsparing rigour. The inducement to restrict to a smaller number the solid benefits of citizenship, its privileges and advan­tages now so considerable, could not but have its influence, but beyond this there can be little doubt that a main motive for this reversal of a liberal and in so many aspects useful policy, was the rancour of the defeated Athenians against relatives of enemies or rebels, the allies of the Lacedaemonians whose native policy disqualified them for protesting—at least

with consistency, against an extrusion of foreigners. So numerous were the disfranchisements under this measure as applied,—the list of nineteen thousand citizens was reduced, it is said, by as many as five thousand,—that it was almost equivalent to a xenelasia, a systematic expulsion of aliens, the very sight of whom had become hateful by association with defeat, and still worse with the terms of a humiliating treaty. This is such a sweeping disfranchisement of a minority as Aristotle adverts to as frequent when a demo­cracy at once grew richer and more grasping, independently of any special provocation or resentment.

That Pericles should have lent his hand to a measure that contradicts the larger policy of Solon and Cleisthenes, the great founders of the democracy, and narrowed a basis which imperial policy required to be extended to the utmost, seems the most serious slur upon his statesmanship that is on record; it seems probable however, that the stroke had no little to do with seating him securely in authority for the rest of his life, and that it was the instrument with w'hich he succeeded in warding off ostracism from himself and diverting it upon the heir of Cimon’s indiscriminate foreign sympathies,— his own last dangerous rival, Thucydides. Pericles must have felt that his own escape from an undeserved fate had been narrow, if we may believe Plutarch that from this time his manner towards the demus changed,—that he assumed somewhat of the severity of just indignation at an insult, and no longer cared to dissimulate his consciousness that he stood alone and was indispensable. I am disposed to think however that the biographer seriously antedates the occasion of this revulsion.

The ostracism of Thucydides is dated in 445 B.C. by Plutarch’s notice that the rule of Pericles extended to fif­teen years thereafter.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE COLONY OF THURIUM : HERODOTUS AND THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES.

B.C. 442-44I.

The effect of the scrutiny was equivalent to a very con­siderable internal revolution, and might be expected to induce discontents and disturbances of a nature to declare themselves more distinctly than we find to be the case. It is therefore highly significant that this wholesale disfranchise­ment should be found to synchronise with an undertaking— the foundation of Thurium—that provided foreign settlement for very large numbers from the city. Of the various motives which are assigned by Plutarch to Pericles for the Athenian colonies, the intent to relieve the city of unemployed and troublesome classes, would operate here, though not as in some other cases, the purpose to set w^rateh and check upon the movements of the allies.

The opportunity embraced was presented by envoys of the Sybarites, who arrived to solicit aid from both the great con­federations in restoring their once so prosperous and power­ful but now ruined city. Their proposal had met with no favour at Lacedaemon, and in consequence the field was again free for Attic enterprise to take the lead; a general pro­clamation was made for volunteers, apparently on the oeca-

sion of the eighty-fourth Olympic festival, but the dominant character of the new settlement was, as of the old, Ionic.

Sybaris, situated on the streams Sybaris and Crathis, to the north-west of Crotona on the Tarentine Gulf, was originally a joint colony of the Ionian tribes of Achaia and Troezene; its situation was central for commerce, and a fair roadstead supplied the want of a good harbour. Its relations with the great Asian emporium Miletus were particularly intimate; so much so, that on the occasion of its great catas­trophe, the Milesians marked their sympathy by a general

¹        mourning. The surrounding country was of extraordinary fertility, and the Sybarites extended their influence to com­prehend the rich district Siritis, that stretched along the sea­board eastward, and which they endeavoured to secure against the encroachment of Tarentum, by promoting an Achaean resettlement of Metapontum after its destruction by the Samnites. This is the district in regard to which Herodotus puts into the mouth of Themistocles the ³ assertion that it belonged to the Athenians from of old, and had been declared by oracles (Aoyia) to be destined for their occupation. This mythical title seems to have been grounded on some supposed connection with the Ionians of the Troad, who were said to have migrated thither when they retired before the ⁴ Lydians.

The policy of ancient Sybaris is noted as having been peculiarly liberal in the adoption of citizens and reception of allied towns, and a vast increase of population was more than kept pace with by accumulation of wealth and the luxury that became proverbial. Under these circumstances it was but by the ordinary law of Hellenic development that a democratic movement should make resolute assault on privileges which dated from the first years of the colony. The more numerous Achaean section of the citizens found a

²  Antioch, ap. Strab. 264. ⁴ Strabo, 264.

leader in Telys, one of the class of demagogues who, under such conditions, were wont to ripen quickly into the lasileus or tyrant, by both which terms Herodotus refers to him within but a few ¹ sentences. The Troezenian citizens, who to the number of five hundred were identified with the aristocratic party, were expelled and their possessions con­fiscated. The exiles took refuge at Crotona, where a demand was made for their extradition, but probably not till after a considerable interval, as Telys appears to have retained power for some time,—it may be when their intrigues were be­coming really dangerous, or it may be when Sybaris believed that the time had come for its far superior force to wrest an advantage from Crotona. From an expression of Aristotle, it would appear that Sybaris, by some overt act in connection with the expulsion, had incurred the dangerous odium of gross impiety, of ayos, and the anger of Here,—according to

²        Phylarchus, by the slaughter and exposure without burial of thirty Crotoniat envoys, and under circumstances involving the violation of a sanctuary. It was not till after a debate which was rendered serious by religious apprehension of like responsibilities, that Crotona refused to surrender suppliants and accepted the alternative of war. But besides that the Sybarites had put themselves in the wrong with the gods, there was the still more palpable encouragement to the Crotoniats of the presence on their side of Callias, a sooth­sayer of the renowned family of the Iamids of Elis, who, warned by his omens of the issue of the strife, had deserted his employer Telys in good ³ time. The Crotoniat leader was the celebrated athlete Milo, a member of the Pythago­rean society, which at this time had great influence in his native city. A single battle, in which the vastly superior —in the records the grossly exaggerated—numbers of the Sybarites were unavailing, was decisive. The imputed irre-

¹ Herod, v. 44; Athenae. p. 521.

⁸ Athenae. p. 521.

³ Herod, v. 44.

ligion gave edge to the mercilessness of the victors ; the rout became a massacre, and within a space of seventy days Sybaris was utterly ruined. The descendants of Callias the mantis were known to Herodotus as retaining the estates that were granted for his services on the decisive day.

The very site of Sybaris was said to have been laid under water, by being made the bed of the diverted river Crathis, which the phrase of Herodotus however only implies to be that of a torrent dry in summer,—a contrast to the peren­nial Crathis of Achaia, from which it had its ¹name. This was but poor satisfaction for the exiles who doubtless counted on being restored by their protectors to supremacy in the recovered city.

The exact date of this catastrophe must be a little uncer­tain, but Herodotus at least speaks of the dispossessed Syba­rites as settled, at the date of the fall of Miletus, 494 B.C., at Laus on the borders of Lucania, upon the Tyrrhene Sea, and at Scidrus, of which no other mention occurs except in an enumeration of Stephanus Byzantinus.

Fifty-eight years afterwards, a certain Thessalus, accord­ing to Diodorus in one ² place—in another he says ³ Thes­salians—made an attempt to restore the cityw ith the remnant or rather descendants of the old inhabitants; but the still surviving jealousy of Crotona only allowed them an occupa­tion of six years. How long it may have been after this last expulsion that the proposals ensued for the new settlement which was now in question, is uncertain, and we cannot confidently reckon back from 445-4 B.C. the date of this renewed scheme by addition of the terms of fifty-eight and six years, to assign 510 B.C. for the first great downfall.

⁴ Diodorus gives the archonship of Callimachus, 446-5 B.C., for the third founding of Sybaris, but the Athenian parti­cipation is very satisfactorily ⁵ dated between two and three

¹ Herod, v. 45 ; i. 145.  ² Diod. xi. 90.     ³ lb. xii. 10.

⁴ lb.  ⁵ See Clinton, p. 54. .

years later under Praxiteles, 444-3 ^B-^Cv> ^and to this was probably due that change in the site of the new city which he notes as determined on ‘ after a short time.’ We hear nothing now of opposition by Crotona, which argues suffi­cient lapse of time to have modified political combinations. What difficulty did occur, but slight and of short duration, was due to hostilities from the other side—from Tarentum, against which even Crotona now may possibly have been glad of an ally. The dispute, or rather war, in which Thu- rium had the aid of the Lacedaemonian refugee Cleandridas as ¹ general, was again respecting the Siritis; it was at last agreed to occupy it in common, but for the honours of the settlement to be conceded to the Tarentines; who accordingly founded Heracleia, to which Siris became the harbour.

To Lampon the Athenian is assigned the distinguished title of oikistes or founder—a claim afterwards disputed,— a Xenocritus is another ² leader. Pericles despatched ten ships fully manned, but these seem to represent rather a supporting force than the proper emigrant fleet, as Athens supplied more of the settlers than any other ³ city. Lampon himself is mentioned as a sacrificer, a soothsayer, a mantis. In this function he had given support and encouragement to the party of Pericles in the contest with Thucydides, by interpreting the prodigy of a single-horned ram from his estate, as promise and sign of his unparticipated power. The assistance may have been welcome enough, however the theory of interpretation was contemned. Anaxagoras, at least as fast a friend of Pericles, but who could not let politics check science, protested by dissecting the skull and showing that the external appearance was illusory. But such services had their use, and their en­gagement 011 such occasions as the founding of a colony, was a traditional necessity. Lampon evidently was equal

to the occasion, and an oracle was procured from Apollo that sanctioned the most important measure of a change of site; the discovery of a fount with a bronze funnel or spout, called by the provincials a medimnus, was taken as ex­plaining the meaning of the god who warned to settle where water—of which the drowned Sybaris had had too much— was obtained by measure. Dionysius Chaleus is named as another colleague of ¹ Lampon; he had at least a son who was an adept in working oracles and was attached to Nieias, who was likely to defer to him only too obsequiously. In an enterprise so governed and conducted, we cannot be sur­prised to find the historian Herodotus, who was now at the age of forty-one. To him also oracles and prodigies were an accepted part of his natural surroundings, and he was as likely to be impressed by Lampon’s interpretation of the one-horned ram as to think worth recording in his history the portentous dream of Agariste, the mother of Pericles, that she was brought to bed of a ² lion.

The new city was disturbed at the very beginning by the same pretensions to privilege that had been fatal to ancient Sybaris. The native Sybarites claimed, if not exclusive at least preferential ownership of the soil, a right to the best lots and the nearest to the town, and precedence moreover in all superior offices and sacred celebrations for themselves,— and, more galling still, for their wives. These first attempts at an aristocratieal system were checked at onee, but not without a collision in which the remnant of Sybarites were all but exterminated and the survivors expelled ; a democracy was established, and the general organisation of the city and society then proceeded with a very characteristic aim at system and symmetry which so far avouched its wisdom by a long duration in prosperity. The tale of three disasters by which Apollo had announced that Sybaris would have

¹ Plufc. I^r. Niciaz, 5. VOL. II.

K

to atone to Leucadian Here before attaining ’rest was now fully made up. The fugitives settled by the river Traens, but, according to Diodorus, who however antedates both the colony and this incident, were very shortly dislodged and decimated by the neighbouring ²barbarians.

The new citizens were classed, like the Athenians, in ten tribes, but with titles that intimate their original countries and relationships—an arrangement that would seem to pre­pare for rivalries and partisanship; the worst that we hear, however, is a contention as to the honours of founder of the city, which was easily appeased by the Delphic god assuming them for ³ himself. Four out of the ten tribes, the Ionian, Athenian, Euboean, and Nesiotic or Insular, were derived from the Athenian empire ; three w^rere from the tribes within Peloponnesus that were no parties to the Lacedaemonian confederation, the Arcadian, Achaian, and Elcian; the absence of Troezenians seems to imply that with them the Achaian element had remained preponderant through all revolutions. The remaining three tribes are extra-Pelo­ponnesian, and it seems probable were largely made up from the numerous exiles who, in usual course, would be extruded from their countries, now that autonomy and aristocracy were again in the ascendant, and democracy set aside along with dependence upon Athens;—they are Boeotian, Am- phictionid, and Dorian.

The city was laid out on a formal and scientific plan; four long streets were crossed by three others at right angles, a distribution which probably accommodated an oblong agora in the centre. The four streets were named after Ileraeles, Aphrodite, and Dionysus, and apparently Zeus, under his title of Olympian. Of the three less important transverse streets, the names of two, Thuria and Thurina, were connected with the eponymous fount, or stream, which is symbolised on the

coins by a rushing bull as Oovpios, with a fish below; the third was the Heroic, or street of the heroes.

The laws for the regulation of the city seem to have been studied with a like aim at completeness and symmetry, and apparently adopted, to a great extent, from the code of Cha- rondas, whose date is uncertain—except only that he was not, as Diodorus implies, contemporary. Among them Dio­dorus mentions a law for universal education, with a state provision for that of the poor, and the establishment of health-officers, or physicians in receipt of public pay.

It was before this date that Hippodamus, son of Euryphon of Miletus, had given the first example of laying out a city on a systematic ¹plan; at a still later date (01. 93. 1 ; 339 B.C.) he applied his principles again in rebuilding Rhodes. Aristotle states that he was also the first who, without being practically engaged in politics, disserted on the theory of the best polity; and gives some notices of his laws which affect a principle of triplicity. Nothing of the kind appears in the Thurian notices of Diodorus, and it seems probable that the participation of Hippodamus in this colony was only inferred in error from coincidence in date and agreement in principle, if not in detail, with his combination of symme­trical system in legislation for a city, and in the architectural distribution of its ² plan. Stoboeus quotes another Hippo­damus as Thurian and Pythagorean, in extracts of some

³        interest.

It seems impossible not to recognise as aimed at Thurium the Aristophanic ridicule of pedantry in Cloud-cuckoo city, the upstart town with a site determined by a ⁴ diviner, proposed to be laid out symmetrically by ⁵ geometricians, and generally the resort of all political theorists; even the ⁶ proclamation against the atheist Diagoras of Melos smacks of a con­

¹ Aristot. Pol. ii. 5. ¹² Phot. Lex. in Person.   ³ Cf. Hesycb.

⁴ Aristoph. Aves v. 967.      ⁵ lb.   ⁶ The Clouds, v. 1073.

temptuous reference to the preamble of the laws of the Pythagorean as pietistic, or at least ¹ incongruous. In ‘The Clouds/ brought out many years earlier, we find Thurian diviners—Thnriomantei*—established types of quack theorists and ostentatious ² impostors.

In the argument of the Antigone of Sophocles, it is stated that the poet owed his command in the expedition to Samos, as colleague of Pericles, to the reputation he had gained by this tragedy. The expedition in question dates about the summer of 441 B.C., but at the Dionysia in the previous spring, under the arehon Diphilus, the first prize in tragedy is re­corded as having been gained by Euripides. If we assume then that the Antigone took a first prize, as the story seems to imply, it must be thrown back at least a year to the spring of 442 B.C., under Lysanias, and within a year after the date of the settlement of Thurium. With every allowance for acci­dental coincidences, it is certainly remarkable that a play which has constantly attracted attention as abounding in parallelisms with favourite observations and maxims of Hero­dotus, should appear by independent presumption to have been produced so near the time when several accounts report the residence of the historian at Athens, preparatory to his taking part in the Athenian colony, and his intercourse also on that occasion with the poet.

The ‘main question of the play,’ its clear drift in itself, is the exhibition of the difficulty of humanity in a conflict of responsibilities, between the claims of most saered personal duties on the one hand, and on the other the demand of a government for implicit obedience, irrespective of private judgment, as the condition of safety for a ³ state. The result of this conflict, as carried to extremities in the Antigone, is destruction and ruin on both sides—of the tyrant who pursues vengeance against an exile even beyond death, as well as of

¹ C’f. Picul, xii. 20.

² The Clunih, v. 331.    ³ II). 670 foil., 450 full.

the heroine his victim. Considering the circumstances of the time, we cannot but speculate, however slight the out­come, whether the tale of the tyrant Telys may not have had such interest and notoriety just now at Athens, as to sharpen sensibilities to the moral implications of the Theban catastrophe. The primary unatoned sin—ayos—of the Sybar­ites, which Aristotle hints at, followed up as it was by im­pious exposure of unburied enemies to be devoured by the dogs and vultures, and the denouncement and desertion of Telys by his own mantis Callias, premonitory of his utter ruin, have certainly a marked analogy to the fateful diffi­culties of Thebes, the rancorous exposure of the corpse of the exile Polynices, and the denouncements of Teiresias disre­garded till too late.

In the play both the asserters of rigidly enforced authority and of more high-minded resistance to it, are alike beaten down into death and misery; and it were pity that com­mentators aspiring to be moralists should adopt the low- minded conclusions which are ascribed, with intention, to a chorus of wealthy seniors who hug themselves on their own immunity, and should read the poet as demonstrating by the death of Antigone the duty of discreet, unqualified, cringing submission. Sympathies unblunted by habitual ser­vility to aristocracies or attendance on princes, will recognise that the better compensations are carried over at last to the victim of cruelty, rebel though she be; and will rest upon the conviction that on her side, after all, lie truest strength and the strongest hope and surest trust of ultimate triumph, however the course and character of its achievement may elude the ken of mortals.

If the difficulty that forms the motive of the play were pressed home, it would clearly lead up to the right and duty of rebellion against tyranny; left as it was, it gratified Athenians, no doubt, by exhibition of the extravagances of personal tyranny, and not the less that the tyrant was

a Theban ; but it carried a moral all the same that was applicable, with the most rigid generality, to supreme power however and wherever resident, and to the effect that admin­istration when content to be justified by adherence to the letter of enactment, and enactment with nothing in its favour but technical legitimacy of origin, would involve failure and misery in every direction by insisting on its course; that empire the most just in origin, even the most absolute, even the Athenian, could only hope for stability by concurring with the unwritten laws of eternal justice.

Events were already on their way which were to prove that it was not at all too soon for such considerations to be taken to heart at Athens.

CHAPTER XLIY.

THE EE VOLT OF SAMOS.

B.C. 441, 440.

In the sixth year of the thirty years’ peace, under the archonship of ¹Timocles (441-40 B.C.), a date in which Thucydides is confirmed by the scholiast of ² Aristophanes, a dispute broke out into violence between Samos, one of the three insular autonomous allies of Athens, and the city of Miletus on the mainland, as if in renewal of the enmity to which they had been committed in almost prehistoric times as allies respectively of Chalcis and Eretria. For forty years since the battle of Mycale, Samos had retained internal independence in finance and jurisdiction, and having never commuted its federal liabilities for a money payment, con­tinued to maintain a war fleet, under independent control, only with the obligation to supply a contingent for purposes of the confederation. Peace and security had restored the prosperity of the island ; and with a considerable increase of their fleet, the ambitious spirit of the Samians revived, and prompted aspirations for the independence of earlier days, and the restoration of that greatness of which the

¹ Thuc. i. 115.

² Aristoph. Vesp. 283.

monuments still existed to excite the enthusiastic admiration of Herodotus. Samos advanced to its ancient prosperity through the same development that summarises the story of so many Greek cities; an oligarchy had ruled until the time came lor it to be superseded by a democracy, which was in turn—we may almost say in due order—supplanted by the energetic, rapacious, and luxurious tyranny of Poly­crates ; it shared with Ionia the intermediate subjection to Persia, and now the democratieal government which the Athenians had placed in power after the general •liberation, had lapsed in some unrecorded way into an oligarchy again. That in the relative position and engagements of the two states such a change should have taken place under any circumstances without provoking immediate interference or dictation by Athens, is argument for the general indulgence, not to say laxity, of her control; the time came, however, when the popular ear could not but be open there for loud complaints of an oppressed democratical party. Athens ever looked askance at oligarchs as out of sympathy with her rule by very necessity of nature; and Samian oligarchs on their part, not unwarned nor unaware of the precarious­ness of their position, fretted more and more at subordina­tion, and were even as ready to look to Persia for help as the Athenian oligarchs to Sparta. Not only did the temples, the palace, and perhaps the library also of the ¹ tyrant, who, semi-pirate as he was, had been to Anacreon what Hiero w^ras to Pindar, still adorn the ² city, but his fortifications and noble harbour were entire, and were elements of power which, combined with an insular situation, gave Samos the same advantages which had recently been secured to Athens by her Long Walls : the confidence generated by such security of position was not without encouragement from without, and all was ripe at last for dreams to be entertained, not

merely of vindicating a right of independent political action, but even of contesting with Athens the command of the sea, and competing for at least a share in empire.

The present quarrel with Miletus had reference to the control of Priene, a dispute as old as the wars of Polycrates, and which, strange to say, we do not quite hear the last of till late under the Roman Emperors ; hostilities ensued which it was no more consistent with the position of Athens as custodian of the general peace, to permit between her allies than against her allies, and she interposed with a com­mand for both to lay down arms and defer to her arbitration. Neither on this nor on any other occasion do we hear of even such a pretence of deference on the part of Athens to votes of a synod of allies as Sparta was careful to exhibit before enter­ing on the great war. It was indeed to a sense of degrada­tion by exclusion from all imperial rights,—to indignation at manifest forfeiture of the proudest privilege of autonomy, the authority to make peace or war or even to participate in such questions by deliberation, that the resolute contumacy of Samos was largely due. Miletus, overmatched, was now urgent for active intervention, and her application was eagerly seconded by a certain number of men from Samos who discerned that the imbroglio must bring about a revo­lution in their own government. An expedition was accord­ingly despatched by the Athenians under the command of Pericles, who arrived at Samos with forty ships to find no organised resistance; the party in power, the Geomori, or landed proprietors of the class which had furnished an earlier as it was to constitute a later oligarchy, were in fact resting in confidence that all difficulty would be surmounted by the bribe which they were prepared to offer to the Athenian commander out of funds which it was believed by some must have been supplied by the Persian satrap. The magnitude of the temptation only gave Pericles the better opportunity for displaying that superiority to corruption which he is after-

wards found appealing to with such confidence and ¹ effect. He put aside the offers of the oligarchs, with contempt superseded their authority, and establishing¹ a democratical government in their place, left an Athenian garrison to support it. At the same time he imposed a fine to be paid by instalments, — Diodorus mentions eighty talents, about 19,500,—and as security for punctuality of payment as well as for the continued submission of the superseded party, fifty boys and as many adults were taken as hostages, and sent to Lemnos for detention.

This however was not to be so speedily the end. It was not long before a scheme of counter-revolution was arranged between malcontents at Samos and exiles abroad, for which the Persian satrap at Sardis, Pissouthnes, son of Hystaspes, who at a later date furnishes Arcadian as well as barbarian mercenaries for a like enterprise, lent his assistance. With an auxiliary force of seven hundred men, the exiles crossed the narrow channel from the mainland at night, were ad­mitted by confederates into the city, and at once overpowered the demus : taking possession of the fleet, they contrived to carry off their hostages from Lemnos, and by way of secur­ing hostages in their turn, consigned the Athenian garrison and officials whom they had captured to the custody of the Persians. Samos was thus committed to open revolt, and at once prepared to encounter the consequences. Stesagoras, who is named as if well-known but escapes mention else­where, was despatched southwards with five ships to claim assistance, and probably to hasten assistance already pro­mised from a Phoenico-Persian fleet: and by the same policy which led Mitylene in a revolt at a later time, to seek to seize on Cumae as a basis for prolonging resistance on the mainland, the Samians now without loss of time despatched to Miletus so strong a fleet, together with transports carrying

forces, as to imply an expectation that a sudden and vigor­ous attack would give them possession of the city.

Byzantium revolted at the same time, but under what circumstances, with what degree of concerted plan or pro­mise of foreign aid, or whether through more than coincident and spasmodic sympathy in discontent, does not appear. That a degree of excitement was prevailing at this time, which attests the perilousness of the crisis for Athens, ap­pears by a movement in the Peloponnesian confederacy, where proposals were afoot—the peace for thirty years not­withstanding—for supporting Samos in revolt. The question was debated at Sparta in one of those congresses of her allies which we only hear of thus incidentally, and which probably in most cases influenced policy for the leading state but slightly, or we should hear of them more. According to the averment of the Corinthians at a later date, it was entirely due to their advocacy of neutrality that Athens was left on this occasion to her own course in dealing with her own refractory ¹ subjects. Corinth, in fact, had herself subordinate, if not dependent, settlements, and, we may infer, was chary of invalidating at this time the principle of control which we shall find her asserting on her own part afterwards; in any case Sparta, whether as the result of deliberations, or in consequence of deliberation being overtaken by Athenian promptitude, remained inactive.

The expedition of the Samians had no time to make an impression at Miletus before it was recalled to oppose an Athenian fleet, which by its moderate numbers evinces the haste of its equipment and despatch on the first news of the * outbreak. Of sixty ships, under command of Pericles as chief of ten generals, which were to be made up as soon as possible to a hundred, as many as sixteen were detached, a part in the direction of Caria to reconnoitre the movements of any

Phoenician fleet, and part to summon the contingents of Chios and Lesbos; this latter detachment was under the command of the poet Sophocles. With the forty-four ships which remained to him Pericles engaged the Samian armament of seventy ships, of which twenty were transports, off the little island of Tragia, to the south of Samos, and defeated and drove it to take refuge in port. His reinforcements presently arrived, the forty ships from Athens and twenty-five from Chios and Lesbos, and now, while maintaining a blockade by sea, he disembarked, and after a battle in which he again had the superiority, shut up the city on the land side also by a triple wall, of which, however, the exact distribution is not explained.

The city had been made exceedingly defensible by Poly­crates, among other means by a deep fosse dug by the com­pelled labour of captives ; and that under all the circumstances, and considering the general advantages at this time in favour of the defence, it should have held out no longer than it did, seems to demand more explanation than any presumable vigour in an ordinary attack. Ephorus, indeed, is quoted by Plutarch as authority for the employment by Pericles of engines that were then of novel invention ; only the ram and testudo are mentioned, and the use of these would imply the direct attack upon the walls which Diodorus distinctly avouches. There is the less ground for calling the general fact in question, as engines were certainly employed a few years later, though without success, against ¹ Potidaea; tradition, however, seems to have made some confusion be­tween the engineer’s name and nickname—Artemon Peri- phoretus—and those of a Samian contemporary of Anacreon, notorious in his verses.

These operations were still in progress when a report arrived that a Phoenician fleet was really to be expected, and

Pericles sailed at once with a squadron of sixty ships in search of the enemy, about Caunus and Caria beyond the Cnidian promontory, never doubting that the armament left behind was sufficient to give occupation to the Samians. Of his meeting with a hostile fleet, or any signs of it, we hear nothing; if Pissouthnes had deceived the Samians by false promises, he had helped them in some degree by misleading their enemies also. The reduction of the blockading force and the absence of Pericles gave spirit to the besieged, and this was encouraged by their leader, a remarkable man, Melissus, son of Ithagenes, a speculative writer who left an impression on the history of philosophy that still demands consideration. He organised a sally from the harbour, which had entire success; the ships stationed on guard were overpowered, and others, which the Athenians hastened to launch from the unfortified naval camp, were defeated likewise. In result the Samians were masters of the sea for fourteen days, and at liberty to introduce or send away whatever they wished or wanted. Aristotle is quoted, or perhaps ¹ misquoted, as stating that Melissus gained a previous naval victory over Pericles himself; we cannot, however, desert Thucydides, who says distinctly that the only Athenian defeat that comes within the story occurred during his temporary absence.

With the return of Pericles the blockade became again effectual, and still further reinforcements arrived in quick succession; forty more ships from Athens under Thucydides, Hagnon, and Phormio, then twenty under Tlepolemus and Anticles, besides thirty from Chios and Lesbos. The pre­sumption is strong, from comparison of dates, that this Thucydides is not the son of Melesias, and while it by no means follows in that case that it was the historian, it is as little clear that it may not have been.

The Samians made still another but fainter attempt at

a naval attack, but as might be expected now, without success. Losses apart—and none of any consequence are intimated— the Athenian fleet had been raised to 215 ships, an evidence of the great power of the enemy—Isocrates gives the round number two hundred,—and Pericles pushed on the attack, by a system of constant reliefs night and day, which exhausted the besieged, while, at the same time, he contrived to keep his own forces in heart under the trials, less of peril than of tediousness, by turns of activity and relaxation, and even amusement. Charges and counter-charges were made in antiquity of brutal treatment and branding of prisoners, on which it is now impossible to adjudicate. It is happy that in­dignation should be unanimous 011 at least atrocities of this nature, though in truth they add but a very trifle to either the wickedness or miseries that are involved with applause no less unanimous for the actors, in what is known at this day as civiliscd ¹ warfare. Details are wanting as to how the close was precipitated, but in result the Samians surrendered in the ninth month, submitting to the terms to level their fortifications, to give hostages, to surrender their fleet, and pay the expenses of the war, which Diodorus states reached two hundred talents,—a very moderate estimate indeed, con­sidering the forces employed,—partly in a present sum, and the rest in stated instalments. It is to the honour of the Athe­nians, when under the guidance of Pericles—in contrast un­fortunately to the same Athenians when influenced by Cleon— that the conclusion of a struggle so severe was unsullied by a massacre in cold blood, which Thucydides assuredly would not have hesitated to set down coldly had it occurred.

Byzantium came to terms at the same time, and resumed its former condition of dependence—of subjection.

Samian autonomy was in this manner brought to an end ; no consideration seems to have been admitted of the revolt

¹ See the article Guerre, in Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary.

having been the deed of a faction only, which was as inimical to the loyal demus as to Athens, and it may be in this view that Aristotle speaks of the Athenians as presuming 011 the plenitude of their power to oppress the Samians, as the Chians and Lesbians afterwards, contrary to treaty; otherwise he would appear to assume that there was foregone provocation of the revolt in more infractions of Samian privileges than are mentioned.

We read nothing of a restoration of democratical govern­ment after the suppression of the revolt, but as Samos was rendered quite defenceless for the future, the form of its government had become comparatively unimportant to the sovereign state. Twenty-seven years afterwards, while allegi­ance to Athens remains still unimpaired, we find the Geomori, —the privileged class of landed proprietors,—again in power, and with the usual leaning of oligarchs to Sparta, which also, as usual, they are quite aware will not be participated by the demus. It is not necessary to suppose that this change was brought about by a violent revolution. In twenty-seven years there was ample time for another section of wealthy pro­prietors to arise or to advance in wealth and power,—the very opposers, possibly, of the former oligarchy, or such cautious members of it as are ever found at such a crisis prepared to become parties to a democratic movement, however repugnant to them, out of concern for immediate personal safety, or if only of set purpose to gain the power to direct, control, and ruin it. The native demus, on this later occasion, forestalled the action of the oligarchical conspirators, killed two hundred, banished twice that number, excluded all other members of the party from privilege of every kind, and even forbade future intermarriage with their class. This latter precaution seems to point to the process by which, after the revolution we have been dealing with, family alliances between new men in power and the ousted inheritors of power had effected the gradual transformation of leading demagogues into oligarchs,

by sympathy and by connection with the more ancient pos­sessors. The confiscation of lands was apparently found not to suffice alone as a safeguard against revival of landed influ­ence and aristocratic tendencies, unless all opportunity for family arrangements were cut off at the same time ; we seem to have a hint that in these unsettled times a title to con­fiscated land was sometimes sought to be secured, in case of counter-revolution, by intermarriages with the dispossessed, a proceeding that at once increased the chance and carried the seeds of dangerous reaction. Oligarchy was an ineradicable tendency, ever living as a germ if ever latent, among demo- cratical institutions of the more stringent type; even after the later so drastic Samian repression of oligarchy, the very party that had been most violent against it is presently found supplying men of influence and substance from its very midst, who are prepared to betray the cause and reconstitute the most obnoxious oligarchical rule, only with themselves as its representative ¹ administrators.

During the first years of the Peloponnesian War, some malcontents with the government of Samos are found esta­blished at Anaea, on the coast of Caria, whence they kept the city in disquietude, gave harbour to fugitives and ² refugees, co-operated with independent Carians against the Athenians on land, and at sea supplied their enemies with pilots in what they styled the cause of the liberation of Hellas. It seems to be by confusion with these later incidents that the author of the life of Sophocles refers to his participation with Pcricks in the Anaitic war.

It should not escape attention that the power with which Samos resisted Athens in this conflict implies a course of undisturbed prosperity during the period that preceded it, and confirms a parallel inference from the description by Thucydides of the extraordinary wealth of Chios, that the

benefits derived by the autonomous allies of Athens from their position of qualified dependence, went far to compen­sate with the more prudent for sacrifices which, in many respects, were rather galling to the feelings than positively oppressive.

But a sense of national humiliation is a serious qualification of material prosperity, and the disaffection that was growing among the other nominally autonomous allies was destined to become still more excitable, after this reduction of Samos to absolute dependence. Chios and Lesbos especially recog­nised their serious loss of an ally both powerful and sym­pathetic by common interests and like position, and that an important check was removed to the willingness, if not the design, of the Athenians to snatch a pretext for abrogating what exceptional ¹ liberties they still retained.

On the return of the expedition to Athens, the public funeral of those who had died in the war was conducted with great state, and the delivery of the oration that was customary on such occasions was 'committed to Pericles. As he de­scended from the bema female hands greeted him with crowns and fillets, like a victorious athlete, and only Elpinice, the sister of Cimon, carped at a victory which was gained over Greeks, and not, like those of her brother, at the expense of the barbarians.

If it be true that Pericles in his oration did contrast this siege of nine months with the ten-years-long siege of Troy, we may be certain that the Athenian demus had the exclu­sive benefit of the comparison, and that it was left for the cavil of Ion of Chios to insinuate that he was claiming for himself to be a greater Agamemnon.

‘The citizens who have died for their country,’ he said, according to the more congenial report of Stesimbrotus, ‘ are living still and live for ever; for their immortality we have

¹ Tliuc. iii. n and vi. 76. L

the same warrant as for that of the gods, of whose being we become cognisant by the benefits we receive from them, and by the honours which they command from all ¹ man­kind.’

¹ Plut. Per. 9.

CHAPTER XLV.

PERICLES AND ASPASIA.

Undeh the archon Murichides, 440-39 B.C., is dated a psephism of Antimachus to put a restraint of some kind on comedy (rou fxr] KOifKabeiv), which remained in force about three ¹ years. The notices of its scope are insufficient, but, in any case, it had no extent approaching to suppression, which could scarcely be thought of, even though we had not allusions to comedies that were produced within the ² interval; neither earlier or later do we hear anything of legal checks upon abuse of general decency. Some restraint on offensive per­sonalities must therefore probably be understood, such as are distinctly specified as put in force at a later date. That this measure, by whomsoever proposed, was adopted out of con­sideration for Pericles, who was now at the height of his popularity, stands at best as a conjecture; and yet the coincidence should not be overlooked that it falls at the particular date when the Samian war, for all its successful conclusion, is known to have been turned by comoedians into an occasion of base disparagement, and when the comoedian most in vogue was Cratinus—Cratinus, who ever did his best to make Pericles ridiculous, and as eagerly displayed attach­ment to the memory of Cimon, from whose sister came the sole discontented word at the Epitaphian oration.

¹ Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 67.     ² Clinton, Fasti Hellen. sub aim.

L %

Earlier in date than Aristophanes and Eupolis, Cratinus is scarcely inferior in his ancient renown to either. Quintilian associates all three, as they had already been associated in a line of Horace, when he sends the orators to them as to school, and declares them to be instructors in the use of language only inferior to Homer himself,—Homer, like his own Achilles, the one universal exception ; the critic leaves their coarseness aside unmentioned, unremembered, as he commends with enthusiasm their unchecked eloquence, at once lofty, elegant, refined, a sole treasury of the charm of purest Attic diction, even while full fraught with bitterest satire and invective. Of the personal sympathy of Cratinus for Cimon and his party, a short fragment from one of his plays gives a touching reminiscence :—

‘ For my desire, Metrobius the scribe,

Was, with a man divine and right hospitable,

Best leader every way of the Pan-Hellenes,

With Cimon, to wear out sleek age in festivity To my last; but he haa failed me and gone before.’

The manners and the mode of life of Pericles, the reserve of his public demeanour and some contrasts of his domestic circumstances, supplied aptest provocations for the exag­gerated, the comic, and even malevolent misrepresentation which the Athenians seem never to have relished the less because the object of them was exercising power in a manner to command their sincerest confidence. His first—his legiti­mate—wife, a relative, was the divorced wife of ¹ Hipponicus, by whom she was mother of the wealthy Callias; after bear­ing him two sons, Xanthippus and Paralus, she was again transferred, willing and willingly, to another, with a satis­faction that needs no further explanation on either side than the devotion with which Pericles had become attached, after a previous roving passion for the Corinthian Chrysilla, daughter of Teleus—at least so said the comoedian Teleeleidcs—

to the celebrated ¹ Aspasia. This remarkable woman was a Milesian, and is referred to as daughter of Axiochus, as if not without known family connections; she appears how­ever at Athens as one of that class of highly-cultivated and accomplished women—for the most part Ionians—the femi­nine companions, hetaeme, who, independently of fortune, of rank, of any social standing, and if by beauty not by beauty only, vindicated, however irregularly, the natural claims of the sex to liberty, culture, and influence, from which by national custom the females of superior Athenian families were secluded.

The Athenian girl was brought up, or understood to be brought up, to know and see as little of the world as possible, until she was ² married; her own choice was not consulted as to the husband to whom she was first consigned; and, in case of widowhood, she was subject to be transferred to another —at least when property was involved—with scarcely more ceremony than a chattel; and it could be publicly inferred by Pericles himself as axiomatic that, her life throughout, the less cause or occasion s* e ministered for being mentioned at all among men, whether for good or evil, the more credit­ably her duty was fulfilled. The world has never known a state of society i \ which these maxims have been even partially carried out without provoking rebellion in man­ners, and in literature the scoffing disrespect of marriage which is virtually a protest, from the new comedy of Athens to the drama of modern France. The wealth and luxury of Athens at this time necessarily attracted a con­course of hetaerae of every class of endowments and culture up to the very highest, of every grade of renounced or of qualified self-respect, of passion or ambition. It seems to have been regarded as not an absolutely stupid and pointless satire to charge Aspasia with having had, at one time at least, her

³      Xen. Oecon. vii. 5.

own surroundings similarly outcast from severer society, and even with entertaining a bevy of subordinates. From this class artists derived their best ¹ models; and politicians and philosophers too not unwillingly found themselves from time to time in a society where the instincts of good taste, and the conditions of elegance, were at least outward palliatives of laxity of morals ; and where the sense of an existence external to civil privilege, and of extrusion from sacred celebrations, notoriously relieved from obligation to tenderness for con­ventionalities, to say no more; while it gave zest and invita­tion to freest discourse and boldest questioning, and made welcome whoever could converse with point or dissert with originality on theories, if not on projects, that involved the subversion or reconstruction of arts, of sciences, of philosophy, of society itself.

By the operation of his own law of strictly-defined citizen­ship, it was not competent for Periclcs to contract a fully legal marriage with Aspasia, even though her original posi­tion had not precluded it; she occupied, however, the placc of a wife so far as possible; not of course without scandal that was made the most of by enemies; not without diffi­culties, which he adjusted his life to overcome, as best he might, but was nearly succumbing to at lust. It was only at the risk of misconstruction,—of vituperation,—that dig­nified Athenian matrons were taken, even by their ² husbands, to the society that gathered at the house of the head of the Athenian empire; and it may have been not so much from a notion of the reserve which was becoming in the head of the state, as out of regard to the dignity of Aspasia, that Pericles himself never accepted an invitation abroad,—never but once, to the marriage of Furyptolemus, a relative, and then he left immediately after the libations which concluded the ccremonial nuptials. To the son whom she bore to him,

he gave his own name Pericles, the most public acknowledg­ment conceivable.

It was probably not without some intent to countervail imputations and inferences of irregular frivolity, that his general public bearing became so habitually dignified, so studiously expressive of preoccupation, assiduity, reserve, as to give occasion for the cavil of the poet Ion of Chios, who contrasted his bearing with that of Cimon, as the supercilious and contemptuous and haughty with all that was agreeable and free and accommodating. On like principle the carefully or­ganised management of his estate, and even his ostentatiously frugal household, administered with all the minuteness of formal book-keeping, gave earnest of that independence of illicit emolument to which he appeals with confidence as ¹ notorious, and which such an appeal implies was a rarity among politicians. According to Plutarch, his associates were called ^{new Pisistratids,’ but it seems likely that it was particularly at his legitimate sons Xanthippus and Paralus that the comparison to Hippias and Hipparchus was directly levelled; it would be fairly provoked by the known disposi­tions of the young men, who chafed at this orderliness and parsimony of their father as a renunciation, for the sake of power, of all that makes power worth having. His public appearances were, in any case, marked with a gravity and sobriety for which he had a compensation, if not a reason, at home; as for his economy at home, he was rewarded by free direction of the public expenditure. He reserved himself as a speaker in the ecclesia for occasions of the first im­portance,—like the state galley, it was said, the Salaminian trireme,—and when he spoke he gave to weighty matter, for all the rapid flow of his delivery, the full distinction of im­pressiveness of tone, propriety of words, and collected dignity of gesture. But no day passed that he was not seen on his

way to the public office or the agora, and always with the composed countenance that betokened his sense of respon­sibility. lie said of himself that he never passed his threshold without the self-admonition, ‘ Keep in mind that you are a leader of Hellenes, of Hellenes who are freemen,—of free Athenian Hellenes,’ and without a prayer that he might be preserved from the accident of a single untoward expres­sion ; but even so he never came forth—Antisthenes is the cited authority—without having greeted and kissed Aspasia at his departure, and the salutation was repeated as constantly 011 his ¹ return.

The staid composure of such a public life projected on such a domestic background, naturally furnished the old comedy with most piquant provocation for the coarse plain speaking that it delighted in, for ridicule and exaggeration. The very helmet which decorated his busts, as fitly expressive of his constantly renewed office of strategus, was scoffed at as the contrived screen of a deformity,—a head onion-shaped; he was the tyrant called by the gods Kephalegeretes (substitu­tion for vecfxXrjyepzrrjs), begotten upon Stasis (Faction) by primaeval Chronos (Time),—perhaps an implied satire on his rhetorical assertion of the value of Time as a political councillor ; he was Olympian Pericles, a mock Jove who thundered and lightened over Greece, and his Here was Aspasia, who had her peacocks too, though not indeed ex­clusively—a jest which had some pertinence no doubt, though ill explained. It is easy to discern in the satire that repre­sented Aspasia as the Deianeira to his Hercules, the trace of a parody of his exploits at the mouth of the Aehelous, where Hercules won his bride in conflict against the river- god ; and there might be suggestion enough in the circum­stances and festive episodes of the Samian war to account for her having been brought forward on the ribald stage as an Asian Omphale.

At a later date the Peloponnesian war was ascribed by Aristophanes to a base quarrel of Aspasia; at the present time the Samian quarrel was challenged with as little scruple and as little reason as traceable entirely to her interest for the protection of her native ¹ Miletus. What is, I believe, rather a tradition than an invention is preserved in the Menexenus of Plato, that Pericles owed to instructions of Aspasia no little of his general oratorical power, and even the very matter and topics of his speech—the Epitaphion—at the burial of the citizens who had died for their country in war. It is by no means impossible,—there are confirmations in modern instances, —that the ascription may have originated with himself, and have been made in all the devoted sincerity of one who need not be the less a lover and subject to a lover’s illusions because he is a statesman also, or even in a degree a philosopher.

I am disposed to connect this tradition rather with the speech after the Samian war, to which Plutarch adverts, than with the great speech on a parallel occasion, as set down by Thucydides, but which is too accommodated in its purport to the requirements of the opening and course of his history, not to be, however much in the style of Pericles, to a very great extent the proper composition of the historian- That in this earlier case the original speech should have been flouted as the composition of Aspasia, has much the appear­ance of a malicious hint that the honourable matrons who applauded it so enthusiastically had been affronted by the inventions of a Milesian courtesan. However, as has been said, whether the legal repression of stage personalities at this date was due to recognised offensiveness of these parti­cular ribaldries of this date, must be left aside as uncertain, but is at least a plausible inference.

History, remote and contemporary, furnishes parallels enough to render intelligible what aid, all disadvantages

notwithstanding, Aspasia may have rendered to the states­man even in the conduct of his statesmanship. The society that assembled around her was no vain engine of social or political influence; it is for the woman of social talent who governs the coveted privilege of admission within sueh intel­lectual circles, of which power and wealth are at the centre, to sway the waverers of party and the politicians whose tongues and votes have power more wide than the range of their own selfish objects, to observe the indications of chang­ing impulses, to set in circulation suggestions intended to ripen—hypothetical intentions that are timely warnings to prudential trimmers, or, on occasion, are soon the open challenges that provoke either a crisis or a conflict, as desired. The opportunity of habitual conference, moreover, with a perfectly sympathetic and confidential spirit, is a vast aid, if not necessity, for some most powerful minds; and refreshing contact with a clear apprehension and unimpeach­able frankness has a value for the correction, if not origina­tion, of policy, which entitles the councillor to no little of the merit of the best decisions, and may go far to justify the repute of Aspasia for political insight and influence.

In such society a hearing was familiarly given to men who, though of statesmanlike minds, declined the difficulties or the toil, or hoped to have immunity from the dangers, of active participation in politics. Among other names that of Damon, the musician and improver of music, occupies a distinguished place ; he gained the renown of standing in the same posi­tion to Pericles in politics as the skilled trainer to the athlete,—a comoedian called him Cheiron, with allusion to the centaur who was fabled to have tutored Achilles as efficiently in wisdom and all knowledge as in playing on the lyre. Ulti­mately he had to experience that at Athens the suspicion of taking lively interest in politics, even in private, was sufficient to stimulate popular jealousy and afford an open­ing for the animosity of the envious. That the crowd of

artists who were now embellishing Athens with works of unprecedented as still unrivalled genius, the sculptors, and architects, and painters, Ictinus, Mnesicles, Callicrates,— Pheidias first and above all;—that poets and historians in this society gave and borrowed interest and incitement, would follow as of course, if there were not the unhappy proof, in the endeavours which afterwards were made to wound Pericles through persecution of his friends.

Philosophy, it is certain, was no less freely discussed than art and politics ; conflicting as are the details of particular anecdotes, the residence at Athens, and close intercourse with Pericles, of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, the philosopher who was surnamed or nicknamed Mind,—Nous,—is a certainty; and if Pericles fought against Melissus, at Athens he was familiar with the teachings of Zeno the Eleatic, another follower of the school of Parmenides.

The philosophy of this school scarcely proposed more than the investigation of the physical problem of the world; how boldly this was pressed in contravention of popular prejudices, had again its unhappy proof in the odious charges of impiety which were urged, at a fatal moment, against not only Anaxagoras, but Aspasia herself.

But more important and interesting still are the intima­tions, so frequent and positive that they can scarcely deceive us, that it was under the stimulant suggestions of these conversations that was developed the germ of the philosophy and philosophic processes of Socrates himself. It would not be easy to concede less to the repeated averments of Plato, whatever our general well-founded mistrust of his treatment of anecdote or history; but an allusion of Xenophon, more usually trustworthy for matter of fact, may be accepted as marked ¹ confirmation, though in a confessedly imaginary dia­logue. Aspasia is here referred to as an authority, for the

reciprocal duties of husbands and wives; and it is remarkable that an anecdote of her conversation which is preserved by Cicero turns upon the same point. As here reported, she proves indeed to Xenophon and his wife, that by their own elicited admissions, it is necessary for them to be respectively the best husband and best wife possible, unless each is to live in constant desire of a different¹ partner. The authority for this conversation is ultimately the Soeratic Aeschines, and we may be glad of further illustration from Xenophon’s Memora­bilia, where Aspasia is quoted again and again with reference to the principles on which firm friendship and constant affec­tion are ² dependent. All these references have certainly a suspicious leauing towards the topic of love, which may be thought to come, however naturally, not with its best recom­mendations from Aspasia; and it were futile doubtless to claim for the conversation around Aspasia the invariable aud scrupulous delicacy of what we may believe to be the best and highest standard; though it was to the eager competition and pursuit of Athenian dames of recognised dignity, and not to the hetaerae, that Xenophon himself ascribes the corruption and ruin of the nephew of the house, ³ Alcibiades. But we seem here, on the one hand, to arrive at primitive examples of the Soeratic processes, not only of interrogation, but of analysis by illustrative comparisons with instances no matter how commonplace or familiar ; and on the other, at the origin, with Socrates himself, of that favourite erotic illustration which culminates in the consummate full-blown theory of Platonic love. The Socrates of Xenophon professes to have been the scholar of Aspasia in matters pertaining to love; the Socrates of Plato reinsists on this profession emphatically, and draws out in detail, and with full command of fancy, of poetry, of philosophy, a theory of love which asserts the identity of the principle under all its forms, but traces with

enthusiasm the gradual exaltation of the idea from the passion for personal beauty, to that of intellectual, of moral beauty, still tending to the development and to the perpetuation of whatever is most excellent, whatever is divine.

It is to the art of a period of unusual wealth and luxury that we must look, if we would judge by independent testi­mony, whether refined and healthy beauty grew forth from such a soil transformed, or the mere luxury itself was the rank and ultimate outgrowth for which all more wholesome influences were sacrificed. On a review of Athenian art in the time of Pericles, we cannot hesitate; it is not here that we find sensibility a mere affectation for masking and con­ducting to the sensual, instead of a manifestation of sensuous­ness purified, transfigured. The beauty of the human frame is here, if it ever was, displayed as the first link of a chain which conducts us upward to the supremest moral elevation, and not the very last, that is to be only grasped for a moment and then foregone for ever by the nature that drops down into uttermost debasement.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE PERICLEAN CONCEPTION OF CIVILISATION.

Suidas is the only authority for Pericles having’ written his speeches, and indeed having been the first to write out beforehand speeches that were to be delivered in public as extemporised; that he spoke at least after studied prepara­tion, whether with strict adherence or not to premeditated words and order, might be assumed independently from the perfection of the result, and is all we can be assured of. True that not one authentic oration of his ¹ remains, and true even that none were in possession of antiquity ; his psephisms were the only examples of his composition ² extant, but the characteristics and glory of his oratory were reflected in contemporary literature, and are again brought before us by a succeeding generation in notices that represent the unani­mous voice of public tradition. Aristophanes spoke of the Olympian Pericles who lightened, thundered, and convulsed all Greece, expressions which Cicero, it would seem, from following the same authority that afterwards led ³ Diodorus into error, ascribed to Eupolis, correcting himself⁴ afterwards. Thucydides the son of Mclesias, as we have seen, accepted the comparison of his struggles with him to a wrestling match, and so the comoedian Eupolis found, in the rapidity of his

¹ Quint. Imi. iii. I. ³ Diori. xii. 40.

²        Plut. V Per. 8.

*       t'ic. ad Allirum, Ep. 6, lib. it

style and utterance—a rapidity that Plutarch states was com­bined with unusual sweetness—the suggestion of a metaphor from the stadium :—

*       A. Powerful he was beyond all men as a speaker;

Whenever he' came forth, like the swift foot-racers

His speech caught orators up who had ten feet start of him.

B. You tell of a swift one. A. But besides his swiftness A certain suasion had seat upon his lips So winning was he,—and of orators the one alone Who left the sting behind in those who heard him.’

The sweetness of his voice and his facile swiftness of elocu­tion were said to have alarmingly reminded some very old men, when he first came forward, of the tones and manner of ¹ Pisistratus. ^f Wielding at will the fierce democracy,⁵ he exerted equal power in restraining it when arrogant and headstrong, by infusing wholesome apprehension, and in restoring its self-confidence when unreasonably depressed. This is the testimony of ² Thucydides, who characterises him elsewhere as the ablest man of the time for oratory as well as action.

The combination of power, rapidity, and fascination that is thus avouched, is probably not so much explained by, as it ex­plains, the tradition of his obligations to such varied instructors as Anaxagoras, Damon, and Aspasia ; though the indirect in­fluence could not be trifling upon high original aptitude, of habitual interest in philosophical speculations, the theory as well as exercise of art, and the excitements of society at once intellectual and vivacious. To Plato, Pericles was still, though only by traditional reputation, the most accomplished of all ³ orators. It suits his preceding argument in favour of the superiority of art, as based on an exhaustive theory, to mere casual or desultory empiricism, to ascribe the power of Pericles over the minds of his hearers to the study of mind as expounded by Anaxagoras,—to such a systematic analysis, under his guidance, of its various powers, susceptibilities, and

disabilities, as his surname Nous (Mind) may give excuse for pretending, but furnishes no sufficient reason for believing, against Plato’s own intimations ¹ elsewhere, that the Clazo- menian entered into. The tradition, however, is none the less valuable and conclusive for the large scope, the at once profound and subtle thought, that united with approved practical wisdom and unimpeached patriotism to establish a prolonged sway over a more numerous, intelligent, and sensi­tive assembly than the world has ever known, before or since, in possession of absolute power

In the celebrated funeral oration w’liich Thucydides assigns to Pericles, over the citizens slain in the first year of the war, we have a statement by the historian, at least a contemporary witness, of his conception of an ideal civilisation and a fully accomplished and established empire city, and, to the extent to which these were realised, of the characteristics of Periclean Athens. For the main portion of this work he asserted the claim of his own, of the existing generation, which, worthy of remoter ancestors who had at least held their own and kept the ground,—no slight achievement in days of constant expulsions and migrations,—had raised a still grander superstructure on the broad foundations laid out by their immediate fathers.

In almost every characteristic that is here insisted on or asserted, Athens is shown in contrast to her Spartan rival, and we may discern that, whether by the orator originally or only by the historian, the contrast is made as direct as pos­sible. Sparta indeed is left unmentioned throughout, but in such case omission w^ras equivalent to emphasis, and con­temporaries could only receive a heightened appreciation of the distinction between the two chief polities of Hellas. As pointedly as in the Homeric catalogue of the ships, we have drawn out before us the moral resources of the states that are already on the point of closing in mortal conflict; of that

which by unflinching rigour had secured at least most admir­able stability, and that which displayed what capacities ol human progress are developed when the utmost freedom of personal action is boldly admitted, and combined with a legally ordered constitution that is frankly receptive of ad­justment by occasional change.

An opening assertion of originality for the Athenian constitution reflects on the Spartan as confessedly derived in large part from Cretan precedents; as considered on its own merits it was manifest, and to the Athenian predilec­tions repugnant, that Spartan training obliterated all personal characteristics, and only compassed a strong national organisa­tion by reducing every citizen to a common type of enforced mental and bodily uniformity. Restraint and reserve were heavy in the whole social system of Laccdaemon ; the vast mass of even the freemen of the community w^Tas excluded from any real participation in political power, and therefore in the political interests which at Athens were the every-day concern of the poorest.

Secrecy was as absolutely the rule at Sparta as publicity at Athens; from Sparta foreigners and foreign commerce were jealously excluded, while Athens invited freest intercourse and gave access to all; and whereas at Athens no honest occupa­tion w^ras held to disfranchise citizens, for whom squalid idle­ness was alone dishonourable, not merely trades and handi­crafts, but even agriculture itself, was held to be beneath the dignity of a Spartiate, how ever necessitous.

The Athenian system, Pericles asserted, set an example to other states, and was an instruction to Hellas generally in the best conditions of national vigour and power, and also in the most diversified and effective development of the individual man in both mind and body.

A predilection for liberality, frankness, freedom, pervaded all; the constitution w as a democracy in the fullest sense; law was equal for all in matters of private disputes and

VOL. II.     m -

differences ; and in respect of public dignities no preference was admitted to social grade in competition with genuine endowments.

At Athens the same men were engaged actively both in private business and in public affairs, and even the operatives were not without information in politics; indeed it was a peculiarity there, that one who gave himself no concern about such matters was not held to be simply indifferent, but con­temned as good for nothing.

The same spirit that was adopted in public administration precluded any jealous interference with personal inclinations and habits in daily intercourse; each was allowed to indulge his own fancy without provoking indignation, or being ex­posed to the sour looks that are as annoying as direct penalties. At the same time, this unembarrassed liberty of private de­meanour was fully restrained within limits of the public peace by uniform submissiveness to the magistrates and the laws, and then by voluntary respect for those unwritten laws with which remain the sanctions of the graces and decencies of life.

At Athens, again, the labours of a life of restless activity were provided with relief and relaxation unstinted, by insti­tutions of public games, contests and annual festivals, and then by habitual cultivation of the embellishments of private life which countervail by delightfulness the inevitable vexa­tions of current existence. To the very vastness of the city it was due that all parts of the world were contributory to these requirements, and that it did not enjoy the native pro­ductions of its own adjacent territory more familiarly than those of other climes and countries.

Consistently with these maxims of the Athenians, and their predilection for a manner of life of general agreeableness rather than one of irksome discipline, it was their disposition to rely on courage which is a growth of manners rather than of enacted laws. No contrast could be greater than the

Lacedaemonian system, which sought to inure the young to hardness by a system of oppressive restraint; while the Athenians gave in to a more indulgent way of living, and yet were found no whit less equal to a conflict, when only on equal terms; neither did their hearts fail them when danger was in prospect, nor when it arrived were they less bold to confront it than those with whom existence even during peace was one continued course of drudgery and drill.

The city, again, held itself superior to the jealous policy of excluding foreigners out of apprehension lest they should gain some advantage by what they saw or heard, and put less confidence in stealthy preparations and deceit than in open zeal for the work before them.

Publicity as frank was admitted in the discussion and design of public business; nor was it held at Athens that action was prejudiced by discussion, but, on the contrary, that no mischief was so serious as for action to become inevitable while previous information was still defective. Despising alike the courage which is only due to ignorance, and delibera­tion which does no more than foster dilatoriness, it was the pretension of the Athenians to unite the extreme of daring with the most accurate reasoning out of whatever was under­taken. ‘ And they surely are to be esteemed most hardy of mind who are aware of all risks as well as rewards, and not­withstanding are not slack to face a peril.⁵

Generally, then, the city was entitled to put in this claim to admiration,—that as it employed wealth for requisite pur­poses rather than for mere display to be talked about, so it indulged in enjoyment of the beautiful consistently with frugality, and in intellectual culture with no relaxation of active fibre.

Finally, it was averred by the orator that the value of these principles was approved by facts,—by the fact especially, that of all cities existing, Athens alone, when it came to trial, proved ever superior to her reputation.

M 2

CHAPTER XLVII.

THE PANATHENAEA.

Among the Athenian characteristics insisted upon by Pericles in the Epitaphian oration, he assigns, as we have seen, especial importance to the relief which the city was careful to provide for the exhausting toils as well as troubles of humanity, in a constant succession of public festivities, and by the enlivenment of a universal diffusion of elegance and art. He asserted for the city an equally eager, while still an equally disciplined, devotion for the Beautiful as for the Prac­tical, as ardent a passion for Art, in which both unite and culminate, as for Philosophy, which penetrates to the common foundation and sources of all. We can only surmise how his terms were justified by the chastened luxury which may have embellished not only the private dwellings of the Athenians within the walls, but their residences scattered over the country, of which they were soon to witness, from those walls, the ruin and devastation. And even descriptions, though they had been delivered at first hand, could give at best but a poor reflex of the sacred pomps with all their lavish apparatus and elaborate adornments, and of the periodical competitions in every branch of cultivated prowess and skill, especially in the musical contests that were an original institution of Pericles himself. Time has eaten away—has washed out and

worn out the soft investiture of this gracious, this stately organism, yet somewhat has resisted and still remains albeit desiccated and half perished,—some subsisting framework of which the exquisiteness vindicates to the height the enthu­siasm of contemporaries. The scanty and dismembered ex­amples that have come down to us of the wealth of dramatic poetry—only scanty relatively to an original wealth almost inconceivable — approve whatever has been told or can be most daringly imagined of the Athenian drama as represented; much in the same manner the sculptures which have been happily rescued from the ruins of the acropolis, maimed as we receive them by barbarism of man, and flayed by the winds and rain of centuries, are still recognisable as works of such dignity and grandeur of style as to raise our marvel what must have been the still higher excellence of the temple-statues that are lost entirely—that we are left to recover a conception of as we may from the echoes of past enthusiasm and details of prosaic description.

The festivals and celebrations of the Athenians were most numerous and diversified,— every tribe, nay every family, had its own, consecrated ever by some religious associations, and connected in most cases with peculiar rites and private traditions. But surpassing all in interest were the public celebrations which were conducted wholly or in part at the charge of the state, and ever under the immediate control of its functionaries ; and on these the solicitude of Pericles was particularly bestowed to raise them by unstinted mag­nificence and study and art to the very highest pitch of combined impressiveness and beauty. The ordinary life of the Athenian was filled up with lively excitement in active business beyond his private affairs; whether serving as dicast or as participant in the political assemblies—where he was auditor and arbiter of most important policy—he was con­scious in either capacity of independent power, and flattered and stimulated day after day by finding himself appealed to

by all the arts of most cultured oratory. Amidst these engrossments the great public festivals were interposed, and in their turn and while they lasted claimed as entirely the whole man. Most sacred and imposing of all was the cele­bration of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which occupied several days, and comprised processions not only within but without the city, as well as the ultimate rites of initiation in the vast structures which were raised to accommodate them at Eleusis. In this celebration the religious element, which was absent from none, was predominant. The Panathenaic festival was in traditional origin peculiarly an expression of the unity of the state, and thence of its energy and power ; in this the political sentiment may be considered to have predominated as it was salient everywhere amidst all the parade of artistic elaboration and sacred accompaniments. The Panathenaea culminated at the Parthenon on the acropolis, as the Myste­ries at the Telesterion at Eleusis; the Odeum and the great Dionysiac theatre were the scenes of the competitions in music and poetry, and above all of the drama—the drama which characteristically was not only a union of the agencies of all the arts, but addressed itself as comprehensively to all the interests of Athenian life, not more to the domestic and the ordinary than to political sympathies and the preposses­sions of religion as well the soberest as the most enthusiastic.

It is even averred by an ancient authority, and well borne out by collection of scattered notices, that the Athenians celebrated twice as many religious festivals as any other Greek state; richness of mental endowment ever character­ises the people amongst whom religious sentiment, with whatever errors allied, has risen to the height of genuine and generous enthusiasm; and never before or since have such passion for beauty and such skill in art been united, as were pressed into the service of these shows and pomps and festivities at Athens. The Panathenaic festival was that which—perhaps after the Eleusinia—received the highest

elaboration, and it was connected with the most exquisite productions of Art,—in Music, Sculpture, Architecture, and general design. It was observed yearly in a minor form, but the Great Panathenaea recurred like the Olympia, which it preceded by a year, only once in four years,—at the con­clusion of a period that gave an approximate cycle of the joint phases of the sun and moon. Like the Olympia, it was celebrated at midsummer, in the Attic month Heca- tombaion, which was at first named Cronion from Cronus, undistinguishable even in later times generally from Chronus, —Time personified, — appropriate deity of a chronological epoch. The substitution of Hecatombaion carried quite as distinct and appropriate an association with the service of Apollo, the Sun God.

The origin of the festival as Athenaea was carried back to Erichthonius, indistinguishable from Erechtheus, and to a mythical date even earlier than the Arcadian Lycaea, of which the institution was ascribed to Lycaon j and it was said to have become the Panathenaea, when Theseus united all the scattered demes of Attica into a single state with common interest and equal participation in the franchise of a central city. Its antiquity is certainly avouched by the connection which it ever retained with the archaic statue of Athene, that could be reputed to have fallen from heaven —Athene Polias—the Athene of the acropolis, the ancient 7roA.i9. This was said to have been an object of extended reverence at even a still earlier epoch, and was preserved in the small temple that contained along with it many other archaic memorials of Attic religion. This, called by Pau­sanias the Erechtheum, is the same of which, reconstructed as he saw it, we have considerable remains, and must be identified in site and occupancy at least, with the house or palace of Erechtheus—Erechtheus earth-born, nurtured by ¹ Athene or, as another legend said, by Pandrosos,—to which,

¹ Horn. Iliad, ii. 546.

according¹ to Ilomer, Athene retired as if to a familiar Miome.

The earlier temple, like the earlier Parthenon, was burnt by Xerxes; its successor, according to an inscription dated B.C. 409, was still incomplete long after the new Parthenon was finished, but we cannot doubt that it had been suffici­ently restored meanwhile to protect the more important sanctities. Of the earlier building not a vestige remains; the new is of the Ionic order, enriched with carved details and graceful mouldings of the most delicate and exquisite execution. The restored structure, representing 110 doubt the preceding in its chief divisions, was in the main a com­bination of a double eella at different levels, with distinct porticoes one eastward on the axis of the building, the other at the side and fronting north ; a peculiar caryatid stoa or open naos was attached to its southern exterior wall. In this double arrangement we have already a symbol of alli­ance, or it may be of treaty and reconciliation, between interests of which the conflict had grave import in the internal politics of Attica. The legend of the contest of Athene and Poseidon for the possession or patronage of the land of Attica dates from far prehistoric times, but symbol­ises and certifies the same conflict of interests and habits Ijetween the cultivators and the maritime population, that is brought before us by Aristophanes. As might be ex­pected, the elemental aspect of the mythus was most pro­nounced at the earlier date. The temple contained the salt well and dints of the trident, by which Poseidon had ap­proved his might, and the sacred olive-tree that was the creation and gift of Athene. The attached naos of which the entablature was supported by the figures of girls hold­ing vases, must have been the so-called Pandroseum—as belonging to Pandrosos, the ministering nymph of dew,— the fostering influence of vegetation. Stronger arguments ¹ Horn. Orfyw. vii. So,

than have yet been combined will be required to disprove the natural assumption, that it was here, with favourable exposure to sun and air but limited in height, that was seen the sacred olive-tree of the temple, the eXata 7ray- _KV(f)os—the crooked olive. Here was a sacred serpent housed an fed—the ever-thirsty reptile that is so constantly asso­ciated in earliest legends with founts and sacred trees; recognised here, however, as Erichthonian, as type of the autochthony of the people of Erechtlieus, the genuine chil­dren of the very soil. The sacred lamp that was constantly kept burning in one chamber of the temple had equal reference to Athene and to Hephaestus, god of fire and the arts of fire,—the reputed parents according to one legend, in strange mystical way, of the primal Athenian, Erechtheus. To legend it was also left to account for the foliage that invested an equally mystical figure of the no doubt phallic Hermes.

An altar of Lethe—of Oblivion—within the conjoined temples of rival powers, can only be' significant of am­nesty—of complete reconciliation. So it was otherwise told that Theseus was the institutor of the Panathenaic festival of which this temple was the religious centre, when, after founding .a single council hall and Prytaneum at Athens for all the associated Attic demes, he deprecated future in­testine quarrels by the institution of bloodless offerings on the altar of Eirene—¹ Peace. It is so far a coincidence that before this temple was an altar of Zeus Hypatus—^£ Jove most High,’—which also received only bloodless offerings, and where even libations of wine were disallowed. Both in respect of scene and sentiment there is a curious correspond­ence here with Hector’s ² speech, when in a hasty interval of fight he puts aside the wine which his mother Hecuba proffers for him to drink and be refreshed, and for a libation

to Zeus on the acropolis of ¹ Troy,—‘ forasmuch as it befits not to make wine libations to Zeus with hands unwashed, or for one to offer up prayers to him while besmeared with defilement and gore/

Within the temple was an altar of Poseidon, on which, by instruction of an oracle, offerings were made to Erecli- tlieus also—whom however there is no ground for identi­fying with Poseidon ;—another of the hero Butes,—a third of Hephaestus. The legend of Butes involved an apology or justification of living sacrifices, and by implication, of the taking of life that is involved in the use of animal food. In this temple too w^Tere dedicated the most chosen spoils of the Persians, the gorget of Masistes,—the scymetar of Mardonius.

It is in accordance with all analogy that the original consolidation of Attica into a single state, small as was its total area and extent, was a work of time and dif­ficulty, and that when happily concluded it should have been secured by every sacred and commemorative sanction avail­able. The traditional attachment of the Panathenaic cele­bration to this peculiar group and combination of archaic sanctities confirms this, and that the ascription of the insti­tution should adopt variously the mythical Erechtheus or Theseus, is only evidence for its remote antiquity. The festival of national or tribal unity has many parallels in other parts of Hellas,—like effects, in many cases it may be of like independent causes, and in others, of sympathy or imitation.

The favourite agonistic element of Ilcllenie festivals was here very fully indulged ; the Panatlienaea opened with every form of contest, as foot-races both of men and boys,—with armour or without,—wrestling, boxing, the pentathlon, horse and chariot races, and so forth, and even competitions in speed and manoeuvring of triremes. Fictile vases of archaic form, that were fillod or supposed to be filled with oil from

¹ Horn. Iliad, v. 257.

the sacred olive-trees, are numerous in museums, sometimes inscribed ^£ One of the prizes from Athens,’ sometimes ‘ I am one of the prizes from Athens ’; occasionally they also bear the name of the archon of the year.

Recitations of poetry on the occasion, and especially of Homeric poetry, are noted as early as Peisistratus. Pericles was the first to effect the institution of a musical contest, of singing and of playing on pipe and lyre, and himself, as elected athlothetes, arranged the scheme of the competition. The Odeum was a building of peculiar plan and construction, provided for these performances. Unfortunately we have but a general description of it: it was of capacity to accom­modate a vast seated multitude, and covered by a roof of conical form supported by a forest of pillars. It was com­monly believed that the pointed form of the roof, and perhaps its construction, were copied from the tent of the Great King that he left behind after Salamis, and even that the masts of his vessels supplied the timber. Timber certainly was em­ployed in its construction with unusual liberality, as it was indeed destroyed at last lest it should furnish enemies with wood for engines Even apart from artful combination of trusses, this material had the advantage above stone of spanning far wider intervals without danger or difficulty, and allowing the necessarily numerous supports to be set further apart, and in consequence the obstruction to view to be reduced importantly.

A torch- or lamp-bearing race—lampadephoria—seems to have had a certain reference to an astronomical aspect of the ideal Athene, and then to her mythical association with Hephaestus, god of fire, and her associate as instructress in its application to the arts of Mife. We find a trace of this in ² Homer, who taking as so often a humanised motive from a sacred legend, makes the goddess herself bear the lamp before Ulysses as he shifts his armoury.

. ¹ Horn. Hym. ad Vulc.       ² Horn. Odyss. xix. 34.

The games—more accurately, the contests—of the Greeks expressed most distinctly their reliance on free emulation and competition before a public for a prize,—whether of tangible value, like those of the Homeric heroes and Hesiod's wres­tlers, or for simple meed of recognised superiority and an olive crown,—as the most effective spur to industry and art and genius. They applied it to contests between dramatic poets and musical performers as confidently as to foot-racers. The value of this incitement, however, depends absolutely on the worth of the decisions,—on the competence of the judges and their conscientious fairness. How these conditions were secured at Athens, and indeed how at any time and else­where they may be—it seems fully approved by success that at Athens they were so^is part of a large and very im­portant enquiry indeed. In competitions where relative superiority could only be determined by taste, there was the utmost scope for error, for perversity, or irresponsible favouritism or caprice. AVe must probably assume that the decision was limited to estimating the public verdict as conveyed in expressions of applause or preference,—a verdict that could be relied on to stand justified in virtue of the refined sensibility of the general auditory.

The last day of the Panathenaic festival was devoted to a procession, which was a display of the collective pride and strength of the Athenian population, doing homage- to the tutelary divinity of the city—that is, to the personification of their genius, their exploits, their best aspirations,—to that ideal of the conjoint self-restraint and energy, acute intelli­gence and dexterous manipulation or ingenuity, that are embodied in the Athene of Homer.

The immediate purport of the procession was the escort of a splendid peplus, or mantle, for dedication to the goddess. Here again we have an Homeric precedent, and from the passage already cited, in the peplus laid by the Trojan matrons across the knees of the Athene of Ilion. An antique figure

of Athene has been discovered at Athens, which by seated attitude and treatment of the lap, seems to indicate prepared reception of such an offering. The significance of a peplus as appropriate dedication to the goddess, has many phases, shift­ing and interchanging with varying points of view of various participants in the ceremony. It was worked by maidens on the acropolis, not without matronly aid; and was emblem­atic of the patronage of the Virgin Goddess for maidenly and feminine art and industry; so every four ¹ years sixteen maidens of Elis worked a peplus for Here. It was carried along stretched as a sail upon a galley that moved upon wheels concealed from sight,—the ship itself an emblem of the shipwright Athene of mythology, who, as still seen on monuments, was assistant at the construction of the Argo, and patroness of the ingenuity which the Athenians exercised with such zeal and success in perfecting their all-important navy.

A subject was worked on the peplus which we can scarcely suppose to have been unchanged from year to year; we read of the battle of the Giants and the Olympian Gods in which Athene is ever so conspicuous a protagonist. The peplus of the Dresden Athene shows a series of such com­bats upon square spaces forming its border. The national heroes, as Theseus, seem to have had occasional place, but it must have been in late and degenerate times indeed, if ever contemporaries were introduced. Otherwise the peplus of the Goddess had renown in poetry that suggested the most brilliant range of celestial, of cosmical imagery; that of Zeus which Athene aided Artemis and Kore to embroider, as she took part with them in gathering ² flowers, seems to represent at least the annual vegetative mantle of nature, as distinctly as the robe which the Goddess on a vase-painting adjusts around Pandora, who is inscribed with a title of the

germinant earth, Aenesidora. When she prepares with Here to assist the Greeks, ‘ she lets fall the peplus—her own work —upon the floor of her ¹ father,* and then it is suggestive of the starry expanse.

Appropriately in the festival of the Virgin Goddess, very conspicuous place and important functions were assigned to the Athenian maidens,—to those of the most dignified families especially, accompanied by the matronly, and attended by the wives and daughters of the meties, or resident aliens, who were bound to the service—it may have been a coveted distinction—of carrying their seats and sunshades.

It was while engaged in the preparation of this pomp that the tyrant Hipparchus was assassinated, and out of resent­ment at the studied insult of his rejection of a noble maiden as unworthy to take part in it.

The masculine and warlike attributes of the Goddess were, however, no less distinctly recognised in the parade of the armed youth, on foot and mounted. The cavalcade was a particularly brilliant part of the show, and studiously arranged to have the greatest possible effect. A part was also assigned to elder men, who were selected not without reference to the characteristic beauty of old age. Coloured apparel was dis­allowed during the festival, and branches of olive and other foliage were borne by many of the participants.

The frieze in low relief that is carried entirely round the exterior of the cella of the Parthenon, gives a representation of this procession, with no design to reproduce its exact detail, but emphasising to the intelligent, at least, its leading motives. This frieze alone is proof that the larger, the more ornate, the unsparingly elaborate temple of the acropolis— the Parthenon—the Apartment of the maiden—was brought into most direct relation to this chief festival, however tra­ditional sanctity might attach a certain precedence to the Erechtheum and its ruder statue.

¹ Horn. Iliad, viii. 3S5.

Over the Pronaos entrance,—and thus full in front of the great statue within,—is exhibited the delivery of the folded peplus to a boy. A boy within the age of puberty is found elsewhere in Hellas attached to the service of Athene, though no literary record attests the fact in connection with the Parthenon,—as with the sculpture before us, none is now required. The attendant and instructing functionaries are probably the Archon King and Queen,—Basileus and Basi- lissa. This group is interposed between two other groups of figures larger in scale, not only than these, but than all others on the frieze—they are at least as high seated as are all the others standing. They represent, therefore, heroes or gods, and all sit in attitudes of calm attention and easy repose : their very draperies as unagitated as their gestures.

The group on the left comprises Zeus, Here, and Hebe— the head of this figure had been knocked off but has been recovered and its place identified; hitherto however it has not been given even to those who have done much to replace the slabs in their original order, to recognise an indubitable restoration at this point. Eleusinian Demeter then declares herself by motherly contours, and explicitly by the great torch that she holds ; Triptolemus and the eponymns of the priestly families, Kerux and Eumolpus, are, as I have shown in a special monograph, as certainly identifiable.

The course of the Panathenaic pomp was from the Cera- meicus and through the agora to the Eleusinium of the city, a peculiarly sacred locality, which was not occupied even in the most crowded condition of the city during the Pelopon­nesian war; and thence after a further circuit, before the acropolis was ascended, to the Pythium, the temple of¹ Apollo Patrous, who may himself be recognised among the right- hand group.

In the monograph already referred to will be found my

conclusions as to the names of the rest of the group—con­clusions and conjectures. To the remarks there made on the propriety of special note of Apollo Patrous in a parade of Athenians, who made claim in a certain sense to be his pro­geny, may be added, that as the Olympic powers in these groups are antithetical to the Chthonian, so is the God of the Pythium, where the progress of the ship concluded, to the Goddess of the Eleusinium, which it visited immediately on starting.

I        am much disposed to the belief that the procession of the ship, with its peplus sail and filled with both sexes splendidly arrayed, had relation originally to the legendary but probably not altogether fabulous expedition of Theseus to Crete,—his rescue of youths and maidens, his concerted but neglected signal of a special sail, and to the celebrated annual theoria to Delian Apollo, which the Athenians referred to this legen­dary deliverance. The coincidence of the Panathenaea with the month llecatombaion of Apollo would favour the fusion of the two celebrations.

Groups of officials, male and female, the demarchs and others, are occupied in setting forth the ranks of maidens and young men. The victims for feast and sacrifices, the musical- accompaniment of lyres, the service of the metics, are fully indicated; but the largest space is occupied by the pomp of chariots and cavalry, ready to fall in, in quickening and in full career, all executed with a mastery of relievo that has never since been equalled. The horsemen advance in files of six or seven, and we may observe that to each file in most cases is attached one horseman, the most remote, somewhat de­tached and in advance, as if an officer. We are thus to understand that they are advancing as Xenophon recommends on such occasions—Kara (fwXas—and each file represents a

¹        company.

We see that the sculptor gained more than he lost by

¹ Xen. Hipparch. 3.

sacrificing literal nature on some points. The riders are large compared with their horses, and there is no allowance for perspective diminution of the horsemen remotest from the actual front. As this frieze was to be looked at from below and from the narrow arcade, a low relief—which however was traditional in Attica—was imperative ; but after all, the sculpture, when once in its place, must have been seen to great disadvantage.

The Parthenon of Pericles, of Pheidias and Ictinus, occu­pied, but with a certain extension, the identical site of an earlier Parthenon, itself no inconsiderable structure,—a hexa- style Doric temple indeed, not like its successor an octastyle, but of which the columns fully equalled the later in diameter. That it was ruined by the Mede does not admit of a doubt,— whether it was one of the great works by which Peisistratus manifested the usual instinct of the tyrant rather than merely emulated Polycrates or Cleisthenes, or whether, as is perhaps probable, it was of a still earlier date, is matter of uncertainty.

The acropolis in earlier days was ever a true citadel, seat of a strong garrison, defensible against either surprise or siege, and it may be assumed, contained the residence of the kings at least, if not also of the later tyrants. In the Periclean period the acropolis ceased to be even an arsenal; but while it became still more peculiarly a sacred enclosure, it only the more naturally retained the safeguard of the national treasure, whether in the form of coin or ingots or sacred precious vessels, as well as of private deposits, which ever clung to the protection of a sanctuary, The reference by Achilles in the Iliad to the wealth contained in the temple at Pytho, implies that even so early it was known to Homer as the same bank of deposit that we find it at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian ¹ war.

The walls which crowned the edge of the acropolis on all its

¹ Horn. Jliacl, ix. 404 ; Tkuc. i. 121, 143. VOL. II.  N

precipitous sides, were assigned traditionally, through the greater portion of their extent, to Pelasgic workmen. The portion on the southern side was built up by Cimon, and pro­bably represents the extent that was thrown down by the Persians when they sj'stematieally demolished the defences of Athens, and burnt and desecrated its sacred buildings. Access was afforded only from the west, through a structure of peculiar dignity and magnitude, the Propylaea—the fore­gate—which was designed most happily on the same prin­ciples and in the same style of architecture as the Parthenon, but so subordinated by lower position and lesser scale in well-adjusted proportion and gradation, as to enhance the dignity of the more important building. A grand and con­spicuous hexastyle Doric portico was approached by a steep broad flight of steps divided by a roadway, which passing through a wider intereolumn to a lofty hypostyle hall and a central portal between two smaller doorwa}^Ts in a transverse wall, emerged w^Tithin the precinct under a second hexastyle Doric portico, fronting eastward. The western portico, or entrance from the city, was flanked externally by two ad­vanced halls of reduced height, which thus preserved for this main entrance a certain characteristic feature reminiscent of the obsolete purposes of defensive fortification. They had hipped roofs and columns in antis, and one was decorated with paintings ascribed to Polygnotus. The proportions of the smaller columns of these side buildings were most hap­pily, most artfully adjusted, to add dignity by contrast to those of the central group.

Within the precinct, the first and most conspicuous object was the statue—colossal bronze—of Athene Promaelnis, by Pheidias, and regarded as a dedication from the spoils of Marathon. It was some fifty feet high, exclusively of the pedestal, and the crested helmet and the point of the elevated spear were visible at sea to voyagers approaching Athens after rounding Sunium. The shield of the goddess was enriched

with bas-reliefs of the battle of Lapithae and Centaurs, by the sculptor Mys,—a subject chosen as including achievements of Theseus, the captor in archaic legend of the bull of Marathon, and to whom even a modern legend, as we have seen, ascribed a reappearance on the same scene, to assist his Athenians in their contest with Datis and Artaphernes.

The temples of chief interest within the enclosure were the small one of Nike Apteros,—Victory without wings,—of delicate architectural proportions and sculptural adornments on an advanced western bastion overlooking the ascent of the Propylaea ; the double temple of Athene Polias and Poseidon, the Erechtheum ; and lastly, the majestic Parthenon, with its axis corresponding generally with that of the plateau, and on the highest part lying off to the south-east, approached therefore by the angle on entrance from the west, but having its true front facing eastward. Pausanias enumerates with some care the antiquities and sanctities which were connected with the smaller temple, but is disproportionately concise upon the Parthenon, apparently for the reason that detailed de­scriptions already abounded. The valuable notices that he does give are supplemented importantly by the still existing remains of the building, and by certain more modern notices of portions that have since perished in too modern times.

The earlier basement upon the living rock was so far ex­tended in breadth as to give a measure of exactly one hundred Attic feet upon the top step, or line of stylobate. In the earlier temple the ancient name Hecatompedon, or ^c Hundred- foot plan,’ was justified, it would seem, by coincidence of a measurement taken longitudinally on the plan of the naos, and it was again accommodated in a like direction in the new building. The general design was an oblong cella, with six columns before a vestibule to an entrance at either end, and surrounded by an ambulatory under a general colon­nade of eight columns on the fronts and fifteen on the flanks; the whole is erected on a basis of three degrees, which, too

N 2

steep for ordinary steps, confer an expression of solid and majestic dignity. The interior was divided between the opis- tliodomus, a smaller square apartment at the west with four columns, which was used as a public and sacred treasury, and the longer proper naos fronting eastward. This was divided by two ranges of columns that carried an upper and smaller order and supported ceiling and roof, into a broad nave with two Literal aisles.

At the further end of the naos just in advance of the re­turned interior colonnade, and fronting the entrance, stood the erect chryselephantine statue of the goddess.

The interior received light from the roof, but what was the precise arrangement for weather-fending the compara­tively small opening which in this climate sufficed for illu­mination, and what was its exact position, remain, and seem likely to remain, unanswered questions.

Proper scientific study, which has certain claims in every art, intervenes most definitely in the art of architecture, to aid the last artistic determinations ; weights and dimensions must be settled here by positive numbers and measurements, —not merely felt and appreciated,—must needs be calculated with precision for ultimate adjustment. And here too, in virtue of his mastery of an adequate theory, the Athenian attained to an ideal beauty no less than in the sculptural expression of grace in gesture, in the poise and carriage of a head, in the tones of muscularity at rest or in action that defy reduction to the limits of a theory or decision by me­chanical or numerical rule.

It was at Athens that the general limits of proportion of the architectural members of the Hellenic trabeative style were first decided, and then the principles of allowable varia­tion within those limits and of special determination in particular cases. In the Parthenon, as I have elsewhere shown in detailed however still incomplete exposition, every division is proportionate to its special antithesis,—as length

to breadth, width to height, vertical to horizontal, enclosed or solid to open or void. The proportions employed are taken from a definitely limited scale with differences which diverge from equality by well marked but neither sudden nor crowded gradations. The architectural scale has to this extent an analogy to the musical, but only disaster has ever attended the theorists who have laboured at their identification. The architect of the Parthenon adopted or invented a scale of proportions which advance towards equality with a constant difference of five between the terms of the ratios. Even within this select sequence certain ratios were distinguished for more frequent employment, and in most important and most ingeniously varied application.

By a still further refinement the dimensions for the design were again subject to minute modifications in execution, to deviations in direction and delicacy of curvature that were found requisite to countervail some distortions that were due to disturbing effects of contrast and optical illusion.

The triumph of plastic genius within the naos was worthily prepared for by the wealth of elaborate, though less varie­gated sculptural embellishments of the exterior; these were distributed with most accurate instinct for subordination and enhancement of dignity, between the two pediments of which the subjects were divine and the figures colossal in scale, the intermediate metopes or square tablets of the frieze, of which there were ninety-four with heroic subjects,—contests with centaurs, with Amazons, mythical and mystic subjects,—and the frieze of the ambulatory of smaller scale again,—a quasi- symbolieal representation of contemporary celebrations.

The eastern pediment exhibited Athene, the goddess of Athens, in her most universal as well as mythical relations, though the subject may have been still treated with a certain colour of peculiar Athenian legend; this was her birth as fabled to have taken place from the head of Zeus cleft by the Titan Prometheus,—more immediately, it is probable, her

manifestation thereafter among the deities of Olympus, as the very central bloom and potential energy of general cos- mical power and intelligence.

In the western pediment the subject was mundane, and even most distinctly national,—the assertion by Athene of her tutelary claim to Attica. The mytlius of the contest of Athene and Poseidon for the land had many versions vary­ing in circumstances and vivacity. The version adopted here was that which had most analogy to the symbolism of the goddess as a nature-power, and which prevailed in the mytlius that connected her with her nursling Erechthcus, child of the productive land, and with the dewy daughters of Ceerops. She was represented as staying the sca-god as he advanced upon the land with a briny inundation,—as vindicating cul­tivation against the encroaching sea,—fertility and industry from sterile desolation. We have a sketch of the central group as it w^ras seen shattered, but still before its all but utter destruction ; Poseidon, confronted with the interposing Athene, recoils in sudden and decisive check ; behind him, with indications of the stealing or sunjino: waves, were

o      o r»      /

groups of the marine divinities, Amphitrite, Ino and Meli- certcs, Aphrodite and Thetis, and so forth. Advancing be­hind Athene w^ras her chariot, with steeds Victory-reined and guided, and Erechthcus ; while Ceerops, ancestor of the Athenians as Cccropidae, his wife Aglauros, and a daughter— this figure is entirely lost—regarded the rescue in mingled admiration and excitement. Ceerops is seated on a serpent,— allusive to the double nature that in mythology symbolised the vaunted autochthony of his progeny as offspring of the soil. So Pheidias, compromised with the cruder legend of a Ceerops, half man, half serpent, as even the unskilled sculptor of the Selinnntine metopes, evaded the gross trans­formation of Aetaeon, and showed his dogs deceived suffi­ciently by the fawn-skin cast over his shoulders. The incident is definitely localised by the personified streams of Attica,

recumbent in the angles,—Cephissus at one end; at the other, Ilissus and Calirrhoe.

The larger, the illimitable scope of the subject of the eastern pediment, was expressed by the sun-god rising from the sea at one angle ; his horses’ heads emergent above the line of the comice, and the moon-goddess, with her team, declining at the other. The central space was thus by im­plication coextensive with the cope of heaven,—the aerial canopy of Olympus, and with this range the artful gradation of suppressed interval between group and group sufficed to justify imagination in accepting the symbolism as sufficient.

Of the central group of this pediment we have unhappily neither detailed description nor drawing, nor a single frag­ment. Of the lateral groups there have yet been entrusted to the world most admirable and wonderful remains. We have, as the occupants of the extremity of the universe, at one end Dionysus reclined and greeting the rising sun-god, and the Attic pair of Seasons; and at the other, in marvellous modulation of symmetry, the triad of Moirai or Fates. Re­moteness is intimated in either case by indications of sym­pathy, rapidly but progressively affecting them, as the central excitement is propagated tremblingly to the very ends of creation.

On one side, while Dionysus is yet unroused, one Season— the nearer—is already aware of the announcing herald Iris, and just invites the attention of her associate to the ap­proaching messenger. At the other end the more conscious Fates are roused from deeper pre-occupation. One of them— the nearest of the three—turns less to regard Victory, who springs forward from beside her to crown the new-born goddess, than herself to gaze after the goddess. The next, upon whom her arm rests, is also roused, and is only half turned, as, even half prepared to rise, she awakens her recum­bent sister, who has been slumbering on her lap. Sculpture here employs upon space an art of the same class and character

as that by which, with reference to time, we are carried insensibly through a single scene of uninterrupted dialogue by Shakespear, and accept it as covering a series of events of many days, as between the first disgrace of Wolsey, and its most serious consequences.

As regards the probable treatment of the central subject, I have propounded elsewhere my dissent from many authorities, and in favour of the view that Athene must have been erect in the centre of her own pediment. The figure is, I believe, most accurately represented by a type of which we have so many antique copies as to imply a celebrated original, and that I have engaged for my conjectural restoration. Zeus, from whose head she was said to have sprung, adult and full-armed, would then be seated on one side, the admiring or astonished divinities grouped around.

These compositions, on the faith of records that cannot be mistrusted, were the most important that ever were executed by the Greeks, as the remains sufficiently declare them to be the work of the supremest genius in sculpture. We are lost in wonder at the consideration that the central figures which have perished must needs have been still more admirable than those comparatively subordinate ones which, even in ruin, defy all rivalry and even adequate appreciation. The so-called Ilissus and Theseus—in verity Cephissus and Dionysus,—are comparatively well preserved, and exhibit to us statuary at a point of perfection beyond which human genius cannot and need not hope to advance. They are now seen, it seems strange to say, in the British Museum, more favourably than ever they were beheld in antiquity after once they were placed in position. There they were elevated more than forty feet above the level of the eye, with the slabs of the tym­panum in close contact behind them. So placed not only was the fully elaborated work of the backs of the statues hidden for all time, but even much of the most exquisitely finished of the fronts, as the laps of the seated and recumbent

Fates, was lost from view, it might well be supposed for ever, after once the group was removed from the studio (ergasterion) of Pheidas and raised into its place.

Still it is the fact that the usual position of the future spectator from below, was by no means left unconsidered; for as an adjustment to his point of view certain of the figures have a somewhat forward lean, as of flowers from a vase. Executed again in the complete round as they are, we observe certain accommodations borrowed from the more peculiar managements of alto-relievo. To gain fuller display of the figure, departures are sometimes ventured upon from strict natural dimensions, and, as in the case of one shoulder and clavicle of the Dionysus, a positive is substituted for a per­spective foreshortening, in full confidence that the anomaly will be veiled for taste at least, if not for rule and compasses.

It is not incumbent on us to refine or super-refine with theorists of the lamp of sacrifice, as to a ruling intention of devoutness in thus lavishing labour beyond the need, as homage due to a sacred occasion. The works were doubtless objects of general regard and exhibition before they were set up in place; and even beyond the reward of admiration then to be reaped, the enthusiasm of a prime artist in his work ever prompts to confer upon it more perfection than he expects to be appreciated. The satisfaction of his own soul, the exhaus­tion of his energies in full embodiment of his own aspirations, were motives enough for a Shakespear to combine and finish up to the last perfection, in a single play, a crowd of characters of which he could scarcely expect that more than one, if one, with all the aid of his personal instruction, would ever attain to worthy personation.

The great authority for the architecture of the Parthenon and its refinements must always remain the survey which Mr. Penrose executed for the Society of Dilettanti.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE PROBLEM OF POLITICS IN RELATION TO KELIGION IN HELLAS.

One of the most remarkable points of contrast which the politics of Greece present to those of modern states, and indeed of many ancient also, is their immunity from com­plication by religious difficulties, their exemption from im­broglios of cross influences and interests between the admi­nistrators of temporal power and those who claimed to be in command of penalties more than temporal,—between priests and politicians. Evidence is superabundant of the violent interference of religious authorities with state affairs in ancient Egypt, in Judaea, and in countries further eastward; priesthoods were there sufficiently powerful to be the courted allies, the dangerous rivals or actual supplanters of royalty, and the mere quarrels of rival priesthoods were sometimes of such consequence as almost to hustle other politics out of history. In an opposite quarter at republican llome, it was a constant solicitude of the statesman to check with instant severity any independent religious association, as threatening not only disorder but perilous ¹ rivalry. Hellas was in imme­diate contact with regions which were the special forcing- grounds of superstitions, and the very nurseries of fanatics or impostors who best understood how to turn them to account for profit and power; a certain vitality of these

¹ Livy, xxxix. 16.

germs even in her midst is betrayed in the notices, obscure and imperfect as they are, of the Orphic sects; closely allied to these, if without direct attachment, were the Pythagorean societies, and here in full historical time a predominance of enthusiasm seems threatened by such symptoms as their profession of ascetic discipline, vegetarian diet, and so forth; yet the tendency is found to be choked forthwith by in­trusion of a mystical philosophy and purely political aims, which reduce the original religious symbols to little more than countersigns and watchwords.

What then, we ask, was the preoccupation in Hellas of those tendencies of common humanity which have constantly resulted in such conspicuous manifestations elsewhere? The question is of peculiar interest in relation to Attica, because there the religious sentiment (deisiclaimonia) was of excep­tional warmth and vivacity. The witness of monuments to this spirit is corroborated throughout Athenian history and literature from Thucydides and Aristophanes to Demosthenes and ²Plato, and attested with equal emphasis by ³ Paul and by ⁴Pausanias. As regards institutions, the quality of the Athenian religious sentiment is illustrated by the Eleusinian Mysteries as initiations, of which the pomp and solemn effect were held to justify the declaration that the festival had been accounted from of old by the Greeks at large, as no less superior in dignity to all others than were the gods in comparison to the heroes ; and while simply as a spectacle the celebration was comparable only with the Olympic games, in sacred ness it was without a parallel.

A claim to priesthood in the strictest sense was by no means unfamiliar in Greece generally, and at Eleusis the sacred functions were administered by an hereditary caste, the reputed descendants of Eumolpus and Kerux, — the Chanter and the Herald,—representatives of the primaeval

¹ Herod, ii. 81.    ² Soph. Oed. Col. 260 and 1007.

³        Acts xvii. 22.      ⁴ Paus. x. 28. 6.

ministers of song and service at celebration of a ¹ sacrifice. What then were the obstacles that prevented the development of the natural instincts of such a class, even independently of encouraging examples, and their considerable participation in political power? In the absence of any trace of distinctly repressive enactments, it would rather seem that the true check to rampant sacerdotalism in Hellas lay in the genius of the people, in a certain popular repugnance to tendencies which in consequence withered of themselves as in an un­kindly atmosphere. But an explanation such as this leaves us still with the task to penetrate, if we may, to the origin of such repugnance, and of the vigour with which it main­tained itself.

Even in the simple state of society which the Homeric poetry sets before us, we have an incidental notice of the ascetic Selli, who with feet unwashed and sleeping on the bare ground, are attached to the remote fane of Pelasgic Zeus at Dodona; they appear consecrated to his service as exclu­sively as the cup from which Achilles makes libation to their god and to none other ever, which is laid up ceremoniously, chalice-like, and only put to this its single and sacred use, and then only after special purification and with washed

²        hands.

The Selli thus appear as an associated and almost monk­like caste, imbued with the true instinet for imposing ritual and impressive apparatus, but already either extruded or left behind at the very confines of barbarism ; Chryses as a different type, appears in the first book of the Iliad, attached to his temple as a single and independent functionary, a performer of sacrifices, and presenter of prayers, and in immediate contact with the national activity of the Greeks.

The type of prophet as distinct from priest is presented to us as characteristically in Calchas, who is unattached to

either special station or peculiar god; his gift and function is to recognise the ominous in striking and exceptional inci­dents, and to furnish interpretations which vindicate them­selves by some aptness ingeniously symbolical, and falling in with the requirements of passion or policy. But even in­dependently he answers an appeal to explain what offence against what god has provoked a pestilence or fleet-detaining winds, and is prepared to indicate appeasing remedies, which when reinforced by and reinforcing popular feeling have to be adopted upon his bare assertion, with whatever repugnance and resentment, even by the ^£ king of men ⁵ himself. The poet allows, and I doubt not intends us to infer, that the denouncement by Calchas of the unpopular impiety of Aga­memnon, was procured by an understanding with Achilles, who has taken upon him to summon the assembly; but the prophet is not unaware that he is adopting a party at his peril, and the priest Chryses has already been sent off trembling at the threat that his sacred character and in­signia will avail but little to protect him in case of renewed intrusion.

The strength of the kings’ own position, which could thus from time to time assert itself, lay not slightly in their unreserved and admitted claim of divine right as delegates of Zeusit is in manifest harmony with this assumption that they officiate at sacrifices with only their own heralds as subordinate assistants, and offer general prayers and make solemn attestations on their own account on most important occasions of battle or ¹ treaty. The custom of heroic times was continued where kingship alone survived, in Lacedaemon, and when the army was in the field the function of priest was assumed by the Spartan king as absolutely as that of

²        commander-in-chief.

The faculty of the diviner is trespassed upon as freely;

Hector waives aside an omen that does not suit him, with the noble protest—

‘The one best omen is our country’s cause.’

Agamemnon, once foiled by Calchas, knows how to put superstition to use quite independently on his own account, and enforces reluctant acquiescence in his rash and passionate purpose by declaring a divine intimation to himself in a dream. This encroachment on the pretensions of the mantis has to be accepted on his own unconfirmed authority, and only a covert murmur is still suggested by Nestor's signi­ficant averment that no less authority than that of the king of men,—incontestible in any case,—would induce him to accept ¹ it.

The Homeric is thus found so far anticipating the Hellenic world as exhibiting sacerdotal pretensions held decidedly in check, although at present by no means quite subdued or obsolete. In later times, as reported by Pindar and Hero­dotus, we find the soothsaying faculty continued as an ancestral endowment in certain families, who employ it lucratively and professionally as they might any other hereditary talent, or simply the transmitted rules and maxims of a technical profession. An assumed preternatural gift in this form may be safely interpreted as due to no more than domestic indoctrination with traditional artifice and jargon. Accordingly when the soothsayer — the mantis — is found habitually stationed beside the general on the battle-field, with ostensible control over his action, we cannot doubt the usual existence of an understanding that omens shall be favourable when they are required to be so by strategic considerations, and not otherwise. When a general like Nicias was candidly superstitious, the military conscquences were what might be expected.

Again we find it customary for priestly families to be

attached by long tradition and prerogative to certain temples and sacred localities. Eleusis, already cited, is the prime example of all, and when the Athenian proneness to super­stition is considered, it would certainly seem marvellous that so strong a germ in such favourable ground grew not up to embarrass civil authority by serious and persistent conflict. We are driven indeed to regard it as a high probability that such a conflict had already been fought out, in the long un­recorded periods of Greek civilisation, and that some inherited maxims and inveterate prepossessions had been thence trans­mitted which survived any definite memory of their origin.

Euripides in ‘ The Bacchae ’ works up into a romantic drama all the incidents and motives of state jealousy that are involved in such a conflict, and precisely the same that repeat themselves too exactly and surprisingly in Roman history centuries afterwards, in connection with the Bac­chanalia, not to have been copied originally after nature,— derived more or less immediately from matter of fact; the characteristics of the crisis in either case are curiously the same, even to coincidence in phrase, that attend the imperial repression of early Christian enthusiasm. A hint of a remote historical precedent is perhaps preserved in the notice by

¹        Cicero, that Diagondas of Thebes was author of a law, induced by scandals akin to those which were charged on the Bacchanalia, to prohibit nocturnal sacred celebrations, but I cannot trace the indication further. When we scru­tinise Hellenic mythology however with an appropriate sen­timent for the verity of the impressions, however mingled or dislocated, that it preserves of ages of varied and active life, we cannot but recognise traces of rivalries, conflicts, and aggressive agitations among worships that ultimately settled down to the tranquil compromises of the historic age. It is thus after the exhaustion of a series of reactions, that the

Greek of the times we are concerned with is found earnestly interested in the due traditional observance of certain sacred functions, and attaching only too much respect to the faculty of the soothsayer; but still he accepted this faculty as only one among others that were equally subjects of occasional hereditary transmission, and what he was not reconciled to was the exclusion of the rest of the world from sacred offices entirely, or unless by authorisation of a corporate caste. The Eumolpids of Eleusis were to him but one of numerous families, all with as good a title to an hereditary sacred character, however inferior in importance; and he was far indeed from consenting that even all such families collect­ively should engross control and administration of sacrifice and sanctuary. The habits of simpler days lived on, it may be, with transmitted vitality into historic times; but in any case, the Homeric picture of the heroic age was an abiding influence, as it kept ever before men’s eyes a type of natural society; a constant succession moreover of noble poets took it in turn to vary mythology with such freedom as to pre­clude its hardening into an authorised comment on ignorant idolatries, and constantly made it a vehicle for an advancing and purer theory of moral obligation. So it became peculiarly characteristic of the Hellenic world, to rely in unhesitat­ing faith on the aesthetically beautiful for guidance to the essentially good, the infallibly true; and when the sense of beauty was so refined and so general, this criterion gave security against many a hideous abuse. The fertility of the imagination of the Greek admirably seconded this influence; the forms and mythical embellishments of religion around him were most diversified, and at the same time were univer­sally blended and harmonised by very definite yet subtlest analogies; they offered themselves accordingly to as many varied moods of mind, with something of the advantage which was recognised by ¹ Addison long before Macaulay, ¹ Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c., 1753, p. 293.

as realised for Rome in the diversified genius of her monastic orders. What is apt to be at once a chief opportunity and mischief of sacerdotalism, was precluded in Hellas by the circumstance that while the education of the young, in its two great branches of gymnastics and music, of bodily and mental discipline, was an object of engrossing solicitude, it never lapsed under the control of their priests. The popular Hellenic sense of the active value of instruction was never misled into esteeming what had been merely learnt by rote and not truly acquired and adopted by intelligence, and the Hellenic passion for liberty was too uncompromising not to repudiate a morality of blind obedience.

It seems clear that a certain number of moral maxims, though not amounting to a system, and at most reminding of the decalogue, obtained enunciation in connection with the mysteries and their rites,—respect for oaths and sanctities, disallowance of ¹ suicide, filial duty, conjugal obligations, and even industry and general self-restraint; but even so they were associated w^Tith so much of natural, of poetical symbol­ism and the exhibition of such typical offenders as furnished forth the Hades of Polygnotus, as to seem but like in kind and supplementary to that general training for which parents relied mainly on the influence of the poets.

As regards what may be called the constitutional regula­tion of religion, in those public celebrations which were re­cognised as expressions of the common sentiments of the entire nation, and as rites in which every citizen had the privilege of participating, there was a great security against priestly encroachment in the customary elective appointment of managers or controllers. This principle again, or the prac­tice certainly, was of primaeval origin. Even in the Homeric poems a Trojan priestess of the very highest distinction is spoken of as owing her dignity to election by the ² people. In later times this process is constantly mentioned in com- ¹ Plato, Phaedo, 62 B. ² Horn. Iliad, vi. 300.

VOL. II.     O

bination with the still more demoeratical lot, even when election by lot was restricted to members of one family. It is by no means certain that this system, however ancient, was not originated with a set design to countervail class interests and influences. A pious apology was at hand, as though the choice were thus remitted to the god himself, but it is impossible not to appreciate here the same operation of the election by lot in countervailing intrigue and cabal of party, that recommended it in politics. The staff of religious officials that Aristotle considers requisite in a well-ordered city comprises priests it is true, but he specifies more care­fully as usually a distinct class — the conservators of the sacred edifices and other objects, guardians of the temples, custodians of sacred property. Even as regards the properly sacred functions, he specifies a very important class as not administered by the priests at all, but by the civil function­aries, who in various cities were variously styled Archons, Kings, or ¹ Prytanes. For the Eleusinian celebration an epimeletes or superintendent was taken from each of the sacred families, but still by election; and with them were associated two others elected from the general demus; and a majority in numbers and perhaps superior control would be secured to the representative officials by the participation of the Arehon basileus, who exercised by appointment the sacred prerogatives of the primaeval kings, and seems to have taken cognisance in the first instance of charges of ²impiety. AVhat again is most important, all evidence and presumptions are in favour of the exercise by the state of absolute control over the funds that supported celebrations, which were far too costly for either private contributions or any still un­secularised temple property.

It is highly characteristic of the Greeks that among the qualifications for priestly appointment, personal beauty was a frequent requirement ; certain other conditions varied ¹ A rial. Polit. vi. 5. 8.         ³ Flato, Euthyphron, 1.

usually according to a sense of symbolical propriety to the attributes of a god or worship ; the married state or widow­hood was as indispensable in some cases as virginity or celibacy in others; so in numerous instances the lapse of the qualifying propriety involved that of the sacred office which might determine by advance beyond the age of puberty, or even by such an incident in some cases as the death of a child. Of the condition of consecration by a pre­decessor as solely authorised transmitter of a supernatural influence or commission both indispensable and indelible, I am not aware of a trace.

The work of the politician may well appear to be seriously enhanced when he lacks that help towards the general course of public peace and public happiness that should be given by the labours of men of special aptitude and culture in imbuing the entire population from earliest years with a sense of re­sponsibility beyond the sanctions of the laws, and superior to any temporal consequences whatever either of penalty or reward. Statutes and supervision that act simply by com­pulsion must ever be but clumsy substitutes for the con­trolling conscience of the individual, which suffers or rejoices chiefly according to its sense of sympathy with a recognised source of universal power and order.

Unfortunately however the politician may often be well content with the simplification of his labour in a state of society which does not require him to consider or counterwork an alliance of the craftiest of mankind in the exercise of absolute control over the most foolish. At present he has usually no choice but to apply himself to keep or recovcr the peace as best he may, by management or the strong arm, among sects who are all hostile to each other and all equally positive, though in the nature of things from the extent of their differences there is only one that can be even approxi­mately right; on his success in such a task depends the chance of the world’s progress towards more creditable agree-

o %

ment upon evidence which is the same for all and open to all alike, and towards a purer humanity.

The problem of the Hellenic statesman in respect to reli­gious questions was presented in a less violent and compli­cated aspect; he was doomed, however, as time went on, to rue his neglect or failure in an attempt to keep instruction well ahead of prejudice, no less certainly than the modern in his less easy task to promote knowledge in the face of pre­possession and the most violent social antipathies. The worst virus of superstition is a secretion of imposture, but to become actively malignant it requires to be in contact with certain forms of ignorance, and where these exist with­out disturbance from free enquiry and liberal intercour.se, there sooner or later the venom is transfused, and after sweltering, however long and associated with whatever of seeming tranquillity and beauty, declares its nature at last in offensiveness and death.

Notwithstanding a variety of countervailing influences, in the arts, in poetry especially, and in the nobler inculcations which were demonstrably involved in the celebrations and illustrative mythology of the mysteries, Athenian feeling remained still far too subject to a low conception of the relations of religion and morality, and unfortunately disin­clined to attend to the wiser philosophers who might labour to correct it. The most acceptable service of the gods was too generally understood to be independent of right conduct, and often indeed a sufficient substitute; a value was assigned to worship that was proportionate to assiduity and expen­siveness, or even sometimes to mere baseness of punctilious sycophancy ; in this sense it ever tended towards the cere­mony that is little better than a theory of magical conju­ration, which is first held to constitute a claim and then half believed to be competent to enforce it. We find ceremonial omission or defilement repeatedly regarded as a more likely provocation of divine anger than any positive

wickedness; the violation of a sanctuary, the breach of. a treaty sanctioned by solemn oaths may weigh upon the public conscience when only failure has ensued, but its sensitiveness is quite unawakened under memory of injustice, cruelty, or cold-blooded massacre.    .

Thucydides himself scarcely takes us more by surprise when, as in the case of Antiphon, we find that he regards the most admirable excellence (aper^),—a word which how­ever is probably here to be more fitly translated ‘ capacity,* as compatible with organised political assassination, than when he pauses on the difficulty of reconciling the miserable fate of Nicias with such deserts (such aptTrj) as consisted after all only in assiduous observance beyond all Hellenes of his time, of ritualistic proprieties.

A mythology which is extensively and justly discredited must ultimately cease to be even a qualified and precarious guarantee for morals; and to resist their timely disconnection is simply to secure that, so unnaturally interlocked, they shall perish together. The bigotry of ignorance co-operates with the angry assaults of reason made reckless by tyranny, and with dissoluteness that welcomes release from a present restraint with no intention to embrace another ; and in this way a state is torn asunder, because sincerity has been checked,—it may be with but little effect as regards private cultivation of intelligence,—but only too successfully in any overt attempt of the wiser to carry the multitude along with them to a basis of better certified rationality.

Some signally mean or ridiculous superstition comes con­stantly before us to herald the greatest misfortunes and disgraces, or worst crimes of Athens. Before the fatal outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, men’s minds were di­verted from more rational considerations by vague prophecies in general circulation; and the comic poet, who is often unfortunately too ready to pander to the prejudices of his audience when they coincide with his own animosities, may

be trusted to have fairly hit a blot when he runs counter to them and satirises in the ‘ Peace * the influence of the vulgar and greedy soothsayer in advocating continuance of war. Superstitious encouragement was as active as political ambi­tion in inciting to the flagitious and impolitic Sicilian expedi­tion, and then did its best to ruin the enterprise by fostering tho excitement about the mimicry of the mysteries. The priestly Eumolpid families of ¹ Eleusis hunted Alcibiades, who had bceome at least indispensable, into exasperation and exile; as they afterwards intrigued to frustrate his return and reconciliation, when he had become indispensable again. The whole fortune of the state was left to the mercy of the w eak­ness of Nicias out of a reliance upon the formal piety to which was ascribed his previous course of uniform good fortune; and free thought and restless science w^rere cruelly avenged for their contemptuous treatment by the audience of Aristophanes, when the last chance of retirement from before Syracuse was forfeited out of silly alarm of the entire army at the omen of an eclipse of the moon. Later still supersti­tion played fatally into the hands of party in condemning the victorious generals of Arginusae against the protest of Socrates —of Socrates destined himself to be its most illustrious victim.

In Attica then, as little as elsewhere, is it permissible to credit a general population with that elevated spirit of inde­pendence which indeed is ever provoked among the few to its noblest and purest expression by revolt against the dangerous degradation of the multitude. Neither freedom of thought nor purity of sentiment, which for a brief moim nt promised so encouragingly, were destined to make good any comprehensive conquest even within the limits of a single city ; and in malignant proximity to their very commence­ments w^rc recognise the germs of obscurantism and persecu­tion that between them w^rere to transform the Greece of _m ¹ Thuc. viii. 53.

Pericles into that of the lower empire,—of to-day. Here it was that the Athenians were false, and fatally false, to that noble confidence in freedom which Pericles set forth for them, and asserted as their cherished principle. For the philosophical inclinations of Pericles himself we have sufficient evidence, but are left too much to conjecture as to the extent to which his enlightened views had a chance to react on his policy in dealing with the public and religious celebrations of which he undertook the very assiduous control. Statesmen who have in view to touch religion politically, in a free country at least, are under the temptation to prepare their opportunities by assentations at the cost of sincerity, of which there is one at least recorded to his charge. It seems significant of his caution that he never was assailed on a charge of impiety; while he was wounded, as we shall see, all the more severely through those to whom he was most attached. The scene at his last illness probably epitomises a serious difficulty of his life, and the relief could be but bitter of smiling with wiser friends on one side of his death-bed, at the charms and amulets that affectionate superstition was hanging about his bosom on the other.

CHAPTER XLTX.

THE ELEUSINIA.

The ancient religions of Hellas were not complicated to any serious extent by tlie quasi-metaphysieal dogmas with which, in modern times, philosophy is so apt to come into collision. The current legendary histories, in a certain degree from their origin as well as by tendency of later modification, insensible or designed, admitted, in most cases, of trans­position into natural types and allegories, with such manifest simplicity that whosoever was willing to keep the peace with society could have little difficulty in conscientiously professing them in one sense or the other, and might do so in either with equal exemption from molestation.

Of all sections of Greek religion this was peculiarly the case with the most important, the mythic cycle of Eleusis; which largely owed to this its deep and enduring influence,— an influence that in truth is not without important traces at this day. Upon this ground it retained a hold of respect upon even subtle minds which is far more easily explainable than many modern incongruities of the same general nature. As regards divarication of prevalent moral theory and moral practice, this has been so frequent in all ages as to absolve us from seeking recondite explanations for any contrast between the assumable value of Athenian religious sentiments and the public and private vices which might be rampant notwith­standing.

The history of this Eleusinian religion, even as far as recoverable, is the best elucidation of another salient diffi­culty—the compatibility among the Greeks of feelings of reverence for mythical divinities, with the tolerance and even enjoyment of extremes of disrespect, and the unscrupulous treatment of gods and goddesses as mere dramatic utilities, poetic machinery, puppets.

From the diversity of worships in Greece, which sprung from a poetic soil to branch and bloom in a poetic atmosphere, the favourite divinity of one district easily came to be regarded in the territory of another less from a religious and reverential than a poetical point of view. The licence of poets in such cases was quite beyond control; and when the two aspects were presented side by side, they could not but speedily be found in conflict, to the especial discomfort of one who should be more sympathetic with priest than with poet. Such a challenge left but one course open to secure the sense of aw^Te from utter waste, and this was to strengthen the centre of worship by withdrawing certain traditions from indiscrimi- minate publicity, as too sacred to be thus played with or vulgarised; accordingly all over Greece we find legends and symbols and interpretations of symbols connected with the particular fanes, which the reverential Pausanias forbears to disclose or dissert upon, as being only communicable to the initiated. Under this reservation, poetry, fanciful or philo­sophical, and even grossest comedy, were allowed the fullest licence and most fully indulged it, from Homer and Hesiod down to Aeschylus and Aristophanes. The Zeus of Aeschylus is treated in quite as unceremonious a style in the Prometheus Bound as in the Iliad. The husband of shrewish Here is in truth very nearly on a par, in respect of dignity, to the deity who has to be beholden to his victim Prometheus for a secret on which his safety, not to say supremacy, depends. But it was not on this account that Aeschylus was charged with impiety, but for some expressions that were taxed as

violations of Eleusinian mystery. And here in fact the comparison runs level again with Homer.

Whatever may be the uncertainty as to the exact date of composition of the Iliad and Odyssey, it must certainly fall long posterior to the full growth of the religions of Demeter and Dionysus, the central divinities of the Eleusinian celebra­tions and worship, and the reticence of the poems in respect of precisely these divinities must therefore be understood to imply that their position in current mythology was ex­ceptional ; it is not easy to suggest another motive for the poet to abstain from including them in his characteristic series, than the real and very sufficient sense that to do so would be trenching offensively, or even dangerously, on for­bidden precincts. The historic evidence must be taken as complete, for the early prevalence of the worship of Demeter in Thessaly and deep down in eveiy locality associated with the wide Pelasgic name, for its association on equal terms at Delphi, for the primaeval veneration of its legends in Arcadia, at Argos, in every seat of the Achaeans, and for its peculiar association with the Ionian colonisation of Asia Minor. The general antiquity of the legends and mystical worship of Dionysus may not be so easily or so fully demonstrated, but the single exposition suffices for the argument; and if proof is in default of the equal antiquity of Dionysus Iacchus at Eleusis, this only strengthens our inference, by bringing down the fresh vigour of the wine god, as a divinity com­manding awe, more nearly to the Homeric date.

It is highly important to notice a distinction which is made by Homer between the divinities which, however par­ticipating primarily or at second hand in the character of personifications, had this abstract quality almost overlaid and obliterated, and the purer and more recognisable nature-powers that he occasionally introduces. The rays of the latent Helios are only discernible occasionally and fitfully glancing from the Trojan Apollo, as the producer and dissipatcrof pestilence,

or the smiter of overdone Patroelus on the back; and a symbolical Theogamia is truly, no doubt, but only just dis­cernible in the fraudful encounter of Here with her spouse on Ida. But when these divinities are in any case appealed to with unusual seriousness, their nature-character reappears ; Zeus is then Greatest, most Glorious—as cloud-compeller, as habitant of Aether; and the all-seeing Sun is attested by name, with the Rivers and with Earth, along with the powers that judge the perjured in another ¹ state; and so again elsewhere associated with Jove are Earth, Sun, and the

²        Erinnyes. When Poseidon, in the Iliad, hesitates to defer to the positive commands of Zeus, Iris reminds him that there is still a superior sanction for the authority of the elder, —there are the Erinnyes to be reckoned with,—and he gives in at ³ once.

In such instances we discern an indication of a sense of sanctity which deepens as, renouncing the poetically- heightened and decorative figments of poetry, it recurs to the unsophisticated, unornamented suggestions of nature; and such appeals form an intermediate term between the imaginative and the properly sacred theology of the poet.

Demeter is literally mother Earth, and equally literally her daughter was recognised as representing the fruits of the Earth, especially of bread corn; and Dionysus, the god of wine, was as unambiguously the equivalent of wine, or more generally of the humidity in all forms, which is a condition of both vegetable and animal growth. By natural extension Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysus were the symbols of universal death and life,—of life transmitted, of life to revive again,—the presidents and judges therefore of the under­world, of the realm below the all-receiving and all-rendering earth. It was the palpable readiness with which the cycle of legend connected with the worship of these divinities, lent itself to interpretation as a natural and beautiful symbolism,

¹ Horn. Iliad, iii. 276. ² lb. xix. 259.      ³ lb. xv. 204.

that relieved the cultivated mind from the shock of confront­ing mere gross fabrication or error; and that a burden lighter than many are now bending under was laid on the victims of unwilling conformity.

The course of human existence moves on from birth and growth, with many an alternation of happiness and trouble, to inevitable decay and final death. But hope travels with us along through the intermediate alternations,—hope fre­quently illusive, but frequently justified,—consummation in itself of the joy that it only promises; and hope, if only of kindly relief, stands by us to the very last. The story of our physical life has constant parallels in our moral experiences; joy is in conflict with grief as life with death-, for ever vanquished, for ever resurgent; and most familiar observation is ever reporting the law as universal. The poetry of the very earliest times, which blended with a rudimentary natural philosophy, recognised types of a parallel career in all nature ; for it is not alone that the story is the same for life in all its familiar forms, but the law of life seems to be reflected, and so the pow^Ter of life to assert itself, in the successive incidents of a single day from sunrise to sunset, in the erratic changes of the moon, the vicissitudes of the seasons,—to all of which some stages and incidents of life so accurately conform, as well as to the intimations of still larger astronomical cycles. On every side the invitation only awaits a lively creative faculty to body forth intelligible forms, to personify the powers of nature; and the indulgence of the impulse under enlivening enthusiasm gave birth to ideal beings, associated with sequences of such typical incidents, conceived as of like faculties, nay of like passions and susceptibilities of joy and grief, only without, and sometimes even not without, the last weaknesses of all,—as man himself. So was achieved a representation of the superiority, and yet at the same time, the analogy of general nature to the individual man, in the sequence of whose generations, even as night and winter

are ever recurrent yet ever transitory, life young and healthy, life irresistible, irrepressible, comes ever forth afresh to take the places given up by disease and decrepitude. But if a certain sympathy was recognised between human weakness and the secessions of the governing power of nature, it was scarcely to be avoided that the sympathy of the divine with the human should be hopefully interpreted for human parti­cipation in its strength. The ever-reviving year, which avouched the unconquerable force of divine energy, was taken as type and earnest of that which is manifested, in so many respects so similarly in the individual,—is experienced in the ever-recurrent and invincible conviction that the principle of consciousness, as the highest manifestation of all existence, must needs be the most indestructible.

It is not surprising then that a certain parallelism runs through so many of the Greek legends, and also through those of other races. That those of the Greeks were so various was due partly to the fertility and versatility of their imagination, and then to its receptiveness and to the vigorous independent genius of various tribes, with strong but limited local associations, that took inspiration largely from special surroundings. By fundamental kinship still, the fusion of various mythologies was readily effected, and if ever we find traces of such antagonisms as occur in con­nection with Dionysus, or the Demetrian or Solar worships, we find them afterwards or elsewhere as infallibly woven into one.

No deeper cleft or more marked distinction can be dis­covered in the general Hellenic system than between the Olympian, especially the Solar, mythologies and the Chtho- nian, which deal with the gods and doings of the underworld ; while the worship of Dionysus seems to break in as wildly but irresistibly intrusive everywhere; and yet the alliance Mas most close,—was Amphictionic,—between the Delphic fane of Apollo and that of Demeter at Thermopylae. At

Delphi the peaks of double Parnassus and the two pediments of the temple were severally assigned to Apollo and Diony­sus ; at Eleusis, Dionysus is associated as Iacchus in the most sacred celebrations, and almost every other god may equally be traced there as admitted under some pretence : a poet at least—Aeschylus—could even venture, though not without surprising his contemporaries, to interchange the twin sister of Apollo with Persephone, and exhibit Artemis as a daughter of ¹ Demeter.

The religion of Apollo appears almost alone in the period we treat of, as at all comparable with that of Demeter in political and moral influence. The oracle of Delphi still retains most important influence, even upon public affairs, and the control of the temple is jealously contested and stipulated for in treaties. It seems to have exercised peculiar authority at Lacedaemon, but was evidently held in awe at Athens also. The imputed corruption of the Pythia by king Pleistoanax was believed by the Spartans to explain their disasters in the war as reasonably as the impious disregard of treaties by the Thebans at its commencement, and their own breach of oath in rejecting the offers of international arbitration according to the terms they had sworn to. Their confidence revives when the Athenians are involved in a like ² impiety. How the Athenians could be acted upon by oracles and prophecies is the favourite taunt of Aristo­phanes, and Thucydides confirms it when he records the prevalence of absurd prophecies that preceded the Lacedae­monian and the Syracusan ³ wars, and how the rage of the people on failure was directed against their religious as much as their political advisers. They ascribe their grand disaster at the battle of Delium to their desecration there of the temple of Apollo, and seek to expiate the sin by clearing the island of Delos of its inhabitants—by a renewed ⁴ purification.

¹ Herod, ii. 156.  ⁹ Thuc. vii. 18.

⁸ lb. v. 26; viii. 1.          ¹ lb. v. 1.

Afterwards, when they suffer still another serious defeat, at Amphipolis, they bethink themselves—on the prompting of an oracle—that this presumed act of piety was mistaken, and at the very time when they are staining themselves with the slaughter of the surrendered Scionaeans, attempt a ritualistic rectification by bringing back the expelled Delians to their island of Apollo.

If only in virtue of the influence which the conception of Apollo is thus found to exercise over both Ionians and Dorians, the contrast or opposition of Olympian and Chtho- nian gods is clearly not sustainable as complete and absolute; any more than the restriction of mysteries and initiations to the Chthonian worships. Apollo had his terms of indigna­tion and even of servitude, as other gods were enchained at times ; but still, as was natural, the gloomiest or most solemn aspects of our state were attached by especial asso­ciation to the personified powers of the earth,—of earth, receiver of the dead,—whose surface is the very party-wall of separation between light and darkness. It was here that mysterious celebrations could find suggestions of deeper depression, — the opportunity likewise for more vehement rebound. Excitement of this kind is the staple of religious enthusiasm; and when the craving for it becomes habitual, it is the part of the administrators of religion to give it periodical satisfaction with whatever heightening means they have still to command.

Religious functions in which mystery heightened awe had vagrant professors all over Greece—impostors, some beggarly, some bedizened, who vaunted their power, for a fee, to purify by a peculiar process from moral as readily as from bodily infection, to release even from the mischiefs and miseries of inherited sins ; and rituals with such pretensions, more or less dignified, were localised far and wide. Eleu- sinian mysteries were not restricted to Attica, but it was due to long tradition in an undisturbed seat, no doubt also

to the religious sensibilities of the people and to the aptitude of their genius for elaborating symbolical and significant ritual, that the antique celebrations were organised here to the highest degree of dignity and impressiveness ; and so they became,—clothed as they were still with the cha­racter of a national institution,—more extensively venerated throughout all Greece than any others. It was something more than mere appliance of the resources of fine art, that could so transform into dignity the inventions that in baser hands were fraudulent or vulgar — the affectation of seclu­sion and reservation and secrecy, the promulgation of in­explicable dumb-show, or explanations the more insisted on as the more paradoxical, the requirement of faith in moral, if not material, changes which are destitute of all proof whatever except the invincible imperturbable assurance of the assertors.

The more obvious drift of the Eleusinian my thus in its leading lines was the representation of the annual death or torpor of vegetation succeeded by reappearance and revival. Demeter, — mother-Earth, — seeks her vanished child sor­rowing, and nature droops sympathetic with her grief. By kindly guidance the lost is found, — life, hidden for a period in the under-world, is restored to the upper, and the fruits of earth are again available for man. The story had abundant variations; a very interesting form, and certainly very ancient, is preserved in the so-called Homeric hymn. The causes and motives of the friendship of Demeter for Eleusis are as variously told;—its result is the present—the revelation—of bread corn and instruction in agriculture as the conditions of civil society ; and all the world was thus, the Athenian vaunted, indebted for these to the cultivators of the fertile Thriasian plain. But the living sojourn of Persephone in the under-world provided her faithful votaries with protection even there, as her own return was warranty for their survival. So when Dionysus the joyous god became

associated in this or in a similar worship, he too became a president of the nether world ; and thus the worshippers of the Great Goddesses, Demeter and Persephone, and of Dio­nysus, were bound by further responsibilities that elevated their conception of the ends of life, and substituted good hope of future and happy existence for uncertainty or horror of its end.

Full participation in the mysteries was a matter of several stages,—a certain sponsorship of an introducing mystagogue was adopted; and only after some certification of worthiness was admission granted to the rites of sanctifying purification, in the city and at the sea shore adjacent. On a subsequent day a vast procession or rather pilgrimage started from the Cerameicus along the sacred way and through the mystic gap to Eleusis ; this was the conducting of Iacchus, who was not so specially localised at Eleusis as the Great Goddesses. The procession was due at the time of the battle of Salamis, when the whole land was occupied, and Eleusis itself desecrated by the Persians; and while the sea-fight was going on, the excited Greeks could believe that through the confusion and clamour, a cloud of dust was visible along the sacred way, and the mystic cry heard as though the gods themselves were protesting against the barbaric and sacrilegious inter­ruption.

Modern parallels from Italy or Sicily—parallels that are largely but survivals—are scarcely required to explain how in ordinary times a throng with the most sincere and solemn religious intent should lapse on its route into hurry and scuffle, into horse-play and jeering, as if at a wild fair,—how all this should even be required by sanctifying usage, and seem to over-excited votaries to be justified as deepening the calm that was presently to succeed.

The scene of the most sacred of the ceremonies at Eleusis was a vast hall, constructed by the architects of Pericles, about one hundred and sixty-seven feet square, and capable

VOL. II.     p

of containing under cover as numerous an assembly as would fill the theatre that was open to the air: the ruins of this were excavated, as far as circumstances permitted, by the mission of the society of Dilettanti. The building had a Doric dodeeastyle portico, but this, according to ¹ Vitruvius, was added long after by Philo, an architect em­ployed by Demetrius Phalereus. Four original architects are named. Vitruvius, in agreement with ² Strabo ascribes it generally to Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon; but according to Plutarch, Coroebus set the columns of the interior and completed the always delicate operation of placing the architraves ; the diazoma,—which may probably here be a gallery, as it is sometimes equivalent to the praecinctio of a theatre,—was added by Metagenes, and also an upper order of columns, while Xenocles crowned the whole with an arrangement of roof that provided for the admission of light from above; an arrangement due here, as there was no peristyle to interfere with windows in side-walls, to the requirement of seclusion, perhaps also to facilitate the sudden and entire exclusion or readmission of light. This was the Telesterion,—the mystic selcos; it fronted the south-east, and was enclosed by a pentagonal peribolus, of which one side was parallel with its back wall, where a terrace of thirty-six feet wide was hewn out of the scarped rock, and the others followed the general lines of the crest of the eminence it was placed on. That it was sacred to the Great Goddesses is a matter of course,—it is referred to as a hieron,—but it does not appear that it was ever regarded as in the narrow sense a temple,—a naos or abode of the divinities there worshipped. So it is remarkable that in this most sacrosanct of localities we hear nothing of a primitive statue of traditional antiquity and accredited with supernatural origin or powers, like the Aeginetan statues or even the Athene Polias of the Athenian Acropolis. Neither do we hear of any great temple-statue

¹        Vitr. Praef. 7.     ² Strabo 9, p. 605.

at Eleusis, or any Chryselephantine work such as the relation of Eleusis to Athens might seem to demand. The religious awe that seals the lips of Pausanias at Eleusis as elsewhere, is not sufficient to account for the total absence of any reference whatever to such works, in the range of historical records of the arts and artists.

It is perfectly made out from hints in contemporary writers, and declarations of hostile Christian writers, who themselves were later contemporaries and must have spoken, however contemptuously, by no means at random, respecting matters that were notorious among so many, that a main portion of the ceremonies was a semi-dramatic exhibition of the mythical story of the Goddesses, leading up to the ultimate display before the initiates of certain symbols; from having been admitted to behold these the fully initiated was Epoptes —an eye-witness — and therein lay the completion of a graduated series of experiences, involving a moral crisis which made him conscious of a sense of full admission—of com­pleteness. The entire function was expressed by the word that implied consummation, completion, accomplishment,— an opus ojperatum,—reAer^.

The representation probably adhered to a certain general out­line, and even to many particular details of ritual, but with­out excluding variations of the form of the mythus represented, and some at least of the symbols displayed. Aeschylus, who himself was of the deme Eleusis, is said to have helped the effects by inventing the ceremonial Costumes, which most probably were transferred to other rites and survive before us to this day, even as the custom survives of the suppression of the profane name of the ² consecrated. Besides the official herald, the chief torch-bearer, and the attendant at the altar, personifications of the divinities themselves and of their attend­ants were introduced. In one or other mythical incident,

Divinity itself was represented sorrowing, suffering,—the Passion of Deity was set before the eyes of man so touchingly as to move him to compassion and with such adjuncts of singing and scene, as lulled him at the same time into a state of pleased susceptibility. Most perfect silence was absolutely enjoined on the initiates, who looked and listened. Sacred maxims and moral inculcations, as well as exemplar judg­ments, had their places in the representation of the authorities that were to sway in the under-world. The whole assemblage at one stage took part in a representation of the search of the bereaved mother for the missing Persephone ; utter dark­ness was superadded to silence, to enhance expectation and awe, and at the climax, when some peculiarly sacred and decisive office was consummated by hierophants and priestesses, darkness was suddenly dispelled, the ⁽ Light of Eleusis ’ shone in a blaze of splendour, and the transition was so treated as to convey to the initiate—now initiate no longer—the con­viction of his admitted intimacy, his spiritual communion with ²divinity.

The sense of privilege and of the obligation of secrecy heightened the awe, made compatible as it was with the ex­citing influence of an enthusiastic crowd of associates. Some symbolism connected with the mythology,—irrational or even gross enough sometimes, if we may trust reports,—made the mystery only more impressive as in some respects demon­strably inscrutable; and sometimes a deeper meaning than recipients could definitely interpret, gave no little help to the hold upon them of what uniform and obvious intel­ligibility might threaten to reduce to commonplace.

A certain merely ceremonial value could not but come to be attached to these mysteries, or remain attached to them from their erudtr origin. Mere formal participation in them might be and often was reckoned as a charm against misfortunes of life,

¹ tcL Sdicqka. twv vaQlw avrov, Herod, ii. 171.

³ Stobae. 1 20. 2S, p. 466.

as initiation at Samothrace was held to secure against shipwreck; but the main result and tendency was to strengthen the sense of moral responsibility, by conditions and obligations of wor­thiness far other than ceremonial, and by lively experience of a spontaneous response within to the assurances adumbrated by mythus, and type and symbol; that they conveyed and confirmed a hopeful, a cheerful trust, in the futurity beyond the grave, cannot in the face of the evidence be seriously doubted, and that this ever tended to generate, and indeed was for the most part explicitly connected, as its condition, with an elevated tone of general purpose, is equally ¹ certain.

The Homeric hymn relates as the origin of these mysteries, that Demeter, before returning to Olympus, in recognition of merits of natural piety revealed to the family of her benefactors,—‘ to the princes Triptolemus and Diodes, to Eu- molpus and Celeus, the mode of service in her sacred rites and described her venerated orgies, which may by no means be neglected nor pried into nor blabbed; for great is a certain divine sanctity that puts check on speech. Blest is he of mortal men who has beheld them; but he who has neither completion nor participation in these rites, has never such destiny beneath the broad shadow, as even though in death, he might have ²had.’

In the same poem, early as it may be,—reminiscent indeed of days when Athens and Eleusis were still separate states,— we come upon traces, perhaps expressed in a manner not undic­tated by irony, how mere ceremonial, especially in the forms that were profitable to the administrators, was pressing forward to establish itself as on the same level with, if not yet quite as an alternative of, proper meritoriousness. Persephone, re­turning with her mother to the upper world, is to be sovereign mistress there of whatsoever possesses life and motion, and to have the greatest honours along with the immortals,—

¹        Plut, Consolatio ad Uxorem, x. xi.

²        Homeric Hymn, vv. 473-482.

‘ and a punishment for all time shall there be of the wrong­doers, who do not conciliate thy might with sacrifices, acting with piety, paying the gifts that are ¹ befitting.’ The alter­nation of phrase is in the very spirit of formulas that the world has long been and long will be familiar with.

It was in the conditions and consequences of these mystic initiations that Plato found the aptest illustrations of that purification from carnal defilement which was to be wrought on the soul by philosophy, and of its appropriate reward in an eternity of happiness. After such preparation for death by philosophy, he represents Socrates as saying, ‘ the soul departs to that which it resembles,—to the Invisible, which is at once Divine and Immortal and Intelligent, where it is its lot on arrival to be happy, being released from error and foolishness, and fears and undisciplined passions, and the other evils of humanity, and will even, as is said of the initiated, most veritably pass all time thereafter in society of the ² Gods.’

That for nobler minds the better conception of the worth of initiation truly extricated itself from puerile jugglery, is witnessed sufficiently by the elevated terms in which the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone are adverted to by poets and philosophers and orators,—by Pindar, Sophocles, Plato, Isocrates; their encomiums are summed up in the words of Cicero, though with the usual indifference as to distinguishing the moral influence from the mythical traditions through which they were operated : —

‘ Manifold as are the contributions to the life of man, so excellent and divine, which have owed their birth to Athens, there is nothing among them superior to these Mysteries, which were the means of reclaiming us from wild and uncivil life, and softened us to humanity; and as they are called initiations, so, in fact, we recognise them as principles —commencements—of life, and accept them not only as a

warrant for cheerfulness in life, but also of a better hope in ¹ death.’

‘ That man/ says Pindar, ^e goes down blest below the caverned earth who has beheld these things,—he knows the end of life, he knows the divinely conferred commencement.’ To this a fragment of Sophocles is precisely parallel. ‘ Thrice happy they of mortals who go to Hades after they have witnessed these solemnities, for to them alone is it given there to live; but there the rest endure all kinds of miseries.’ These miseries are more distinctly specified or figured by Plato and Isocrates as darkness and filth, in which the uninitiated are plunged, while the initiates are happy amidst Elysian light and flowers. The same representation is further elaborated in a mythus of Plutarch, to which Dante is not without obliga­tions for much of the imagery of the ² Paradiso. In the picture of Polygnotus at Delphi, the uninitiated were represented as the Danaids employed for ever, like other exemplar types of impiety, as Sisyphus and Tantalus, on fruitless and ever dis­appointed labour.

On the other hand, we may seem to have here a declaration of the ignoble theme that the omission of sacred initiation is punishable as severely as the worst of crimes, but this is only one of the confusions that inevitably haunt the subject. Nowhere do we find in antiquity the impudent assertion that initiation supersedes the condition of virtuous life for happiness in futurity; at most it is implied that men will scarcely be virtuous independently of initiation, the least that can be ever asserted if rites are to be very importantly magnified. It is a matter of more significance to observe that Pindar in one place connects with initiation the very form of future hap­piness, which in another he assigns to the good, with no allusion to initiation ³ whatever:—^e Wealth, when embel­lished with virtue, suppressing wild and deep anxiety, brings

¹ Cic. dc Leg. ii. 14.      ² Plut. de Sera N. V. sub fin.

³        Pind. Olymp. ii. vv. 102-140.

opportunity for this or that,—a conspicuous star, a veritable beacon-light to man; but whosoever may possess it knows well what is to eome, that of those dying here the lawless souls immediately pay penalty, and one there is below the earth who judges sinfulness done in this, Jove’s empire, and pronounces sentence by dire necessity. But the good, having sun alike at night-time alike by day, look ever on a life relieved from toil, neither vexing with laborious hand the earth nor water of the sea, in that abiding-place. There along with the honoured of the gods, as many as have delighted in faithfulness of oaths, pass an existence free from tears; the rest endure suffering not to be looked upon. But as many as, steadfast until the third time, have been brave to restrain their souls from injustice utterly, complete the path of Zeus by Cronos’ tower, where the airs born of ocean breathe around the island of the blest, and flowers of gold are blazing, some from resplendent trees on land, while the water nourishes others, with braids of which and chaplets they bind about their heads; by upright dceree of llhadamanthus, whom Zeus, the spouse of Rhea, occupant of throne high over all, has for his prompt bench- fellow.’

The mysteries then,—the Eleusinian especially,—it cannot be doubted, had an important, and to a great extent a whole­some, influence 011 religious sensibilities, enhanced and guided the consciousness of moral responsibility, and tended to give composure to minds that were too much disposed to ascribe to Divine power the jealousies and wanton cruelties of human, or were liable to despair from comparison of conscious faults with the requirements of stern perfection. That this influence should be too much and too often missed in the public and private life of Athens, is but in accordance with human un­steadiness and inconsistency, as the most sensitive conscience has alternations of callousness, when it is self-eajoled, and laid asleep or deliberately stifled. Still the value of ceremony, of

sacramentalism, could not be strained so nearly to its utmost without incurring* its special liabilities to error and abuse; the outward form would of necessity dissever at times from the inward purport, observance take the place of service, and formal assent of penetrating conviction.

The fundamental mytlius of the celebration again, for all its poetic, its moral, its philosophical significance, was still a mytlius, and dangerously connected with sacerdotal agencies having interests to conserve, and too likely to protect them in a manner to vulgarise symbolism and degrade lofty ideals. It was when the Athenians were becoming anxious about their Sicilian adventure, that the persecutor’s cry of Atheist was raised against Diagoras the Melian, a reward of a talent offered to his slayer, and of two to whosoever should bring him in alive. Charges of impiety were ever too easily entertained by the Athenians, especially against those who, scorning to close their hands over truth which they knew concerned all or none, must needs proclaim their discoveries and forego the immunity conceded by the contempt of the world, by insulting its ¹ self-complacency. The odious form of the charge against Diagoras is quite explained by the inde­pendent testimony that his true offence was disparagement of the mysteries, on grounds which many think good against the fantastic pretensions of free-masonry—that if what they disclosed to some was really beneficial, the sooner secrecy was abolished, and all the world made wiser, the ² better.

The elemental, what may almost be called the meteorological basis of the mythus, to which it owed so much of its command over human sympathy, and a sense .of which was consequently never entirely lost, conduced to an especially unfortunate collision with progressive thought, which was already making some of its most important advances along the lines of physical enquiry. It was here that political opposition to Pericles was to seize an opportunity to enlist the aid of ¹ Plato, Euthyphron, 2, 3. ³ Schol. Arist. Av. 1075.

superstition ; his son, at a later date, was destined to be a victim of a like coalition. And so the story goes on; it was when Socrates, who had opposed this last injustice, was himself compelled to drink poison on the charge of not worshipping the gods that the state worshipped, that a cloud eame over the best hopes for the recovery of Athens, by the alienation of some of her noblest sons; and when we read how Eurymedon the hierophant assailed Aristotle on a charge of impiety, and compelled him to retire from Athens and so spare the city another like disgrace, the sympathies of humanity are finally reconciled to the closing of a once glorious history, and to the transference of the leading interest of the world to other climes.

That religion can only be saved from disgrace, be rescued for true reverence, by freest scope being given to intel­ligence, and by repudiation of complicity with convenient ignorance on one hand, and insincere reticence on the other, is a principle that is not sufficiently taken to heart at this day; we can scarcely expect it to be so by the general world, while those who can set forth most learnedly and lucidly what mischief has been due to the neglect of it in the ¹ past, are judicially blind to its application in the present.

¹ Compare, or rather contrast, Rt5nan, Lcs Apotrcs, lxiv and 341.

The more closely the traditions and testimonies as to Greek music are considered the more difficult does it prove to entertain a doubt as to its genuine value and importance even in very early times. The specific dignity ascribed to it in the scale of the arts by a race which of all others was most sensitive to beauty, and the agreement of general descriptions of its styles and development with modern historical experi­ence, may together be safely accepted as conclusive. We must accept the accounts of the excellence of Greek music as of Greek painting also, on what might have been our only ground for confidence in that of Greek sculpture. We have had proof and warning of the respect that is due to antique authority, in the absolute vindication by the recovered works of Pheidias of that supremacy in art which was so enthusiastically ascribed to him; precisely as in poetry, the ancient fame of Sappho, which might well seem extravagant if unsupported by evidence, is established for ever by the fragments that, few and short as they are, so fully justify the terms of her most unqualified encomiasts.

Our difficulties as to Greek music are perhaps increased in some directions to the full extent that they are relieved in others by the scientific or quasi-scientific treatises on the art

and its theory that have come down to us : when the systems they expound are, after much labour, most successfully evolved and reduced as far as maybe to consistency among- themselves, it is only for them to become manifest as in great part cum­bersome, pedantic,—‘learning’s luxury or idleness/—even when most to the purpose, and to drive us into hopeless straits when we attempt to reconcile them in many respects of ehiefest im­portance, with the demonstrable conditions of all true music. Our ease in the study of ancient architecture is just reversed in that of music ; the Greek theory of architectural propor­tion may be said to be lost to the moderns so far as literary record is concerned, but executed works in which it was employed and embodied are before us from which to recover it, if we do justice to the opportunity, and which meantime vindicate to our senses the essential value of its principles ; the ancient musical works have perished entirely, and we are left with dissertations that constantly bewilder when they do not mislead us, and certainly teach us nothing of scientific truth that is not better learnt otherwise and elsewhere.

The conclusion appears to be inevitable that in music at least, the practice of the ancients was under very slight obli­gations indeed to theory,—certainly to the theory that has been preserved,—and indeed was probably far in advance of any that w^Tas ever in their possession. This consideration has a bearing on the question how far the ancients,—at least the Greeks anterior to the Alexandrian period,—were in possession of harmony. The extant scientific expositions have no place for it amidst all their refinements and over­refinements of distinction and analysis ; and so far it must be said that there is even no direct evidence whatever for their practice of part-singing,—no explicit development of the principle of simultaneous harmony ;—no classical defi­nition of a chord is discoverable among them, and only an occasional phrase or two remain which intimate unequivo­cally as a fact observable in practice, that associated instru-

ments or voices did not invariably proceed in unison. Such phrases may be taken as presumption or rather proof that sympathetic vibration told on the living even as it does on dead material, and that the fingers and the voices of executants responded with more delicacy and variety than the speculative were competent or ever ventured to attempt to define and systematise. The subject, like the theory of the key-note, presents itself to Aristotle, but only obscurely, as open to enquiry, and suggestive of problems to which he sets down the most plausible solutions that occur to him at the moment. He is in some cases shrewdly near the mark, but had the matter been more distinctly recognised and well understood he would have certainly dealt not in enquiries but in exposition.

The first Greek scale that we hear of is that of the four- stringed—the tetrachord lyre, which had sufficed at an earlier period, — as indeed it might still suffice for many ancient ecclesiastical chants; the strings were named with reference to their position when the instrument was held for playing, —the top string, the next to top, the next to bottom, the bottom string; by an inconvenience which was perpetuated, the order of these positions contradicts that of pitch, as pro­ducible by the vocal organs,—the so-called top string giving the gravest note and the bottom string the acutest.

It is highly significant that an important change in the Greek musical scale was ascribed to Terpander, and thus referred to an epoch in close proximity to Archilochus, who so daringly revolutionised the traditional scheme of poetical rhythm. The rhythm, the time of Greek music, was distinctly marked by the strict metrical accentuation of the verse that it for the most part accompanied, and innovations in metrical forms could scarcely but involve modifications of character­istic tune.

To Terpander of Lesbos, the island which owed its musical inspiration to Thrace,— at least according to the mythus of

the head of Orpheus floating ‘ down the swift Hcbrus to the Lesbian shore,⁵ was ascribed the constitution of the hepta­chord 1} re and scale by the addition of three more strings. Among his poems occurred the lines which are quoted by

¹        EuclideS; and with slight difference by ² Strabo.

‘Hfifts toi Terpayrjpvv diToaTep^avTts aoiSrjv

*EirraTdvq) <p6pfiiyyt viovs KtXaSrjaonev vfwovs.

‘But we, repudiating a four-toned chant,

Will sound forth novel songs to a seven-strung lyre.’

How this lyre with seven strings, which is still familiar to Pindar and to Phrynis, was tuned, is matter of considerable obscurity from the conflict of testimony; a conflict so posi­tive as to favour the inference that there was diversity in even contemporary practice. Certain notices distinctly aver that the first and last of the seven strings were at the interval of an octave, which would involve intermediately one of those excessive intervals that are not unusual in primitive natural scales, and are even thought by some conducive to a characteristic charm ; other testimony avers as decidedly that the octave was incomplete, and that the seven strings of Terpander were so tuned as to constitute a double or repeated tetrachord, by the central string being regarded as common both to the upper and lower sets of notes, and tuned at the interval of a fourth from cither

³        extreme. This fourth or middle string would thus give the highest note of one tetrachord or system of four notes and the lowest note of the other, and the same sequence of intervals would recur in each. The highest note in this case would be a full tone below the omitted octave, as the seventh string so tuned would be too flat by a comma for perfect consonance.

Hypate (ist). Mesd (4th). Net6 (7th).

240 : 320 : 426.66—the accurate ratio requiring 423. viz. 5         :        9 : : 240 : 432; and 432 : 426.66 : : 81 : 80.

¹ Euclides, Introd. 19. ^a Strabo, c. 618.

* Nicomachus, pp. 9 and 17; Meibom. 52.

In the heptachord lyre the extreme pairs of strings either way were still named, the topmost and next to topmost, the bottom string and the next to the bottom. The central string had its proper name, Mese, the mid-string; the acuter above it was the next to middle (Paramese); and the graver below the Lichanos, or string played by the index, or literally, the tasting finger.

In every scale, however afterwards extended, the title of Mese—the midmost—is taken as marking the central and proper seat of the most important note of a melody, and thus usurps the distinction of a proper key-note. Musicians like the ancient Greeks, who were content to retain their melodies within such restricted limits, might not unnaturally have first sought the appropriate consonances with a par­ticular note above and below it, but the requirement by the ear of the octave of a note which asserted itself as a key-note, was certain sooner or later to induce an extension of the scale.

The completion of the sequence of intervals of a proper octave was ascribed by common consent to Pythagoras; according to one very definite account he effected this by the addition of an acute note in unison with the gravest of the former set; but .we have the quoted original words of Philolaus, the Italian Pythagorean, a contemporary of Socrates, which are also reported in substance by ¹ Nico- machus, to the effect that the change that he made was by insertion of a note, which dividing an excessive interval of a tone and a half between the fifth and sixth degrees of the former heptachord system, left a semitone between the fifth and sixth and a tone between the new sixth and the seventh.

Whether by extension or by interpolation, the admitted result was a series of notes which correspond in order of

intervals with the modern Minor scales of the natural notes:—

A. B.*C. D. E.*F. G. A.

The satisfaction of the ear might be the sole warrant for this extended system as it had been for the tetraeliord; but the Samian was credited with a further discovery,—the dependence of this satisfaction on definite conditions of phy­sical proportion,—the mathematical relation of musical con­cords to the condition in respect of tension, of simultaneously vibrating strings—that may take rank in significance with his celebrated geometrical theorem. This was as genuine, as pregnant a scientific acquisition, though the statement of it and of the illustrative experiments only eome down to modern times, misconceived and misreported. Even in its more genuine form the discovery seems pretty certainly to have stopped half way, and failed to cover what was perfectly within its scope and might seem to present itself for obvious application, the verified and complete division of the harmonic monochord.

Hence arose in antiquity the controversy between the schools of musicians, of which one adhered to a system that was brought out defectively by a false scheme of mathematical proportions, while the other appealed to the final test of the sensations—the independent, exercised, and cultivated ear. The Section of the Canon, that is, the division of the mono­chord, by Euclid, preserves for us most exactly at least one ancient theory of the relations of the notes; the process of the geometer is painfully and curiously clumsy, and at last provides some notes that are not inconsiderably out of tune; his exposition is of course far later than the time we are concerned w’ith, as are all other extant treatises on the sub­ject ; but we are reduced to consult them for indications of traditional science that was far more likely to fall short of antique practice than to improve upon it.

The allegiance of Greek music to song could not be more

forcibly declared than by adoption of a standard scale of notes, each with its proper name, and extended with direct and exclusive reference to the compass of a human voice as comprised within two octaves.

The very gravest note, which while still audibly musical was not regarded as available in singing, was taken as a limit in one ¹ direction, and the octave of this was the Mese, or Mid­note in an extended series rising to the disdiapason or double octave, the assumed limit of vocalisation ² upwards. Within the octave the consonances are given in the order of intervals of the octachord lyre; and in consequence the places of the semitones remain those of the modern minor mode, and the assumed gravest note, the so-called Proslambanomenos,— or the complementary note not actually attached to a tetra­chord,—becomes identified with our A of the F clef.

At once, with his usual deference to traditions and appre­ciation of the value of precise proportions, the Greek now looked out with interest for as many tetrachords of the original model as were obtainable within these extended limits. Four present themselves at once, which repeat the primary sequence of a semitone followed by two tones, in order from below upwards. The tetrachord of the top strings, that is of the gravest notes, extended from B to E; and that of the middle strings extended from the same common note E —the highest of one tetrachord and lowest of the other— to a.

A like pair is repeated necessarily an octave above,—the tetrachord of the so-called disjunct from B to E, with that of the extreme from E to A.

It will be observed that these two sets of coupled tetra­chords are separated, or disjoined, by an interval of a tone between A and B, which, though adjacent notes, are never combined in the same tetrachord. This anomaly, how-

¹ Gaudentius, p. 6.      ² Arist. Quint., p. n, Meibom.

VOL. II.     Q

ever, was remedied, and the first pair of tetraehords was extended to a triplet, by the substitution of B flat for B natural; that is, by lowering¹ B a semitone when required, to obtain the sequence A, B?, C, ¹D.

This triplet of tetraehords formed the so-called ep'wjnaphe, —superconjunction,—and it seems to have been by this ex­tension that command was gained of the ten varieties of interval and the triple range, that were claimed for the lyre of Ion of Chios, the contemporary and competitor of the great Athenian dramatists:—

lift B(Ka0dfxova ra£tv (X^ovtra Tas cvfjxpcovovcas apfxovias rpidSovs.

IIplv fitv o' ItttSltovov \f/aWov riaaapa Travrtt '’EWrjves, o-naviav fiovaav aap&ficvoi.

The readings of these ² lines have been variously tortured by the editors, but without obscuring or making very much clearer their general drift,—a contrast of the richer effect which could be produced by the triple system of tetraehords obtainable from ten strings, as compared with the previous universal use of such combinations as were scantily afforded by the lyre of seven strings. By inclusion of one still higher note, e, and the natural as well as the flattened B, command is obtained of a fourth symmetrical tetraehord, that of the disjunct strings, and a complete arrangement of twelve strings which agrees with the lyre of Melanippides.

It will be found that the series of standard notes which were thus decided, corresponds with the natural notes of the pianoforte, with the single addition of one black key for Bb. If tuned accurately by ear they supply two series of the Minor mode, upon A and D, and two of the Major, upon C and F. The elements of the Major as well as of the Minor mode were therefore potentially present in the Greek permanent or standard scale, though their essential characteristics seem

never to have been adequately recognised and distinguished, at least in theory ; if theory—in the state that it is recover­able from the records, which are not inconsiderable in extent —were to rule alone, we should have to explain as best we might how the uniform practice of the Minor mode should comport with the lively and hopeful, the eager and sanguine temperament that we know so well was most prevalent in Hellas.

This series only provides for the male voice, but we find it ¹ recognised, that it might be repeated an octave higher, by adopting a instead of A as Proslambanomenos,—the assumed note,—and continuing the series of notes proportion­ately each to each ; this would cover the usual range of the female soprano voice within the two highest tones. A certain number of notes thus acquired an occasional, in addition to a permanent title, and hence a new source of confusion and perplexity.

The scope of the entire passage referred to is however much more extensive and much more important; it even covers all the contingencies of the modern system of keys; it distinctly states that any note comprised within the octave at any interval, might be taken as the commencement of a scale, from which the intervals would follow on in order according to the model of the fixed series constructed upon the lowest note A as Proslambanomenos; the result being of course that the name of each particular note, whatever it might be in the fixed scale, would be liable to be changed, when indeed not sharpened for the occasion and superseded by an adjacent² semitone.

The age of the authority for this, the Greek writer Gaudentius, can only be fixed conjecturally as anterior to Ptolemy, but it seems most probable that the musicians of whom we have such wonderful representations, availed them-

selves of the natural liberty that is here eoneeded, rather than submitted implicitly to restrictions which, according' to Aristoxenus amongst other expositors of the theory, allowed every successive semitone of the octave to be taken as lowest note of a scale, but then dictated adherence to the series of intervals as they follow on in the fixed scheme, with a result which would necessarily be in most cases inherently defective.

According to the strict accounts, the three most ancient so-called modes, which in fact are scales of tones and semi­tones, were the Dorian or proper Greek, the Phrygian, and the Lydian, which were distinguished by the different places of their semitones, but were at the same time attached to gradations of characteristic pitch ; the Dorian being the gravest, though still it would seem unaccountably high for the voice, and the Lydian the most aeute. It is not easy to understand the characteristic value of a scale that could not override an alteration in pitch ; or in ease it could do so, on what principle so much stress is laid on the separation of these modes by a single tone. The proper Dorian octave commenced upon the note E, the gravest of the tetraehord of the middle strings; and according to Plutarch, if the notes between E and A, or Proslambanomenos below, were not employed in this mode, it was from a sense that they were unsuited to its genius, and we may accept the fact whatever may be the value of the explanation.

With respect to the Lydian and Phrygian modes, from the stress that is ever laid on their aeuteness relatively to the Dorian, the most natural inference is that they were customarily taken upon higher degrees; beyond this it seems probable that traditional differences of rhythm and of style as most comprehensively understood, however undefined by the speculative and perhaps undefinable, had more concern in the power and diversified character of the several modes, which are consistently asserted by too high authority for us to

doubt them for a moment, than any differences in construc­tion of scale even when most formally adhered to.

|

&1L MI

o>B'

s a

(i

*

A. Proslambanomenos (<£0oy- yos). — Complementary note; gravest note of the

Hypate hypatSn.—The top string of the top set.

Parhypate hypatdn.—Next to top of the top set.

-lichanus. — Fore­finger string of the top set. diatonos.— String of top set at in­. terval of a tone.

D. Hypaton

F.

Hypate mesQn.—Top string of the middle set.

Parhypate mesfln.—Next to top of the middle set.

G. Mesdn

lichanus.—Forefin­ger string of the middle set. diatonos.— Stringof middle set at inter­val of a tone.

MESE.—The middle string; antiphone or octave of Proslamban omenos.

Paramese. — Next to the 'middle string.

Trite diezeugmenon.—Third string of the disjunct set. Or, Paranete (or diatonos) synemnien6n. — Next to lowest of conjunct set.

Paranete diezeugmenon. — Next to lowest of disjunct set.

Or, Nete Synemmendn.— Lowest of the conjunct set.

Nete diezeugmendn.—Low­est of the disjunct set.

Trite hyperbolaion.— Third of the extreme set.

- Paranete hyperbolaion.— Next to lowest of extreme set.

Or, Diatonos hyperbolaifin.— First of extreme set at in­. terval of a tone.

Nete hyperbolaion.—Lowest string of extreme set (acut- est note).

Melody can take slight liberties with intonation which are forbidden to harmony, but only avails itself of its full re­sources when it plays round those perfect consonances of a note as tonic with its dominant and mediant especially, that are the natural, the indefeasible characteristics of the major and minor modes. Allegiance to this principle may be ignored or repudiated in theory, but if the purest and richest effects of musical expression are ever attained not­withstanding, it must be because the asserted independence has become for the executant a mere pretence or a vain supposition.

In the Chromatic scale an interval was adopted in the tetra- chord of a tone and a half, and in the Enharmonic, of two tones; the minute intervals associated with these could only have provided the musical value of ornamental passing notes.

It is therefore difficult to escape the conclusion that half the distinctions and limitations that are set down by the authors of the seven treatises, were as little regarded or recognised by ancient composers and executants, as the ex­haustive distinctions and nomenclature of the botanist are by the flower as it grows and blooms, or rather as the rules and nomenclature of metre that are so ridiculously dear to the grammarians, were by the lyric and dramatic poets. Indeed as much is implied by Aristoxenus, who was as near to the time of the better music as to have been a pupil of Aristotle, and who condemns all the theories of music that were still nearer to the times of the greatest musical ¹ composers, as most defective.

The ancient theorists on music evidently stood in much the same relation to the great composers, as critics like Aristotle to Epic and Tragic poetry. It was only with difficulty, and then defectively, that scientific analysis could give account of the laws of most successful imaginative action, and then

was too ready to regard its discoveries as rules which had been observed and were bound to be observed by the imagin­ative, with care and consciousness. It has been much the same in the history of later music, of which the so-called old masters are declared to have worked for the most part em­pirically in their practice of harmony, and to be constantly justified only by facts and principles with which they were unacquainted, and which are often at variance with their own rules so far as they regarded any.

The best elucidation of the Greek musical scale that I have been so fortunate as to meet with, is by General Perronet Thompson, in an appendix to his pamphlet on the Principles and Practice of Just Intonation (4th edit, i860); more recently the work of Mr. Chappell on Ancient Music has added largely to our knowledge, especially in regard to ancient musical instruments. From the confident expositions of ancient music by Boeckh and his successors, I have always risen, wherever the fault may be, with a sense of sorrowful disappointment and stupor.

MUSIC IN TIIE AGE OF PERICLES.

The erection of the Odeum by Pericles, a vast covered structure of novel design especially suited for musical per­formances, is significant of the important changes that were proceeding about this time at Athens as well in musical taste as in musical art: these displays took the usual Hellenic form of competitions under the spur of emulation, whether for a simply honourable crown or for a prize of solid value in addition; and the musicians were not slower than the other artists of the period to respond to a universal demand for what was not only beautiful but of daring novelty.

The traditional chronology of Greece is marked into periods from very early times by a succession of musical schools and also of masters who were usually poets, and the fame of whose traditional inventions and performances was accepted with the utmost faith in historic times and confirmed, we are assured, to an important extent as well by references to them in abundant contemporary literature, as by the actual survival of their compositions.

Hellas made liberal acknowledgments for musical instruc­tion to the neighbouring Asiatic states and to Thrace, and less distinctly to Egypt; but still, as in all the arts, claimed to have developed this also from most rudimentary beginnings by independent native genius. These pretensions, that seem often extravagant, are not without a certain justification;

whatever suggestions the Greek might derive from abroad, he managed to combine in the first instance with his own system in possession, and sooner or later succeeded in strip­ping both of casual encumbrances and sophistications, took nature for his guide in penetrating to the primary germ of truth, and from that started anew; when he did not rely on nature exclusively, he usually adopted nothing that he did not compel into consistency with nature.

It is probably due to the closer and earlier influence of Thrace or Phrygia, that Hellas seems to have assimilated so little of what the music of Egypt was to all appearance capable of furnishing. We have no representations or descriptions of Greek musical instruments of any time, that can compete with those which are pictured on very early Egyptian monu­ments. The primitive lyre of the Greeks is poor indeed beside the Thebaic harp, and it seems still more strange that we should be left without even a hint that familiarity with the variety of notes obtainable by stopping a monochord, had not led them before the age of Pericles and the citharode Phrynis, to the neck or finger-board of which precedents occur in hieroglyphics and Egyptian wall-paintings that are of still earlier date.

It were vain to pretend to assign even general dates, but it is certain that we are more likely to err in giving dates too late than too early to some of the Egyptian notions that run parallel with Hellenic, or still more run* beyond them. The notice is but late of the solmization of the Egyptian priests on the vowel sounds, of their ascription of these sounds and notes to the tones of the several planetary spheres, of the recognition of them in consequence as symbols of the Divine energy or the Divine name, and the reverential resort in consequence by some religionists to only vague inarticulate sounds as admissible into ¹ worship. Traces however of the same notions are rife in traditions of Pythagoras as well as ¹ Pseudo-Demet. Phal. de Pronun.; Nicomachus, p. 37, Meibom.

in dreams of Plato, and not alone in their cruder form, but as blending with a mystical cosmogony of which the roots may lie far deeper in the ages before Plato than their branches extend among the wild ramifications of Gnosticism afterwards. There is every probability that archaeology will ultimately trace even the earliest Egyptian notions of this class to a Chaldean or ¹ Assyrian source.

Aeolian Lesbos was the seat of an early school of Greek music, and here the greatest name is Terpander, who was considered to be a contemporary of Archilochus, or even to have preceded him; the music of this school was more espe­cially that of the lyre, and as it was inspired by poetry, was regarded all but exclusively as accompaniment to the voice in singing verse of even epic and elegiac form and tenor, as well as melic and dithyrambic. The early music, like the early poetry, was characterised by a sedate and elevated decorum even in the midst of movement and impassioned ² excitement. To citharodic music, of which the instruments were the lyre and the cithara, the aulodic,—the music of the pipe—of which the earliest cultivation is referred to barbaric Lydia and Phrygia, was almost as much in opposition as in contrast. Olympus is one of the greatest names connected with this, and Aristotle appeals to the notorious effect of his extant melodies in rousing enthusiasm, as a convincing proof and primary example of the power of music to influence ethical emotions for good or evil.

The evidence for personality of both Terpander and Olym­pus is somewhat confused and conflicting; Olympus especially, although probably the later, doubles with a clearly mythical namesake, and though the expressive name of Terpander is as little valid against his reality as that of Pericles or Demos­thenes, it probably favoured the attachment of mythical accretions that otherwise would have floated loose. What is

most important, however, at present is most certain also, that at the date of the Persian War the Hellenic world was in possession of abundant highly admired works of musical in­vention that had come down from antiquity associated with these names together with traditions and poetical notices of the stages by which their musical art and their instruments had become developed.

The recovery of Hellas after her struggle with Persia was in fact marked by a novel start in music as in all the other arts; and even more innovations were hastily originated than were pursued or persevered in. In earlier times the pipe had shared with the lyre in the musical instruction of youth, but had been afterwards given up on account of its incompati­bility with the use of the player’s voice ; it was now resumed, and obtained a certain popularity even at Sparta, although practical music did not there make part of the established education, and the Spartan declined to use a musical instru­ment, though holding himself bound to be capable of dis­criminating good melodies from bad, or correct from ¹ false.

At Athens, as might be expected, the pipe had much more universal and lasting vogue; and the Athenian youth culti­vated it almost without exception. It was again taken into the course of school teaching at a time when wealth brought leisure and prosperity, and pride in novel empire was encour­aging experimental enterprise in every ² direction. That it relapsed into disrepute was due—at least so Aristotle avers— to the experience of its inefficiency in respect of moral influ­ence; and the like consideration condemned a number of other instruments which from their excessive demand on manual skill and sustained application were held to be fitly aban­doned to the professional.

These alterations of private taste, however, reacted only the more powerfully upon the art as it was presented by the

technically instructed. Rhythms and harmonics ascribed to Terpander had been preserved in forms that seemed conse­crated by their designation of Nomes—laws ; but the uniform simplicity of the ancient citharodia was becoming rapidly antiquated in the age of Phrynis, which was that of¹ Pericles. Considerable fluctuations of taste had doubtless occurred in the course of previous centuries ; and hints of such that cannot be mistaken are preserved even in mythical and semi- mythieal stories ; but the changes which came now into question were far more developed and far more decisive.

Phrynis was a eitharode or lyre-player, of Lesbian Mity- lene, and a pupil of Aristocleitus of the family or gens of Terpander, who was at his acme at the time of the Medica. This date agrees with the pupil Phrynis being the first to gain a victory at the musical contests of the Panathenaea, of which the primary institution is assigned to Pericles. The scholiast of Aristophanes places this under the archonship of Callias (456 B.C.), the date of the battle of Oenophyta, which seems inconsistently early—and difficulty is not quite sur­mounted if we adopt as a correction the archon Callimachus, and bring the date down ten years later. That his time, however, falls narrowly about the period we are concerned with is sufficiently proved by the allusion in the Clouds of Aristophanes to the popularity of his innovations.

Phrynis was said to have been originally an aulode—a player on the pipe,—a story that, even if only a stoiy, may have been suggested by the peculiar character of his music, which the fact itself was well calculated to account for; the imitation 01* emulation on the lyre of styles appropriate to the pipe is enumerated by ² Plato among the corruptions of music. Aristophanes charges him with introducing ‘ intricate mazes/ that were the very destruction of the muses themselves ; ‘far different this style from the traditional harmony that camc down from our fathers,—the loud far-travelling strain that ¹ l’lut. dc Mas. 6.        ³ Plato, Legg. iii. 700.

was prolonged in the old chants, expressions of the mingled modesty and energy of the antique education that formed the men of Marathon¹.’

The style of Phrynis was only one early intermediate term in a sequence of musical revolutions which all tended towards complexity; these are set forth as instructively as amus­ingly in a fragment of the comedian Pherecrates, and vindi­cate our immediate epoch as still remote from the degrada­tion of music that was ultimately to ensue.

In a comedy entitled after the centaur Chiron,— Chiron himself a master of the lyre,—Music was introduced as a female in much disordered condition and attire, uttering her complaints to Dikaiosyne,—most fitly translated here, Mrs. Rightmindedness,—a fair equivalent of the ^c Right reason’ of Aristophanes, whom we have just been attending to on the same theme.

The following translation observes for the most part the corrections proposed and approved by Meineke :—

‘ I will relate it then, nothing loth; for in hearing, you—

And I, in telling,—both alike have pleasure at heart:

My griefs then first began with Melanippides,—

He was the first of the set who took me in hand to enfeeble me,

And rendered me loose and languid with his dozen strings;

And yet was he a man in a way sufficient

In regard to me, considering the afflictions of the present state;

But Phrynis tossing in a kind of whirl-about of his own,

Rolled me up and twisted me and spoilt me in all manner of ways, Getting out of seven strings a dozen harmonic scales.

But even so was he a man that in some way suited me,

For if he did make a blunder or so he set it to rights again:

Also the reprobate scoundrel Attic Cinesias,

By the extra-harmonic turns he forever made in the strophes,

Did such a deal of damage that it came about with the poetry Of the dithyrambs, precisely as with shield-arms at the right-about,— And what should be to the right was found on the left hand side. However this man too I found notwithstanding bearable;—

But, oh ! Timotheus!—oh, my dear,—he has so touzled me

And fretted me to shreds that it is a scandal. D. And, pray, who

May be this Timotheus? M. A certain Milesian red-polled knave

Who has evil entreated me; all the others that I have named This one has gone far beyond,—singing labyrinthine strains Of notes like a disturbed ant-hill,—out of all harmony and scale and holiness :

And Bhould he light on me anywhere wending by myself alone He strips me naked, be sure, and trounces me with his dozen strings.’

The last complaint of the treatment to be expected by Music when caught by herself seems to refer to purely in­strumental performances,—to what Plato rebuked as an abuse when melos and rhythm were divorced from words—from

¹        priixara.

The stops of decline which are here counted up as still later than Phrynis, are argument that the earlier innovations, startling as they may have been, were chaste refinements superinduced upon antique austerity,—a transition that in the age of Pericles took place in every art, Plato is a wit­ness quite near enongk to the time we treat of, to be cited in corroboration of the complexity that was already in course of introduction into the music of the lyre ;—what then was to be expected in wind instruments ? He recommends that the cithara should be employed in musical instruction on account of the clearness of its notes, but he deprecates be­stowal of attention by those who have but three years at command for the useful part of music, upon diversified tones and artificialities that only tended to confusion. He refers specifically to playing a different set of notes on the lyre to those which were set down by the poet to be sung,—that is, as it would appear, to accompaniment in harmony,—to the intermixture of very close and very wide intervals, of very rapid with slow, of acute with grave, and lastly, the licen­tious adapting to the lyre of rhythms of every sort and

²        kind.

The distinct statement of Aristotle is conclusive for the existence down to his time of a body of musical composition that was ascribed to Olympus, and that must necessarily have

originated before the date of uninterrupted history as he was familiar with it. The evidence is no less conclusive as to the survival of the melodies and compositions that were ascribed to Terpander,—the nomes already alluded to,—however they were preserved, whether by tradition or, as expressions imply and even assert distinctly, by his invention of sufficient notation; the allusions and references of later miscellaneous writers and grammarians are in harmony with significant phrases in the lyric and comic poets and in Plato, and testify to a matter of fact in terms which demonstrate that it was too familiar to require collateral confirmation. The evidence is overwhelming, take what view of it we please, that in the age of Pericles the Greeks were in possession of what, how­ever transmitted, was equivalent to an extensive and varied musical library; apart from the popular airs that lived on in association with particular songs in various localities, we find constant and consistent reference to a vast variety of composi­tions which were called nomes, of which the structure was systematic but varied, and manifestly of considerable extent. The odes of Pindar, who was of a family of pipe players, were sung to music, and their ever-varied yet strictly elaborated rhythms may warn us not to rashly assign limits to the study, the ingenuity, or the genius of the Hellenic masters of rhythm. The titles Orthian and Trochaic nomes imply adaptation of other rhythms than those of the Homeric hexameters to which, as well as to others of his own, Ter­pander was said to have accommodated nomes. ¹ Pollux gives as many as seven expressive titles of the divisions of one of these nomes, which probably was so far analogous to the works of Polygnotus in another art, as combining great simplicity in parts and broad principles of artistic design with unsuspected subtleties of composition. The polycephalic nome, of which Pindar ascribed the invention to Athene herself,

pursued all the phases of the adventure of Perseus in slaying the Gorgon, and was mimetic of the excitement of the contest, and even of the hissing snakes of the decapitated head.

This nome however was adapted, as might be supposed, for the pipe, the perforated tube that single or double was played with a mouthpiece, and corresponded in this respect to the modern flageolet or clarinette. It was with the name of Olympus that the earlier effective cultivation of this instru­ment, which admits and invites a greater variety and livelier succession of notes than the lyre, and lends itself more readily to outbursts of excited musical invention, was associated. In fact, before the modern application of the bow to stringed instruments, the pipe in some form was the sole resource by which the sustained notes of the voice could be matched instrumentally. It is consistently, therefore, that Olympus was held to have invented the Enharmonic scale and new and more rapid varieties of rhythm, which corresponded with a laxer treatment of intervals; various compositions are also referred to as nomes of Olympus. A fragment of Archilochus which tells of Lesbian paeans sung to the accompaniment of the pipe, is a significant intimation that familiarity with its characteristic powers may not have been unconcerned with his feeling for metrical novelty and variety. For the music itself, it is beyond doubt that the wind music of Lydia and Phrygia reacted upon the Lesbian school, and introduced an element of wildness which it was for Greek genius to attemper and harmonise.

The importance which we find assigned by the ¹ ancients to the moral influence of music in education is partly and occasionally due no doubt to the comprehensiveness of the term music as they understood it,—the general discipline of the mind antithetically to that of the body as expressed by the term gymnastics. But even in a narrower sense than

this, music was understood to comprise as its constituents in the very closest union, speech, harmony, rhythm, that is, words, tune, and time; all in most recondite harmony, all consenting to a common effect. A noble or a vulgar tune was in consequence scarcely conceivable by the Greek of this date as disjoined from words of corresponding import, and so much was this agreement and combination the rule, so uni­versally did the spirit of poetry dictate that of melody and of rhythm, that any one of them independently was recognised as carrying of necessity the influence of all the others. The association of certain rhythms with particular musical modes or keys rendered this interpretation still more habitual and natural. Aristotle and Plato are for once in agreement here, that music—music pervading all education and combined with poetry—has a far more intimate effect than any of the plastic or graphic arts in touching and stimulating the feel­ings directly, and thence in moulding taste,—the sense of the fit and becoming,—and in modelling character by making the love and preference for the graceful and the good habitual and at last¹ spontaneous. Repeated references to the specula­tions of Damon and his school would suffice to avouch that these conceptions were fully realised at the date of the erection of the Odeum, though fully conclusive evidence did not carry them back to the earlier Pythagoreans.

²        Polybius, writing in the last age—in the latest years— of Hellenic nationality, pauses to aecount for the exceptional savagery of an Arcadian tribe, and furnishes by his explana­tion an interesting notice how musical culture pervaded provinces of Hellas of which we know too little. It was to antique law-givers of Arcadia, so this testimony runs, that insti­tutions were due which in the districts where they were better observed, successfully softened the harsh manners that were assumed to be natural in a rigorous climate, by combining with the unembarrassed association of the sexes the influence ¹ Arist. Pol. viii. 5. 1340; Plato, Repub. iii. 11. 401. ² Polyb. iv. 20-21.

VOL. IT.    It

of music,—^k of music, that is, of the genuine kind.’ From earliest childhood the Arcadians were taught to sing hymns and paeans to the gods and heroes of their native land; as boys, as youths, and even up to the thirtieth year they were under obligation, though amidst the austere surroundings of a hard life, to keep up practice of the more elaborate nomes of renowned composers, to exercise themselves not only in parade to martial music as used by the Spartans, but also in dancing and the music of the pipe, so as to take part in choruses at the Dionysiac festivals, and to qualify themselves to sing when called upon in turn at private festivities. Nor was the musical instruction confined to the men, for the Arcadian women also took part with them in frequent assemblies and sacred celebrations, and choruses like that in the Cretan dance on the Homeric shield, were habitually composed, in obedience to ancient Arcadian legislation, of maidens and youths together.

Modern experience proves no doubt that however far the art may have acted as a palliative, prevalence of exceptional musical taste and even of distinguished musical genius have remained compatible still with the most uncouth of all national manners and with sufficient laxity of morals. It was how­ever from the realities of life under sueh ancient conditions as we read of here, that poets derived that idealised Arcadian life which the world could now ill spare from poetry and from pleasing habitual associations; and while Polybius, so familiar with the country, ascribes the origin of these human­ising institutions to remote antiquity, he proves their con­tinuance to much later times than we are now concerned with, by his reference to the nomes of Philoxenus and Timotheus; and statesman as he is, he still retains such true Hellenic confidence in their moderating power as to urge the illiberal tribe that occasioned his digression to embrace, with God to aid, among the better influences of culture, that of music above all.

CHAPTER LIT.

PARTHENON.

That the mythological beings and narratives of the Greeks have the same relation to earlier Oriental originals—Aryan or however else designated—as the diction of their poetry and common intercourse, is to be inferred with confidence, and may be cheerfully allowed independently of demon­strations, which are apt to be tedious when even conclu­sive. The question in its due relations deserves all the attention that has been devoted to it hitherto, and even somewhat more, but does not concern us here. To the consideration of Hellenic history in its higher and more instructive aspect, it can scarcely be said to have closer rela­tion than consideration of the squalid habits of cave-dwellers bears to a theory of constitutional government, and for our present purpose may happily be left aside.

Mythology in its progressive refinement and advance in the direction of Hellenism, went of necessity through a parallel process to the commencement of proper Hellenic language; whether the roots of this language in origin may have been rude or refined, suggestive or clumsily obscure, it was their common fate to be subjected in employment, to a continuous play of interests and impulses all tending to adjust them to the only purpose for which they were required,

and especially to render them expressive up to the standard of the sense of expression of those who were making* eager use of them. This main requirement of communication governed the progress, and quite as importantly, the arrest of their modification, and so the value of a sign at first little better than conventional, was eked out with all the power of natural significance that is so richly at command in varied vocal inflection; and in like manner the primitive traditions,—the roots of mythology,—however coarse, or clumsy, or common­place in origin, were so moulded by Hellenic sentiment and lively invention under persistent regard to happy symbolism and poetical personification, that the flowers and fruit owed far more at last to graft and culture than to the wild support­ing stock, original and even indispensable as this might once have ¹ been.

The harmony that is observable between the Olympian Zeus of Homer and that of Pheidias, and of both again with the characteristics of the Hellenic race, is not more salient than can be readily explained from the fundamental unity of the race despite all its divisions and dispersions, and from the secondary consolidation of that unity which was largely pro­moted by the Homeric epos itself; but a harmony equally striking obtains between the Homeric conception and Pheidiac model of Athene and the special characteristics of the Athe­

¹ It is but candid, however, and it is certainly curious, to notice how different a view may be taken of these matters. Since the above was written, Professor Max Muller has thus expressed himself before the Congress of Orientalists, Sep. 1874: ‘As long as we had only the mythology of the classical nations to deal with, we looked upon it simply as strange, anomalous, and irrational. When, however, the same strange stories, the same hallucina­tions, turned up in the most ancient mythology of India; when not only the character and achievements, but the very names of some of the gods and heroes were found to be the same, then every thoughtful observer saw that there must be a syst^Qm in that ancient madness, that there must be a meaning in that strange mob of gods and heroes, and that it must be the task for com­parative mythology to find out what reason there is in all that mass of un­reason.’

nians, that by no means lends itself to so obvious an expla­nation.

Two distinct sources contribute to an elucidation of the ideal of Pallas Athene; one of these is the Homeric poetry which lies remote in undated periods before the proper com­mencement of recorded Greek history; the other is to be traced through the hints and memorials of local worships of which particulars were for the most part rescued by Pausanias just before their late and final extinction, though important aid is still derivable from intermediate literature. When we collate the two representations which are thus obtainable from history and traditional cult on the one hand and from poetry on the other, we learn to respect the significance of the dictum of the religionist Herodotus as to the functions of Homer and Hesiod—of the schools of poetry, that is, which these names respectively represent—in reducing mythology to order and unity; it was they, he said, who constructed a Theogony for the Hellenes by assigning to the gods their titles and distinct claims to honour and their occupations, and indicating their several characteristic symbols and ¹ forms. But many limitations which by virtue of poetic genius became accepted absolutely in poetry, were only imperfectly and occa­sionally taken up by proper religious faith to be held in regard by the administrators of cult. Popular and priestly tradition held on its own way from age to age, whether in rigid routine or following a development of its own ; divinities of the same original name and title yielded to the conflict­ing influences in various degrees, and appear with most incongruous qualities and attributes in different localities; such gods as Hermes, whom it suited the poets to subordinate, are found to have retained, in some instances to have acquired, an ascription of supreme authority, while others so conspicuous in poetry as Apollo or Athene receive but casual regard as associated with some quite incidental and secondary function.

¹ Herod, ij. 130.

But the comparison of the contrasted phenomena of this double stream of supernatural imagery brings out one very curious and instructive agreement—instructive as to the pro­cess by which the poet gave the foree of poetic unity to his novel creations without quite losing hold of inveterate popular associations. It beeomes patent and demonstrable how he seized the current characteristic of a god or hero, that was most to his purpose as furnishing a requisite supplement to his filling pantheon, and then, while reducing without scruple the importance of all other associated aspects and traditions, was on the watch for what they would furnish of poetic mate­rials, and made use of them to enrich his effects with illus­trative ornament or even to give piquancy by covert reminder of the original, deliberately falsified, suggestion.

The Athene of Ilomer is the virgin goddess who is most in favour with her father Zeus, who even dons his proper aegis and vicariously wields his power; she is a warlike goddess, a dispenser of strength and vietory, but in virtue of her intel­ligence and deliberateness is in the strongest contrast to the brutal Ares, who fights for fighting sake on any side indif­ferently and in turn, and is always humiliated by her; she gives her protection in preference to the heroes whose valour is combined with enthusiasm and yet with self-command, with ingenuity, invention, shrewdness, and presence of mind. And then as a goddess so conspicuously intellectual she can­not but regard the arts of peace ; she is the model of feminine accomplishment; the instructress of girlhood in works of the needle and the loom, she weaves her own robe and embroiders that of Here herself; and the application of energy and ingenuity even to ship-building and to metal work, make her a fellow worker with Hephaestus in decorative art; and under her guidance the simplest technical functions are elevated to the dignity of a truly demiurgic ideal.

Such are the leading lines of the characteristics which Ilomer combines in the magnificent ideal of Pallas Athene;

and if the qualities which he ascribes are not superior to their besetting abuses, and if he does admit a passing lapse to passion or even caprice, it seems to be by no oversight, but as a designed intimation that even Athene w^ras no more utterly superior to all weakness than the rest of her immortal colleagues, nor further removed from that kinship with huma­nity which was recognised in all of them; nay, that even divine as she was, she still was feminine. Such an ideal, it is manifest, is quite at variance with that of the Athene mother of Apollo or wife of Hephaestus in old Attic traditions; but still such traditions are glanced at, are betrayed, as not un­familiar to the poet, in the complaint of a rival of Ulysses that from the partiality of Athene to him she might be his mother. The Athene of Mothone, in Messene, w^Tas above all things meteorological, Athene Anemotis—Goddess of Winds ; while it is only incidentally that Homeric Athene provides a favourable wind, is herself a breeze as elsewhere a falling star, and spreads or disperses mists. At Argos and at Sparta, Athene was the sharp-sighted—Oxyderces, or Ophthalmitis —protectress of eyes; in poetry the function is employed to clear the sight of Diomed and enable him to discern gods from mortals. In worship again Athene is in some localities a health goddess, and the poet is so far reminiscent of the ascription as to describe how she gives lightness to the limbs of Diomed and sustains the strength of the grieving Achilles by infusion of nectar and ambrosia; elsewhere as a light goddess she is worshipped with a torch festival or with an ever-burning lamp, and on coins she appears bearing a lamp, as she literally carries a golden lamp to light Ulysses at mid­night labour, and metaphorically makes daylight for Achilles as she precedes him through the battle.

At the same time it appears impossible to dissociate the origination of the Homeric ideal of Athene from a pre­dominance of the associations which belonged peculiarly to the Athene of Attica. The Homeric goddess personifies so

remarkably the characteristics of the Athenians,—their com­bined energy and intellectuality, their warlike spirit and artistic genius,—that Pheidias seems to have worked with an imagination no more excited by passionate appreciation of the Attic life around him than responsive to the inspira­tions of the primaeval poem. It is no real disparagement of the poet if we recognise that the sculptor embodied an ideal of more self-contained dignity than suited the require­ments of a progressive and diversified fable; he was restricted to a single phase, and choosing the noblest, he chose a phase which is still Homeric.

That a goddess should reflect the genius of her worshippers, in itself causes no surprise ; it is familiar how the votary ever chooses, if indeed he does not even make, his god after his own image; Athene was certainly not adopted as the epony­mous divinity of the city out of regard to the long posterior Homeric description ; it is most consistent to infer that what­ever her form and attributes in original local cults elsewhere, she was here gradually and even insensibly endowed with all the qualities and graces that were most esteemed, admired, and worshipped by the Athenians,—by the Athenians of Attica. The Athens of Attica is but one of several cities of the name, but all others are comparatively insignificant, and quite without title to claim share in the special personifi­cation.

Ilomer it is true is very chary of giving glory to the Athenians, or even mentioning them or their leaders, an indi­cation of bias of which the late Colonel Mure seems to have been the first to appreciate the importance and significance. It can scarcely be, but there is hostile, or at hast unsympa­thetic animus in qualifying the brave resistance of Mene- stheus to the Lycians, by making him call with urgency for supports that Ajax plainly thinks are beyond the requirement of the occasion. But still he specifies the house of Ereetheus on the acropolis as the peculiar residence of Athene, and

mentions her attachment to Marathon, and the conclusion from the whole appears to be irresistible that Athenian genius had already declared itself long before the period when Homer wrote, far back in the ages when his materials were taking the form that was to bloom at last in perfect poetry.

Pheidias, the greatest of the Athenian, indeed of all Hellenic artists, is recorded to have been one of the pupils of the Argive sculptor Ageladas, and it seems to have been one happy consequence of the unpatriotic course which was taken by Argos in the Persian war and its sequel, that art in one of its seats at least was left to undisturbed, unsuspended progress. So it came forward with powers not merely un­diminished but matured, to memorise the" victory, but it was due to the coincidence of the seat of native artistic genius with political power, that the ideal of Pericles governed the style and scale of the general dedications at Olympia as well as of the proper commemorations of Athens.

Of the statue of Athene in ivory and gold that Pheidias executed for the Parthenon—an embodiment not more of the ideal of Homer than of the Athenian character—we owe our knowledge chiefly to a description by Pausanias as an eye-witness; confirming illustrations are supplied by Thucydides, Plutarch, and a notice by Pliny, and various antique copies display a general agreement with the de­scribed action and attitude.

The figure, which was erect, had a height, inclusive of the pedestal, according to Pliny, of twenty-six cubits or about thirty-eight feet, the utmost consistent with the lofti­ness of the naos in which it was placed. The summit of the statue would range with the level of the centre of the sculptured frieze of the cella. It was therefore considerably smaller in scale than the Zeus of Olympia, which was a seated figure, and even so reached to the utmost height available in a naos that cannot have been much, if at all, less lofty.

The goddess was represented as clothed in a chiton or tunic,

reaching to the feet, and over it, as in Homer’s description, wore a robe also,—a peplus of heavier texture no doubt, and providing the favourite contrast of broader folds and sweeping lines; originally, at least, this was of solid gold weighing forty talents, and being removable, was taken into account as part of the disposable national ¹ treasure. The gorgon head on the aegis of the goddess, originally of gold, had been sacri­legiously removed by the time of Isocrates; Pausanias found it replaced in ivory. The face, hands, and no doubt the arms were of ivory ; the pupils of the eves were of coloured ² stone. The material of the aegis, which must have contrasted with the gold Gorgoneion, is not specified ; if the chiton was of ivory it may have contrasted with the flesh by an imparted tint, or perhaps was sufficiently relieved by the lines and shadows of closer delicate folds.

The helmet of the goddess was crested with a sphinx, and on either side of it in relief was a griffin—a lion body with head and wings of an eagle; she stood holding a spear with her left hand, beside it was her shield, and on her extended right was a Victory,—four cubits, or about six feet high, apparently of ivory. This height of the Nike or Victory pro­bably includes that of her wing tips or elevated arms. At the foot of the spear was a serpent, which, says Pausanias, may be Erichthonius, and in any case was a symbol of the earth-born Cecropians,—of the Athenians in their pride as autochthonous, offspring of the soil; a certain reminiscence is also involved of the sacred serpent of the smaller temple of Athene on the acropolis, of which Herodotus has wonders to relate as of the genius of the locality.

On some coins of the Seleucidae, with which may be also compared a coin of Side in Pamphylia, we have types which we can safely assume to be copies of the Olympian Zeus and of the Athene of the Parthenon ; the workmanship is far from

fine, but except in workmanship the differences are slight. In some examples the Victory is shown as turned towards the goddess and extending the crown to her, but usually the crown is extended to the front, as if towards the spectator of a temple statue. In the most distinct specimens we see that the spear, which rests on the ground, is supported against the hollow of the left arm of the goddess, while her hand below lies easily upon the top edge of the shield.

Virgil has a description which agrees with the position of the serpent as between the goddess and the shield, where however, as we shall see, it must have been so disposed as not to obscure the view of the interior of the shield and its decorations.

‘ At geraini lapsu delubra ad sumrna dracones Effngiunt: saevaeque petunt Tritorddis arcem,

Sub pedibusque Deae clipeique sub orbe teguntur.’

Yirgil, Aen. ii. 225.

The description of Pliny mentions a bronze sphinx as sub ipsa cuspide, as if the spear had been held with point reversed, perhaps from some confused interchange of serpent and sphinx; or it may be that we should read casside for cuspide, and that the original reference was to the crest of the helmet. As regards the sphinx in that position, I am willing to take the risk of assuming that the emblem was introduced with the same intention of hostile reference to Thebes that is distinctly declared, as we shall see, on the Olympic throne. The place assigned to it is fully justified by the Homeric description of the helmet of Athene as ‘ fitted with the spoils of a hundred cities ’:—

Kvvirjv—

XpvaiiTjv kKarov iroXiow irpvKieffff’ apapviav.

Homer, Iliad, v. 743.

Griffins are symbols that especially pertain to Apollo, and perhaps may have carried here an allusion to the pretensions to influence at Delphi which Pericles had asserted in rivalry to the Lacedaemonians.

‘There is considerable analogy between the Athene of the

Parthenon and the Zeus of Olympia; the daughter like the sire is shown as the disposer of Victory, but helmeted as she is and with arms at hand, rather of the victory that confers imperial rule than the peaceful trophy of the olive crown.

There was a like parallelism in secondary adornments; on her basis the birth of Pandora in the presence of the divinities replaced at Athens that of Aphrodite in corresponding position on the basis of Olympian Zeus. Battles with Amazons, and of Centaurs and Lapithae, the accepted types of the contest with the Medes and semi-barbarous hosts, occur in both instances. The edges of the sandal soles of Athene were chased with the battle of Centaurs; the convex of her shield bore the battle of Theseus with the Amazons, no doubt as against invaders of Attica according to the tradition, and not this time as comrade of Hercules in a distant expedition. The interior of the shield, which however was probably more conspicuously pre­sented to view from the front, had the subject of the battle of Gods and Giants, in which Athene herself was ever a protagonist.

Pliny notes that the divine spectators of the birth of Pandora were as many as XX, a number which has much appearance of having replaced the falsified numerals XII.

* Victory,’ he also adds, ‘ being especially admirable’; and here again it seems likely that he transfers the admiration due to the Nike of four cubits on the hand of the goddess, of which he makes no other mention. The frequency of the introduc­tion of Nike in birth-scenes, as on the vases, and indeed among the witnesses of the birth of Athene on the pediment, only increased the liability to such an error.

The appropriateness of the subject of the birth of Pandora is found in the importance of the function which is ascribed to Athene on the occasion in the primitive notice of Hesiod, and was still further enhanced in the special traditions of Attica. In Hesiodic legend it is Athene who arrays Pandora, the recent work of Hephaestus, and on a remarkable vase-

painting we see her in company with the god, disposing the graceful peplus around the figure.

Another chryselephantine Athene, on the acropolis of Elis, was ascribed to ¹ Pheidias, but according to Pliny was a work of Colotes, who assisted Pheidias with the Olympian Zeus; the scale of the figure is not noted. On the helmet was a cock,—as combative bird, says Pausanias, or perhaps a symbol of Athene Ergane, as goddess of workers early- wakeful. To Panaenus, who also co-operated in the great Zeus, was due the painting on the interior of the shield.

The chryselephantine statue of the goddess within the naos of the Parthenon completed the dedication, and only such a work as this is described to be, could have added a crowning grace to the majestic sculptural enrichments of the exterior.

When to these works are added the elaboration of the design and the exquisite workmanship of the temple itself, the fifteen years of the sway of Pericles in peace seems a marvellously short period indeed for their production by artists of whose activity after all they do but represent a portion. Make what allowance we may for preparation and study anterior to these limits, the achievement has still but one parallel for combined rapidity and perfection, and that is in the single modern work which can compare with it in loftiness of scope and of success, the Sistine ceiling of Michael Angelo.

The Parthenon, however, still remains the only building in which the arts of sculpture and architecture, which should be sisters, have yet been successfully associated in equal and harmonious perfection,—neither sacrificed to the other, each appearing to receive as much of enhancement from the other as it conferred.

What remains of these sculptures were rescued just in time from impending, from ever advancing destruction, are the chief glory of the British Museum; they vindicate even yet

the terms in which Plutarch characterised them with as­tonished admiration eighteen centuries ago. I cite in prefer­ence the quaint but racy and by no means insufficient transla­tion of Sir Thomas North, by whom, though only inter­mediately, the passage is thus Englished.

‘ And thus came the buildings to rise in grace and sump­tuousness being of excellent workmanship, and for grace and beauty not comparable (incomparable): because every workman in his science did strive what he could do to exeel others, to make his work appear greatest in sight and to be most work- manly done in show. But the greatest thing to be wondered at was their speed and diligence. For where (whereas) every man thought those works were not likely to be finished in many men’s lives and ages and from man to man, they were all done and finished whilst only one government continued

still in credit and authority         For this cause therefore

the works of Pericles made (made by Pericles) are more wonderful because they were perfectly made in so short a time, and have continued so long a season. For every one of those that were finished up at that time, seemed then to be very ancient touching the beauty thereof; and yet for the grace and continuance of the same it looketh at this day as if it were but newly done and finished, there is such a certain kind of flourishing freshness in it, which letteth that the injury of time cannot impair the sight thereof; as if every of those foresaid works had some living spirit in it, to make it seem young and fresh, and a soul that lived ever which kept them in their good continuing ¹ state.’

¹ North’s Plutarch, p. 165.

CHAPTER LIII.

THE CHRYSELEPHANTINE STATUES *. THE ZEUS OF OLYMPIA.

But of the numerous dedications to the Gods in acknow­ledgment of the liberation of Hellas from the Mede, the most important in every respect was the Chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia, with its accessories. Among these would be included indeed the temple itself, if we are justified in assuming that it was designed and constructed purposely to contain the statue. The vastness of the structure is not in itself conclusive on this point. The temple at Samos and the earlier Parthenon were both on a still larger scale; but when Pausanias states that both statue and temple, as he saw them, were from the spoils of Pisa upon its subversion by Elis, the ascription may safely be transferred to earlier monu­ments which were now superseded, though not supplanted in the traditions of local patriotism. It may not even be safe to assume that the native architect mentioned by Pausanias,—a Libon, of whom no more is known,—was really the designer of the later temple.

This temple was the largest hexastyle of the Doric order of which we have knowledge in Greece Proper, and only surpassed in magnitude in Peloponnesus by the later Ionic temple of Athene Alea, built by Scopas at Tegea. The stylobate measured 95 feet in front by 250 feet. The columns had a lower diameter of 6-70 feet, exceeding those of the

octastyle ¹ Parthenon. The external height of the fayade Mas 68 feet, and the internal height was taken advantage of to the very utmost by the colossal figure of the god, which, seated as it was, according to Hyginus, reached to 60 feet in height,—a manifestly excessive statement. Pausanias suppresses the dimensions as only derogating from the grandeur of the impression which the figure produced, especially when viewed from a station which seems to have been marked by Pheidias himself. The material of the temple was the porous but hard stone of the country, which received a coating of marble stucco of extreme tenuity, that conferred upon it all the sharpness and brilliancy of marble. The roofing tiles alone were of the Pentelic marble of which the Parthenon was entirely constructed. The ruins, or rather the scanty vestiges, have been investigated and published by the French expedition to the Morea, but the over-elaborate engravings are at variance with the statements of the text to an extent that baffles satisfactory study of the architecture. Both the pediments were occupied by important sculptural compositions, but of the metopes, only those of the inner porticos in antis of naos and opisthodomus, which provided precisely twelve spaces for the twelve labours of Hercules. It can only be by accident that the enumeration of Pausanias leaves one out. Hercules, son of Zeus, was the great model and prototype of all gymnic prowess, and his concern in the institution and ordination of the Olympic competitions and festival was a theme for Pindar and the poets generally.

The predominant idea of the dedication in that ultimate state of completeness referred to in our accounts, the idea which accordingly found distinct expression in the subjects of the sculptures and paintings, was a recognition of Zeus as dispenser to the Greeks of victory, and of all its conditions and accompaniments, as beauty and strength and virtue;

in the contests of the Olympic games immediately, where all Hellas was assembled, but then by natural extension in that great war for freedom, which Hellas had waged in true Olympic union and confederation. At the same time some special recog­nition could not but be demanded for Elis and the guardians of the temple; and then the fact that the works were chiefly designed and executed by Athenian artists, and during the period of Athenian ascendancy, might be expected and is actually found to have given an Athenian bias to the treat­ment of the very largest theme,—a bias which the artists were clearly at no pains to disguise.

The subject in the eastern pediment was by Paeonius, of Mende in Thrace, but of what artistic school is unknown. His age is fixed by another occasional dedication as contem­porary with the settlement of the Messenians at Naupactus (454 B.C.). In this front composition were represented Pelops and Oenomaus, at the moment previous to the chariot-race which was the typical precedent of the contests of the games. The statue of Zeus,—a standing figure, as I read,—occupied the centre. Immediately under the apex at his right, the specta­tor’s left, stood King Oenomaus, father of Hippodameia the prize, and helmeted as w^Te see him on the vase-paintings on like occasion, where his panoply contrasts with the light Phrygian garb of Pelops, and alludes to the penalty of instant death which was incurred at his hand by the suitor who was overtaken. His wife Sterope was beside him, Myrtilus, his treacherous charioteer, was seated before the four horses of the chariot, behind were two other grooms or attendants; the river Cladeus reclined beneath the slope at the extreme angle.

The groups on our right hand answer in enumeration figure for figure; Pelops and his hoped-for bride Hippo­dameia,—who in some vase-paintings shares his chariot in the race,—his charioteer and horses and chariot, and two grooms, and again in the narrowing angle a river, the Al- pheus, which received superior honours at Elis to the less

vol. 11.        s

regarded Cladeus, and was therefore fitly attached to the side which was destined by the gods to win. The description which makes the symmetry so palpable does not intimate any principle of movement sufficient to render the composition properly rhythmical. We are at liberty to infer from a vase- painting not unplausibly, that the particular incident repre­sented was libation on an altar before the god,—the solemn ratification of the terms of the fatal race. According to the story, it was by a base compact with Pelops affecting Hippo- dameia, that Myrtilus withdrew his master’s lineh-pin,—this act again is found represented on a vase,—and lost him the race, but only to reap destruction for his pains, instead of the stipulated shameless recompense.

As we know nothing of the style of Paeonius, it were futile to conjecture particularly how he contrived to adjust the four horses abreast to the comparatively shallow pediment. It is probable, however, that resort was had to the same modification of perspective, of relievo, and even of symbol­ism, that was so admirably applied in the Parthenon, where it is manifest from the fragments of the horses of Athene’s chariot, that the more remote at least were treated with the flatness of even bas-relief.

Indications of a composition more studied and certainly not so readily divined, appear in the description of the sculpture of the other, and secondary pediment,—the battle of the La- pithae, or more properly of Theseus and the Centaurs at the marriage of Pirithous. Pirithous aided by Caeneus was in the central group; on one side was the Centaur Eurytion seizing the bride; on the other, Theseus wielding an axe,—the sacri­ficial axe it may be, of the interrupted festivity,—combated other centaurs, of whom one had seized a girl and another a beautiful boy. On the Phigaleian frieze sueli seizures of girl and boy by violent centaurs are represented on a single slab. This composition, of which the description unfortunately proceeds 110 further, was ascribed to the Athenian Aleamenes,

wlio worked congenially on an exploit of the Athenian hero. Pausanias was contented with the explanation that the selec­tion of the subject was justified in Pirithous being a son of Zeus, and Theseus a descendant rather more remotely. The subjects of the two pediments pair in a general sense, as both involve a contest for a bride,—in each case also a Hippo- dameia, in a manner a personification by name of the horse and chariot races of the festival. Both victories are gained over opponents of brutalised habits and customs, and hence are naturally emblematical of that superseding of coarse and violent manners by milder and more graceful civilisation, of which the Olympic festival, with its sacred truce and emula­tive contests for an olive crown, the symbol of peace, was so apt a celebration. In place of any further justification of appropriateness we must allow for the Athenian predilection of the sculptor for an exploit of the Athenian hero. Con­spicuous however on the very front of the temple, whenever placed or restored there, was seen in the late age of Pausanias at least a memorial of Athenian disaster; a gilded Victory surmounted the apex, and below it was a golden shield bearing the Gorgon Medusa and an inscription in four elegiac lines, which describe it together with a phiale within the naos, as a tithe paid—if the readings must indeed be accepted

—     on account of the victory gained at Tanagra by the Lace­daemonians and their allies over the Argives, Athenians, and Ionians. In any case the memorial was well fitted to recall how gloriously Athens within sixty-one days retrieved her disaster on the same ground by the victory of Myronides at Oenophyta.

On passing under the front portico, the intervals of the two columns in antis of the pronaos, were closed by bronze gratings and doors. In front of the column to the right was a statue of King Iphitus, crowned by Echecheira, or Truce, —personification of the suspension of enmities which was ap­propriate to, and indeed probably a prime motive of the first

s %

institution of the Olympic Pan-Hellenic festival. Within, the statue of the god of the temple was visible at the further end of the naos. A range of columns on either side supported an upper range, and certain galleries, that in the words of Pausa­nias gave approach to the statue,—that is no doubt, afforded and were contrived in order to afford, better and closer points of view. A winding stair led still higher to the roof.

The colossal figure of the god, of which the most con­spicuously lavish materials were ivory and gold, was seated on a highly enriched throne, raised upon a sculptured basis. On his head was a wreath mimetic of olive leaves,—the olive leaves that formed the most coveted crown of the games. His right hand extended a Victory of like costly and beautiful materials, wreathed and holding a fillet; his left hand held a sceptre, enriched with a decorative diversity of metals, and surmounted by an eagle, as in the Pindaric description. The agreement of various copies on coins and in bronzes assures us that the upper body was uncovered; the robe from the lap was of gold, and wrought and variegated with figures of various animals and of flowers, exclusively lilies. The sym­bolical pertinence of the latter here is not very obvious, though Artemidorus assures an athlete of an Olympic victory when he dreams of lilies. Pausanias however ¹ finds at Delphi a statue of Zeus, an Aeginetan work, dedicated by the Meta- pontines, with eagle on one hand, thunder in the other, and wearing a coronal of flowering lilies. . The legs and robes of the god were free from contact with the front of the throne below, and the golden-sandalled feet rested on a footstool sup­ported by golden lions.

Pheidias said, or was reported to have said, that he derived his ideal of the god from the Homeric description of Zeus when he gives the assenting nod to supplicating Thetis, his dark eye-brows more expressive by the bowed head, and his ambrosial and luxuriant curls drooping responsively with the ¹ Faus. v. 22. 4.

movement that sent a quiver through vast Olympus. So benignity attempered majesty and awful might, and all an­tiquity recognised the supreme embodiment of graciousness with power, of condescension with absolute control; in the words of ^JDion Chrysostom, ‘a representation as perfect as it was possible for human imagination to conceive of the in­effable nature of the divinity, in mildness and dignity superior to all agitation, the giver of growth and life and all good things whatever, at once the father and saviour and guardian of mankind.’ For full eight centuries such were the sen­timents that the genius of Pheidias could inspire.

The throne itself was highly enriched, diversified with gold and various marbles, with ebony and ivory, and ornamented with painted groups and sculptured figures. The portion of the pavement in front of the proper basis or podium was of black stone, with a raised margin of white marble to retain the oil which was applied to preserve the work against the moist atmosphere of a marshy locality. Such at least is the account. In what precise manner it was admitted to contact with the central core and so countervailed either the unequal expansion and contraction of such a variety of mate­rials, or any other liability to decay or damage, is not readily explained.

The great mass of such a figure could not be supported on a throne that rested merely on four free legs, and an inner support was therefore provided below the seat,—a solid square pier with an Ionic column at each angle, which afforded at the same time a further opportunity for enrichment.

At each leg of the throne were four figures of dancing Victories, no doubt one on each front of the detached leg, whether the core of this were square or cylindrical. Monu­mental antiquity supplies many models for restoring them with drapery at once formal and ornate in elaboration, and

¹ Dion Chrysostom (temp. Trajan), Or. XII.

with hands touching as they stand a-tiptoe, side l>y side and back to back. In horizontal line below their feet ran a bar from leg to leg, carrying statuettes, and on the continuation of the legs below the bars, the feet of the throne, were two other Victories, in what attitude is not specified,—two only, for the evident reason that in this position the internal sides would be invisible. Conjecture may be allowed to indulge itself by applying here the ancient designs of kneeling Vic­tories sacrificing bulls.

Behind, on the upper part of the throne which rose above the head of the statue, Pheidias introduced on one side figures of the Graces, on the other of the Seasons,—three of each,—Seasons and Graces alike, as Pausanias observes, the daughters of Zeus.

The arms of the throne were supported above the front legs by figures of Sphinxes with Theban youths in their clutches, and below these and apparently along the sides of the seat or cushion of the throne, were compositions of Artemis and Apollo slaying the children of Niobe.

On the general basis of the throne the subject was wrought in gold, of Aphrodite (Venus) rising from the sea to be received by Eros and crowned by Peitho (Persuasion) in the midst of an assembly of goddesses and gods; in the Homeric hymn she is crowned and arrayed and conducted by the Horae (the Seasons). The cosmical reference of the scene and inci­dent was conveyed in the same manner as in the triangular composition of the Birth of Athene on the Parthenon pedi­ment. At one end was Helios in a chariot, at the other Selene,—but here on a horse or mule. Paired divinities, witnesses of the birth of the queen of all delight and beauty, are on either side ; Zeus and Ilera next to Helios at one end; Poseidon and Amphitrite, divinities of the element from which the goddess rises at the other, next to Selene. Then on either side of the central group, Apollo and Artemis, Athene and Hercules answer on our right, to Hermes and Ilcstia. an

omitted god, apparently Hephaestus, and Charis on our left, next to Zeus and Hera. The symmetry thus declares itself;—

Helios in chariot,—Zeus, Hera,—Hephaestus (?), Charis,— Hermes, Hestia;—Eros, Aphrodite, Peitho;—Artemis, Apollo,

—     Athene, Hercules, — Amphitrite, Poseidon, — Selene and horse.

Peitho here replaces Himeros, who, according to Hesiod, in company with Eros, conducted the new-born goddess to the assembly of the gods. I assume that this composition was visible as a whole and at once upon the front of the basis, whether this was on a right line or curved. It would be the height of inconsistency to break so symmetrical a series round the angles of the basis, and to relegate the most important witnesses, Zeus and Hera on one side and Poseidon on the other, to the remote and obscure angles.

The constant reference in Pindar’s odes for victors in the games, to the beauty of their forms, explains a special appro­priateness of this subject to the throne of Olympic Zeus. A victory in the games—the Olympic games especially—was vindication of the essential sympathy of moral and personal beauty or perfection. The same severe training that gave the victory perfected the form of the victor, whose highest fame it was to be, ¹kcl\os KakXiara re pefa?. Much the same moral is expressed by the association here,—as so frequently on the vases,—of Heracles with Athene.

Welcomed by the pre-existent Eros, the original influence that summoned order forth from chaos, and crowned by the power of all-persuasiveness, the goddess appears as bringing the last charm to creation to complete the harmony that the Olympic truce was designed to introduce and to perpetuate. It can scarcely be without intention too, as helping the elevated scope of her influence, that the three goddesses who most immediately receive her, are precisely Hestia, Artemis, and Athene, the virgin three who, according to the Homeric

¹ Pind. 01. ix. 140.

hymn, were alone unsubjugated by the impulses of which the control was a recognised condition of the health and energy of the Olympic athlete.

This subject on the basis of the throne was brought into view at once from the front along with the correlative and complementary Graces and Seasons above the throne at the back,—the personifications of all orderly succession and beautiful arrangement and development in heaven and earth, in natural and organic, in intellectual and moral existence.

The next most conspicuous ornaments were probably the Sphinxes under either arm of the throne, and the fate of the Niobids at the sides of the seat. These again are companion subjects, and not selected without a distinct and yet not inap­propriate or intrusive bias of Athenian partisanship. Both catastrophes are Theban ; and Pheidias here, on the dedi­cation for Hellenic deliverance from the barbarian, branded as enemies of Hellas and of Zeus the protector of Hellas, the traitorous Thebans who had done their best to promote the threatened subjugation of Hellenic culture by barbarian vio­lence. How distinctly this emblem of the Sphinx destroying Thebans would carry such significance to Greeks of the time, we learn best from Aeschylus. In the Seven against Thebes, the spy describes the assailant of the fifth gate, Partheno- paeus, as bearing on his shield,—to match the defiant and contemptuous emblems and inscriptions of his compeers,—

‘The raw-devouring Sphinx, our city’s shame,

Her form stud-fastened, brilliantly embossed;

Beneath her holds she a Cadmeian man,

A target so for missiles thickly showered.’

Eteocles recognises the taunt of the assailant,—

‘On hostile shield,

Who bears the image of that hateful pest;

Beneath our walls sore battered she will rail At him who fain would carry her within.’

The subject of the slaughter of the children of Niobe was probably divided,—the deaths of the daughters by Artemis on

one side, of the sons by Apollo on the other. Niobe was the daughter of Ampliion of Thebes, and in punishment of her arrogance the twin gods slew her children 011 Mount Ci- thaeron, the very scene of the battle of Plataea, where the Thebans, fighting with obstinate goodwill on the unpatriotic side, suffered so severely, and that too at the hands of the Athenians.

The decorations of this throne therefore convey an Athenian denunciation of Thebes, as distinctly as the inscription on the golden shields on the architrave of the temple at Delphi,— “ The Athenians from the Medes and the Thebans when they were fighting against Hellas.”

The intention is brought home by contrast of pointed allu­sions to the patriotic exploits of Athens.

On the bar at the front of the throne behind the legs of the god, were eight figures representative of the various contests of the games; one of them, a youth binding a fillet round his brow,—a diadumenos,—was said to be Pantarces, an Eleian youth and favourite of Pheidias, who conquered in the wrestling match of boys, in the 86th Olympiad, 436 b. c.

On the other bars was represented the battle of Hercules and a numerous troop—among them was Theseus,—with the Amazons. The number of both together, Amazons and oppo­nents, was twenty-nine. The phrase of Pausanias implies his impression that Hercules was distinctly the protagonist, and Theseus, the Athenian, his ally. In the Phigaleian friezes Hercules is decidedly the protagonist in the battle with Amazons, and Theseus is not to be distinguished with certainty. In the other subject of the same frieze,—the battle with the Centaurs,—the same as that of the western pediment at Olympia, it does not appear to me that Hercules is to be recognised at all; it seems probable that the chief group here was introduced on the central bar, that at the back of the throne.

The battle with the Asiatic Amazons was the rcceivccl mythical type, which at this time we meet with over and over again, for the conflict of the Greeks with the loose- robed Asiatics, Persians or Medes. In the present subject the pre-eminence which is conceded to Hercules seems to intimate that it was introduced as properly a type and recog­nition of the great Plataean victory which was gained by united Hellas indeed, but under the leadership of the Heraclcid Spartan, Pausanias.

Of the four sides of the great pier that supported the throne below the seat and within the pillar-legs, the obscured front was simply painted blue. The other three were severally enriched with three paintings by Panacnus, according to Strabo a cousin of Pheidias by the father’s side, and associate contractor in the work. He contributed the general colouring of the statue, the tinting probably of the ivory of the nude, and, it is stated particularly, the enrichment of the robe.

It is the wont of Pausanias, as approved by instances at Delphi and ^myclae, to enumerate a series of subjects in the order in which he arrives at them, as he moves along most uninterruptedly and conveniently. In the present in­stance, as in others, we are enabled to recover the more rational ordination without difficulty. His enumeration is as follows, in order of the numbers attached:—

3. Ilellas and Salamis.         6. Ilippodameia and mother. 9. Two llesperides.

2. Tlieseus and I’irithous. 5. Ajax and Cassandra.       8. Achilles and Penthcsilea.

1. Atlas and Hercules.         4. Hercules and Nemean lion. 7. rrometlieus and Hercules.

From the symmetry that comes out, and that is salient in this form of tabulation, it is clear that he took each division in succession, from above downwards, or else and in some degree more probably from below upwards. Each triplet commences with a pair of female figures, and ends with an exploit of Hercules. That the triplet, which is shown as

¹ See my dissertations on the Pictures of Polygnotus at Delphi, and on the Throne of Apollo at Amyclae, in Falkcntr’s Museum of Classical Antiquities.

placed centrally, was really central, and therefore at the back of the throne, is proved by the properly terminal character of the exploits of Hercules to the right and left,—his adventure with Atlas and Prometheus,—brother Iapetids, respectively at the extreme west and east of the world as accepted in Greek fable.

The struggle with the Nemean lion, one of the most fre­quent subjects on archaic vases, was typical of the prowess of the athlete.

On the uppermost line, we have in the centre Hippodameia, daughter of Oenomaus, as first Olympic prize gained in the chariot race by Pelops ; to the right a pair of Hesperides holding golden fruit, the reward of the concluding labour of Hercules; to the left, and most important, personified Hellas, accompanied by Salamis, who held the decorative beak of a ship,—the symbol of the sea-fight in which Athens, her fleet and her commander, guided confederate Hellas to victory over Xerxes.

The Athenian Theseus is placed just below Salamis, but no note is given of occupation to guide to a further signifi­cance of his introduction. Pirithous is a Thessalian hero, and the Athenians had, at least at this time, Thessalian allies. Achilles, in corresponding plaee to the right, was supporting the dying Amazon Penthesilea, whose beauty, youth, and valour he is said to have compassionated after he had slain. Here again, unless an allusion to Artemisia be not thought too remote, illustration is again at fault. The central subject at the back of the throne was the sacrilege of the Locrian Ajax, in dragging Cassandra from refuge in the sanctuary of Athene. The Locrians, like the Thebans, abetted Xerxes, and were afterwards persistently their allies against Athens; and it is observable that this same misdeed by which the Locrian hero incurred the vengeance of the goddess of Athens, was again combined with another commemoration of the Athenian victory in the Poecile stoa.

A still more special drift, however, may be a warning here of the divine anger that awaits the desecrators of sanctuaries, and especially those who do violence to statues of the gods. Cassandra is usually represented clasping in her distress and resistance the statue of Athene.

At Megara, in a temple of Zeus Olympius, Pausanias found an unfinished statue of this class, which, so far as it was executed, was ascribed to a native artist, Theoeosmos, assisted by Pheidias. The face, or head alone, was properly completed in ivory and gold; all the rest was made up of clay and plaster. The wood that was to have been employed still lay half-wrought behind the naos. Above the head of the god were the Fates and Seasons, as at Elis the Graces and the Seasons. The work was interrupted by the Peloponnesian war, when Megara and its citizens were utterly impoverished by the annual ravaging expeditions by which Athens re­venged the zealous part which they had taken in bringing it ¹ on.

The commencements of this kind of work are not to be dated so accurately as this note of its conclusion, but Pausa­nias saw at Sicyon a chryselephantine Asclepius, beardless, with sceptre in one hand and pine cone in the other, the reputed work of the early sculptor Calamis.

¹ Paus. i. 40. 3.

THE FIRST CHARGES AGAINST PHEIDIAS.—PERICLES ON THE DEFENSIVE.—THE FOUNDING OF AMPHIPOLIS.

B.C. 438, 437; 01. 85. 3.

For the three years that follow the reduction of Samos in 441-40 B.C., under the archonship of Timocles, the records leave us uninformed as to any definite political events. We know, however, that within this period the architectural and sculptural works of the Parthenon were rapidly advancing towards completion; and the archonship of Theodorus, 438-7 B.C., is a certified date of the dedication of the chryselephan­tine statue of the goddess. Statue and temple, together with all their enrichments and accompaniments, formed an harmo­nious whole, which was at once the most costly dedication that had ever been devoted by the Greeks to the honour of the gods, and one to which, for refinement in dignity and beauty, the world could show no rival. The beauty that here was realised did not simply exhibit an extraordinary advance on whatever had been beheld before ; it touched a limit where art might well seem not only hopeless and inca­pable of a further advance, but so fully satisfied in all its highest aspirations as neither to expect nor desire it. It was the high distinction of these works, that while they attained the utmost development of elaboration, they declined no whit from the sober dignity of earlier art, but united correctness

and finish with unimpaired spirit, and severity with grace. Archaic art had been gloriously successful in embodying a loftiness of expression which rose superior even to associated crudity, not to say occasional grotesqueness, but style in perfect and serene purity was now achieved for the first time. The har­mony in execution of so vast and multifarious a work would in itself imply the control of one presiding mind of largest grasp and most vivid imagination and fertility, endowed moreover with the faculty of inspiring the zealous co-opera­tion of a number of other men of high, however subordinate genius. Such mastery of mind pertained most certainly to Pheidias, who was entrusted by Pericles with the supreme direction of the works of even the architects, of whom Ictinus among others who are named, as Mnesieles, Calli­crates, and Carpion, was the ¹ chief.

The co-operation of numerous sculptors also, who were not all of equal and some not even of unusual merit, was part of the necessity of the ease, and is proved by differences in perfection of execution and even of design in the extant remains. It is only a marvel that the differences are not more salient or considerable.

Glorious as was the result for both artist and statesman, the peril of such glory was unhappily proportionate. Inevit­able danger lay in the provocation of artistic jealousy in rivals and of interested spite in political opponents, and worst of all, in the susceptibility of the governing power,—the general dcmus,—to conceive base grudge at any extraordinary per­sonal distinction. It has already appeared too often that no notion was more familiar to the Greeks than the ascribed disposition of the gods themselves to take offence at sustained prosperity, however guiltless, however merited, as though it implied a dangerous example of independence or an in­tolerable affront. In this unworthy conception they did but

transfer to Olympus the too authentic characteristics of supreme power below; and unfortunately seem at the same time to have found justification for themselves in tyrannical caprice by such precedent and example of the divine, and even to have recognised in their own jealousy the authorised opera­tion of that of the gods.

The date which is given by Eusebius for the dedication of the chryselephantine Athene (438 B.C.), is confirmed by ap­propriate coincidence with a year of the great Panathenaea (01. 85.3), and then implicitly by the scholiast of Aristo­phanes, who, quoting Philochorus, gives an interval of seven years between archonships of Pythodorus and Scythodorus, corresponding to that between the first difficulties of Pheidias and the outbreak of the war. This confirmation is not vitiated by the glaring transposition of the place of Pythodorus, who was the later archon, or by Scythodorus, a name unknown to the lists, being substituted very manifestly for the Theodorus of the earlier date.

It was under the archon Pythodorus that the Peloponnesian war broke out,—so rapidly through years of prosperity does the Athenian empire arrive at a struggle for existence,—and according to the scholiast, it was precisely seven years before the commencement of the war, that a public charge was brought against Pheidias of having embezzled a portion of the gold that was supplied to adorn the statue. The notices which are quoted by the scholiast from Philochorus, include some statements that are certainly false, as, for instance, that Pheidias on this attack retired to Elis and was there put to death ; but there is circumstantial confirmation of such a charge of embezzlement having been made at this time, and that it was quite distinct from another charge at a later date of which the consequences were fatal.

Even so then was it. The completion of a service acted

as a signal for malice to attack the benefactor. This wonder of human genius and national glory was scarcely in its place, an objcct for the admiration of the Hellenic world, when the enemies of Pericles could anticipate that such an occasion would render the sovereign people anything than less averse to subject him, if not to open attack, at least to annoyance and insult. The direct attack might come later ; preparation was made for it by testing his ability, in the existing temper of the people, to protect the friend in whose genius culminated all the glories of his administration.

By conecrt with a party so inspired, one Menon, who had been engaged in some of the work under Pheidias, took station at the altar in the agora, as putting himself ostentatiously under protection of the gods, and demanded public safeguard in coming forward as an accuser. A certain Glycon was prepared to aid the factitious importance of the occasion, and on his motion it was committed to the generals to take order for the safety of the proposed informer.

It is said that the manner in which this accusation w^ras at once disproved was by simply weighing the masses of moulded gold of the drapery of the goddess, which in accordance with a precautionary suggestion of Pericles, had been so adjusted as to be removable at pleasure. The arrangement had cer­tainly been made with the view that so much intrinsic value, —no inconsiderable portion of the national treasure,—should be available in case of need, but probably also not without reference to anticipated cavil. However this may have been, the charge w^Tas certainly met with confidence and successfully rebutted. The spirit which prompted it, however, was not so easily set at rest. The cost of these great works had been enormous, and however enthusiastically it may have been voted some years before, the usual weak reaction gave a tempting opportunity to those who had vainly opposed the outlay at first, to question accounts, to impute neglectful or extravagant expenditure with the scarcely covert intent of

implying malversation and even to help a spiteful purpose by reopening the question of the original policy. When the deduction from the accumulated state treasure came to be counted up, it could not but appear formidable, and, espe­cially as further outlay was proposed, could easily be represented as disproportionate, indefensible, inexplicable. Presuming on the public temper, which was likely to be more irritable under the loss of one expected satisfaction, Dracontides ventured on a proposal that carried an imputation more directly upon Pericles himself, as well as on his previous auditors, of complicity in irregularities. The hostile motion, so to call it, was for transferring the supervision of his accounts to a different body, the Prytanes, in addition exact­ing offensively a special security for integrity even in their case, by requiring them in giving their award to take their ballots from the altar on the acropolis. The invidious­ness, or something more, of this scheme to countervail collu­sion by arrangements that were likely enough to be planned to assist conspiracy, appears to have been successfully traversed by an amendment of Hagnon, which had for effect the substitution of a more numerous tribunal of 15⁰⁰ dicasts, and required that the charge, which seems to have been framed with sinister intention in loose or ambiguous terms, should be precisely specified ; as of appropriating public money, of receiving bribes, or of wrong and ¹ injury. If we could for once accept Plato as a good witness on a point of history, we must admit that the Athenians convicted Pericles of theft and were very near punishing him with ²death. But this account is demonstrably a mere confusion of a charge that was abortive, with the fine which he paid at a later date after commencement of the Peloponnesian war, and on quite other grounds. A proof of his immunity, and even of a triumphant reaction on the present occasion, lies in the fact that a most im-

T

portant and peculiarly expensive public work,—the Propylaea, —was begun this very year and carried on under his supervi­sion to completion some four years after. Ilarpocration is the authority for these dates, and an anecdote of an accident to the architect ¹ Mnesicles, helps us to the concern of ² Pericles. Athene was honoured by him with a statue on the acropolis, as a health-goddess, under the title Hygieia,—the Health­ful,—for intimating to him in a dream the herb that would be salutary to his bruised friend. The incident has some appearance, under all the circumstances of the time, of pur­posely ostentatious orthodoxy.

The services of Hagnon, perhaps also of his dicasts, may have had their acknowledgment in the organisation of an important and promising colony which, not without the co­operation of ³ Pericles, he led to Thracc the very same year. On the other hand, it seems to have been by way of com­pensating themselves for reluctant magnanimity that the Athenians now repealed the restrictions which had for some time remained imposed upon comedy, and so let loose ribaldry again, and doubly embittered, upon Pericles and all his belongings.

Since the reduction of Eion by Cimon, the Athenians had continued to hold this important post at the mouth of the Strymon; but thirty-two years had now elapsed since they made the attempt to effect a settlement on an important scale further inland, at Nine-ways, which came to an end, as we have seen, in the disaster at Drabescus. This attempt was now to be renewed, under what immediate encouragement besides the general tempting advantages of the site does not distinctly appear, though these might well be sufficient. It was only twenty-five stadia up the river from the emporium of Eion, but it commanded the bridges by which the road from Macedonia and the Chalcidic peninsula communicated

with Thrace and the Hellespont; while a long tract of marshy lakes was an obstacle to a ready passage higher up, and the inland roads about the upper Strymon were exposed to interruption from wild tribes,—Pancoeans, Odomantians, Dercaeans, Paeonians, Graians, and La'ians,—of little cohe­rence among themselves, and uncontrolled either by Mace­donia on the one side, or by whatever authority might occasionally be dominant in ¹ Thrace.

Nine-ways was thus, as its name might indicate, at the very cross-road of commerce, and that in the centre of a region of great natural and mineral resources; and not only was there promise of the settlement yielding a large revenue to Athens, but it was of peculiar advantage as securing the passage down the river to the coast of the ship timber from the northern forests, which was required in such large supply for her navy. The position was also important as, together with command of the river below, securing the frontier be­tween Macedonia and the allied cities on the coast of ² Thrace.

The site was in the present possession of Edonian Thra­cians,—the same tribe that had brought to an end the earlier project and the turbulent life of Aristagoras. This tribe had at one time extended to Mygdonia, to the west of the Strymon, but like the Pierians, like the Bottiaeans, had been extruded by the constant encroachment of the Mace­donian kings. They were now apparently both weakened and divided, for a few years later Pittacus, a king of Edonians at the adjacent Myrcinus, appears as an ally of Athens.

From Nine-ways in any case they are now expelled by Hagnon, son of Nicias, who took forcible possession of the site for a new city, of which he was to have the honours, still recognised as almost heroic, of ³ founder. Ei'on on the coast, was the base of his. operations, and there is no notice that the opposition which he met with was very formidable.

The winding river almost surrounded a tongue of land, upon which was situated a hill so steep as to be suitable for an acropolis, at the same time lending itself to fortification. This he cut off by a long wall extending across the isthmus from bank to bank. The enclosure so formed was entered from the west by a bridge across the Strymon, which how­ever, as planned, gave access only to a suburb. "Within this was the true circuit of the walled eity, which, in allusion to its double aspect and access towards sea and continent, received the name Ampliipolis.

A proportion of the settlers were naturally Athenians, and indeed there is little doubt that this is the colony which Plutarch refers to as despatched by Pericles to Thrace, to the number of a thousand, to share settlements with Bisaltic Thracians. Other settlers were associated, however, from adjacent garrisons and towns, and, under the usual pressing requirement by a new' colony for sufficient population, were accepted, it would seem, with somewhat rash indiscrimina­tion. Certainly within a few years the Athenian element is found to be in a ¹ minority, while among the miscellaneous residents are included a number of citizens from Argilus, a town which by its position and its origin, as a colony of the hardly-dealt-with Andrians, and as liable to be superseded by the new neighbour, was disposed from the first to regard it with feelings of dislike and jealousy that were soon to bear evil and treacherous fruit.

If we may put faith in ² Polyaenus, and believe that Ilagnon was at the pains,—by suggestion of an oracle of course,—of removing the reputed bones of Rhesus to his new city from their resting place in the plains of ³ Troy, there would be implicit proof of his anxiety to conciliate the native Thracians, and also an illustration of the extent to which they had become imbued with Hellenic associations.

The phenomenon is much the same that we find avouched both by legend and the fictile vases, for Apulia and Etruria. The charm of Hellenic culture seems constantly to have made such impression on merely conterminal or only most distantly related tribes, as to gain currency for Hellenic poetical legends, especially of the Trojan cycle, while at the same time native self-assertion gave sympathy in preference to the opponents of the Greeks.

Hagnon came before us previously in command of vessels which were sent as reinforcement to Pericles in the Samian war, and it is remarkable that he was then, however acci­dentally, associated with a Thucydides, who, if the historian, had interests of family, and property, and influential connec­tions in the region of Thrace about Amphipolis. Again he is to appear in 430 B.C. associated with Cleombrotus in transac­tions at Potidaea, and the next year as an envoy to Sitalces, king of the ’Odrysian Thracians. It is probable that Hagnon like Thucydides had original connections with Thrace, but history has left him, like so many other important Greeks, a characterless name. The views that prompted the foundation of Amphipolis were fully justified by the results; but the short tenure of the place by Athens, and the circumstances under which it was lost, betray, it would seem, a want of apprehension on the part of the demus or their advisers, of the special dangers that it was exposed to, or how they were to be precluded. While the new city appears to have been allowed almost complete independence, and no sufficient care was taken either to secure a preponderance of Athenian over associated population, or the presence of such a governor and garrison as should enforce loyalty, it is scarcely surprising that local interests and attachments should grow up that invited and reconciled to a severance of the tie with Athens.

The consequences of this Athenian colonisation of Amphi-

polis were indirectly most momentous. They fall without the limits of the present history, but are entitled to be adverted to here, though sleeping yet in their first causes; for it was by the settlement we now record, that Athenian power and interference were brought into sueh immediate neighbourhood with Thrace on the one hand, and Macedonia on the other, as to prepare for collisions more than ordinarily serious, and that a new element of excitement was introduced precisely at a time when these countries were swayed by rulers who, how­ever contrasted in other respects, were equally remarkable for energy and ambition.

Perdiecas, the son of the Alexander who figures in the events of the invasion of Xerxes, was now king of Macedonia, and appears to have inherited a double portion of his father’s talent for political equivocation, with the same reliance on the state-craft of helping busily to excite jealousies and set quarrels abroach, and then prospering by giving aid in turn to all who were disposed to ruin themselves by quarrels. This regal family claimed to be, and Thucydides no less than Herodotus allows the ¹ claim, originally Temenids from Argos. Their kingdom -was a result of gradual growth, commencing indeed from conquests on the seaboard, but distinguished at the very first from so many other purely maritime colonies of the Greeks, by the readiness with which it spread inland and the firm grasp which it took of large districts and varied tribes. In this tendency there was augury already of the power that was ultimately to crush all other Greek states by command of overwhelming land ² forces, and of a military discipline that was not frustrated of its great results by narrowness of views and means, or by demoeratieal instability or insubordination,—the power that was to give that political union to the qualifications of the Greek which was vainly striven for by Athens through mere maritime predominance,

and which when Aristotle wrote his Politics was still out of all expectation, though he could not but notice that if achieved it would easily give into the hands of the Greek the control of the ¹ world. The spirit of intrigue that subserved the aggres­sive policy of the later Philip, was developed already in all its unscrupulousness with Perdiccas. No treaty, no engagement with either Greek or Thracian would bind him. There was no promise that he would not readily make, none that he would not either openly or secretly be false to with even greater alacrity. In the story of his changes there is but one principle to which he seems constant—to foment dissen­sion among his neighbours, and never to lend aid but with a view to complicate a fray rather than to decide it.

Confronted and contrasted with Perdiccas, was Sitalces son of Tereus, King of the Odrysian Thracians, who from small beginnings had acquired sway and influence together, that extended from the Hellespont to the Strymon,—from the Pierian gulf to the Euxine, nay to the Ister. Thucydides gives an account of this power, with details that are the more valuable from his own personal connection with Thrace, and enumerates the various tribes which Sitalces, not without aid of his large revenue, was able to unite, some few years later than the time we treat of, so as to invade the territories of Perdiccas with an army of horse and foot to the number of a hundred and fifty thousand men. Of this aggression, one of the many broken promises of Perdiccas was the im­mediate provocation, and another motive was fulfilment of a promise that he himself had made to the Athenians. The gathering of so vast a host created alarm that was not limited to the enemy attacked. Thessaly was thrown into agitation which extended so far south as Thermopylae; and in the north, independent Thracian tribes about the upper Strymon, and all Greek cities hostile to Athens, were in

apprehension of attack. How it was that notwithstanding the ineffective resistance that Macedonia was prepared to make, the expedition came rapidly and with little result to an end, belongs to the detailed story of a later time; what we are now concerned to mark, is the present condition of these regions as evidenced by ulterior consequences.

To the sense of narrow escape from a great peril was no doubt due the energy with which Archelaus on succeeding his father Perdiccas, established fortified places throughout his kingdom which might provide protection and refuge in future, cut direct roads of communication and provided organisation and equipments for cavalry and hoplites, and instituted general military preparations of more importance than all his eight predecessors ¹ together,—in fact, laid down the general lines of the inheritance that Philip was to trans­mit complete to Alexander.

Among all these complicated and conflicting interests there were still some others which were to declare themselves even sooner as elements of disturbance, and were known already as in preliminary ferment; Oisyme and Galepsus among other cities were reminiscent of ancient connection with indepen­dent Thasos; and still more ominously of coming trouble, the Dorian sympathies and Dorian connections of Potidaea were maintained by systematic intercourse with its metropolis,— with Corinth ever inimical to the interests and jealous of the glory of Athens.

¹ Thuc. ii. 100.

Critics of the style of Thucydides have noticed the fre­quency and even reckoned up the number of instances of his contrasts or co-ordination of the efficiency of words and deeds ; the funeral oration assigned to Pericles contains alone some sixteen examples. What has been called a sort of monomania of the writer may be better interpreted as undesignedly sig­nificant of the exceptional importance of speech in the Athenian world. The contrast of Athens to the sententious and taciturn Sparta was of course most marked, but it evi­dently existed no less in respect even of other states of Hellas. The forms of the constitution and the maxims of her free administration gave fullest range to that open declaration of opinion, the loss of which is reckoned by Aeschylus as a penalty of submission to Persia more degrading than arbi­trary taxation or even Oriental prostrations. Words in a free country are the most important of all political actions; and the powers which language had asserted in the assembly and in the law courts, were now invoked as eagerly to set forth or controvert the various theories of philosophy which after flourishing undisturbed in independent seats, were here to be confronted, compared, and called upon to vindicate influence, honour, and even existence.

Miletus, the city of Aspasia, was the native seat of that philosophical movement the fostering of which was to be one

of the dangerous charges against her when the enemies of Pericles, in an attack too soon to be renewed, connected her name with the prejudice against Anaxagoras.

Thales of Miletus had been followed by Anaximander of the same city, and then by Anaximenes ; other speculators attach themselves to the same school of thought; Xenophanes of Colophon, in the neighbourhood, and Pythagoras of Samos, the island that was in most intimate relations with Miletus, followed on; and when Persian conquest overwhelmed Miletus, one carried the movement forward at Crotona, and the other at the new Phocaean settlement of Elea in southern Italy. Here they were not without successors, and while Sicily took the contagion and produced Empedocles, Parmenides of Elea and his disciple Zeno transferred their personal influence to the great centre of Hellenic intelligence and enterprise at Athens.

Meantime Ionia was not effete: Ileracleitus of Ephesus became renowned, and then Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, and lastly Hippodamus of Miletus, the propounder of a theory of society organised with constant reference to the type of architectural distribution.

The extensive commerce and travels of the Ionians of Asia seem to have widened mens’ minds as to the theory of the universe, much as the telescope of Galileo the circumnaviga­tion of the globe, and the discoveries of Newton reacted not more on physical science than on religious theory. Without doubt also we must take into account the stimulant influence of a position exactly at the confluence of the contrasted habits of thought of Hellas and of Asia.

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae was born of a distinguished family, and inherited possessions which he took so little care to administer, as to furnish both Plato and Aristotle, in their several ways, with an illustration of the difference between philosophers and sophists,—between wisdom and worldly wisdom. There is the usual chronological confusion and

difficulty as to his precise age, but the fact that his accusation cannot long have preceded the Peloponnesian war, gives a period of about twenty years previously to 431 B.C., as cover­ing his philosophical influence at Athens. The limitation which is supplied by the notice of Aristotle, that though older than Empedocles his actual service, or at least theoretical position, comes in later, is chiefly to the advantage of the still more loosely dated Agrigentine.

Socratcs must have been nearly thirty-seven years old when Anaxagoras was driven from Athens; but it is indicated in the Phaedo, that he only acquired knowledge of his doctrines through his books; evidence from the same source for the personal acquaintance of Socrates with Aspasia might seem to imply that he was already included in the same circle of society, but the two facts—such are the disappointing acci­dents of social intercourse—are by no means incompatible.

The great work of Anaxagoras was 'On Nature’ (-nepl Qvacctis). In this was probably contained the chapter on scenography, which is alluded to by Vitruvius. He was credited in antiquity with mathematical ¹ acquirements, and the contingencies of Perspective are well calculated to lead up to such a problem as the squaring of the circle, which he was said to have considered and may have been the first to state.

A very important because a cardinal position, is assigned to Anaxagoras by Aristotle, in his summary of the earlier developments of philosophy. The earliest, he says, of those who philosophised conceived of the principles of all things as purely material; of such nature with them was elementary existence, which whether regarded as in itself single or manifold, remained incapable of increase or diminution, and only subject to various modification. Thales, the archegus of this philosophy, affirmed that the primary existence was

water, induced apparently by the observation that moisture is the condition of all impregnation and growth, and also competent to develope heat, the condition of life.

Anaximenes and Diogenes, he proceeds, assumed air to be anterior to water, and the prime element of all simple bodies ; Hippasus the Metapontine and Heracleitus of Ephesus, fire ; and Empedocles, adding earth, adopted four elements regarded as ever constant in themselves and susceptible of growth only in the sense of combination and resolution of quantitative aggregates. Such a conception seemed to Aristotle, as it may seem to others, to represent nature as if built up out of so many bricks or blocks of stone.

To these theorists succeeded Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, who propounded that elementary principles were infinitely various, each kind having its peculiar and identical quality as much as water or fire, all unchangeable in themselves, but susceptible of endless varieties of combination.

‘ Up to this point causation might seem represented as resident solely and entirely in matter ; but the very statement of such views conducted theorists to the further step in enquiry,—if all variety is due to change, whence change ? for the subject of alteration does not alter itself; wood does not form itself into a couch nor bronze itself into a statue / we further require, as we should say, says Aristotle, a principle of motion,—a prime mover.

‘ The primitive assertors of the unity of primary substance were not conscious of any difficulty on this score; but others with a sense of the difficulty, endeavoured to evade it by a gloss, which seems to amount to a paradoxical disallowance of the reality of any ¹ change. Parmenides alone indicates a conception of some such requirement, at least to the extent of his admission of a pair of causes. Those however who recognised a plurality of principles were more consequent in

the recognition of fire as a natural motor relatively to water, earth, and the like, its contraries.       •

* But again the principles of the speculators did not appear to their successors sufficient to explain the generation of the phenomena of the universe, and they were compelled, as was said before, by the very matter of fact, to look further; for that the fitness and beauty which appertain to certain things and which others attain to, should have for their cause fire or earth or aught else of the sort, was not likely, nor was it likely that they should think so ; nor does it hold consistently that what is of such vast import, should be committed to the spontaneous or the accidental. When one therefore said, that as in living creatures, so in nature, the cause of the orderli­ness of the universe and of all arrangement, was Mind (Nous), he was like a man in his sober senses coming amongst a set who had previously been talking at random.’ Hermotimus of Clazomenae was reputed to have been an earlier propounder of this view, but by Aristotle it was only traceable clearly up to Anaxagoras of the same city. By this conception a principle was provided which accounted for the apt excellence of modes of existence, and was at the same time a naturally motive agency.

Even so the philosophers, who from the first only substi­tuted abstractions for the poetical Tethys and Oceanus and the rest, appear to have been again anticipated by poets; for Hesiod says that Chaos existed first, and then broad-bosomed Earth, and then Love, distinguished amidst all the immortals as the most beautiful and thus the generator of that beauty and order that Aristotle found unaccounted for in the purely physical systems. These earliest physicists and cosmogonists in fact, seem engaged for the most part in transposing into prose or into dogma the personifications in which the poets had undertaken to embody the main divisions and the totality of being.

But even Anaxagoras, says Aristotle, and the complaint is an echo of the Platonic Socrates, employs his principle

only partially and inartificially. He makes along with others a happy hit by accident, like an untaught swordsman, not seeming fully to understand the value of what he says most to the purpose ; he treats Mind (Nous) as a cosmopoeic agency, but only drags it in when at a loss and as a last resource, in default of a forthcoming material ¹ explanation.

Mind, as it works in the world of Anaxagoras, lias, on the one hand, more analogy to mere animal and vegetative life, or at most to blind instinct, than to the agency of "Will with purpose and Intelligence, and, on the other, threatens to resolve itself into merely a more subtle mode of matter.

Ilis most characteristic physical doctrine was that of Homoeomereia, an opinion at variance with the theory either of definite atoms, or of a single primary and homogeneous substance. He held that material particles are infinitely divisible, but of distinct, of specific qualitative differences, original and not derived from mere modes of juxtaposition; capable of being mixed up together, so that each and all may enter into the composition of every several object, the appearance of the object depending on the presence of the most numerous or the most conspicuous superficially. He held that the very elements of other speculators were conglomerations of multifarious particles; or some of them at least, for the account of Lucretius appears to partially conflict with Aristotle. The illustrations which are given of his opinion show how it was deduced. Observation of the phenomena of nourishment and growth seemed to evince that everything might be produced from everything, and therefore must be mixed up along with ever}^rthing. Bones and flesh, most diversified products, were obtainable from most diver­sified materials of food, and vegetable growth gave parallel phenomena; the deduction he drew was, that these results owed their peculiarities not to recomposition of the same elements that in other modes gave contrasted peculiarities,

¹ Arist. Meta. i. 4.

but to the drawing out and aggregation of special particles that’had been latent before, involved in a mass of others heterogeneous. Such he conceived to be the mode of opera­tion of Vitality in modern phraseology,—or as he denominated the unknown but manifest agency, of Nous; and when a power was recognised so universal and so marvellous in its operation, as competent to select and aggregate all animal and vegetable organisms, it was perhaps in truth less an overstrained than a grand generalisation to ascribe to the same the origination of all order and organic arrangement of any kind, that comes within our ken.

‘All things he held were originally mixed (muddled) up together, and upon them supervened Nous’

Applying this abstraction to the arrangement and origin of the cosmos at large, he connected it again with the phenomenon which struck him there as of most potent signi­ficance,—the marvellous rapidity of movement of the heavenly bodies. It may appear simple enough at the present day to make an appreciation of this rapidity, within limits that are both certain and marvellous enough, by mere comparison of time with even a readily-observable geographical radius, but in early days it must have required a strong mind to give due value to such an estimate.

To this inconceivably swift revolution, regarded as due still to Nous, Anaxagoras ascribed the determination of two sys­tems,—the Upper or Outer, and the Under or Inner,—re­spectively the Aetherial and the Aerial, the one characterised as rarefied and heated, the other comprising all density and chillness; and he assumed as in accordance with ordinary observation, that the specifically solid must needs, be aggre­gated about the centre of revolution, and the less compact more remotely beyond.

But there was a consequential liability, he pursued, for some solid masses to become detached in revolution by centri­fugal force,—so conceived though not so named; of these

the sun was one, which but for speed of revolution would be brought again to the earth, or as would now be said, would obey the gravitation they are still subject to. The counter­vailing force was included in the operation of Nous. The luminousness of these projected masses he accounted for by the rapidity of their motion causing them to become incan­descent.

In these speculations there is at least no hint of the dis­tinction which had such detrimental vogue, between the essential nature of the forces affecting earth and heavens. The earth, which originally was in a condition of mud, was according to these vestiges of creation, dried by the heat of the sun, which at the same time, by plentiful evaporisation, caused the waters of the sea to be salt and brackish.

Anaxagoras knew the light of the moon to be derived from that of the sun; its eclipses also he ascribed as truly to the shadow of the earth, if also to that of some intermediate bodies invisible to us,—perhaps a vague deduction from planetary transits; the eclipses of the sun he ascribed exclusively to the interposition of the moon.

For such a speculator at such a time we must not grudge the epitaph, in Greek of admirable terseness:—

Here, he who through the heavenly scheme did pass Most near to truth, lies Anaxagoras.

The story that the fall of a vast meteoric stone in the Thracian Chersonnesus was predicted by Anaxagoras, natu­rally implies no more than that it was taken as a palpable confirmation of his views as to the nature of the heavenly bodies. The step was easy, and probably had been made already in the case of the eclipse of Thales, to credit the speculator w^rho furnished a plausible explanation of a rare phenomenon, with having predicted it.

Theories of this nature w^Tcre peculiarly obnoxious to the religious prejudices of the Athenians; and long after, when Aristophanes sought to add venom to his ridicule of Socrates,

he picked over the speculations of Anaxagoras for imputations that he knew would be too irritating for their gross in­applicability to be attended to. In one sense perhaps, Socrates may be said to have suffered for his own injustice to the studies of Anaxagoras. His recorded, or at least imputed objections to the very direction of these studies, are certainly futile enough; the bent of his own genius, the very superior and even prior claim to attention of his own subjects, may perfectly justify his declining to bestow labour where for him it would be a fruitless or thankless hindrance; but physical studies have their dignity and their advantage, no less than ethical and moral; and moreover some of the worst of moral mischiefs are countervailed among the vulgar most effectually, and perhaps only at all, by promoting reasonable ideas on the subject of the material nature that they recognise them­selves as most absolutely in contact with. Some better instruction on the subjects of which Anaxagoras treated, and to which he was certainly leading the way, might have saved the Athenians from the crime of condemning Socrates on a false or a futile charge. If Socrates really, as Xenophon represents, deprecated such enquiries as presumptuous prying into secrets that the gods would not have ¹ known, he himself conceded the major premiss of his accusers.

¹ Memorab. iv. 7. 6.

Socrates was bom Olymp. 77.3 = 469 B.C., some forty years before the death of Pericles; his life therefore runs on concurrently with the period that we are concerned with up to an age when his character certainly, and probably his reputation, must have been well established, lie was a younger contemporary of the actors in the Persian war, and of several of the greatest names of the schools of Ionian and Italian philosophy. It is in later years than wc are con­cerned with, that events forced him forward incidentally into opposition, now to democratical and now to oligarchical violence and injustice. IIow early he assumed that public position in whicli we are familiar with him, as a general and unwearied discourser and arguer, cannot be told; it may have been earlier, and some indications point this way; it may have been later, but in any case the interval of which we are endeavouring to recover the characteristics has large claims on the distinction that attaches to his career. It is to his prolonged life that we owe all the results of his personal influence upon the much younger Plato; but he might have perished earlier and still not have failed to communicate that decisive impulse to philosophical thought which not only turned it aside from previous barren channels, but was potent

enough to overrule even the energetic idiosyncrasies of Plato himself.

The earlier schools of philosophy from Thales downwards,— the Ionian and the Italian, which in the main were derivatives of the Ionian,—are almost fully characterised as dogmatical and physical, as occupied with enunciations that regarded al­most exclusively the material world as subject for the most part to purely material influences, and with little concern for proof either by evidence or consistent inference. They agreed, as we have seen, in proposing to divine, some by one significant hint some by another, the original constituents of natural phenomena as resolvable into elements familiar or imaginary, —into a single primary element, into two, three, or four,— earth, air, fire, water, or somewhat more dense than fire or less so than air,—or into a conjectural infinite multitude. Even this thin semblance of natural philosophy disappeared among the Pythagoreans, who, taken by some not unimportant mathe­matical coincidences, ran wild into mysticism, and the paradox of asserting numbers and numerical relations to be* not con­ditions but the elements of phenomena,—a theory, says Aristotle, more suitable for some world where matter should be destitute of weight than for our own.

So it was that when Anaxagoras, as concerned to account for the beauty and the fitness which are much more remarkable, and, indeed, essential characteristics of phenomena, than mere casual aggregation, introduced the postulate of Nous,— Intelligence,—he seemed, as we have seen according to the words of Aristotle, to make his appearance among a set of triflers like one man at least in his sober senses; and yet even Anaxagoras was more disposed to treat his new factor as r a physiological, if not mechanical, than a moral agency, and especially made shipwreck by not recognising the distinction between intelligence and ¹ vitality.

It is not to be supposed that theories on such subjects, dogmatical as they usually, random as they frequently were, could occupy active and ingenious minds without many valuable conceptions presenting themselves, and the signi­ficance of many prerogative instances being firmly grasped. The titles at least of some important geological chapters were correctly interpreted from the phenomena of fossils ; the assumptions with respect to atoms were not absolutely remote from those which have proved so fruitful in our own day. The Pythagorean theory of the musical scale is in principle a large—a fundamental—part of the theory of civilised music, and the correlative speculations on heavenly harmony are no whit more wild than those which Kepler brooded over so long, and that helped him shrewdly on the way to recover the laws of planetary velocities and distances. Conceptions of importance were also involved in the theories of the unity of nature,—the increasing flux of all phenomena and their transmutability,— the equivalence of decay and reproduction. Above all the freedom of speculative thought was asserted and maintained, and the philosopher came forth as a rival to poet and mythologist in moulding the opinions of men as to the universe, and of necessary consequence, as to their relation to it past and to come.

Strict scientific basis and assuring procedure however were ignored and unknown. The most genuine observations of nature served and were chiefly valued as hints for a mass of guess-work ; one system had all the recommendations and all tho difficulties of another, and in result conviction was as little ministered to the hesitating mind as help afforded to the exigencies of life.

As a natural result, the experienced lack of any outcome of certitude produced a school of theorists who averred that no certitude whatever was obtainable, that phenomena were in their nature fleeting, our senses deceived in the very act of exercise ; that quite as much and as certainly could be ad­

vanced against any view whatever as in favour of it; and doubtless as regards a multitude of the views propounded this was pretty accurately the case.

The subtleties of these discussions sharpened wits that soon found other exercise. The art of proving both sides and either side at will was only too readily available an instrument for practical life in communities where important interests were always in suspense upon decisions of citizens who either as jurors or ecclesiasts were equally open to be swayed by artful or able oratory. So was the trade of the sophist in its most shameless form engrafted on the profession and training of rhetoric ; and the spurious art of confounding knowledge and ignorance, simplicity and complicated false­hood, which took its start among contentions in Sicilian law courts was transferred to only too congenial a soil in the Athenian, and brought power and celebrity and gain. Such are still the rewards of advocates who are only paid so highly because their talent is counted on and competent to make up for any want of goodness in a cause. Such are still the grounds on which the affectionate regrets for a Follett or a Scarlett are oddly mingled with admiring, with envying reminiscence and anecdotes of their skill in bewildering the judgment of twelve honest men in a jury box.

Antique simplicity and traditional belief were thus during the years we have been passing through, becoming more and more seriously insulted and assailed on all sides. The morals that had subsisted, if only as unenlightened habits, through habitual attachment to semi-mythical associations and sanc­tions, were jeopardised by enthusiasms for one or other of the materialistic philosophies; and even more deeply grounded principle was not unshaken by the repudiation of all certitude, and thence by the ulterior sanctions of moral responsibility, and of any essential difference between truth and falsehood. For the multitude with whom immediate consequences make up their only standard of right and wrong, the experience

was most unsettling, that falsehood could be made to do duty for truth, and falsehood in consequence obtain all the ad­vantages that should be the consecrated privilege of good faith.

The reaction threatened to be scarcely less disastrous. Enough still remained who, between bigotry and better sobriety of mind, were horrified at insulting satire upon time-honoured mythology, though it only referred to the sun and moon, and were ready to condemn all physical and astronomical speculators as leagued for the supersession of Zeus by Dinos or Vortex, and all who insisted upon more recondite distinctions, as teachers how to make the worse appear the better reason. The general break-up of accepted systems, inevitable at last from their innate weakness, was provocative of course of pertness in the young, gave oppor­tunities of piquancy to the wit of the comedian, and was promulgated in contemptuous, if scarcely more formidable utterances, from the safe covert of the tragic masks of Euripides.

Upon the agitations which produced such a conflux of moral excitement and intellectual innoA^ration, an entirely original influence supervened, when what may be not inappropriately called the ministry of Socrates had its commencement, and Athens became gradually conscious of a new stimulus applied in an entirely novel form. A centre of talk, of lively discus­sion, became familiar in palaestra and portico and agora, and even in preference about stalls and shopboards, that allured and detained listeners,—the more intelligent the more irre­sistibly. But the personality to which the interest attached was plain even to grotesqueness,—simple to slovenliness in contrast to the parade of the well-paid lecturers and tutors ; and in even stronger contrast, flowing periods and balanced phrases and artificial antithesis were replaced by short inter­change of question and answer, by phraseology that affected the conversational, and illustrations taken in preference from

the commonest trades and occupations ; and, above all, pre­sumptuous self-assertion was renounced for volunteered pro­fession of ignorance, and requirement and readiness to be instructed. Modest* however, as were the claims of Socrates, one who ventured to engage him in discussion or to undertake to enlighten him, was apt to Lave a severe lesson for modesty in his own. The men who professed to give a plausible account of any subject, if not to pfove anything on either side of whatever question, here met their match. The professed sophist found himself over-mastered by an adversary appa-* rently unarmed and weaponless, and was not merely convicted of failing to prove what he had promised, but sometimes actually shown to have established unintentionally precisely the reverse, and if in his confusion he should rashly grasp at an indicated outlet of escape, it might be but to find himself once more as mercilessly entangled and again at bay*

The more honest assertor of a genuine opinion fared some degrees better, but had his lesson in self-knowledge too; he was challenged to explain his own meaning,—to indicate clearly to begin with, what he was talking about or proposed to talk about,—was tracked from one loose and ill-considered explanation to another, and was happy at last if his questioner took the matter out of his hands, and clearing away irrele- vancies rewarded candour by putting him in a position to at least commence another conversation upon the subject more satisfactorily at some future time.

Socrates was original both in the subjects that he discussed and the method he employed,—both in the main purport of his enquiry and his system of procedure. He left aside entirely the physical and cosmogonical speculations of the Ionian schools that were still rife all around him; he was content,—«a little too easily,—^to disparage the value, possi­bility, and even propriety of natural investigations, but con­centrated his interest on what he might fairly assume to be previous and more important questions, the nature of true

knowledge and the means of arriving at it, and the relation of knowledge to true happiness and true virtue ; his interests were above all ethical, moral,—the duty and the dignity of man and the right use of his intellectual powers as a means to elevate him most nearly to perfection.

AVith these intents he gave the same challenge to the dogmatism of the sophists, to the most candid essays towards the discovery of truth, and the casually-associated notions of ordinary life. He demanded definitions,—statements with accuracy and clearness of the subject matter, so far at least as it was conceived by the mind. This, says Aristotle, and the independent records fully support him, was a service to philosophy that is rightly adjudged to Socrates, and then the exemplification of the process of acquiring such definitions by induction,—not indeed the larger systematic induction of Aristotle himself, but an application of its principle in a familiar way, by resorting first to the simplest concrete instances, and then by comparison of one with another ex­cluding successively all the irrelevant, and so obtaining an unequivocal expression, a distinct and definite idea that was available for science.

So it was that Socrates starting ever from uncertainty, ‘doubted,’ as it has been admirably expressed, ‘men’s doubts away/ He resettled, or showed the way to the resettlement of, convictions that were becoming hopelessly bewildered by the arguments as to the perpetual flux of all phenomena, and the consequent unreliableness of all the senses that are the source of knowledge ; and at the same time he sanctioned the severest tests for the criterion of the knowledge of which he asserted the possibility as well as the priceless value.

If only in his vindication of sincerity in speculative thought and exposition, Socrates was a moral as well as a philosophical reformer; and if it was his tendency to over­strain the dependence of virtue upon knowledge to an asser­tion of their essential identity, the example of his life agreed

with the tone and tendency of all his enunciations, in fixing an unimpeachable standard of independence and nobleness both in feeling and in action that is worthy of the best yet open to the emulation of the most uninstructed. Accepting his task in the conviction of a divinely imposed mission, he pursued it through a course of what the world regards as wretched privation and unrewarded self-denial; and simply by such an example and by his living words, and without leaving behind him a written page, he conveyed that impulse to a circle around him that has ever since been propagated in ever-widening circles to the world, and continues as vital and as valuable as ever to this day.

It still remains incumbent to bestow some paragraphs on the position of Socrates relatively to contemporary polytheism, —to venture on more would involve a dissertation.

The calumny was manifestly monstrous that fatally con­nected the imputed heterodoxy of Socrates with materialistic theories of the heavenly bodies,—the sun and moon. He had ever explicitly declined all physical enquiries as matters of too secondary interest, as well as of too formidable difficulty to divert him from the subjects that were most urgent and more within grasp. This charge was evidently fastened upon him simply because it was one that was most obnoxious to Athenian prejudices, and had been already associated with his name by the libellous, the venomous malice of Aristophanes.

Of the theories of the Clazomenian, Socrates was fully cognisant. It is more uncertain how far he was so with the system of Democritus of Abdera—with its principle or de­velopments.

The name of Democritus must at least be mentioned in connection with the age of Pericles. He was already thirty at the epoch which we have reached,—the eve of the Pelopon­nesian war,—an age at which few philosophers have not already seized the conceptions that are the germs of their widest influence and best originality. True that his varied

and extensive travels must have consumed many years, and perhaps deferred their embodiment in those writing's which have now entirely perished but which were the delight of anti­quity for purity of style and lucid exposition ; true that there is even some uncertainty whether he ever visited Athens. But the peace of Pericles was still the period when the germs were posited and definite expression secured for ideas which were afterwards to be taken up in the main by Epicurus, and transmitted through a line of teachers who continued ever face to face in opposition to those who traced back their intellectual succession to Socrates.

The assumptions of Democritus might seem to exhaust every possibility of simplification; they win the prize in the race for the invention of premisses which within the briefest possible terms take for granted beforehand every conclusion at which it is desired to arrive. The primary elements, he asserted, are infinite in number and one in kind, but differ from each other in figure and form (axrjfia and el80s). By the concurrence of these atoms were evolved the gods them­selves, as well as organisms of form and magnitude superior to men, that originated the traditional belief in the existence of gods. The Greeks were familiar with the conception of a close relationship and common origin of both gods and men, and evolution that was competent, either according to the theory of Empedoeles or ot Democritus, to produce the one might be consistently trusted to give account of the other.

The notion that matter is so much more a reality than mind, so much more naturally conceived as an efficient agency, found favour with these ancient philosophers as curiously as has been the case with a considerable school of the moderns. Yet surely the students and professors of ‘ visceral meta­physics,’ as thinkers above all things, seem therein to pay themselves the very poorest compliment, and the more in­consistently as their usual errors scarcely lie in the direction of humility.

The evidence is not more conclusive for the complete want of sympathy of Socrates with speculations of this class than for his explicit adhesion to the popular theology of his country and his time. He sacrificed to the gods of the Athenians and deferred to the oracles that they consulted; and so it appears could rehut with justice the charge that he did not worship the gods that the state worshipped.

In this respect indeed he seems to be still at disadvantage as compared with Xenophanes, the founder of the Eleatic schools, who in verses that dated with the infancy of Socrates or earlier, had denounced in terms most unequivocal the gross absurdities of the popular polytheism, and given expression to a marvellously lofty conception of the divinity that should justly claim the reverence of man. Thus Socrates at Athens was placed between speculators on the east and on the west, of the passing and the advancing generation, and would seem along with the errors to have missed the better light of both the poetical and the physical theorists.

Nevertheless the influence of Socrates upon religious development was most important of all,—and how is this accounted for? Socrates did sincerely enough worship the gods that his native state worshipped, but he entertained a deeper and more solemn reverence for somewhat far beyond them. Even in this respect he did not travel out of the truer scope of a principle that was implicitly accepted by the Greeks of every age. Greek religion from its purely polytheistic side, seems the negation of all true religious sentiment, for it is consistent with arbitrary variation and coarsest disrespect; but on the other hand, underlying all the tangle of traditional and poetical legends there was ever at least a vague, but still very positive, acceptance of the notion of the Divine as a transcendent reality. The superhuman might be currently thought of and addressed as manifested in beings of various grades and functions, and often approach­ing very near indeed to humanity and its weaknesses; but in

another direction it was faintly recognised as soaring beyond sight towards an infinite of superiority in power, in intelli­gence, in morality. A shadowy monotheism is discoverable even in Homer, where the Zeus of passion and intrigue has slight affinity, and only casual nominal connection, with * the Greatest and most Glorious,’ who is adjured on most solemn occasions and relied on as the certain seconder of all righteous enterprise, and the punisher of the ill-doers and the oath- breakers, In Aeschylus, as we have already observed, the same equivocation appears, but the loftier ideal has become already more defined; apparently quite as much so and even more independent of mythology than in the systems which the Orpliics and Pythagoreans had engrafted on or borrowed from the ¹ mysteries. In the case of Socrates it is beyond question, both from the most trustworthy records of his own conversa­tions and even more from the developments by his most devoted disciples, of ideas that they owed avowedly to his inspiration, that he gave the conclusive and determining impulse to a veneration for the Divinity—to Oeiov—as dis­tinguished from and above the mythological gods. The tone of his instructions was thus to give permanence to the previously fugitive monotheistic element of Greek religion, but by no means a presumptuous definition of form, and especially to attach to the recognition of it a sacred sense of absolute dependence and of moral responsibilit}^r.

When the time came for his enemies to raise a popular clamour against him, they could find no better hold than his fantastic or perhaps superstitious references to the promptings of his daemon; but the dieasts who condemned him, under the influence of whatever spitefulness and ignorance, were clearly not altogether under a false impression that they had before them the teacher who had inflicted upon the polytheistic system that they were piously and timorously anxious to preserve, the severest wound it had ever yet received.

Pitiful as may be the display of Athenian superstition, the reflection is very serious how far modern society may not really be disentitled to be supercilious on such a matter in regard to the ancients. There are those to be answered first who point to the diversities and divarications of existing opinions, on subjects which are of equal and that the highest interest to all, and which all can study with access to the same evidences and authorities, and who infer that in such a crowd of controversy,—as only one party can be even approximately right,—the vast majority, to say the least, must needs be sunk in ignorance, in dullness, and in superstition. Culture which has no outcome in a better approach to unanimity than we see, must needs be still rudi­mentary enough, and may be best and will be fully employed in seeking how to cast off the opprobrium, and so avoid the imminent recurrence of the worst disgraces, the worst enor­mities that stain and deface the annals of the past.

RENEWAL OF ATTACKS ON PERICLES.--------- CHARGES AGAINST

PHEIDIAS, ASPASIA, AND ANAXAGORAS.

According to Pkilochorus, as quoted by the Scholiast on Aristophanes in the passage already referred to, it was after having been exposed to a charge in respect of the Athenian statue, that Pheidias went to Elis and there worked upon the colossal chryselephantine statue of Olympian Zeus; that he retired as condemned and exiled is a statement on the same authority that as we have seen must be set aside. The next Olympic festival came round two summers after (Olyrn. 86=436-5 B.C.), and the work could not then have been fully completed, as a figure of Pantarccs, a favourite of the sculptor, who conquered on this occasion in the wrestling of boys, was introduced by him in an accessory ornamental group, binding his head with the fillet of victory. There can be little doubt however that already, before the Athene of the Parthenon w^Tas completed, this still larger and still more elaborate work had been commenced, and to a certain extent advanced, under the aiding and able hands of coadjutors of whom tw^To are named,—Panaenus, a relative of Pheidias, and w^rho is also called by Strabo a ‘ fellow-contractor/ and the sculptor Colotes.

The dates of these w^rorks have an importance for political history, as the misfortunes of the sculptor are connected with difficulties of Pericles, and supply a certain chronological term

where there is lamentable dearth of such guidance. Valuable lines of ¹ Aristophanes inform us that the ill-treatment of Pheidias by the Athenian demus, which warned Pericles too surely of a coming assault upon himself, was antecedent to his promotion of a certain obnoxious decree against Megara; this, as we learn ² elsewhere, was already in force in 433-2 B.C., that is, within five or six years after the dedication of the Parthenon, and only two or three after the Olympiad of Pantarces’ victory. Thus we obtain a limited interval within which, but where exactly I cannot decide, must be set down the renewed annoyance of the sculptor and the opening of the most dangerous and malignant attack that Pericles was ever called upon to encounter. Again it continued to be the poliej^r of his enemies to make proof of the feeling of the demus towards him by assailing him obliquely through his friends, and by charges that in some degree might appear to reflect upon him personally, besides being insultingly offensive to his sympathies.

Pheidias again was to bear the brunt in the first instance, and this time fatally,—this time at the very culmination of his largest Hellenic glory. How shall this be explained? It is much to be feared that now again opportunity was proffered by the same base jealousy that was active before,— the irritability with which an ochlocracy as readily as a tyrant, a trades union as readily as a self-made capitalist, resents superiority as an injury and an insult. The art of Pheidias was as conspicuously patriotic at Elis as at Athens; the renown of Athens was scarcely more splendidly set forth by the Parthenon and its adornments than by the artistic and mythical embellishments of the Olympian temple. As­sembled Hellas was challenged here to recognise an expression of the gratitude for fescue which was indeed due to the gods in the first instance, but due also to the Athenians as chief

agents in affecting it. That such a display might have been resented as unfair and offensive by Dorians,—by Spartans and Corinthians,—might seem not unnatural. We have however unfortunately no right to be surprised if the Athenians them­selves, who had been unwilling to concede any peculiar merit to Miltiades in the victory of ¹ Marathon, and were still not ashamed to be flattered by a gird at his self-assertion in a comedy of Eupolis,

Mt\T. Ov 7cip pci r^v MapaOwva rijv (fiT)v piixv^vt

were piqued at the admiration of assembled Hellas for works of which the conception and execution were so distinctly due to individual genius whoever supplied the means,—to the unrivalled art of Pheidias, to the promotion and supreme statesmanship of Pericles; if the tempation to cavil and accusation which had been indulged on the occasion of the former great artistic achievement successfully carried through against both economical and artistic, perhaps dogmatical opposition, was not felt again in greater force, as the coinci­dence of times wou’d intimate, on this renewal of provocation. The passion for equality so ennobling in better forms, is capable of a degeneracy that will disbelieve if possible, and if not will, at any rate, and in face of any disgracefulness, deny and do its best to degrade individual superiority that it is hopeless for a multitude to ² emulate. It is difficult to ascribe any less dishonourable source for the venom of the attack that was now concerted against the happiness and the honour as well as the political power of Pericles. In these incidents we have a signal of the break-up within the body of the Athenian community of that loftier spirit which for so long at least, had been carried over from the contest with the Mede. The warning is serious, and prepares us for the time when the impudent cavils of Cleon will be so far encouraged as to annoy the last years of Pericles ; when his unscrupulous

and blustering* oratory will be found a little later in command of the ear of the demus, and ever exerted to promote rapacity and sanguinary violence, and with unhappy ¹ success.

It was made matter of accusation against Pheidias that in the reliefs which enriched the exterior of the shield of the Athene Parthenos, he had introduced a likeness of Pericles as a beautiful figure engaged in combat with an Amazon, and another of himself as a bald elder lifting a stone with both hands. The features of the warrior were so far concealed by his protended spear as perhaps to make the likeness a matter of conjecture, but in any case to invite the imputation of purposed concealment of a conscious fault. It seems clear that the sting of this charge must have lain in the imputed identification of Pericles with Theseus, in the subject of the contest with Hippolyta,—the ascription to the head of the republic, of the independent position of the hero who, though popularly recognised as a promoter of democracy, was truly a king. What malice or mischief should be spied in the sculptor giving his own semblance to an Athenian of heroic times, heaving a mass of his own familiar marble as a missile, it is difficult indeed to imagine; at most it could be tortured into a profession of hearty support to all enter­prises of the protagonist. To condemn Pheidias on such a charge, was to imply the equal or conniving guilt of Pericles; and to leave Pericles unmolested notwithstanding, was to parade a willingness to let the charge be understood as a mere pretext for wanton insult.

Pheidias was consigned to the prison that had once received Miltiades, and there like Miltiades he died,—some authorities known to Plutarch averred that it was by poison, and through management of those who sought to cast the odium of the deed on Pericles, as though he had reasons for seeking and was capable of taking means so flagitious, to preclude revelations.

It does not appear that these likenesses on the shield, whether real or supposed, were held to be in any respect sacrilegious; and the accusation of Pheidias may therefore have been unconnected, unless as sounding the disposition of the demus, with a psephism which was carried by a certain Diopeithes, and opened new opportunities for preparing the very desolation of the household of Pericles by the ruin of Aspasia and Anaxagoras. By the terms of this, indictments were receivable against such as * disallowed matters divine/— more nearly translated perhaps as 'supernaturalism,’ — or ‘ inculcated theories respecting things above the earth ’ (/xe- TapiTiwv). Apprehending too surely the seriousness of the danger, Pericles enabled Anaxagoras to quit the city in ¹ time, and so disappointed his enemies of their intention of causing to glance off upon himself the imputed impiousness of his friend. But he was not so easily quit in the next instance ; Ilermippus, a comic poet of considerable endowments, with an animus reminiscent perhaps of the suspension of comedy, brought an indictment against Aspasia under the new law, charging her with impiety, and also with the shameful crime of facilitating intrigues of free women with Pericles; in a frag­ment of a comedy apparently later in date he still inveighs against him as * King of the ² Satyrs.’ So we read of an im­putation on Pheidias, brought up perhaps at this same time, of allowing his studios to be made a rendezvous for the like pur­pose. Cimon had been openly charged by a comoedian with what was represented as incest with Elpinicc, and Pericles only took his turn when taxed as an intriguer with all and every— with wives of friends, of his own son. Without constitut­ing ourselves guarantors of the morals of Pheidias and Pericles, to say nothing of Aspasia, we may perceive that these charges were combined with the skill that knows too well how to fix a moral slur by a doctrinal prejudice, or as alternative, a still more hated and perilous doctrinal prejudice, by a moral slur.

¹ Plut. V. Per. 17 and 32.       ² lb. 33.

True no doubt, that some of the juster principles of old Attic morality may have been scandalised by the position which the Milesian occupied at Athens, and by the countenance she received from women of distinguished families however unassailable themselves in rectitude and dignity,—it may be by some strongly marked examples of departure in such society from the antique standard of rigid morals; — and yet on no occasion in its history does the Athenian demus lower itself more lamentably near to the contemptible, than in entertaining this perse­cution of an accomplished woman, — this cruel torture of the statesman to whom they owed so much. The cavil of Plato may be held to touch the case nearly indeed, when he asks, what was the true moral value of the guidance of the Athenian people by Pericles for so many years, if at the very conclusion of it they seem so much worse than at the beginning. Though indeed we may question how far worse, when we remember the treatment of Miltiades, Aristides, Themistocles, Cimon. He only succeeded in res­cuing,—in ‘begging off¹ Aspasia, by demeaning himself to supplications of the dicasts to the extent of exhibiting himself in tears, by efforts and submissions irrelevant to the course of justice, and scarcely more humiliating for Pericles, than disgraceful for the court that could either endure or exact them. A Greek would see in this degradation the inevitable visitation of a Nemesis which he believed ever beset exceptional prosperity and glory. No moral, if moral it can be called, was more familiar to the serious ¹ historian, the solemn tragedian, than this common fate of the exalted, whether innocent or guilty indifferently, the grudge of the Gods,—it was for the clear intellect of Aristotle first to calmly disallow ² it. This privilege of supreme power the demus was now capable of asserting for itself, and so too strictly

¹ See the last speech of Nicias in Thucydides.                 ² Arist. Metaph. i. 2.

X 2

justifies citation by Aristotle as illustrating the essential tyranny of popular government when freed from all restraint; but the occasion was peculiarly ill-chosen now for indulgence in tyrannical caprices.

Anaxagoras retired to Lampsacus, a city of which the coins exhibit a lamp as symbol of its name; it is probable that in this and nothing more, we have the suggestion of the inconsistent story that Pericles, who enabled him to safely reach this retreat, was reproached by the philosopher for neglecting to supply with oil the lamp of which he was willing to profit by the beams.

In view of more precise indications, Diodorus must be understood, like Philochorus, as merely introducing the account of the accusations of Pheidias and Anaxagoras, and not as dating them, in the first and second years of the ¹ war.

¹ Diod. xii. 39 ; Sehol. ArLstoph. P. 604.

APPROACHING CRISIS IN POLITICS.—TEMPER OP ATHENIAN AND

PELOPONNESIAN ALLIES.        CONFLICT OF CORINTH AND CORCYRA,

AND VICTORY OF CORCYRAEANS.—RENEWED AND FORMIDABLE ARMAMENT OF CORINTH.

B.C. 435-4; 01. 86. 2.

At the time when the Athenians found an indulgence in turning to vex, discredit, and perhaps disable their greatest statesman, they were elate with sovereign power and confident in the success with which their ambition had carried them on to unexampled prosperity, and above all in their incessant activity as contrasted with the absence of any indication that Sparta was either disposed or competent to again rouse herself and strike for the undivided headship of the Hellenic world. And yet the times were in truth more critical than they supposed. The prolonged peace had enriched Athens with treasure and munitions, and strengthened her by a numerous, energetic, and high-spirited population, but it had swelled the resources and raised the heart of other cities also. The Aeolian Lesbians had yearnings towards their ancient Boeotian and Lacedaemonian ¹ associations ; while the Dorian populations under her control, the Aeginetans especially, and cities about the coasts of the Aegean, from Thrace to Lycia, could not but contrast their position with that of members of the Dorian confederation; the mere accumulation of

¹ Thuc. iii. 3.

grievances true and false, if only those which are incidental to the best administrations, was beginning to tell seriously; and there were no slight seeds, and for the observant no insignificant symptoms of restlessness and discontent, even among the more nearly related and sympathetic Ionian communities. Athenian administration was confessedly not conducted in a manner to allay irritability; and growing uneasiness on the look out for sympathy gave encouragement to projects of revolution from any quarter among spirits that were too eager for disturbance to weigh very precisely the value of sanguine hopes of emancipation.

Nor is it to be supposed that Sparta, torpid as she seemed, was really unresponsive to the commencement of a new era of agitations. The control of the state was in the hands of the elder and even the aged; but a new generation of the aged had arrived at power, since the forfeiture if not the willing renouncement of extended Ilellenie control on the misconduct of Pausanias. The larger views that had since become so rife abroad did not fail to find their way in here, or even to arise, as they are wont, by sympathetic develop­ment, while they ministered excitement to unproved as well as younger ambitions. In the course of the prolonged Mes- senian, the Arcadian and Argive conflicts, a Spartan of the better stamp of Archidamus might have seen too much of war to be enamoured of ¹ it; but otherwise the nation had become more decidedly and more actively military in spirit than ever, and a party of which Brasidas was soon to be the type and leader, was eager for enterprises of a scope which were in contradiction to the very conditions of Spartan con­stitution, and destined to prove so fatally. The vigour and designs of this party are masked no doubt by affectations of coyness and holding back under the most urgent solicitations and protests of allies; the comedy is the same that had

covered the preparation and equipment of the vast force which Sparta sent off at a'moment’s notice when it suited her to Plataea; and we shall see with what energy the ephorate pronounced for war at last. These dispositions could not be unknown to the leading politicians among the Dorian allies, and on the Dorians ultimately and on the Lacedaemonians chiefly, rests the responsibility for the war.

It was repeated and perhaps believed at Athens not many years later, that the war was deliberately brought on by Peri­cles, who took this way to make himself again indispensable, out of alarm at an indication of declining popularity in his in­ability to protect Pheidias from the animosity of the demus. Others who ascribed to him the same policy stated as the motive his wish to preclude close scrutiny of the accounts, which would have to be rendered, on completion of the Propylaea, 433-2 B.C. A public policy still more rash has no doubt often proved a temptation to precipitate action for a politician in a difficulty; but when we fairly appreciate the inflammable conditions of society at this time and on all hands, it is a far more reasonable view of the coherence of events to infer, that the notoriety throughout Greece of the discredit and disgrace of a statesman whose name seemed identified with glorious success,—who so long had directed the power of Athens with all but absolute command, and ever unfailing resolution and skill, concurred unhappily with impatience and envy of her sway, to revive the hopes and stir the energies of every enemy she had. The testimony of¹ Aristophanes may be cited equally and more credibly to this effect; and in this view the penalty that the Athenians paid for their unworthy and cruel caprice was severe indeed.

It was a misfortune of the very supremacy of the genius of Pericles, that so soon as those who were on the watch for his downfal believed that they were about to be gratified, the

Athenian empire was forthwith regarded as headless, and enemies and malcontents hoped everything from the develop­ment of disorganising influences which these disputes displayed in such malignancy. The present signal disappointment of such hopes might be accepted at Athens as conclusive; but the encouragement which had been given to them had the usual fate of being misinterpreted and over estimated abroad, where the genius of the democracy was less accu­rately understood. We find in consequence that when the Lacedaemonians commence the war, they entertain the vain confidcnce that to bring about the forfeiture by Athens of the services of Pericles, as successfully as they had formerly deprived her of Themistocles, they have only to appeal to tho superstitions which his countrymen had employed so eagerly in wreaking their own spite, but prove surprisingly ready to put aside with contemptuous disregard when it does not suit them to spare or to offend him.

So it becomes only too intelligible how the Dorian world was in such a temper that when an obscure quarrel at the outskirts of Hellas gradually implicated Corinth, the oppor­tunity was made the most of to bring back among the Dorian cities the life which only lives with organization and activity; and how then, upon an interference of Athens, a spirit of evil antagonism was declared that committed the two sides of Hellas to deadly conflict.

It was in the second year of the 86th Olympiad (435-4 B. c.) that the attention of Athens was forcibly diverted from internal faction to external politics; and the more forcibly because the movement which challenged attention had its spring and pivot at Corinth. Corinth had been a jealous opponent of Athens from the very rise of her power,—had cavilled at her claims to honour in the Persian war, had striven to hinder the completion of her system of fortification by the Long Walls, and was known to retain so bitter a memory of the blow inflicted on her

by Myronides, as to make any malice probable ;—and lastly it was in favour of Corinth that Megara had renounced the alliance which was so valuable,—so vital,—for Athens.

For some time a quarrel had been in progress between the island of Corcyra and Epidamnus, a town on the coast of Thesprotia, which Athens might be content to hear of as having burnt itself out, or not to hear of at all, but that Corinth was now taking measures of interference which could not but attract attention, whatever domestic quarrels had to be laid aside meanwhile. The Epidamnians occupied a promontory on the Illyrian coast, just within the Ionic gulf, or Adriatic sea; their city had been founded by Corcyraeans with participation of Corinthians and other Dorians, and in accordance with ancient custom, the leader and founder, Phalius, son of Eratocleides, a Heracleid, was adopted from the mother city of Corcyra—Corinth itself. The situation of the city favoured a highly profitable trade with the tribes,—barbarians they are called,—of the interior ; it grew large and populous, but a check to its prosperity had supervened and it had latterly declined, a not unnatural consequence of a change by which a wealthy oligarchy had first grasped a strict monopoly of the inland trade, and then instituted a scheme which does not sound promising, for conducting the whole through a single ¹ agent. From this or other provocation they were assailed by the demus, and driven into exile, but engaging the aid of the barbarians as allies, were enabled to so harass the city by sea as well as land that its occupants would gladly have come to terms on the basis of mutual concessions. In their distress the demus sent envoys to Corcyra to appeal as to a mother city for aid in appeasing this domestic discord; there they took station at the temple of Here, in the same formal attitude of supplicants which was assumed by the Laconian Pericleidas,

when he came to solicit an army at Athens, in itself therefore no intimation of apprehended disfavour.

The sympathy of the Corcyraeans however, or at least of the party who were in power, was uncompromisingly in favour of the dispossessed oligarchs, and the appeal was rejected. Repulsed here, the Epidamnian demus, again in agreement with precedent and custom, made application to the God of Delphi for counsel, but in the prompting form of a question whether they should assign over their city to the Corinthians as their founders, and seek from them the protection which they stood so urgently in need of. The god vouchsafed accommodatingly the reply which was so pointedly asked for, and asked for no doubt with full consciousness that Corinth would eagerly gratify a jealousy of long standing by any action unwelcome to Corcyra. ¹ Herodotus traces back this animosity to incidents in the time of Periander, and even so, it is indicated as a continuation from the very foundation of the colony. Among subsisting irritations, the most important were probably due to commercial rivalry, to interference in the pursuit of wealth and enviousness of the success of juniors. Corcyra had grown too rich and powerful to remember the ties which had been acknowledged when the Heracleid Phalius was invited to lead her colony, and even later when she had co-operated with Corinth to protect Syracuse from Hippocrates—Syracuse a colony which was in the same common relation to both as Epidamnus. But now the Corcyraeans had bethought themselves to claim the suecessorship of the antique Phaeacians of the Odyssey, and to be inheritors of their maritime glory and their wealth; and renounced in consequence all customary recognitions of duty, and concessions of precedence on public occasions which they had once allowed to Corinth as their metropolis, no trifling insult in itself, and doubtless significant of other substantial opposition.

During- the contest with Xerxes, the island had held independently and suspiciously aloof, and subsequently, assuming to be on a par with the wealthiest Hellenic com­munities, and confident in her power as mistress of a hun­dred and twenty triremes, had not cared or condescended to attach herself to either the Dorian or Athenian confederacy. The possession of such a fleet by an independent state of unfriendly disposition, was fitted to excite jealousy at any time, and especially in the condition of tension which political feelings had now attained to; with fair customary pretext therefore, but moreover with the hearty goodwill that is born of a chance to reap an advantage while wreaking a revenge, the Corinthians undertook the pious service demanded of them, and entered upon it with a thoroughness of which the intention could not be mistaken. The influence of Corcyra at Epidamnus was to be finally superseded, and if opposition offered, Corinth was resolute and even eager to seize an opportunity to try conclusions with Corcyra herself.

Volunteer colonists were invited who should restore welcome vigour to the enfeebled city, and support was engaged to be provided by a garrison of Corinthians together with Ambracian and Leucadian allies ; there was already no uncertainty as to how these proceedings would be resented at Corcyra, and in order to avoid interference at sea the expedition was despatched over land as far as the Corinthian colony Apollonia.

Even as had been anticipated the news that their colony had consigned itself to Corinth, and was receiving in con­sequence such hearty aid and reinforcement roused the Corcyraeans to the highest indignation. They had in the meantime given cordial reception to the ejected Epidamnian oligarchs, who in their turn, but more successfully, appealed to the sanctities of tombs and blood relationship, and had acceded to their solicitations for aid not towards peace and

conciliation, but to effect with some promised Illyrian co­operation their full and forcible re-establishment. A squadron of five-and-twenty ships, which were to be followed speedily by more, was at once despatched to Epidamnus with a peremptory demand for the restoration of the exiles and dismissal of the Corinthian settlers and garrison. The summons was disregarded, and the Corcyraeans proceeded to blockade the city by sea with forty ships, as well as on the land side across the isthmus in concert with the Illyrians. As soon as the investment was complete a renewed summons gave notice that,'upon immediate surrender, the strangers might retire unmolested with whatever Epidamnians cared to accompany them, while the penalty for remaining would be to incur the last treatment as enemies; again no reply was made and the siege went on.

The reception accorded to this news by the Corinthians evinced that the consequence of their policy w^ras regarded as presenting rather an opportunity than a difficulty; and that the humiliation of Corcyra, and the destruction of her naval power, were resolved on at all costs. The treatment of Samos by Athens, was to receive a Dorian application in the West. A new expedition on the largest scale was at once hastened forward, both to raise the siege and to infuse fresh strength into the colony for the future. Public proclamation was made of a new colony to Epidamnus, open to volunteer settlers on terms of complete equality in citizenship and with the option of either sailing with the expedition, or securing participation by a contribution of fifty Corinthian drachmas; the standard of these,—in any case less than a franc,—was somewhat below the Attic. Volunteers and contributors were alike numerous. The Leucadians and Ambraciots, who had special local interests, provided respectively ten and eight ships, and the Cephallenians of Pales, four ; of Pelopon­nesian allies, the most zealous were the Megarians, who joined in eight ships equipped by themselves, declining the proposal

that they should embark in Corinthian ships to avoid the possibility of being intercepted by the Corcyraeans before junction. Hermione sent one ship, Troezene two, the Epidaurians five, the Eleians sent money and vessels un­manned, the inland Phliasians sent their aid in money and so also did Thebes. The contingent of the Corinthians them­selves is stated at thirty ships and three thousand hoplites, of whom however only two thousand are in question after­wards ; the fleet counts up here sixty-eight ships with an unspecified number from the Eleians, which, taken as seven, make up the total of seventy-five as given in the same passage. The absence of Sicyonian assistance is observ­able.

The extent and the spirit of these preparations might well produce excitement at Corcyra, but not at Corcyra alone ; to Dorians they signalised revival of Dorian activity, and the possibility of a reassertion for Dorians united under one energetic centre, of that ultimate control of affairs and the universal consideration which had once obtained as of course, but had now for so many years been in abeyance.

The^ cities of Greece were teeming with a youthful popula­tion, which was familiar with the poetic celebration of warlike prowess and exploits, and had been fostered amidst poetical encouragement to emulation of ancestral glories, though as yet for the most part without experience of the bitternesses of warfare, especially between Greek and Greek. Sparta was still looked to as the natural head of the Dorian world, and her action was counted on as ultimately decisive ; but her notorious impassiveness was not to be waited for by the more impulsive, who reckoned confidently that it must be roused, and would be, by their restlessness before long and certainly at last. While such feelings were fermenting among the Peloponnesian and Boeotian cities, they could not but be reciprocated by agitation in other quarters, and it is even unlikely that the Corinthians themselves could indulge

in activity of sueli scope and scale, unless anticipating reaction in excitement elsewhere.

How soon,—yet it was now only a question of months,— the attention of Athens was withdrawn by these events from the engrossments of internal objectless faction, is not to be decided with exactness. Enough however had occurred already that might be expectcd to touch her to the quick. The mere semblance of a vigorous confederate action of which she was not at the head, was certain to hurt her pride if it did not alarm her; the interest displayed in it by Thebes would be offensive, but the conspicuous zeal of the Megarians, over whom she had exercised control for fifteen years, and the defection of w^Thom was so detrimental to her position, together with the meaner participation of other former allies or tributaries, Ilermione and Troeztne, were calculated to be peculiarly exasperating.

At Corinth meanwhile preparations w^rere at their height when envoys appeared there from Corcyra to protest against further interference as w^ell as against what had been done already; others from Sicyon and also from Lacedaemon, arrived w^rith them to take part in the discussion, but the latter at least, as it appears, by no means committed to their view of the dispute. The Corcyraeans pressed the withdrawal by the Corinthians of their settlers and garrison from Epidamnus, as from a city wdiich did not in any way pertain to them; on this point in any case they proposed a reference to some Peloponnesian cities to be mutually agreed on, and engaged to abide by their decision; or else they were content to refer the dispute to the Delphic oracle. The last proposal would seem hazardous for them, considering the bias already displayed in the response accorded to the hostile Epidamnians, but the Corinthians were probably on their guard against it in any form as a mere device to gain time for the siege; they replied that they could only treat on the condition that the besieging Corcyraean fleet and

barbarians' land army were at once withdrawn; there was no fairness in the continued application of force during the very time that the question of right was under discus­sion in Peloponnesus. So let it be, was the reply of the Corcyraeans, but then the Corinthian garrison must be with­drawn also ; or as an alternative, let the forces on both sides remain under armistice until the arbitration is decided;— but even this suggestion apart from allowed revictualling in the interim was futile.

Whether Corcyra might have been willing to retire from the position she had taken or not, it was now clear that she had no longer the option, as Corinth manifestly was bent on war, not so much for the sake of Epidamnus, as from eagerness to gratify at once her ambition and animosity, at the expense of her insolent colony. Under these circumstances it was manifest that no concession in respect of the siege could be made with safety ; the crisis so familiar to laborious diplomacy had arrived ; the negotiations had reached that stage of futility which is due to at least one party believing itself the stronger, and being resolved to snatch an advantage right or wrong and however shamelessly, and to neither having the slightest faith in assertions or engagements how­ever solemn. That the Corcyraeans had little aid from the Lacedaemonian envoys, whom they may have hoped to commit to an authoritative interference, is clear from their last significant enunciation; in case of war becoming a necessity, those who forced it upon them would have only themselves to blame, if in their pressing need for succour and support they were obliged, however reluctantly, to make other friends than their present. The allusion to the Athenians was not obscure; and it was addressed to those who were aware that it was quite in accordance with Athe­nian ambition and enterprise to give welcome to an oppor­tunity for re-entering on their former abortive schemes of Western ascendancy.

There was the more reason that no time should be lost;— in the spring* of 434 B.C. the Corinthian fleet was equipped, allies mustered, and the expedition sailed, seventy-five vessels strong carrying two thousand hoplites, direct for Epidamnus; —a herald sent before declared war against Corcyra in form. The land force designed to operate against the Illyrians, was commanded by Archetimus son of Eurytimus, and Isarchidas son of Isarchus. The fleet was under three commanders,— each no doubt of a division, though the first named may have been chief; Aristeus son of Pellichus, Callicrates son of Callias, and Timanor son of Timanthes. A Corcyraean herald in a swift boat met them at the inlet of the Ambracian gulf and denounced their advance beyond the promontory of Actium ; a fane of Apollo on this headland was destined by a caprice of fate to witness the opening sea-fight of the greatest of the Greek civil wars, as four centuries later that which was to close the long series of the Roman. The conflict with the Eastern levies of Antony did not more certainly introduce the Augustan Caesarism, than that between Dorians and Ionians which ensued from this Corcyraean quarrel, the sub­jection of all republican Hellas to Alexander.

On the hasty return of the herald with no message of peace the Corcyraean fleet immediately put to sea. Even at such a crisis the forty ships occupied at Epidamnus had not been recalled, the promise of success was now so immediate as to give the greatest inducement to hold on at all risks. A fleet of eighty could still be made up, though only by refitting every craft, however old, that could be rendered seaworthy. The Corinthian fleet paying no heed to the herald, had continued its course and a battle ensued at once, which appears to have been fought in the straits between Corcyra and the mainland. The result was greatly to the advantage of the Corcyraeans, who however are only recorded as destroying fifteen out of the numerous armament opposed to them, though they may have inflicted disproportionate damage

and captured or disabled many more. They erected a trophy on their own promontory of Leucimne, and then, reserving their Corinthian prisoners, put all others to death,—a worthy commencement of the barbarities that were to be familiar in the years coming on.

On the very same day, but scarcely in consequence of news or signals of the disaster to the relieving fleet, Epi­damnus surrendered. The severity of the terms which were submitted to by the besieged, proves their extremity; the foreign settlers who had been introduced, and to whom in the first instance the option of retirement had been offered, were sold as slaves; the Corinthians only were reserved as prisoners for the further advice of the victors, upon a general anticipation we must suppose of the contingencies of ransom or exchange or release upon advantage by treaty.

The fleet of the Corinthians and allies retired altogether very soon after their defeat,—the rather as the proposed rescue of Epidamnus was a failure, and the enemy, left in full command of seas, proceeded to ravage the country of the Corinthian colony of Leucas, annoyed the hostile allies generally, and especially burnt Cyllene the arsenal of the Eleians, in revenge for their contribution to the hostile fleet and treasury. At last, as summer advanced, the Corinthians again sent out ships and a land force to protect their allies in distress, and camps were formed at Actium and at the Cheimerion promontory, in positions to watch if not command the most important passages between the islands and the mainland.

This first reverse proved to the Corinthians that they had under-estimated the difficulty of their task, but nothing was further from their intentions than to renounce the original design of reducing the pride and power of Corcyra ; their disasters and the fate of their captured allies only superadded rage to resolution. The whole year after the sea-fight, and the following also, were devoted to reorganising and

strengthening their navy; new ships were built, stores and equipments provided, and crews attracted by high pay not only from Peloponnesus but from the rest of Hellas and very extensively from among the Athenian allies.

AGITATION AND DEBATES AT ATHENS. THE MEGARIAN DECREES.   

OPPOSITION TO POLICY OF PERICLES.—INTERFERENCE OF ATHEN­IANS IN SEA-FIGHT BETWEEN CORINTHIANS AND CORCYRAEANS. —SERIOUS BREACH WITH CORINTH.

B.C. 433-432.; 01. 86. 4.

It is not surprising, after the events narrated in the last chapter, that we have now to attend to signs of excitement and agitation at Athens, where imperial jealousy alone if not prudent apprehension made indifference to foreign naval preparations on such a scale impossible. The terms of the thirty years peace with Sparta put restraint upon direct interference; but certain measures were resorted to which could not but embarrass these proceedings, and while they gratified the peculiar animosity which had been excited by the conduct of Megara, bear the marks of having been dictated by a more serious ulterior policy. In the dearth of records, a notice supplied by Aristophanes of the com­plications that arose amidst this excitement, is most welcome and important. Dicaeopolis in the Acharnians addresses the spectators directly as to the origin of the war with Sparta, in a vein of seriousness which is scarcely veiled by accom­paniments of comic tone and treatment. He intimates that quarrel was first declared by the exclusion of Megarian produce from the Athenian markets, a loss and annoyance that was aggravated by the severity with which denuncia-

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tions of smuggled commodities, however trifling, were followed up by seizures and confiscations. This vexation however, he pursues, was trivial and local; matters became more serious when in the unfriendly relations of the states each afforded a ready refuge for the fugitive slaves of its neighbour. Dicaeopolis here, as is his cue, imputes the first offence to his fellow citizens, and extenuates the retaliation, of which he gives a version in proper comoedian’s style,—a quarrel after all only about the abduction, and that in reprisal, of some girls of the bevy of Aspasia,—a vagary that surely his audience can be indulgent to; ‘ yet on no better provocation was it that Olympian Pericles thundered, lightened, and convulsed Hellas, and passed laws to exclude the Megarians from town and country, from sea and land, in fact from creation, to the tune of the old song; ’—the allusion was to a scolion of ¹ Timocreon.

There is here positive implication of already two stages of the hostility which was directed first against Megarian inland trade, and then extended, on a ground of quarrel of which the harbouring of escaped slaves was the pretext, to the expulsion of Megarians personally, not only from the agora of Athens, but from her territory, and from the use of all ports within the Athenian empire. Thucydides puts on ² record the same serious complaint of Athens against Megara for giving refuge to her fugitive slaves, which is parodied by Aristophanes whether purely on his own account or only as repeating with embellishment a current sneer at Pericles that was already well on its way to become a calumny. The wealth of Athens public and private was largely invested in the productive labour of slaves, who are said, however, to have been treated more humanely there than elsewhere—with a liberality indeed that was repugnant to the ³ oligarchical. The war that was to bring so much general misery, brought to the slaves at least a further politic

alleviation of their lot, but nevertheless did not indispose them to effect their escape in thousands;—slavery at the very best is the bitterness of death, and even during peace the nearest frontiers—the Boeotian, and still more temptingly the Megarian, for the Athenian slave and the Athenian for the Megarian slave—were looked to with hope that was not always vain, and was never less likely to be disappointed than when ill-feeling was rife between the neighbour states.

The Megarian interest that suffered in the first instance was concerned with the supply of farm produce, and the loss of the market of Athens, so near at hand and of such capacity and wealth as to have fostered extensive arrange­ments for meeting its constant demand, would have been a serious blow to prosperity at any time. It could not be dealt without involving considerable inconvenience at home. The more reason was there for addressing every popular prejudice that might help to reconcile Athenian households to a political measure that touched them immediately in the cost of kitchen stuff. Accordingly we find that the Megarians were further taxed not only with encroaching upon some border or neutral ground, but even with raising their produce sacrilegiously by cultivating dedicated land ; the boundary of Megara abutted on the precincts of the Eleusiniau ¹ goddesses, and it was from impiety in this quarter that the Athenians were peculiarly susceptible of sacred horror.

The date at which these annoying restrictions were first imposed, and the precise intervals of their several stages, are not recoverable ; but the severity with which they were enforced from the first, is manifest argument that something beyond simple occasioual spite induced the Athenians to forego at this time their own advantage and accommodation; and there is strong presumption that one motive was the opportunity of hampering the assistance which was being rendered to Corinth by an ally.

¹ Paus. i. 39.

Athens who by her dependencies commanded so large a proportion of the seats of production and channels of interchange, was now the central mart and great storehouse of Hellenic commerce, and her markets and warehouses would be first drawn upon, and probably through Megarian agents and territory, for the stores and munitions that Corinth was so diligently collecting, and this at a time when high pay was known to be tempting away mariners to a rival ¹ fleet. The command of the sea and of so many ports and emporia by Athens, gave her a power which was well understood, and we may be certain was employed to embarrass the commerce of her political ² rivals; and besides a general motive to give notice of her power in this respect, both resentment and policy urged the direction of it at the present time to the injury of Megara. No other course could be so promising to prompt or promote a reaction there in internal politics in favour of the party that had once carried over the country into the Athenian alliance, and might be expected if an opportunity presented, to be willing to renew it, especially when aided by a smart lesson as to what was implied in its forfeiture. The coolest Athenian statesman might be dis­posed under present circumstances to do his utmost and at any cost to force the countiy back into alliance; and the popular feeling that seconded the policy would be ready to gratify resentment on its failure by the infliction of any degree of annoyance, and even of misery.

The air of Hellas was already heavy with the clouds that were so soon to burst in war, and all the contingencies of an invasion of Attica, which was notoriously counted upon to open if not to conclude it, were haunting the minds of the Athenian population; how then should not the forfeiture of the security which had once been effectual in barring the passage of a Lacedaemonian army be exasperating indeed ?

What the depth of this feeling was at the present time is gauged by the vindictiveness with which Megara was soon to be harassed by the expulsion of her citizens wherever Athens ruled, and then especially devoted to ruin after the war broke out, when the Athenian generals were bound by oath to ravage the country yearly in revenge for the desola­tion of their own, and did in effect wreak such vengeance to the uttermost.

There is every appearance then that the spirit of the Athenian demus was now roused to a high pitch of jealous excitement,—the jealousy of an empire at an activity in its neighbourhood which it neither initiates nor controls, and of which, surrounded as it is by combustibles, it mistrusts the course and end. The preparations in progress at Corinth for chastising a contumacious colony, and that by a naval force, the peculiar pride of Athens, pointed directly to emulation, not to say rivalry, of the position and policy of Athens. Corinthian money was tempting sailors from all quarters, and there was the prospect that the already powerful ally of Megara would add the 'large navy of Corcyra to her own, and threaten seriously the influence which Athens still retained in the western waters, where she for a time had had the supreme control, and which she had continued to foster not without views to contingencies of future wars. The arguments that Thucydides makes the Corcyraeans lay before the Athenians, to prove how their interests were concerned in this quarrel, were assuredly before familiar to them more or less definitely and were precisely of a nature to influence their temper at the present time.

And what then was the disposition of Pericles at this conjuncture ? That he had always recognised the danger and anticipated the probability of a Dorian war,— of a contest reopened between Athens and the confederacy under the headship of Sparta, is expressly declared;—whether he desired it is more questionable ; at least he must have desired,

whether it was to be invited or accepted when inevitable, that Athens should enter upon it with all advantages of prepara­tion and opportunity. It is possible indeed that his stored treasures and full arsenals and numerous and practised fleet, might seem sufficient to demonstrate the hopelessness of attack and constitute the strongest security for peace; but it is the tendency of such vast precautions, though honestly adopted in the interests of peace, to excite suspicion, irritate jealousy and to provoke sooner or later, and even in the face of all prudence, the very outbreak that they might seem to render too desperate to be dreamed of. Political moderation beyond what Athens could even afleet is required, if excessive precau­tions for defence are not to be interpreted as only preludes to unlimited aggression. One very important public work had been carried out by the direct proposal of Pericles, that could only be regarded as significant of his tense of how resolute an attack the city might yet be exposed to,—and was urged by him with a vehemence that the comoedians indeed could cavil at afterwards as in contrast with its tardy execution. This was the erection of a third interior Long Wall, that made the enceinte of the fortifications of Athens completely continuous with those of Piraeus, instead of resting on them by only one of a pair of long walls which, with the other extending to Phalerum, left an intermediate coast-line unprotected. That this precaution was extreme is in no way proved by the fact that during the Peloponnesian war it was not found necessary to man or guard this middle wall; such a precaution would only be necessary after an outer wall had been taken; in the meantime the mere existence of the inner line rendered an attack on the outer wall futile.

Precautions apart, the genius of the administration of Pericles since the thirty years peace had ever favoured the conservation rather than the violent extension of the empire. It is the glory of his rule that, successful as he had been in war, he governed ever in the interest of peace; that Athens

under his control was warlike but not militarised,—that the military element was ever retained in that subordination to civil authority which alone entitles a state however vigorously organised, to the title and honour of being in a true sense civilised. This policy is ascribed to him in various scattered notices; it is the same that inspired his economy of the blood of the citizens in his actual military expeditions. There is much appearance that his draft on the state treasure, * for a needful purpose/ when Cleandridas was persuaded to evacuate Attica, was but one of many that furnished, as is said, even annual bribes to leading Spartans, who are so constantly assumed as chosen spoil of corruption. But even so he was thought to be conscious, while apprehending as keenly as he might the value of indefinite deferment, that he was pur­chasing not peace but time, and that war must come at last. The career in which Athens had advanced and continued to advance so long under his guidance, could not but excite apprehensions and jealousies, and had been prosecuted with an energy which was a counter-sense unless it presupposed resolution to hold on in spite of any opposition. The time was rapidly ripening for these feelings to come into full and fatal play on both sides.

It was now manifest to the Corcyraeans, and could be no secret throughout Hellas, that the designs of Corinth were directed to their subjugation, and were about to be prosecuted with a force which it would be hopeless for them to resist unaided; and as the temper of Sparta had been sufficiently proved in their former negotiations, their remaining hope of an alliance lay in the alternative of working upon the jealousy and apprehensions of Athens. At Athens their envoys found a rival Corinthian embassy, prepared if possible to counterwork their inducements and persuasions; and Thucydides embodies in speeches assigned to them re­spectively, the considerations that were brought into question. In each we find the ordinary tone of diplomacy

correctly represented by a sufficiency of appeals to justice, honour, gratitude and so forth, and therewithal intermixed or following them up, such reference to what is politic and intimation of what is resolved on in any case, as leaves no excuse for misapprehending the value attached or expected to be attached to ostensible conscientiousness. The Corinth­ians, we read, assumed as a notorious probability, that the larger war was impending; so much the more impolitic was it for the Athenians to provoke what after all might be deferred if not averted,—but what their taking part with Corcyra would infallibly bring about as involving a breach of the treaty by hostilities directed against themselves. Corinth had hitherto* as in the case of the revolt of Samos, been the scrupulous vindicator of the right of the superior states to control—to punish,—their dependents ; if Athens now adopted the cause of malcontents, she might find, it was significantly intimated, that she had more to lose than gain by the application of the ¹ principle. It would be well indeed, if the seriousness of the occasion suggested a concession in such a matter as the Megarian misunderstanding, secondary as that might be;—for at a crisis like the present, an indica­tion of friendship, as necessarily then an indication of hostility, would tell with unqualified ² force. This passage supplies clear proof that legislation inimical to Megara had already been initiated, but was not yet strained to the severity and rancour that is ultimately ascribed to ³ it.

The arguments of the Corcyraeans went as directly to the purpose, only from their confidence in their case as addressed to motives of policy, were less overcharged with moral appeals. They admitted that their present jeopardy convicted them of error in having proudly held aloof from alliances; but the very magnitude of their peril was guarantee of the value which they would now attach to protection. The advantage

¹ Thuc. i. 40.       ^a lb. i. 42.

⁸ Piut. V. Per. 30; Time. i. 139.

that would accrue to the Athenians in rescuing them was most important; to affect unconsciousness of the fact that a Peloponnesian war against Athens was on the point of breaking out were absurd; this attack upon themselves was indeed and manifestly an immediate preparative for it. The Corcyraean navy was next in importance after those of Athens and Corinth, and the present question was, whether Athens was to have the benefit of it, or it was to go to strengthen the maritime power of her immediate enemies. With respect to the treaty for thirty years peace, its terms were quoted as expressly permitting the unattached cities to join whichever federation they pleased, and as perfectly covering the proposed alliance,—though this point, in view of the known resolution of the Corinthians, might be put aside; under these circumstances it was surely wiser and safer for Athens to gain an accession of power and with it accept the risk of a breach of the treaty, than by fallacious confidence as to its permanence forfeit the advantage for the behoof of an inevitable adversary. The Athenians might naturally desire that theirs should be the only strong navy, but inasmuch as another was in existence already, it were well for her to have it on her side. The future of Corcyra was in fact not more at stake than that of the Athenians; the proposed alliance would give them the command of a position which was likely to prove- most important for the coming struggle, as it would enable them to intercept all supplies and communications between Peloponnesus and the Dorian colonies of Italy and Sicily;—finally and in brief, it was for Athens to decide whether to anticipate or be antici­pated by the Corinthians;—whether to fight, as fight they would find they must, with the fleet of Corcyra ranged along with their own, or against it as strengthening their enemies.

One of the most influential and in a degree a plausible argument by which the Athenians were afterwards induced

to interfere in Sicily, was the encouragement which is here ¹ urged, that so they would intercept the aid and supplies that might otherwise give strength to their enemies in Pelo­ponnesus—a motive which Aristophanes caricatured in his project of the Birds to starve out the gods by intercepting the fumes of sacrifices receivable from mankind. On a first debate in the Athenian assembly, the decision inclined in favour of the Corinthians, from a predominant reluctance to risk dissolution of the treaty. On a second day however this resolution was modified; great importance was attached to the conservation of the treaty, and also to the island re­maining independent of Corinth for the very reasons indi­cated by the envoy; with respect to the Corcyraean fleet, assistance from it might be well foregone, so long as it did not fall into possession of the Corinthians, and especially if it could be committed to contests with them, that would weaken both and so increase the relative power of the Athe­nian. It seems scarcely conceivable, but even so is not im­possible, that all this was propounded in so many words in the public assembly; the suggestion may have been dropped by one orator or another and had weight at last. The Athenians accordingly persuaded themselves, or allowed themselves to be persuaded, that their interests would best be served by concluding a purely defensive alliance with Corcyra, in terms that only bound each to protect the other and their respective allies from actual invasion of territory. In pursuance of this policy, with the concurrence and ap­parently at the suggestion of Pericles, they shortly despatched ten ships under command of Lacedaemonius son of Cimon, of Diotimus son of Strombichus, and Proteas son of Epicles, with orders to avoid a conflict with the Corinthians, unless they attempted to land at Corcyra or any of its dependencies, but in that case to do their utmost in opposition. The small­ness of this squadron was no doubt calculated, it would cer- ¹ Thuc. vi. 90; Ariatoph. Av. 185.

tainly seem rather sanguinely, as adjusted to the very peculiar and difficult service expected from it. It was not intended to deter the Corinthians from coming to an engagement with the Corcyraeans to the damage of both fleets, and yet it was relied on as sufficient to give warning to them in the very probable event of their victory, of the disposition of the Athenians, and so without direct conflict and com­pulsion deter them from debarkation. The squadron how­ever had not long left port, when resolution was strengthened once again; excitement arose and was encouraged as to what might be the event in case the Corinthians chose to disregard ulterior complications with Athens and were not deterred from using their superiority and taking possession of the island at all risks. This contingency must have been con­sidered by Pericles however he defended his policy against what was now urged with effect, that the ships sent were insufficient as a countervailing force, and in case of a conflict would have been simply sent to destruction. Cavillers im­puted to him the intention to preclude at least the son of his ancient rival Cimon from a chance of worthily distinguishing himself, if not to involve him in disaster. In the end twenty more ships were sent to follow and reinforce the first squadron of ten.

We have here an example how the sovereign assembly asserted its right to interference directly and from day to day with the proceedings of its most trusted minister and adviser; this sudden reversal of his policy was certainly un­fortunate in result, and, carried as it was on the strength of base imputations on his motives, gives warning of the con­tinued confidence of the opponents who were still ready to attack him with direct malignity.

The commanders of the second squadron were bound by the terms of their commission to adhere to precisely the same instructions as the first; but the animus under which they were despatched could only be held to imply that active

intervention at an earlier moment would be easily condoned. Andocides the orator, whose ill-omened name occurs here for the first¹ time, was associated in the command with Glaucon.

About the same time another expedition of thirty ships with a thousand hoplites, under command of Archestratus son of Lycomedes, with ten colleagues, was sent to act against the coast of Macedonia. The terms of Thucydides would imply that the hostility of Perdiccas, their former ally, was provoked by the Athenians taking sides against him with his brother Philip and another relative, Derdas. But we shall scarcely risk doing Perdiccas injustice, if we assume that this was not before he had alarmed them by the intrigues which he was soon to prosecute openly. Over and over again he is found undermining and deserting allies so soon as they threaten to gain power at the expense of the common enemy. The exact boundaries of his territories towards Thrace could not be easily fixed, and those of his influence, to say nothing of his interests and designs, were more extensive. He may have regarded complacently enough the check that Athenian power had given to his Thracian neighbours, but the strong position at Amphipolis was now equally obnoxious to himself; and the time was ripe, especially as he was fully acquainted with the generally uneasy state of Hellas, when he might be expected to foster whatever elements of discontent with Athenian rule were to be found in Dorian Potidaea and the towns of the Chalcidic peninsula.

In the meantime the reinforcement of twenty ships reached Corcyra, and as they hove in sight of the island came upon a scene that proved how critical was their appearance.

The Corinthians had collected a fleet which mustered at Leucas to the large number of 150 ships, under command of Xenocleides son of Eutliycles with five colleages. As many as ninety of these ships were their own,—the Ambraciots

furnished twenty-seven, Leucadians ten, Anaetorians one, and in addition, the Eleians sent ten ships and Megara twelve as before. Coasting the mainland they first occupied the port Cheimerion at the mouth of the Acheron, and there established the usual camp which was required for the supply of the ancient war-fleet, within sight of the southernmost extremity of the island. The Corcyraeans on their part equipped no ships under command of Meiciades, Aisimides, and Euiybatus, and established a station on one of a group of islands called Sybota off the Thesprotian coast over against Corcyra; and on the island itself, within sight and upon its promontory Leucimne, was stationed their land force together with a thousand Zacynthian hoplite auxiliaries. The first ten Athenian ships under Lacaedaemonius had by this time arrived.

The Corinthian commander moved forward his barbarian allies to a station on the coast nearly opposite to the island, and quitting the harbour before sunrise with three days’ pro­visions on board, apparently in preparation for prolonged pur­suit, encountered at daybreak the Corcyraean fleet already at sea and bearing down upon them. Order of battle was at once taken up on both sides; the Attic ships, prepared to watch the action, were on the right of the Corcyraeans, who arranged their own in three divisions under the several three commanders. The Corinthians, already mistrusting Athenian neutrality, placed their own ships which were the best of their fleet against the Attic and Corcyraean left, the Megarians and Ambraciots on their extreme right, and the other allies in the centre.'

From the large number of the ships, the extent of sea they spread over was very great even before the incidents of action dispersed them still wider, and the sea-fight that ensued was on a larger scale than any that had ever before taken place between Greeks and Greeks; but it was fought in a style that according to improved Athenian tactics was already

obsolete. No application was made of the manoeuvre that had already told with effect at the battle of Salamis,—the diecjolus, by which an assailing ship was so directed by the prompt obedience of a trained crew, as to snap and sheer away the oars of an opponent with its bronze beak as it rapidly glided past it and so to render it unmanageable, or to sink it by forcible and effectively directed impact; manoeuvres of this class, which were only available when rowers could be relied on as practised to respond to the signals of equally practised commanders, were not to be attempted by a hastily collected and improvised war-fleet. The present conflict had therefore much the semblance of a land-battle; the engaged ships from the closeness of their order became entangled, and remained immoveable, while hoplites, darters, and bowmen fought from the decks, and militar}' strength and courage were relied on for victory amidst general clamour and confusion, independently of any proper nautical skill.

The Corcyraeans gained the first advantage on their left wing, where twenty of their ships dispersed their oppo­nents,—the Megarians and Ambraciots,—pursued them as far as the continent, and then sailing to their camp burnt and plundered the unguarded tents. The absence however of these twenty ships aggravated still further the disparity of the remainder, which were thus at perilous disadvantage. The ten Athenian ships could afford some help for a time by simply making threatening demonstrations wherever they saw the Corcyraeans most distressed ; but as they nevertheless still withheld from actual conflict out of regard to their im­perative instructions, the value of this relief was soon ex­hausted, and the Corinthians, not seriously checked, were pressing hard on their enemies, who were already in manifest retreat. The Athenian assistance now became less equivocal, the commanders apparently being carried away by sym­pathetic excitement to a direct contravention of orders, and

perhaps encouraged by knowledge how strong was the feeling at home in favour of such a policy, worsted though it might have been in the decisive debate. Before long as of neces­sity all discrimination was renounced, and Corinthians and Athenians were committed to undisguised and positive con­flict.

In the confusion of the battle the fleets had become inter­mixed, friends and enemies were not always distinguishable, and as the Corinthians, intent only on slaughter and caring neither to take prisoners or to draw off the hulls of disabled vessels, passed the wrecks of their defeated right wing in their pursuit, many of their own friends became victims of their undiscriminating fury. Only when the retreating Cor- cyraeans had gained their shore did the Corinthians turn to the recovery of their dead and of the wrecked ships ; of these they secured the greater number and drew them away to a deserted harbour of the Thesprotian coast, called like the adjacent islands Sybota, where a force of auxiliary barbarians from tribes on the continent always in friendly relations with Corinth, had already rendezvoused.

The action had begun in the morning, and it was now late in the afternoon; the Corinthians had lost thirty ships, but on the other hand they had destroyed or disabled nearly seventy out of the smaller fleet of the Corcyraeans, and captured one thousand prisoners; their relative superiority was therefore immensely increased, and they were eager to follow up their blow decisively and without loss of a day. But the Corcyraeans were still resolute, and animated at once by the efficiency of the Athenian assistance and by dread of an immediate descent on their island, they drew out to meet the re-advancing enemy; with what ships they had still uninjured and with every other that would float, they could oppose forty at most, supposing their left wing to have rejoined, against the enemy, who after deducting specified losses, would still have 120. To their great surprise, just as the customary

vol. 11.       z

battle-cry before the onset was being- raised on both sides, the Corinthians were seen first to back water and then to retire; it was precisely at this moment in fact that they descried the approach of a large but uncertain number of ships which could be recognised as Athenian, and they drew off entirely as night fell. The Corcyraeans also retired to Leucimne as soon as they became aware of the new arrival, uncertain in the increasing darkness as to its character and in dread of fresh enemies, until as the Athenians came on rapidly making way with their oars through waters encumbered with wreck and corpses, they recognised and welcomed them with joy.

The peril of Corcyra had now reached a pitch that would have justified the largest application of the Athenian instruc­tions, though this had not already been settled in the battle. The next day their thirty vessels and as many of the Cor­cyraean as were seaworthy, sailed out in case the lately victorious enemy proposed to renew the contest. For this however the Corinthians were not prepared, although their ships were launched and arrayed. In the position which they occupied the very number of prisoners whom they had to guard was an embarrassment; their harbour afforded no means for so far repairing damages sustained by hulls and tackle as to give them a chance against unimpaired ships; and their great anxiety was lest the Athenians should con­sider that the conflict of the day before had dissolved treaties and blockade them at their station. In this difficulty they despatched messengers in a boat, without the ensign of a herald which would have implied recognition of a state of war, to convey a protest against gross infringement of treaty by open interference in arms between Corinth and her enemies, and to challenge the Athenians either to admit the treaty as in force, or to distinctly repudiate it and assert the rights of a state of war by putting them to death as captives. The Corcyraeans within hail were clamorous that the messengers should be taken at their word, but the Athe-

man commanders gave the reply, that they respected the treaty and would offer no hindrance to the movements of the Corinthians in any direction, provided they did not molest the Corcyraeans,—the allies of Athens. Under these circumstances there was nothing for it but for the Corinthian fleet to give up and return home.

So Corcyra was rescued; but this, says Thucydides, was the immediate cause of the Corinthians going to war with the Athenians,—the active part which the Athenians took against them on the side of the Corcyraeans in this naval battle notwithstanding the subsistence of the treaty.

THE REVOLT OF POTIDAEA.—ATHENIAN EXPEDITION AND VICTORY.

         THE CITY INVESTED.—THE DORIAN WAR INEVITABLE.

B.C. 432, Autumn; 01. 87. 1.

Foiled as they were in their great attempt the Corinthians did not make for home without seizing an opportunity by the way to injure Coreyra and defy Athens, by treacherously seizing Anaetorion at the mouth of the Ambracian gulf,—a town in which Coreyra had the same common interest with them as at Fpidamnus,—and consigning it to Corinthian occupants. Of their captives in the sea-fight they sold eight hundred who were slaves;—two hundred and fifty, among whom were some principal men of the aristocratical party, they retained as prisoners and treated with much considera­tion in the hope of one day employing their intervention for the recovery of influence at Coreyra. The restoration of these captives to their native city at a later date for a fictitious ransom, led to one of the bloodiest conflicts of faction that stain Hellenic annals ;—first fruit in this kind of the outbreak of Lacedaemonian and Athenian rivalry, and taken by Thucydides as occasion for that impressive summary of the demoralising influences of the war, after which he dispenses with intruding moral judgments on any particular actions and incidents whatever, however revolting and ¹ atrocious.

¹ Thuc. iii. 81-3.

The report of the actual collision with the Corinthian fleet and the protests it called forth, at once awakened at Athens apprehension of a retaliatory stroke in a dangerous quarter, and certain precautionary measures were taken at once, but still with an inadequacy that could be only due to a reluctance to admit the full urgency and peril of the crisis.

A roll of gathering murmurs had already been heard from the Corinthian colony of Potidaea, among other subject allies about tlie confines of Thrace and the Macedonian dominions, and probably had not been without effect already on the relations that the city had assumed towards Perdiccas. The kingdom of Macedonia had gradually expanded to a most important extent, though its successive acquisitions were still only in process of consolidation, and portions of its nominal area were occupied by independent but severally in­significant tribes. From the borders of Thessaly and Illyria it extended eastward as far as the margin of the valley of the Strymon, where it approached the important native Thracian power; while on the south-east it covered the entire base of the great Chalcidic peninsula. Perdiccas had gained his kingship by supplanting an elder brother ¹ Alcetas; an­other brother Philip was however in possession of a govern­ment on the upper Axius, which is referred to as if it were an independent ²kingdom; under what circumstances he held this is uncertain, but his relations to Perdiccas were now openly hostile; at a later date he is found expelled and a refugee protected by the ruler of Thrace, who had so much cause for jealousy of the aggressive and encroaching power. The same jealousy was naturally participated by the newly settled Amphipolis, and accordingly- Hagnon its founder is active a few years later in concerting with the Thracian Sitalces the great expedition which has already been ad­verted to.

A former condition of friendly relations and alliance

between Perdiceas and Athens had come to an end previously to the Corcyraean complications, and as Thucydides states, in consequence of the Athenians having made common cause against him with his brother Philip, but whether, as is rather implied, gratuitously and not under certain provocation, can scarcely be determined. At the very time when tlie quarrel with Corinth had reached a state of extreme tension, the Athenian armament under Archestratus, con­sisting of thirty ships and one thousand hoplites, was on the Macedonian coast in preparation to co-operate with the expectcd land force of Philip; and if it did not become known at Athens by transmitted information, it was certain to be confidently inferred, that in the notorious temper of the Chalcidic cities the influence and intrigues of Perdiceas could not be wanting to give them encouragement to revolt. Among these cities the great Corinthian colony of Potidaea was the most important; the strength of its position on the isthmus of Pallcne, and the spirit of its inhabitants, had enabled it, as we have seen, to make a gallant and successful defence against the Persians; afterwards it had too much interest in their complete extrusion from Europe not to support the continued activity of Athens, and thus with other neighbouring cities it became contributory to the pJioros. As a Dorian colony however it continued its traditional connection with metropolitan Corinth, and ac­cepted thence annually certain officials styled Epidemiurgi, who may have enjoyed no more than the honorary precedence which Corcyra gave such deep offence by repudiating, but who might be trusted to provide a natural channel for constant interchange of sympathies and expressions of the growing discontent.

In the existing relations between Athens and Corinth on the very subject of interference with colonies, as well as between Athens and Perdiceas, it was manifestly important to take security against defections in this quarter at once.

Commands were in consequence despatched to the Poti- daeans to demolish the wall of their city on the side of Pallene, and so disable themselves from revolt by rendering it accessible to Athens from within the isthmus, while the defences towards Thrace were preserved,—to deliver hostages and to dismiss the Corinthian Epidemiurgi forthwith and once for all. It was expected too sanguinely that the mere awe of Athenian authority and known rigour would produce obedience to these injunctions, and they were not backed by a force prepared to exercise present compulsion. The Potidaeans therefore took the opportunity to plead at Athens for the recall of the commands, and while prolonging the negotiation to the utmost t© gain delay, employed the interval to concert measures for a revolt in case of non-success, or indeed in any case. Perdiccas on his part was in full activity; he opened communication with Corinth to urge promotion of a revolt, and even sent his own envoys to Lacedaemon where Potidaea was already praying for protection, and Corinth was urging invasion of Attica and denunciation of the treaties; at the same time he succeeded in extending the area of the now inevitable defection, and the general Chalcidian and Bottiaean allies of Athens gave entertainment to his proposals, moved by what specific grievances on the one hand and sympathies on the other does not appear.

The Athenians at last more fully roused, despatched orders to their Macedonian fleet to proceed to Potidaea, and there effect the demanded demolition of the walls and take off the hostages. Before this time however the Potidaean envoys had become aware that no relaxation of terms or deferment of execution was to be obtained at Athens, the Corinthians had made a secret but solemn engagement to support them in

¹        contumacy, and above all, the negotiators at Lacedaemon had obtained from those at the head of affairs a promise,

whatever it might be worth, that hostilities against the Potidaeans would be the signal for that invasion of Attiea, so often threatened, which was relied on as prompt and infallible relief. Timely warning of the diversion of the Athenian fleet was in consequence conveyed to the city, and when the Athenian commanders arrived they found it in open revolt; their squadron was manifestly insufficient for opera­tions of the difficulty and on the scale that would now be required, and they decided to return at once to the coast of Macedonia, their primary destination, and the rather as ‘ Philip and the brothers of Derdas,’ with whom they were engaged to co-operate, had already descended from the interior in force.

The example of Potidaea now spread further, and at the suggestion of Perdiccas a number of the towns that were at the mercy of Athens by their position on the coast of the Chalcidic peninsula, were deserted and dismantled by their citizens with a view to the formation of a single strong city at Olynthus at the head of the Toronaean gulf, at safe distance from the sea. To compensate for the lands which they abandoned Perdiccas assigned to them an adjacent district of Mygdonia about lake 13olbe for so long as the war might continue.

The news of this defection speedily reached Athens, but already before additional forces were despatched, they were overtaken by events that enhanced still further the serious­ness of the emergency and called for greater exertions. A force of one thousand six hundred hoplites and four hundred light armed, had been gathered at Corinth in anticipation of what was now announced ; it reached Potidaea as early as the fortieth day after the declaration of revolt, and, as the Athenian fleet had retired, encountered neither opposition nor obstruction; it was under command of Aristeus, who had some special relations with the colony, and to whose popularity at Corinth also was due the enlistment of the

greater number who joined the force as volunteers, together with other Peloponnesians who served for pay. Aristeus was son of the Adeimantus who commanded the Corinthians at the battle of Salamis, and whose conduct is vindicated by Herodotus not equivocally against Athenian aspersions.

At Athens, in view of these preparations, a force of two thousand citizen hoplites and forty ships was placed under command of Callias, son of Calliades, as chief, with four colleagues. He first proceeded to the coast of Macedonia to effect a junction with the former expedition; there he found that it had captured Thermae, and was engaged on the siege of Pydna; he united in the prosecution of this at first in the hope no doubt that an overwhelming force would give speedy success; but time was pressing,—the more so as the landing of Aristeus became known • and a hasty truce and treaty of alliance was concluded with Perdiccas, who was only too happy to liberate his own territory without giving any security to disable him from becoming again an enemy whenever it suited him. An obscure sentence of Thucydides refers to operations against Beroea, which no ingenuity of interpretation has yet given warrant for bringing into the narrative. The collective force, which now comprised three thousand hoplite Athenians, a considerable number of allies, and six hundred Macedonian horse under Philip and Pau­sanias, a son or brother of ¹ Derdas, proceeded to evacuate Macedonia by easy marches, for which the nature of the composite army might account, round the head of the Thermaic gulf;—the ninety ships accompanying along the coast. On the third day—but from what exact point is uncertain—Gigonos was reached, of which the exact position is also at present uncertain, but at least within a short march of Potidaea, and with a port or roadstead of a certain

²           capacity, and there the troops encamped. The retained connection with Philip promised but ill for the new alliance ¹ Schol. Thuc.                    ² Hesych.

with his enemy, and intimates how little this was valued or relied on, though Thucydides affords no hint as to the cause of its sudden dissolution. Accordingly Perdiccas has scarcely time to establish Iolaus as regent, when he is already in the camp of the enemy under the walls of Olynthus, and in command of their cavalry, which numbers however only two hundred. The command in chief of the foot army was committed by vote of the allies to Aristeus ; with these he took up a position on the isthmus, having Potidaea behind him, and concerted a plan in case the advance of the Athenians was made in this direction, to summon to his aid the Chalcidians and allies without the isthmus and the horse of Perdiccas, by preconcerted signals over a short interval of open country; in this manner he hoped to involve the enemy in a double conflict at the same time, front and rear, or front and flank.

Callias and his colleagues on the other hand detached a few of their allies and their stronger body of Macedonian horse towards Olynthus on their left, to keep the enemies in that direction in check, while themselves quitting camp and marching direct upon Potidaea. They found Aristeus in position and with his force drawn up in array of battle ; and with no more loss of time than was required to marshal their own, advanced to the attack. Aristeus himself was on one wing where he had posted the best soldiers both of the Corinthians and others also, in reliance apparently that the diversion from Olynthus in response to his signals, would compensate for weakness towards the other extremity of his line. It was due to this confidence that though he not merely repelled the attack on his own wing, but put his opponents to flight, he forfeited all the advantage by fol­lowing up the pursuit, and returned to find that the other Potidaeans and Peloponnesians were routed by the Athe­nians, and had taken refuge within the walls. Ilis own force was in consequence equally in danger of

having its retreat cut off whether he made for Poti­daea or Olynthus. The concerted diversion had entirely failed of effect, not so much from the advance of opposing cavalry that scarcely came in sight, but in consequence of the cessation of signals after the first, caused by the rapid success of the Athenians,—it is difficult not to think partly in consequence of the deliberate half-heartedness of their commander Perdiccas, who, after a short advance, had with­drawn to the shelter of the walls of Olynthus;—the horse therefore took no part in the battle on either side. Aristeus, in his desperate position, resolved to make for Potidaea by a dash of which the only chance of success lay in its unex­pected daring. Closing his men up so as to expose them as little as possible, he made a rush through a storm of missiles and succeeded with difficulty, by wading, in getting round the mole by which the Potidaean wall across the isthmus was extended seawards, losing some of his number, but saving the majority. The Athenians gave up the Potidaean dead under truce, and erected their trophy. The loss of the Potidaeans and their allies in the battle was nearly three hundred,—the Athenians lost 150 and Callias their commander.

The Athenians were now able to shut off the city by a wall across the isthmus northwards, but did not consider themselves strong enough to divide their forces to construct and guard another on the side of Pallene ; an additional force however of sixteen hundred hoplites soon arrived from home, under Phormion son of Asopius, who landed at Aphytis on the eastern coast of Pallene; he advanced slowly towards Potidaea, laying waste the country as he went, and finding that the provocation produced no sortie, constructed without interruption the counter-wall on this side which, to­gether with the cruising fleet, made the investment of the city as complete as accidents of weather and the seas admitted.

¹ Diodorus, who strangely misarranges these incidents,

mentions as contemporaneous the foundation by the Athe­nians of the city Letanus on the Propontis, respecting which further information is required.

Ultimate or even prolonged resistance was now hopeless for the Potidaeans apart from help from Peloponnesus, or, as Thucydides interposes—apparently with the plague of Athens in mind—some accident out of all reasonable expectation. Aristeus therefore counselled, with a view to spare consump­tion of food, that an opportunity should be seized when the wind was favourable for ships to quit the city and adverse to the cruising squadron, for all the troops but five hundred to get away, he himself volunteering to share the greater peril by being one to remain. Failing to gain acceptance for this measure, he resorted as the next alternative to an endeavour to give the best turn possible to affairs without; he succeeded in eluding the Athenian guardships, and reaching the Chalcidians, carried on war as he could, by one successful ambush especially near the city Sermylion, and at the same time set in motion applications for succour from Pelopon­nesus. Phormio on his part with his sixteen hundred lioplites devastated Chalcidice and Bottice—within rather indeterminate limits,—and captured sundry towns. Aristeus was destined to a bad end soon after the outbreak of the general war;—intercepted in Thrace when conducting a mission to solicit the aid and interference of Persia, he was carried to Athens and on his arrival fell a victim unheard to popular revenge for past and dread of future mischief, and was cast out unburied, professedly in reprisal for his part in like merciless treatment by the Spartans, of the crews of some captured ¹ merchantmen.

The battle of Potidaea dates about the end of October, 432 B.C. little more than six months after the great sea-fight at Corcyra; within six months more, in the ensuing spring, was to occur the decisive outbreak of the Peloponnesian war.

The Corinthians had now changed places with the Athenians or something more. When they had taxed the Athenians for protecting a colony against a metropolis which it repudiated as such, and to which it had certainly never held itself hound for tribute or contribution, they had especially appealed to the sanctioned rule that the head of a confederation might impose restraint on its subordinates. They were now themselves abetting and aiding by armed assistance the contumacy of a subordinate city of which the accepted obligations to a superior were beyond question. Still, even at the pass to which matters had arrived, the position as between Athens and Corinth admitted of being treated, at least diplomatically, as short of actual war ; setting aside what was suspected, and even what both sides knew but neither wished to admit as positive and known, the expedition of Aristeus might be regarded as neither emanating from nor sanctioned by the state of Corinth, but as a private enterprise,—his personal connections and influence having notoriously had so much concern in it. The Athenians, had it really now been worth while, or had there been time, might justly have demanded an account of connivance that was inconsistent with the terms of alliance between friendly powers; but the ex­pedition had resulted in so serious a difficulty for the Corinthians, that no repudiation of it on their part, had they been disposed to make it, would have helped them through the difficulty. After the defeat at Corcyra it might have been possible for them to forget past damage from considera­tions of prudence, but the loss and danger that were impending for them at Potidaea, left them no alternative but to disregard all conventions, and put in motion openly every influence they could command, to bring down upon Athens the scourge of a general Dorian war.

B.C. 432 ; 01. 87. 1.

The net had closed round Potidaea,—the fall of the city was a mere matter of time, if of time, and would not only compromise most important material commercial interests at Corinth, but it was impossible to anticipate what severe treatment might not follow for the large number of Corinth­ians and Peloponnesians shut up there, to say nothing of the Potidaeans themselves, in whom from connection and rela­tionship they had an interest almost as sensitive.

The messages of Aristeus therefore were scarcely required to stimulate the Corinthians in rousing the energies of Sparta from their seeming insensibility;—seeming, for it is by no means to be inferred that the little we hear of any direct agency of Sparta in agitating for this war, is due to their indifference still less their repugnance to it. In any case, whether this hesitation were due to mere inertia that was to be overcome, or to the reserve that will only relax under a pressure which guarantees a certain tension of earnest­ness, the Corinthians knew well that upon themselves must rest the task of rousing the spirit and exciting the impatience or ambition of Dorian Hellas. They were unwearied there­fore in urging the joint allies to support their own envoys at Sparta, in clamour against the imputed infractions by Athens of the terms of the treaty and the injuries inflicted by her on Peloponnesians, and at last were rewarded with

success. At last the Lacedaemonians—after due indulgence of taciturnity—made the first overt step to re-asserting their claim to the headship of general Hellas, from which they had so signally receded by the terms of the thirty years' peace, and announced that they were prepared to entertain complaints against Athens not only from the parties to their own proper confederacy but from ¹ whencesoever, from mal­contents therefore also among the Athenian confederates. To this class belonged the Aeginetans, who, besides being galled at their severance from the general body of Dorian states, among which they had once held proud position, may probably have experienced exceptionally harsh treatment as ancient enemies of Athens. They could only set forth their grievances and aspirations secretly, but did so with no un­important effect, whatever may have been the truth of their averment that the autonomy of which they were deprived had been stipulated for in the treaty; to this class also belonged the Aeolian Lesbians, who, perhaps still earlier, had applied to Sparta to abet them in ² revolt. Aristophanes even avers that cities subject to Athens, galled by the pkoros and apparently apprehensive of increased burdens, gave large bribes to leading Spartans to influence them in favour of ³ war. According to Thucydides, the Lacedae­monians heard the public statements and complaints in their usual assembly, and amongst the rest in order, one from the Megarians, who, in addition to other matters of dispute by no means trifling, alleged as an especial violation of the terms of the peace by the Athenians, not merely now the prohibition of their commodities, but the exclusion or rather expulsion of their citizens from the market of Athens and from all ports under her dominion.

The Corinthians last of all, after permitting these charges to have their full inflammatory effect, came forward to announce a positive resolution that clenched the agitation.

The oration assigned to them breathes from beginning to end a tone of outspoken, warning discontent; ‘ the present suffer­ings of Hellas from the preponderance of the Athenians which have just been listened to, they say are all due to the past remissness of Lacedaemon which first permitted the restoration of their city walls, and then in spite of remonstrances and representations, the raising of the Long Walls, and now calls us together to consider whether we are injured, which ought to be plain enough, instead of how we are to be protected.’ They taunt the Lacedaemonians with overlooking at the present time the inordinate growth of a hostile power under their very eyes,—with a negligence still more absurd than when formerly, in spite of timely warning, they allowed the Mede to arrive from the extremity of the earth at their doors before rousing for defence; that the Mede failed after all was mainly due to his own blunders,—‘to his tripping himself up,’—an allusion it would seem to the disablement of Mardonius by the desertion of Artabazus, and in dis­paragement of the Dorian victory of Plataea; no thanks again were due to Sparta for the rescue which came about through the mismanagement of the Athenians themselves and the incaution of Tolmides; while in certain cases,—the reference was apparently to Thasos and perhaps to Aegina,— hopes of aid from Sparta had been encouraged only to be falsified at last, and to deliver those, who in reliance on them, were otherwise unprepared, to utter ruin.

The contrast between Athens and Sparta in respect of genius and policy is set forth in terms that are almost sarcastic. The Athenians,—so the historian represents the Corinthians as declaring,—are habitual innovators and as rapid in putting their plans into effect as in conceiving them; daring even disproportionately to their power, ad­venturous in the teeth of their own reason, admitting no hesitation in delay of action, and ever prepared to leave home with alacrity for foreign enterprise; sanguine under

whatever difficulties, always making the most of a victory and yielding in the very slightest degree to discouragement under a defeat; ^£ they exert all the powers of their minds for the good of their city as bound most strictly to its service by native ties, and imperil life and limb on its behalf with as much indifference as if they were risking only those of others, —of helots, it may be, or perioeci. With them the non­attainment of an object counts as a positive loss, and any acquisition is regarded as a trifle relatively to something more important thereafter; even in case of a disaster they immediately conceive other hopes instead which make up for it; for with them alone,—so rapidly does commencement of action ensue upon a resolution,—to covet is one and the same thing as to take possession. In this way amidst labours and perils they toil their whole lives through, and are so con­stantly engaged in acquiring as to leave the very least time for enjoyment of what they possess, regarding, as they do, activity upon duty as their real holiday, and unbusied tran­quillity more of an infliction than labour and occupation; insomuch that he would rightly characterise them who should say of them in brief, that they are born neither to be quiet themselves nor to permit the rest of the world to be quiet.’ The Lacedaemonians on the other hand are rebuked not merely by implications but with much plain speaking,—for their indifference to anything beyond the merest conser­vatism, their slowness to recognise the force of the soundest arguments and adopt a decision, or to make a clearly neces­sary exertion and one worthily commensurate with their real power; with their unwillingness to incur any ' risk of loss and their inability to banish apprehension of a constantly impending danger, as if,—so it seems to be implied,—the trouble from the revolt of the helots was not now fairly at an end ; in fine, with their general sluggish and obsolete home-keeping habits and policy.

But the sting of the arguments of the Corinthians lay in VOL. ii.         a a

their last words;—^{It is now high time,’ they said, ‘that tardi­ness should be renounced once for all; let the Lacedaemonians be true forthwith to the promise which they have given to the Potidaeans, and to others also, by invading Attica, and not abandon men who are united to them by friendship and by blood to those who are also their own greatest enemies, nor drive the rest of us unwillingly, but, de­serted as we find ourselves, excusably before Gods and men, to seek another alliance and attach ourselves where we cannot feel equal sympathy or have ties as sacred. On these points deliberate well and resolve to maintain a leader­ship of Peloponnesus not less important than as it was de­livered to you by your fathers.’

It is not easy to understand this threat as of other import, than that the Corinthians might be driven by urgency of their position, relatively to the policy and acts of Athens, to encourage the Argives to reassert their always exist­ing claim to the headship of Peloponnesus in place of Sparta. That they contemplated the possibility of making terms with Athens for alliance is not to be thought of. It is to Argos that they do resort and transfer their alliance and that of the other Peloponnesians, when the zeal of the Lacedaemonians for the war slackens in its eleventh year after the death of ¹ Brasidas.

The characterisation of the Athenians which is contained in their speech, is no doubt open to suspicion as anticipatory in some points and introduced a little out of place by Thucy­dides, for the sake of securing its early expression in his history; the years immediately preceding the speech seem to illustrate it much less pointedly than those which follow; but on the other hand, it may be accepted as representing the conviction of the Corinthians, that Athens was indeed on the point of resuming activity and aggression, and had

given signs of doing so. Indeed they boldly point to Athe­nian action at Corcyra and Potidaea as proof of snch a pre­conceived design; though as we read Thucydides, they are taking a liberty with the understandings of their hearers or their political ignorance, inasmuch as Corinth herself was the first mover of both these conflicts. That she did so move however in the first instance does not absolutely contravert her thesis; preparations that place a jealous or suspectedly jealous enemy in a position to be wantonly offensive when­ever he chooses, can scarcely but be admitted as a challenge, —sometimes equivalent to an overt act of offence,—though it may or may not be prudent to notice and is usually a gross mistake to respond to it.

It happened, the historian proceeds, that Athenian envoys were at this time at Sparta on other business, and at their own request they were admitted to make a counter repre­sentation ; they declined, we are told, to consider themselves called on to make a defence before the Lacedaemonians in respect of particular charges that might have been brought together against their city from various quarters; but they seized the opportunity while setting forth the past- services of Athens to Hellas, to remind of what exertions she had been capable, and at the same time to convey an impressive intimation of her present power and the strength of her posi­tion, and her determination to maintain it at all hazards.

The speech assigned to them embraces in consequence scarcely more particular reference to the complaints that were agitated among her own allies than had been made by the Corinthians, but it adverts to the undoubted preva­lence of discontents, for the details and animus of which,—so necessary to be borne in mind at this crisis,—we are driven to look to other sources of information.

Among these there are few more instructive and interest­ing than the tract by an unknown author on the ‘ Polity of the Athenians,’ which from a superficial resemblance to the .      a a 2

‘ Polity of the Lacedaemonians * by Xenophon, got caught among that author’s works and has been floated with them safely over waters that engulfed mueh more of more preten­sion. It contains sufficient indications to carry it back to the time when Athens still enjoyed the sway which had been consolidated by Pericles and was at the present time in ques­tion, although it seems to date after his death and when meaner men were in the ascendant. It cannot in any case be later than 414 B.C. when the particular system of taxation that it alludes to as still existing was changed. The satirical drift to which the composition owes its value as a summary of grievances, is declared in the opening paragraph, and is pursued throughout with vivacity and wit together with some ingeniously equivocal candour, that together have sorely bewildered the clumsy erudition of at least one commentator.

‘ I have no praise to give to the Athenians,’ says the writer, ‘for the choice of their particular form of polity, inasmuch as it is equivalent to a choice that the rascals shall enjoy prosperity at the expense of the honest men; but I will make it clear that such having once been their election, they are in fact admirably promoting the security of this polity all the time that they seem to the rest of the Greeks to be only blundering.’

Some of the testimony that ensues is so distinctly honour­able to at least the sagacity and activity of the Athenians, that it lends itself to interpretation as not intended other­wise ; such is the exposition of their universal acquirement of nautical skill in constant expeditions upon public service or to private possessions out of Attiea; of the advantage derived from their maritime preponderance for acquisition and administration of extended sway, and of the extraordinary influx of wealth which resulted from free interchange with the most extensive variety of markets ; testimony this to qualities that only an enemy thinks it reasonable to decry as the shrewdness of knavery. Again, the imputations of the

writer turn on some points of oligarchical repugnance that no doubt contributed considerably to the prejudice against the Athenians, but tell in truth not slightly to their honour. Slaves who at Lacedaemon stood in awe not of their own masters alone but exhibited abject deference to all other free­men, were allowed at Athens what the author regards as offensive independence, were indulged as an encouragement to productive labour, with even more than comfort, and in dress and general appearance were so little distinguishable from the ordinary citizen, that a man who should have no thought whatever beyond simply ill-treating a slave, was liable to get into serious trouble by finding that he had struck a citizen. The airs and assumptions permitted to freed slaves and metics —resident aliens—which would be entirely to the honour of the Athenians, even though their motive were solely to en­courage sources of mercantile profit and public revenue, are spoken of with like unqualified disgust.

•        A different view from the writer’s may also be taken of the participation which he carps at, of the demus at large, in feasts and festivals and distributions at the sacrifices, all at the public expense, and of their enjoyment of a large and beautiful city, and use of such gymnasia and baths as only a few rich could afford from private resources.

Finally, the admission is very considerable, that if the maintenance of the democracy is to be assumed—and the writer himself excuses the demus for the assumption, ‘ for it is allowable' for every one to take care of himself —it is not easy to suggest what improvement the administration of it admitted unless in some trifling changes here and there.

The case for democracy is supposed no doubt to be thus reduced to an absurdity, but party and prejudice apart, the suspicion is not to be repressed, that the case for an oligarchy might fare as ill with an equally ill-disposed interpreter, and indeed that any oligarchical example that Greece ever provided, would certainly fare still worse. More pertinent

hints are supplied as to the openings for abuse, that are to account for the discontent of the allies under the empire of Athens; but when we consider how the conditions of the time rendered serious abuses inevitable in any case, and com­pound for exaggerations, we shall look among them in vain for justification of such an outbreak as was now relied on to repress them at the risk of infinitely worse.

The Athenians are ¹ charged with systematically and in the spirit of partisans depressing the wealthy in the allied cities, who are referred to as identical with the * honestⁱ men or

*       the worthy,’ from conviction that power in the possession of this better class would speedily be turned against the authority of Athens ; they therefore fine, banish, and execute them, it is affirmed, for behoof of the base or rascally party, —the poor in fact;—and so a city is ruined because its improvement in tax-paying power is thought of less con­sequence than its disablement from conspiring by reduction to poverty,—to barest necessaries for living and working, especially as individual Athenians grew rich meantime by the spoliation.

It was in pursuance of the same policy that the allies were subjected to another great grievance, the obligation to carry all their disputes at law before the courts at Athens. By this means some of the most important aflairs of the allies were retained under home control, and the same leading purpose of always favouring the demus was kept in view, and any disposition in the subject city to do even justice to parties ill-disposed towards Athens, and much more to favour them, was countervailed. Then additional advantages from this policy accrued to the Athenians, in the fees of the court and its officers, the duties payable at the Piraeus, an increased demand for lodging and for services of hired-out slaves,— and not least the gratifying accession of importance to every

citizen however humble, from the salutations and solicitations with which he was beset by the litigants when proceeding to discharge his duty as a juryman. It is highly noteworthy here that the writer recognises a security for honesty, and impediment to bribery, in the numerousness of the juries, and deprecates reduction of their numbers; and he ¹ admits, more­over, that if the suits were conducted at home, the friends of Athens would have no fairer treatment than her enemies met with at Athens.

In any case however it is easy to see what opening was afforded by the universal social conditions, for intrigue and injustice, and Aristophanes gives help to realise the wanton­ness, and corruption, and caprice, that doubtless too often trespassed on the domains of aweful justice.

Delay is specified as a great aggravation of the worst mischiefs of the system; the pamphleteer professes to candidly admit that bribery would sometimes quicken a process, but avers at the same time that no possible amount of bribery would remedy this evil; the business hours and days were quite inadequate for the administration as organised, to get through its work. How could it be otherwise in a city, which in the first place kept more public festivals than any other Greek ² city, indeed at least twice as ³ many, and then had its, own multifarious business to conduct besides, of war revenue, and legislation, daily domestic and foreign incidents, and so on through a long and diversified enumeration, and on the top of all undertook to settle more law-suits than occurred in all the rest of the world together.

It is remarkable that throughout this series of invidious charges against the Athenian demus, no reference is made to the oppressiveness of the assessed contributions, or to ap­prehensions as to the amount being raised. Enough however and more than enough is set forth to shrewdly illustrate the

general irritability that the Athenian envoys do not pretend to deny as existing under Athenian domination.

To return to their speech ; it is probably more character­istic of Lacedaemon than of Hellas generally at this period, that the young men among their audience are assumed by them to be ignorant to an extraordinary degree as to leading particulars of the stirring events of only fifty years before.

Repudiating then any obligation to justify themselves to the Lacedaemonians as if they were before a legitimate court, or to do more than make a passing reflection on the incon­sistent perversity of the malcontents, the envoys set forth the obligations of Hellas to Athens in the repulse of the Mede, at Marathon, at Salamis, and in the later liberation of Ionia; Athens provided the largest number of ships, and the genius of Themistocles,S whose merits as commander had had special recognition at Sparta, and sustained their zeal to the end, when for any aid that the Laccdaemonians could or would have rendered, general ruin was inevitable. They had earned and merited their empire, and were bound by every consideration not merely of interest, but of honour, and most of all by requirements of security and self-preservation to hold and maintain it. The abuses charged against them were no more than the natural and inevitable incidents of empire, and far milder than would be suffered from others in their place; they claimed credit for a moderation that had been by no means experienced from the Lacedaemonians formerly, and would not be again in case of their succession to power, to say nothing of what had been endured under the Mede. The very outcry that had risen against them was argument of this moderation, for it never could have gained such head unless encouraged by Athenian indulgence of complaint. So with reference to the grievance which w^ras made of Athenian litigiousness, it originated entirely in the freedom with which resort to law was conceded in cases that under other govern­ments would be settled arbitrarily; the veiy men who would

submit tamely to the injustice of a superior, are perversely ready to raise a clamour as if injured, and as by an equal, intolerably, when a decision goes against them after they have enjoyed full liberty of pleading on equal terms.

‘ The strong,’ they pursued, ‘ always do and always must govern the weak; and it is our belief moreover that we deserve to rule, and the Lacedaemonians have admitted as much, who only now on a calculation of advantage, put forward and press upon us the plea of justice which never yet diverted any one from an advantage that he was able to assert by might. We Athenians gained our empire in the first instance by desert, have administered it with as much moderation as can be expected from human nature, and claim to be entitled to enjoy it without grudge ;—in the cases when discontents and even defections occurred, we could not renounce control over our allies without danger; to do so would have been to make over at once so much power to already unfriendly Sparta. Sparta, by the genius of her native institutions, is incompetent to take the place of Athens; and has good reason to remember how little, formerly and ever, her commanders when away from home have been given to respect those institutions or indeed any restriction whatever.

*       Finally, war is a very serious and a very uncertain matter, and usually terminates after much suffering in negotiations which might as well have come first. Let differences then, be decided judicially as was stipulated by the treaty, and do not be hurried hastily by persuasions and complaints of others, into mischief all your own;—otherwise, we take the Gods of ratifying oaths to witness, that if you are first to enter upon war, we will defend ourselves with our best energy in the course where you set us the example.’

The veteran king Archidamus is represented as counselling delay to raise money and prepare for war, or still better negotiations, and reference to preclude its necessity; but after all, it could not but weigh that in the meantime the

siege of Potidaea was going on and might be concluded ; and the Ephor Sthenelaidas clenched the matter in a few over­bearing words.

^c I fail to understand the prolix speech of the Athenians, for amidst an abundance of self-laudation, I observe no trace of a denial of their injurious conduct towards our allies and the Peloponnesus; as regards their having acquitted them­selves well formerly against the Mede, on that very ground they are in fact deserving of double punishment as not being simply bad, but as having moreover lapsed from the better; as for ourselves we are the same now that we always have been, and if we continue right-minded, shall not connive at our allies being wrongfully dealt with, nor admit delay in succouring them; there is no question of delay in the ill- treatment they are being subjected to. Our opponents no doubt have abundant money, ships, and horses, but we on our side have good allies, and are bound not to betray them to the Athenians. And it is not to legal processes and words that we have to resort, to afford protection against wrongs which are anything in the world but matters of words; but w^Te are called on to redress them with all speed, and by exertion of our full power. And let none pretend to teach us that it is becoming for us who have received an injury, to proceed to deliberation ; on the contrary it is fitting for those to deliberate, and for a long time too, who have in mind the commission of an injury. Give your votes then, O Lacedae­monians, for war as fits the dignity of Sparta, and do not permit the further aggrandisement of Athens; and let us not be false to our allies, but with the gods to aid, make onset on the ¹ wrong-doers.’

Sparta concludes with an appeal to divine approval and protection, as confidently as the Athenians, and as unhesit­atingly as the parties to any modern war. The mockery so

far is on a par between ancients and moderns, but where Sparta in her reverses could at least recal how wantonly she had provoked the gods by declining the reference of the dispute to arbitration, according to a treaty sanctioned by solemn ¹ oaths, it scarcely appears that the vanquished of modern times accuse themselves of more than imprudent and inopportune response to planned provocation, however the victors in their self-complacency may afford to derogate from the merits of superior numbers, discipline, and astuteness by afterthoughts of piety or philanthropy.

Votes in the Spartan assembly were given not by ballot but outcry; Sthenelaidas however, who was desirous to com­mit the majority in favour of war as absolutely as possible, professed himself unable to distinguish the preponderance of voices, and bade those who were of opinion that the treaty had been dissolved by the wrong-doing of the Athenians to move to one side, and those of the opposite opinion to sepa­rate to the other. The majority for the breach of the treaty was very large, and this vote no doubt was decisive of the question though not expressly of the immediate declaration of war. When the allies were called in, the public announce­ment was still only to the effect that in the opinion of the Lacedaemonians the Athenians had done wrongfully, but that it was purposed to convene the whole of the allies and take a general vote in order that war might be undertaken, should it be so agreed ² upon, after common consultation.

The year had already so far advanced beyond the season for military operations, that this further delay might not seriously affect the views of the Corinthians, if they could rely on the intention of the Spartans who were used to affect hesitation when most resolved and when already prepared for sudden action. They lost no time however in their anxiety to hurry on a decision that might still save Potidaea,

by canvassing the cities individually, and met with such response that when the congress assembled, the majority united in complaints against the Athenians, and voted as they had been solicited, for war. In the speech that Thucy­dides ascribes to the Corinthians on this occasion, we have some further hints to what an extent their extraordinary zeal was due to commercial considerations. It seems clear that it is not merely to the inconveniences and loss that had been inflicted on the Megarians, but to the like as not apprehended but already experienced bitterly by themselves, and indeed by the maritime allies generally, that they make allusion, when they warn the inland allies that the mischief will speedily touch them quite as severely, by the check given to their foreign trade and the obstacles to their receipt of imports in exchange. The indication seems conclusive that whether correctly or not, the Corinthians saw in the Megarian decree the first sign of an intention of the Athe­nians to make their power of controlling commerce an instru­ment for promoting political power; it was apprehended that the same spirit which had dictated the revision of the census of Athenian citizenship for the benefit of the privileged citizen, was now disposed to exclude competitors in foreign trade, and establish within the Athenian confederacy a kind of commercial franchise to the manifest detriment of the Dorian states, and most especially of commercial Corinth. Athens, they declared, was a tyrant city, and no more to be tolerated by Greeks than an individual tyrant in a city; it was now a question whether cities still free were to be re­duced to servitude by her, or to unite their forces and by timely resistance and war secure a permanent and probably— so blind are men!—a speedy peace. The loss of a single sea- fight might be fatal -to Athens—did Thucydides write this with the fatal catastrophe of Aegospotamos in mind ?—and in any case if the war lingered, between contributions and credit, especially with the treasuries of Delphi and Olympia,

there were abundant resources for equipping fleets and manning them by tempting away the hired crews by which the navy of Athens was now in very large proportion manned. Athens was assailable by land by an ejoiteickismus, or fortified post on her own territory, and by defection of her allies, the great sources of her revenue. War was become a necessity to assert the dignity of Dorians, the freedom of Hellas, and enduring peace. The responsibility for the breach of treaties rested with the Athenians—the God of Delphi approved their cause and had promised success. Thucydides intimates that this last assertion lacked posi­tive confirmation; it is not impossible that he favoured a doubt from a lingering tenderness for the oracle.

The debate concluded, the Lacedaemonians collected the votes of the representatives of all the cities large and small in order, and the majority—though a majority only—decided for war, and war with no further delay than was necessary to complete or advance preparations.

Negotiation was now virtually at an end; expostulation, discussion, treaty were cast aside, and the two sides of Hellas, the most advanced populations of the world, were committed — common language and common sympathies notwithstanding, — to the disgrace of renouncing the proper instruments of right and reason and resorting for settlement of their differences to personal violence. Diplo­macy in its largest sense has its happiest but- most rarely exercised function in averting war; but in this largest sense it includes far more than is concerned in any direct negotia­tion. Wars have ever been numerous which the challenging power would never have provoked, the challenged would never have accepted with rash susceptibility and a light heart, had the certain cost been known beforehand only to the extent that with reasonable power of interpretation might have been and therefore ought to have been known. In these cases the charge of failure lies with the diplomacy

and its adjuncts that have failed to know or to succeed in communicating the relative resources, and even approximately the height of resolution and standard of military ‘skill and prowess of the parties to the quarrel. The mischief of course lies still deeper in the body politic when the alternatives of peace and war rest with a man 01* a class or a profession that loves war for its own sake and is only too willing to embrace all its risks for the gambling chances of fortune of war. The price to be paid for an advantage is then no consideration whatever when it is coveted by one party that is resolved to obtain it at any cost and held by another that had rather die and possibly had far better die than surrender it. The centuries that have elapsed since the Peloponnesian war have certainly not advanced the most cultivated sections of the world to exemption from such liabilities even among them­selves ; must we say with Thucydides, and never will ^f while human nature remains the ¹ same.’ Modern wars make up in frequency for a falling off in duration, while the greed and the falsehoods and even the enslavements that prepare and conclude them are in no degree less flagitious. It is a miserable consideration that the most conspicuous result of the advance of science is to succeed in crowding within a campaign of a few months or even weeks more crime and slaughter than are extended so revoltingly through the years of the long-drawn Peloponnesian war.

A certain pretence of negotiation was still carried on by Sparta for the sake of giving the fairest colour they could to the war, and for the possible chance also of re-awakening faction and dissension at Athens, or blinding the more hopeful there to the imminence of their danger and so checking preparation. A first embassy summoned the Athe­nians to clear their city of the pollution incurred by the ancient sacrilegious slaughter of the adherents of Cylon.

This guilt was attached to the family of Alcmaeonids to which Pericles belonged, though only by the mother’s side ; it was incurred in rash however patriotic zeal against an attempt to establish a tyranny, and had been punished by banishment, first by the Athenians independently, and again by a second expulsion of the living who were inculpated and by ejection of the bones of the dead, when the Lacedaemonian Cleomenes interfered in Athenian politics only to abet tyranny again. It was futile now for the Lacedaemonians to hope that Athens would deprive herself at their bidding, on such a pretext, of the leader from whom they expected most re­solute opposition ; it was much if they succeeded in furnishing his enemies with a pretence to impute to him, as subject to charge of sacrilege, the responsibility of the war. The recent outcry that had been raised against him, the outrages he had been subjected to on the ground of irreligion, might have encouraged this attempt; and indeed the Athenians by their reply to it were self-convicted of hypocrisy and caprice in their recent invidious proceedings. The Lacedae­monians only elicited the retorted challenge to purify their own city from the pollution of slaughtered supplicants on occasion of the death of Pausanias and revolt of the helots. Again it was thought worth while to call upon the Athe­nians formally to raise the siege of Potidaea, to restore the autonomy of Aegina, and, what was most insisted on, as the matter on which the question of peace or war depended entirely, to repeal the decree by which citizens of Megara were excluded from the market of Athens and from all ports within her dominion. A general refusal was returned, but as regarded the Megarians the charge was especially insisted on of their sacrilege in cultivating certain land on their frontier towards Eleusis, that was consecrated to the great goddesses—the opyas—as well as their unneighbourly har­bouring of fugitive slaves. This charge of sacrilege was probably, as we have seen, not preferred now for the first

time, but seems to have entered into the pretexts for the original hostile decree of exclusion; it is only consistent with circumstances of this time or at most a few months later, —when war had broken out,—that a direct summons upon this matter was sent to Megara and on to Sparta by a herald, Anthemocritus,—a mode of communication proper to a state of war. The message, which Plutarch appears to have read in a psephism of Pericles, was expressed with studied mildness. Pie never returned alive ; his death was charged upon the Megarians, and his tomb, perhaps a cenotaph, was erected by the Thriasian gate fronting towards Megara ; the war with Megara was declared to be heraldless, truceless, im­placable ; an oath was imposed on the generals on assuming office to make two incursions into their country yearly, and proof remains that for a certain time at least the obligation was fulfilled and the Megarians reduced to the utmost distress through privation of all produce from their territory ; death was denounced against any Megarian discovered on Attic ground. The terms of this decree were charged upon Pericles, though its ostensible promoter was Charinus.

Last of all, three Lacedaemonian envoys whom Thucydides names as if otherwise well-known, Rhamphius, Melesippus, and Agesander presented themselves, and leaving aside all reference to former demands, made the blunt announcement of the basis on which the quarrel was to be set and finally fought out;—^c The Lacedaemonians are desirous for the con­tinuance of peace, and if you restore the Greeks to their autonomy, peace there may be.’

A final discussion was thus brought on at Athens, that embraced all contingencies and all proposals, and especially the question of the Megarian decree by the repeal of which some were even still so sanguine as to believe, or at least they professed to believe, that all differences might be com­posed. The considerations that were conclusive the other

way, are given by Thucydides in a speech of Pericles. He resists still, as he had done all along, the policy of the slightest concession; the first will only induce greater de­mands, for war at last, in the disposition now manifested by the Lacedaemonians, is inevitable. As to the progress and result of the war, he does not extenuate its sacrifices or probable duration, but is sanguine as to the result. Attica without the walls must no doubt be abandoned to devasta­tion, and all attempts renounced to protect it by a battle in open field; such a sacrifice is as nothing compared to that of lives of citizens who will always be able to replace it by wise employment of their special advantages; Athens has a superiority at sea that will more than compensate by power of offence, has exhaustless naval stores, has skilled native naval officers, and need not fear seduction of her crews by invitations to contend against such odds; Athens has superior wealth and the advantage of unity as against a confedera­tion, in giving coherence, persistency, and promptitude to action.

Thucydides inserts in the speech a warning sentence that may perhaps be challenged as representing the later reflection of the historian rather than an actual apprehension of Pericles. The great danger of the Athenians, he says, is from them­selves not from their opponents, lest they should give way to a desire to extend their dominion,—as in result they did in respect of Sicily so fatally,—while the war is still going on, and bring upon themselves fresh perils of their own seeking. It is however by no means impossible that a tendency that so soon declared itself with such reckless energy may have already announced itself as in their nature. The words are so far confirmatory of some independent notices that Athens had already cast eyes of longing towards Italy and Sicily, that we may so interpret the suggestions held out by the Corcyraeans, and give some faith to the tradition which Plutarch records, that the dissuasions of Pericles had

VOL. II.     b b

been employed to lay such restless projects to sleep. This view it will be perceived at once confers increased signifi­cance upon the jealousies of Corinth, as alarmed for her free if not exclusive use of western waters. The enquiry then remains, no doubt, how it is that Thucydides should not have set down more directly and distinctly a fact which was so important in its bearings.

The final reply conveyed to the envoys,—again involving a retort,—was in terms that were dictated by Pericles: * The Megarian decree shall be repealed at the same time as the Lacedaemonians renounce the general xenelasia by which, in parallel and uncontested consistency with treaties, they exclude from their own territory both us and our allies; we are prepared to concede autonomy now to the cities, if it was as autonomous that we held them at the time of making the treaty, and whenever the Lacedae­monians shall permit their cities to enjoy autonomy at their several wills and pleasures and without restriction to con­venience of their own. AYe are prepared, in agreement with the provisions of the treaty, to submit to adjudication, and will not be the first to begin war, but against those who do begin it, will stand on our defence.’ The unqualified control which Sparta exercised over her perioeci—over the provincial townships of her wide territory, which Athens here quotes as authorising her far wider control,—was to be challenged again in parallel terms by Epaminondas when the crisis of the fate of Sparta was hurried on by her jealous disallowance of the supremacy of Thebes over the towns and cities of all ¹ Boeotia.

Even so communications were not broken off for a time, and took place still as if in a state of peace, that is without the intervention of heralds, though with caution and mis­trust, for enough had already occurred to involve dissolution of the treaty and afford ample pretext for resort to hostilities.

THE MEDEA OF EUHIPIDES.

B.C. 431; 01. 87. 1.

The Medea of Euripides was exhibited at the Greater Dionysia, at the end of March or beginning of April 431 B.C. The representation falls therefore in the midst of the excite­ment created by the hostile attitude and preparations of Corinth, and by discussions as to the exclusion of the Megarians, not now only as traders from the agora of Athens, but from all ports and marts under Athenian control, and from Athens and Attica under any circumstances, upon pain of death. Peculiar interest therefore will attach to the play should it prove to bear the manifest impress of reference to feelings that could not but be generated amidst such heat;— should we find that Euripides, it matters not whether deliberately or instinctively, seized a great opportunity to treat a special theme that could never be so keenly appreciated as at a time of such specially exalted sensibilities ; that he was equal in fact to what his enemy Aristophanes indicates as the recognised function of a tragedian at Athens, —the wholesome education of public political sentiment; a function the even too inartificial discharge of which in other dramas, is his vindication from the indifference to public interests, with which the same enemy is so shameless as to charge him.

b b 2

Time has been more indulgent to Euripides, than to Aeschylus and Sophocles, in so far that nineteen or twenty of his dramas have been spared, against only seven for each of the great tragedians with whom he comes naturally into comparison and competition. Even so his preserved works bear but small proportion to what has perished; for the plays of Euripides which are recorded as in the hands of ancient critics numbered between seventy and eighty. It would be strange indeed if no inequalities were observable among works produced in such prolific abundance; differences are manifest among the dramas of the elder tragedians, differences in finish and scope and even in style, although it is probable that we possess more than a fair average of their masterpieces. Allowance must therefore be made in all fairness for the probability that among the larger number of Euripides such inequalities must be still more salient; certainly his reputation would have been the gainer, had seven selected plays survived alone in this case also; let us say—Ion, Hippolytus, Iphigeneia in Aulis, Iphigeneia in Tauris, The Bacchae, Aleestis, and Medea.

Born it was believed on the very day of Salamis, his earliest production of a drama is dated—with some uncer­tainty however—in his twenty-fifth year, in the 8ist Olympiad, 456 B.C., when he gained the third prize. From this time onward he exhibited perseveringly through a period which covers all the most important years of the supremacy of Pericles, and extended again beyond it. Sophocles, who began thirteen years earlier, was his greatest rival, and with superior success throughout; but he had many others, and it is matter of wonder that the prizes recorded as assigned to him, should be so few, and those so constantly the inferior. It is difficult to set aside the suspicion that this seeming want of appreciation, implies that he was on some account an object of popular disfavour, and treated with scant justice accordingly. This is the more conceivable when we regard

the traditions of his life, and after turning to his works, examine how far the disparaging or scurrilous reflections of his contemporaries appear really justified.

All accounts agree that personally he was a retired, reserved man, immersed in books of which he had a remark­able collection, harsh and even morose in the expression of opinions, with the independence that comes naturally as the sense of superiority grows upon a student, and soured more­over by the misconduct of two wives in succession,—of one of them after she had borne him several children. The ex­pression of his well-known bust, is as remarkably in accordance with these characteristics as that of Sophocles with his ascribed serenity of mind and temper under any circumstances ¹ whatever.

There is much appearance that the notorious domestic misfortunes of Euripides had been interpreted on some occasion as giving edge to reflections on the sex, which, bitter enough sometimes no doubt, need not have been keener or more bitter than he was wont to bestow on other classes. The satire caught at as prompted by personal experience, pointed an ill-natured jest as to his inveterate woman-hating, and so would easily become established as part of the stock of the comoedian, who was never scrupulous as to delicacy or justice when his purposes required a butt. What excuse for such a slur is deducible from the numerous extant tragedies of Euripides, is but qualified and equivocal, and it is contradicted indeed by their most salient characteristic, replete as they are with the most pathetic and withal the noblest feminine idealisations. When we remember Macaria, Alcestis, Phaedra, Iphigeneia, Medea, we can think of no other Greek but the poet of Andromache and Helen, of Briseis, Nausicaa, Calypso, Penelope, as possessed of equal sympathy with the fund of blended tenderness and heroism,

that is in feminine nature, or an equal compassionate sense of the aberrations to which it is liable, and of its suscep­tibility of suffering under the stings of roused or disappointed passion. Never assuredly has the latter sense been known to characterise the dulness and bigotry that constitute a mere vulgar misogynist. The conditions of womanhood at Athens were too unnatural and unfair not to react unhappily upon feminine society, but the severest denunciation of the con­sequent corruption only enhances the beauty of natures that are set forth for our tenderness and admiration. AVhen we turn from these creations it is revolting to have to attend to the imputations on the delicacy of the poet that issue from the slanderous and impure lips of the author of the Lysistrata; it is with scarcely less repugnance that we find Aristophanes condoned for all his grossness and worse, and not even for the sake of his better moments, his imagination and his wit, but exalted as a moralist and guide by modern philosophisers, to say nothing of tutors and divines, on the very ground of his correction of the influence of Euripides. This prejudice might probably never have been so carefully fostered, but that it served to reinforee the position of those who eould only understand the conservation of the antique virtues as bound up with antique ignorance and error; and inconsistent as it may seem, presaged the loosening of all moral restraints in the family to ensue from satiric denunciations of the monstrous immoralities of Olympus.

Euripides was held up to prejudice as a fellow worker with Socrates and Anaxagoras, and with a true, but withal an honourable basis of reasonableness ; through the medium of fictitious characters and situations with equal dexterity and daring, though covered now by eloquence and now by lyric brilliancy, he made the widest possible public aware what questions were being agitated around them, and warned a community which was readily alarmed at some innovations while standing on its pride of intellectuality, of problems

which it would be necessary to face before long. Terse paradoxes pointed by application to visible dilemmas, sent away his audience with matter for thought and lessons in humility also, from which as so presented they would find it hard to escape. The prevailing tone of so many of his dramas makes it clear that neither ridicule nor popular disfavour diverted him from his chosen course; and the story is quite in harmony with his general spirit, that when the theatre once rose in outcry at some startling sentence, he came boldly forward and told the people that they were there to be taught, and not to presume to teach him as to what he knew far ¹ better.

There is no reason to doubt, even apart from some recorded instances, that Euripides as a competitor with Sophocles, must have produced his plays in trilogies, in sets of threes, whatever may have been the usual principle of their sequence and dependence. We have already considered the Aeschylean trilogies; the connections of some of the preserved plays of Sophocles,—so I have convinced myself,—may be established as satisfactorily, and only so can the moral enunciations of some of them be vindicated and explained; they are excluded however by date from our present consideration; if this be so, and I must assume it here, we may well believe that many a play of Euripides as we have it disjoined from an original organism, carries but a truncated purpose, and would require for full appreciation to be reunited to its proper introduction or sequel.

The Medea is known to have been the first of a tetralogy of which we have scattered notices, but from which it survives alone; the titles as preserved are, — Medea; Philoctetes; Dictys; Theristai (messores), a satyric play. On this occasion the first prize was adjudged to Euphorion, son of Aeschylus, who produced a play of his father’s;

Sophocles obtained the second, and on no occasion did he ever take a lower place; it surprises us, after recognition of the wonderful union of beauty and power in the Medea, to find that Euripides stood last. Such an assignment provokes the question whether the judges were not swayed by feeling, which in their case may certainly have been quite as natural and could hardly be more gross than perverts the modern criticism of Schlegel. That party feeling of some kind clung to the Medea when it was first produced is sufficiently in evidence. ¹A scholiast gives a tradition that the poet was charged with having received five talents from the Corinth­ians, for relieving them from the odium of having killed the children and shifting it upon the mother. But this supposed obnoxious version of the story, so far from being repudiated was actually recognised by the Corinthians themselves, and consecrated by their public monuments and ² celebrations. If Euripides avoided it, no doubt he did so for good poetical reasons of his own, and that which he adopted was not his own invention but had currency ³already.

The value and interest of the tradition lies in the point, that in any case it carries an implication of a certain feeling against the poet, for being over indulgent in one way or other to the Corinthians, at a time when the Athenians had so much reason to be incensed against them. The audience may doubtless have expected, not unreasonably, that an opportunity so obvious would not be lost at such a time for presenting the most offensive aspect of the mythical murder, w^Thich the Corinthians themselves admitted they were bound to mourn for and expiate by periodical ceremonies. But a poet docs not usually care to be divined ; and Euripides especially was wont to obtain his effects rather by shocking than satisfying an expectation. Medea adverts to the fatal rancour that the children would aby from the * Corinthians,

¹ On v. 9.   ² Paua. ii. 3. 5.    ⁸ Arist. Rhet. ii. 23.

⁴ Medea, vv. 1056-1236.

for it is to these that she refers and not to Jason, as supposed by Schlegel, in indulgence of a prejudice; but the thought seems to find utterance merely as a wild palliation of her own passion, a touch of nature like Othello’s momentary self­persuasion that he is bound to kill Desdemona ‘ lest she should betray more men/ There was enough independent poetical value in this, to absolve from a necessity to assume a suggestion in passions of political bearing. That these how­ever were not unattended to will become apparent I believe, when we consider what intense and poignant feelings, what hardships and heartburnings had been induced precisely at this time by the peremptory expulsion of the Megarian allies of Corinth from Attica; the interests and ties of long residence, and family connection of natives of the nearest conterminal state of Athens,—induced of necessity if only by closest and constant commercial intercourse,—could not but be most intimate and numerous, and were now suddenly disrupted; the children of mixed marriages with Megarians being probably shown no more mercy than others. The con­siderable party that in opposition to Pericles, and professedly in sanguine hope of preserving peace, made strenuous en­deavours to obtain the cancelment of the decree, would assuredly take care that the evils past and to come, which they ascribed to it, were kept through all these months as vividly as possible before the public mind.

The theme of the play is in truth an exhibition of the rancorous feelings of enmity and revenge that are of neces­sity generated by such a measure; it opens with an aggrava­tion of the miseries of the deserted Medea by the notice of the Corinthian Creon, that she and her children are to vacate the territory instantly under pain of death. The moral is not unqualified by hints of provocation given by the extruded victim, and then of the danger of allowing her, exasperated and of such suspected nature as she is, to remain,—danger even from the short respite of a day. On the other hand

the great spring of her exasperation is shown to reside unequivocally in the injustice of her enemies. The inter­changes of right and wrong seem therefore inextricably involved, and misery is distributed at last almost equally in every direction.

As regards a satisfying moral drift, the play is, as its position in the trilogy indicates, an introduction rather than a solution. What this might have been, it were but an exercise of ingenuity to endeavour to recover with any pretence to certainty or precision, by study of the fragments of the lost plays and comparison of recorded forms of the fables, though it is not easy to withhold from some general specu­lation.

The Philoctetes seems to have presented the healing by reconciliation of a breach of much the same nature as is hopelessly angry in the Medea, a reconciliation effected by Ulysses, who not unaided by divine interposition, countervails the appeals of the Phrygian envoys to the vindictive passion of the so deeply injured hero. In the Dietys, Danae, who as exposed to destruction by relatives together with her infant child, repeats a motive of the Medea, is consoled by the hospitable Dietys for the absence of Perseus as if he were already dead, though he doubtless reappeared and triumphed. Danae, who drifted helplessly on the sea, with the nursling who was destined to such high deeds and happy fortune, is certainly in striking contrast to the fierce Medea carried through the air with the bleeding corpses of her children slain by her own hands in spite and passion; and it is difficult to think that the punishment of Corinthian Creon for his cruel and summary expulsion of Medea was not contrasted with the rewards of Dietys, who protects the ex­posed and expelled Danae and Perseus.

The satyric play comprised some episode or version of the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, in which he stands much in the same relation to the deserted benefactress Ariadne as

Jason to Medea. It may be remarked that the diplomatic reservation of Aegeus, who will undertake to protect Medea against any enemies when she presents herself as a refugee at Athens, but declines to be an aggressor against Corinth on her behalf, seems curiously to reflect the qualified terms on which the Athenians undertook to protect Corcyra while still hoping to keep treaties with Corinth uninfringed. Such a significant motive might have masked originally the in­artificiality of this episode, which has been taxed by critics from Aristotle downwards.

The characteristics of the Athens of this period, with which Hellas at large might have many a just quarrel, but of which she was meanly jealous instead of being justly proud, find worthily beautiful expression in the lines of the chorus :—

¹ Happy from of old are the Erechtheidai; children they of the happy gods and fostered on the noblest art from a land sacred and undevastated, as they move ever delightfully through brightest aether; there where it is told that on a time yellow­haired Harmonia produced the nine unsullied Pierian muses; and ’tis averred that Cypris quaffing the waters of fair flow­ing Cephisus, breathes upon the land the temperate sweetly breathing airs of the winds; and ever dressing her locks with wreaths of roseate blooms despatches the Loves, the assessors of skilfulness, as helpers and aids for excellence of all kinds

¹        whatsoever.’

This might seem to have been written to rival a very celebrated passage in the Oedipus Coloneus of Sophocles, which would then be dated much earlier than is usual; indeed a not unplausible argument may be combined in favour of this view, though it cannot be allowed a place here.

¹ Medea, 824-843.

CHAPTER LXIII.

THE THEBAN ATTEMPT ON PLATAEA.—OPEN WAR.—THE END.

B.C. 431 ; 01. 87. I.

The pertinacious hostility of the Corinthians is constantly in the foreground throughout the preliminary agitations against Athens, but we must not lay upon them too exclusively the responsibility of the war. That rancour as inveterate was especially shared and zealously seconded by the Thebans is soon to become apparent, though they escape mention hitherto unless as contributories along with many others to the attack on Corcyra; as the war goes on w^re find that the Boeotians are the zealpus promoters of the revolt of the ¹ Lesbians, who, more nearly related to them by race than to the Athenians, were naturally disposed rather to fight on their side than under compulsion against them. We have the frank avowal of Thucydides that the agitators were justly conscious of a general discontent among the allies of Athens at the rigour of her supreme control, and especially of a growing appre­hension among the states that were still exempt from it—of which Chios and Lesbos w^Tere the chief now remaining—that the tenure of their autonomy was from day to day precarious, and was certain at last, under one pretext or provocation or another, to follow that of the Samians, Thasians, Naxians, and

Aeginetans. Already before the outbreak of the war the Lesbians had sounded the Lacedaemonians, though without effect, as to what support might be yielded to them in a ¹ revolt. Along with these feelings of injury and natural alarm there was doubtless also a base alloy of envy at the marvellous and unrivalled advance of a single city in so short a time. Greece certainly would not be Greece, human nature would not be human nature as it has existed, and whether corrigible or not is existing hitherto, if this were not so ; such a spirit we have observed as being too often rife among the Athenians themselves, and it was now to visit their community disastrously from without. Still there were doubt­less abundant real grievances in the imperial, the imperious system established by Athens, such as the Greek of the time unfortunately knew no better, and indeed no other way of contending with than by fighting; and below all throughout Greece and fostering the ferment there was the restlessness of untried spirits who wished for nothing better than an excuse and an opportunity for fighting, being only anxious to exchange peace for turmoil and the rewards of industry for the chances of power and plunder, and the congenial fellowship of those who love licensed and emancipated violence for its own sake.

It is difficult to put aside the conviction that universal familiarity with slavery in these ancient societies corrupted the conscience in every ruling class, and encouraged conduct and demeanour that went far to make the most reasonable subordination seem an intolerable requirement for men who cherished the self-respect of freemen. How the peculiarly hateful form of Spartan helotry operated on character it is scarcely necessary to urge; but even the much milder type of slavery among the Athenians gave an accepted and ever­present justification of a view of authority and the privileges it implied, that was transferred too readily from the household

to the state; the natural right of the superior to control the inferior, especially the inferior not only in might but in merit, was so far overstrained both in theory and in practice, that Athens, even while professing to assert, as to a great extent indeed might be asserted with justice, that her supremacy was good, was best for Hellas, failed signally, and perhaps can scarcely be said to have attempted, to hold together her confederation by other bonds than those of force; the demus too easily adopted, at the suggestion of such counsellors as Cleon, the conception of a tyrant city, and gave occasion to enemies to put themselves forward as champions of that very freedom of Hellas which Athens in her better days gained her supremacy by asserting and defending.

‘ Neither side/ says Thucydides, ‘ contemplated a small matter, but nerved themselves for the war; and naturally enough, as men are usually sanguine at the commencement of an enterprise. There was moreover at this time a flush of youth in Peloponnesus and in Athens also, that from mere inexperience of war took to it with anything but reluctance, and all the rest of Hellas was thrown into high excitement at the coming conflict of the two principal states. A pro­fusion of prophecies obtained circulation; venders of oracles chanted them as well in the cities engaged in the war as in all others. Delos too had been shaken by an earthquake, which had not occurred previously so far as Hellenic memory extended, and this was declared and was believed to be a sign of somewhat to come to pass; and whatever else occurred of like unusual character contributed to the general agitation. As regards the sympathies of the Hellenic world these went for the most part with the Lacedaemonians, as well on some other accounts as principally because they announced as their object the restoration of freedom to Hellas; and all, w’hether indi­viduals or states, put forth their strength, in order to be able to co-operate with them in some degree by speech or action, insomuch that every one regarded himself as hindering work

unless he was personally concerned in it. In such passionate aversion did the majority hold the Athenians, some from desire of being released from, their sway, and some out of alarm lest they should be brought under it.’

The history, of which the proposed term is the commence­ment of the Peloponnesian war, might now close, but the incident that marks its actual and uncompromised outbreak with blood is too characteristic not only of its miserable course, but of its contrast with the confederate patriotism of Salamis and Plataea that opened our story, not to be admitted as its natural conclusion.

The land forces and sea forces of Dorians and Ionians, of democracies and aristocracies, of military alike and of com­mercial states, of the rustic almost to rudeness and the refined to the verge of luxury, had then made common cause against the aggressive foreigner and against what few traitorous Greeks were his abettors. The last victorious struggle was consecrated on the spot by solemn pledges of prolonged, of eternal alliance, for the same grand and noble and truly national ends; that very scene of glory and goodwill was now destined to witness its irreparable, inexpiable disrupture. On this same spot Thebes is again to be in conflict with Plataea, and against Athens, but now with Lacedaemonians to aid; Lacedaemonians who, professing the liberation of Hellas, have no earlier thought than to seek the aid and favour of Persia, which could mean nothing less than consent to abandon to the barbarian again the line of glorious cities of which the former struggle had saved some remainder,— not from ruin, it was too late, but from absolute extirpation. Athens, once in the front of united Hellas, has now to suffer from that grudge against the great and glorious, that has left too serious blots on her own renown ; to protect herself from perils and animosities that beset greatness however great, however merited, and that she had unhappily failed to crush in their causes—had failed perhaps fully to apply her genius to

attempt to crush,—from the consequences of ignorance and vice which it is given to no mortal genius to avert or countervail.

It was in the early spring of the year 431 B.C., while as yet no denouncement of a state war had been made formally by heralds, and the sanguine on either side were still, how­ever absurdly, not out of hope of continued peace, that the Athenians were suddenly made aware of the true character and imminence of the struggle to which they were committed ; a hasty night messenger brought word that Plataea had been treacherously surprised by the Thebans, and was then in their occupation. Measures had already been taken to seize every Boeotian on Attic ground, when only a few hours later a second messenger came in with news that the citizens already, before the morning, had risen upon the intruders with success and held the greater part of them captive. A herald was now despatched to bid the Plataeans await the result of deliberations at Athens before dealing with their prisoners; on his return forthwith he had to report that the injunction—probably anticipated—was too late, and that a final decision had already been put in execution before his arrival.

The incident had occurred on this wise. Among the first rewards that the Thebans might naturally promise themselves from the impending war, was the recovery of at least the territory that had been transferred from them to the Plataeans after the defeat of Mardonius and his Greek allies, to say nothing of glutting an ancient revenge; while to those who could postpone vengeance to policy, there seemed a fair opportunity of recovering the city itself by help of a'party within it, whose importance was as usual over-estimated, and reuniting it to the general Boeotian system. Generations of sympathetic intercourse and alliance had made Plataea far more Athenian than it had ever been Boeotian; but when has the materialistic greed for territory or a strengthened position

been checked by such considerations? The often-promised invasion of Attica by the Lacedaemonians could not now be long delayed, and by shutting up the Athenians in their own city would cut off Plataea from any chance of relief, and leave it in its isolation with no prospect but ruin. Even in the time of the Persian war the city had contained sympa­thisers with Thebes and her policy; and among the parties that now were running high there were not wanting some men of position who were more than ever in favour of defec­tion from the Athenian alliance, which was so visibly pregnant with disaster. In the meantime the difficulty of taking a well-defended and well-provided walled town was then so great, as proved in this very instance afterwards, and the annoyance so serious that was to be expected from the city as an advanced hostile post of the Athenians, that the temptation to the Thebans to take advantage of the security in which it was lulled at a time when war was manifestly only waiting for the seasons, and to snatch the prize at once, proved irresistible. Opportunity was offered by traitors within Plataea. A certain Naucleides and his adherents, who as men of family and ¹ wealth were the natural enemies of Athenian democratical ascendency, concerted a scheme with a Theban of importance, Eurymachus son of Leon- tiades, for reuniting their city to the Pan-Boeotian alliance, and securing at the same time the destruction of their own party rivals.

Thucydides sets down with much care in the best way he can contrive, the date of an event that was the very com­mencement of the series of which he proposed to write the history with novel chronological accuracy. It occurred, he says, in the fourteenth year of the peace that had been con­cluded for thirty years after the reconquest of Euboea; in the forty-eighth year of Chrysis as priestess at Argos, the forty-

eighth also, we may add, since the siege of Scstos, with which Herodotus closes his history; when Aincsius was eplior at Sparta, and two months were yet remaining of the archonship of Pythodorus at Athens ; in the sixth month after the battle of Potidaea ; at the commencement of spring, and towards the end of a lunar month, and, as it comes out afterwards, at a time of sacred festival at ¹ Plataea, a circumstance that was in fact probably counted on as reducing the chances of vigilance, and was one day to be remembered as an aggravation of the out­rage. As the Athenian archonship ended at midsummer, we are brought to the end of April 431 B.C., in which month, according to ² Boeckli, the new moon fell on the 7th.

With aid of the traitors and under cover of a moonless night, no difficult}' was apprehended in introducing into Plataea a band of Thebans sufficiently numerous to overawe the townsmen ; a larger body was to follow in support after time allowed for the surprise and seizure. The distance to be traversed was not more than seventy stadia, between eight and nine miles.

The first party numbered a few over three hundred; Eury- machus was among them, but the commanders were the Boeotarchs themselves,—Pythangelus son of Phyleides, and Diemporus son of Onetorides. So unapprehensive were the Plataeans, so undisturbed in their confidence of peace as still subsisting, that not only were population and property out in the unguarded open, but no regular watch was set about the w^ralls and gates of the city. The night turned out stormy, with a very heavy fall of rain ; but in the meantime the advanced party, who had commenced their march as early as darkness would screen it, found a gate opened by Naucleides as agreed upon, and, while the citizens after the excitement of a day of saered festivity were just sunk to sleep, established themselves in the agora without molesta­

tion. The Plataean conspirators, successful so far, were eager and urgent that now was the time to go to work by proceed­ing direct to the lodgings of their enemies. The Boeotarchs however had not joined the expedition without other and larger designs; relying on their gained position, and on the support which was on its way and immediately expected, misled also perhaps by the traitors’ own previous representa­tions as to the general feeling of the citizens, they believed that they had only to abstain from violence to secure Plataea as a voluntary ally instead of as a conquest, and so to hold it by a title of admittedly safer diplomatic ¹ validity. Apart therefore from any misgivings as to the justification of the enterprise, they had no intention to sacrifice this political object to gratify the private spite of traitors for whom they had no further use; taking up regular military position, they made formal proclamation by a herald for all the citizens who consented to adhere to the Pan-Boeotian alliance in accordance with ancient institutions, to join them in arms.

The Plataeans, roused from sleep to find the Thebans already in possession of the city, despatched instantly the first mes­senger to Athens, but, alarmed in the darkness at the sup­posed force of their enemies, proceeded, as soon as it appeared that no positive violence was being committed, to the invited parley; the Thebans could affirm afterwards that they even concluded an agreement, which indeed the native confederates had every motive to hurry ² forward. Among the general body of citizens however there was no disposition whatever to renounce the Athenian alliance, and when closer inter­course betrayed the real numbers of the intruders and sug­gested the possibility of overpowering them, it was at once resolved to make the attempt. While the treaty was still going smoothly on, they set to work on preparations with emulative energy; they busily blocked up all the main

thoroughfares from the agora with waggons, in order both to obstruct exit and to supply defensible barricades, and then pierced the party walls of the adjacent houses so as to afford themselves the means of covert concentration for the moment of sudden attack. No more could be done than the time sufficed for, that would still allow the onset to be made unexpectedly and while the darkness lasted that was relied on to increase the alarm of the enemies and put them at most disadvantage among unfamiliar localities. In all haste therefore, before break of day, the rain all the while pouring down in torrents, they suddenly sallied in the most unexpected manner from the houses and eame at once to a hand to hand fight in a rapid onslaught. The Thebans, on finding how they had been beguiled, at first closed up together and persistently withstood their assailants wher­ever they eame on; and even exhausted as they were by exposure all through the night to relentless rain, succeeded twice or thrice in repulsing them; dismayed however and bewildered by the clamour and assaults of the citizens them­selves and by showers of tiles and stones that the women and servants with screams and outcries hurled upon them from the roofs of the surrounding houses, they soon gave way and fled as they might through the city. Very few were acquainted vith the directions in which flight was still possible,—the main thoroughfares being blocked,—through lanes dark and deep with mud from the rain; and followed as they were by pursuers who knew every turn they must take, many were intercepted and killed. The gate of the city that had been opened to admit them had since been made fast by a Plataean with the spike of a javelin thrust through the bar in place of the removed pin, so that there was no exit even here. Another gate was found unguarded by a party of the fugitives who hewed through the bar with an axe furnished to them by a woman, and some got away here, but not many, as the alarm was soon given. Others,

as they were hunted through the city, managed to get up on the walls and jumped down, but in most cases to perish, in addition to those who were killed dispersedly about the city. The greater number however had kept together in a body, and so far succeeded in making their way through the streets as to reach the walls at a point where they came upon the unfastened doors of a large building; in the belief that these were gates of the city and afforded a passage through to without, they rushed headlong in; the doors were instantly closed behind them and they found themselves caught. The Plataeans were already resolving to set fire to the building and burn them as they were, when they agreed to surrender themselves and their arms, together with whatever other Thebans might still survive about the city, to be dealt with by their captors at discretion.

In the meantime the larger force which was expected from Thebes was still only on its way, delayed by the storm which had made the country roads heavy and so swelled the Asopus as to render it not easily fordable, when it was met by fugitives who announced the miscarriage of the surprise that it was hastening to support. In just apprehension as to the extent of the catastrophe, the first thought of the com­manders was to seize whatever Plataeans and property could be collected in the open country, to serve as hostages and security for any Thebans who might still be alive and prisoners. Even while this was in meditation a herald ar­rived from the Plataeans who already anticipated the danger. They denounced the act of the Thebans in attempting to seize their city during peace as an impious violation of sacred treaties,—that it was nothing less was recognised long after by the conscience of the ¹ Lacedaemonians,—and declared that they would kill the prisoners whom they held at the first violence that should be done to their citizens ¹ Thuc. vii. 18.

without; on the evacuation of their territory they would give the men up. Such at least was the Theban account, and declared to have been confirmed by oaths; and the tone of Thucydides implies that he more than suspected it to be true,—he would otherwise scarcely have allowed the definite statement of fact to precede the qualification so independently. The Plataeans on the other hand affirmed that they had never consented to give up the men at once, but only in case of any agreement being come to after dis­cussion, but with whom does not appear, and perhaps was left diplomatically ambiguous. That they afterwards thought it worth while to deny having taken any oath implies an admission that some concession on their part was at least understood. The Thebans however had as yet no prisoners in hand, and as the threat was instant and peremptory they may have been scarcely in a position, considering the irri­tating circumstances and what lives were in jeopardy, to insist on the full stipulation. In result they refrained from inflicting any damage and retired, and then the Plataeans hastened to withdraw their moveable property within the protection of the walls, and without waiting for com­munications from Athens that might check their eager vin­dictiveness, put all their prisoners to death, to the number of iSo, without delay or mercy; Eurymachus, who had practised with the traitors, was among them.

Within a few years the fortune of war reversed the position of Thebans and Plataeans, but only gave occasion for the bad example to be followed, of allowing vengeance to override all considerations of either policy or generosity, of humanity or prudence. When the time came that Plataea was forced to surrender to the Lacedaemonians, two hundred Plataeans pleaded vainly in their turn for honest observance of con­ditions that were only granted to be illusory, against the Thebans who were too important to their allies not to be indulged in what seemed such natural reprisals. Alcidas the

Lacedaemonian admiral had shortly before even slaughtered captives indiscriminately who had never borne arms at all, while the Athenians on their part had eagerly responded to the provocation by killing Salaethus the Lacedaemonian in all haste, without regard to the chance of bartering his immunity for the benefit of their besieged Plataean allies, and presently in cold blood put to death above a thousand revolted Mitylenians. At a later date they settled the refugee Plataeans in the territory of Scione, which they had cleared upon its capture after revolt by putting all males of the age of puberty to death, and selling the women and children as slaves; the Lacedaemonians who had encouraged their revolt having left them unprotected in their treaty just before. So the accumulation of ever-gathering guilt went on, until every considerable city in the length and breadth of Hellas had been drenched with slaughter by Hellenic hands, and the mischief came to forced cessation at last by exhaustion chiefly of the vitality that it preyed on. As the Peloponnesian war commenced so it was destined to conclude; after the last fatal battle of Aegospotamos, which virtually brought it to an end by the destruction of the last Athenian fleet, a sanguinary threat—whether fact or not—was pretext sufficient for the Spartan commander to massacre in cold blood three thousand prisoners, including their generals.

After such an event as the Boeotian outrage, preparations for hostilities both at Sparta and Athens could only be instant, eager, undisguised. It was still early¹ spring when Archidamus reached the isthmus and the frontiers of Attica, at the head of the Lacedaemonian army and two thirds of the forces of the allied Peloponnesians, and with the large supplies required for the proposed campaign. He was in full expectation that notwithstanding his great strength the war would begin with a battle; it seemed impossible that the Athenians, even if they did not oppose the invasion in the first instance, should ¹ Thuc. v. 20.

not soon give way to the impulses of indignation when they beheld their country ravaged and were themselves enduring what they had so often and so proudly inflicted on others. He took occasion therefore to prepare the commanders of his mixed forces for a very severe and impetuous conflict, and especially to urge that 110 blind confidence in superior numbers should induce neglect of discipline,—of implicit obedience to orders in the face of a foe of such known energy and so fiercely exasperated.

Even yet he would not quite renounce the hope that some concession might be wrung from the Athenians by the de­monstration how positively Sparta was in earnest, and so the last arbitrement of war be averted—war that it was to the honour of his nature that, commander and king as he was, he had learned by very familiarity with it to ¹ abhor. He made therefore one more attempt to open negotiations, notwith­standing the murmurs of the allies, who grudged delay that the Athenians were availing themselves of to secure their

²        property. He despatched as envoy a Spartiat, Melesippus son of Diacritus, but his mission was vain. The Athe­nians, wound up to reliance on the counsels of their strategus Pericles, had already taken their measures and decided their plans. Their resolution was finally nerved to the height of the occasion which, long anticipated, long foreboded, had come at last. Their authority over the confederation might have passed into something too much resembling a tyranny, but there it was, as difficult to resign as it might be to retain ; Pericles was himself quite clear, and had succeeded in convinc­ing the demus, that there was no other choice but to abdicate their position entirely or fight out the quarrel at all risks and sacrifices. By the very scheme and completion of their ports and arsenals and long walls, as by the whole course of their policy, they had given a challenge to Hellas, and it was now

the occasion to prove that they had the courage to answer all its consequences. The open country of Attica with all its wealth that could not be transported, with all its delights and luxuries and freedom, had to be, and had already been, abandoned to coming spoil and ruin and insult; if Pericles might have absolutely ruled, Athenians hands would have avouched Athenian resolution by anticipating Lacedaemonian in the work of destruction.

As it was, the sacrifice could not be made without severe pangs. The Athenians had a peculiar affection for domestic life in the country, a survival, so Thucydides believed, from the primaeval habits of the population in days before the scattered townships, under an influence which he ascribes to Theseus,—under an influence certainly of prime historical importance,—renounced loose organisation to share a single government and recognise a common religious bond about the central Athenian acropolis. It is to the sense of power that was generated by this union, however originated and carried through, that must be ascribed very much of that proud self­consciousness of the Athenian demus which, however latent in the background, was ever a most powerful influence in political history. The public opinion of Athens was swayed from time to time by demagogues and the orators of the day, who might guide or misguide opinion according to the measure of their talents or wisdom ; but the energy of the people, whether for good or ill, was due to a public spirit that was felt as a general inheritance from a noble ancestry, and that asserted itself again and again after grossest errors and direst reverses, as destined to natural sovereignty. It was this primaeval union and the spirit that its hearty acceptation had produced, that made possible the might that Athens had certainly exercised in the centuries of the great colonisations, and that was the basis of her later and more happily recorded empire. But even at this later period Thucydides still rccognised sur­viving traces of the earlier state of things in the diversity of

religious traditions and celebrations that were localised in the various, country districts, and so cherished that to quit them was felt like expulsion from a native seat. Still more than by the rich who had to abandon seats of delightful retirement, was this felt by a portion of the population that seems not to have been few in numbers, a resident yeomanry—agricultural proprietors. These men were fully entitled to the franchise and rights of citizens when they did present themselves at the assembly, but did so rarely and ever with decreasing chance of influencing a division, as the constant extension of the city gave vast preponderance to the classes who were always on the spot, and had but rare attachments to properly rural interests.

Euripides ¹ describes the characteristics of the country citizen who interposes in a debate at Argos, in opposition to a suborned orator : —

‘ Another rose who controverted him,

Of form ungainly yet a manly man,

But rarely seen to speck city and agora,

A yeoman (avrovpyos)—such the country’s sole salvation,

But shrewd,—disposed for ways that march with words,

.Sincere, and practised in an unblamed life.’

The plays of Aristophanes supply abundant Athenian illustrations and parallels of the unsophisticated but shrewd cultivator whose shrewdness may be no match for the im­posing orator at first, but who sooner or later reverts indig­nantly to common sense. In the Peace, the agriculturists— the yecapyoi—are so represented as to imply that the farmers of their own land were numerous in Attica, and they are the only class who give a hand heartily to haul the goddess Eirene out of her well, and succeed at last when they have all the work to ² themselves, to the disgust of all the traders and manufacturers, the contractors of antiquity, the oracle vendors and intriguers for military commands, to whom prospect

of peace was as hateful as to the very slaves for whom war was the dawn of hopeful escape to freedom. ^f O day,’ they exclaim, ‘so longed for by the right-minded, by the agri­cultural, how fain would I behold you and greet my vines again, how eager am I from long long ago to salute again the fig-trees that I planted as a boy. . . . Think but, O men, of the way of life of the old days that the goddess provided us, of country cates and figs and myrtles, of the sweet must, of the bank of violets about the well, the olives and all that we have had to regret, and for all render thanks to the recovered goddess/ And later in the play occurs another picture of the neighbourly junketing and domestic happiness and plenty in the country which, taken from nature, is true to nature for all ¹ time.

To what extent the violence that was inflicted on such habits was resented we can only infer,—resisted it could not be in the face of the decision of the civic assembly, which was powerful enough to overrule also the resistance or reluctance of the wealthy, who knew too well what sacrifice both of wealth and ease would be demanded of them in a state of war. The condition of sacrifice on all hands had become inevitable, and was recognised at last to be so, and then was resolutely made. Athens would not have been Athens had she not resolved, in the last resort, to abide by the determination so long and so definitely announced, to withdraw in case of a formidable invasion of Attica within her walls and secured connection with the port; and thence, in virtue of maritime superiority, backed by large accumulated treasure, to assert and maintain empire over islands and peninsulas and sea-coast cities, and regardless of any treatment whatever of her own home territory, to so harass that of her enemies, so cripple their resources and trade and generally vex their population, as to bring to terms the strongest confederation that could be formed against her empire.

¹ Aristoph. Peacc, 1130-1170.

Such was the policy that the Athenians on the advice of Pericles, and after whatever hopes and hesitations and mis­givings, were now wound up to taking their stand upon with all its perils and responsibilities. How just was his confidence in the courage and resources of Athens, was proved to the astonishment of her enemies by the course of the war. One, two, or three years at the utmost were assigned at its com­mencement to her possible resistance should the Pelopon­nesians at last really invade Attica; yet in the seventeenth year after the first incursion, and after being harassed by a hostile post permanently established on their territory, they were to be found with powers of resistance not too exhausted to deter them from even the Sicilian ¹ war.

When Melesippus presented himself, the clearance of the country had already been completed as far as was practicable, the cattle and stock of the farms carried over to Euboea and the smaller islands, families moved into the city with furni­ture, utensils, and even wooden fittings of the dwellings. The extended area that had been given to the city by the walls of Themistoeles might have been insufficient for the increased population of Attica even though it had not been already covered by the progress of building. The overcrowd­ing was extreme, and was soon to have more serious conse­quences than inconvenience. The space between the Long Walls was fully occupied, and all sacred enclosures except only very few; and the refugees overflowed still into the towers on the walls and any the vilest shelter. The intrusion into the Pelasgicon was held by some to have been forbidden by an oracle, and to have involved the punishment of desecra­tion. Thucydides disallows this with something of the air of repudiating a superstitious notion, and yet he seems scarcely equal to disallowing all value in the oracle, as he provides the god with an equivocation that saves his credit; the prediction,

rightly read, imported not that to occupy the Pelasgicon was unlucky, but that ill luck would be marked by the occu­pation.

But even so the resolution of the Athenians was staunch, and it was determined, in accordance with the advice of Pericles, that no communication should be entertained from the Lace­daemonians, either by herald or envoy, so long as they had a hostile army in the field. Melesippus therefore was ad­mitted neither to the general assembly nor to the council. He was commanded to quit Attica the same day, with the notification that further intercourse must be by formal em­bassy from Sparta after the army had retired home. A guard conducted him to the frontier under orders to prevent his holding communication with any person whatever on the way; there he was dismissed, his message undelivered, his demands undeclared, but not without his utterance of one too true a presage for the escort to carry back from him, as he parted:—‘ This day,’ he said, * is to be the beginning of great calamities to the Hellenes/—ort 17'Se ■>) rjiiipa rot? ^f'EAA^crt ptyaXvv kclk&v ¹ ap£a.

¹ TIjuc. ii. 12.

CONCLUSION.

Pericles survived the commencement of the war two years and a half, and for so long he succeeded, though against great excitement and under some experience of the vacillating support characteristic of the masses—the phrase of Thucy­dides is significant indeed from such a ¹ writer—in holding the Athenians to the policy on which he counted for success; such was the extraordinary power of the state at this time, that Thucydides believes the confidence to have been fully justifiable, and that not even the infraction of his policy by the Sicilian enterprise would have had results of the last seriousness but for more deeply-seated mischief in the conduct of the people and their political constitution.

In the first of these years the Athenians saw from their walls the army of the allied Peloponnesians in occupation of Acharnae, the most important of their townships, and ravag­ing the plains around and between the mountains Parne and Brilessus ; destroying, that is, whatever could be destroyed of works of cultivation and industry, and not merely annual crops, but the olive and vine and fig and other productive trees, a loss irreparable for years.

The next year, but earlier in the summer, the invading

¹ Thuc. ii. 65, oirrp     opiXos irotuv. Cf. ib. iv. 28; viii. I.

force made a longer and more relentlessly destructive ¹ stay of forty days, during* which they completed the devastation of the plains round Athens and of the length and breadth of the country, as far as the Laurian silver mines and the promontory of Sunium.

Athens at home could only protect the country immediately adjacent to the walls by aid of the cavalry of her Thessalian allies, but was not wanting on her part in contributing to the calamities that Hellas was beginning to reap in abundance from this quarrel. The first blow fell on the Aeginetans, who had too notoriously and too rashly helped forward the war not to be, in their exposed situation, amongst the first and severest sufferers. Their island was cleared of its ancient possessors, man, woman, and child, and assigned forthwith to Athenian occupants and owners. A certain number of the deported Aeginetans dispersed themselves over Hellas, but others settled together at Thyrea, a maritime district that was granted to them by the Lacedaemonians on their Argive frontier. In this position they made themselves the adherents of Sparta, and speedily incurred the sanguinary vengeance of Athens. The costly siege of Potidaea was still proceeding, a strain on even Athenian energies and resources, but never­theless a force of one thousand hoplites and four hundred archers‘was despatched in one hundred ships to harass Pelo­ponnesus in the absence of so large a proportion as two-thirds of its defenders. Fifty more ships of Corcyra and other western allies joined, and after annoying the coasts, an at­tempt was made upon Metlione, at the west of the Laconian territory. The town was saved by a reinforcement that reached it by a bold dash under Brasidas son of Tellis, whose name occurs thus early in the war to reappear again and again during its course, and always importantly. The sea­board of Elis was then visited with hostilities, and Corinthian settlements or allies about the mouths of the Achelous ; and  in conclusion Cepliallcnia was gained for the Athenian con­federacy without a battle.

Another expedition in thirty ships was concurrently directed against Locris, ravaged its coasts, even captured Thronion, and brought away hostages and gained a battle. It was important to secure Euboea against violence from this side, and a station was established against both enemies and pirates on the previously desert island of Atalante, off the Opuntian coast.

The activity of the year was not yet exhausted—this year of foretaste of calamity and discord. No sooner was Attica evacuated by Archidamus, than the time came in the autumn for the Megarians to be dealt with, as the rancour which they had displayed might have led them too surely to expect. Pericles himself took the command of the largest force that Athens, now in the full flush of unimpaired strength and population, had ever sent out, reinforced as it- was by that which had already returned with the fleet from Peloponnesus. This was the first, and no doubt the most destructive, of the annual incursions into the Megarid that continued to be made throughout the war in accordance with the vindictive Athenian decree. Three triremes also were permanently sta­tioned at Salami s, that cut off the Megarians from all ingress or egress on this side by ¹ sea.

At the beginning of the next summer, however, almost exactly at the reappearance of the Lacedaemonian invaders, broke out in Athens the dreadful plague, of foreign origin, but more than naturalised within the close and excessively over­crowded city, that was to confound by its consequences all the calculations of Pericles, to dishearten and disturb the people, though not indeed to a degree beyond his power to revive their resolution and regain their confidence; more fatally, to reduce very seriously their strength and numbers, their fighting power; most fatally of all to remove disproportionately the better spirits of its social system, and to leave behind germs of moral deterioration in the very blood of the polity that turned all remaining energy to embarrassing selfishness and factious struggle.

The physical operation of the mischief is described by Thucydides in painful detail, but not with more emphasis than the unhappy moral canker to which the fall of Athens was so largely due. The recklessness and heartlessness, the shamelessness before God and man of those who were living* in constant apprehension of miserable death that seemed to visit indifferently the good and the bad, the wise or the imprudent, are set forth by the historian in terms that do but anticipate, in the case of plague and pestilence, the demoralisation that he has soon to put on record as consequent on the miseries of the persistent scourge of war.

Pericles had no successor as a single ruling mind endowed with a self-control only equalled by power of controlling the wild impulses of the democracy. Those who followed him had no better resource than to bid against each other for the favour of the assembly by flatteries and assentation, and a private end in every case took the place that is due to a noble patriotic purpose.

So far as political well-being can only be saved by the interposition of heaven-born genius, it may seem that human prudence is absolved from forethought. This is the master­stroke in the game of political life that is reserved by a power beyond human ken and human control. Still, even if this must be so, the warnings of history are not entirely worthless if they teach us that genius itself has double value when acting through the social condition, and this at least does not seem so entirely withdrawn from our influence and culture. But here the historian must resign to the philosopher; it is to him the world must look to determine the problem how social intelligence and morals can be so disciplined as best to favour the development of high-minded genius, to supply it with best aids and instruments when it does appear, and when it is not vouchsafed to us, to relieve to the utmost the mis­fortune of the world in being driven to rely on the common­place and second-rate perforce.

Of the statesmen who have reached the brink of such a conflict as the history has now conducted us to, few indeed of those to whom is due any considerable influence in the origin and conduct of wars, have claim to the credit of truest statesmanlike wisdom. The forecast of a threatening danger and the roused instinct of self-preservation have doubtless hurried ere now the wisest and most high-minded and some­times even the most collected to turn prematurely into the war-path; and the inborn weakness of humanity may, in some such cases, be condoned. But occasional lapses of the better spirits are far from constituting the majority of the mistakes that reputed statesmanship has to be ashamed of. As the vast movement of the drama of civilisation unfolds independently, it is for ever falsifying the anticipations and convicting of shallowness the most concerted projects of the selfish, the shrewd, and the unscrupulous. Even when violence and fraud, when war and diplomacy are hugging themselves on what seems unqualified success, the turn of a single leaf of the book wherein all has to be written, is constantly ready to demon­strate that as their designs were sinister the end of all their exertion has, happily for the world, been no less antagonistic to their intentions than to their hopes and wishes; that they prove to have been engaged in consolidating the very powers which they designed to dissipate ; in endowing with moral force those whom they deemed to have disabled for all time by mulcting of material; and that while doing their deadliest to promote social subservience, they have only obstructed for a time and that to the quickening afterwards, the triumph of free action and unfettered thought, of class-emaneipation and enlightenment.

Refuse we not then our tribute of admiration to a statesman who even as nearly as Pericles, to a population that for all its errors and shortcomings, with as effectual a sincerity as the Athenians, are proved to have co-operated, and to so large an extent not unconsciously, with the main purpose of the system to which our human life belongs; who exerted noble powers and unrivalled energies in a direction so extensively coincident with that along which, by influence of the Divinity that shapes the ends even of enemies, the best interests of our race seem beneficently destined, if only through many a struggle and after long ages, to make good a really successful and permanent advance.

THE END.