History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed/Chapter XX

by Karl Otfried Müller

SECOND PERIOD OF GREEK LITERATURE.

CHAPTER XX.

§ 1. Early formation of a national literature in Greece, § 2. Athens subsequently takes the lead in literature and art. Her fitness for this purpose. § 3. Concurrence of the political circumstances of Athens to the same end. Solon. The Pisistratids. § 4. Great increase in the power of Athens after the Persian war. §5. Administration and policy of Pericles, particularly with respect to art and literature. § 6. Seeds of degeneracy in the Athenian Commonwealth at its most flourishing period. § 7. Causes and modes of the degeneracy. § 8. Literature and art were not affected by the causes of moral degeneracy.

§ 1. Greek literature, so far as we have hitherto followed its progress, was a common property of the different races of the nation; each race cultivating that species of composition which was best suited to its dispositions and capacities, and impressing on it a corresponding character. In this manner the town of Miletus in Ionia, the Æolians in the island of Lesbos, the colonies in Magna Graecia and Sicily, as well as the Greeks of the mother country, created new forms of poetry and eloquence. The various sorts of excellence thus produced, did not, after the age of the Homeric poetry, remain the exclusive property of the race among which they originated; as popular poems composed in a peculiar dialect are known only to the tribe by whom the dialect is spoken. Among the Greeks a national literature was early formed; every literary work in the Greek language, in whatever dialect it might be composed, was enjoyed by the whole Greek nation. The songs of the Lesbian Sappho aroused the feelings of Solon in his old age, notwithstanding their foreign Æolian dialect^[1]; and the researches of the philosophers of Elea in Œnotria influenced the thoughts of Anaxagoras when living at Miletus and Athens^[2]: whence it may be inferred, that the fame of remarkable writers soon spread through Greece at that time. Even in an earlier age, the poets and sages used to visit certain cities, which were considered almost as theatres, where they could bring their powers and acquirements into public notice. Among these, Sparta stood the highest, down to the time of the Persian war; for the Lacedæmonians, though they produced little themselves, were considered as sagacious and sound judges of art and philosophy^[3]. Accordingly, the principal poets, musicians, and philosophers of those times are related to have passed a part of their lives at Sparta^[4].

§ 2. But the literature of Greece necessarily assumed a different form, when Athens, raised as well by her political power and other external circumstances as by the mental qualities of her citizens, acquired the rank of a capital of Greece, with respect to literature and art. Not only was her copious native literature received with admiration by all the Greeks, but her judgment and taste were predominant in all things relating to language and the arts, and decided what should be generally recognised as the classical literature of Greece, long before the Alexandrine critics had prepared their canons. There is no more important epoch in the history of the Greek intellect than the time when Athens obtained this pre-eminence over her sister states.

The character of the Athenians peculiarly fitted them to take this lead. The Athenians were Ionians; and, when their brethren separated from them in order to found the twelve cities on the coast of Asia Minor, the foundations of the peculiar character of Ionic civilization had already been laid. The dialect of the Ionians was distinguished from that of the Dorians and Æolians by clear and broad marks: the worship of the gods, which had a peculiarly joyful and serene cast among the Ionians, had been moulded into fixed national festivals^[5]: and some steps towards the development of republican feeling had already been taken, before this separation occurred. The boundless resources and mobility of the Ionian spirit are shown by the astonishing productions of the Ionians in Asia and the islands in the two centuries previous to the Peisian war; viz., the iambic and elegiac poetry, and the germs of philosophic inquiry and historical composition; not to mention the epic poetry, which belongs to an earlier and different period. The literary works produced during that time by the Ionians who remained behind in Attica, seem poor and meagre, as compared with the luxuriant outburst of literature in Asia Minor: nor did it appear, till a later period, that the progress of the Athenian intellect was the more sound and lasting. The advance of the literature of the Ionians in Asia Minor (which reminds us of the premature growth of a plant taken from a cold climate and barren soil, and carried to a warmer and more fertile region), as compared with that of the Athenians, corresponds with the natural circumstances of the two countries. Ionia had, according to Herodotus, the softest and mildest climate in Greece; and, although he does not assign it the first rank in fertility, yet the valleys of this region (especially that of the Mæander) were of remarkable productiveness. Attica, on the other hand, was rocky, and its soil was shallow^[6]; though not barren, it required more skill and care in cultivation than most other parts of Greece: hence, according to the sagacious remark of Thucydides, the warlike races turned by preference to the fertile plains of Argos, Thebes, and Thessaly, and afforded an opportunity for a more secure and peaceable development of social life and industry in Attica. Yet Attica was not deficient in natural beauties. It had (as Sophocles says in the splendid chorus in the Œdipus at Colonus) "green valleys, in which the clear-voiced nightingale poured forth her sweet laments, under the shade of the dark ivy, and the sacred foliage of Bacchus, covering abundant fruit, impenetrable to the sun, and unshaken by the blasts of all storms^[7]." Above all, the clear air, refreshed and purified by constant breezes, is celebrated as one of the chief advantages of the climate of Attica, and is described by Euripides as lending a charm to the productions of the Athenian intellect. "Descendants of Erechtheus (the poet says to the Athenians)^[8], happy from ancient times, favourite children of the blessed gods, you pluck from your sacred unconquered country renowned wisdom, as a fruit of the soil, and constantly walk, with graceful step, through the glittering air of your heaven, where the nine sacred Muses of Pieria are said to have once brought up the fair-haired Harmony as their common child. It is also said that the goddess Cypris draws water from the beautifully flowing Cephisus, and breathes over the land mild and refreshing airs; and that, twining her hair with fragrant roses, she sends the gods of love as companions of wisdom, and supporters of virtue."

§ 3. The political circumstances of Attica contributed, in a remarkable manner, to produce the same effects as its physical condition. When the Ionians settled on the coast of Asia Minor, they soon discovered their superiority in energy and military skill to the native Lydian, Carian, and other tribes. Having obtained possession of the entire coast, they entered into a friendly relation with these tribes, which, owing to the early connexion of Lydia with Babylonia and Nineveh, brought them many luxuries and pleasures from the interior of Asia. The result was, that when the Lydian monarchy was strengthened under the Mermnadæ, and began to aim at foreign conquest, the Ionians were so enfeebled and corrupted, and were so deficient in political unity, that they fell an easy prey to the neighbouring kingdom; and passed, together with the other subjects of Crœsus, under the power of the Persians. The Ionic inhabitants of Attica, on the other hand, encompassed, and often pressed by the manly tribes of Greece, the Æolians, Bœotians, and Dorians, were forced to keep the sword constantly in their hands, and were placed in circumstances which required much courage and energy, in addition to the openness and excitability of the Ionic character. Athens, indeed, did not immediately attain to the proud security which the Spartans derived from their possession of half Peloponnesus, and their undisputed mastery of the practice of war. Hence the Athenians were forced to be constantly on the look-out, and to seek for opportunities of extending their empire. At the same time, while the Athenians sought to improve their political constitution, they strove to increase the liberty of the people; and a man like Solon could not have arisen in an Ionian state of Asia Minor, to become the peaceful regulator of the state with the approbation of the community. Solon was able to reconcile the hereditary rights of the aristocracy with the claims of the commonalty grown up to manhood; and to combine moral strictness and order with freedom of action. Few statesmen shine in so bright a light as Solon; his humanity and warm sympathies with all classes of his countrymen appear from the fragments of his elegies and iambics which have been already cited^[9].

After Solon comes the dominion of the Pisistratids, which lasted, with some interruptions, for fifty years (from 560 to 510 B. C.). This government was administered with ability and public spirit, so far as was consistent with the interests of the ruling house. Pisistratus was a politic and circumspect prince: he extended his possessions beyond Attica, and established his power in the district of the gold mines on the Strymon^[10], to which the Athenians subsequently attached so much importance. In the interior of the country, he did much to promote agriculture and industry, and he is said to have particularly encouraged the planting of olives, which suited the soil and climate in so remarkable a manner. The Pisistratids also, like other tyrants, showed a fondness for vast works of art; the temple of the Olympian Zeus, built by them, always remained, though only half finished, the largest building in Athens. In like manner, tyrants were fond of surrounding themselves with all the splendour which poetry and other musical arts could give to their house: and the Pisistratids certainly had the merit of diffusing the taste for poetry among the Athenians, and of naturalising among them the best literary productions which Greece then possessed. The Pisistratids were unquestionably the first to introduce the recital of the entire Iliad and Odyssey at the Panathenæa^[11]; and the gentle and refined Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus, was the means of bringing to Athens the most distinguished lyric poets of the time, as Anacreon^[12], Simonides^[13], and Lasus^[14]. Some of the collectors and authors of the mystical poetry also found a welcome reception at the court of the Pisistratids, as Onomacritus; whom they took with them, at their expulsion from Athens, to the court of the King of Persia^[15]. But, notwithstanding their patronage of literature and art, Herodotus is undoubtedly right in stating that it was not till after the fall of their dynasty, that Athens shot up with the vigour which can only be LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 279 rived from the consciousness of every citizen that he has a share in the common weal*. This statement of Herodotus refers, indeed, princi- pally to the warlike enterprises of Athens, but it is equally true of her intellectual productions. It is, indeed, a remarkable fact that Athens produced her most excellent works in literature and art in the midst of the greatest political convulsions, and of her utmost efForts for self- preservation or conquest. The long- dominion of the Pisistratids, not- withstanding the concourse of foreign poets, produced nothing more important than the first rudiments of the tragic drama ; fur the origin of comedy at the country festivals of Bacchus falls in the time before Pisistratus. On the other hand, the thirty years between the expul- sion of Ilippias ami the battle of Salamis (b. c. 510 to 4S0) was a period marked by great events both in politics and literature. During this period, Athens contended with energy and success against her neighbours in Beeotia and Eubeea, and soon dared to interfere in the affairs of the Ionians in Asia, and to support them in their revolt against Persia; after which, she received and warded off the first powerful attack of the Persians upon Greece. During the same period at Athens, the pathetic tragedies of Phrynichus, and the lofty tragedies of yEschylus, appeared on the stage ; political eloquence was awakened in Themistocles; historical researches were commenced by Pherecydes ; and everything seemed to give a promise of the greatness to which Athens afterwards attained. Even sculpture at Athens did not flourish under the encouragement which it doubtless received from the enter- prising spirit of the Pisistratids, but first arose under the influence of political freedom. While, from b.c. 540, considerable masters and whole families and schools of brass-founders, workers in gold and ivory, &c, existed in Argos, Laceckemon, Sicyon, and elsewhere, the Athens of the Pisistratids could not boast of a single sculptor ; nor is it till the time of the battle of Marathon, that Antenor, Critias, and Hegias are mentioned as eminent masters in brass-founding. But the work for which both Antenor and Hegias were chiefly celebrated was the brazen statues of Harmcdius and Aristogiton, the tyrannicides and liberators of Athens from the yoke of the Pisistratids, according to the tradition of the Athenian peoplet. § 4. The great peril of the Persian war thus came upon a race of high spirited and enterprising men, and exercised upon it the hardening and elevating influence, by which great dangers, successfully overcome, become the highest benefit to a state. Such a period withdraws the mind from petty, selfish cares, and fixes it on great and public objects. At the moment when half Greece had quailed before the Persian army, the Athenians, with a fearless spirit of independence, abandon their

• Herod. V. 78. t Ch. 13. § 17. 280 HISTORY OF THE

country to the ravages of the enemy : embarking in their ships, they decide the sea-fights in favour of the Greeks, and again they are in the land-war the steadiest supporters of the Spartans. The wise modera- tion with which, for the sake of the general good, they submitted to the supreme command of Sparta, combined with a bold and enterprising- spirit, which Sparta did not possess, is soon rewarded to an extent which must have exceeded the most sanguine hopes of the Athenian statesmen. The attachment of the Ionians to their metropolis, Athens, which had been awakened before the battle of Marathon, soon led to a closer connexion between nearly all the Greeks of the Asiatic coast and this state. Shortly afterwards, Sparta withdrew, with the other Greeks of the mother country, from any further concern in the contest ; and an Athenian alliance was formed for the termination of the national war, which was changed, by gradual yet rapid transitions, into a dominion of Athens over her allies ; so that she became the sovereign of a large and flourishing empire, comprehending the islands and coasts of the yEgean, and a part of the Euxine seas. In this manner, Athens gained a wide basis for the lofty edifice of political glory which was raised by her statesmen. § 5. The completion of this splendid structure was due to Pericles, during his administration, which lasted from about b.c. 464, to his death (b.c. 429). Pericles changed the allies of Athens into her subjects, by declaring the common treasure to be the treasure of the Athenian state ; and he resolutely maintained the supremacy of Athens, by punishing with severity every attempt at defection. Through his influence, Athens became a dominant community, whose chief business it was to administer the affairs of an extensive empire, flourishino- in. agriculture, mechanical industry, and commerce. Pericles, however, did not make the acquisition of this power the highest object of his exertions, nor did he wish the Athenians to consider it as their greatest good. His aim was to realise in Athens the idea which he had con- ceived of human greatness. He wished that great and noble thoughts should pervade the whole mass of the ruling people; and this was in fact the case, so long as his influence lasted, to a greater degree than has occurred in any other period of history. Pericles stood among the citizens of Athens, without any public office which gave him extensive legal power*; and yet he exercised an influence over the multitude which has been rarely possessed by an hereditary ruler. The

• Pericles was indeed treasurer of the administration ( h Ur) rn; %icix.wicai) at the

breaking out of the Peloponnesian war ; but, although this office required an ac- curate knowledge of the finances of Athens, it did not confer any hgal power. It is assumed that the times are excepted, in which Pericles was strategus, particnlaily at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, when the strati gus had a very extensive executive power, because Athens, being in a state of siege, was treated" like a for tined camp. LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GRFECE. 281 Athenians saw in him, when he spoke to the people from the bema, an Olympian Zens, who had the thunder and lightning in his power. It was not the volubility of his eloquence, but the irresistible force of his arguments, and the majesty of his whole appearance, which gained him this appellation: hence a comic poet said of him, that he was the only one of the orators who left his sting in the minds of his hearers*. The objects to which Pericles directed the people, and for which he accumulated so much power and wealth at Athens, may be best seen in the still extant works of architecture and sculpture which originated under his administration. The defence of the state being already pro- vided for, through the instrumentality of Themistocles, Cimon, and Pericles himself, by the fortifications of the city and harbour and the long walls, Pericles induced the Athenian people to expend upon the decoration of Athens, by works of architecture and sculpture, a larger part of its ample revenues than was ever applied to this purpose in any other state, either republican or monarchicalf. This outlay of public money, which at any other period would have been excessive, was then well-timed ; since the art of sculpture had just reached a pitch of high excellence, after long and toilsome efforts, and persons endowed with its magical powers, such as Phidias, were in close intimacy with Pericles. Of the surpassing skill with which Pericles collected into one focus the rays of aitistieal genius at Athens, no stronger proof can be afforded, than the fact that no subsequent period, through the patronage either of Macedonian or Roman princes, produced works of equal excel- lence. Indeed, it may be said that the creations of the age of Pericles are the only works of art which completely satisfy the most refined and cultivated taste. But it cannot have been the intention of Pericles, or of the Athenians who shared his views, to limit their countrymen to those enjoyments of art which are derived from the eye. It is known that Pericles was on terms of intimacy with Sophocles ; and it may be presumed that Pericles thoroughly appreciated such works as the An- tigone of Sophocles ; since (as we shall show hereafter) there was a close analogy between the political principles of Pericles and the poetical character of Sophocles. Pericles, however, lived on a still more intimate footing with Anaxagoras, the first philosopher who proclaimed

• Ma'voj ruiv pr,rogeuv To xivrgov iyxarii.ui't ro7; ux/>o/vf/,ivoi;. Eupolis in the Demi.

f The animal revenue of Athens at the time of Pericles is estimated at 1000 talents (rather more than 200,000/.) ; of which sum GOO talents flowed from the tri- butes of the allies. If we reckon that the Propylsea (with the buildings belonging to it) cost '2012 talents, the expense of all the buildings of this time, — the Odeon, the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the temple at Kletisis, and other contemporary temples in the country, as at Khamnus and Sunium, together with the sculpture and colouring, statues of e;old and ivory, as the I'allas in the Parthenon, carpets, &c., — cannot have been less than 8000 talents. And yet all these woiks fell in the last twenty years of the lVloponnesian war. 282 HISTORY OF THE in Greece the doctrine of a regulating intelligence*. The house of Pericles, particularly from the time when the beautiful and accom- plished Milesian Aspasia presided over it with a greater freedom of in- tercourse than Athenian usage allowed to wives, was a point of union for all the men who had conceived the intellectual superiority of Athens. The sentiment attributed by Thucydides to Pericles in the celebrated funeral oration, that " Athens is the school of Greece," is doubtless, if not in words, at least in substance, the genuine expression of Periclesf. § 6. It could not be expected that this brilliant exhibition of human excellence should be without its dark side, or that the flourishing state of Athenian civilization should be exempt from the elements of decay. The political position of Athens soon led to a conflict between the patri- otism and moderation of her citizens and their interests and passions. From the earliest times, Athens had stood in an unfriendly relation to the rest of Greece. Even the lonians, who dwelt in Asia Minor, sur- rounded by Dorians and iEolians, did not, until their revolt from Persia, receive from the Athenians the sympathy common among the Greeks between members of the same race. Nor did the other states of the mother country ever so far recognise the intellectual supremacy of Athens, as to submit to her in political alliances; and therefore Athens never exercised such an ascendency over the independent states of Greece as was at various times conceded to Sparta. At the very foundation of her political greatness, Athens could not avoid struggling to free herself from the superintendence of the other Greeks ; and since Attica was not an island, — which would have best suited the views of the Athenian statesmen, — Athens was, by means of immense fortifica- tions, as far as possible isolated from the land and withdrawn from the influence of the dominant military powers. The eyes of her statesmen were exclusively turned towards the sea. They thought that the national character of the lonians of Attica, the situation of this peninsula, and its internal resources, especially its silver mines, fitted Athens for mari- time sovereignty. Moreover, the Persian war had given her a powerful impulse in this direction ; and by her large navy she stood at the head of the confederate islanders and Asiatics, who wished to continue the war against Persia for their own liberation and security. These confe- derates had before been the subjects of the King of Persia; and had long been more accustomed to slavish obedience than to voluntary exertion. It was their refusals and delays, which first induced Athens to draw the reins tighter, and to assume a supremacy over them. The

• The author of the first Alcibiades (among the Platonic dialogues). p. 1 18, unites

the philosophical musicians, Pythocleides and Damon, with Anaxagoras, as friends of Pericles. Pericles is also said to have been connected with Zeno the E'.eatic and Protagoras the sophist. f Thucyd, II. 41. ^mikkiv ti Xiyca thv ■zravu.v ■zokn T«5 'EXXci^o; zoc'thiuait utai. LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 283 Athenians were not cruel and sanguinary by nature ; but a reckless severity, when there was a question of maintaining principles which they thought necessary to their existence, was implanted deeply in their character ; and circumstances too often impelled them to employ it against their allies. The Athenian policy of compelling so many cities to contribute their wealth in order to make Athens the focus of art and cultivation, was indeed accompanied with pride and selfish patriotism. Yet the Athenians did not reduce millions to a state of abject servitude, for the purpose of ministering to the wants of a few thousand persons. The object of their statesmen, such as Pericles, doubtless was, to make Athens the pride of the whole confederacy; that their allies should enjoy in common with them the productions of Athenian art, and especially should participate in the great festivals, the Panathenaea and Dionysia, on the embellishment of which all the treasures of wealth and art were lavished*. § 7. Energy in action and cleverness in the use of languagef were the qualities which most distinguished the Athenians in comparison with the other Greeks, and which are most clearly seen in their political conduct and their literature. Both qualities are very liable to abuse. The energy in action degenerated into a restless love of adventure, which was the chief cause of the fall of the Athenian power in the Peloponnesian war, after the conduct of it had ceased to be directed by the clear and com- posed views of Pericles. The consciousness of dexterity in the use of words, which the Athenians cultivated more than the other Greeks, in- duced them to subject everything to discussion. Hence too arose a copiousness of speech, very striking as compared with the brevity of the early Greeks, which compressed the results of much reflection in a few words. It is remarkable that, soon after the Persian war, the great Chnon was distinguished from his countrymen by avoiding all Attic eloquence and loquacity j. Stesimbrotus, of Thasos, a contemporary, observed of him, that the frank and noble were prominent in his cha- racter, and that he had the qualities of a Peloponnesian more than of an Athenian§. Yet this fluency of the Athenians was long restrained by the deeply-rooted maxims of traditional morality ; nor was it till the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, when a foreign race of teachers,

• There are many grounds for thinking that these festivals were instituted ex-

pressly for the allies, who attended them in large numbers. Prayers were also pub- licly offered at the Panathenaea for the Plateaus (Herod, vi. m.), and at all great public festivals for the Chians (Theopomp. ap. Schol. Aristoph. Av. 880), who were nearly the only faithful ally of the Athenians in the Peloponnesian war, after the defection of the Mytilenaeans. Moreover, the colonies of Athens (i.e. probably, in general, the cities of the confederacy) offered sacrifices at the Panathenaea. to ipaffrriptov xct) to ohvoy. J oitvorns and e-u//.u'ia. § In Plutarch, Cimon, c. 4, indeed, Stesimbrotus is not unjustly censured for his credulity and his fondness for narrating the chronique scandaieuse of those times : but statements, such .is thai in the text, founded upon personal observation of the general slate of society, are always very valuable, 284 HISTORY OF THE chiefly from the colonies in the east and west, established themselves at Athens, that the Athenians learnt the dangerous art of subjecting the traditional maxims of morality to a scrutinising examination. For al- though this examination ultimately led to the establishing of morality on a scientific basis, yet it at first gave a powerful impulse to immoral motives and tendencies, and, at any rate, destroyed the habits founded on unreasoning faith. These arts of the sophists — for such was the name of the new teachers — were the more pernicious to the Athenians, because the manliness of the Athenian character, which shone forth so nobly during the Persian war and the succeeding period, had already fallen off before the Peloponnesian war, under the administration of Pericles. This degeneracy was owing to the same accidental causes, which produced the noble qualities of the Athenians. Plato says that Pericles made the Athenians lazy, cowardly, loquacious, and covetous*. This severe judgment, suggested to Plato by his constant repugnance to the practical statesmen of his time, cannot be considered as just; yet it must be admitted that the principles of the policy of Pericles were closely connected with the demoralization so bluntly described by Plato. By founding the power of the Athenians on dominion of the sea, he led them to abandon land-war and the military exercises requi- site for it, which had hardened the old warriors of Marathon. In the ships, the rowers played the chief part, who, except in times of great danger, consisted not of citizens, but of mercenaries ; so that the Co- rinthians in Thucydides about the beginning of the Peloponnesian war justly describe the power of the Athenians as being rather purchased with money than nativet. In the next place, Pericles made the Athe- nians a dominant people, whose time was chiefly devoted to the business of governing their widely extended empire. Hence it was necessary for him to provide that the common citizens of Athens should be able to gain a livelihood by their attention to public business; and accord- ingly it was contrived that a considerable part of the large revenues of Athens should be distributed among the citizens, in the form of wages for attendance in the courts of justice, the public assembly, and the council, and also on less valid grounds, for example, as money for the theatre. Those payments to the citizens for their share in the public business were quite new in Greece ; and many well disposed persons considered the sitting and listening in the Pnyx and the courts of justice as an idle life in comparison with the labour of the ploughman and vinegrower in the country. Nevertheless, a considerable time elapsed before the bad qualities developed by these circumstances so far pre- vailed as to overcome the noble habits and tendencies of the Athenian character. For a long time the industrious cultivators, the brave war-

• Plat. Gorg.p. 515. E.

f Thucyd. II. 121. Comp. Plutarch, Pericl. ?. warriors, and the men of old-fashioned morality were opposed, among the citizens of Athens, to the loquacious, luxurious, and dissolute generation who passed their whole time in the market-place and courts of justice. The contest between these two parties is the main subject of the early Attic comedy; and accordingly we shall recur to it in connexion with Aristophanes.

§ 8. Literature and art, however, were not, during the Peloponnesian war, affected by the corruption of morals. The works of this period,—which the names of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Phidias are sufficient to call to our minds—exhibit not only a perfection of form, but also an elevation of soul and a grandeur of conception, which fill us almost with as much admiration for those whose minds were sufficiently mature and strong to enjoy such works of art, as for those who produced them. Pericles, whose whole administration was evidently intended to diffuse a taste for genuine beauty among the people, could justly use the words attributed to him by Thucydides: "We are fond of beauty without departing from simplicity, and we seek wisdom without becoming effeminate^[16]." A step farther, and the love of genuine beauty gave place to a desire for evil pleasures, and the love of wisdom degenerated into a habit of idle logomachy.

We now turn to the drama, the species of poetry which peculiarly belongs to the Athenians; and we shall here see how the utmost beauty and elegance were gradually developed out of rude, stiff, antique forms.

 

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1. Ch. 13. § 10.
2. Ch. 17. § 8.
3. Aristot. Polit. VIII. 5. οἱ Λάκωνες . . . οὐ μανθάνοντες ὅμως δύνανται κρίνειν ἀρθῶς, ὡς φασὶ, τὰ χρηστὰ καὶ τὰ μὴ χρηστὰ τῶν μελῶν.
4. For example, Archilochus, Terpander, Thaletas, Theognis, Pherecydes, Anaximander.
5. Hence the Thargelia and Pyanepsia of Apollo, the Anthesteria and Lenæa of Dionysus, the Apaturia and Eleusinia, and many other festivals and religious rites, were common to the Ionians and Athenians.
6. τὸ λεπτόγεων.
7. Soph. Œd. Col. v. 670.
8. Eurip. Med. v. 824.
9. Ch. 10. § 11. 12. ch. 11. § 12.
10. Herod. I. 64.
11. Ch. 5. § 14.
12. Ch 13. §11.
13. Ch. 14. § 10.
14. Ch. 14. § 14.
15. Ch. 16. § 5.
16. Thucyd. II. 40. φιλοκαλούμεν γὰρ μετ, εύτελείας, καὶ φιλοσοφοῦμεν ἄνευ μαλακίας. The word εὐτέλεια is not to be understood as if the Athenians did not expend large sums of public money upon works of art; what Pericles means is, that the Athenians admired the simple and severe beauty of art alone, without seeking alter glitter and magnificence.