Part 13 (2/2)

As he always spoke of morals and religion, the Athenians took him for a sophist.[82] In 399 he was brought before the court, accused ”of not wors.h.i.+pping the G.o.ds of the city, of introducing new G.o.ds, and of corrupting the youth.” He made no attempt to defend himself, and was condemned to death. He was then seventy years old.

Xenophon, one of his disciples, wrote out his conversations and an apology for him.[83] Another disciple, Plato, composed dialogues in which Socrates is always the princ.i.p.al personage. Since this time Socrates has been regarded as the ”father of philosophy.” Plato himself was the head of a school (429-348); Aristotle (384-322), a disciple of Plato, summarized in his books all the science of his time. The philosophers that followed attached themselves to one or the other of these two masters: the disciples of Plato called themselves Academicians,[84] those of Aristotle, Peripatetics.[85]

=The Chorus.=--It was an ancient custom of the Greeks to dance in their religious ceremonies. Around the altar dedicated to the G.o.d a group of young men pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed, a.s.suming n.o.ble and expressive att.i.tudes, for the ancients danced with the whole body. Their dance, very different from ours, was a sort of animated procession, something like a solemn pantomime. Almost always this religious dance was accompanied by chants in honor of the G.o.d. The group singing and dancing at the same time was called the Chorus. All the cities had their festival choruses in which the children of the n.o.blest families partic.i.p.ated after long time of preparation. The G.o.d required the service of a troop worthy of him.

=Tragedy and Comedy.=--In the level country about Athens the young men celebrated in this manner each year religious dances in honor of Dionysos, the G.o.d of the vintage. One of these dances was grave; it represented the actions of the G.o.d. The leader of the chorus played Dionysos, the chorus itself the satyrs, his companions. Little by little they came to represent also the life of the other G.o.ds and the ancient heroes. Then some one (the Greeks call him Thespis) conceived the idea of setting up a stage on which the actor could play while the chorus rested. The spectacle thus perfected was transferred to the city near the black poplar tree in the market. Thus originated Tragedy.

The other dance was comic. The masked dancers chanted the praises of Dionysos mingled with jeers addressed to the spectators or with humorous reflections on the events of the day. The same was done for the comic chorus as for the tragic chorus: actors were introduced, a dialogue, all of a piece, and the spectacle was transferred to Athens.

This was the origin of Comedy. This is the reason that from this time tragedy has been engaged with heroes, and comedy with every-day life.

Tragedy and comedy preserved some traces of their origin. Even when they were represented in the theatre, they continued to be played before the altar of the G.o.d. Even after the actors mounted on the platform had become the most important personages of the spectacle, the choir continued to dance and to chant around the altar. In the comedies, like the masques in other days, sarcastic remarks on the government came to be made; this was the Parabasis.

=The Theatre.=--That all the Athenians might be present at these spectacles there was built on the side of the Acropolis the theatre of Dionysos which could hold 30,000 spectators. Like all the Greek theatres, it was open to heaven and was composed of tiers of rock ranged in a half-circle about the orchestra where the chorus performed and before the stage where the play was given.

Plays were produced only at the time of the festivals of the G.o.d, but then they continued for several days in succession. They began in the morning at sunrise and occupied all the time till torch-light with the production of a series of three tragedies (a trilogy) followed by a satirical drama. Each trilogy was the work of one author. Other trilogies were presented on succeeding days, so that the spectacle was a compet.i.tion between poets, the public determining the victor. The most celebrated of these compet.i.tors were aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. There were also contests in comedy, but there remain to us only the works of one comic poet, Aristophanes.

THE ARTS

=Greek Temples.=--In Greece the most beautiful edifices were constructed to the honor of the G.o.ds, and when we speak of Greek architecture it is their temples that we have in mind.

A Greek temple is not, like a Christian church, designed to receive the faithful who come thither to pray. It is the palace[86] where the G.o.d lives, represented by his idol, a palace which men feel under compulsion to make splendid. The ma.s.s of the faithful do not enter the interior of the temple; they remain without, surrounding the altar in the open air.

At the centre of the temple is the ”chamber” of the G.o.d, a mysterious sanctuary without windows, dimly lighted from above.[87] On the pavement rises the idol of wood, of marble, or of ivory, clad in gold and adorned with garments and jewels. The statue is often of colossal size; in the temple of Olympia Zeus is represented sitting and his head almost touches the summit of the temple. ”If the G.o.d should rise,” they said, ”his head would shatter the roof.” This sanctuary, a sort of reliquary for the idol, is concealed on every side from the eyes. To enter, it is necessary to pa.s.s through a porch formed by a row of columns.

Behind the ”chamber” is the ”rear-chamber” in which are kept the valuable property of the G.o.d--his riches,[88] and often the gold and silver of the city. The temple is therefore storehouse, treasury, and museum.

Rows of columns surround the building on four sides, like a second wall protecting the G.o.d and his treasures. There are three orders of columns which differ in base and capital, each bearing the name of the people that invented it or most frequently used it. They are, in the order of age, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. The temple is named from the style of the columns supporting it.

Above the columns, around the edifice are sculptured surfaces of marble (the metopes) which alternate with plain blocks of marble (the triglyphs). Metopes and triglyphs const.i.tute the frieze.

The temple is surmounted with a triangular pediment adorned with statues.

Greek temples were polychrome, that is to say, were painted in several colors, yellow, blue, and red. For a long time the moderns refused to believe this; it was thought that the Greeks possessed too sober taste to add color to an edifice. But traces of painting have been discovered on several temples, which cannot leave the matter in doubt.

It has at last been concluded, on reflection, that these bright colors were to give a clearer setting to the lines.

=Characteristics of Greek Architecture.=--A Greek temple appears at first a simple, bare edifice; it is only a long box of stone set upon a rock; the facade is a square surmounted by a triangle. At first glance one sees only straight lines and cylinders. But on nearer inspection ”it is discovered[89] that not a single one of these lines is truly straight.” The columns swell at the middle, vertical lines are slightly inclined to the centre, and horizontal lines bulge a little at the middle. And all this is so fine that exact measurements are necessary to detect the artifice. Greek architects discovered that, to produce a harmonious whole, it is necessary to avoid geometrical lines which would appear stiff, and take account of illusions in perspective. ”The aim of the architect,” says a Greek writer, ”is to invent processes for deluding the sight.”

Greek artists wrought conscientiously for they worked for the G.o.ds.

And so their monuments are elaborated in all their parts, even in those that are least in view, and are constructed so solidly that they exist to this day if they have not been violently destroyed. The Parthenon was still intact in the seventeenth century. An explosion of gunpowder wrecked it.

The architecture of the Greeks was at once solid and elegant, simple and scientific. Their temples have almost all disappeared; here and there are a very few,[90] wholly useless, in ruins, with roofs fallen in, often nothing left but rows of columns. And yet, even in this state, they enrapture those who behold them.

=Sculpture.=--Among the Egyptians and the a.s.syrians sculpture was hardly more than an accessory ornament of their edifices; the Greeks made it the princ.i.p.al art. Their most renowned artists, Phidias, Praxiteles, and Lysippus, were sculptors.

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