Part 9 (1/2)

How a slight deviation from truth may suffice to give birth in time to a mighty and progressive error, is strongly exemplified in the fundamental doctrine of the ancient religion of Persia--a doctrine which was at first nothing more than a simple veneration of Nature, its pure elements and its primary energies--the sacred fire, and above all, light--the air, not the lower atmospheric air, but the purer and higher air of heaven--the breath that animates and pervades the breath of mortal life.

In India, too, this doctrine must have been very prevalent in the primitive ages; for many and very ancient pa.s.sages of the Vedas refer to these elements, while on the other hand, the names of the later Hindoo divinities appear to have been entirely unknown at that period. This pure and simple veneration of nature is perhaps the most ancient, and was by far the most generally prevalent in the primitive and Patriarchal world. In its original conception, it was by no means a deification of Nature, or a denial of the sovereignty of G.o.d--it was only at a later period that the symbol, as it so often happens, was confounded with the thing itself, and usurped the place of that higher Object which it was destined originally to represent. And how can we doubt that these pure elements and primitive essences of created Nature would offer to the first men, who were still in a close communication with the Deity, not indeed a likeness or resemblance (for in man alone is that to be found), nor a mere fanciful image, or a poetical figure, but a natural and true symbol of divine power;--how can we doubt this, I say, when we see that, in so many pa.s.sages of Holy Writ (not to say in every part), the pure light or sacred fire is employed as an image of the all-pervading and all-consuming power and omnipotence of G.o.d? Not to speak again of those pa.s.sages of scripture, which describe the animating breath and inspiration of G.o.d as the first source of life, and speak of the gentle breath, the light whisper of the breeze that announced to the prophet the immediate presence of his G.o.d, before whom he fell prostrate, and mantled himself in awe and reverence; and this surely cannot be understood as a poetical and figurative expression! Undoubtedly the scriptures often oppose to that natural emblem or veil of divine power, in the pure elements, an evil, subterraneous and destructive fire--the false light of the fiends of error--the poisonous breath of moral contagion. And how could it be otherwise? Nature in its origin was nought else than a beautiful image--a pure emanation--a wonderful creation--a sport of omnipotent love; so, when it was severed from its divine original, internally displaced, and turned against its Maker, it became vitiated in its substance, and fraught with evil. This alienation of Nature from G.o.d, this inversion of the right order in the relations between G.o.d and Nature, was the peculiar, essential and fundamental error of ancient Paganism, its false Mysteries, and the abusive application of the higher powers of Nature in magical rites. On the other hand, we ought to regard every similar inversion of things and of ideas, every similar derangement in the divine system, though established on the basis of Christianity, and by Christian philosophers--we ought, I say, to regard every such attempt as being in its essential nature and principle a heathen enterprise--the foundation of a scientific Paganism, although no altars be erected to Apollo, and no Mysteries be celebrated in honour of Isis.[61]

The pure symbolism of Nature, and the whole circle of the primitive symbolical ideas of the Egyptians, several of the Greek writers attempted to gather out of the ma.s.s of idolatrous tenets, natural emblems, and hieroglyphic signs of speech; but their researches do not correspond to the importance of the subject itself, nor to the present demands of science. It is well worthy of remark that the hieroglyphics, as far as they have yet been deciphered, do not indicate in their formation that variety of epochs observable in the Chinese system of writing; but on the contrary they seem to be all of a single cast, and offer the same circle of ideas and the same style of emblems. And as images of G.o.ds are to be found in a diminutive form among the other hieroglyphic signs, we may conclude from this circ.u.mstance, that all the hieroglyphics must have had a simultaneous origin, and have remained subsequently unchanged; and that their origin must have occurred at a time when the Egyptian idolatry had already been wrought into a perfect system.

In the primitive ages, during the first thirty-three centuries of the world, according to the ordinary computation, the various nations into which mankind were divided, followed in their development a separate and secluded course; and two mighty nations, the Indians and the Chinese, have remained to this day in this isolated and totally sequestered state. The peculiar character which distinguishes the second from the first epoch of the world is that, along with the first mighty conquests, there existed a much closer connection, a mutual influence, an active commerce, and various intercourse among many nations, nay, among all the nations of the then civilized world. From this period, when the intercourse among nations becomes more intimate, History acquires greater clearness, precision, and critical exactness; and this is only six, or at most seven centuries before the Christian era. The first Persian conquerors advanced with rapid strides towards the objects of their ambition; for after the founder of the Persian empire--Cyrus, had made himself master of the whole central region of Western Asia, as well as of the Lesser Asia, his successes were soon followed up by the conquest of Egypt by the arms of Cambyses; and a little subsequent to this, by the great expedition of Xerxes into Greece, whose valiant defenders, however, ruined his hopes of conquest. Egypt, which in its intellectual character, civilization, and political inst.i.tutions, had a much stronger a.n.a.logy and affinity with those two great primitive states--India and China, shut out from the rest of the world, was engaged in political relations with the nations of Western Asia, and those inhabiting the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, such as the Persians, the Phnicians, and the Greeks; and hence a short sketch of its political history, down to the period of the Persian conquest, as far at least as is necessary for the elucidation of general history, will not be here inappropriate or misplaced.

The long list of names of kings, belonging to more than twenty dynasties of the ancient Pharaohs, furnishes indeed matter of little interest or importance to the philosophic enquirer in his researches on universal history. It is, however, worthy of remark that many and vast expeditions appear to have been undertaken in the early ages of Egypt; though, while mention is made of such conquests, nothing is said of the permanent possession of the conquered countries. Sesostris, who, in the lifetime of his father, Amenophis, had seized the whole coast of Arabia, next vanquished, for the first time, Lybia and Ethiopia, afterwards extended his conquests to Bactriana, subdued the Scythian nations in the Caucasian countries, in Colchis, and as far as the Don, and even took possession of Thrace. The descent of the Colchians from the Egyptians, or the existence of an Egyptian colony in Colchis, was regarded by the ancients as an historical fact. The yet more ancient King Osymandas is said to have undertaken an expedition, attended by an immense army, to reconquer Bactriana that had revolted against the Egyptian sway; and the triumphant arms of Osiris stretched on one hand as far as the Ganges, and on the other as far as the sources of the Danube. Here a question arises:--did the Egyptians possess heroic poems similar to the Ramayana and Mahabarata of the Indians, and were these marvellous narratives extracted from these poems? Or had all these narratives a signification purely mythic, as we may easily conjecture to be the case in the expedition of Osiris? In those historical ages which are better known to us, Egypt was certainly never a conquering power--at least its conquests were never of a solid and permanent nature; though even in those times Egypt made some transient conquests, or at least expeditions; and, guilty of great political encroachments on other states and nations, was often doomed to experience from these a vigorous resistance to her attempts. A part of Libya, the coast of Arabia contiguous to the Red Sea, and the Arabia Petraea, acknowledged for a long time the sceptre of the Pharaohs, (and this fact indeed, the various monuments covered over with hieroglyphics, which are found in those countries, would seem to corroborate): Ethiopia, too, or at least a considerable portion of that region, was for a long period in the possession of the Egyptian kings.

The construction of the many ancient and vast edifices and monuments which are crowded together in the province of Thebais must, to all appearance, have required a greater number of hands than the Proper Egypt (a country by no means of considerable extent) could have furnished of itself. As Ethiopia had been conquered by the Egyptians, so the Ethiopians in their turn invaded Egypt, and founded there a royal dynasty. The second of these Ethiopian kings, Tirhaka, sought to stretch his conquests as far as Libya and the Northern coast of Africa, and must have penetrated as far as the columns of Hercules, or the modern straits of Gibraltar. On the other hand, there is historical evidence that even the Carthaginians, at the time when the family of Mago had the ascendancy in their state, conquered and took possession of the Egyptian city of Thebes. The king of Egypt, who is known in the historical books of the Hebrews by the name of s.h.i.+shak, and who made the transient conquest of Jerusalem, is called Sheshonk or Sesonchis in the ancient inscriptions of the Pharaohs.

It is worthy of remark that we find, in the old Egyptian monuments, pictures of war-scenes representing very strangely-formed, or at least very remote, nations, as captives of war, and among these, we distinguish some with red hair and blue eyes, tattooed on the legs, perfectly corresponding to the descriptions which many ancients have left us of the Scythian nations. At a much earlier period, a Nomade tribe of Phnician, or, most probably, Arabian descent, had taken possession of the throne of Egypt, and had established in that country the national dynasty of the Hycsos, that is to say, the Shepherd-kings.

Some have wished to connect these with the Israelites; but in the whole history of the latter--the hospitable reception of the Hebrew colony under Joseph--its subsequent oppression--and its final expulsion from Egypt in the time of Moses, we can find no trace of any such dominion of a pastoral nation of Hebrews, or of any dynasty founded by them in Egypt; and even other circ.u.mstances agree not at all with such a supposition. With the neighbouring nations and tribes, Egypt had manifold and various relations, which, though in some particulars they might be similar, were far from being identical. If it is proved that Sesostris ascended the throne immediately after his father had succeeded in expelling the Hycsos, it may fairly be presumed that as an internal revolt against a foreign power and a foreign dynasty is wont to enkindle a spirit of martial enthusiasm, which easily leads to ulterior and more vigorous undertakings; the expeditions and conquests of Sesostris, though ever so much exaggerated, are not entirely dest.i.tute of historical foundation. Thus much is certain, that in antiquity there existed in many places, comparatively remote from Egypt, whole colonies, especially of a sacerdotal kind, whose origin was undoubtedly Egyptian; and that the first colonies which carried arts and civilization into Greece, and the other countries bordering on the Mediterranean; did not come solely from Phnicia; for even in Greece, the genealogy of many royal families and ancient cities, as well as most, if not all, the Mysteries, particularly the Orphic, pointed to Egypt as their common parent. And it is very possible that in those early ages, in which these Egyptian expeditions are said to have been undertaken, armed colonies may have emigrated from Egypt, not always influenced however by those commercial views which invariably directed the colonists of Phnicia; but animated by those higher motives of religion, which, for example, had such an evident influence on the first Persian conquests--by a desire to diffuse the Mysteries, and thereby, while they bound to Egypt the then still barbarous nations of the West, to raise the latter to the more exalted scale of Egyptian civilization. Even domestic troubles and civil discord may have been instrumental in producing those distant emigrations, which at this distance of time appear to us so mysterious and unaccountable. Such civil discord indeed existed in Egypt under various forms. The country itself was often divided into several kingdoms; and even when united, we observe a great conflict of interests between the agricultural province of Upper Egypt, and the commercial and manufacturing province of the Lower; as indeed a similar clas.h.i.+ng of interests is often to be noticed in modern states. In the period immediately preceding the Persian conquest, the caste of warriors, that is to say, the whole cla.s.s of n.o.bility were decidedly opposed to the monarchs, because they imagined them to promote too much the power of the priesthood; in the same way as the history of India presents a similar rivalry or political hostility between the Brahmins and the caste of the Cshatriyas. In the reign of the Egyptian king Psammetichus, who had first checked or repelled the Scythian nations whose victorious arms then menaced the whole of Asia, this disaffection of the native n.o.bility obliged this prince to take Greek soldiers into his pay; and thus at length was the defence of Egypt intrusted to an army of foreign mercenaries. This circ.u.mstance, as well as the great commercial intercourse with the Greeks, and the number of Greek settlements in Lower Egypt, had made this province half Greek even prior to the Persian conquest; and had paved the way, and opened the door, to this, as well as to the later, conquest by the Greeks: for, in general, states and kingdoms, before they succ.u.mb to a foreign conqueror, are, if not outwardly and visibly, yet secretly and internally undermined.

The cla.s.sical writers of antiquity begin in general their universal history by an account of the a.s.syro-Babylonian empire, which preceded the Medo-Persian, and the annals of the early mythic ages of this empire are embellished with the fabulous victories of Semiramis; as similar fictions indeed are to be found in the primitive Sagas of all the other Asiatic nations. However, the conquest of Media by Ninus, appears to be more historical. The simplest, and for that reason, the most correct view of the subject is this, that in this great central region of Western Asia, four countries were contiguous, which often formed separate empires--Babylon and a.s.syria, Media and Persia; and which, when united, were governed sometimes by one, sometimes by another province, according to the country to which the ruling dynasty belonged; while the different capitals of these four countries, Babylon, Ninive, Ecbatana, Susa, or Persepolis alternately formed during their flouris.h.i.+ng period the centre of a great empire. This first a.s.syro-Babylonian universal monarchy, as it is called, should not be considered as a distinct period of history, but rather as the most ancient dynasty of a great Asiatic empire, which was succeeded by a second, the Medo-Persian dynasty; in the same way as the successors of Alexander the Great founded in this very country a new Greek kingdom, and as at a later period the Parthians, whose original seat lay to the North-east, re-established in this land a native sovereignty, that proved very formidable to the Romans. This great middle country of Western Asia is the native seat of conquest; it was hence that emanated the spirit of ambition and enterprise, which found indeed in the very situation of the country most extraordinary facilities. And it is here, too, that Holy Writ places the abode of the first universal conqueror--the cradle of all ambition and conquest. In the very place where the ancient Babylon stood there are now immense ruins, to which the inhabitants of the country give the name of Nimrod's castle, and which involuntarily bring to the modern traveller's mind the old history of the Tower of Babel; as these ruins in all probability formed a part of the great temple of Belus, which in eight lofty stories rose to a prodigious height, and on the pinnacle whereof stood a colossal idol of the National Divinity--the sun. Even now the ruins of this temple, piled in immense heaps one upon the other, and which seem as if glazed by some raging fire, produce a very profound impression on the mind; and to such a height do they rise that the clouds rest on their summit above, while lions couch on the walls, or haunt the caverns below. Here, too, we look for the place where were the vast terraces, with their hanging or floating gardens, as the ancients called them, and which in a country by no means abounding in wood, the a.s.syrian monarch constructed from affection to his Median spouse. Here the widely scattered heaps and mounds of brick, inscribed with the cuneal characters of Babylon, attest the existence and vast circ.u.mference of the mighty capital, of whose dimensions no European city, but the Asiatic cities only, can furnish an adequate idea. This Babylonish tower has been in every age a figure of the heaven-aspiring edifice of lordly arrogance, which sooner or later is sure to be struck down and scattered afar by the arm of the divine Nemesis; and in Holy Writ itself, the Babylon giddied by the intoxicating cup of ambition, drunk with the blood of nations, is a mighty historical emblem, applicable to every age from the earliest to the latest times, of the mad, people-destroying career of a Pagan pride. Here did the evil commence, although the first a.s.syrian empire had no very extensive influence on the nations westward, and although the real epoch of universal conquest dates from the Persian Cyrus. Yet the ancient Babylon contrived to maintain her power, for, as has so often been exemplified in history, she, by the moral contagion of her voluptuous manners, conquered her conquerors, who abandoned the G.o.ds of their ancestors, to embrace the sensual nature-wors.h.i.+p of the Babylonians. In the new monarchy founded by Cyrus, the Persians (now the ruling nation) were closely united and politically, at least, incorporated with the once more powerful Medes. Yet their race and language were originally very different, and even at a later period we can still observe some traces of mutual jealousy in a change of dynasty, or the forcible dethronement of the prince. The inst.i.tute of the Magi, which Cyrus established in his new Persian empire, served outwardly at least, to cement this union; for the Magi were of the Median race, and their sacred zend-books were not composed in the Persian language, but in two distinct dialects of Media, if one indeed were not rather Bactrian. The Magi were not so much an hereditary sacerdotal caste, as an order or a.s.sociation divided into various and successive ranks and grades, such as existed in the Mysteries--the grade of apprentices.h.i.+p--that of masters.h.i.+p--that of perfect masters.h.i.+p. Foreigners could not easily gain admission into this sacerdotal order; and it was only at the express solicitation of the King of Persia, at whose court he resided, that this extraordinary favour was accorded to Themistocles. Whether the old Persian doctrine and _system of light_[62] did not undergo material alterations in the hands of its Median restorer, Zoroaster; or whether this doctrine were preserved in all its purity by the order of the Magi, may well be questioned. It is certain at least that that primitive veneration of nature is found completely disfigured and corrupted in the small existing remnant of the sect of Guebers or fire-wors.h.i.+ppers.

On the order of the Magi devolved the important trust of the monarch's education--a trust which must necessarily have given them great weight and influence in the state. They were in high credit at the _Persiangates_--for that was the oriental name given to the capital of the empire, and the abode of the prince; and they took the most active part in all the factions that encompa.s.sed the throne, or that were formed in the vicinity of the court. In Greece, and even in Egypt, the sacerdotal fraternities and a.s.sociations of initiated, formed by the Mysteries, had in general but an indirect, though not unimportant, influence on affairs of state; but in the Persian monarchy they acquired a complete political ascendency. The next main pillar of the Persian monarchy was its n.o.bility, or the princ.i.p.al race of the Pasargads, who immediately surrounded the throne, enjoyed the highest prerogatives, and formed indeed the flower of the Persian army. The strict moral and military education which this n.o.bility received, and of which Xenophon has drawn such a beautiful ideal sketch, const.i.tuted the chief strength of the state. And certainly the neglect of this old Persian system of education was one of the primary causes of the decline of the empire--a decline which the progressive relaxation and corruption of public morals accelerated with a fearful rapidity. After the first mighty impulse, and that severe moral character which Cyrus had imparted to Persia, had disappeared, the same fate befel this empire, as has befallen all the great oriental monarchies. The same evils, which the domination of provincial Satraps--a government of the Seraglio--invariably bring along with it--the factions, the conspiracies, the changes of dynasty, and the other disorders incident to despotism, appear in exactly similar colours in the Persian annals; and even in the modern kingdom of Persia, we find many of those characteristic traits or usages of Asiatic government, as they existed in the ancient empire. Even the army for the most part consisted of troops levied out of the conquered nations, and the greater were its numbers, the less internal union did it possess. Hence we can well conceive that a small army of Greeks, animated by patriotic valour, and commanded by generals possessed of a true tactical eye and genius, were able to oppose to the immense hosts of Persia a resistance which in a numerical point of view, appears almost incredible, and were even enabled to gain unexpected victories over their enemies. We can conceive too, how in the time of Alexander the Great, three battles should have decided the fate of this great empire; for its moral life and energy were gone, and the pillars of the state were completely decayed.

The Persian empire lasted but for the short period of two hundred and twenty years, from its foundation by Cyrus to the reign of the last Darius, whose personal character and fate leave such an affecting and tragical impression on our minds. The universal conquests of the Persians, rapid, but transient, acted on the age with all the violence of the elemental powers of nature. Sudden and rapid, like a wind-storm, they invaded and subdued all other states and kingdoms;--the expedition of Xerxes into Greece was a real inundation of nations--and as the destructive fire, after blazing on high and desolating and consuming all things around, sinks quickly again--it was so with the Persian empire.

The dominion of the Persians exerted no very permanent influence on those other nations whose civilization was anterior to their own. Egypt, in despite of the violent persecution which she sustained under Cambyses, remained still the ancient Egypt--and with yet greater fidelity did she cling to her ancient customs, under the milder sway of the Ptolemies, whose government was so much more congenial to her spirit and character. Phnicia, Palestine, and Asia Minor, also remained essentially unchanged. In an historical point of view, the main result of the Persian conquests was this--they brought the nations of Western Asia and of Egypt into a close contact, and a very active and permanent intercourse with the states of Greece, and those situated on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean. The Persian dominion, and the contest of that power with Greece, had indeed a very great, though only indirect, influence on the latter country, inasmuch as it favoured the growth and development of Grecian liberty, and at a later period produced the great re-action under Alexander the Great. This Greek re-action was in its spirit and character somewhat similar to the previous irruption and ambitious invasion of the Persians; in Alexander at least, we can clearly discover an oriental spirit that, not content with the narrow boundaries of his hereditary kingdom of Macedon, sought to transcend the sphere of h.e.l.lenic civilization, h.e.l.lenic doctrines, and h.e.l.lenic modes of thinking. And I call that an Asiatic enthusiasm which, with resistless impetuosity, bore away the Macedonian to the capital of Persia, and even beyond the banks of the Indus.

END OF LECTURE VII.

LECTURE VIII.

Variety of Grecian life and intellect.--State of education and of the fine arts among the Greeks.--The origin of their philosophy and natural science.--Their political degeneracy.

It would be difficult to point out a more striking difference, a more decided opposition in the whole circle of the intellectual and moral character and habits of nations, as far at least as the sphere of known history extends, than that which exists between the seclusive and monotonous character of Asiatic intellect--the generally unchangeable uniformity of oriental manners and oriental society, and the manifold activity--the varied life of the Greeks, in the first flouris.h.i.+ng ages of their history. This amazing diversity in the moral and intellectual habits of the Greeks appears not only in their legislation, their forms of government, their manners, occupations, and usages of life, but in their various and widely dispersed settlements and colonies, in their descent, which was composed of so many heterogeneous elements, in the first seeds of their civilization--as well as their distribution into hostile tribes and great and petty states, and even in their traditions, their history, and the arts and forms of art to which those gave rise--finally in a science, engaged in incessant strife, and marching from system to system, amid the noise and tumult of opposition. In Asia, even in those countries such as India, where the poetry, the views of life, and the systems of philosophy were extremely various, and bore in this respect an external resemblance to those of Greece; where even the country in ancient times was never permanently united into one compact empire; yet the whole way of thinking, the prevalent feeling was entirely monarchical, proceeding from, and returning again to, unchangeable unity. On the other hand, in Greece, science, like life itself, was thoroughly republican--and if we meet with particular thinkers, who leaned to this Asiatic doctrine of unity, we must regard this as only an exception--a system adopted from a love of change, or out of a spirit of opposition to the vulgar and generally received opinion that all in nature and the world, as well as in man, was in a state of perpetual movement, constant change, and freedom of life. Even the fabulous world of Grecian divinities, as it has been painted by their poets, has a republican cast; for there every thing is in a state of change, of successive renovation, and of mutual collision in the war of Nature's elements, in the hostility of old and new deities of the superior and inferior G.o.ds--of giants and of heroes--presenting, as it does, a state of poetical anarchy. Hence, even the historical traditions of the Greeks, and the first accounts of their early seats, settlements, and the migrations of their different races, present to the eye of the historical enquirer a dense forest of truth and fiction, of fanciful conjecture, absolute fable, and ancient and venerable knowledge--a labyrinth of poetry and of history, in whose various and intricate mazes it is often difficult for the critic to find the true outlet, and to hold fast by the guiding clue of Ariadne, when he wishes to adopt a lucid arrangement, and a.s.sign to each part its due place in the system of the whole. The Greek tribes and nations inhabited not only the proper Greece, the Peninsula Peloponnesian, the contiguous islands, the Southern plains of the Continent (on whose Northern frontiers it is often difficult to draw the line of demarcation between the tribes of Greek and foreign extraction); and also the Western coasts of Asia Minor; but they had founded a number of small states and planted many flouris.h.i.+ng colonies in the remotest corners of the Euxine, in the Lower Egypt, where, long prior to the Persian wars, many Greek settlements existed--along the Northern sh.o.r.e of Africa, where the flouris.h.i.+ng Cyrene was situated, on the Southern coasts of Spain and Gaul, in Sicily, and throughout the whole of Southern Italy. Their navigation extended even to the Baltic, as the voyage of Pytheas evinces; and, though they did not circ.u.mnavigate Africa,--a thing which it is still doubtful whether the Phnicians accomplished,--they rather surpa.s.sed than yielded to the latter nation in the activity of their trade, and the wealth and extent of their Colonies. The stupendous monuments and edifices of the Egyptians are indeed of more colossal dimensions; yet the works of Grecian sculpture and architecture, while some of them are on a very large scale, are incomparably more various, more rich in ornament, more animated, and beautiful, than those of Egypt. The Greeks were not a mere sea-faring and commercial people, like the Phnicians; nor did they compete with the Egyptians in those proud monuments of architecture whose erection required such thousands of human hands; but they were from their earliest period a martial people, well trained to war. Independently of every feeling of patriotic enthusiasm and national defence, they looked on war as a trade and a living, and they loved it accordingly. This is proved by the fact that, in the age preceding the Persian conquest, and long before the Persians waged war with Greece, the Kings of Egypt had not only Greek squadrons in their service, but that the whole Egyptian army was for the most part composed of Grecian mercenaries. Such, too, was the case in Carthage, and, at a later period, in Persia, where whole legions and armies of Greeks were engaged in the service of the great king. This old custom among the Greeks of enlisting in the military service of foreign states, may have been indeed an excellent preparation for their great national wars, though in these the first great exploits were achieved by small companies of troops from Athens, Sparta, and other free states, as well as by a select body of free citizens. But this custom could have had no very favourable influence on national opinions and feelings, and the mutual relations of the Greek tribes and states.

The Republican form of government mostly prevailed in the various Greek settlements and Colonies, established round the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean; for it is to this species of government that maritime nations, commercial cities, and petty states almost always incline, as long as their territories remain circ.u.mscribed. Yet in these states, we find a great variety of political const.i.tutions; for along with that mult.i.tude of small commercial Republics, there were many, like Sparta and others, that depended exclusively, or for the most part, on agriculture and the riches of the soil. In these, the hereditary n.o.bility, the proprietors of the soil, formed the princ.i.p.al cla.s.s; for in general the Greeks attached a very high importance to the n.o.ble races and princely families that deduced their descent from the old heroic times. The original const.i.tution of many, of almost the greater part of these small Greek Republics, was a tolerably mild aristocracy, headed by an hereditary Prince, or chieftain. In some states, as for instance in Athens, the transition from this old aristocratical government, headed by an hereditary prince, to a thoroughly democratic const.i.tution, was but slow and gradual; as the memory of their ancient kings, for example, of Codrus, who fell in the defence of his country, was ever cherished by the Athenian people with love and reverence. The popular hatred in Athens was directed only against those leaders of the state who, like Pisistratus, after having obtained their power by means of popular influence, sought to stretch and perpetuate it by force of arms and the use of foreign mercenaries. Yet even Pisistratus possessed great qualities, and his sway was in general mild, and conformable to the laws of Solon;--it cannot be denied, however, that his was an usurped authority, and one founded on illegitimate force. At a later period, and when the Athenian state became more and more democratic--as there is not a more thankless being in all nature than the sovereign people, in its lawless and capricious rule, the people of Athens, jealous of their freedom, and too easily deluded by the arts of oratorical sophistry, pointed their hatred at all the great men and deserving citizens of the state. The general Miltiades perished in prison; Aristides the just, Cimon and many others fell the victims of ostracism, and died in exile, as did the great historians, Herodotus and Thucydides. Themistocles himself, who had been the liberator of Athens and of Greece, was obliged to take refuge at the court of the Persian monarch, from whom he received protection and hospitality. The wisest of the Athenians, the master of Plato, who had ever proved himself an honest citizen and a valiant defender of his country, received the cup of poison for his recompence.

But we no where discover in the early ages of Athens, and of the other Greek Republics, that hatred to kings and to royalty in general, which even the primitive history of Rome displays. Nay, in Sparta, amid a Republican const.i.tution, the kingly power and dignity were preserved inviolate down to the latest period; while in Macedon a new monarchy grew up, which at first a.s.serted a sort of Protectorate over the other states, and at last established a very despotic ascendancy over all Greece. Even in those states where the const.i.tution was more democratical, that is to say, where it was founded, not on an hereditary n.o.bility and the possession of the soil, but chiefly on moveable property, on trade, and manufactures, we must not look for that sort of arithmetical freedom and equality which exists in some modern Republics, for instance, in the United States of America. The number of citizens really free, eligible, and possessed of the right of suffrage, was exceedingly small when compared with the bulk of the population--by far the greater part were not so, and a mult.i.tude of bought slaves, especially in the commercial states, was employed in manufactures, and in the tillage of the land. This universally prevalent custom--the harsh treatment and oppression of slaves--forms a very painful contrast in the ancient Republics, little corresponding to our own ideal of social happiness, and in itself very degrading to humanity. In the interior and more aristocratic states, slavery a.s.sumed another shape--the remnant of the original inhabitants of the soil, that had survived the conquest of their country, such as the Helots of Sparta, and the Penestae of Thessaly, were not merely reduced by the conquerors in their newly-founded governments to the condition of va.s.sals, as we should term them, or even of serfs; but were degraded to a state of absolute slavery, and generally treated with great severity. If we except this one circ.u.mstance, the aristocracy, that ruled in most of the ancient Republics of Greece, was on the whole, tolerably well const.i.tuted; a number of accessory circ.u.mstances had tended to soften its sway, and even, in some instances, it was enn.o.bled by high worth. Ancestral manners and customs--the very smallness of the states--all tended to mitigate its rule--a wise legislation, like that of Solon, and of other law-givers animated by the same spirit, had at once consolidated and tempered its power; while it was adorned by republican virtues and many personal qualities in those elder and better times, ere the ancient simplicity of manners was yet totally corrupted.

In most of the Greek Republics, besides, commerce daily acquired greater influence and importance, and it was impossible in such a state of things that any rigidly exclusive aristocracy could have been formed, or could have long maintained its ascendancy. Even the priesthood in Greece (for there there was no danger of the political predominance of an hereditary sacerdotal caste, as in Egypt), even the priesthood, by maintaining ancient manners, customs and laws, on which indeed their own existence depended, exerted a mild and beneficial influence in the state; for they at least formed a counterpoise to a mere selfish aristocracy, and sometimes opposed the last barrier to democratic tyranny.

The Mysteries too, in particular, which, although they did not at a later period, as in their origin, diffuse a sounder morality than the popular mythology, yet certainly inculcated more serious doctrines, and more spiritual views of life, exerted, together with the Olympic and Isthmian games, a gentle, and on the whole, a very beneficial, influence, and served as a bond of connection between the variously divided and discordant nations of Greece. Nay these public and gymnastic games, which were celebrated in the festive poetry of the Greeks, served to knit more firmly the bond of national union, so exceedingly loose among this people; and many times, in a moment of danger, has the oracle of Delphi roused and united all the sons of h.e.l.las. These political decisions of the oracle were not false, so far at least as in these critical moments they gave no other counsel to the Greeks, but that of patriotic courage, prudent firmness, and national concord.