Page:Euripides (Donne).djvu/25

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ATHENS IN THE DAYS OF EURIPIDES.
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stranger within her gates. In the days of Euripides, a resident in Athens might in one week assist at a solemn religions festival; at the performance of plays that for more than two thousand years were unsurpassed; might listen in the Odeum to music worthy of the verse to which it was wedded; might watch in the Great Harbour the war-galleys making ready for the next foray on the Lacedæmonian coast, or the heavy-armed infantry training for their next encounter with Spartan or Theban phalanx. In the intervals of these mimic or serious spectacles, he could study the works of the most consummate artists the earth has ever produced; gaze in the gymnasium on living beauty, grace, and strength; or, if meditatively given, could hear Prodicus and Protagoras in their lecture-rooms, or Socrates in the market-place, discoursing upon "divine philosophy." If he were in any way remarkable for worth or ability, the saloons of Pericles, Nicias, or Glaucon were not closed against him by any idle ceremonies of good introductions, fine clothes, or long pedigrees. Athens, it is well said by Milton, was "native or hospitable to famous wits." And though he had not "three white luces on his coat," nor any coat of arms at all, he was "a gentleman born." His heraldry was the belief that before a Dorian set foot in Peloponnesus, or a tribe of Persian mountaineers had vanquished the Assyrian or the Mede, his forefathers had established themselves in Attica, and taken part in the Trojan war. All other Greek communities, with the single exception of the Arcadians and Achæans—poor bucolical folks then, but destined