Part 13 (1/2)

[71] Twelve Ionian colonies, twelve aeolian, four Dorian.

[72] Herod., i., 153.

[73] Herod., vii., 103, 104.

[74] 1,000 Plataeans came to the a.s.sistance of the Athenians.--ED.

[75] Herodotus's statements of the numbers in Xerxes' army are incredible.--ED.

[76] Herod., vii., 61-80.

[77] vii., 139.

[78] The chronology of these events is uncertain.--ED.

[79] Called the Peace of Cimon, but it is very doubtful whether Cimon really concluded a treaty. [With more right may it be called the Peace of Callias, who was probably princ.i.p.al amba.s.sador.--ED.]

[80] In his chapters on the Mityleneans.

CHAPTER XIV

THE ARTS IN GREECE

ATHENS AT THE TIME OF PERICLES

=Pericles.=--In the middle of the fifth century Athens found herself the most powerful city in Greece. Pericles, descended from one of the n.o.ble families, was then the director of the affairs of the state. He wasted neither speech nor personality, and never sought to flatter the vanity of the people. But the Athenians respected him and acted only in accordance with his counsels; they had faith in his knowledge of all the details of administration, of the resources of the state, and so they permitted him to govern. For forty years Pericles was the soul of the politics of Athens; as Thucydides his contemporary said, ”The democracy existed in name; in reality it was the government of the first citizen.”

=Athens and Her Monuments.=--In Athens, as in the majority of Greek cities, the houses of individuals were small, low, packed closely together, forming narrow streets, tortuous and ill paved. The Athenians reserved their display for their public monuments. Ever after they levied heavy war taxes on their allies they had large sums of money to expend, and these were employed in erecting beautiful edifices. In the market-place they built a portico adorned with paintings (the Poikile), in the city a theatre, a temple in honor of Theseus, and the Odeon for the contests in music. But the most beautiful monuments rose on the rock of the Acropolis as on a gigantic pedestal. There were two temples of which the princ.i.p.al, the Parthenon, was dedicated to Athena, protecting G.o.ddess of the city; a colossal statue of bronze which represented Athena; and a staircase of ornamental character leading up to the Propylaea. Athens was from this time the most beautiful of the Greek cities.[81]

=Importance of Athens.=--Athens became at the same time the city of artists. Poets, orators, architects, painters, sculptors--some Athenians by birth, others come from all corners of the Greek world--met here and produced their masterpieces. There were without doubt many Greek artists elsewhere than at Athens; there had been before the fifth century, and there were a long time afterward; but never were so many a.s.sembled at one time in the same city. Most of the Greeks had fine sensibilities in matters of art; but the Athenians more than all others had a refined taste, a cultivated spirit and love of the beautiful. If the Greeks have gained renown in the history of civilization, it is that they have been a people of artists; neither their little states nor their small armies have played a great role in the world. This is why the fifth century is the most beautiful moment in the history of Greece; this is why Athens has remained renowned above all the rest of the Greek cities.

LETTERS

=The Orators.=--Athens is above all the city of eloquence. Speeches in the a.s.sembly determine war, peace, taxes, all state business of importance; speeches before the courts condemn or acquit citizens and subjects. Power is in the hands of the orators; the people follow their counsels and often commit to them important public functions: Cleon is appointed general; Demosthenes directs the war against Philip.

The orators have influence; they employ their talents in eloquence to accuse their political enemies. Often they possess riches, for they are paid for supporting one party or the other: aeschines is retained by the king of Macedon; Demosthenes accepts fees from the king of Persia.

Some of the orators, instead of delivering their own orations, wrote speeches for others. When an Athenian citizen had a case at court, he did not desire, as we do, that an advocate plead his case for him; the law required that each speak in person. He therefore sought an orator and had him compose a speech which he learned by heart and recited before the tribunal.

Other orators travelled through the cities of Greece speaking on subjects which pleased their fancy. Sometimes they gave lectures, as we should say.

The oldest orators spoke simply, limiting themselves to an account of the facts without oratorical flourishes; on the platform they were almost rigid without loud speaking or gesticulation. Pericles delivered his orations with a calm air, so quietly, indeed, that no fold of his mantle was disturbed. When he appeared at the tribune, his head, according to custom, crowned with leaves, he might have been taken, said the people, ”for a G.o.d of Olympus.” But the orators who followed wished to move the public. They a.s.sumed an animated style, pacing the tribune in a declamatory and agitated manner. The people became accustomed to this form of eloquence. The first time that Demosthenes came to the tribune the a.s.sembly shouted with laughter; the orator could not enunciate, he carried himself ill. He disciplined himself in declamation and gesture and became the favorite of the people. Later when he was asked what was the first quality of the orator, he replied, ”Action, and the second, action, and the third, action.” Action, that is delivery, was more to the Greeks than the sense of the discourse.

=The Sages.=--For some centuries there had been, especially among the Greeks of Asia, men who observed and reflected on things. They were called by a name which signifies at once wise men and scholars. They busied themselves with physics, astronomy, natural history, for as yet science was not separated from philosophy. Such were in the seventh century the celebrated Seven Sages of Greece.

=The Sophists.=--About the time of Pericles there came to Athens men who professed to teach wisdom. They gathered many pupils and charged fees for their lessons. Ordinarily they attacked the religion, customs, and inst.i.tutions of Greek cities, showing that they were not founded on reason. They concluded that men could not know anything with certainty (which was quite true for their time), that men can know nothing at all, and that nothing is true or false: ”Nothing exists,” said one of them, ”and if it did exist, we could not know it.” These professors of scepticism were called sophists. Some of them were at the same time orators.

=Socrates and the Philosophers.=--Socrates, an old man of Athens, undertook to combat the sophists. He was a poor man, ugly, and without eloquence. He opened no school like the sophists but contented himself with going about the city, conversing with those he met, and leading them by the force of his questions to discover what he himself had in mind. He sought especially the young men and gave them instruction and counsel. Socrates made no pretensions as a scholar: ”All my knowledge,” said he, ”is to know that I know nothing.” He would call himself no longer a sage, like the others, but a philosopher, that is to say, a lover of wisdom. He did not meditate on the nature of the world nor on the sciences; man was his only interest. His motto was, ”Know thyself.” He was before all a preacher of virtue.