A General History for Colleges and High Schools (Myers)/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
THE LEGENDARY, OR HEROIC AGE.
(From the earliest times to 776 B.C.)
Character of the Legendary Age.—The real history of the Greeks does not begin before the eighth century B.C. All that lies back of that date is an inseparable mixture of myth, legend, and fact. Yet this shadowy period forms the background of Grecian history, and we cannot understand the ideas and acts of the Greeks of historic times without at least some knowledge of what they believed their ancestors did and experienced in those prehistoric ages.
So, as a sort of prelude to the story we have to tell, we shall repeat some of the legends of the Greeks respecting their national heroes and their great labors and undertakings. But it must be carefully borne in mind that these legends are not history, though some of them may be confused remembrances of actual events.
The Heroes: Heracles, Theseus, and Minos.—The Greeks believed that their ancestors were a race of heroes of divine or semi-divine lineage. Every tribe, district, city, and village even, preserved traditions of its heroes, whose wonderful exploits were commemorated in song and story. Many of these personages acquired national renown, and became the revered heroes of the whole Greek race.
Heracles was the greatest of the national heroes of the Greeks. He is represented as performing, besides various other exploits, twelve superhuman labors, and as being at last translated from a blazing pyre to a place among the immortal gods. The myth of Heracles, who was at first a solar divinity, is made up mainly of the very same fables that were told of the Chaldæan solar hero Izdubar (see p. 46). Through the Phœnicians, these stories found their way to the Greeks, who ascribed to their own Heracles the deeds of the Chaldæan sun-god.
Theseus, a descendant of Cecrops, was the favorite hero of the Athenians, being one of their legendary kings. Among his great exploits was the slaying of the Minotaur,—a monster which Minos, king of Crete, kept in a labyrinth, and fed upon youths and maidens sent from Athens as a forced tribute.
Minos, king of Crete, was one of the greatest tribal heroes of the Dorians. Legend makes him a legislator of divine wisdom, the suppressor of piracy in the Grecian seas, and the founder of the first great maritime state of Hellas.
The Argonautic Expedition.—Besides the labors and exploits of single heroes, the legends of the Greeks tell of several memorable enterprises conducted by bands of heroes. Among these were the Argonautic Expedition and the Siege of Troy.
The tale of the Argonautic Expedition is told with many variations in the legends of the Greeks. Jason, a prince of Thessaly, with fifty companion heroes, among whom were Heracles, Theseus, and Orpheus, the latter a musician of superhuman skill, the music of whose lyre moved brutes and stones, set sail in "a fifty-oared galley," called the Argo (hence the name Argonauts, given to the heroes), in search of a "golden fleece" which was fabled to be nailed to a tree and watched by a dragon, in the Grove of Ares, on the eastern shores of the Euxine, an inhospitable region of unknown terrors. The expedition is successful, and, after many wonderful adventures, the heroes return in triumph with the sacred relic.
Different meanings have been given to this tale. In its primitive form it was doubtless a pure myth of the rain-clouds; but in its later forms we may believe it to symbolize the maritime explorations in the eastern seas, of some of the tribes of Pelasgian Greece.
The Trojan War (legendary date 1194–1184 B.C.).—The Trojan War was an event about which gathered a great circle of tales and poems, all full of an undying interest and fascination.
Ilios, or Troy, was the capital of a strong empire, represented as Grecian in race and language, which had grown up in Asia Minor, along the shores of the Hellespont. The traditions tell how Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy, visited the Spartan king Menelaus, and ungenerously requited his hospitality by secretly bearing away to Troy his wife Helen, famous for her rare beauty.
All the heroes of Greece flew to arms to avenge the wrong. A host of one hundred thousand warriors was speedily gathered. Agamemnon, brother of Menelaus and "king of men," was chosen leader of the expedition. Under him were the "lion-hearted Achilles," of Thessaly, the "rafty Ulysses" (Odysseus), king of Ithaca, Ajax, "the swift son of Oileus," the Telamonian Ajax, the aged Nestor, and many more—the most valiant heroes of all Hellas. Twelve hundred galleys bore the gathered clans from Aulis in Greece, across the Ægean to the Trojan shores.
For ten years the Greeks and their allies hold in close siege the city of Priam. On the plains beneath the walls of the capital, the warriors of the two armies fight in general battle, or contend in single encounter. At first, Achilles is foremost in every fight; but a fair-faced maiden, who fell to him as a prize, having been taken from him by his chief, Agamemnon, he is filled with wrath, and sulks in his tent. Though the Greeks are often sorely pressed, still the angered hero refuses them his aid. At last, however, his friend Patroclus is killed by Hector, eldest son of Priam, and then Achilles goes forth to avenge his death. In a fierce combat he slays Hector, fastens his body to his chariot wheels, and drags it thrice around the walls of Troy.
The city is at last taken through a device of the "crafty Ulysses." Upon the plain in sight of the walls is built a wooden statue of a horse, in the body of which are hidden several Grecian warriors. Then the Greeks retire to their ships, as though about to abandon the siege. The Trojans issue from the gates and gather in wondering crowds about the image. They believe it to be an offering sacred to Athena, and so dare not destroy it; but, on the Other hand, misled by certain omens and by a lying Greek named Sinon, they level a place in the walls of their city, and drag the statue within. At night the concealed warriors issue from the horse, open the gates of the city to the Grecians, and Troy is sacked, and burned to the ground. The aged Priam is slain, after having seen his sons and many of his warriors perish before his face. Æneas, with his aged father, Anchises, and a few devoted followers, escapes, and, after long wanderings, becomes the fabled founder of the Roman race in Italy.
It is a matter of difficulty to point out the nucleus of fact in this the most elaborate and interesting of the Grecian legends. Some believe it to be the dim recollection of a prehistoric conflict between the Greeks and the natives of Asia Minor, arising from the attempt of the former to secure a foothold upon the coast. That there really existed in prehistoric times such a city as Troy, has been placed beyond doubt by the excavations and discoveries of Dr. Schliemann.
Return of the Grecian Chieftains.—After the fall of Troy, the Grecian chieftains and princes returned home. The poets represent the gods as withdrawing their protection from the hitherto favored heroes, because they had not respected the altars of the Trojans. So, many of them were driven in endless wanderings over sea and land. Homer's Odyssey portrays the sufferings of the "much-enduring" Odysseus (Ulysses), impelled by divine wrath to long journeyings through strange seas.
In some cases, according to the tradition, advantage had been taken of the absence of the princes, and their thrones had been usurped. Thus at Argos, Ægisthus had won the unholy love of Clytemnestra, wife and queen of Agamemnon, who on his return was murdered by the guilty couple. In pleasing contrast with this we have exhibited to us the constancy of Penelope, although sought by many suitors during the absence of her husband Ulysses.
The Dorian Invasion, or the Return of the Heraclidæ (legendary date 1104 B.C.).—We set the tradition of the return of the Heraclidæ apart from the legends of the enterprises just detailed, for the reason that it undoubtedly contains quite a large historical element. The legend tells how Heracles, an Achæan, in the times before the Trojan War, ruled over the Peloponnesian Achæans. Just before that event his children were driven from the land. Eighty years after the war, the hundred years of exile appointed by the Fates having expired, the descendants of the hero, at the head of the Dorians from Northern Greece, returned, and with their aid effected the conquest of the greater part of the Peloponnesus, and established themselves as conquerors and masters in the land that had formerly been ruled by their semi-divine ancestor.
This legend seems to be a dim remembrance of a prehistoric invasion of the Peloponnesus by the Dorians from the north of Greece, and the expulsion or subjugation of the native inhabitants of the peninsula.
Some of the dispossessed Achæans, crowding towards the north of the Peloponnesus, drove out the Ionians who occupied the southern shore of the Corinthian Gulf, and settling there, gave the name Achaia to all that region.
Arcadia, in the centre of the Peloponnesus, was another district which did not fall into the hands of the Dorians. The people here, even down to the latest times, retained their primitive customs and country mode of life; hence Arcadian came to mean rustic and artless.
Migrations to Asia Minor.—The Greek legends represent that the Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus resulted in three distinct migrations from the mother-land to the shores of Asia Minor and the adjoining islands.
The northwestern shore of Asia Minor was settled, mainly, by Æolian emigrants from Bœotia. The neighboring island of Lesbos became the home and centre of Æolian culture in poetry and music.
The coast to the south of the Æolians was occupied by Ionian emigrants, who, uniting with their Ionian kinsmen already settled upon that shore, built up twelve splendid cities (Ephesus, Miletus, etc.), which finally united to form the celebrated Ionian confederacy. South of the Ionians, all along the southwestern shore of Asia Minor, the Dorians established their colonies. They also settled the important islands of Cos and Rhodes, and conquered and colonized Crete.
The traditions of these various settlements represent them as having been effected in a very short period; but it is probable that the movement embraced several centuries,—possibly a longer time than has been occupied by the English race in colonizing the different lands of the Western World.
With these migrations to the Asiatic shores, the Legendary Age of Greece comes to an end. From this time forward we tread upon fairly firm historic ground.
Society in the Heroic Age.—In Homeric times the Greeks were ruled by hereditary kings, who were believed to be of divine or superhuman lineage. The king was at once the lawgiver, the judge, and the military leader of his people. He was expected to prove his divine right to rule, by his courage, strength, wisdom, and eloquence. When he ceased to display these qualities, "the sceptre departed from him."
The king was surrounded by an advisory council of chiefs or nobles. The king listened to what the nobles had to say upon any measure he might propose, and then acted according to his own will or judgment, restrained only by the time-honored customs of the community.
Next to the council of chiefs, there was a general assembly, called the Agora, made up of all the common freemen. The members of this body could not take part in any debate, nor could they vote upon any question. This body, so devoid seemingly of all authority in the Homeric age, was destined to become the all-powerful popular assembly in the democratic cities of historic Greece.
Of the condition of the common freemen we know but little; the legendary tales were concerned chiefly with the kings and nobles. Slavery existed, but the slaves did not constitute as numerous a class as they became in historic times.
In the family, the wife held a much more honored position than she occupied in later times. The charming story of the constant Penelope, which we find in the Odyssey, assures us that the Homeric age cherished a chivalric feeling for woman.
In all ranks of society, life was marked by a sort of patriarchal simplicity. Manual labor was not yet thought to be degrading. Ulysses constructs his own house and raft, and boasts of his skill in swinging the scythe and guiding the plow. Spinning and weaving were the chief occupations of the women of all classes.
One pleasing and prominent virtue of the age was hospitality. There were no public inns in those times, hence a sort of gentle necessity compelled the entertainment of wayfarers. The hospitality accorded was the same free and impulsive welcome that the Arab sheik of to-day extends to the traveller whom chance brings to his tent. But while hospitable, the nobles of the heroic age were often cruel, violent, and treacherous. Homer represents his heroes as committing without a blush all sorts of fraud and villanies. Piracy was considered an honorable occupation.
Art and architecture were in a rudimentary state. Yet some advance had been made. The cities were walled, and the palaces of the kings possessed a certain barbaric splendor. Coined money was unknown; wealth was reckoned chiefly in flocks and herds, and in uncoined metals. The art of writing was probably unknown, at least there is no certain mention of it; and sculpture could not have been in an advanced state, as the Homeric poems make no mention of statues. The state of literature is shown by the poems of the Iliad and Odyssey: before the close of the age, epic poetry had reached a perfection beyond which it has never been carried.
Commerce was yet in its infancy. Although the Greeks were to become a great maritime people, still in the Homeric age they had evidently explored the sea but little. The Phœnicians then ruled the waves. The Greeks in those early times knew scarcely anything of the world beyond Greece proper and the neighboring islands and shores. Scarcely an echo of the din of life from the then ancient and mighty cities of Egypt and Chaldæa seems to have reached their ears.