Part 11 (1/2)

Some of the responses of the oracle contained plain and wholesome advice; but very many of them, particularly those that implied a knowledge of the future, were obscure and ingeniously ambiguous, so that they might correspond with the event however affairs should turn. Thus, Croesus is told that, if he undertake an expedition against Persia, he will destroy a great empire. He did, indeed;--but the empire was his own.

The Delphian oracle was at the height of its fame before the Persian War; in that crisis it did not take a bold or patriotic stand, and its reputation was sensibly impaired.

IDEAS OF THE FUTURE.--To the Greeks life was so bright and joyous a thing that they looked upon death as a great calamity. They therefore pictured life after death, except in the case of a favored few, as being hopeless and aimless. [Footnote: Homer makes the shade of the great Achilles in Hades to say:-- ”I would be A laborer on earth, and serve for hire Some man of mean estate, who makes scant cheer, Rather than reign o'er all who have gone down To death.”--_Od._ XI. 489-90 [Bryant's Trans.].] The Elysian Fields, away in the land of sunset, were, indeed, filled with every delight; but these were the abode only of the great heroes and benefactors of the race.

So long as the body remained unburied, the soul wandered restless in Hades; hence the sacredness of the rites of sepulture.

THE SACRED GAMES.--The celebrated games of the Greeks had their origin in the belief of their Aryan ancestors that the souls of the dead were gratified by such spectacles as delighted them during their earthly life.

During the Heroic Age these festivals were simply sacrifices or games performed at the tomb, or about the pyre of the dead. Gradually these grew into religious festivals observed by an entire city or community, and were celebrated near the oracle or shrine of the G.o.d in whose honor they were inst.i.tuted; the idea now being that the G.o.ds were present at the festival, and took delight in the various contests and exercises.

Among these festivals, four acquired a world-wide celebrity. These were the Olympian, celebrated in honor of Zeus, at Olympia, in the Peloponnesus; the Pythian, in honor of Apollo, near his shrine and oracle at Delphi; the Nemean, in honor of Zeus, at Nemea; and the Isthmian, held in honor of Poseidon, on the isthmus of Corinth.

THE OLYMPIAN GAMES.--Of these four festivals the Olympian secured the greatest renown. In 776 B.C. Coroebus was victor in the foot-race at Olympia, and as from that time the names of the victors were carefully registered, that year came to be used by the Greeks as the starting-point in their chronology. The games were held every fourth year, and the interval between two successive festivals was known as an Olympiad.

The contests consisted of foot-races, boxing, wrestling, and other athletic games. Later, chariot-racing was introduced, and became the most popular of all the contests. The compet.i.tors must be of the h.e.l.lenic race; and must, moreover, be unblemished by any crime against the state or sin against the G.o.ds. Spectators from all parts of the world crowded to the festival.

The victor was crowned with a garland of wild olive; heralds proclaimed his name abroad; his native city received him as a conqueror, sometimes through a breach made in the city walls; his statues, executed by eminent artists, were erected at Olympia and in his own city; sometimes even divine honor and wors.h.i.+p were accorded to him; and poets and orators vied with the artist in perpetuating the name and deeds of him who had reflected undying honor upon his native state.

INFLUENCE OF THE GRECIAN GAMES.--For more than a thousand years these national festivals exerted an immense influence upon the literary, social, and religious life of h.e.l.las. They enkindled among the widely scattered h.e.l.lenic states and colonies a common literary taste and enthusiasm; for into all the four great festivals, excepting the Olympian, were introduced, sooner or later, contests in poetry, oratory, and history.

During the festivals, poets and historians read their choicest productions, and artists exhibited their masterpieces. The extraordinary honors accorded to the victors stimulated the contestants to the utmost, and strung to the highest tension every power of body and mind. To this fact we owe some of the grandest productions of the Greek race.

They moreover promoted intercourse and trade; for the festivals became great centres of traffic and exchange during the continuance of the games.

They softened, too, the manners of the people, turning their thoughts from martial exploits and giving the states respite from war; for during the month in which the religious games were held it was sacrilegious to engage in military expeditions. In all these ways, though they never drew the states into a common political union, still they did impress a common character upon their social, intellectual, and religious life.

THE AMPHICTYONIC COUNCIL.--Closely connected with the religious festivals were the so-called Amphictyonies, or ”leagues of neighbors.” These were a.s.sociations of a number of cities or tribes for the celebration of religious rites at some shrine, or for the protection of some particular temple.

Pre-eminent among all such unions was that known as the Delphic Amphictyony, or simply The Amphictyony. This was a league of twelve of the sub-tribes of h.e.l.las, whose main object was the protection of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Another of its purposes was, by humane regulations, to mitigate the cruelties of war.

The so-called First Sacred War (600-590 B.C.) was a crusade of ten years carried on by the Amphictyons against the cities of Crissa and Cirrha for their robbery of the treasures of the Delphian temple. The cities were finally taken, levelled to the ground, and the wrath of the G.o.ds invoked upon any one who should dare to rebuild them. The spoils of the war were devoted to the establishment of musical contests in honor of the Delphian Apollo. Thus originated the renowned Pythian festivals, to which allusion has just been made.

CHAPTER XII.

AGE OF THE TYRANTS AND OF COLONIZATION: THE EARLY GROWTH OF SPARTA AND OF ATHENS.

(776-500 B.C.)

1. AGE OF THE TYRANTS AND OF COLONIZATION.

THE TYRANTS.--In the Heroic Age the preferred form of government was a patriarchal monarchy. The _Iliad_ says, ”The rule of many is not a good thing: let us have one ruler only,--one king,--him to whom Zeus has given the sceptre.” But by the dawn of the historic period, the patriarchal monarchies of the Achaean age had given place, in almost all the Grecian cities, to oligarchies or aristocracies.

THE OLIGARCHIES GIVE WAY TO TYRANNIES.--The n.o.bles into whose hands the ancient royal authority thus pa.s.sed were often divided among themselves, and invariably opposed by the common freemen, who, as they grew in intelligence and wealth, naturally aspired to a place in the government.

The issue of long contentions was the overthrow almost everywhere of oligarchical government and the establishment of the rule of a single person.

Usually this person was one of the n.o.bility, who held himself out as the champion of the people, and who with their help usurped the government.

One who had thus seized the government was called a tyrant. By this term the Greeks did not mean one who rules harshly, but simply one who holds the supreme authority in the state illegally. Some of the Greek Tyrants were mild and beneficent rulers, though too often they were all that the name implies among us.

But the Greeks always had an inextinguishable hatred of arbitrary rule; consequently the Tyrannies were, as a rule, short-lived, rarely lasting longer than three generations. They were usually violently overthrown, and the old oligarchies re-established, or democracies set up in their place.

As a rule, the Dorian cities preferred oligarchical, and the Ionian cities democratical, government. The so-called Age of the Tyrants lasted from 650 to 500 B.C.